Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

If the Committee will allow, I can answer some of these questions. We intend to have an Order of Consideration Motion so that, on Report, items will be taken as much as they can be in the same order as they are in Committee—so there will be plenty of time to consider these matters. We have discussed, in the usual channels, how the arrangements for this Bill should take place. I completely accept that it might go quite late tonight. We have spent a lot of time on this Bill—I accept that. But this is the Committee stage, and it cannot go on for ever because, if it goes on and on, the House of Lords looks as if it is preventing the Bills that have been passed by the House of Commons from going ahead.

The noble Lord shakes his head. As my noble friend the Minister has said, there has been ample time to talk about this Bill—and all we are saying is that, after three extra days, we have to draw this to a conclusion at some stage. This is not an unreasonable number of amendments to deal with—we have often done this in the past. The key, of course, is that we actually get on with it and that noble Lords have a view to the rest of the Members of this House. None of us wants to stay up too late. It is perfectly doable to have this number of groups—we have done it before—if noble Lords are able to be brief and succinct and make their point.

On the government amendments, the idea of having them in Committee is that we can debate them today. My noble friend has said that she will withdraw them, and that allows Report to go ahead—and, if necessary, noble Lords can vote on them.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not want to elongate this procedural debate before a lengthy debate that we are debating the length of, but the protest provisions in this Bill have been some of the most contentious—and not just in your Lordships’ House but in the country. They are not the final provisions or the final part of this Bill, even, yet they have been saved for the latter stages of this Committee, and the later hours of this last day will include this raft of new and even more contentious amendments. That is the reason for this suspicion and the concern that your Lordships’ House has not been shown the appropriate respect of a second Chamber in a democracy, when dealing with provisions that are, arguably, contrary to the human rights convention, and are certainly thought to be very contentious and illiberal by many communities in this country.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Something that we did last week was to start early. Why could we not start earlier today so that we did not need to go into the early hours of the morning? We could have started at 10, which would have been a reasonable start for most people.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My intention was not to leave out that issue; we could have a whole debate on the effect of childhood abuse, trauma and witnessing violence on the future prospects of a person when they become an adult and their increased likelihood of going on to abuse, but my intention was not to dismiss it. I apologise that I did not mention it, but the intention certainly was not to dismiss it at all.

Finally, I move to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. As I said, the time has come to reconsider the Vagrancy Act—some of the language that was used is so antiquated that it would perhaps be alien to some of this generation. I agree that nobody should be criminalised just because they have nowhere to live. Back in 2018, we committed to review the legislation following mixed views among stakeholders regarding the continued relevance of the Act, given that it is, as noble Lords have said, nearly 200 years old. I am sure that noble Lords can understand that announcing the outcome of this review has been delayed by several factors. One noble Lord mentioned the dedicated response for vulnerable individuals who are sleeping rough during the pandemic, which was outstanding.

It has been imperative to understand the full picture of how and why the Vagrancy Act is used, and what impact any change to or repeal of the Act will have. Rough sleeping and begging are complex issues, and the Act continues to be used. The review considered a range of factors and at its heart has been the experiences and perceptions of relevant stakeholders, including local authorities and the police. The Act continues to be used to tackle begging, and, if repealed, a legislative gap would be left that might impact on the police’s ability to respond to it.

The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 is not an alternative in this context. The powers in the Act are available to police and local authorities to tackle specific forms of behaviour that meet the legal tests in that legislation—for example, behaviour that is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to a victim or community. As I have said, begging is complex, but plainly it does not always come with these forms of accompanying behaviours.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I did not speak earlier to save the Committee’s time and please the Government Whips, but I now have two short questions in relation to the Minister’s answer.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

When I voiced my support for something needing to be done about the Vagrancy Act, there was a general acknowledgement that something needs to be done about it. I extend the invitation to the noble Lord, Lord Best—and, indeed, to my noble friend as well if he so wishes—because it would be an important discussion ahead of the next stage. What I was trying to say in my rather long-winded explanation is that there are some complex things in the Vagrancy Act that need to be unpicked and understood, with consideration of the legislation on the back of that.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I hope that this is an appropriate time for me to ask the Minister two questions in relation to her answer on this group.

