Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made her point so ably that I was not tempted to speak, until I heard the counter-speech from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. It is simply ahistoric to suggest that the suffragettes—those protesters who everybody loves now but who were once incarcerated and tortured by the British state—

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

They went on hunger strike.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Indeed, they went on hunger strike. It is simply ahistoric to suggest there was not a significant clandestine element to their operations. I am sure that, if one were to examine other examples the noble Lord gave, one would find greater complexity than he offered us in his very glib comments about protest.

Just minutes ago in this Chamber, noble Lords from across the House expressed their horror at what has been happening in Iran. On any given day in your Lordships’ House, similar comments will be made about Hong Kong or protests anywhere else in the world. It is of concern that organisations that many of us respect, such as JUSTICE, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and so on, are now writing very concerning reports about silencing the streets of the UK.

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[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with and endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said about Bondi and the Manchester synagogue, because those terrible attacks were modern examples of the persecution and pogroms that Jewish communities have suffered for centuries. He was right to remind us about that.

I wish to speak to the amendments to Clause 124 tabled by my noble friend Lady Blower, to which I have added my name, and, most importantly, on my opposition to the new clause tabled as Amendment 372 by my noble friend the Minister. He has been a long-standing friend for decades, as a fellow Welsh MP and a valued member of my ministerial team when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest form the bedrock of any liberal democracy like our own. These rights are not a mere courtesy granted by the state; they are a fundamental part of British liberty, also enshrined by the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. These freedoms are deeply woven into our history, through iconic protest movements from the Tolpuddle Martyrs and Peterloo to the Chartists, the suffragettes and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Each of these causes, I stress, was disruptive—indeed, vilified—at the time, but they are now recognised as vital movements, successfully winning fundamental rights for millions of British citizens and others abroad. Yet that long tradition of assembly and free protest is now, sadly, under threat.

Any proposal that hands the police unprecedented powers to restrict this right should give this House and every British citizen serious cause for alarm. That is precisely why I find Clause 124 so worrying. First, it would allow protests to be banned and restricted in the so-called “vicinity” of places of religious worship, yet this House is being asked to legislate without clarity. As my noble friend Lady Blower said, “vicinity” is undefined; the term “may intimidate” is equally vague. Such imprecision invites arbitrary interpretation and risks handing law enforcement sweeping discretionary powers to curtail lawful protest. It may also put police officers in an impossible position when doing their jobs.

Secondly, let us be honest about the context here. Clause 124 does not arise in a vacuum. It is clearly framed as a response to national demonstrations in support of Palestinian rights, demonstrations that have been repeatedly and wrongly labelled as hate marches. These protests have never targeted places of worship; they never would and indeed never should. What is more, Jewish campaigners and organisations have been integral to many of those marches and, despite hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets, arrests have routinely been fewer than at most football matches. Indeed, the police themselves acknowledge that there has been no evidence of any threat to places of worship linked to these marches and, across more than 33 national demonstrations, not one has targeted or deliberately passed a synagogue.

Of course, the appalling antisemitic attack on a synagogue in Manchester and the Islamophobic attack on a mosque in Peacehaven remind us why our Jewish citizens and all religious communities must be properly protected, but surely Ministers must agree that those terrible attacks were entirely unrelated to protest. Crucially, the police already possess robust and extensive powers to safeguard places of worship and individuals under genuine threat. We must also ask: would these powers be applied to far-right mobilisations outside asylum hotels, where vulnerable refugee communities are explicitly targeted and intimidated, or is enforcement selective?

Clause 124 risks introducing political censorship through the backdoor. The right to worship freely and the right to protest peacefully are not competing freedoms; both must be upheld. This clause sets them against one another and, in doing so, weakens both. Existing powers have already been used repressively against campaigners and at great public cost. Clause 124 would further entrench that approach in law. For these reasons, I support the stand part notice tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Blower. I ask the Government to think again. If there is no such rethink and if it comes to it, I will vote against Clause 124.

The proposed new clause after Clause 124, although presented as a response to public inconvenience, poses a serious danger to freedom of speech and peaceful protest. Expanding the definition of serious disruption by introducing the concept of so-called “cumulative disruption”, it imposes a sweeping duty on the police to restrict or prohibit protests based not on their conduct but on their frequency or persistence in a particular area. Restricting protest simply because it disrupts daily life undermines the very mechanism that gives protest its power. It was precisely cumulative disruption over many years that made early trade unionists, the suffragettes and the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements so effective. No protest movement has ever brought about change through a single demonstration; it is through cumulative protests. To criminalise that principle is to hollow out that very right itself.

The new clause re-characterises protest as an inconvenience to be managed rather than a democratic right to be protected. Its language is dangerously broad. It fails to define when disruption becomes “cumulative”, over what timeframe this is to be assessed or how significant that disruption must be. Such elasticity gives the police sweeping powers to apply arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement, and creates a serious chilling effect on free expression. It would also allow the police to relocate protests to areas of minimal visibility or impact, permitting demonstrations for politically favourable causes in prominent locations while pushing unpopular dissent to the margins.

If this power had been statutorily available from 1969, when I was leading protests at Twickenham rugby stadium and Lord’s cricket ground, among many other sporting venues right across Britain, against touring apartheid all-white South African teams, surely they would have been blocked—thereby blocking the subsequent sports boycott almost universally imposed against whites-only sports tours from apartheid South Africa, which Nelson Mandela, among others, judged to have been decisive in bringing about the downfall of apartheid.

