Let us be honest here about some of the underlying drivers of the Government’s policy. People in this country generally
did not like the fact that Insulate Britain was obstructing ambulances on major roads, or that Extinction Rebellion was in one case—which affected me directly—stopping people from getting on the Tube. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, remarked, in both those cases, the protesters were pretty self-defeating. There is one part of the Government’s provisions that we will debate later that deals with major infrastructure, which I think would deal with both those issues.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, I think suggested that he feels there is a bit too much protest in this country, but he rightly drew attention to the word “unease”, and the difficulty of defining it. It is just as difficult to define the word “inconvenience” or the word “noise”, and several of the other words still present in the Bill. That is why we absolutely cannot support it, because it is completely wrong to put forward powers of this magnitude with language that is fundamentally not just unclear but not possible to resolve—as the government amendments show that it is not possible to resolve.