Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill Debate
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Dawn Butler
Main Page: Dawn Butler (Labour - Brent East)Department Debates - View all Dawn Butler's debates with the Home Office
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill
Dawn Butler ExcerptsMonday 5th July 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 5 July 2021 - (5 Jul 2021)
Sarah Jones
I wonder where that stops and at what point we accept the right balance between the right to protest peacefully and the right of people to go about their business. The inspectorate called for a moderate reset and that is not what this is.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend not agree that without noise, protest will not achieve anything?
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; that is clearly the case. It is also really important to note that the police at no point have asked for these powers on the basis of noise. The Metropolitan police said that it did
“not request the legal change on noise”.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on public order told Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights that police chiefs had asked for a “lower, broader threshold” for imposing conditions, but not a law relating to noise. Inspector Matt Parr told the JCHR that he was not asked to look specifically at whether or not noise should be included. The point of protest is to capture attention. Protests are noisy. Sometimes they are annoying, but they are as fundamental to our democracy as our Parliament.