My Lords, I remember looking at this 307-page Bill—or at least it was 307 pages to begin with—in August and wondering how on earth to tackle it. I was reminded that the way to eat an elephant is one piece at a time, which is the approach we took. This was about five Bills stapled together, except the PPO could not staple them together because it was too big. The Bill returns to the other place considerably improved, although you cannot make a silk purse out a sow’s ear—these are separate metaphors; I am not mixing them—or should I say a boar’s ear in these days?
I shall not resist what the Minister has said about the Bill. As far as we on these Benches are concerned, the existing legislation to control protest was adequate, and the measures that we have removed from the Bill were not necessary in the first place. The majority of
the police consider that a lack of police officers is the limiting factor when it comes to policing of protests rather than a lack of legislation.
I would normally thank the Minister and the Bill team for their engagement, but, certainly, I am not alone on these Benches, at least as far as the home affairs side of things is concerned, in feeling that the Government have not reached out to us as much as they could or should have done. None the less, we have all been in this together over a considerable period, and I am grateful for the time that the Government have given in allowing us to debate these issues.
I thank the Official Opposition, both the leadership and Back-Benchers, the Cross- Benchers, non-affiliated Peers and the Greens for their support and co-operation. In particular, I thank Elizabeth Plummer and Grace Wright for their invaluable help on the Bill, as well as all the outside organisations which helpfully provided us with briefings. We would not have done any of this without that help, and we hope that the Government will see the improvements that we have made to the Bill as improvements when it is considered by the other place.