First, in contrast with the Minister’s answer to the subsequent amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, the answer to Amendment 292H in the name of my noble friend Lady Blake seemed to be that there are adequate powers for local authorities and the police to work together to protect people from unlawful eviction. However, there is obviously a difference between powers and duties. The intention behind this neat and compelling amendment is to do what the Government have tried to do in other aspects of this draft legislation: create a duty for people who already have powers to prioritise a problem and work together. Why not prioritise protection from eviction in the way that other types of crime have been prioritised, with duties and not just powers, in other parts of the Bill?

Secondly, I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer on vagrancy. I do not understand why, if begging is not causing harassment to people, it is a crime at all. The Minister talked about two sides of the begging problem: it is bad for the person who has to do it and potentially bad for the people who experience it. If it is bad for the people who experience it, there are, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, set out, adequate criminal laws, whether in anti-social behaviour or in other legislation, that cover unwanted harassment. If it is just about protecting people from unhealthy behaviours, we do not do that by criminalising people for being desperate and poor. When she meets her noble friends to discuss this amendment, will the Minister look at whether this review cannot be speeded up in time for Report? The Government seem able to move very quickly when it comes to adding extra powers to suppress protests, but it takes hundreds of years to repeal the Vagrancy Act.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am sure that, when my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Best, meet Minister Hughes, they will cover some of the points made by the noble Baroness.

I do not think that this is about an acknowledgement that there are adequate powers; it is about the application of those powers. As I said to the noble Baroness, if there are deficiencies in collaboration at the local level, it would be helpful if they were brought to my attention.

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I suppose my question to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is: who decides which political demonstration outside a school is acceptable? Would he ban all parents’ demonstrations, or just the ones he disapproves of? These are morally and politically delicate dilemmas, and I argue that legislative changes should not be rushed through.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

In response to that and in support of the broad thrust of my noble friend Lord Coaker’s probing amendment—I think it is fair to call it that—I have long had concerns about public space protection orders in general, and I defer to no one as a civil libertarian, but there is a great tradition in human rights thinking for child protection. So my instinctive response to the noble Baroness is that it is not because the protesters are anti-vaxxers and I disagree with them, it is that it is at school. They are young and potentially vulnerable people, and it does not seem proportionate or fair to me that we as grown-up legislators in this place take greater protection for our immediate vicinity than we give to even primary school children up and down the country, regardless of the nature of the protest.

The point about free speech and freedom to protest being a two-way street is incredibly important, and I suspect that we will return to it in a forthcoming group, but on this issue, for me, at least, the principle is not that I think that this is dangerous speech or disinformation—it is out there anyway online, et cetera—it is that no young person, particularly a very young person, should be subject to an aggressive demonstration, whether or not it is one that I would approve of, on their way to or from school.

Some of us remember the Holy Cross school dispute in Northern Ireland some years ago. The reason why Her Majesty’s Government had to intervene with soldiers, and so on—it was tragic—was not to take sides in the dispute, it was to protect young children, who do not have the same robustness as an older person and should not feel scared on their way to or back from school. I would take that view whether or not the protest by adults from outside the school community was one with which I agreed—about the climate catastrophe or whatever else it happened to be.

It is so important at this stage in the evening, before we get to the next group, to introduce the concept of the two-way street in relation to free speech. So I support my noble friend Lord Coaker in the thrust of his amendment, about schools being special—particularly primary schools, but possibly also secondary schools; that will be up for more detailed discussion—and needing some level of protection from whatever kind of protest by people from outside the school community.

I add that caveat because I think children should be able to protest themselves if they want to. I would not want inadvertently to do anything that caused criminal sanction for children and young people who chose to launch their own protest about whatever it was.

I see this very much as a probing amendment, but the status quo, whereby we have these protections as legislators in the vicinity around the Palace of Westminster —and companies have greater protections from pickets than primary school children have from aggressive demonstrations from whatever quarter—does not seem right. Human rights principles are: always protect children first, and any interference then has to be necessary and proportionate. But equal treatment and the two-way street, particularly in relation to freedom of speech and the right to protest, are crucial.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who moved the amendment, which is about the need for fast-track exclusion zones around schools to prevent, in particular, anti-vaccination protests in the vicinity of schools.

