I rise to support Amendments 294 and 298 because I believe that Clauses 55 and 56, which introduce noise triggers for public demonstrations and assemblies, are fundamentally undemocratic and will have a detrimental effect on free
speech in England and Wales. I apologise that I was not able to speak at Second Reading, but I was unable to attend the House on that day.
I have always thought of the Conservative Party as supporters of free speech, so I am disappointed that this Government seek to take that right away through these clauses. I repeat the quote from Jules Carey that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, gave that this is
“an existential threat to the right to protest.”
Of course, these clauses are a response to the outrage at BLM, Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain protests which have been incredibly disruptive to the lives of thousands of people across the country and especially in London. But the blocking of highways was always illegal under the Highways Act and the existing triggers in the Public Order Act 1986 can be harnessed by the police to control the other protests. The House will debate the new draconian measures the Government plan to introduce later which, as was mentioned at the beginning of today’s Committee debate, seems to be a poor way to treat the House.
The introduction of noise as a criterion for the police limiting or stopping protests and assemblies seems to me an unnecessary and damaging extension of police powers. The factsheet for the Bill promises that the police will use the noise trigger only
“where it is deemed necessary and proportionate.”
But “proportionate” must be subjective as a threshold for the trigger.
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This brings me to support Amendment 297 of the noble Lord, Lord Beith, on the definition of “serious unease”, which is so central to the threshold of the noise trigger. As the noble Lord said, it is a very low bar. In fact, I am seriously uneasy about the provisions in the Bill, but, quite rightly, this should not stop the Government putting them forward. In the present culture wars, there are cries from all sides not to be offended or allowed to feel uneasy. I am certain that unease and offence are a central part of democracy and free speech. I ask the Minister: can the police really be expected to predict such a subjective response?
This unease trigger also refers to
“persons of reasonable firmness with the characteristics of persons likely to be in the vicinity”.
I know that this is an objective term, but how can it be applied when a protest is going down a high street or busy thoroughfare where a wide-ranging demographic is represented? A reasonably firm teenager, having attended a fair few festivals, will have a completely different response to a noisy protest from that of a reasonably firm pensioner. Surely that makes it difficult to be objective when predicting the effect of noise on passers-by? This point was well made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
The example of how the trigger will be applied was given by the Minister, Victoria Atkins, in the other place. She said:
“A noisy protest outside an office with double glazing may not meet the threshold, but a protest creating the same amount of noise outside a care home for elderly people, a GP surgery or small, street-level businesses might, given the level of disruption likely to be caused.”—[Official Report, Commons, Tenth Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 8/6/21; col. 394.]
Are the police supposed to be considering the noise-proofing of the buildings along a protest route or around the location of an assembly before giving their conditions to the organisers? There must be better uses of police time.
If the Government are so worried about noise outside specific locations, such as GP surgeries and care homes, would it not be better to protect these people by restricting protest outside a specific location using a PSPO? Yet the Minister has just rejected an amendment on the extension of fast-track public space protection orders for schools, saying that there were enough laws in place already. These have proved effective at stopping protest at certain special locations, which is what the Government seem to be so concerned about.
In April 2018, Ealing Borough Council was the first authority to create a buffer zone against pro-life protesters around an abortion facility on Mattock Lane. It imposed the public spaces protection order, following reports of intimidation, harassment and distress from women using the facility. Last year, Manchester City Council officials made a similar order, placing a buffer zone around the Marie Stopes clinic in Fallowfield to stop pro-life protesters getting too near the building.
The Government should not only be worried about how this noise trigger chills free speech; there is also a threat to the police from the backlash by protesters, if they implement the trigger during a demonstration. Surely the Minister would want to avoid such an eventuality. It is hard to think of many causes and protesters who would give up the right to make a noise and to be noisy, even if it does cause serious unease to passers-by.
I appeal to the Minister to listen to the numerous groups from across the country and the political divide who have asked for the noise trigger to be removed from the Bill. I ask her, in doing so, to prove that the Government do indeed support free speech.