Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support the proposed new clause establishing an express statutory right to protest and will speak to my amendments which, I believe, would make that right workable, balanced and fair to all members of the public. I begin by saying that the right to protest is a cornerstone of any free society. It is a mark of confidence, not weakness, when a nation allows its citizens to gather, speak, dissent and challenge those in authority.

I support that principle wholeheartedly, but rights do not exist in isolation. They exist in a framework of mutual respect, where the rights of one group cannot simply extinguish the rights of another. That is why I have tabled these amendments: to ensure that alongside the duty to respect, protect and facilitate protest, public authorities must also ensure that those who are not protesting are not hindered in going about their daily business.

My amendment proposes a new subsection (2)(d), which makes that duty explicit. I have proposed two further subsections in Amendment 369ZB, (3)(d) and (3)(e), to make it clear that preventing inconvenience to any member of the public and permitting people to go about their daily lives are legitimate grounds for proportionate restrictions on protest.

This is not an attempt to water down the right to protest; it is an attempt to anchor it in the real world. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, in the words of the convention, it is to protect the rights and freedoms of others as well. In the real world, “the public” is not an abstract; the public are individuals: it is a nurse trying to reach her shift on time; it is a carer who must get to an elderly relative; it is a parent taking their child to school; it is a worker who risks losing wages, even a job, because the road has been blocked; it is a small business owner whose customers cannot reach them; it is the disabled Peer in this wheelchair who could not get across Westminster Bridge three years ago because Just Stop Oil were blocking me getting across—I should have borrowed one of their banners and then the police would have helped me across.

All these people matter every bit as much as those who are protesting. Their rights are not secondary. Their needs are not trivial, and their lives should not be treated as collateral damage in someone else’s political campaign.

Some argue—I think the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said so—that inconvenience is a part of protest, but inconvenience is not a theoretical concept. Inconvenience has consequences—missed medical appointments, missed exams, missed care visits, missed wages, missed opportunities. For many people, what is dismissed as mere inconvenience is in fact material harm.

I want to be absolutely clear that a legitimate public interest does not need to be a crowd of thousands. It does not need to be a major national event. It does not need to be a threat to infrastructure. Sometimes a legitimate public interest is one person, one individual, who simply needs to get to work or go to school or go to hospital. A democracy protects minorities, and sometimes the minority is a minority of one.

My amendments recognise that reality. They would ensure that the right to protest was balanced with the right of everyone else to live their lives. They would give public authorities clarity rather than ambiguity, because at present the police are often placed in an impossible position. If they intervene, they are accused of supporting protests. If they do not intervene, they are accused of failing to protect the public. My amendments would give them a clear statutory duty: protect protests, yes, but protect the public and ensure that daily life can continue.

This is not about silencing anyone; it is about ensuring that protest remains peaceful, proportionate and legitimate. If protests routinely prevent ordinary people going about their lives, public support for them will erode. When public support erodes, the right itself becomes more fragile. I think we all saw on television recently motorists getting out of their cars and dragging people off the road. That should not happen. They had to become vigilantes to clear the road. That was because they felt the authorities were not doing their duty in keeping the roads clear.

My amendments would strengthen the right to protest by ensuring that it was exercised responsibly, in a way that commands public respect rather than public resentment. The proposed new clause before them is well intentioned, but without my amendments it risks creating a one-sided right that elevates the interests of protesters above the interests of everyone else. That is not balance, that is not fairness, and it is not how rights should operate in a democratic society. My amendments would restore that balance. They recognise that the right to protest is vital but not absolute. They recognise that the rights of protesters must coexist with the rights of those who are not protesting. They recognise that sometimes the legitimate public interest is not a grand principle but a simple human need—the need to get to work, to keep an appointment, to reach a hospital or simply to go about one’s daily business without obstruction. I commend my amendments to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it was quite difficult to sit here and listen to that, but I will come to that. I very strongly support Amendment 369, and I do so with a real sense of fury that we are in this position, that we actually have to do this, and that it is not obvious to any Government that in a democracy we need the right to protest to be protected. To engage in peaceful protest means irritating other people. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but, unfortunately, what he said just now was complete and utter nonsense.

Over recent years, we have seen a real erosion of protest rights through one Bill after another. I sat here and watched it all and protested at every single move. Each was justified on a narrow, technical or operational point but, taken together, they amounted to a clear political direction—making protests harder, riskier and much easier to shut down.

Amendment 369 does not invent new rights. It states in clear and accessible language that peaceful protest is a fundamental democratic right and that public authorities have a duty to respect, protect and facilitate that right.