If she will allow me, I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, I think after we finished on Monday night, how important it is to have her voice in the Chamber to test these sorts of issues. All I would say to her on this occasion is that the amendment talks about “activities carried on” that have

“a detrimental effect on the quality of life for pupils and staff”.

So it is not simply a question of banning any demonstration in the vicinity of a school. It would have to have that detrimental effect. I understand that that is a subjective judgment, but at least there is something there, rather than just a blanket ban on anybody protesting about anything at all.

Noble Lords will not need me to tell them that this is not about protecting children, perhaps older school-age children, from not being vaccinated. It is about protecting the whole community because, as we know from previous times in the pandemic, there is a risk of schoolchildren infecting vulnerable parents and grandparents. We also know from the health data that being double-vaccinated does not necessarily protect you completely from the worst effects of Covid, and in particular long Covid, although it gives you much better protection. On the news yesterday, an expert was talking about the fact that, although Covid has mild effects on children, it is not known how much they could be affected by long Covid. So this is not simply about a demonstration outside a school; this is a wider public health issue. However, I understand that, although that is what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is aiming at here, the amendment, if passed, would have wider implications than just for anti-vaccination protests.

Amendment 292S, from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, relates to online racism against footballers and enabling football banning orders to be made against those guilty of online racial hatred directed at a member of a football team. He is probably the best-qualified noble Lord to talk on this issue, bearing in mind his experience on the Front Bench in the Home Office under the Labour Government who introduced the banning orders in the first place, and the beneficial effect that they have had in rooting out racism in football. It is a serious problem.

Talking about a hierarchy of diversity is fraught with danger. But, as a gay man, I have always considered racism to be a far more serious issue than, say, homophobia. Some people might argue against this; but I could conceal my sexuality if people from a different planet did not know who I was or what my background was. But you cannot hide your colour; you cannot avoid racism in the way that some gay people, at least, could avoid homophobia; it would not be obvious to people.

I do not know of any professional footballers who have been open about their sexuality, because of their concerns about being open about it. Hopefully, as years go by and social attitudes change, some professional footballers will be open about their sexuality. They should be able to benefit from similar protection, so this legislation should not exclusively provide protection for racism, which is the major issue at the moment, while professional footballers’ sexuality is not. This is a good idea, and hopefully the Government will discuss how this can be taken forward.

This group is diverse—not in the sense of “diversity,” but in terms of the different subjects covered. Amendment 292U, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, highlights a loophole in the law. My understanding—although I am not sure as there was no explanatory note—is that it is unlawful for scrap metal dealers to pay cash for scrap metal, but it is not against the law to sell it on for cash. That is the loophole. A scrap metal dealer who surreptitiously acquires stolen metal could sell it on for cash, and the noble Lord’s amendment would disallow that. The payment would have to be made by a traceable means, thus clamping down in the other side of the transaction, which makes sense.

We have debated the issue of scrap metal and the impact on the railway system and churches, for example, and the problem with catalytic converters. As shortages of resources are exacerbated by countries coming out of lockdown and the demand for raw materials grows, scrap metal will become an increasingly important issue. Therefore, closing this loophole regarding the other side of the transaction seems sensible, and we support it.

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I appeal to the Minister to listen to the numerous groups from across the country and the political divide who have asked for the noise trigger to be removed from the Bill. I ask her, in doing so, to prove that the Government do indeed support free speech.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a duty, first, and then, I hope, the privilege to make some comments of my own. My noble friend Lord Hendy is unable to be here to speak to his Amendment 304, so, if the Committee does not mind, I will read his remarks in support of that before I make a few remarks of my own on this group.

He says the following: he is grateful to my noble friend Lord Hain for adding his name to the amendment and to me for reading these remarks. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on which he has the privilege to serve, criticised in its report of 13 September Clauses 55, 56 and 61 of the Bill for the surrender of the definition of certain phrases to delegated legislation, thus bypassing the full scrutiny of primary legislation.

