Public Order Legislation

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review the legislation around public order to consider its clarity, efficacy and compliance with fundamental rights and freedoms.

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

My Lords, post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023 began in May 2025. It will assess how the Act operates in practice. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 will undergo similar post-legislative scrutiny between April 2025 and April 2027.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful as always to my noble and learned friend—my almost learned friend—the Minister for that Answer, but the issue is about more than one statute. Indeed, the common law and statute law in this sensitive area has mushroomed under Governments of all persuasions in recent years. Given the summer that we have just had, and given the challenges to both freedom of expression and public order, is it not time that there was an overarching review of all the law in this area to examine not just adequacy and coherence but public and police understanding of this sensitive area of the law?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. As I have just said, legislation is kept under review at all times. We have legislation coming before this House very shortly in the Crime and Policing Bill that will add other measures to the policing of protests. The policing of protests is most definitely a matter for the police, and the freedom to protest and freedom of expression are extremely important. She raises a sensible suggestion to look at how we can ensure that the police and the public understand where the barriers are. I hope that we can reflect on what has happened at any protest and ensure that the right to protest is central but that the right to do so in a peaceful, orderly way is also central. Those are two basic tenets that would be self-evident and central to any review she suggests.