Crime and Policing Bill

Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Report (4th Day)

Northern Ireland legislative consent granted, Scottish and Welsh legislative consent sought. Relevant documents: 33rd and 41st Reports from the Delegated Powers Committee, 11th Report from the Constitution Committee, 5th Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

15:51

Amendment 369

Moved by

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

369: Before Clause 133, insert the following new Clause—
“The right to protestBefore section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986 (advance notice of public processions), insert—“10A The right to protest(1) Everyone has the right to engage in peaceful protest, both alone and with others.(2) Public authorities have a duty to—(a) respect the right to protest,(b) protect the right to protest, and(c) facilitate the right to protest.(3) A public authority may only interfere with the right to protest, including by placing restrictions upon its exercise, when it is necessary and proportionate to do so to—(a) protect national security or public safety,(b) prevent disorder or crime, or(c) protect public health, or the rights and freedoms of others.(4) For the purposes of this section “public authority” has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (acts of public authorities).””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would introduce an express statutory right to protest, imposing both negative and positive obligations on public authorities while recognising that the right to protest may need to be limited to protect other legitimate public interests.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, in opening this group, I will speak principally to Amendment 369, which is in my name and the names of my noble friend Baroness Doocey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox of Buckley and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I will also speak to Amendments 369A, 372A, 372B, 372C and 373.

Amendment 369 brings to Report our amendment calling for a strong statement in domestic law of the right to protest. Nothing has been said in Committee or so far on Report that has even started to persuade these Benches that this Bill does not need within it a strong statement of a statutory right to protest, which would both supplement and complement rights of the citizen under the ECHR. Our Amendment 369 is co-signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and others, as I have said, and I accept entirely that the right to protest is, in part at least, enshrined in Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Article 10 is on “Freedom of expression” and Article 11 is on “Freedom of assembly and association”. As I mentioned in Committee, the convention rights are circumscribed because they

“may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals”,

or for the protection of the rights and freedom of others.

A significant feature of the rights under the convention is that the degree to which the European Court of Human Rights may interpret or enforce those rights is subject to what is known as the “margin of appreciation”, accorded to individual signatory countries to decide how they, as nation states, interpret and enforce those rights. It is only where countries stray beyond that margin of appreciation that the European Court of Human Rights will hold a signatory nation in breach.

What our amendment would do, that is new and not encompassed by the convention, is make it absolutely clear that in this jurisdiction, public authorities have a threefold duty in relation to protest: first, to respect, secondly, to protect, and, thirdly, to facilitate the right to protest. That duty is dynamic and positive. Our amendment is an important and clear statement of what every citizen would have a right to expect and insist upon from government, local and national. Government would have a duty to act, which is far stronger than a duty merely to refrain from interfering. Such a firm statement would be a more powerful protection than the convention rights, precisely because the margin of appreciation of which I spoke would be irrelevant.

I need remind the Government only that it is their own express view that how we determine and apply the limits of Article 8, on the right to respect for private and family life, is open to discussion, as is the proper area for domestic legislation which they propose to introduce, in order to limit the way that Article 8 might act within the margin of appreciation. That is their stated position in the context of immigration law. That is a position the Government are entitled to take under the European convention, in my view. But there is a risk that more extreme Governments might push the boundaries of what is acceptable in the context of other human rights, including the rights under Articles 10 and 11.

Members will no doubt remember that in Committee there was clear agreement around the House that, whether dealing with convention rights or rights under our amendment, we would have to strike a balance between the stated rights and the applications of the limitation—either under the convention, in the case of the ECHR rights, or under domestic legislation, if it were amended as we seek. But there is one specific area where that distinction may be important. The convention in both Articles 10 and 11 permits restrictions for the protection of morals, as was apparent from the passage I quoted. In a society as diverse as ours, with mixed secular and faith-based belief systems and philosophies, that is not an area in which we on these Benches would wish to see, let alone advocate for, a derogation from the convention rights or a restriction of our rights for the protection of morals. Our amendment would not permit a derogation or restriction on that ground alone.

We also discussed the possibility in Committee that future Governments might not be as enlightened as our present Government no doubt are. I fear we can see the possibility that a future Government, more extreme than this one, might wish to introduce restrictions on freedoms of speech or assembly. In Committee, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, expressed optimism that this would not happen. He more or less said that if a Government were elected, they could do what they liked. I am not so sure. I say in answer to that point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hanson: let us make it more difficult to change the citizen’s rights for the worse, while we can.

There was also discussion in Committee as to whether there might not be differences between the convention rights and the rights under our amendment. The suggestion was made by some that this would give rise to satellite litigation. For my part, I do not believe that the convention rights would in any sense either clash with or limit the rights of people in this country under the clear rights that would be enshrined in domestic law pursuant to our amendment.

On a practical level, I acknowledged then, and acknowledge now, that policing protests can be an expensive exercise and that it is sometimes difficult for the police to draw a balance—which often has to be drawn in advance—between overpolicing and underpolicing protests. That makes it even more important to spell out in clear terms what the right to protest is, so that the police and local authorities may be accorded the necessary resources for them to carry out that duty to respect, protect and facilitate protest.

16:00

Noisy protests—of which we have heard many—repeated protests and protests on unpopular causes are, and have been for centuries in this country, part of the stuff of life in our democracy. We have seen what the High Court thought of the arrest of so many peaceable protesters last year. What happens next remains to be seen. It is not a question of what we may think of their cause; it is a question of not stifling their rights. These rights are fundamental to our way of life and should be protected with determination and clarity.

I turn to the other amendments in this group tabled by those on these Benches. Amendment 369A in the name of my noble friend Lord Strasburger on face coverings at protests is a minimalist position of support for the right of the protester to attend a protest without revealing their identity. It would allow the protester to appear in disguise, and provides a defence of reasonable excuse for wearing a face covering. It is just a fact that people may have many legitimate reasons for disguising themselves. They may not want employers, teachers, parents, partners, political opponents or, in the case of people in public life, simply members of the public to recognise them or be aware of their attendance at a protest—and why not? We can see no justification for a limitation of that right, unless it is for camera surveillance, to which we will turn later today, which we regard as pretty unjustified anyway without really serious regulation, of which there is currently not a whit.

Amendments 372A, 372B and 372C in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Strasburger are intended to ensure that Clause 139, which restricts protests in the vicinity of places of worship, will succeed in protecting worshippers and members of religious communities carrying out religious activities in places of worship, while avoiding the problem that, frankly, affects the clause as unamended. That problem is that the unamended clause would enable the restriction of protests in the vicinity of places of worship—protests that are unconnected with either worshippers at that place of worship or with the act of worship or other religious activities in that place.

It is true that there is a condition in the Bill that persons of reasonable firmness should be deterred from worshipping there or carrying out religious activities before the right to restrict would kick in. That could be the case in any demonstration that was local and might keep people of reasonable firmness away. The reality is that what the Government were trying to do when they drafted that clause was to protect worshippers from sectarian demonstrations by opponents of those worshippers, and from hate speech. It is about, as was rightly acknowledged, protecting Jewish people near synagogues and Muslims in mosques. It is about protecting against religious discrimination, but I regret that we may hear from the Minister the suggestion that we should agree to this clause without the specificity that is provided by our amendments on the basis that the police do not have to make a distinction—that was the basis that was raised in Committee. It is up to them, it is said, but the Bill is about making appropriate provision in law for the police to have powers to restrict protests in particular circumstances and in those circumstances only.

It is no answer to an objection that the Bill is too wide that the police do not have to use excessive powers that are granted to them. We have always been astute in this country to restrict police powers and not to give the police discretion that they do not need to use. To do otherwise would be to substitute the discretion of the police for the definition in law of police powers. I completely agree with those who say, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has pointed out on many occasions, that the police are granted a difficult job, but it is not for government to say to the police, “You can have these powers, and you have to decide when to use them”. It is for Parliament to establish powers that are restricted to what is needed. To legislate on any other basis would be inimical to the rule of law, of which the proper definition of police powers is a necessary feature.

Amendment 373 in my name and the names of my noble friends Lady Doocey and Lord Strasburger would remove Clause 140 from the Bill. As noble Lords will remember, Clause 140 deals with the question of cumulative disruption allegedly caused by protests. Many protests cause disruption—disruption by noise, by large numbers of people, by the occasional difficulties to get through the traffic or through crowds, even by roads being blocked or Tube stations being difficult to access. There are difficulties with passage when protests are about. All these things are the normal incidence of protests. They are the price that we pay for our democratic right to protest.

What is the difference between one protest, which does not give rise to such a restriction as is suggested, and repeated protests? It is that repeated protests are often required to persuade government or authority that something must be done. Of their nature, repeated protests are more likely to be justified and more likely to be effective, whether that be farmers protesting against inheritance tax repeatedly in central London, marches against the Iraq war or any number of protests in Trafalgar Square. The noble Lord, Lord Gove, shakes his head, but when we look back at the history of protests in this country, we see that repeated protests have the utility that they are more likely to be effective. Protest movements take time to build up momentum. That momentum is an important part of their future success. The more justified the protest, the more likely it is to be effective and the more likely it is to be repeated and repeated in the same area.

Clause 140 is an oppressive clause. It would provide the police with the powers to restrict the very protests that are most likely to be justified and effective. There is no way of curing it and we should have none of it.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

The noble Lord has already accepted that the right to protest has to be balanced against the rights of others. Surely the virtue of the cumulative disruption provision, Clause 140, is that it is totally unacceptable that the rights of others who wish to pray in their synagogue, who wish to get to their synagogue, who wish to get away from their synagogue, should be repeatedly disrupted in the same place every week. The cumulative nature of the disruption pushes the balance in favour of asking the protesters not to cease protesting but to do it somewhere else.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

The answer to that is that the cumulative nature of the disruption is not what causes the oppression to worshippers at synagogues or mosques or anywhere else. We have accepted, for the purpose of Report, restrictions on the right to protest near places of worship on condition that it is relevant and that we are talking about the place of worship and worshippers being disrupted. The fact that a legitimate protest is repeated is not a reason for restricting the protests. If the rights and freedoms of others are restricted, that in itself is, under our Amendment 369, a reason for restricting protest, because there is a right to protest. It is not helped by the fact that repeated protests are seen as more difficult. I see the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about repeated protests at synagogues and mosques, but they are covered by our condition on restriction at a place of worship. I beg to move.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 369A in my name, which we have just been discussing, and to Amendments 372A, 372B, 372C and 373, to all of which I have added my name. Regarding Amendment 369A, Clause 133 seeks to create a new offence of concealed identity at protests. If this clause were enacted as it stands, the police would be empowered to ban all face coverings at a protest with only some limited exceptions concerning the person’s health, religion or work. Many other categories of perfectly law-abiding citizens may have good reasons to conceal their identities at protests—for example, those protesting against a hostile foreign state who fear retribution for themselves or their families, those who might be criticising their own religious or cultural communities, or survivors of sexual violence or domestic abuse who need to stay below the radar for their own safety. None of those is covered by the limited exemptions in Clause 133.

To solve this problem, Amendment 369A would provide a defence of reasonable excuse for the offence of concealing identity at protests, thereby putting the burden on police officers to justify why they believed that wearing a face covering at a protest made the suspect arrestable. This amendment strikes a careful balance between allowing the police to prevent public disorder and protecting the many law-abiding citizens who have legitimate reasons for wanting to exercise their freedom of expression anonymously.

I have signed Amendments 372A, 372B and 372C in the name of my noble friend Lord Marks. Clause 139 seems to have been drafted to give reassurance to Jews, Muslims and other denominations that they can attend their place of worship without feeling intimidated by protests in the vicinity of their synagogue, mosque, church or whatever. That sounds to me like a laudable objective. What is not to like? The difficulty is a severe unintended consequence caused by the drafting. The sheer number of places of worship in a country as old, religiously diverse and densely populated as Britain that could inadvertently become no-protest zones is enormous. Here in Westminster, Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square are both in the vicinity of one or more churches, and yet they frequently host major demonstrations. They could become off limits. Few if any large spaces in central London or any other city would escape the risk posed by Clause 139 of being ruled too close to a place of worship for a demonstration to be allowed. The Government may well say that this is not the intention of Clause 139, but that is exactly what the clause as drafted permits a senior officer to do.

My Lords, Amendments 372A, 372B and 372C would solve the problem by making a ban on protests near a place of worship possible only when the protest is directed at or connected with a place of worship or persons likely to worship there. Demonstrations that are unconnected with a nearby place of worship or that are in its vicinity purely by coincidence would be unaffected by Clause 139—problem solved.

16:15

Clause 140 amends the Public Order Act 1986 to impose a duty on police to consider the so-called “cumulative disruption” resulting from repeated protests in a given area. This clause gives the police unprecedented powers to restrict or prohibit protests if they are expected to be too disruptive. This represents a grievous attack on the right to protest, which is vital to our democracy. Its overly broad framework empowers the police routinely to curb freedom of expression and assembly as exercised through peaceful protests. It significantly expands the definition of serious disruption. This would allow the police to prohibit peaceful demonstrations pre-emptively if, in their opinion, an area has been the site of too many protests. That is a very broad discretion. Presumably it would apply if the protests in question were organised by different groups who advocate for different causes. This could create a first-come, first-served version of free speech whereby areas are given what could be described as a protest allowance, at the whim of the local constabulary.

Furthermore, Clause 140 leaves the definition of the area in question entirely at the discretion of the police. This power permits the police to move a demonstration to a different part of the same square, another part of town or even a difficult-to-reach rural area. Similarly, Clause 140 does not specify within what timeframe disruption would have to be repeated to be considered cumulative. The suggestion that so-called “cumulative disruption” should be taken into account in considering conditions for restrictions on or prohibitions on protests is also disproportionate. Why should one person’s right to protest be extinguished simply because somebody else has already protested in the same location, about the same cause or a different one?

If enacted, this power would give the police the power to ban or curtail repeated protests, which are likely to be on the most important causes—those most worthy of protest and most protected by the courts. No protest movement has ever brought about change through a single demonstration. The civil rights, suffragette and anti-apartheid movements relied on repeated, cumulative demonstrations. This clause gives the police far too much discretion to curtail and prevent peaceful protests on the most important matters. Clause 140 is a bad idea, badly drafted and with many bad outcomes. It should not stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, before I speak to my amendments in this group, I would like to say that I learned to read a long time ago—more than 70 years ago, before I went to school. This alphabet soup of a Bill is quite confusing, partly because so many people disagree with it. The noble Lord, Lord Hanson, should perhaps be aware that it is moderately unusual to have this many amendments; perhaps it would help if he accepted one or two. Obviously, all of my amendments are incredibly reasonable, so I urge him to pick them up. My first amendment in this group would solve the problem outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, so I expect his strong support on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Marks, moved Amendment 369 on the right to protest. In Committee, we were all reassured that this was not necessary, because the right to peaceful protest is already protected under the Human Rights Act. We were correctly reminded that Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights protect the freedoms of expression and assembly, and that public authorities are already bound by those duties, but that reassurance is based on the assumption that those protections will remain intact. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, pointed out, we cannot be sure of that; we cannot speak for future Governments, who might cause our right to protest to deteriorate.

Over recent years, under this Government and the previous one, we have seen a steady erosion of our right to protest and an expansion of police powers to restrict those protests. Each time, we are told, “The powers are modest—you will hardly notice them”. Of course, that is not true, because the effect is cumulative, damaging and leads to much greater constraint on people who are campaigning and protesting. The balance is shifting and Parliament continues to widen state power without at the same time reaffirming the underlying right.

I have also cosigned Amendment 369A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. There are many legitimate reasons why people might want to cover their faces at protests. Some noble Lords on this side of the Chamber might benefit from wearing masks sometimes, just to hide their look of derision at other noble Lords who are speaking coherently, cogently and sensibly. People might fear losing their job if their political views were known. They might fear backlash from family or their local community. They might be worried about racial profiling, particularly given the increased use of facial recognition technology. They might be protesting against a foreign regime and be genuinely concerned about repercussions for loved ones overseas. It is not unreasonable to wear masks.

