Climate Protests in Cambridge: Police Response

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I would not have asked for this Adjournment debate if I thought the issues arising from policing in Cambridge during the recent climate protests were of merely local interest, or related only to events in the past, but they are issues of national importance. Police forces across the country will have to grapple with them as the protests spread to other towns and cities, as they inevitably will. We have had London and Cambridge—where next? Far from being confined to the past, it seems to me that we are at the start of protests that are likely to escalate in frequency, duration and severity. There is widespread public anger about the events in Cambridge and deep concern among many of my fellow MPs. We have reached a situation in the UK where the police sometimes no longer believe that they have a right to stop blatant criminality during political protests. The issues raised by events in Cambridge need to be resolved. The powers of the police must be clarified, and the police must have the confidence to use them. Otherwise, we risk undermining the rule of law and even public support for the police.

On 16 February, Extinction Rebellion activists started a week of protests in Cambridge that initially involved a blockade of two major roads into Cambridge, preventing vehicles from getting in and out of the city and forcing ambulances carrying patients and other emergency vehicles to be re-routed. The blockade remained in place for a week. Blockading a road is an offence under section 137 of the Highways Act 1980, but the police did not uphold the law and open the roads. Instead, they used emergency powers to close the roads legally, thereby giving protection to the blockades. The police were usually present during the blockades, but to protect the activists from angry members of the public.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a key issue here is the role of the College of Policing, which actually stated that blocking the public highway was not unlawful? It instructed the police in that way. Does not this also link in with a recent case in which advice from the College of Policing led to a situation where Harry Miller was visited by police on his doorstep to question his thinking on societal issues? Is it not time for the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office to look at the role of the College of Policing and the way in which it is unfortunately leading to skewed police priorities?

[Anthony Browne]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I shall come later to the issue of the advice from the College of Policing.

On 18 February, the protesters, armed with spades, dug up the lawn at Trinity College. They then proceeded to load soil into wheelbarrows and dump it in the foyer of Barclays bank—my branch of Barclays. Throughout this episode, Cambridgeshire police stood by and watched. They did not intervene to stop the criminal acts and no arrests were made at the time. The police said that they did not stop the criminal acts because they were concerned that to do so would be an infringement of the activists’ human rights. During the week, there were various acts of vandalism by activists, including at the iconic Schlumberger building and at a Shell petrol station. Subsequently, following public outrage and complaints from Trinity College, myself and Ministers, the police have arrested a total of nine activists.

The lack of police action against law-breaking protesters caused public fury across social media, the airwaves, the letters pages and my inbox. Virtually no one has argued that the police were right not to act. That public anger is very understandable. We rely on the police to uphold the rule of law, and not to let mob rule unfold. When those tasked with law enforcement appear to be unwilling or unable to intervene in flagrant criminal conduct, the public start to feel threatened. The public are also annoyed by the perceived double standard. Many said to me, “If I had blockaded the road or committed criminal damage, I’d be arrested on the spot. Why aren’t the protesters?” I want to put on record that I strongly support the ultimate objective of Extinction Rebellion in combating climate change, but I do not support its means.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Taking into consideration the fact that a number of my constituents attend Cambridge and study there at this time, I am sure that the hon. Member will share my concern that, at what should have been a peaceful expression of opinion, tensions were heightened deliberately by a few. Does he agree that now is the time for calm heads and cool words, and that that must be the first line of defence when dealing with passionate young people?

[Anthony Browne]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. As I have said, my aim is not to inflame things, but to ensure that the police have clarity on their powers to act. I also strongly support the police, who I recognise are caught between a rock and a hard place. I know that fundamentally they want to uphold the law, but the guidance and interpretation can be confusing.

There are two questions that need answering: first, why did the police stand by as crimes were committed; and secondly, what can be done to ensure that they will uphold the law in future? I have met the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable of Cambridgeshire, who are now conducting a review of the lessons learned. It is not clear that the police would do anything differently if it happened again. They are sharing the learnings with other police forces across the country that are developing their own plans in case of similar protests. Cambridgeshire police have welcomed this Adjournment debate, as they hope it will help generate agreement on how they should respond in future. I know that, following the Extinction Rebellion protests in London, the Metropolitan police is also considering these issues with Home Office officials.

Having considered the arguments carefully and examined the relevant legislation and court judgments, I believe that none of the reasons for police inaction stands up to scrutiny. I contend that the police did have legal grounds to act even under existing legislation.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech. He and I were briefed at the end of last week, along with other Cambridgeshire MPs. I, too, was outraged by the digging up of the lawn, but does he agree that there was a danger of a much bigger reaction being stimulated in the city? The city is proud of its protests, but was that not a real dilemma that the police faced?

[Anthony Browne]

The hon. Gentleman is right; it was a dilemma. In fact, I was just coming to the pragmatic arguments before moving on to the legal arguments.

The police point out that after a week of protests, no one was physically harmed, the protests did not escalate and there was no irreparable damage. That is all true, but if that is the police criterion for action to stop a crime, they would rarely enforce the law. Thousands of people’s lives were disrupted and criminal damage was done.

The police have also said that Trinity College did not complain about the vandalism while it was taking place; it did so only later that evening. It was only after Trinity College lodged a complaint that the police made arrests. But the police would not stand by and watch a burglar rob a jewellery shop just because the owner was not there formally complaining about it.

Others have said—this relates to what the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said—that the police should not arrest people because that would make them martyrs. Well, they have arrested some people, so will they become martyrs? Who knows, and actually what difference does it make? The martyr argument could be used to justify just about anything.