Amendments 369ZA and 369ZB seek to qualify that right by reference to whether members of the public are “hindered”, experience “inconvenience” or are able to go about “their daily business”. These amendments fundamentally misunderstand the nature of protest. Almost all meaningful protest causes some degree of hindrance or inconvenience. If it does not, it is very easy to ignore. From the suffragettes to trade unionists to civil rights campaigners, protest has always disrupted business as usual, precisely because that is how attention is drawn to injustice. For example, proscribing Palestine Action was such a stupid move by the Government and has caused more problems for them and the police than if they had just left it alone and arrested its members for criminal damage and similar.

I come back to these embarrassing amendments. It is not just the problem of their intent, which I disagree very strongly with, but their vagueness. Terms such as “hindered” and “inconvenience” are entirely undefined. Being delayed by five minutes could be an inconvenience. Noise could be an inconvenience. Simply being reminded of a cause that one disagrees with could, for some, be considered an inconvenience. If those concepts become legal thresholds for restricting protest, the right itself becomes meaningless.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, used the phrase “in the real world”. I live in the real world, and I understand what protest does and why it is needed. Under these amendments, any protest that is visible, noisy or effective could be banned on the basis that someone somewhere was inconvenienced. Democracy is by its nature sometimes noisy, disruptive and inconvenient. It is very inconvenient being here at night debating these issues, quite honestly, in a moderately cold Chamber.

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

Moderately?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

All right, in a cold Chamber.

If we prioritise convenience over conscience, we should not be surprised when people feel shut out of political decision-making altogether. For those reasons, I support Amendments 369 and 371. In essence, protest law is a terrible mess, and we have got here by a long series of government decisions and government weirdnesses. The whole thing is confusing for the police, as we have been told by senior police officers. It means that police officers make mistakes based on their own judgment. That is a terrible thing to happen in a democracy. Let us get this into the Bill to make clear exactly what a democracy looks like.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The terms of the noble Lord’s review have been published and they are available to the Committee now. The review will examine whether current public order legislation is fit for purpose in the light of contemporary protest tactics, community impacts and the need to safeguard democracy. It will examine how effectively police are using the powers available to them. It will consider whether further measures are needed to reassure the communities who are most affected by current tensions, while respecting the right to protest. Those are all important issues. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, expects to submit the review to the Home Secretary by spring 2026 and, in doing so, will give an overview of all the legislation that is in place.

The noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, commented on Palestine Action and the right to protest of Palestine Action. I want to reaffirm that both the House of Commons and this House had an opportunity to vote in favour or against that legislation. Both the House of Commons and this House voted in favour of the legislation, which is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said, police officers are implementing the legislation that was passed by both Houses. As I recall, although I cannot remember the exact figures, a number of Members of this House voted against that order, including Members from my own side. It was a difficult debate in July. It was a free vote; many Members voted against it in the Commons and this House, but both measures were passed in both Houses.

It is not illegal for anybody to go outside now and campaign against the Israeli Government or any actions by the Israeli Government, or to campaign in favour of the Palestine organisations that are seeking to change the status quo in that part of the Middle East. What is illegal is to show support for an organisation that I, Ministers and the Government, on advice from the security services and others, determined was engaged in activities that crossed the threshold of the Terrorism Act. The noble Lord, Lord Walney, is well aware of the complexities of that, as a former adviser, but that was the advice we got.

If an organisation is breaching the threshold for terrorism, it is the duty of this Government to act, and that is what we did in those circumstances. So I want to place on record again, for clarity, that the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, can go outside tonight and campaign for a Palestine state and against the Israeli Government, and no police will arrest him or, as he mentioned, any grandparent, teacher or professional. But if he goes out and supports Palestine Action, which has been determined to have crossed the threshold of the Terrorism Act, he will face the full force of the law. If he does not like the law, he can try to change it, but that is the law passed by both Houses and therefore the police have a duty to uphold it. It does not stop peaceful protest.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I would love to reopen the Palestine Action debate, because I was the person who pushed for the vote and, as we exited the Chamber, several Peers said to me, “This is going to cause trouble”. So people knew.

However, on the review led by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, can the Minister say whether the noble Lord set the time limit or whether the Government did, because it seems a lot of work for such a short time?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I always try to be helpful to the House. I was not directly party to the issue with the Home Secretary and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, about the time limit, so I cannot say with any certainty whether the Home Secretary said to the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, to do it by April, or the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, said that he will deliver it by April. If the noble Baroness wants me to write to her to make that point, I will do so.

The key thing at the heart of Amendment 371 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, is that it provides for the review to be undertaken within 12 months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that the review we are doing currently will have been completed by April 2026.