I turn now to my Amendment 372ZA. Clause 139 is very problematic. It gives the police significant new powers to restrict protests near places of worship. I am an atheist, but I absolutely protect the right of people to worship freely, as they want to, and without fear. At a time of rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism, that duty is paramount for us here in Parliament. All our diverse communities must be supported and defended, and every faith group must have the ability to worship freely. As drafted, Clause 139 risks undermining that balance between rights. If the Government are not prepared to remove it, it must at the very least be clarified and narrowed. My amendments are offered as a compromise and an attempt to introduce clarity where the drafting is currently vague and overly broad.

My amendments, which address the phrases “in the vicinity”, “within 50 metres” and “the purpose of intimidating”, seek to establish clarity on these broad definitions in Clause 139. The clause seeks to restrict the right to protest by giving the police new powers to ban or restrict protest “in the vicinity” of places of religious worship, based on the false premise that these powers are required to protect freedom of religion. “In the vicinity” is a vague definition that could mean 10 metres or 10 miles. At the very least, the clause must be amended to make it more specific and contained, with an eye towards protecting Article 11—the right to freedom of assembly. “In the vicinity” needs to be clarified in terms of a specific distance. Many cities and towns have a large concentration of places of worship. The clause as it stands could make it virtually impossible to protest, as other noble Lords have said, including taking protests to Parliament or other such places on which protesters might wish to focus in order to make their point to people in positions of influence—for example, in government.

The Green Party feels that 50 metres is a sensible compromise that would provide clarity for police on the threshold for imposing conditions on protests while protecting the Article 11 right. Amendment 372ZA would help the police because it is so specific that they could take a tape measure to protests to make sure that protesters were at the designated distance. It would also help protesters, because they would know whether they were legally allowed to protest at that point or not. I urge the Minister to think about this and to clarify what “in the vicinity” means. It is far too vague to bring in in legislation. Surely the Government must see that.

The phrase “may intimidate” again is terribly vague, and I do not understand why anybody would put that in a Bill. This is bad writing—which is why we have so many amendments labelled ZA, ZZ and BZ and so on Report. All our diverse communities have to be supported and defended, but Clause 139, as it stands, will not do that because it is too vague. There are existing powers to address racial and religious hatred and violence. Under the Public Order Act 1986, the police can impose conditions on protests that may compel people not to worship, disrupt the activities of an organisation or intimidate or harass people in the vicinity. My amendment tries to make things clearer. As always, I am just trying to help the Government get things right.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Before she sits down, I put to the noble Baroness that her amendments would not achieve the purpose that I understand the Government to have with Clause 139. If you confer the power in relation only to a protest that takes place within 50 metres then you are not going to achieve the purpose, which is to ensure that people are able to get to and away from their synagogue every Saturday. If there is a march of hundreds or thousands of people that impedes their access, 50 metres is not going to work. As I have already put to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, protest is a balance between the rights of protesters and the rights of other people. The noble Baroness is ignoring the rights of others.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I will speak to you all later.

I think the noble Lord is wrong. You cannot have these vague terms. I would have thought the noble Lord would appreciate the fact that you need clarity in legislation. How can the police know what “in the vicinity” means? How can they possibly make good judgments? They already make terrible judgments based on some of the laws that we have already passed; they overstep the mark constantly because they cannot be clear about exactly what it means and what we think it means. I argue that 50 metres is a sensible limit.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 369, which would introduce an express statutory right to protest and impose negative and positive obligations on authorities that recognise the right to protest. We were told in Committee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has reminded us, and we have been told again that this will not be necessary. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has rightly pointed out, this group of amendments indicates exactly why it is necessary. This whole chapter, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, has explained, would undermine the right to protest.

A constant concern that I have with this Bill is that it is just the latest iteration of adding new powers to a veritable arsenal of laws already on the statute books undermining and curtailing protests. The problem is that we keep making new laws that seemingly are then not enforced, or not consistently enforced, leading to a demand that something more should be done, and more and more. Each time, that normalises the chipping away of the right to protest as a democratic norm—not as an unqualified right but as a norm.

I am just back from Manchester where, last week, two masked and arm-banded pro-Ayatollah Khamenei supporters—apologists for the terror-backing Iranian regime—rode horses at Iranian dissidents in the middle of the day on the streets of Manchester. It was terrifying, intimidating and violent in many ways. What struck me was that the Greater Manchester Police officers who were asked why they did not intervene just shrugged and said, “What can we do?” I am not advocating that we have a new law specifically banning the riding of horses by pro-Islamists through the streets. I am suggesting that we need more decisive police action and use of the laws that we have when they are required. I worry about building up more and more laws.

That is one of the reasons why I share with other noble Lords real concerns about the vague phrasing of Clause 139. The absence of a clear definition of “vicinity”, as has been explained, would allow the police to create substantial no-protest zones around places of worship, while giving powers to ban demos that may have the effect of intimidating people so as to deter them from religious activities. That is a very permissive power. Interestingly, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, described what he considered Clause 139 to be. He talked about people being intimidated on Saturdays at synagogue. We all recognise that, but that is not what Clause 139 says. I would be more sympathetic if it was, but, in fact, it is a very general clause that might have unintended consequences.

16:30

I have no sympathy with a lot of the pro-Palestinian demos in the vicinity of synagogues and the ongoing intimidation of Jewish citizens, but the police already have extensive powers to arrest people for religiously aggravated hate speech, as we heard in great detail last week. Why are not they using them? There are existing powers available to the police under the Public Order Act to allow them to impose conditions on demos that intimidate people who wish to engage in worship. So what is Clause 139 for? Whatever it is for, I am afraid it might have unintended consequences.

The phrase “may intimidate” worshippers, and being told so by religious leaders, would potentially enforce a form of blasphemy law in the vicinity of a place of worship. This is a question asked by Big Brother Watch, and it has a point. I cannot see how Clause 139 does not prioritise religious sensitivities at the expense of freedom of expression and assembly.

That could happen in two ways. First, how do we ensure that Clause 139 does not insulate religious institutions from scrutiny or opposition? For example, victims of sexual abuse by religious leaders might want to protest outside a Church of England church or a Catholic cathedral. Former Muslim women who want to protest against religious practices such as FGM or the enforced wearing of burkas could also be barred.

Secondly, the sheer number of places of worship in a country that is as religiously diverse and closely populated as Britain could mean that a significant proportion of the country is turned into a no-protest zone, as has been explained. A single street could be the site of a specific private business, media organisation or government health institution alongside various places of worship. Clause 139, as it is presently drafted, could allow worshippers or religious leaders to ask police to pre-emptively restrict protests not aimed at them at all but covering topics that the religious might consider offensive or intimidating—for example, a women’s rights pro-choice demo aimed at an anti-abortion charity’s offices in the vicinity of a Christian church, or a pro-Israel demo at a media organisation complaining about biased TV coverage but in the vicinity of a mosque. You could see how that could happen.

Many issues, when viewed through the lens of religious sensibilities, could be claimed to be intimidating to worshippers. Clause 139 could seriously censor and silence such views in relation to protest bans. That may not be what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, or the Government think Clause 139 is about, but it is what the drafting would allow.

On the ban on face coverings, the JCHR has noted that the lack of a clear definition of what could constitute a protest in relation to the new offence of concealing identity could criminalise all forms of identity concealment, and that that would unjustifiably interfere with the right to peaceful protest.

Amendment 369A from the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, is modest and proportionate. It is important because it tackles what Justice has noted as poor drafting that could make criminals of protesters who have legitimate reasons for insisting on remaining anonymous. All the noble Lord suggests is a reasonable excuse clause, and that would not prevent the police dealing with those wearing face coverings to intimidate and avoid arrest. As we have heard, the police already have such powers under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act but, regardless, they do not use them.

However, the new powers are problematic. What is most extraordinary—I raised this in Committee, and maybe the Minister can answer this time—is that the Government know you cannot have a blanket ban so they have made three exemptions, for religious, health or work reasons, but those exemptions seem to be completely arbitrary; I have no idea why they chose them. They are certainly inadequate as a way of reflecting important reasons why a protester may want to protect their privacy in public.

To those who cry, as they did in Committee, “If you’ve done nothing wrong then you should have nothing to hide. Why would you wear a face covering?”, I suggest they have never worked in one of the many public sector workplaces where having the wrong opinions can lead you to be disciplined or treated with social ostracism. Try being a gender-critical feminist academic going on a demo without having your face covered; you might find yourself on the wrong side of academia when you go back to work. They have never been the victim of stalking or harassment and so wanted to conceal themselves when on a public protest that could, by the way, be filmed by the mainstream media or livestreamed by phone. They have never had to defy their strict community or religious strictures or prohibitions, or have never been a transnational dissident taking on the Iranian or the Chinese regime.

Anonymity is an important enabler of freedom of assembly and association. While, as we will see later, there is a problem with the police deploying live facial recognition at protests per se, a prohibition on face coverings at protests could represent a step towards the possibility of widespread biometric surveillance at protests as well. I am afraid there is no presumption that the right to protest is secure in today’s political climate, never mind under a future Government, and if the clauses in the Bill are not reined in, the right to protest will be even more fragile.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I agree with much of the discussion about this important group, but I remember that this is Report. While I share particularly the concerns about cumulative disruption, because it is Report, not Committee, I will confine my remarks to one speech in this group, with no interventions, and focus on Amendments 369 and 369A as briefly and succinctly as I can.

I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Strasburger, Lord Pannick and Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about Amendment 369A. These arguments were rehearsed with great precision in Committee. The example was given of an Iranian dissident protesting and being concerned about reprisals—and you could substitute other countries and their embassies for Iran, that was just the one that came up that day.

In the clause, the Government acknowledge that there should be some defences to the offence of wearing a mask on a protest—I have concerns about the offence itself because it presupposes that protest is a slightly dodgy thing to begin with, and I do not agree with that—and included health, religious observance and work as justifications for concealing identity, but fear of reprisals was not included. The reasonable excuse defence proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, and his colleagues is a proportionate one, given what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said earlier about balancing rights. I urge my colleagues in government to think seriously about the noble Lord’s amendment because the defences currently to the offence of concealing your identity at a protest do not include the fear of reprisals, whether you are a battered woman, someone who disagrees with their employer or, crucially, a dissident outside the embassy of your homeland. I urge my noble friends in government to think again about that.

Just briefly on Amendment 369—I am still at just over two minutes—and enshrining the right to protest as a free-standing clause, even though it is acknowledged by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, that we have Articles 10 and 11 of the convention incorporated into the Human Rights Act, I say in friendship and gently to him that I think this kind of duplication may be a mistake we would come to regret. He is quite right, of course, as are the Government on other matters to do with Article 8, that you can, and should, be more precise in your domestic legislation when attempting to safeguard rights and freedoms, but this is not that much more precise. In effect, this proposed new clause pretty much replicates Articles 10 and 11 of the convention but for the removal of morals. Frankly, I think that morals is a dead letter these days.

As a fellow human rights person—I have been working with the convention and with some Members of your Lordships’ House for over 30 years—I say that that kind of almost duplication is dangerous in legal terms. I urge the noble Lord not to press that one, just as I urge my colleagues in government to support him and others who have signed up to broaden the defence in Amendment 369A to the offence of wearing a face covering at a peaceful protest.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, can I ask her gently to explain why she does not accept that the margin of appreciation permits the Government to do things outside what we would want to see? I know that she and I both are great advocates for the ECHR, and she knows that, but the problem is that the margin of appreciation can be taken advantage of to allow restrictions we would not want to see. The first and principal point I might make in relation to the duplication point is that having the right to protest enshrined in domestic statutory law does away with the possibility that the margin of appreciation should allow restrictions that this Parliament would not wish to see.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I was trying to be brief—this is Report—but, with the leave of the House, I will answer, again as briefly as I can. I know that not everyone agrees and not every jurist agrees, but as far I am concerned, the margin of appreciation was always intended to be an international concept for an international court. Once you get to Strasbourg, it is quite right that a margin of appreciation applies so that Strasbourg respects the legislation and the jurisdiction of domestic legislators and judges.

I do not see it as a domestic legal principle at all, so I do not see that it is for even the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to be operating a margin of appreciation when it applies the Human Rights Act domestically. I do not see that as the problem that the noble Lord does. The way that you put meat on the bones of human rights protections is with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, with the detail of the public order statute book; hence I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, about having a proper defence to face concealment. That is the detailed meat on the bones, not drafting a right to protest that pretty much replicates Articles 10 and 11.

If the concern—and I would understand this—is that a future Government will come in and scrap the Human Rights Act and pull out of the ECHR, why then have colleagues piggy-backed on to Section 6 of the Human Rights Act in the way that they drafted the right to protest? That is a mistake. I do not want to give up on the Human Rights Act and the ECHR; I will defend them as long as I have breath in my body. That is the approach because it is a hostage to fortune to have free-standing replication of particular rights in particular statutes, when we have the precious protection of an overarching Human Rights Act that applies to the interpretation of all law.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the right to protest is an interesting concept. We all agree, on all sides of the House, that there is a right to protest. But, as with most rights—the right to free speech or the right to assemble, for example—in English common law it is not part of our law but part of our common law. We have an absence of fundamental liberties; you are free to do things unless the law otherwise prevents them. So it would be slightly odd to have the right to protest, without any of these other rights, simply inserted into our law. How would it work?

The point about public order legislation is that it always has to balance various interests: the right to protest, along with the right of those affected by those protests—third parties—and of course the police, who have to enforce what is often very difficult and complex legislation. It has to respect those various rights. The European convention did not invent these rights, but they are reflected in its Articles 10 and 11, both of which are qualified rights, not absolute rights. As Strasbourg has made clear, it is perfectly acceptable for individual Governments to determine, by reference to the circumstances that obtain in their countries, what limits are reasonable to place on those rights. Strasbourg has said a number of times that it is not likely to interfere with those. So imposing on top of our public order legislation this right to protest would, I respectfully suggest, cause only confusion in our law, making it difficult for courts and the police.

16:45

The noble Lord, Lord Marks, feared what might come and suggested that this should therefore be in some way hard-wired into our law, making it more difficult for any Government in future to circumvent the difficulties. Well, with great respect, Parliament cannot bind its successors. If a Government decided that they wanted to circumscribe the right to protest, they could do that. So I am afraid I do not think this helps. There are sufficient protections. What is interesting and difficult as a challenge is finding where the limits lie, but this is not an answer.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, this is indeed Report and I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, spoke to. I also take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones: this is a large group, with a large number of amendments. But I will restrict my comments to Amendment 369A.

As the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Chakrabarti, said, it is much simpler to apply the test of “reasonable excuse”, rather than the complicated language used in Clause 133(2), where there is a test of whether the wearing of the clothes of concealment had

“a purpose relating to the health of the person or others”.

That is just asking for a complicated interpretation, and the “reasonable excuse” test is, in my view, sounder.

I will make one comment relating to the entirety of Report on this Bill. I, and I am sure other Members of this House, have extreme concern that we are having to sit every night beyond 11 pm to midnight. I am glad to see a nod from the Liberal Democrat Benches. That places great strain, not only on Ministers—I hasten not to ask the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, how many midnights he has been sitting up in this House for. He would find it difficult to count on his fingers: there are only 10 fingers to count on, so I am afraid he does not have enough fingers to count the number of times. So it imposes a strain on him, and it also imposes a great strain on all of us who need or want to participate in this Bill throughout every debate. There is another problem: with the House sitting so late, some important amendments are not considered. This happened to me on Monday last week. I had a very important amendment down, together with others, which was not reached. Indeed, it was not even spoken to. This goes for the whole of Report.

I am blaming nobody: I am certainly not blaming Ministers or the Government Chief Whip, all of whom I greatly respect. But there is a problem, and I cannot help recalling that, on Wednesday last week, when again the House sat to midnight, I was sitting in a committee room in Portcullis House and the annunciator said that the House of Commons rose at 7 pm. There is a disproportionate burden being placed on this House and I protest about it.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, in my experience, the later the sitting, the more persuasive the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, gets—but that is just a personal view.

