Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I was approached only last night by my noble friend Lord Marlesford to ask what my views were and whether I would vote for him. I cautiously—because caution is my watchword—promised that I would come and listen to him. That is why I am here and, indeed, on my feet. I have not been approached by Westminster City Council, but all politics are local and I once represented that council in the other place, and am therefore sympathetic to it.

I have one personal footnote to make to this debate, a prior example to the body that my noble friend seeks to establish—the Paving Commission in Regent’s Park, which was set up during the period of Nash to look after good order in Regent’s Park. I realise that the Government might say that that is not an exact analogy, but the fact remains that the Royal Parks are another of the places in this great city where free speech is demonstrated, Hyde Park being a particular of that. The Paving Commission consisted entirely of those with a local interest, under an early-19th century statute, with two exceptions—the bailiff of the Royal Parks, who is a civil servant at the assistant secretary level; and a Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury, which effectively means a senior government whip in the House of Commons.

I served as a commissioner for a couple of years and made a small contribution to the work of the Paving Commission by saying that it was all very well for the debates that we had in our regular monthly meetings for those who actually lived in the park, because they recognised absolutely everything that was being talked about. The bailiff of the Royal Parks to some degree and myself to a larger degree, because much of Regent’s Park lay outside my constituency, were not so familiar. I made the suggestion to the head of the commission that we should have a picnic every year and that the whole commission should make a tour of the whole park. I am glad to say that that suggestion was adopted and ever since nobody has ever been able to work out why they had never done it before. The scheme has worked extremely well for 200 years. It is a little difficult to apply modern parking regulations to legislation that was set up in the early part of the 19th century, but imagination has been deployed.

Therefore, having said to my noble friend last night that I would certainly listen to him, it would be churlish of me not to say that I would not listen to my noble friend the Minister. But I have to say on the basis of the debate that we have had so far that I am minded to vote with my noble friend and with Westminster City Council.

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster]

My Lords, I sympathise with the objectives and purposes of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in tabling these amendments and with those who have spoken in favour of it. There are two points on the practicability of the scheme that I would like to query, which both relate to this Parliament Square committee. First, would the authorities of the Palace of Westminster be represented on it? That is just a query; I do not know what is intended. Secondly, it seems that this committee would be in almost permanent session. I wonder if that is really practicable and I would welcome comments on that before I make up my mind on how to respond in a Division.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, we have had a number of opportunities to discuss the issues that have been raised this afternoon. Indeed, there will be more because while we are still waiting for Committee stages on both Private Members’ Bills to come through, we have the debate today and one more opportunity on this Bill to try and resolve this. The issue itself is not difficult to encapsulate. As many people have suggested, we need some imaginative thinking about the relationship between Parliament, the abbey, the church, the public buildings and the public spaces around them that goes across the various dimensions that have been mentioned in this debate—security, access, traffic, tourism, history, heritage and, of course, the absolute requirement to ensure that demonstrations can take place.

The good thing about the amendment—indeed, it was in the Bill that we discussed last week—is that there is a laser-like focus on the two issues that we have been focusing on today. They are that we want to have a clear space within which the buildings that I mentioned can exist and the activities that we have been talking about can happen, but we also want to encourage demonstration—a very important aspect of this amendment. That far, we agree with everybody who has spoken that that is what we are trying to do but, as has been said already, the problem is that we do not seem able to solve it.

It seems to me and to our side that, as again has been mentioned, we have to be a bit careful that we do not rush into action here. That may seem odd given the number of years we have been working on it but I detect a sense of—what shall we call it?—tentism springing up. We should not do that without thinking very carefully what we are doing. As was said earlier, there are many different ways of demonstrating and it just seems to happen that tents seem to be the vogue at the moment. What that has to do with modern life, I have no idea.

It is also rather sad, in some senses, that the extraordinary contribution to public life which Brian Haw made before his untimely death has been swept away as something that we are against, even though it is in some ways a peculiarly British way of trying to express a view by a sort of silent protest in the face of all possible opposition. With the whole establishment and everybody against it, he continued to make his point. It may not have been to everybody's liking or as effective as he might have wanted it to be but it was there, it was different and it was distinctive. We should worry if we were to squeeze it out by a rush to some form of arrangement.

We also have to be a bit careful about what is happening here. I have never been of the view that a committee is the answer to the problem that we have, and I am a bit surprised to hear other people saying it. Committees do not really solve many things. We had a rather strange intervention last week from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who said that the military would have recommended a committee in this situation. I thought that was a contradiction in terms. The other thing that we have to be careful about is that the evening round of the vehicles under Westminster City Council's jurisdiction will be picking up the tents and other materials, if the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, is to be believed. That is really a form of theft, is it not? Again, we should be careful before Parliament legislates in that way. There are people who own those things and we cannot act completely without the rights involved in that.

Noble Lords will detect from what I say that I am sympathetic to what is proposed and would like to support it. The problem is that the amendment in its present form has not been subject to sufficient scrutiny. We had a little of that during Second Reading; in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, raised a number of points which he felt would improve that Bill. An important way to take forward the aims and objectives of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, is to have the Committee stage at the right time, to try to go through that Bill and improve it. Unfortunately, the timing would not fit with the present Bill. I do not know how we resolve that but I will come back to it in a minute.

However, it seems to me that there are ways in which the elements that the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, is putting forward do fit with the intentions of the Government. It would be sensible to try and bolt together the two impulses so that at Third Reading, before the Bill leaves this House, the Minister can bring forward proposals. I note that when she responded to the debate last week, she said of discussions and meetings that:

“Those are ongoing and I do not rule out the possibility of bringing forward further measures before the Bill completes its passage through this House. I do not think I can give more detail at the moment”.

She always says that, doesn’t she? It is a bit irritating, and I hope that this time we can get down to it. She went on,

“but it is certainly a matter under consideration and the talks are ongoing”.—[Official Report, 1/7/11; col. 2014.]

Well, more time has passed and presumably talks have taken place. Now let us hear where they are, as the time as come for us to try to resolve this, at least in the first stage.

We on this side would like to support the intention behind the Bill. In summary, we think that provision would be better incorporated within this Bill and taken forward as one piece of legislation. However, it will need—