At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, emphasised that his committee took no position on the substantive provisions but recognised that they are contentious and should therefore be in the Bill. My noble friend Lord Hendy goes on to say that he and many other noble Lords supported that argument, but the Government have not taken heed of this criticism, and the power remains to define by secondary legislation some very contentious phrases in these sections.

I continue to support the committee and the amendments brought by noble Lords—particularly that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—to obviate this procedural but fundamental flaw, but Amendment 304 goes beyond the procedural to the substance of Clause 56. That clause will be the basis for yet further restriction on the right to picket in an industrial dispute. That is objectionable because the right to picket, still extant in UK law, is already constrained in law in multiple ways which go far beyond those imposed on other kinds of public assembly. Further restrictions on the right are simply not warranted. It would be tedious to review the law on picketing today. Suffice to say, it is already highly regulated by statute, case law and its own code of practice.

By the Conspiracy, and Protection of Property Act 1875, 146 years ago, it ceased to be a criminal offence to attend

“at or near the house or place where a person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place, in order merely to obtain or communicate information”,

although the use of violence, intimidation, damage to property, persistent following, watching and besetting were all made statutory offences. From this beginning, the right to picket was established. It has been further restricted many times since, including by the outlawing of picketing of domestic premises. The current formula is Section 220 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. It reads:

“It is lawful for a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute to attend … at or near his own place of work, or … if he is an official of a trade union, at or near the place of work of a member of the union whom he is accompanying and whom he represents, for the purpose only of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working.”


The Act defines both “place of work” and a “trade dispute”.

I should add in relation to the latter, in case any of your Lordships were unaware of it—which I doubt—that collective action

“in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute”

will not be lawful without the prior fulfilment of many statutory conditions. These include service of a highly complex notice of ballot on every relevant employer; a ballot in favour, which must conform with complicated and demanding thresholds on turnout and majority; and service of an equally complex notice of industrial action on every relevant employer. There are many provisions regulating all this in detail and many other requirements, such as the provision of mandatory qualified scrutineers, full postal balloting—no workplace or electronic voting is permitted—and so on.

Case law has held that Section 220 on the right to picket does not protect against private nuisance—interfering with someone’s enjoyment or use of land—nor against public nuisance in the form of violence, intimidation, molestation, excessive numbers, obstruction, blockade or an unreasonable obstruction of the highway. There is no exemption from the criminal law or the law of trespass, so this is all covered.

The Code of Practice on Picketing—the latest edition of which is from 2017—is taken into account by the courts and runs to 19 detailed pages of guidance. The code provides, among many other things, that

“pickets and their organisers should ensure that in general the number of pickets does not exceed six at any entrance to, or exit from, a workplace; frequently a smaller number will be appropriate.”

In consequence, a requirement that there be no more than six persons on a picket line is applied as though it was statute law by both the police and the courts.

As if that is not enough, the Trade Union Act 2016 imposed yet further restrictions. The union must appoint a picket supervisor to supervise the picketing. They must be an official or other member of the union familiar with the code of practice and have taken reasonable steps to tell the police their name, where the picket is to take place and how they can be contacted. The picket supervisor must be in possession of a letter stating that the picketing is approved by the union, which must be shown to the employer if sought. This is very highly regulated.

The possibility of flying pickets and anything else that any of your Lordships might think requires restraint has already been closed off. Surely all this is enough. Picketing in recent years under this strict legislative regime has not thrown up problems which require further legislative redress, yet Clause 56 will give the police the power, in many sectors, virtually to extinguish life from the remains of this emaciated right.

Among other things, the clause gives power to a senior police officer to impose conditions on an assembly where the officer reasonably believes that noise generated by persons taking part may result in

“serious disruption to the life of the community”

or

“serious disruption to the activities of an organisation which are carried on in the vicinity of the assembly”.