I shall make one general comment and then make my observations on Amendments 369 and 369A. The modest changes—and they are modest—introduced in the Bill by the Government to public order legislation do not justify some of the alarmist comments that we have heard today about the death of the right to protest in this country. Protest is alive and well, as we see constantly, and will continue to be alive and well—and there is nothing in this Bill or in the Government’s proposals that will stop the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and others protesting against matters they disapprove of—so let us keep this in perspective, please.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way, but perhaps I could give him a very small example of something that is completely relevant to what he says. On 5 March this year, the Metropolitan Police raided a Quaker meeting house and arrested a number of young, non-violent activists who were being trained in non-violent protest. How can that happen? They were not even protesting: they were just planning how to be non-violent at protests. The noble Lord must concede that that would have a chilling effect on people.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, who makes a forceful point, but my understanding is that that led to no charges. I certainly would not defend what the police did in those circumstances. Perhaps more relevantly, it has nothing whatever to do with the contents of the Bill or the proposals that the Government are putting forward in this proposed legislation.

Amendment 369 is an important amendment, from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and others, proposing that we should insert into the statute book a right to protest. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that it would be most inappropriate. It cannot be right to introduce a statutory right to protest when we are not introducing into the statute book, and rightly so, any other provision in the European Convention on Human Rights, such as the right to freedom of speech or to religious freedom. The reason for that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, is that we already have the protection of the Human Rights Act, which is applied by our judges.

With respect, I do not accept the criticisms made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, when he focused on the European concept, in the European Court of Human Rights, of the “margin of discretion”. But that is an international concept, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said. There is something similar here—a discretionary area of judgment—but the European concept is an international concept that is not applied by the domestic courts. Then the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, “Well, we need to put a marker down in case future Parliaments interfere with the right to protest”. But nothing that we do today will prevent a future Parliament, should it wish to do so, legislating in a way we may think is inappropriate. That is a matter for the future Parliament, and a matter for debate at the time.

The third point the noble Lord, Lord Marks, made was that the convention allowed for a restriction for the protection of morals. He said that was surely inappropriate. Well, yes, but I cannot think of any case where protest has been limited because of a moral view imposed by the police or any other authority. I would not go quite as far as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who said—I wrote it down—that morals were a “dead letter” nowadays, which is perhaps a wider proposition than she intended to suggest. But Amendment 369 would be most unfortunate. It would cause confusion and achieve no sensible purpose, if I may respectfully say so.

I take a different view of Amendment 369A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, and I have signed it. It deals with Clause 133, which introduces this new offence of concealing your identity at a protest. No defence of reasonable excuse is included, despite the fact that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, in its fifth report of the Session, proposed that there should be such a defence. The absence of such a defence is very puzzling, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, because in Clause 133(2) there are defences

“relating to the health of the person … religious observance, or … a purpose relating to the person’s work”.

In Committee I gave an example of why a defence of reasonable excuse is required. The example—and it is a very topical example—was of a man or a woman who wishes to protest outside the Iranian embassy or at some other demonstration against the conduct of the Iranian regime. They may well have a very strong reason for concealing their identity, which is that they have relatives in Iran. Are we really to say that they are committing a criminal offence, despite the obvious need for them to conceal their identity in those circumstances?

With great respect to the Minister, I heard no convincing answer to that point in Committee. That is why I have joined the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, in suggesting that a defence of reasonable excuse should be added to this new criminal offence. If the noble Lord wishes to test the opinion of the House—and I hope he does, if the Minister cannot give any comfort on this—I will certainly support him.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I rise mainly to support the Government. It seems to me that they are broadly taking steps to stop intimidation of the public, not to stop intimidation of the Government, which is what those who support the right to protest seem to be suggesting. The amendments, on the whole, seem to try to restrict that right. For the reasons that many people have already said, I do not think it is necessary.

The job of the police is to ensure that peaceful protesters are able to protest and that they are not intimidated. It is not their job to maximise the impact of the protest, which is what the implications of facilitation seem to suggest. Other people’s rights have to be respected; in the heat of a protest it is very difficult for the police to get that right. It can be a little easier in preparation for the protest, if you are able to plan, but many of these decisions often have to be made during the protest. When there are thousands of people who are emotional and shouting, perhaps outside the Israeli embassy, it can have an intimidating effect on everybody. We have to think seriously about how the police are able to implement these amendments.

I accept that proportionality is a very important part of the ECHR—I would not argue against that—but it is quite hard for the cops to measure this on the ground. In Northern Ireland it became such an issue that we ended up with a Parades Commission, which took the issues away from the police. The way that legislation is going, I suspect it might be wiser to leave someone independent to make these decisions rather than the police. But while it is with the police, it has to be as simple as possible, not because the police are simple—I speak personally—but because it is not easy to get that balance right. This is an acute judgment, not one that is measured in a court.

I want to speak about two other issues. If Parliament decides that it wants face coverings, we have to think carefully about the reasonable excuse. I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, but I suspect that everybody will have a reasonable excuse. Imagine, as a police officer, confronting somebody about wearing a mask and trying to determine whether they have a reasonable excuse, together with four or five other people in a crowd. It would be almost impossible. Do they have a cold? That is one of the defences in the Act already. I think it would be almost unenforceable. I am not saying that it is wrong to have a reasonable excuse, but it is difficult to determine it during a protest.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

Surely the police will go ahead with the arrest and then the courts will decide whether there was a reasonable excuse.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

By that time they will already be in a cell, facing the fact that they have been arrested. It is best to avoid that prospect and the dispute you might end up in with a crowd when having to make that decision. The police need as smooth a transition as possible when implementing legislation, so I would be really careful if we carried on with that.

17:00

I do not think the 50-metre test mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would work. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, mentioned access and egress from a place of worship but, as importantly, the distance you need to keep from a protester is either throwing distance, shouting distance—so they can make their point and probably abuse somebody in the process—or away from amplified sound, which can be quite a distance. Given the geography of many of the locations where protests might happen, I understand the point about making it a discrete area, but 50 metres could never work and I think trying to determine the distance would be quite difficult. Vicinity can work, because it is a reasonable test. We should leave that for the courts to decide and give the cops the opportunity to make the decision based on the circumstances they face. I am afraid that 50 metres is nowhere near reasonable.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Can the noble Lord answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about Iranians protesting outside the Iranian embassy, scared for their relatives in Iran?

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I avoided having that conversation, because it is a good point. I introduced my points by saying that if a decision is made to impose a ban on masks, a reasonable excuse may be difficult to enforce. I am not expressing an opinion on the noble Lord’s very good point about whether it would capture Iranians who might be in fear of their life from the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is a reasonable point and I am choosing not to express an opinion on it.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Can I pick the noble Lord up on one point? It is very interesting to hear him say that the law should be simple, because I have heard that from currently serving senior officers. Can he see that our accumulating more and more bits of law makes things not simpler but more complicated for the police? I have been on protests where the police have definitely been quite confused about the legislation. He ought to be arguing with the Government that we should make things much simpler.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I will finish here because this is Report, but 50 metres is too short, although I think vicinity works. I agree with the noble Baroness on clarity; I am not against that, but you have to leave the police some flexibility given the circumstances they face. I do not think vicinity is an unreasonable suggestion. We can make that work, but 50 metres will never work.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, we have started the fourth day on Report with a wide-ranging and interesting debate on the general landscape of public order law. The noble Lords, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Strasburger, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Fox of Buckley, have argued that there are too many statutory limitations on protest in this country. I do not agree, and I suspect I will find myself in much agreement with the Minister on those amendments.

First, I will speak to my Amendments 377C and 377D. Amendment 377C would extend the notification period for public processions from six to 28 days. Currently, Section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986 requires any person organising a protest to notify the police of their proposal to hold it with six days’ notice. The purpose of this period is to ensure that the police can plan their resource requirements effectively. They need to examine the route, number of attendees and timing, gather intelligence on the groups and people involved and assess the likelihood of violence and disorder. If the procession is likely to be large or the cause highly contentious, or if those involved have a history of causing disorder, they may very well need to make contingencies and possibly bring in more officers.

The short period of six days causes significant problems for the police, the public and the organisers of the protest, and it may take the police a substantial amount of time to gather all the available evidence and set conditions so the organisers can often only be notified of those conditions the day before the protest is due to take place. This does not give them adequate time to ensure that they can comply with those conditions, nor does it allow the public and businesses adequate time to adapt.

Policy Exchange’s polling demonstrated that the medium level of notice that respondents believed protest organisers should have to give to the police is 28 days. In its survey, 51% said organisers should have to give at least three weeks’ notice while 45% said the period should be at least four weeks. The 28-day period is also incidentally the same notice period as exists in Northern Ireland, and while I appreciate the different historical and political context in Northern Ireland, it does not seem unreasonable to extend that to England and Wales—especially given the substantial time and effort that police must pour into planning for large-scale protests.

Amendment 377D concerns the criteria on which the police may prohibit a protest. Currently, Section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986 permits the police to prohibit protests if there is a likelihood that the protest will result in serious public disorder. However, that is the only criterion included in that section, meaning there is no ability for the police to prohibit a protest if there is a risk of serious disruption to the life of the community, nor does it allow the police to take into account their own resources and ability to maintain public safety when making their assessment. My amendment would extend the criteria for the prohibition of protest to include where the chief officer of police has a reasonable belief that the protest could result in “serious public disorder”, “serious damage to property”,

“serious disruption to the life of the community”

or that it would

“place undue demands on the police”.

Given the Government's commitment to reform of public order law, I would think they should be able to accept these two amendments. Before the Minister says they need to wait for the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, into public order and hate speech to report, I gently remind him that the Government were perfectly happy to pre-empt that review and legislate to extend the legislation aggravators based on characteristics last week. If they were happy to do so for that provision, I do not see why they cannot accept mine. However, if the Minister finds himself unable to do so, I am minded to press them to a Division when called.

I will also briefly comment on the other amendments in this group. Amendment 369, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, and others, would create a new statutory right to protest. While the attention behind this is understandable, it is difficult to see what legal gap it is intended to fill. As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has already explained, the right to protest is already protected through the common law and currently through Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights incorporated domestically through the Human Rights Act.

However, it is important to recognise that we do not derive our rights in Britain from international treaties or even from domestic statute. The right to protest was protected before Parliament passed the Human Rights Act in 1998 and before we joined the ECHR. It is a right derived from ancient English liberty and our common law inheritance, so placing it into the Crime and Policing Bill in 2026 will not change a thing. I dare say if we were to leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act, we would still have our ancient freedom to protest intact.

What is more, creating a new declaratory clause risks adding greater complexity without adding meaningful protection. Indeed, by restating rights that are already well established, we may inadvertently create new areas of legal uncertainty rather than clarity for the police, local authorities and the courts, and for those reasons I cannot support that amendment.

A similar concern arises with Amendment 369A, which would introduce a reasonable excuse defence relating to concealing identity at a protest. Clause 133(2) already contains these defences. They include when a person is wearing a face covering for health reasons, religious observance or a purpose relating to their work, and that is a perfectly reasonable and pragmatic list of exceptions.

Amendments 372A and 372AA seek to narrow the circumstances in which conditions may be imposed on protests in the vicinity of places of worship. In doing so, they replace the current test by which a protest may intimidate with a requirement to demonstrate a specific purpose to intimidate. That is a significantly higher threshold. The difficulty is obvious. In practice, intimidation often arises from the circumstances and impact of a protest rather than from an explicitly stated intention. Requiring the police to prove purpose before acting risks tying their hands precisely when communities may feel most vulnerable.

On Amendment 373, as I stated in Committee, we on these Benches are supportive of the introduction of police powers to take into consideration cumulative disruption when placing conditions on protests and assemblies. I do not therefore agree with removing Clause 140. After all, the previous Government tried to introduce this in 2023 and it was the Liberal Democrats and Labour who voted it down in this House at the time, so it is good to see the Labour Party finally has come round to the Conservatives’ way of thinking.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Marks, Lord Strasburger and Lord Davies of Gower, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for affording us this further opportunity to debate the right to protest and public order measures in the Bill. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate.

The Government fully recognise the importance of peaceful protest in a democratic society. However, Amendment 369, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, would place in statute a right that is already clearly protected in domestic law—and it is not only me saying that, as we have heard from the formidable legal troika of the noble Lords, Lord Faulks and Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. As they said, public authorities are bound by the Human Rights Act to uphold Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which cover freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. These rights are qualified and may only be limited when restrictions are lawful, necessary and proportionate. Common law also provides strong recognition of peaceful protest. Introducing an additional statutory provision risks creating overlap and uncertainty, particularly for operational policing, without offering any meaningful new protections.

In their contributions, the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talked about the risks of, shall we say, a more extreme Government and this paving the way for further restrictions on the right to protest. I can only agree with comments made by a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Faulks: I hope the occasion never arises, but that is democracy, and any incoming Government that have that kind of mandate would not find it hard to overturn not only provisions that the Government are making in this Bill but the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, proposes, should it make its way on to the statute book. I am therefore not sure that argument really washes.

The Government remain firmly committed to safeguarding the right to protest. That is one reason why we have asked the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, to review the current legislative framework. One of the matters being explored as part of the review is—to quote its terms of reference—whether the current legislation

“strikes a fair balance between freedom of expression and the right to protest with the need to prevent disorder and keep communities safe”.

The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, is expected to report later in the spring. I assure noble Lords that we will consider very carefully all his recommendations, including any proposing a strengthening of the right to protest.

Amendment 369A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, would provide a reasonable excuse defence for concealing a person’s identity at a protest in a designated area and shift the burden of proof away from individuals within that designated area on to police. Instead of requiring a person to justify why they had a valid reason for wearing an item to conceal their identity, as set out in the specified defences, it would place the responsibility on the police to assess, during a live protest, whether the explanation provided was reasonable or not. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that is not necessarily always an easy thing to do.

Clause 133 currently provides three statutory defences for concealing identity at a protest within a designated area: relating to the health of the person or others; religious observance; or for a purpose relating to that person’s work. The offence carries a reverse burden of proof, meaning it is for the individual to prove they concealed their identity for one of these reasons. I consider this a proportionate and carefully balanced offence.

It is important to highlight that any decision to designate an area and arrest a person concealing their identity must take into account Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, meaning that all decisions must be necessary and proportionate in relation to the right to peaceful protest. It is important to bear in mind that a locality will be designated only when it is thought that a protest activity is likely to involve or has involved criminality, so it is expedient to do so in order to prevent or limit the commission of offences.

17:15

We heard discussion about the fear of reprisals when it comes to transnational repression. I say particularly to my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti that introducing a statutory defence relating to transnational repression would introduce operational complexities for the police, as it is of course the role of the courts, not law enforcement, to assess reasonable doubt and evaluate any defences raised by the defendant. In the context of transnational repression cases, which are often internationally complex, such a defence would place an unnecessary burden on police to disprove claims relating to potential threats to an individual’s safety from a particular state, for example. I stress as well that clear—

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

So is the Minister saying to the protestor at the Iranian embassy that he or she has only two choices: not to protest, or to protest not wearing a face mask and thereby run the risk that their relatives in Iran may be killed or tortured?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

In that example, I revert to what I said about the locality being designated only if the police suspect that criminality is likely to occur or has occurred on previous occasions. I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that a largely peaceful protest outside an embassy and at an appropriate distance would not fall into that category of protest.

As I was going to say, clear operational guidance from the NPCC—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

It might well be that that protester is just on a general demonstration. If you are an Iranian or Chinese dissident, you might be on a civil rights demonstration, arguing for the right to protest. That would equally be the target of the ire of your authoritarian, anti-protest, anti-civil liberty regime. Can the Minister explain how this cannot possibly chill their right to go on a protest? It is not just the transnational example—other examples were given. Some people will not go on protests because they will be frightened of the consequences.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

On this having a chilling effect, the new offence will cover only people in the locality who are

“wearing or otherwise using an item that conceals their identity”.

