Public Order Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick said in November last year when broadly similar powers were introduced into the police Bill:

“With the greatest respect to the Government, this is yet another example of ‘What wizard ideas can we think up in line with the Home Secretary telling the Tory party conference she was going to get tough on protesters?’”—[Official Report, 24/11/21; col. 982.]


Here we are with a sense of déjà vu, again.

We have had a very interesting and useful debate this evening, with almost no unqualified support for the Bill. In a debate on this Bill in the other place, the Conservative MP Sir Charles Walker called the proposed serious disruption prevention orders

“absolutely appalling because there are plenty of existing laws that can be utilised to deal with people who specialise in making other people’s lives miserable.”

Sir Charles went on to read out a list of public order laws that already exist to tackle disruptive protests. This list bears repeating:

“obstructing a police officer, Police Act 1996; obstructing a highway, Highways Act 1980; obstruction of an engine, Malicious Damage Act 1861 … endangering road users, Road Traffic Act 1988; aggravated trespass, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994; criminal damage, Criminal Damage Act 1971 … public nuisance, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022”

and

“the Public Order Act 1986 that allows police officers to ban or place conditions on protest.”—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/22; col. 580.]

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, sensibly suggested a degree of consolidation to provide clarity and assessment of the existing laws. That seems a wise idea.

My friend in the other place, Wendy Chamberlain MP, a former police officer, said on Report that

“the police do not need this Bill to respond when protests cross the line.”

She also noted:

“Policing by consent is one of the greatest attributes of our country, and it is something that I am passionate about. The Bill undermines that.”—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/22; cols. 590-92.]


So when the Minister says that the Bill gives the police the tools they need, which I think he said in his opening speech, we on these Benches do not agree. We certainly do not need these broad, unclear, illiberal measures. My noble friend Lady Hamwee said how precious our freedoms are and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said that protest is not a crime.

I am not saying that all those we have witnessed protesting in recent years, months and days are angels. Those who obstruct an ambulance or commit criminal damage do the protest cause no favours and should, if appropriate, be arrested and prosecuted. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, referred to the tomato soup on the Van Gogh painting. When I saw that, I did not know the painting was covered by glass and I do not know whether the protesters knew it was covered by glass.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

They did.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Okay, that is fair enough, but what I did not like was the tweet from Just Stop Oil saying, in effect—I cannot remember the exact words—who cares about art when the planet is in danger? That struck a very harsh note with me; many of us do care about art. What I support are peaceful protests which avoid both violence and deliberate damage.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made a powerful speech, but I am afraid it failed to convince me that the existing powers are inadequate. I normally agree to a very large degree with the noble Viscount, but not really on this occasion. As my noble friend Lord Beith said in last November’s debate on the police Bill:

“It seems to me that political considerations have taken precedence over all considerations relating to making good law and, indeed, policing protest satisfactorily and effectively.”—[Official Report, 24/11/21; col. 985.]


He wisely warned both then, and again today, against getting into trouble by trying to turn into general law attempts to deal with very specific cases. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made similar warnings that next time it will be some other inventive method and we will have to legislate for that.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, said that climate protesters risked damaging their cause, and I have felt that on various occasions recently. Indeed, it is so but that is a public relations matter, not a criminal issue. I hope that will make some of them reflect on the value of what they are doing. If they are alienating some of their potential audience, the message is not effective.

Getting the Balance Right?, the March 2021 inspection report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services on how effectively the police deal with protest, which has already been referred to, not least by my noble friend, wisely said that

“legislative reform will not be a panacea for the problem of disruptive protest”.

My noble friend Lord Paddick explained how HMIC had rejected many of the proposals now in the Bill. In fact, as in so much of what the Home Office supervises, the challenge is not so much new laws but sufficient, well-trained operational capacity. Perhaps that will be a theme of what was to be the dinner break business on asylum processing. HMIC also called for

“a greater understanding of human rights law among the police”.

That might have come in useful during the anti-monarchist protests in the run-up to the Queen’s funeral, when there was a heavy-handed response at times. Certainly, some were in very bad taste but whether they were a breach of the law is another matter entirely.

The HMIC report emphasises the value of working with protest organisers, commenting that most collaborate with the police to make sure that protests are safe. It notes:

“Courts have repeatedly emphasised that a degree of temporary interference with the rights of others is acceptable in order to uphold freedoms of expression and assembly”.


The police are ahead of the Government here. HMIC reported on the value of police liaison team officers in reaching agreement on an acceptable level of disruption. This should not be underrated.

In regard to the expansion of stop and search, including without suspicion, the Home Office itself acknowledges in its equality impact assessment on the Bill that the expansion of stop and search

“would risk having a negative effect on a part of the community where trust and confidence levels are relatively low.”

We know that this is talking about young people and especially young black men. That is a very serious matter if it is going to create a more negative relationship with the police.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, applauded the JCHR’s suggestion that serious disruption be defined and I think the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, agreed with him. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, also wanted careful examination of the proposed reversal of the burden of proof requiring the defendant to show that they had a reasonable excuse for, for instance, locking on. This seems in strange contrast to an offence such as obstruction of the highway, where it is for the prosecution to prove that the defendant did not have lawful authority or excuse for their actions. Perhaps the Minister could explain this reversal of proof.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, my noble friend Lord Beith, the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Sandhurst, and others warned particularly against politicising policing through government injunctions under, I think, Clause 20. That was a particular concern that ran throughout the debate.

The Minister said in his opening remarks that serious disruption prevention orders have an appropriately high threshold. Other speakers, such as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, did not agree that the balance of probabilities was an appropriately high threshold. Some obstructive activity has to be tolerated in a free society. In its report on the Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights recalled:

“The European Court of Human Rights has recognised that public demonstrations ‘may cause some disruption to ordinary life’ but that ‘it is important to show a certain degree of tolerance towards peaceful gatherings if the freedom of assembly guaranteed in Article 11 of the Convention is not to be deprived of its substance.”


The Government have provided no compelling justification for the introduction of the new expansive powers in the Bill, criminalising ordinary, peaceful, if disruptive, behaviour. The JCHR also stresses—it has been another theme in this debate—that:

“The UK is rightly proud of its history of respect for political protest and is critical of other nations who fail to show the same degree of respect for the crucial importance played by protest in a democratic society. Introducing our own oppressive measures could damage the UK’s international standing and our credibility when criticising other nations for cracking down on peaceful protest.”


The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, pithily summed this up as “authoritarian creep” and the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, reminded us that sometimes protest tactics that make us uncomfortable change opinion and get the law changed. I hope the new Government will show concern about their international image and reputation and be persuaded that the Bill is unnecessary and unjustified. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said, we need evidence of how this Bill can succeed when its predecessors have self-evidently failed if the Government want this new Bill.