The term “area” is to be widely interpreted. Would restrictions be imposed on entire towns, or even the whole of central London? Non-violent disruption is often the only way that marginalised communities and civil rights protesters can make themselves heard by those who would otherwise ignore them. Neutral policing is a laudable objective, and I upheld that principle when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, but this new clause would make policing politically oppressive.

It is difficult to ignore the political context. The amendment follows sustained marches in support of Palestinian rights and in opposition to the war in Gaza. I have already opposed the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group—I am not going to rehash those arguments—because that proscription equates it with the appalling terrorism of al-Qaeda and Islamic State. For objecting to the shameful proscription, it is no surprise—to me, at least—that hundreds of peaceful protesters, including disabled people, the elderly, the young, retired vicars and magistrates, have been arrested as terrorists. Now there are protesters in prison on bail on hunger strike. If they die, that will be an even more shameful stain on this Government and this Parliament.

The new clause contained in government Amendment 372 risks compounding those injustices rather than correcting them. It is oppressive and unjust. Yet it will not just be marches for Palestinian rights that are affected; the impact will be much more wide-ranging. The amendment is also open to abuse by future Governments—Governments of the right, which could urge the police to stamp out political demonstrations.

This House has been here before. In February 2023, your Lordships rejected a similar Conservative amendment to the Public Order Act, which sought to restrict protests on the basis of cumulative disruption. In May 2023, the then Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, attempted to introduce the same concept by statutory instrument, only for the High Court to rule it unlawful a year later. I am afraid the new clause contained in government Amendment 372 is simply the latest chapter in a familiar and troubling pattern.

While I acknowledge that some protests can be upsetting or experienced by some as intimidating, sweeping restrictions on peaceful assembly are not the solution. Freedom of expression is not absolute and the police already possess a huge range of extensive powers to deal with hate speech, incitement to violence and serious threats—as indeed they should. The new clause contained in government Amendment 372 goes much further, allowing the state to pre-emptively silence thousands of people based on an ill-defined and speculative concept of disruption that is disproportionate, dangerous and profoundly undemocratic. Eroding protest rights weakens accountability between elections and risks fostering authoritarianism. Once such powers exist, they rarely contract. They expand, often exponentially, and could well do so, especially under future Governments if they were less committed to the right of democratic dissent.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)]

Can I ask I the noble Lord to bring his remarks to an end? He has gone well over 10 minutes.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

This amendment invites misuse and undermines trust in both policing and Parliament. That is why, in a joint statement, trade unions, charities, non-governmental organisations, and faith, climate justice and human rights organisations have been vocal in their opposition to it only this week. In rejecting it, I hope noble Lords will honour our democratic heritage and safeguard those freedoms for future generations. I urge your Lordships to vote against the new clause contained in government Amendment 372 if it is retabled on Report.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak as these amendments deeply affect places of worship and religious practice. It is always an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain, whose track record around protests over so many years is one we can all learn a great deal from.

Noble Lords have referred to the attack in Manchester on Yom Kippur. That took place 15 minutes’ walk from my house. I know that because I walked there the day after to meet people. The rabbi is Daniel Walker. We share a surname and an initial, but we do not think we are related—the noble Lord is quite right to say that he has more beard than me. He and I have been good friends for many years. He is an extraordinarily brave man, and I am glad that we are able to reflect on that tonight.

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[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee is in the business of precision and proportionality. Those two concepts have rightly been raised by a number of noble Lords and my noble friends. It is because of reasons of proportionality and precision that I agree that the concept of “the vicinity” is too vague and too broad. I say that while completely acknowledging that places of worship are sensitive places and that it is completely proportionate within the European Convention on Human Rights to give them some extra protection.

There is precedent in Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for the concepts of “area” and “vicinity” being too flabby and too broad. Noble Lords may remember that this allowed an area not defined to be designated for the purpose of suspicionless stop and search. In 2003, in response to the anti-arms demonstrations at the ExCeL centre in the Docklands, a number of protesters were stopped and searched and issued notices. Only through the parliamentary debates and litigation that followed did the public become aware that all of England and Wales had been designated during the Iraq war. That was the breadth of the area for suspicionless stop and search—a power that was used as an anti-protest power.

That does not mean that there cannot be limitations, but they need some definition. After many years of litigation in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the UK Government were found wanting because of that breadth and the blanket nature of the power, because there was no definition. I am trying to help my noble friends in government by suggesting that concepts such as areas and vicinities will be better for definition, so I support my noble friend Lady Blower and commend her remarks in speaking to her amendment.

I also commend my noble friend Lord Hain and remind the Committee that he was not just an anti-apartheid activist in his day, digging up sports fields and whatever else he was digging up—

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I was sitting on them, not digging them up.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am sorry. He was sitting on them. I do not mean to defame him.

My noble friend of course went on to be Northern Ireland Secretary and therefore has some understanding of the need to balance rights—the rights of peaceful dissent but also the rights of people to go about their business, particularly in their homes and places of worship and so on. That is proportionality and precision.

This vice of vagueness with the concept of “vicinity” is mirrored in the concept of “area” for the purposes of cumulative disruption. As with the Section 44 provision that ended up being impugned in the Strasbourg court, “area” for the purposes of cumulative disruption is not defined, so we are looking at a very broad power here. I say to noble Lords, with all solidarity with their concerns about, for example, synagogues and places of faith and worship, that provisions such as these can be applied as much to a counterprotest as to a protest, and to one group or another group at different times. When we legislate, we need to have a mind to how these powers might be used in the future.

To those noble Lords who spoke of a new quasi-terrorist proscription but for groups that do not quite meet the threshold—