As I said, the police will use this power only if they can say there is going to be criminality on a particular protest, such as a march. That is not a power they are going to be using lightly.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

I am sorry to keep pestering the Minister, but the difficulty is that there is absolutely no reason why the criminality has to be connected with the attitudes of those Iranians who are frightened. The criminality simply has to be connected with the protest as a whole. It may be entirely separate from the views, attitudes or desires of the Iranians who, in the example of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, are likely to be deterred from attending a protest.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I do not disagree with the noble Lord. What I am saying is that the police designation of a locality where this offence would apply would be made only in cases where they thought that criminality and an offence would occur. It is not related to the fact that, in this case, there are Iranians protesting. I reflect the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who, to paraphrase, said that the reasonable defences we list in the clause are common-sense and easily explicable.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

May I test the patience of the Minister? I am very grateful to him. The defence he is offering—that this applies only if there is criminality—does not explain why Clause 133 recognises the defences of health, religious observance or a person’s work. If the Government recognise those defences, even though they are in the context of criminality, surely the clause should also cover the type of example I have given.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

The noble Lord can never test my patience too far. I simply say that, in terms of the police’s operational use, there are three clear, easy-to-understand, easy-to-interpret defences one could use in this situation. Fear of dissident reprisal does not necessarily fit into that category so easily. Notwithstanding his inability to test my patience, I am going to make some progress, as we have more to discuss.

Under Amendments 372A, 372B and 372C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, Clause 139 would apply only where a protest is directed at or connected with the place of worship, before conditions could be imposed. Additionally, Amendments 372ZA, 372AA, 372AB, 372BA, 372BB and 372D in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would raise the threshold for police intervention by requiring proof that a protest has the explicit purpose of intimidating individuals accessing a place of worship and that it would, in fact, intimidate them. The amendments also propose limiting police powers to protests occurring

“within 50 metres from the outer perimeter”

of a place of worship.

As seen with recent demonstrations, protests can have an unintended impact on the lives of a community and those seeking to exercise their freedom of religion without intimidation or fear. I want to be clear that Clause 139 seeks to address a clear legislative gap arising from such protests. Police currently have powers to intervene where there is a serious disruption to the life of the community or intentional intimidation. However, we have already heard consistently from both the police and religious communities that these thresholds are too high to protect worshippers who feel too intimidated to attend their place of worship, even though the protesters do not intend to have such an effect. Requiring officers to demonstrate both the purpose and effect of intimidation would restrict their ability to act at an earlier stage, reducing operational flexibility.

Clause 139 responds directly to that problem. It does not ban protests; it simply gives the police the ability to impose proportionate conditions where a procession, assembly or one-person protest may create an intimidating atmosphere in the vicinity of a place of worship. This will protect the freedom to worship without undermining the fundamental right to protest. Both rights are essential, and the clause is carefully designed to balance them. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, herself said, the duty to protect minority communities and their right to go about their lives—whether it is their freedom of worship or any other aspect—is indeed paramount. The clause seeks to do that.

The noble Baroness’s proposal to introduce a rigid 50-metre boundary would further constrain the police, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. The noble Baroness calls the proposal in the Bill vague, but I put it to her that the rigidity of a 50-metre boundary goes too far. For example, let us consider the practical example of the proximity of St Margaret’s Church to both this House and Parliament Square. Having this rule in place, notwithstanding any particular provisions on protests in Parliament Square, would make that sort of protest impossible. To use one of the examples promoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, any protest outside churches or cathedrals would presumably also be limited in that way.

Activity occurring outside that distance may still create an environment that discourages worshippers from entry, yet the police would be unable to impose conditions unless the protest moved closer. This would undermine the clause’s purpose of enabling proportionate intervention where there is a risk of an intimidatory atmosphere near a place of worship. As noble Lord, Lord Pannick said, that includes the comings and goings—going to and from a place of worship, as well as actually being within the building.

I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, who, I am afraid, is not in his place, for meeting me and members of Jewish community organisations, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, CST and the Jewish Leadership Council, to discuss the clause. As I reiterated at that meeting, I want to make it clear that the Government will write to police forces and local authorities following Royal Assent to remind them of their existing powers to protect community centres, schools and places of worship. This will ensure that all agencies are fully aware of the tools they already have to respond to intimidatory behaviour in these settings.

Amendment 373, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, seeks to remove the cumulative disruption clause from the Bill. I have been clear that the right to peaceful protest is a fundamental democratic right in this country. However, it should be balanced with the need for individuals and communities to feel safe in their own neighbourhoods. Over the past few years, we have seen the impact of protests on the lives of communities and, of course, the tragic antisemitic terror incident that took place at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation’s synagogue on 2 October, which led to the unfortunate murders of Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz. Protests subsequently continued, which highlighted concerns around the protection of specific communities, including Jewish communities, which are affected by the cumulative impact of protests.

There are other examples where communities face serious disruption from protests taking place in the same area week after week. On this, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. On the streets of London over the past couple of years, we have seen protests almost weekly. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, is right that the cumulative impact has the effect of forcing home a particular message that those protesters want to make. However, that should not come at the price of other citizens not being allowed to enjoy their regular rights.

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

I remind my noble friend that in Committee a number of us raised the statement that was issued by a whole range of civic society organisations, whose members often live in the communities in which they carry out protests. He will recall in particular that the TUC supported that civic society statement.

I speak as one of the perhaps few people in this House who has had responsibility for organising mass national demonstrations in central London. Can my noble friend reassure those organisations that this is not, as they fear, in effect, a quota on national demonstrations in London? Can he also give some guidance to the police on how they pick and choose between those different organisations if there is to be a quota?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that and for all the work that she has done in organising those national protests, at least one or two of which I am sure that I have attended.

It is absolutely not a quota. It is simply to say that if you are regularly marching in areas side by side with other communities, that repeated activity should not impede their ability, for example, to come and go to a synagogue. It cannot be right, as I know is the case, that synagogues should have to alter their regular service times on a Saturday morning to allow for protests. There must be a way that police can accommodate the needs of the protesters and of those worshippers. I want to be clear: this is not about imposing a quota on protests. The provision does not allow police to ban a protest but places a duty on senior officers to consider cumulative disruption when deciding whether the serious disruption to the life of the community threshold in Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 is met.

Amendment 377C, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, seeks to extend the notice period required for planned processions from six days to 28 days. As I explained in Committee, six days provides the police with adequate time to work with organisers who are planning protests to ensure that any conditions imposed are necessary and proportionate. The noble Lord’s Amendment 377D seeks to amend Section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986 to enable a chief officer of police to consider

“serious damage to property, or … serious disruption to the life of the community”

and the demands on police resources when determining whether to apply for an order prohibiting public processions.

Section 13 of the 1986 Act rightly sets out a high threshold for considering whether public processions should be prohibited. Widening the scope of this power, including to take account of police resources, would risk undermining the right to peaceful protest under Articles 10 and 11 and the legislation becoming incompatible with the ECHR. The noble compared this with the measure we discussed last week around aggravated offences. The latter was a clear manifesto commitment announced before the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven.

I hope I have been able to reassure noble Lords who have spoken in this group. They have raised some very legitimate issues about whether existing public order legislation and the measures in Part 9 of the Bill strike the right balance between protecting the right to protest, protecting communities and preventing disorder. As I have said, there is an ongoing review examining just this issue, and I put it to the noble Lord that we should wait for the outcome of that review. Accordingly, this is not the occasion to press any of the amendments to a vote today. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Marks, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I will be very brief in explaining why I do not propose to withdraw my amendment. First, our amendment would introduce a dynamic right, with a duty on local authorities and public authorities to respect, protect and facilitate the right to protest. Secondly, of course the margin of appreciation is indeed an international concept, but this Government are planning to legislate on the application of Article 8, and they may be right to do so, but we need to have proper concern about future legislation within the context of the margin of appreciation.

Thirdly, I am not suggesting for a moment that we can entrench legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is absolutely right to say that Parliament cannot bind its successors. However, we can, by legislation, make it unattractive to reverse a public duty to support the right to protest. Finally, nothing I have said undermines the balancing of rights between the right to protest and the rights and freedoms of others; but the right to protest is at the heart of our democracy. If the Conservatives are not going to support us on this, so be it: that is very disappointing, but I wish to test the opinion of the House.

17:31

Division 1

Amendment 369 disagreed.

Ayes: 75

Noes: 190

17:42

Clause 133: Offence of concealing identity at protests

Amendment 369A

Moved by

[Lord Strasburger]

369A: Clause 133, page 176, line 10, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that they had a reasonable excuse for wearing or otherwise using the item at the material time.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would provide a defence of reasonable excuse to the offence of concealing identity at protests, thereby putting the burden of proof on police officers to justify why they believe that wearing a face covering at a protest made the suspect arrestable.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this very thoughtful debate. I point out that Clause 133 already contains three reasonable excuses for the offence, but I do not understand why it contains those three and no others. For example, we have not had a convincing explanation from the Government on the example of the Iranian dissident. Amendment 369A covers all reasonable excuses: the three already in the Bill; the Iranian dissident, who keeps coming up; all the others mentioned in the debate; and any others that we have not thought of yet. I am not satisfied with the responses that I have heard from the Government and I wish to test the opinion of the House.

17:43

Division 2

Amendment 369A disagreed.

Ayes: 88

Noes: 172

17:54

Clause 137: Climbing on memorials

Amendment 370

Moved by

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay]

370: Clause 137, page 179, line 10, at end insert—
“(d) a war memorial which has been listed under the provisions of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 or scheduled under the provisions of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment broadens the current definition of “specified memorials” to include any listed or scheduled war memorial, not just those which happen to be Grade I listed at present.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, as I explained in Committee, I support the aims that the Government are seeking to achieve through Clause 137, which creates a new offence of climbing on memorials. Although there is a long history of statues forming part of peaceful protest and standing in dialogue between past and present, there is something special about war memorials, which stand as sacred monuments to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms that we now enjoy. It is therefore a particular affront when they are dishonoured or desecrated, especially for the proud comrades, families and descendants left behind by the heroes that they commemorate. So I am glad to see the Government taking action in this area, but I am rather perplexed about the way they are going about it.

The Government have correctly identified a problem of principle—that war memorials are specially cherished parts of our public realm and should not be climbed on in this way. However, in translating that principle into this legislation, they have severely and illogically curtailed it. Rather than applying the power to all war memorials, they say it must only be ones specified by the Home Secretary, and have named just 24 in the initial list included at Schedule 14 to the Bill.

Reading that list, I was pleased to see some very fine memorials indeed, including The Response, Sir William Goscombe John’s splendid memorial to the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, who raised 52 battalions throughout the Great War, more than any other regiment. It stands in the grounds of St Thomas’s church in the heart of Newcastle city centre, by the Haymarket and the civic centre. It was commissioned by a local ship owner and Conservative MP, Sir George Renwick, to commemorate the raising of four of those “pals” battalions and later dedicated in thanks for the safe return of Sir George and Lady Renwick’s five sons from the Great War. Not as many families were as fortunate as they.

Similar stories stand behind each of the two dozen memorials specified in Schedule 14, Part 1, but it is a curious list both for what it does and does not contain. While the Government’s list has an admirable geographic spread, it does not include some of our most well-known national memorials, such as the Battle of Britain Monument or the Royal Air Force Memorial, to give just two examples from very close to here on the Victoria Embankment. Their proximity to Parliament makes them, sadly, a focus for protest and vandalism far more frequently than some of the memorials currently specified in the Bill, but they are not included. In Committee, we found out why. Schedule 14 simply specifies those monuments that are presently listed grade 1 in heritage and planning terms.

Although the listing system is a vital tool for preserving those assets that we most value as a society, applying it in in this way is fraught with problems. First, the Government have restricted themselves to those memorials that are presently given the highest designation, at grade 1. This misses many thousands of memorials that stand proudly in every parish of the kingdom, sacred to the memory of those who laid down their lives in combat and whose memory surely deserves to be honoured just as much as those inscribed on the memorials set out in Schedule 14. The Government have started with a problem of principle but addressed it only in part.

Secondly, the listing system is predicated on specific criteria. As Section 1 of the planning Act 1990 puts it, listing is for

“buildings of special architectural or historic interest”.

This means that a memorial can be given a higher grading for its sculptural accomplishment than for the subject it celebrates. In Committee, I gave an example of this—the Bill will protect Sir George Frampton’s grade 1 listed statue of Edith Cavell at St Martin’s Place but not Arthur Walker’s grade 2 listed memorial to Florence Nightingale round the corner in Waterloo Place. Is one of those wartime nurses really deserving of greater protection than the other because they happen to have been sculpted by different hands?

Thirdly, I worry that this approach will have a chilling effect on the listing system itself. If designating a monument grade 1 is accompanied by new restrictions and criminal sanctions, will that not deter Ministers and their advisers at Historic England from recommending those higher levels of protection? A better approach, I submit, is to follow what I have proposed in my Amendment 370 and specify any war memorial that has been listed, whether at grade 1, grade 2* or grade 2, or any that has been designated as a scheduled monument. This would avoid the practical problems that I have just set out and answer the problem of principle, on which the Government and I agree much more squarely.

18:00

The other difficulty of basing a list on historical or architectural interest is that it produces something very different from a list of those memorials that we know are frequently targeted in political protest. The people of Newcastle, being well brought up and proud of their community, do not need legislation to tell them not to clamber on memorials to their forebears who died in the Great War. If they ever climb on a monument, it tends to be the one to the second Earl Grey which looms over the city centre, but whether that is because they share the view taken by your Lordships’ House about the Reform Act 1832, I would not like to say. If the Government had simply started by compiling a list of memorials at risk along common routes of protest, they might have included some of the other war memorials and statues of military leaders that line Parliament Square and Whitehall and that are targeted, sadly, more often than those listed in the current schedule.

During the helpful meeting that I had with the noble Lord, Lord Katz, last week, I asked about Sledmere, which boasts two of the two dozen memorials in the Government’s initial list. I like to think of myself as someone with a reasonable grasp of the geography of these islands, but I am afraid that I did not know where in the country Sledmere was. I presumed it must be a hotbed of political protest given that it makes up nearly 10% of the initial list in Schedule 14. In fact, it is a peaceable village of just 400 people in the East Riding of Yorkshire. One of its two entries on the list at Schedule 14 is for its Eleanor Cross, not originally a war memorial but one of the 12 commemorative crosses erected by King Edward I to mark the resting places of the body of his wife Eleanor of Castile as she was borne back to Westminster Abbey from Nottinghamshire, where she died in 1290. The most famous of these crosses is the final resting place at Charing Cross, the point from which all distances to London are traditionally measured.

Like the one in London, the Eleanor Cross at Sledmere is not a 13th-century original but a Victorian replica. It was commissioned in the 1890s by Sir Tatton Sykes, the local squire, and converted into a war memorial by his son Sir Mark, he of the Sykes-Picot agreement, who served as a colonel in the Green Howards and as Conservative MP for Kingston upon Hull Central. He was at Versailles for the peace conference but contracted the Spanish influenza and died in February 1919. It was because of its links to him rather than to Queen Eleanor that the cross was listed at grade 2 in 1966 and upgraded to grade 1 only in 2016, making it eligible for the Government’s protection.

I hope that these examples serve to persuade the Minister to accept my more logical solution set out in Amendment 370, but in case they do not, I have also tabled Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB suggesting the addition of just two egregious omissions from the Government’s present list. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blencathra for signing all these amendments, as he did in Committee. During our debate in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Katz, explained that the Home Secretary has already indicated that she intends to specify the as-yet-unbuilt Holocaust memorial intended for Victoria Tower Gardens. Why, then, would she not list the existing Holocaust Memorial in Hyde Park, which was unveiled in 1983? Sadly, that had to be covered in tarpaulin as recently as April 2024 on the advice of the Metropolitan Police, who were concerned that it would be vandalised by antisemitic protesters.

