Public Order Policing

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is trying to tempt me down a road that it is not necessarily appropriate for me to go down on this occasion. All I will say is that it is important that we look at the make-up of the crowd. As I said in my statement, sadly what we saw was a significant number of people who came not to protest peacefully but to perpetrate and encourage violence and criminal damage.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Is not the point of a kettle that it brings things to the boil? Is the Home Secretary comfortable that largely because of her Government’s decisions on the education maintenance allowance, minors and other young people were caught up in the kettle? She says that those who remained peaceful and wished to leave Whitehall were able to do so, but can she confirm that the IPCC is investigating a number of complaints about young people not being able to leave?

[Mrs May]

The police did ensure that it was possible for peaceful protesters to leave Parliament square on Thursday. They put those arrangements in place, and a significant number of protesters took advantage of that and were allowed to leave by the police.