Rights to Protest

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

Mr Gray—soon to be Sir James—it is a great pleasure to appear under your wise and beneficent guidance today for what I think it is fair to say has been a binary debate, with not much nuance between the two sides.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers)—the first son of Stockton South—on his speech and on leading the debate about this petition. I thank other Members for contributing, not least the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who unwittingly made a strong case for the legislation, and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who gave us the hilarious routine of criticising my hon. Friend for his remarks, and then indulging in such hyperbole and invective that she neatly illustrated why, unlike in Germany, the Greens will always be a fringe party in this country.

Obviously, those who signed this petition are concerned about the impact that the new measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill may have on peaceful protest. I start by reaffirming the Government’s firm commitment to the right to peaceful protest. It is, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion pointed out, a fundamental tool of civic expression. I also wish to reaffirm our commitment to the European convention on human rights, namely articles 10 and 11, which set out everyone’s right to freedom of expression, assembly and association, and they are my rights as well as the rights of others. However, the very same human rights legislation makes it clear that these rights are not absolute and must be balanced with the rights and freedoms of others.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), the Opposition spokesperson, said that we have put the police in a difficult position, yet it was the police who asked for a number of these measures. The Metropolitan Police Service and the National Police Chiefs’ Council have expressed concerns that existing public order legislation, which has not been updated for 35 years, is no longer appropriate for responding to the highly disruptive protest tactics that we have considered today.

In fact, in order to understand how effectively the police manage protests and how legislation could be updated to improve police effectiveness without eroding the right to protest, the Government commissioned Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to conduct an inspection of the policing of protests. The report found that too often:

“The balance may tip too readily in favour of protesters when—as is often the case—the police do not accurately assess the level of disruption caused, or likely to be caused, by a protest. These and other observations led us to conclude that a modest reset of the scales is needed.”

The disruption caused by those protests is made clearer when we examine the cost to the taxpayer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South pointed out, during the Extinction Rebellion protests of April and October 2019, some of London’s busiest areas were brought to a standstill for several days. That had a disproportionate impact on commuters, small businesses and ambulance services, with the policing operation for the two extended protests costing £37 million—more than twice the annual budget of London’s violent crime taskforce.

In another example, on 4 September 2020 protesters blocked the entrances and exits for the printing presses of News UK, which estimated that it lost over £1 million and was unable to send out 60% to 70% of its print run that day. These highly disruptive protests required police officers from around the country to step away from their regular responsibilities to police them instead. During Extinction Rebellion’s two-week so-called autumn uprising, in addition to thousands of Metropolitan police officers, nearly 1,100 officers were drawn from across England, Scotland and Wales. Instead, they could have been protecting the communities they are supposed to serve.

What is more, on top of this drain on resources, police officers are often threatened, verbally abused, assaulted and injured when policing protests. In London, a total of 23 Met police officers were seriously injured in the line of duty during a single weekend of protest in June last year, and Avon and Somerset police are investigating assaults on 40 officers and one member of the media during the recent disgraceful “Kill the Bill” protests in Bristol. This behaviour from extreme elements of the “Kill the Bill” protests, as well as from equally violent elements of other groups, is totally unacceptable and should be condemned by all right-thinking people.

Given the results of the inspectorate’s report, the spiralling cost to the taxpayer and the increasing pressure on and violence towards police officers and indeed others, it is imperative that the Government act.

I turn to the impact that these measures will have on protests. It is not the case that they will unnecessarily restrict civil liberties. The impact that these measures will have has been misinterpreted, and the majority of protesters in the UK, who behave lawfully, will be entirely unaffected by the changes. This misinterpretation and hyperbole has been repeated across all of the public order measures in the Bill, and is unjustified. It is not the case that these measures allow the police to ban protests. It is not the case that these measures will criminalise protesters who are annoying. Public nuisance is already an existing offence, and we are simply stating it in statute to provide certainty for everybody.

It is not the case that these measures will ban protests outside of Parliament. You will remember, Mr Gray, because you were here at the time, that it was a Labour Government in 2005 that banned protests outside of Parliament, resulting on one famous occasion in the arrest of an individual woman reading the names of the war dead from Iraq outside the Cenotaph. The clause in our Bill merely relates to the passage of vehicles into and out of the parliamentary estate, allowing elected representatives to exercise their democratic rights and conduct our democracy in the way people would expect. Nor is it the case that these measures will ban noisy protests. The police will only be able to impose conditions on unjustifiably noisy protests that cause harm to others or prevent an organisation from operating, for example if a business has to shut down because of the noise being created.

We did, in fact, put forward several legislative measures to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary for its consideration. These included, for example, a measure to enable the police to stop and search protesters. The inspectorate concluded that

“with some qualifications, all five proposals would improve police effectiveness without eroding the right to protest.”

It went on to recommend that the Government consider further measures to require organisers of public assemblies to notify the police of their intention to assemble, and to enable the police, in exceptional circumstances, to apply for the prohibition of public assemblies. However, following careful consideration of the impact of these measures on the police’s ability to manage protests, as well as on civil liberties, we are not proceeding with the full range of measures that the inspectorate has supported. We therefore think that we have struck a balance between the legitimate and fundamental right to protest, and the rights of others to go about their business unmolested.

In short, these measures have been portrayed by some as draconian, and as a dismantling of our civil liberties. This is misinformed at best and misleading at worst. These measures simply seek to improve the balance of the rights of protesters with the rights of others, as I say, to go about their business unhindered, and will allow the police to take a more proactive approach in managing these disproportionately disruptive protests, but will not grant them sweeping powers to override their obligations. When using these measures or existing public order powers, the police must be able to demonstrate that their use is necessary and proportionate. They will also need to be able to show due regard to human rights obligations. This highlights our continued commitment to the absolutely fundamental right of peaceful protest, balanced against the rights of others to go about their business.

I commend the Government’s response to this e-petition.