Similarly, the noble Lord told me in Committee that references to “individuals or animals” in Clause 137(8)(a) are to allow for the potential consideration of the Animals in War Memorial on Park Lane, for the existence of which we must thank the late Dame Jilly Cooper. If the Home Secretary is willing to consider specifying this memorial to the animals of war, I hope she will agree from the outset to specify the memorial to the Women of World War II, which was unveiled on the 60th anniversary of VE Day by Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who served in that conflict as a teenage mechanic and driver in the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

There are many other memorials that I think are worthy of the protections set out in Clause 137, but I am particularly curious to know on what grounds the Government could possibly disagree with the inclusion of the two that I have set out in those amendments. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, I support Amendment 370 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Lord Blencathra. Across this nation, war memorials, often raised by public subscription of pennies here and tuppences there, stand to hold memories of those who gave their lives—sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, cousins and parents. They are carved in stone, metal, wood or marble. The Whipsnade Tree Cathedral in Bedfordshire is a living memorial planted by Edmond Blyth, a World War I veteran, to commemorate his friends who were lost. They are physical embodiments of sacrifice, courage and collective memory, often within the curtilage of parish churches, each name both precious to someone and precious in the sight of God—ordinary people called to do the most extraordinary things in very challenging times. When they are damaged, it is a hit in the stomach for the whole of that community. It damages how we build our life together.

In recent years we have seen a great increase in younger generations exploring those names, finding out more about those people and giving their lives texture, colour and story. I have been very moved by going to a number of different exhibitions in parish churches across the diocese of Norwich that have showcased those often very young lives that were snuffed out in their prime in the service of this nation, so it is deeply distressing when memorials are damaged. Sometimes they are stolen for scrap metal and melted down, and the hurt that causes is immense.

I hope that these important memorials across the length and breadth of this nation can continue to serve as places to pause, reflect and think again, “Not again”. They are permanent reminders of the horror, destruction and futility of war. I hope that the Minister will accept the eminently sensible Amendment 370 for all the reasons that were so ably outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. If the Minister cannot support Amendment 370, I hope that the Government will support Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I think it is very odd that there should be a distinction made by the Government between a memorial to Florence Nightingale and a memorial to Edith Cavell. That is purely an example that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, has given us. If that is so, what on earth is the point of the clause?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Parkinson for tabling these amendments that seek to ensure that our memorials of national and historic importance are afforded the respect and protection they deserve under the new offence created in Clause 137. As was noted in Committee, the offence of climbing on specified memorials was introduced to address gaps revealed by recent protests around war memorials, such as the Royal Artillery Memorial and, indeed, around the statue of our great wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill just outside this place. It was first introduced as part of the previous Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, and it is welcome that this Government have taken up the mantle.

Under the current drafting, however, only grade 1 listed memorials are specified, together with the statue of Sir Winston Churchill, but the list does not capture other memorials of equal national significance. As my noble friend has argued so eloquently, using grade 1 listed memorials does not serve a real practical purpose. It is much more about administrative ease. Why does Sledmere get two specified memorials but the Women of World War II Memorial gets no such protection? Amendment 370 would broaden the definition of “specified memorial” to include any war memorial that has been listed or scheduled, not just those that happen to be grade 1 listed.

That approach aligns with the fact that the significance of a memorial is not solely a function of its listing grade but of the history it commemorates and its role in national remembrance. Expanding the scope in this way provides a more objective and inclusive basis for protection and avoids arbitrary outcomes based on historic listing decisions.

Amendment 372 complements Amendment 370 by adding two memorials of particular national importance: the monument to the women of the Second World War in Whitehall, which honours the immense contributions of millions of women during that conflict, and the Holocaust memorial garden in Hyde Park, which stands as a poignant reminder of the horrors of genocide. Including those memorials recognises the breadth of sacrifice in the diverse stories that make up our collective history. I hope the Government will concede to this. If they do and my noble friend is content, so will I be.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who spoke in this short but important debate, particularly to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, who spoke very movingly about the power of memorials in every community and the hurt that communities feel when they are damaged or disrespected. Amendments 370, 372ZZA and 372ZZB, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, seek to expand the list of war and other memorials covered by the new offence of climbing on a memorial provided for in Clause 137. I am grateful to him for taking the time to meet with me and officials last week on this issue and for his thoughtful consideration of how best to achieve the Government’s aim, which I think is shared across the House.

As regards Amendment 370, I fully acknowledge that many of the listed and scheduled memorials covered in the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 commemorate events and individuals of great national importance. The Bill intentionally sets out a clear and fixed list of memorials which provides certainty for the public, policing and the courts. By contrast, Amendment 370 would link the offence to memorials listed or scheduled under two separate heritage Acts. Those Acts encompass a far wider range of structures than the focused list in this measure and can change over time. Therefore, this would introduce an uncertainty about which memorials were captured at any given point, undermining the clarity and consistency that the measure is intended to achieve. For this reason, I cannot support the amendment.

The noble Lord, and perhaps the House, will be pleased to hear that I am much more disposed towards his Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB, which seek to add the monument to the women of World War II and the Holocaust memorial garden in Hyde Park to Schedule 14. Our aim is to ensure that memorials that have been deemed at threat in the course of a protest are covered by the offence. As the noble Lord has explained, these two memorials have been targeted in recent years. They are both culturally significant, and I agree with him that we need to protect them under this new offence. I am therefore happy to confirm that the Government support these two amendments.

The Holocaust memorial garden in Hyde Park is of course designed to be enjoyed as a garden and people are free to walk within it. I have given consideration to the practical issue of whether the police will be able to enforce this offence. The intention of the offence is to capture the action of climbing and I am confident it will not capture walking on an installation such as the Holocaust memorial garden. There are other memorials listed in Schedule 14 which have steps that may be sat on by members of the public, such as the Royal Artillery memorial in Hyde Park. I am content that, in enforcing this offence, police officers will use their discretion to consider whether an offence is committed.

As I have previously stated, the provision includes a power for the Home Secretary to add further memorials by secondary legislation. This might include the statue of Florence Nightingale in Waterloo Place, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. This Government will be able to add to the list of protected memorials should a site be identified that requires inclusion. I remain of the view, however, that not every memorial or every war memorial can be included. To do so would make the measure unenforceable due to the number of memorials and many, by their nature—for example, commemorative plaques—cannot be climbed on. That said, I accept we need a clear process for deciding whether to add further memorials to Schedule 14.

We will commit to setting out the process through which the Government will add to the specified list of memorials through secondary legislation. We will ensure a methodical and structured approach to consider which memorials have a significant public interest in being included. We will set out the process shortly after the Bill receives Royal Assent. As the Home Secretary has already indicated, this will include the national Holocaust memorial when it has finally been built. I hope that I have been able to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and that the combination of the addition of the two memorials specified in his Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB and the process I have outlined for considering the case for adding further memorials will persuade him to withdraw Amendment 370.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for that response and I thank him again for the time that he and his officials gave me last week to discuss this in detail. I am grateful too to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower for their support. As the right reverend Prelate said, these memorials stand very often on hallowed ground, but they are cherished and sacred to people of all faiths and none and inspire new generations to learn about the sacrifices of the past.

I continue to think that the solution in Amendment 370 is the more logical one, but I am grateful to the Minister for what he has said in support of my other two Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB, which gives an indication that the Home Secretary is willing to use the powers in Clause 137 where needed to make sure that these protections can be afforded to statues that are targeted by protesters and criminals. I will not press my Amendment 370. I look forward to seeing the two additions to the list and the vigilance of the Home Office and police in the years to come to see where others may need to be added, alas, if necessary. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 370 withdrawn.

18:15

Amendment 371

Moved by

[Lord Katz]

371: After Clause 137, insert the following new Clause—
“Protests outside public office-holder’s home(1) A person (“P”) commits an offence if—(a) P (alone or with other persons) carries on a protest outside, or in the vicinity of, premises that are used by a public office-holder as a dwelling,(b) P carries on the protest for the purpose of representing to, or persuading, the public office-holder that they—(i) should or should not do something, or(ii) should or should not have done something, and(c) P carries on the protest because of, or in connection with, the public officer-holder being a public officer-holder.(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to premises that are an official residence.(3) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that they did not know the premises were used by the public office-holder as a dwelling.(4) A person is to be taken to have shown the matter referred to in subsection (3) if—(a) sufficient evidence is adduced to raise an issue with respect to it, and(b) the contrary is not proved beyond reasonable doubt.(5) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term for summary offences or a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale (or both).(6) In subsection (5) “the maximum term for summary offences” means—(a) if the offence is committed before the time when section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 comes into force, six months;(b) if the offence is committed after that time, 51 weeks.(7) The following definitions apply for the purposes of this section.(8) “Public office-holder” means—(a) a Minister of the Crown (within the meaning of the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975);(b) any of the Welsh Ministers;(c) any of the Deputy Welsh Ministers (within the meaning of the Government of Wales Act 2006);(d) the Counsel General to the Welsh Government;(e) a member of the House of Lords;(f) a member of the House of Commons;(g) a member of Senedd Cymru;(h) a member of a local authority;(i) an elected mayor of a local authority within the meaning given by section 9H (elected mayors: England) or section 39(4) (elected mayors: Wales) of the Local Government Act 2000;(j) a mayor for the area of a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009;(k) a mayor for the area of a combined county authority established under section 9(1) of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023;(l) the Mayor of London or an elected member of the London Assembly;(m) a police and crime commissioner;(n) a candidate at an election for an office mentioned in any of paragraphs (f) to (m).(9) “Local authority” means—(a) in England—(i) a county council;(ii) a district council;(iii) a London borough council;(iv) a parish council;(v) the Common Council of the City of London;(vi) the Council of the Isles of Scilly;(b) in Wales—(i) a county council;(ii) a county borough council;(iii) a community council.(10) “Dwelling” has the meaning given by section 8 of the Public Order Act 1986.(11) “Official residence” means—(a) 10, 11 and 12 Downing Street, London;(b) Admiralty House, Whitehall, London;(c) 1 Carlton Gardens, London;(d) the Palace of Westminster, London;(e) Chequers, Missenden Road, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire;(f) Dorneywood, Dorneywood Road, Burnham, Buckinghamshire;(g) Chevening House, Chevening, Sevenoaks, Kent.”.Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment creates a new offence relating to protests outside the homes of public office-holders.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, these amendments seek to achieve a similar aim to an earlier amendment tabled in Committee, which the Government withdrew following concerns raised by the Benches opposite. In bringing back these amendments, I hope the revised drafting directly addresses the concerns raised by noble Lords who felt that the initial offence was drawn too widely.

Amendment 371 explicitly requires a protest to be taking place outside a public officeholder’s home for it to be an offence, rather than the broader activity reflected in the Committee amendment. Importantly, a person must be carrying out the protest because of, or in connection with, the public officeholder’s role. Amendment 376 further amends Sections 42 and 42A of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, which confer powers to direct protests away from a person’s home, so as to remove the requirement that protest activity must be linked to a specific future action. As I said in Committee, this change ensures that harassing or intimidatory protests outside the homes of individuals are captured, regardless of whether they relate to past or future conduct.

I recognise the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, about whether additional legislation is truly necessary to protect the homes of public officeholders. The Government’s view is that there is an unequivocal need. We are not just talking about providing a feeling of safety to elected representatives; we are talking about the safety of their families too. This principle is foundational to the resilience of the public officeholder and thus to democracy itself. Under the Defending Democracy policing protocol, drafted and agreed by the former Minister for Security and the then Prime Minister, the previous Government set out a clear expectation that any protest outside the homes of elected representatives should be treated as harassment. That intent of the previous Government is what this amendment now achieves.

The role of elected representatives is the backbone of our democracy. Yet the Minister for Security has heard first-hand from colleagues who have tempered what they say or even how they vote because of intimidating behaviour targeted at their homes and their families. We know too that some, particularly women or those from minority backgrounds, are choosing not to stand for office because of the abuse they fear they will face. That is not democracy thriving; that is democracy shrinking. This legislation will give public officeholders and their families an additional layer of protection. It will help ensure that they can carry out their duties without fearing what awaits them at their front door and it will allow their partners, their children and their loved ones to feel safe where safety should be most assured: in their home.

Let me be absolutely clear: protest is a fundamental democratic right, and this Government defend it vigorously. There are proper, powerful places for protest: outside constituency offices, outside Parliament, at town halls, at political events, at rallies. But the home is different. It is where family life happens, where our children sleep, where our partners work, where people retreat from public life. It must not become an area for intimidation or a no-go zone. I beg to move.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, for all the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Katz, protests outside officeholders’ homes are in a special category. These amendments are plainly directed at harassing or intimidatory behaviour towards public officeholders, and they affect the families as well, so we are happy to accept these two amendments.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to add how delighted I am that the Government have done that. It is rather overdue and will give some degree of satisfaction to at least some families of MPs in particular.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, in Committee I raised some strong objections to the amendment that the Government were proposing then. We were concerned that the proposals could inadvertently criminalise canvassing and leafleting an officeholder from a rival political party. We were also concerned about the proposed second aspect of the offence, which could criminalise making representations about a matter relating to the officeholder’s private capacity.

I still have reservations about the principle behind Amendment 371. I do not accept the Government’s argument that all protests outside a public officeholder’s dwelling constitute harassment. That is the stated view of the Government, but I think it is demonstrably false. If a protest outside a public officeholder’s home becomes actual harassment within the meaning of the law then that should be prosecuted as such, and if the protest breaches the peace or becomes highly disruptive then there are already laws to deal with that, but simply saying that any person who wishes to make representations to a politician about their actions or policies outside their house is harassment and therefore unlawful seems a disproportionate infringement of liberty.

Having said that, I am grateful to the Minister for taking our comments on board. The amendment that the Government have tabled on Report is much improved and far more tightly drafted, and I welcome that. Could the Minister confirm that the definition of a protest in the amendment will not include canvassing and leafleting or asking someone to sign a petition? I think we would all benefit from that being on the record. Given that the Government have listened to our concerns, while we are not completely content, we will not oppose this amendment.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I particularly thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, because I feel that at this Dispatch Box I do not always meet the high bar that she sets for defending the Government’s position, so it is always good to win her praise.

To pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, the Government are committed to defending democracy. I therefore assure him that Amendment 371 does not restrict political campaigning. It is perfectly legitimate for campaigners during election time to door-knock and speak to their local public officeholders about different political opinion. Where this crosses the line is when these people choose to protest against the public officeholder at their home.

These government amendments are vital to protecting our democracy. As my honourable friend the Security Minister has made clear, harassment and intimidation must never be accepted as part of a public officeholder’s role. This cannot become the new normal, and the scale of the problem cannot be overstated. It is not simply MPs, either. The Local Government Association’s Debate Not Hate survey in 2025 found that seven in 10 councillors had experienced abuse or intimidation in the previous year. The Speaker’s Conference reported that an astonishing 96% of MPs who responded to their survey had suffered at least one form of abuse, intimidation or harassment. This demonstrates that it is a real problem. Harassment is not simply confined to online spaces; it is very active in the real world too. We must therefore put protections in place not only to keep public office holders safe but to ensure that they feel safe, and that their families are protected. With that, I beg to move.

Amendment 371 agreed.

Amendment 371A

Moved by

[Lord Walney]

371A: After Clause 137, insert the following new Clause—
“Designation and restriction of Extreme Criminal Protest Groups(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations designate a group as an Extreme Criminal Protest Group (“ECPG”) where the Secretary of State reasonably believes that—(a) the group has as its purpose and practice the deliberate commission of one or more of the following offences—(i) an offence under section 1 of the Public Order Act 1986 (riot),(ii) an offence under section 2 of the Public Order Act 1986 (violent disorder),(iii) an offence under section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 (destroying or damaging property), or(iv) an offence under section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023 (interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure),(b) such offences are carried out with the intention of influencing public policy, parliamentary debate, ministerial decision-making, or the exercise of democratic functions, and(c) the activities of the group create a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions, or the rights of others.(2) A designation under subsection (1) does not amount to proscription for the purposes of the Terrorism Act 2000.(3) The following are offences in relation to group designated as an ECPG under subsection (1)—(a) membership of a designated ECPG;(b) promotion of a designated ECPG, including public advocacy, recruitment, or dissemination of the group’s materials;(c) fundraising for a designated ECPG, including soliciting or providing funds or financial benefit;(d) organising, directing or coordinating activities of the group;(e) providing material support, training, funds or equipment to the group where the person knows or ought reasonably to know that the recipient is a designated ECPG.(4) A person does not commit an offence under subsection (3) solely by expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a designated ECPG, where that expression does not amount to encouragement or assistance of criminal conduct.(5) An offence under subsection (3) is punishable on conviction—(a) on indictment, by imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or a fine, or both;(b) on summary conviction, by imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or a fine, or both.(6) Before making regulations under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement of reasons explaining why the designation is considered appropriate.(7) The statement under subsection (6) may exclude material the disclosure of which would, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, be contrary to the public interest, including on grounds of national security or the prevention or detection of crime.”