A far bigger and more realistic concern is that if activists know they can get away with breaking the law, the law breaking will escalate. They will do it again, and others will be tempted to join them. Many will be quite attracted to the idea of breaking the law in front of the police, making a mockery of them. Some will push the limits, committing ever greater crimes, until ultimately the police do stop them. In this situation, appeasement will just encourage more law breaking. The pragmatic arguments do not stand up.

We then come to the legal arguments. During the week of action, the police put out a video explaining why they were not acting to stop these crimes. It was based on their interpretation of the Human Rights Act 1998, as set out in guidance from the College of Policing, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) referred earlier. Under article 11 of the European convention on human rights, enshrined in UK law through the Human Rights Act, people have the right to peaceful assembly. I am sure that all Members of this House support that right—indeed, if it was threatened, I would be out there protesting for the right to protest.

As the College of Policing guidance points out, those rights are qualified rights, and the police can impose restrictions on demonstrations under certain circumstances. Those restrictions must be prescribed by law, necessary and proportionate. The law that allows the police to impose restrictions on processions and assemblies is set out in sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986. It gives the police powers if they believe that a procession or assembly may result in

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

or if they believe that

“the purpose of the persons organising it is the intimidation of others”.

The police believe that the Cambridge protests did not amount to “serious” disruption. I have been told that there is no case law on that, and that point was made by the police earlier. The Metropolitan police lost a judicial review following its imposition of restrictions on the Extinction Rebellion protests in London, but that was on an entirely different issue and is not relevant to this case. What I can say with certainty is that many members of the public feel the Cambridge protests caused them serious disruption and serious damage.

This also misses the point. On close scrutiny, the College of Policing guidance is poor, and the Cambridgeshire police interpretation of it is flawed. Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act are clearly not meant to deter the police from arresting people for committing other crimes. They give the police powers to impose a legal restriction on the location or size of an assembly or procession if they think serious disorder is likely to result from it. Sections 12 and 14 absolutely do not say the police cannot arrest people for committing a crime in front of their eyes, as happened at Trinity College—that is clearly not the intent of the legislation. Even when the police cannot legally ban or restrict a whole demonstration, they can still arrest demonstrators who commit criminal damage. Even if we accept that the criminal damage was not serious, it just means the police could not use section 14 of the Public Order Act to ban the assembly overall. It does not mean the police could not have arrested those digging up the Trinity College lawn.

When it comes to the blockade of the road, I believe the police could have used section 14 powers relating to assemblies, rather than processions. Section 14(1)(b) says the police can impose restrictions on an assembly if

“the purpose of the persons organising it is the intimidation of others with a view to compelling them not to do an act they have a right to do, or to do an act they have a right not to do”.

The intimidation does not have to be serious; it just needs to be the purpose of those organising the assembly. The very purpose of those blockading the Fen Causeway and Trumpington Street was to stop people travelling on them, which they had a right to do—at least, they had a legal right to do it until the police used their emergency powers to close the roads.

That clearly fits the description of intimidation under the Public Order Act. The purpose of the assembly was to intimidate the public in and around Cambridge to stop them using the roads, so the police had a right to impose a restriction on that assembly and to require that it be moved to a place that was not blocking the road. As the hon. Member for Cambridge knows, there are plenty of places in Cambridge where the protestors could have held their assembly without depriving people of their right to travel on the roads.

The police misinterpreted not only the Public Order Act but the European convention on human rights, which is explicit that the right to assembly does not give people the right to break the law or to deprive others of their rights or freedoms. Paragraph 2 of article 11 says:

“No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights”—

of assembly—

“other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security 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 freedoms of others. This Article shall not prevent the imposition of lawful restrictions on the exercise of these rights by members of the armed forces, of the police or of the administration of the State.”

There it is, in black and white.

The Human Rights Act itself says that that Act cannot be used to stop the police imposing legal restrictions on assemblies.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Member is making a powerful legalistic argument, but I put it to him that this is actually a political argument. There are many people in my constituency who think we face a climate emergency so serious that it justifies what would in normal times be considered extreme action. Does he understand how strongly people feel about this? The police have used these powers on the A14 diversions, and there has been less disruption for my constituents over the past few years than was suffered the other week.

[Anthony Browne]

I understand the passion, the urgency and the importance that people feel about climate change, but that does not justify breaking the law.

This is also clearly counterproductive. I have had lots of correspondence from my constituents, as perhaps the hon. Gentleman has had from his, saying that people cannot be won over to a cause by alienating them. If we want to make a political argument, I would say that Extinction Rebellion portrays itself as a fringe group with a fringe cause and actually undermines support for action on climate change. It must obey the law, which is the way to win people over.

I am close to finishing my legal arguments. The Human Rights Act also says that restrictions can be legally imposed on assemblies to prevent crime, as with the Trinity College lawn, or to protect the rights of others, as with the blockades.

In summary, there is nothing in law—in the Human Rights Act or in the Public Order Act—to stop the police upholding other laws.

The public are rightly angry that we have got ourselves into a position where the police believe that they cannot uphold criminal law. Why has this come about and what can be done about it? I believe the police fundamentally want to uphold the law, but are beset by uncertainty, with one problem being that they get weak legal advice—that is the point my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) was making. Can something be done to improve the legal advice that police forces get, and the advice from the College of Policing? The police are up against strong activist groups, which are often chasing them through the courts, always pushing to constrain the powers of the police, but no one is chasing the police through the courts to force them to uphold the law. Can the Government do something so that there is less one- sided pressure on the police?

I would like to ask the Minister whether the Home Office can undertake a public review to see what can be done to stop a repeat of the unfortunate events in Cambridge in other locations in the coming months and years. That might mean a change in the law, but, as I have said, I do not believe that is necessary. It would be good to have practical, deliverable proposals to help the police do their job. Never again should police feel they have to stand by and watch powerlessly as criminal acts take place. In future, the police must be able to do what they are employed to do: uphold the law.