Clearly. That is the problem. No, I am glad that we do not. It is sometimes a bit off-putting when there is a nobody shouting at me when I speak, but there we go.
The serious point I want to make is this. Obviously, we have come to Clauses 58 and 59, which relate to various changes to the law with respect to demonstrations outside Parliament. I want to make a general point, because I have not done that already. Some really fascinating points have been made about public protests: the right to protest and the need to balance that with people’s right to be able to go about their lawful business. Clause 58, headed “Obstruction of vehicular access to Parliament”, extends the area, while Clause 59 is headed “Power to specify other areas as controlled areas” and Clause 60 is headed “Intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance”.
On Clauses 58 and 59, I think it was my noble friend Lord Dubs who made the point that many of us, including me, may well have not been able to protest if this law had been there. I am old enough to remember coming here, during a formative time for me as a local councillor in Cotgrave, which was a Nottinghamshire pit village, to demonstrate about pit closures, both in the mid-1980s, in and around the miners’ strike, and at the beginning of the 1990s, when the pit closure programme happened.
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Those demonstrations around Parliament were part of the democratic right of the country to protest about what the Government were doing. It did not matter that it was a Conservative Government, because the protest was joined by people from all over the country who thought that the Government were wrong. As a result of that demonstration, the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, as he is now—Michael Heseltine MP, as he was then—changed what the Government were doing. In particular, if I remember my own pit village in Cotgrave—obviously the colliery is long gone now—it was not only the fact that the mine was closing that people objected to, and there was a debate about that; it was the fact that people felt that their communities were being abandoned and that no proper support was being given.
We came to Parliament to put that point of view and there were thousands upon thousands of people from all over the country demonstrating. I do not know how—the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is here; maybe
he does—the police would have allowed that to take place in a way that is consistent with the legislation which this Committee is about to pass. There were so many people here. There was no violence, but there were lots of placards, there was lots of shouting, lots of fun, people dancing et cetera, and children galore, holding balloons and goodness knows what. It was like a jamboree as much as a demonstration, but it really made the point. Is that something we would want the legislation to stop? I am not sure that every Member of Parliament or Peer who wanted to get access to Parliament on that day would have been able to.
I am not saying that it is easy. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who said about the amendment I moved earlier that your support for a protest depends on whether you support what people are protesting about. If you agree with it, you tend not to mind the disruption. If you do not, you think the disruption is an outrage, and the police are caught in the middle of that. It is tricky, but I just wanted to make that general point.
I will tell you what I think. I think that the Government, in the face of pressure from wherever, have decided that they have to do something; that everything is out of control and a disaster, and the country is going to rack and ruin: “If we don’t do something, goodness only knows what the consequences will be”. Some of what I see irritates me, but you have to be really careful, and I wonder whether, in their desire to show that they are doing something about Extinction Rebellion, or others like that, the Government are moving the pendulum too far in favour of restricting the right to protest.
The Government will say that they are not doing that, and that is the debate that is taking place. Numerous noble Lords have made various points, and we will have to decide on that. But I tell you this: that clash of views about where the swing of the pendulum should stop will be much more balanced with the clash of views that is taking place in this Chamber and elsewhere. That is the key debate that is taking place; it is over where the pendulum should stop when it is swinging. I do not think that some of the demonstrations that I have been on, which commanded huge public support, would be allowed under the terms of this Bill. I wonder whether that is really what noble Lords in this Chamber would want.
I do not know the experience of people across the Chamber. I will not go on too much, given the time, but, for example, sometimes I read in the paper that people are outraged by protests happening. But then, in their local area, there are some well-loved trees that are to be chopped down to make way for a road and people rally around those trees and everybody says that it is a really good thing to save the trees. Under the process in the Bill, they may well have broken the law. We must be careful with this and similar measures.
Clauses 58 and 59 in part respond to previous recommendations from the JCHR to ensure that democratic institutions are protected, including the right of people with business here to access the parliamentary estate. The clauses do not follow the JCHR’s recommendations to put a specific statutory duty on
police to protect access to Parliament. Instead, the Government have opted to make obstructing the access of vehicles to Parliament a prohibited activity and to expand the controlled area.
In response to the Government’s proposals, the JCHR said that protecting access to Parliament
“does not mean there should be an outright ban on protest in the area. Instead the police should balance the rights of protesters against the need to ensure the effective functioning of democratic institutions … To ensure the rights of protesters, the police should use the new power regarding vehicles only when necessary to ensure access to and from the Parliamentary estate, rather than to impose general restrictions on protests in the vicinity of Parliament.”
What safeguards will be in place on the use of this power to ensure that it is used to protect access to Parliament but not to prevent protest? This is the heart of government and people should be able to protest. I am proud of the fact that, outside the legislature of our country, people can come from all parts of the country to protest. I know that it is a pain. I have not been that pleased when I have had to go about three bridges down the River Thames, or whatever, but, once you get over the initial anger, you sometimes think that it is good that that can happen. We are a great democracy, a proud country, and we talk about other countries and say, “Look at what is happening there: it is a disgrace. They cannot even protest.” I am not suggesting for one minute that we are an authoritarian country—do not get me wrong—but sometimes inconvenience and disruption may be the small price that you pay for democratic rights to protest. Again, it comes back to a question of balance, so I ask the Minister about safeguards.
The Explanatory Notes state:
“Clause 60 gives effect to recommendations made by the Law Commission … that the common law offence of public nuisance should be replaced by a statutory offence”.
However, as raised by the Bar Council and the JCHR, the Law Commission’s report specifically did not include protests and raised freedom of assembly as an instance in which behaviour would not be unlawful. The JCHR has raised a number of concerns about the clause and I look forward to hearing from my noble friend Lord Dubs on his amendments in this group.
I finish on the lack of clarity on what the clause is trying to achieve and in what situations it will apply. We all want to know about the seeming contradiction between what the Law Commission has said and the way in which the Government have used it to justify the change in Clause 60 and what the Bar Council says about it. I appreciate the balance that the Government are trying to strike, but we need to hear a little more from them about the new restrictions in Clauses 58 and 59, the various amendments to do with Clause 60 and how the right to protest, particularly at the seat of government, will be protected in a way that will preserve the democratic freedoms of this country, which we have all respected in the past and should be a source of pride for us.