My Lords, the Government say that they are a law and order party, and it is important to recognise that law and order requires that, when Parliament makes criminal laws and sets out clear rules, the public themselves can decide whether they will be on the side of law and
order or on the side of criminality. That requires that the laws that are introduced are proportional and have clarity.
Any member of the public needs to know whether they are breaking the law, so that they will not be labelled a criminal, but in this whole group of new amendments there is no clear guidance on, for example, what is a reasonable excuse. In an earlier set of amendments, the “ought to know” clause completely made it clear that one might not know. The phrase “reasonable excuse” is used as though one were guilty already and needed to give a good excuse for a perfectly reasonable, legal activity that is now treated with suspicion; the legal burden of proof is on the defence, whereas it should be a burden on the prosecution.
In Committee, when asked what reasonable excuse one might use for carrying a bicycle lock if it could be seen as potentially preparation for locking on, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams said:
“It is a defence for a person to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for carrying the equipment in question. For example, carrying a bike lock for the purposes of locking one’s bike to a designated space for bikes could be considered a reasonable excuse”.—[Official Report, 24/11/2021; col. 994.]
It struck me then that this is a situation whereby we have to explain to the authorities that in fact we are just carrying a bike lock and that we might want to lock our bike up, and that no, we were not the type of person who might misuse our bike lock. To be honest with you, that is no business of the police, the Government or the authorities. It seems alarming that people will need to have reasonable excuses for carrying out peaceful and lawful actions to avoid, potentially, prison terms. This is the micromanagement of what is considered to be the right kind of protest, when the Government claim that it is not attacking protests.
I would like to counter some of the arguments used by people I am broadly on the side of.