Senior officers seeking the meaning of these phrases will not find them in the Bill, which does not define either. Instead, the Bill will give power to the Secretary of State to create definitions by regulation. We can only guess how the Secretary of State might choose to define these phrases. However, we have a strong steer as to what she currently has in mind, because she has provided a draft set of regulations in relation to the meaning of the phrases. There is not, so far as I can ascertain, a draft of regulations to define

“serious disruption to the activities of an organisation which are carried on in the vicinity of the assembly”,

but the draft regulations that deal with a

“serious disruption to the life of the community”

state:

“It may be regarded by the senior police officer as serious disruption to the life of the community if there is … a significant delay to the supply of a time-sensitive product impacting on the community, or … prolonged physical disruption to access to essential goods and services impacting on the community.”


They go on to say that a

“‘time-sensitive product’ includes newspapers and perishable items”

and

“‘essential goods and services’ means … the supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel … a system of communication … a transport facility … a place of worship … an educational facility … a service relating to health, or … another critical public service.”

If pickets in a trade dispute are successful in persuading workers not to cross the picket line, it is obvious that, depending on the nature of the employer’s business, picketing may involve significant delay to the supply of time-sensitive products or prolonged physical disruption to access to essential goods and services. Accordingly, under Clause 56, the assiduous senior police officer may well impose conditions on workers who legitimately but noisily picket their place of work in order to persuade others not to work during a lawful industrial dispute in relevant sectors. Such relevant sectors will be where the workplace is involved in the production or delivery of food, water, power, railways, buses, places, lorries, ships, newspapers, mail, TV, radio, film, education, health, local government and so on. It is hard to think of many workplaces at all that will not be included.

Though the Explanatory Notes to the Bill do not expressly refer to picketing in an industrial dispute, it is plain that these draft regulations have given the game away. Clause 56 is precisely aimed at picketing in a lawful industrial dispute, whatever other assemblies may also be impacted. Accordingly, Amendment 304 proposes to exclude lawful picketing—subject to all of that regulatory regime that my noble friend Lord Hendy sets out—in legitimate trade disputes from these additional restraints. The Minister is invited to agree the amendment in order to exempt picketing from this intended regime, given that it is so closely regulated.

I am grateful to the Committee for its patience in listening to my noble friend Lord Hendy’s rationale for Amendment 304. Perhaps I may be indulged in making just a few comments of my own about this whole group. I shall try not to hyperbolise but do my best to disagree well with the noble Baroness opposite. I do not think that noble Lords who have spoken and expressed their concern so far have hyperbolised. Let me try to explain why some of us are so desperately concerned about the impact on freedom of expression and freedom of association of Part 3 of this draft legislation.

If we take existing tests, there is so much law already on the statute book, some of it passed by Conservative Governments, much of it passed by Labour Governments—much of which I objected to at the time, alongside friends of mine in the Conservative Party. I may be wearing a red dress now, but it was not always the case; I hope noble Lords opposite will understand that. Free speech is a two-way street and, in my lifetime, no Government have been perfect when it comes to protecting it.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Respect goes both ways. The Government are not respecting this House.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am happy to wrap up. I am sorry, I had to read for my noble friend Lord Hendy, who had an amendment, and that took a little time. I beg your pardon; I will be very brief.

I have talked about the past—suffragettes and anti-apartheid, et cetera—and I have talked about Russia and China and the places that we have to persuade, in the current, dangerous world, not to suppress protest. The domestic context is that we have come out of Brexit, which was incredibly divisive; whichever side you were on, we know that it divided communities. I was subject to protesters who were very cross with me, and a little scary, but in the end, I put up with it. We are coming through a pandemic, and people are scared and very worried by climate change. I do not believe that oppressive powers giving this level of discretion to the police to suppress free speech will bring our communities together.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, if I may, I will speak succinctly on the noise amendments. I appreciated what the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said about the two-way street, favourite protests and standing up for all protests, but I wonder about the extent to which we are actually doing that. I listened carefully to the persuasive argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in introducing the Opposition amendment on fast-track orders for schools. I also listened to the excellent opening speech from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs; if that is the kind of protest which is being restricted, I am sure that a majority in both Houses would vote against it. Opposition Members have spoken in favour of protections around schools, and I can very much see the case for protecting schools. But are we really saying that untrammelled noise cannot be intimidating and unacceptable, in the manner which the Bill attempts to frame as a problem?