[Lord Walney (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to lead off this grouping on counterextremism. My Amendment 371A, tabled with co-sponsors the noble Lords. Lord Pannick and Lord Hogan-Howe, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, would create a limited mechanism to give the Government the option to seek parliamentary approval to restrict the activities of an extreme criminal protest group that was dedicated to committing criminal damage for political purposes. It would do so without branding individuals or the group as terrorists, and it would expressly rule out criminalising mere expressions of support that did not encourage illegal conduct. If it were applied instead of terrorist proscription, it would avoid the controversy of people being arrested for holding up signs in the manner that has happened so recently with Palestine Action under the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Following concerns in Committee that the original amendment was too broad and risked unduly restricting freedom of speech and association, we have substantially narrowed its scope. The number of offences here has been narrowed to riot, violent disorder, criminal damage or attempts to interfere with key national infrastructure. There is no possibility of widening those criteria without further primary legislation. Subsection (3) has been clarified so that assisting a designated group would be an offence only where the individual was knowingly furthering the group’s aims. Expressions of support for a group that do not amount to encouragement or assistance of criminal activity are expressly not criminalised in this text.

Contrary to what I suspect the Minister may be about to say in response, this proposal is timely now, despite the Government’s ongoing appeal against the High Court judgment that ruled the terrorist proscription of Palestine Action to be disproportionate. In fact, the pending appeal makes it all the more timely. This amendment does not affect that appeal itself. It makes no comment on the wisdom or otherwise of the Government's assessment that Palestine Action had met the terrorism threshold after its five-year-long campaign of criminal damage and occasional use of violence.

If passed, however, this proposal would allow Ministers to seek parliamentary approval through a positive statutory instrument to restrict the activities of a future criminal group that held the purpose, which is the strategic intent, and the practice, which is the track record, of using criminal damage for political purposes like Palestine Action did. That is another way, in specifying purpose and practice, that the amendment has been tightened from the text debated in Committee. Thus, it would allow action in a future scenario to be taken much sooner before the group had met the terrorism threshold. The penalties applied for offences would be lower: up to three years’ imprisonment, rather than up to 14 years under the Terrorism Act. It would not criminalise expressions of support, as I have said, and it would avoid those convicted being saddled with an offence under the Terrorism Act for the rest of their lives.

If the Government’s appeal against the Palestine Action ruling is unsuccessful, this would provide an alternative to deter the group’s malign activities should those activities be resumed once proscription was lifted. That is just one of the reasons why the House should not take the advice, which I suspect the Minister is about to give, not to accept this amendment and wait instead for the outcome of the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, and then inevitably push this issue down the road for the next crime or public order Bill perhaps years hence. We all look forward to hearing the noble Lord’s views, but the Government themselves are not waiting for his view when they want to take swift action in other areas, such as on the cumulative impact caused by protests.

I hope, by the way, that the Minister will also accept my Amendment 377A to extend the cumulative impact provisions that he has laid applying to Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act to Section 13, thus giving the police the power to recommend that a march does not go ahead on a particular day if the cumulative impact is sufficiently severe.

To go back to Amendment 371A, there have of course been many reviews in this territory, including my own when I served as the Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption. That review made the recommendation on extreme criminal protest groups that is encapsulated in Amendment 371A when it was published in May 2024, nearly two years ago. This is an appropriate time to act. It is an appropriately limited measure that can make a significant difference while completely preserving the right to protest and freedom of expression and association.

18:30

There are a range of views in this House, and, of course, in the country, over the proscription of Palestine Action. Whether it was right or wrong, it is undeniable that the measure and its impact have been divisive and controversial. The sight of people being arrested and charged for holding up signs is uncomfortable, whether or not you blame the law, the police or the protesters themselves. While there is a legal basis for the serious economic damage encapsulated in the definition of terrorism in the 2000 Act, I hazard that there is not great public support or understanding for branding as terrorists those whose methods are largely limited to the intimidation that comes from criminal damage.

Even though I am one of those who supported the proscription and continue to hope that the Government’s appeal will be successful, there would, however, be far wider support for a mechanism such as this that inhibits such a group from impacting the lives of working people and the public through this sustained campaign of criminal damage. No matter what the legitimacy of the progressive cause itself, this would enable us to stop the lives of working people and the public being ruined by restricting the ability of individuals to fund-raise, recruit and organise for such a group—and even, of course, as we have seen before Palestine Action was proscribed, to broadcast those crimes proudly on social media. I very much hope that noble Lords will support Amendment 371A today.

Amendment 371B (to Amendment 371A)

Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

371B: In subsection (1), leave out paragraphs (a) to (c) and insert “Condition 1 has been met and that one of either—
(a) Condition 2, or(b) Condition 3,has been met.(1A) Condition 1 is that the group has as its purpose and practice the deliberate commission of one or more of the following offences—(a) an offence under section 1 of the Public Order Act 1986 (riot),(b) an offence under section 2 of the Public Order Act 1986 (violent disorder),(b) an offence under section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 (destroying or damaging property), or(d) an offence under section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023 (interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure).(1B) Condition 2 is that the offences mentioned in Condition 1 are carried out with the intention of influencing public policy, parliamentary debate, ministerial decision-making or the exercise of democratic functions.(1C) Condition 3 is that the activities of the group create a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions, or the rights of others.”

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Walney, for bringing forward Amendment 371A and all noble Lords who have added their name to it. I thank the Members of your Lordships’ House who, I hope, will be speaking to it. This amendment is eminently sensible. We have heard several examples already of groups which engage in criminal and intimidating behaviour to further their ideological ends, but which do not necessarily pass the terrorism threshold. There is no justification for their continued lawful existence, but to proscribe them as terrorists obfuscates the meaning of the category and incorporates inactive supporters within the definition. The pertinent example of this is Palestine Action. I will not speculate on whether the behaviour actually amounts to terrorism, but the actions of its supporters following its proscription highlight the necessity for action.

An organisation that damages defence infrastructure and attacks members of the public should cease to exist, but for the police to then have to spend precious time arresting hundreds of protesters with placards is clearly not ideal. It may seem morally dubious on behalf of those protesters, but I think we can all agree that they are a far cry from the archetypal terrorist supporters of, say, ISIS or the Taliban. Most importantly, it is a waste of police time to have to deal with sanctimonious protesters who otherwise peacefully support a general ideological cause. That is why we entirely support the noble Lord’s amendment. Our Amendment 371B introduces a minor change to the drafting that reflects our belief that the proscription of groups in this category should not be contingent on whether they fulfil the criteria of both subsections (1A) and (1B). Individually, the actions in both subsections should merit a protest group being proscribed and prohibited from taking further action.

If a listed crime is committed that creates a serious risk to the safety of the public, then the line is crossed from dissent to danger. I think noble Lords can agree that whether a group is for an ideological end or not, this should merit proscription. The very act of a group entering an arms factory with sledgehammers should preclude its existence, regardless of motive. That said, ideological motive is also a factor that should be considered in its own right: if a group shuns peaceful protest and becomes willing to commit criminal offences to further a political end, that should be grounds to ban it. Take, for example, BASH BACK, the activist group which has consistently engaged in criminal damage, vandalism and intimidation in the name of so-called transgender rights. To take one example—as I am sure my noble friend Lady Cash will highlight—it recently spray-painted the office building of the Equality and Human Rights Commission for simply declaring that biological sex is biological sex.

This vandalism is an offence under Section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 and should result in a group being proscribed. I am, however, wary that spray painting and other forms of vandalism may not be seen to create a risk of serious harm to public safety, and I am not confident that, with the right lawyers, the actions of these groups would result in them being proscribed, because of a technicality. Criminality alone introduces the possibility of restricting the practice of a protest group. Whether this is augmented by either a risk to public safety or by an intention to influence political decision-making should confirm that decision.

That being said, I reaffirm my support for the noble Lord’s original amendment. It is a pertinent time for this debate, and I believe that Amendment 371A finds the right balance between prohibiting criminal activity and permitting peaceful support. I hope all Members of your Lordships’ House can recognise the rationale for moving away from a rigid binary between terrorism and protest and acknowledge that it is a spectrum that will benefit from more nuance. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition will support this amendment, and I look forward to hearing the closing remarks of the Minister and of the noble Lord, Lord Walney.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 371A from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. As the noble Lord mentioned, the House will be very familiar with the problems that have arisen from the use of the power that the Secretary of State has to proscribe a terrorist group. The virtue of Amendment 371A is that it avoids any such description. It focuses on the severe mischief that we know certain groups are causing in our society.

Who could object to the Secretary of State having a power, by regulation, to designate a group as an extreme criminal protest group if there is a reasonable belief that its purpose and practice is the deliberate commission of the serious offences set out in this amendment: riot, violent disorder, destroying or damaging property, and interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure? Surely the Secretary of State should have power to take action, particularly when, as the amendment requires, those offences are carried out with the intention of influencing public policy, parliamentary debate, ministerial decision-making or the exercise of democratic functions, and they create a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions or the rights of others.

We all support the right to protest, but there are limits, and these clearly are breached by deliberate conduct the purpose of which is to act in the way set out in the tightly drawn amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. As he has pointed out, he has avoided in his drafting the real problem that has arisen in the Palestine Action case: that people are criminalised by reason of support for that body. That has caused problems. The Court of Appeal case is pending, but this amendment avoids those difficulties.

So I support this. I hope the Minister will not tell the House that this is not the time and that we should wait in particular for the report of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. I too have the highest regard for him, but we should bear in mind that, with this Bill, the Government have not waited for his report in a number of provisions relating to public order, particularly and rightly on cumulative disruption. So I say to the House: let us deal with this. This is a legislative opportunity; it is a pressing problem, and we should deal with it now.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, for the reasons given by the noble Lords, Lord Walney and Lord Pannick, I strongly support this amendment.

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 419. It is rare for an amendment to succeed before it has even been moved, but so it appears to be in the case of this amendment, which would compel the Government to publish a counterextremism strategy. In Committee, I tabled a similar amendment, to which the Minister gave what was, in essence, a holding reply. I then obtained a Question for Short Debate on the same subject, to which the Minister again gave a holding reply. But it is third time lucky, for today, on the very day of this debate, the Government have published a counterextremism strategy—or rather a cohesion strategy of which counterextremism is a part—which I believe is being announced in the other place as I speak. So the timing appears to show, if nothing else, the power of your Lordships’ House. In saying so, I make no complaint: for the Government to publish a strategy at all is at least a start. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Walney, who co-signed this amendment, as well as the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, our own Front Bench and other noble Lords who spoke in Committee.

The strategy will be carefully studied during the weeks ahead, and it is worth reiterating at the start the point that only part of it concerns counterextremism. It appears to contain, as one might expect, the good, the not quite so good and the indifferent. The good, for example, includes further action to bar preachers from abroad who incite violence in mosques. The not so good includes, to give the same kind of example, no specific action that I can see against preachers in this country who incite violence in mosques—I draw the attention of those who doubt this happens to the evidence regularly published on X by the activist, habibi.

As for the indifferent, there is the proposed special representative for anti-Muslim hostility. Some wanted a fully-fledged definition of “Islamophobia” claiming a basis in racism. Others wanted no definition at all. What we have is a halfway house, and I suspect it will satisfy no one. On the one hand, initiatives with faith communities, such as Inter Faith Week, are welcome—assuming that the Government and others know whom they are engaging with, funding or giving platforms to—and, on the other, plans to crack down on hate crimes, in the strategy’s own words, are problematic. The distinction between inciting violence and defending free speech is difficult to draw, but it is vital.

But on balance I want to, in the words of the old song, accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. It is welcome that the strategy confirms the last Government’s definition of “extremism”, which, though not perfect, identifies its core characteristic: ideologies that aim to

“undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights”.

It is also welcome that the strategy recognises clearly and unequivocally that, although Islamist extremism is very far from being the only challenge of this kind, it is the predominant form, responsible for three-quarters of the workload of Contest and 94% of all terror-related deaths in the past 25 years. The challenges we must confront are terrorism at worst and balkanisation at best, with our United Kingdom divided up in living practice, if not constitutional fact, into ethnic and religious enclaves. The precedent of Northern Ireland during the Troubles is not encouraging, and I am sure that none of us want to see that.

So, if the strategy is to work, much will hinge on a single word: implementation. Can the Government see the best of it through? If the strategy is to be coherent—applied to out-of-school settings, schools, universities, the NHS, prisons, police, charities, civil society and government itself—three essentials are required. The first is clarity, authority, and strength at the centre. The way our governmental system works, for better or worse, is that, until or unless No. 10 wants something to happen, it will not happen, and even then it may not. The strategy proposes a new interministerial working group and regular reporting to the Prime Minister. This is an admirable aim, but I fear it will not cut the mustard. What is required, rather, is a Cabinet Minister—the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster or perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister—who is charged with responsibility for delivering the strategy and who speaks and acts with the Prime Minister’s authority. I regret, in passing, the apparent non-replacement of Robin Simcox as the Commissioner for Countering Extremism.

Secondly, the strategy needs to work not only at the centre of government but throughout the country, in civil society and local communities. The closer the state is to local communities, the easier it is, in pursuit of a quiet life, to engage with, fund and work with extremists. If noble Lords want an example, they need look no further than the horrifying recent developments in Birmingham, where the West Midlands Police bowed to an extremist mob over a football game, conjured up evidence that does not exist to justify its decision and then, in the words of Nick Timothy, “lied and lied again” about its actions, including to Parliament. Three of the eight mosques that the West Midlands Police consulted over its decision had hosted preachers who promoted conspiracy theories or called for the death of Jews. I am a localist by temperament, but I suspect that Westminster and Whitehall will need strong powers of intervention.

18:45

Finally, national government, the public sector and local government will require a level of political and religious literacy that does not necessarily come easily, and it is again welcome that the strategy recognises this fact. If, for example, members of a crowd begin to chant during a demonstration, “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud. Jaish Muhammad soufa ya’oud”, local police need to understand what the chant means and the threat it makes. Most of us do not speak Arabic, are not Muslims, do not study political thought, may have no sympathy with religion in any event, and may simply and mistakenly identify Islam the ancient faith with Islamism the modern ideology.

The Islamists and the far right have a common interest in presenting Islamism falsely as the historical and living mainstream worldwide. The far right do it to target Muslims; the Islamists do it to recruit their children. Religious solutions to that last challenge lie in the hands of the traditional classical Islam, not the state. But government must at least know whom it is dealing with, act accordingly, protect members of all faiths and none, and actively work for the one-nation ideal. The strategy offers at least a glimpse of it, so I will not, when the time comes, seek to test the opinion of the House on my amendment. I welcome the strategy’s publication, but now the real work begins.

[Lord Goldsmith (Lab)]

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 371A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, and I will say a word about it, because it is a bit of an unusual event for me to do that. But I will take also this opportunity to say something about the amendment to that amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower.

