Crime and Policing Bill

Kim Johnson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)]

This is a huge Bill with more than 300 pages of measures, but I wish to focus on the extra powers it contains to police protests, and particularly clauses 86 and 95, about which civil liberties organisations such as Liberty, Amnesty International and Big Brother Watch, as well as trade unions, have raised loud alarm bells. I also wish to take the opportunity to recognise more broadly the dangerous direction of travel of the increasing criminalisation of legitimate and peaceful protest in this country which, as many will recognise, is being mirrored around the world.

In recent years we have seen the introduction of a vast swathe of anti-protest measures, including new police powers that have been used increasingly to clamp down on freedom of assembly and expression. Those powers are being extended yet again in the Bill. The Tories’ controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Public Order Act 2023 and the “serious disruption” regulations all brought in wide-ranging new powers. Those include allowing the police to impose “conditions” on any protest that is deemed to be disruptive or to cause “serious annoyance” to the local community, and sentences of up to 10 years in prison for damaging memorials such as statues. Those of us who fought those measures tooth and nail have now seen our fears realised, with clampdowns on the right to protest peacefully.

Last month the aggressive policing of the national Palestine protest led to the arrest of an estimated 77 protesters. Even Members of this House were called in for police questioning, as was an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor who was carrying flowers to lay for the dead children of Gaza. We cannot underestimate the chilling impact that that heavy-handed policing of peaceful protests will have on our basic rights and freedoms. From striking workers to the national Palestine demos and farmers’ protests, huge demonstrations and protests are becoming more commonplace across the political spectrum, as people across the country and beyond feel that they are losing their voices in their workplaces and the political sphere. Instead of continuing down that dangerous road, we should be taking the opportunity that the Bill presents to roll back some of those powers, defend our civil liberties, and restore our proud traditions of freedom of speech, expression, and assembly.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kim Johnson]

No, I am not taking interventions—sorry.

In this country we have a proud tradition of standing up for what we believe in, but that has increasingly come under threat, and measures in the Bill continue on that trajectory. I hope that the Minister and Government will take those points on board and consider amendments in Committee to roll back some of the draconian anti-protest legislation and restore our civil liberties—moves on which I am sure we can find common ground across the House.

Lastly, I want to turn to the provisions in the Bill that will further criminalise Roma and Traveller communities, and the impact that certain clauses will have on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities such as those living on the Tara Park site in my Liverpool Riverside constituency. In particular, I want to raise concerns around clause 3 in part 1 of the Bill, which extends police dispersal powers and, as the Traveller movement has stated, risks leading to even more heavy-handed policing of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. As with the anti-protest provisions in the Bill, we must see such measures in the broader context of the increasing criminalisation of already marginalised communities. As such, I hope the Government will go back to the drawing board and consider using the Bill to repeal section 60C to 60E of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. This Bill is the first under Labour of its kind for a generation. Let us use it as an opportunity to protect our most marginalised communities and defend civil liberties.