Anti-vaxxers outside schools were given as an example. Are we saying that noise should not be a factor if anti-vaxxers are making a sustained attempt to disrupt Covid vaccine clinics? Another entirely feasible example is a far-right protest that was seeking to intimidate council workers using high levels of noise, because the council was volunteering to bring in refugees and a section of that community did not want that.

The question raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, was pertinent: is existing legislation sufficient to deal with this? I hope that Ministers will address that point when summing up and in bringing the Bill to Report. I am much less comfortable with the rhetoric which simply cites noise as beyond the bounds of regulation in a legal framework. We all know that many protests are noisy—I would imagine that the majority of us in this Chamber have been on such protests—and that is a good thing. But it is surely not what this legislation is intended to debar.

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[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, my speech can be very quick because I should just like to associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. It was an exceptionally informative and balanced speech about just how difficult these issues are and how difficult the job of the police is to draw that balance and get it right. We should all be extremely grateful that we are policed in such a consensual and high-quality way.

I spoke about this at Second Reading and we have had an exceptionally interesting debate here in Committee. I shall make just a couple of points. First, we ought to avoid, if at all possible, differentiating between good protests, on an issue that I agree with, and bad protests, on an issue that I disagree with. We should resist the temptation to talk about specific causes. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, made that point in one of her two speeches; I think that it was the second one.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Forgive me, but I did not make two speeches. I asked the Committee’s permission to read the remarks of my noble friend Lord Hendy because he could not be here to speak to his Amendment 304. I thought that I had the consent of the Committee. If I misunderstood that, I apologise, but I did not intend to make two speeches on my own part.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness spoke for nearly 20 minutes and I am attempting to speak for about two minutes.

We ought to avoid drawing the distinction to which I referred. However, there is a clear difference between a lawful expression of protest drawing attention to a particular issue, wanting it to be heard, and a deliberate and aggressive attempt to disrupt the lives of the general public. That is what we have seen over recent weeks. It is entirely reasonable that we look carefully at the current legislative settlement and examine what can be done with the existing powers. I hear the remarks made that the police have the powers that they need. Some feel that they do and others do not. That matter should be carefully looked at.

However, where there are gaps and where the police require additional powers to take those finely balanced judgments, it is entirely legitimate that we look at that in the Bill while maintaining a clear balance and making sure that we do not trespass too much on some of the issues that have been raised around, for example, noise. In essence, there are grounds for a constructive debate and finding that balance. It is never going to get everyone’s support but we all ought to look beyond the Westminster bubble and consider the reaction of the general public when they see their lives and critical national infrastructure such as transport being substantially disrupted and when the police are unable to deal with it effectively.

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[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 308 in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Judge and shall say a few words in support of what he has just said. It was quite clear from the reply by the Minister to the previous group that these words, “serious disruption”, are the key to the proportionality of the clauses that we are considering. They are absolutely central to the whole proportionality of the scheme. Of course, if something does not amount to a serious disruption, the police take no action; if it does amount to that, within the ordinary meaning of the word, the police have authority to do so.

I mention that because, while I support entirely what my noble and learned friend has just said, there is an element of risk here, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, hinted at in his comments in the last group. It is the risk of lowering the threshold. Why else is the power being taken? If it is not in the present Home Secretary’s mind to lower the threshold, the risk is there. It is for that reason that I suggest there is a risk here that should be avoided.

There is also the point about the clarity of the legislation. One element of the rule of law is that the law should be accessible, and the more you attempt to define words by regulation and not in primary legislation, the more inaccessible the true meaning of the words becomes. It is not a way to go down—it is unnecessary, as my noble and learned friend said—and I hope very much that the Government do not proceed with this scheme.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord is exactly right about this constitutional problem, but there is a further point to be made. In this context, it is not just the usual problem of allegedly unclear legislation that is then going to be sorted out by regulation later, and the relationship between the Executive and the legislature not as it should be. It is also in danger of interfering with police operational independence. To be explicit about this, my fear is that the police will take whatever view they take of what this legislation means in certain circumstances and do their best—and if a Home Secretary of the day, even well into the future, thinks that the police are being too lenient towards protesters, or perhaps there is a commotion in the media, regulations will be used further to define what “serious” and “disruption” mean so as to mandate the police effectively to be more heavy-handed than the natural meaning of the words would suggest.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I can be relatively brief. Do not worry—it is a temporary blip.