I have, in essence, two reasons for supporting the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. Obviously, he did it from a position of great knowledge and experience in these areas, and I therefore take what he says and proposes very seriously. The first reason is that he is suggesting that particular conduct should be illegal—and can it be doubted that it should be? The constituent elements of this would be serious crime being promoted deliberately for the purpose of persuading of a particular political point of view; activities that create a “risk of serious harm” to public safety, democratic institutions or the rights of others; and that it should be for Parliament, on the application of the Secretary of State, to determine whether a particular group satisfies those requirements. That makes it, in my view, right for it to be unlawful, without having to go through the difficulties—referred to already by noble Lords—of proscribing an organisation as terrorist. I am not expressing any view on that; I actually supported what the Government did, but it is now for the courts to make their determinations, and I do not want to say anything that might suggest otherwise.

This amendment, if it were the law, would make it very clear that, in a limited category of case, where these requirements are met, it would be undoubtedly illegal without having to have issues. There are safeguards there: Parliament has to be involved in that. Secondly, it is clear that it is not proscription as terrorism: that is stated clearly in the amendment. Thirdly, all these elements need to be satisfied. That is why I come back to Amendment 371B from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. I do not support that because it would have the effect of diluting the requirements by making it possible for this to be an offence, even though one of the conditions described in his amendment as conditions 2 and 3 was not met. So, for example, it would mean that, even though the activities do not create a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions or the rights of others, it would be an offence. That goes too far for me, which is why I would not support his Amendment 371A.

The other issue that will be raised—I am sure that it will be raised by my noble friend the Minister, whom I thank for seeing me, too, to discuss the amendment—is the timing. I, too, have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven; he and I worked very closely together when we were in government, when he was the Director of Public Prosecutions, and I look forward very much to what he has to say. But I am troubled. It will take some time, and there will then have to be a decision by government as to whether it accepts the recommendations. There will then need to be legislative time—and one thing I remember very well from government is the issue of finding legislative time. We have a vehicle here. If this is the right thing to do, this is a moment when it can be done. That is why I regret to say to my noble friend that I support this amendment and I have added my name to it.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 419 in support of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and the other signatories. It calls for a counterextremism strategy to be published annually. I am also in support of the gist of all the amendments in this group, which are trying to plug the gap in the law exposed by the unwillingness to follow through on the proscription of Palestine Action, in so far as its supporters may be labelled terrorists, but recognises that the activists are carrying out acts of terror, as the court said, that damage the public and our infrastructure.

The Government will no doubt say that they have a strategy, newly issued as Protecting What Matters. At a time of tension, starting long before the current war with Iran but exacerbated by it, the Government have to confront real threats, exemplified, inter alia, by the arrest of four men suspected of working for Iran and being involved in threats to the safety of our community. There have been more than a dozen Iranian-backed attempts at kidnap and murder of our citizens in the last few years, with no doubt more to come. We are talking about matters of life and death.

The Government’s report allegedly identifies Islamist extremism as responsible for most of the terror-related deaths in the past 25 years—and it is good to see the Government saying what is sometimes deemed unspeakable. The Government are also right to resist any attempt to introduce a blasphemy law into Britain. We recall the innocent Batley grammar school teacher still in hiding, simply because he was being a professional teacher. Fortunately, Hamit Coskun was acquitted after burning a Koran: a nasty act, but not one deserving of special punishment. We remain committed to freedom of speech, no matter how rude, and it is not to be silenced by others who find it offensive in their view.

However, I see some blurring of responsibility in the Government’s document, as I saw it reported, when it comes to tackling Islamism. What is the difference between that ideology and Islam in general? Is there not a sliding scale from, at the extreme end, wanting to cover the country with sharia law at the expense of secular law, and at the other going on to be more motivated by what one’s religion might demand, supposedly, than by the law of the land? Continuing on the blurring theme, if the Government’s strategy requires the appointment of an anti-Muslim hostility tsar, this is moving away from equal treatment and leaving the door ajar for unquestioned extremism. The definition of anti-Muslim hatred takes us into the realm of policing offence and dilutes the need to call out extremism and danger if perceived. If divisive content is to be regulated, who determines that, save the noise and outrage from those who feel they are being attacked, again risking muzzling dissent and free speech?

The government report, I fear, is inadequate in protecting the Jewish community. Jews do not count. We number precisely 0.4% of the population. But Jews, young and old, are under threat and confront hatred every day in the streets, in schools, in hospitals, in the arts and online. I welcome the Government’s decision to set up a commission to inquire into antisemitism in schools, but it is slow. Antisemitism today is disguised as anti-Zionism, as the late Lord Sachs pointed out. We see right through that. There is no hatred based on, say, China’s treatment of minorities, or Russia’s, or African states’ treatment of Christians. Jews are singled out. The policing of hate marches and vandalism in the name of politics must be strengthened, and it is not going too far to say that the Jewish community’s trust in the police and the BBC is faltering. The law must set out police powers in this respect, and vandalism, even in the name of politics, must be severely punished. To see the statue of Churchill defaced tells you all you need to know about countering extremism. How much worse it will be if ever there is a start on building a huge, brutal Holocaust memorial next to Parliament.

There is more complication to come. It is reported that the noble Lord, Lord Walney, who deserves the utmost admiration of this House in his standing up to terror and extremism and the defence of our values and freedom, is to issue a report, Undue Influence, which blows the Government’s document out of the water. The noble Lord allegedly reports that there are 30 or so charities linked to Iran that maintain influence here and plot attacks against dissidents and the Jewish community. Some of them are already under the too-slow investigation of the Charity Commission, though it is not its fault, which has called for greater powers. Most chillingly, the noble Lord suggests that there is a reluctance to call them out for fear of being labelled Islamophobic, a fear that might only become worse if the Government’s strategy of tackling what they see as Muslim hatred is put into place. That would muffle still further any attempt to expose what might be going on by way of extreme risk.

On the one hand, the noble Lord, Lord Walney, warns that fear of being labelled racist has stultified the tackling of Iran-linked organisations, while, on the other hand, the Government want the anti-Muslim hatred tsar to protect Muslims from hate and discrimination. The noble Lord calls for more assertive regulation, but the Government want a cohesion strategy that plays down the danger and reassures Muslim communities. The Government’s proposals, as I read them, would increase the fear of being labelled racist or Islamophobic. It would make regulators more cautious and be weaponised by hostile activists to deflect attention away from their plans. The Government’s tsar must be completely limited, if it comes about, to hate crime: regulation should disregard religion and focus on criminal behaviour. A line must be drawn between domestic problems and the influence of Iran and other hostile states. Criticism must not be silenced.

In considering its balancing act, the Government must weigh, on the one hand, the atrocities committed by Islamists in, inter alia, the Manchester Arena, London Bridge, Westminster Bridge, the Underground, the Lee Rigby murder, Glasgow Airport, Heaton Park—and there are other incidents—and the risk, on the other hand, of not allowing the identification of further such calamities for fear of Islamophobia. The Government need to draw up a new strategy that protects Muslims at home from discrimination but does not create an atmosphere that allows hostile organisations to cry Islamophobia when their activities are under scrutiny for fear of terrorism. It is a difficult task, which is why the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and I and the other signatories of this amendment are asking the Government to accept this amendment and move forward.

19:00

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 371A from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, because it addresses a difficult area—something that falls short of terrorism and which causes problems for legislators, policing and the courts. Terrorism is fairly well understood. It is the application or the threat of violence for a political purpose; it is easily stated. In this case, it seems to me that there are some indications that there might be a gap. It is not the first time we have been confronted by this problem. Before terrorism was defined—probably by the terrorism which started in Northern Ireland—in the 1930s, we saw that people were parading on the streets for political motives, so legislation had to be introduced on uniforms and various other things that indicated that people were trying to use violence or political aspirations to influence the Government.

It seems that the gap that has evolved is around Palestine Action. There are probably three indicators of a need for a solution to a gap that has developed. First, we have had a criminal case in which a police officer was hit by someone with a hammer, and the people who appeared to have been involved have been found not guilty. That case has been appealed, but that one issue has obviously caused some concern for everybody affected—the police, in part, but mainly the businesses being attacked by this group. The second case is a civil case, which is already—

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

May I just correct the noble Lord? In that case, what happened was that the jury could not agree and there is a retrial of those serious criminal allegations.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

That is quite right, and thank you for that correction, although, clearly, they were not found guilty.

Secondly, the civil case is about prohibition. The High Court has decided that it does not prefer the Government’s judgment that Palestine Action should be a proscribed group. I find that constitutionally quite odd. I understand that sometimes, the court will come to a different opinion on legislation, but it seems to me that the Government, faced with the best information possible, have concluded that it should be proscribed, and the court has decided that that is not proportionate. Whatever the outcome on appeal—which the noble Lord, Lord Walney, has alluded to and we will hear eventually—this needs to be resolved quickly because it is hard to understand.

Both cases might indicate that there were some doubts about the proscription of this group. Most of the time, terrorist groups are obvious. Terrorism is mass and indiscriminate violence that murders tens of people. We see it and it is very obvious. In this case I did wonder, but sometimes governments have information that the rest of us do not. One of the other signs, which has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, was that, when support began to be expressed for a proscribed group, people then said, “This is quite odd; why are we arresting them?” They did not have the same qualms about Irish terrorism or about ISIS when they were beheading citizens of this country. It indicates that, perhaps, there is something different about this group. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, has identified a reasonable solution to that gap. Conspiracy alone is not a sufficient answer. It is possible to charge someone with conspiracy to commit a violent act or conspiracy to riot, but you cannot prosecute people who might fund that conspiracy. This amendment would start to address the protest group and the way it is funded and supported.

My final point—quite narrowly defined in this sense—is that this is about the intent to cause serious harm to public safety or to affect public policy and democracy. Both are substantial bars to pass before somebody could be convicted of this offence. The Government ought seriously to consider filling the gap with this amendment, or, if they do not, with something very much like it.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 371A, 419 and 441B, to which I have added my name. It is clear that attacking a police officer with a sledgehammer or breaking into an RAF base and damaging two planes, causing £7 million-worth of damage, is not a peaceful protest. Amendment 371A rightly targets that grey area between ordinary protest groups and groups that cross the threshold to be proscribed under terrorism law. These are groups whose purpose and practice involves the deliberate commission of criminal damage, riot, violent disorder and interference with national infrastructure.

When groups are legislated against, often, splinter groups form and these groups are left to fester. Amendment 371A would give greater power to the Secretary of State to deal with extremism at its root, rather than waiting for it to grow and meet the terrorist threshold. By this point, it becomes too late and the harms, which are sometimes irreparable, may have already occurred. Responsible governance means intervening before that point is reached. For those reasons, I support this amendment. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for his tenacity and I support his amendment.

Often, our approach has been far too reactive, notwithstanding the announcement being made in the other place. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, the Jewish community in this country knows all too well how rhetoric and ideological radicalisation can create a climate of fear. Between 2024 and 2025, at least 10 and probably more terrorism cases against British Jews or UK-based Israeli interests were uncovered. These plots were foiled thanks to the extraordinary work of the counterterrorism police and the Community Security Trust.

We have created an environment where extremism is allowed to grow unchallenged. Are we just going to wait until there is another attack on a synagogue or a credible plot against a Jewish school? At that point, it is too late. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, recognises that extremism rarely appears suddenly; it develops gradually through networks, narratives and campaigns that legitimise hostility. Left unchallenged, these dynamics can become embedded in communities and online spaces, creating an environment where more serious forms of criminality or even terrorism become more likely. Amendment 419 is about ensuring that our response to extremism is enduring, co-ordinated and strategic. Above all, it is about ensuring that the Government are equipped with the tools and the institutional framework necessary to address extremism before it escalates into violence.

Finally, Amendment 441B in this group, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Walney, and the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, seeks to ensure that organisations which promote or support criminal conduct or which attempt to subvert the constitutional integrity or democratic institutions of the United Kingdom are prohibited from receiving public funds. Such a safeguard is well overdue. It would ensure that taxpayers’ money cannot, whether deliberately or inadvertently, support organisations whose activities threaten public safety or the foundations of our democracy. Public funds should strengthen society, not subsidise those who seek to destabilise it.

It remains far too difficult to challenge organisations that continue to receive public support despite clear evidence that their leaders promote extremist ideologies, including those who openly aspire to replace democratic governments with a religious caliphate. This loophole allows public money to reach bodies fundamentally at odds with our democratic principles. This amendment would close that unacceptable gap. It would protect public funds from misuse and send an unequivocal message that any attempt to undermine the democratic institutions of the United Kingdom should not and will not be tolerated.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Walney, Lord Pannick and Lord Hogan-Howe, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for listening in Committee. Reservations were raised, and it is refreshing and unusual to have an amendment brought back that tries to take into account some of the issues that were raised in good faith. The fact that the amendment has now been posed as not unduly undermining freedom of speech or association and does not criminalise expressions of support is very useful. That it is so much narrower in scope makes it much more something I support—not that everyone has been waiting for that point, but none the less.

More seriously, the pre-proscription point is really important. My dread is that what has happened with Palestine Action, without getting into the court case, has discredited what proscription is about and watered down what people think terrorism is. These much more granular attempts at making distinctions are so important.

However, we need to acknowledge the dangers in what we mean by “extremism” in relation to this whole group of amendments, especially today, when the Government’s pronouncements on anti-extremism are coming out. We should acknowledge that those who hold the pen on any legal definition of extremism acquire extraordinary powers to curtail free speech, criminalise people and so on. It makes this a difficult issue. In a democratic, pluralist society there is invariably a wide range of beliefs and opinions that can be dubbed extremist. That means we have some potholes to negotiate, as it can lead to partisan, subjective or political labelling of dissenting views that can be dubbed extremist.

I raise that because it is not straightforward. We might think that we all know what we mean by “extremist”. I have agreed with all the examples I have heard today—I have thought, “I don’t like them either—I’ll dub them extremist”. The problem is when it is used a bit more promiscuously. If the definition is “something that completely undermines democratic norms and values”, up until recently I would have thought that anyone attacking the democratic norm of the key legal protection traditionally afforded to due process, which has gone on for hundreds of years, was an extremist, but now we have a Government pushing to abolish jury trials and I am meant to accept it as straightforward.

[Lord Goldsmith (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for recognising what has been done in this amendment, but it does not actually talk about extremism. It talks about “extreme criminal protest groups”. It may reassure her that the definition does not depend on the views being put forward being extremist but the actions and particular conduct—riot and so forth. I offer that to reassure her on the point she is making, which otherwise I am listening to very carefully.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for that clarity. That is true for that amendment. I was going on to talk about why I am sympathetic to Amendment 419, which calls on the Government to publish a counterextremism strategy, while recognising that, when we do so, we must acknowledge that this is a difficult area. Amendment 371A has carefully avoided being about views and opinions, but not all the amendments in this group do. We have to be very careful when we talk about extremism.

On Amendment 419, one should congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, on his persistence, as has been said. I like the amendment because it calls for a review to be published annually. The announcement today that there is a strategy does not make this amendment irrelevant, because we need to carry on updating and looking carefully at what we mean by this. Laying that before Parliament seems important. On the pre-emption of the new social cohesion document, Protecting What Matters, it is certainly being posed as an anti-extremism strategy but is likely to get into all sorts of difficulties precisely because of this uncertainty about what we mean by extremism, beyond the controversy over the special representative on anti-Muslim hostility.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has talked about the difficulties there. I am very anxious about it. I have been contacted since the announcement by people working on the grooming gangs who are worried that they would not be able to raise the issue with this definition—even though they are not quite sure what it is yet, so fair enough—as well as academics working on cousin marriage and so on. There has been some enthusiasm in certain quarters, saying that we should now name and shame all the media organisations dominated by anti-Muslim hatred. You can already see supporters of this new definition, such as it is, gearing up to start pointing fingers and they have started naming names. It is fair enough, but with this leaked document saying that national symbols such as the union flag can be a tool of hate used to intimidate and exclude, that it is an extremist symbol and so on, you can see why people would be anxious.

