My Lords, I will speak to my Motion F2 and the other amendments in this group. I start by joining the Minister in paying tribute to the selfless actions of PC Keith Palmer, who tragically died five years ago today.
I apologise for the length of my remarks, but there are numerous important issues contained in this group. I promise not to spend an average of more than two minutes on each Motion. There are few subjects on which I am an expert, but the policing of public order is one. I was one of a small cadre of advanced trained public order senior officers, and I have extensive experience of policing events. I remind the House that the majority of police forces outside London told HMICFRS that they did not need new public order legislation, and that the limiting factor in policing protests was the number
of public-order-trained police officers they had to police protests. A whistleblower who worked for HMICFRS said that the conclusions in its review of public order policing did not reflect the evidence that the inspectorate had gathered. Having read the report in full, I agree. There is no justification for more public order legislation.
In relation to Motion E, the police already have powers to impose any conditions necessary—including an outright ban—on public processions, if a senior police officer reasonably believes that it will result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community, or if the purpose is to intimidate others. Adding a noise trigger to those powers will do more harm than good. As I said in Committee, from my experience, the more conditions you impose on a procession, the more likely those conditions are to be resisted and, therefore, the more police officers you will need to enforce them. As I have said, police forces already say that they do not have enough public-order-trained police officers.
A peaceful protest with no anticipated violent infiltrators and an agreed route—however large—can be policed with a minimum number of police officers and a lot of traffic cones and miles of white tape. Imposing conditions which the organisers are resisting is likely to require between double and five times the number of police officers. This is because confrontation must be anticipated, and the conditions may have to be imposed by force—such as a march wanting to take a different route. An outright ban on a protest, as well as being unlikely to be successful—as we saw with the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common—requires about 10 times as many police officers as are required for a compliant, peaceful demonstration. How many police officers would it have taken to police the Sarah Everard vigil, in the middle of a common, if there had been agreement between the police and the organisers? The more conditions which can be imposed, and the more draconian those conditions, the bigger the drain will be on already overstretched police resources.
The second issue is the impact on trust and confidence in the police, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has just said. The impact of the policing of the Sarah Everard vigil was hugely negative, and the government proposals will simply increase the potential for, and frequency of, such scenes. By banning some demonstrations on the basis of anticipated noise, and not others, the police will be subjected to accusations that they are being political rather than practical. They will be accused of being selective about which protests can take place for political reasons—such as banning demonstrations against war, as they are likely to be enormous and noisy, but allowing demonstrations in favour of war to go ahead, as they are not likely to be very well supported, to take a Russian example. Such a change in the law is likely to draw the police reputation into even more disrepute. In addition, I ask how many times the business of this House or the other place has been disrupted because of noise by protestors. I suggest none —and I do not believe that the House has double glazing. In any event, the police can always divert disruptive demonstrations away from sensitive areas. This change—the noise trigger—is unnecessary and damaging, and we will be voting to support the Labour amendments.
Motion F is about maintaining the current position, where the police can impose conditions on those holding an assembly, a static protest or a meeting but cannot ban it altogether. The Government argue that their proposals simply bring assemblies into line with the powers that the police have in relation to processions, but there are very good reasons why the two should be treated differently.
As I said in Committee, on 13 January 1986 in the House of Commons, the then Conservative Home Secretary, later Lord Hurd of Westwell, explained why processions were being treated differently from assemblies:
“We stopped short of a power to ban”
assemblies
“because we believed that that would be an excessive limit on the right of assembly and freedom of speech. For this reason, clause 14 does not permit the police to impose conditions changing the date and time of an assembly.”—[Official Report, Commons, 13/1/1986; col. 797.]
We agree, and the effect of my amendment is to achieve the same result.
Already, if a senior police officer reasonably believes that an assembly may result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of a community, or that the purpose of the assembly is to intimidate others, he or she can, under existing legislation, impose conditions on where the assembly takes place; tell an existing assembly to move somewhere else; limit how long it goes on for; and/or limit the numbers attending. The wording of my Amendment 80G in Motion F2 is different from simply insisting on the amendment we made to remove the new provision proposed by the Government on Report —as Motion F1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, does—but the effect is the same.
The only thing the police cannot do under existing legislation is to ban a static protest altogether. The police already have all the tools they need to deal with unlawful assemblies, but to give the police the power to stop people protesting at all smacks of Putin’s Russia, not the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I will seek the opinion of the House on Amendment 80G in Motion F2.
On Motion G, we share the concerns of others that all large demonstrations that have the potential to spill over into the road and, either by accident or design, impede vehicular access to Parliament could be banned even when Parliament is not sitting. We believe that this is legislative overreach, relying as it does on the discretion of the police to enforce it or not. However, we do not agree that the police should be able to give permission to allow entrances to Parliament to be blocked when Parliament is in session, so we do not insist on Lords Amendment 82.
On Motion H, we share the concerns of others that those who engage in peaceful sit-down protests, however short the duration, should face the potential penalty of imprisonment for highway obstruction where previously they could have been only fined. As we saw with the Insulate Britain protests, existing legislation, including the application for and enforcement of injunctions, can be successfully used to deal with persistent offenders, including imprisonment for those who breach injunctions.
However, with the undertaking given by the Minister at the Dispatch Box that imprisonment is intended to be used only in the most egregious cases, we hope that this increased penalty does not have the chilling effect it may otherwise have done on peaceful protest.
On Motion N, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for raising the issue and for the Government’s response.