Amendments 298, 308 and 319 question “serious disruption” being decided by the Secretary of State rather than being either defined in the Bill, as my noble friend Lord Beith proposes, or simply left to its natural meaning, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, suggests in his Amendment 308.

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[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise. I forgot to speak to five more amendments: Amendments 319Q, 319R, 319S, 319T and 319U, which remove the ability for SDPOs to be renewed.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief and not repeat the valid and chilling points that have already been made. I just say this: for me to even attempt a line-by-line examination of this whole suite of new amendments would result in not just the Leader coming in to censor me again, but me probably being arrested. I am not going to do that, but I will try to say two things that noble Lords have not said yet.

On locking on and in particular going equipped for locking on, and stop and search with or without suspicion of locking on, I am worried not about the glue referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but about people with bicycle locks. I am worried about young people going about their business, sometimes riding to a demonstration or being in the vicinity of potential demonstrations, carrying bicycle locks. I cannot see how they are not potentially in jeopardy, en masse, of both the stop and search powers, and going equipped.

Secondly, as a former Home Office lawyer and a director of Liberty, to me, this suite of measures, which could be a Bill in itself, looks, smells and tastes a lot like anti-terror legislation of the kind that I have always opposed as being disproportionate and counterproductive. Whether it is the new orders, the stop and search powers, including suspicion, or offences including thought crimes, this new Bill within a Bill looks like some of the anti-terror powers that, when they were introduced, noble Lords opposite and elsewhere, and I and some of my noble friends—forgive me, I hope—looked the other way. Those powers have inspired what we see here, but this time they are not for terrorists but protesters.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the Minister gave a powerful justification for upgrading and updating the criminal law to deal with these new forms of protest. She made the point that the general public have had enough, and we recognise that. We have all seen instances of workers begging protesters to let them through to go to work, parents trying to get ill children to hospitals and so on. We have seen frustration turn to fury and people often taking action on their own, dragging protesters away as the police have stood by. At least this section of the Bill makes sense to me based on that motivation, but we have spent hours and hours on previous sections on banning the types of protest in Part 3, which was justified on the basis that it was dealing with those kinds of actions, when in fact none of the measures that we previously discussed would deal with them at all.

The measures that we previously discussed in Part 3 elicited some very fine speeches about the right to protest. I was struck most recently by the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, which I related to. We were probably on the same miners’ demos. It properly and entirely understood why people were demanding the right to protest. All those fine words were effectively shot down by the Minister on the basis that these are things that we need to do to deal with Extinction Rebellion and these different kinds of protest. In fact, the only dealings that I had when I got caught up in an Extinction Rebellion protest—I mean that I was trying to get through it, rather than that I was on it, in case anyone panics—was when they were doing a five-hour silent vigil in mime. There was no noise involved. But we have spent all that time discussing how noise is going to trigger the police having a huge amount of power to deal with those people.

I find it utterly galling, because now we have a set of amendments, and at least I can understand why the Government have brought them in—and the public will think that they will tackle what they are furious about—and we should therefore, in this House, be able to scrutinise them line by line, as has been explained. People will probably like the locking-on offence—I say “people”, meaning that there might be popular support for it. But the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Beith, have done a really good take-down of what the consequences of these measures would be beyond the headlines, and people might be less keen on the equipped to lock-on offence. Certainly, when they work out the frightening aspects of the serious disruption prevention orders, they might want to think again. The “causing and contributing to” aspect, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, noted, really is a very serious threat to free speech—absolutely. And this is a Government who claim all the time that they are here to defend free speech, but they are introducing, without even casually noting it, something that would absolutely have a damaging effect on free speech.

Maybe I am wrong, and maybe the Government could persuade us that these special kinds of protests need special laws, in which case we should have hours and hours to discuss it. Instead, here we are, fed up, having discussed a whole range of other legislation that was supposed to deal with these issues when in fact, it did not; and now, the things which might deal with those issues we do not have time to discuss. It is frustrating for all of us.