19:15

Apparently, in the document we are asking universities to manage external speakers to ensure that we keep out extremists. I am not sure I want university managers, who tend to be on the progressive side, deciding who the extremists are—especially on a day when we have just heard that 27 UK university Islamic societies, including at UCL, Imperial, Bristol, Leeds, Warwick, Cambridge and all sorts of places, have had memorials to Iran’s Supreme Leader. It is not the external speakers, but what is happening in the universities. We think about Professor Michael Ben-Gad, an economics lecturer who has been called an extremist by his own students because he was in the IDF, and been threatened with beheading, or the Jewish chaplain at the University of Leeds whose wife and two children, only a couple of years ago, were forced into hiding. The university authorities let all that happen.

I am simply raising the point that, although the strategy is out and we have a group of amendments where we all think we know what we mean by extremism, it is not that easy and this strategy will not solve all the problems. Therefore, I support the call for an annual discussion of where we are at with extremism; we should be having a much more open and full discussion, not just in Parliament but with the public, rather than treating them as the problem—the extremists, who need to be managed and policed—about the problems we are trying to solve.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Goodman and the noble Lord, Lord Walney, but I would also like to see highlighted in any reports coming forward the increasing attacks on Hindu and Sikh communities. They are not being reported widely, but unfortunately they are on the increase, and we are having worrying discussions internally on how to deal with them.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as director of the Free Speech Union. I too share the reservations of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, about the Government’s decision today to publish an official definition of anti-Muslim hostility and to appoint a tsar to ensure that it is observed. There are already adequate protections in the law for people of all faiths; I am thinking in particular of the proscription of the stirring up of religious hatred in the Public Order Act 1986 and the proscription of discrimination by employers on religious grounds of employees, applicants to jobs or service providers.

I am not persuaded that Muslims need particular protections over and above those that all faith groups are granted under the law. I am not convinced that in a city such as Leicester, for instance, publishing a definition of anti-Muslim hostility but not anti-Hindu hostility will allay rather than exacerbate community tensions. I hope there will be an opportunity for your Lordships’ House to opine on the entire action plan unveiled today when the House discusses the Statement in due course.

I do, however, support the amendment 371A from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. There are some extreme criminal protest groups who do not deserve the kind of free speech protections that other groups deserve, precisely because they use their free speech and right to protest to bully, intimidate and threaten those they seek to silence.

The Free Speech Union was itself the victim of an extreme criminal protest group that my noble friend referred to while speaking to this amendment and the supplementary amendment: Bash Back. It stole some data from the Free Speech Union’s website in a cyber attack, including the details of some small donors, some of whom had donated to some extremely sensitive crowdfunding campaigns in the expectation that they were doing so privately. That data, however, was stolen and published on Bash Back’s website. That was designed not only to silence those with whom it disagrees but to intimidate, bully and threaten an organisation that is simply defending the right to speak of those that Bash Back disagrees with.

Therefore, I think there are circumstances in which the Home Secretary should have the power to designate and proscribe certain extreme criminal protest groups. This more nuanced measure, particularly with the supplementary amendment, is a more attractive alternative to the present arrangement. In addition to defending a wide variety of people who have not broken the law, the Free Speech Union is currently engaged in defending a Palestine Action protester who was arrested and has been charged just for expressing support for Palestine Action by holding up a sign saying, “I support Palestine Action”. It is very difficult to defend the prosecution of people who merely express support for what I would think of as an extreme criminal protest group, not a terrorist group.

I therefore urge your Lordships to support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, as it creates a degree of nuance, and I believe that proscribing groups that deserve to be proscribed without also making it a criminal offence to express support for those groups is a welcome compromise.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, despite having some hesitation about it, we are broadly support of Amendment 371A from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. The concept of the new category of extreme criminal protest groups that are not proscribed has real merit and is plainly an attempt to plug an uncomfortable gap. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Walney, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that unlawfulness is at the heart of this amendment. The amendment states that the group must have

“as its purpose and practice the deliberate commission of”

one of a series of serious offences, and that

“such offences are carried out with the intention of influencing public policy, parliamentary debate, ministerial decision-making, or the exercise of democratic functions”,

and that,

“the activities … create a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions, or the rights of others”.

Those provisions make it clear that extreme criminal protest groups are well named. The provisions as a whole would also make it clear, however, that it is not appropriate for proscription of those groups whereby any support for the groups is made a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act.

If the amendment would avoid the prosecution of peaceful protesters for peaceable support of groups that could be branded terrorist under the Terrorist Act, we could support it unconditionally because there would then be a hierarchy of offences. At the top of the tree would be offences under the Terrorism Act, and then the treatment of groups which qualified as extreme criminal protest groups under the Walney amendment. But the Government have not committed and would not commit—and I do not suppose they will at this stage commit—to end prosecutions for peaceable protesters under the Terrorism Act. That may change after the Macdonald review, or it may change if the Government’s appeal against the High Court’s decision in relation to Palestine Action is unsuccessful. However, our position is that it would be helpful to have a middle course, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, pointed out in very sensible terms. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, articulated the same point very well, but in a different way.

The problem we see with the amendment is that it does not affect the Terrorism Act, and there would remain the potential for prosecution of peaceful protesters under that Act as the law stands. So we have decided, with some hesitation, that it is probably sensible to await the Macdonald review. I accept that I am making that point in the face of the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that we should not be asking for any legislation along the lines of the Walney amendment to wait at all. Of course, there is the problem that not accepting this amendment would leave us with the limited choice of the Terrorism Act or nothing, and that is a very unfortunate position to be in.

We have some concerns about the drafting of the amendment, and they are not minimal. Under proposed subsection (3)(b),

“promotion of a designated ECPG, including public advocacy, recruitment, or dissemination of the group’s materials”

would be an offence. Would subsection (3)(b) cover handing out leaflets or carrying posters or flags in a peaceable way? In proposed subsection (3)(e),

“providing material support, training, funds or equipment to the group where the person knows or ought reasonably to know that the recipient is a designated ECPG”

suggests that the level of knowledge required is very low. What is material support? What would count as equipment? Would posters, flags or banners count as equipment? It would be considerably worrying if the answer to those questions was positive.

In sum, we are broadly supportive and believe that there should be a middle category, but we are concerned about the amendment as it stands. The Government should be seriously considering their position between now and Third Reading; they should listen to the very strong feeling in the House that something is needed in the way of a middle course that would prevent these prosecutions for peaceable protest and support under the Terrorism Act. They should then come back to the House at Third Reading with an amendment that could answer the criticisms and gain widespread support.

Finally, we have considerable sympathy with Amendment 419 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which calls for the publication of a counterextremism strategy.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. Noble Lords have spoken of the effects that these groups can have when they go unchecked, and I think that the whole House has benefited from listening to these anecdotes. We cannot stand for a society in which violent, insurrectionary behaviour is normalised. Groups such as Palestine Action or Bash Back should not be allowed to exist given their past actions, and this amendment provides for that. That said, their supporters are not advocates of general terrorist activities and, while they support morally dubious causes, requiring their arrest for standing outside with a placard is a monumental waste of police time.

For similar reasons, I also support Amendment 419, tabled by my noble friend Lord Goodman. His is a very simple amendment, which merely asks the Government to publish a counterextremism strategy, given the ever-increasing extent of political extremism and its encouragement in some quarters. Amendment 371A strikes a balance. It adds nuance to a category of offences that desperately needs it, and we wholly support its intent. I hope that the Minister will agree. I am happy to withdraw my Amendment 371B and, should the noble Lord, Lord Walney, wish to divide the House, we will support him.

Amendment 371B (to Amendment 371A) withdrawn.

19:30

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

A lot has been discussed this evening, and I will try to respond to the amendments as best I can. I welcome the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Walney, has moved his amendment. I had a chance to talk to him earlier online; he has arrived on time, and I am pleased he is here to move it. He has had support from across the House, including from the noble Lords, Lord Polak, Lord Pannick and, in part, Lord Davies, and my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, and I thank him for his amendment. Other noble Lords and Baronesses have spoken in favour of the legislation, and I note the comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Deech and Lady Verma, and, in the context of this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. I will come to the separate amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, in due course.

The nub of the argument is that Amendment 371A shows that there is an impact of sustained criminal activity, including serious incidents involving damage to property, intimidation and risks to public safety, and it should be dealt with as an interim measure between proscription and criminal damage legislation as a whole. I outlined to the noble Lord, Lord Walney, in a recent letter that the Public Order Act 1986 grants police powers to manage protests by imposing conditions, and looks at those it is necessary to place on protests, including location, route and date. I also pointed out to the noble Lords, Lord Walney and Lord Pannick, and my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, whom I also met today, that the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, is currently undertaking an independent review of public order and hate crime legislation, which will cover whether existing legislation is effective and proportionate. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, acknowledged that the review, which will report later in the spring, will discuss and give some potential framework to the existing legislation. Also, the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, the action we have taken on Palestine Action under the 2000 Act, the work of Prevent and the protest legislation in the Bill are all measures that deal with similar issues to those the noble Lord, Lord Walney, has brought forward.

To come to the nub of the problem, which I hope noble Lords will accept, I understand that there are a range of views on the amendment, and I may find myself in a minority on this if it goes to a Division, which I hope it will not. When I look at the amendment itself, if there was such a tool as that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, below the threshold in the Terrorism Act 2000, it would not have stopped the Government proscribing Palestine Action under the 2000 Act. The assessment was made that Palestine Action passed the statutory test for proscription at that time. As noble Lords will be aware, although there is a Court of Appeal hearing on Palestine Action, the High Court agreed in its first consideration that Palestine Action had organised and undertaken actions amounting to terrorism. A case is pending that will be reviewed and the Government will have to respond to it in due course.

However, I would argue that, at present, we have the tools in existing public order and related legislation to tackle the type of criminality that the noble Lord, Lord Walney, mentioned. We are significantly upscaling our efforts on counterextremism as a whole. Groups that meet the Terrorism Act threshold, and individuals acting on their behalf or in support of them, will be dealt with under existing proscription powers. Where groups do not meet the threshold for proscription, we will continue to assess the activities of organisations against our legal frameworks and existing legislation. If there is evidence of purposeful actions that are potentially radicalising others into terrorism or violence, proportionate action will be taken. I have mentioned already things such as Prevent, the protest legislation and other measures. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, will review those matters in due course.

To answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and others, that the Government have brought forward legislation, we have commissioned the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, to undertake a review, but the amendments we have brought forward are in response to urgent matters that we felt we needed to tackle. I have tabled those in relation to protest legislation to ensure that we manage difficult challenges by putting forward legislation on, for example, protests, marches and giving the police powers. I suggest to the noble Lords, Lord Walney and Lord Pannick, that it is something we should take our time to consider. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, is bringing forward his review shortly, in the spring. This amendment, whether in its original form or as amended by Amendment 371B put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, effectively seeks to create a parallel regime to that in the Terrorism Act, which the Government believe is not necessary and risks unjustified interference with rights to free speech and freedom of association. The Government must be able to protect our citizens from the harm of extremism, violence and hatred but, in doing so, we must strike the right balance between protecting freedom of speech and tackling those who promote violence and hatred in our communities.

Amendment 441B, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, concerns access to public funds for organisations promoting or supporting criminal conduct. Again, I say to him that the Government provide funding to a huge range of organisations through grant schemes administered by departments and arm’s-length bodies across government. Any grants of public funds are subject to Treasury guidance set out in Managing Public Money, which looks at risk, control and assurances that grant controllers are required to take into account. Is the legislative route required?

Today, and this goes to the heart of amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, we have published the social cohesion action plan. A number of comments have been made about the issues in the plan, including by the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe. It was put on the website probably less than an hour ago and is many pages long. I simply ask that Members look at what is in it, its context and the things we are trying to challenge so that all communities, whatever their religion, can live their lives in freedom, and so that we have social cohesion in what is, and will remain, a multicultural society. The engagement principles will be updated so that public bodies do not confer legitimacy, funding or influence on extremist groups.

On Amendment 419, which would require the publication of a counterextremism strategy, the noble Lord said that he has raised it in Questions, in amendments in Committee and in Grand Committee in a special debate. We are looking at the issues he has raised; there will be further updates and reports on the matter, and I advise him to look at the social cohesion strategy—which, as I said, was produced within the past hour—in full.

Extremists often deliberately operate without meeting thresholds for criminal conduct and cannot be prosecuted for their actions. Despite this, this Government still have a responsibility to protect our citizens from the harm of extremism, violence and hatred. But in doing so, we still have to protect the balance between freedom of speech and tackling those who promote violence and hatred in our communities.

We have been very clear in our approach to counterterrorism and counterextremism. We have an overarching counterterrorism strategy, an approach that ensures counterextremism efforts are focused on the highest harm threats, in direct support of our core counterterrorism and wider security mission. The local social cohesion strategy, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in the past hour following a Statement in the House of Commons—which I suspect will be repeated here shortly—is trying to marry those things together to provide social cohesion. I hope that answers the points from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, on those issues.

Finally, with Prevent, Contest and the definitions of extremism we have examined, set out by the previous Government in 2024, we believe there are strong mechanisms to tackle extremism while ensuring we support all members of our society. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said that Jews do not count. I say to her, genuinely, that everybody in society counts; everybody has a right to protection; and everybody has a right to live their lives free from persecution, harassment, terrorist activity and extremism. I felt genuinely sorry when she said that phrase. We are trying to support all members of our community, particularly the Jewish community. If she looks at the measures in the Bill, she will see they have been driven by allowing people to express their religion and for them not to be harassed or put into a box by people on marches and protests on a regular basis. That is what we are trying to do.

I understand where the noble Lord, Lord Walney, is coming from, but I wish for him to withdraw and not to push his amendment. We have a framework in place to deal with criminal activity and those organisations that cross the terrorism threshold, and to ensure through the social cohesion strategy that all members of our community have the right to live a free life in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent and thoughtful debate, and I have been touched by the kind words and expressions of support from nearly all sides of the House. I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said, and I hope he knows how much I respect the work that he and the Government do, but on this occasion I am not convinced by his central assertion that the framework exists and is working.

The Minister raised the issue of Palestine Action, as so many have done across the Chamber today. It is indeed looming large over this discussion. Whether or not you take the view that the Government were right in proscribing Palestine Action, the fact that it took five years of this organisation committing criminal damage in a sustained and organised way before it was deemed to have met the terrorism threshold—which is now obviously being challenged, and I hope the Government win on appeal—shows that there is a gap. This gap is not filled by the public order measures which are used to place conditions on marches, which the Minister has cited in response as to why the framework is working. That is a different thing.

I am really pleased—and it is really unusual—to get such a broad expression from, reductively, the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrat Benches on a difficult issue like this. It shows that it is proportionate. I quote in conclusion the words of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, back at him. He has—reluctantly, I would think—come to the view that he will abstain, but he made the point himself that not supporting this amendment leaves on the table a choice between the status quo of doing nothing, or full terrorism proscription. I really respect his view that he would like to see encouragement of proscribed terrorist organisations taken off. That is a complex question, but if I had opened that up in this amendment, the whole thing would probably have been subsumed.

Therefore, it is right that we push this particular narrow change to the legislation. The Government and the Minister’s concerns can be tightened up after this, when the Bill goes into ping-pong. Then, we can deal with the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, in the shortest order after that. With that all having been said, I would like to test the opinion of the House on this matter.

19:45

Division 3

Amendment 371A agreed.

Ayes: 200

Noes: 162

19:56

Schedule 14: Specified memorials

Amendment 372 not moved.

Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB

Moved by

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay]

372ZZA: Schedule 14, page 348, line 20, at end insert—
“24A Monument to the Women of World War II, Whitehall, London.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds the Monument to the Women of World War II to the list of war memorials in Part 1 of Schedule 14.

372ZZB: Schedule 14, page 348, line 27, at end insert—
“27 Holocaust Memorial Garden, Hyde Park, London.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds the Holocaust Memorial Garden to the list of memorials in Part 3 of Schedule 14.

Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB agreed.

Clause 139: Places of worship: restriction on protests

Amendments 372ZA to 372D not moved.

Clause 140: Public processions and assemblies: duty to take account of cumulative disruption

Amendment 373 not moved.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, this seems to be a convenient time to break for dinner break business. We will therefore not return to the Bill before 8.38 pm.

19:58

Consideration on Report adjourned until not before 8.38 pm.