Public Order Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I think many of us in this debate will have a feeling of déjà vu. No matter how many pieces of legislation come through here granting the police additional powers, it seems that they are never enough. It seems we are always one more public order provision away from solving the problem.

Along with other noble Lords, I want to support the police and the rule of law. We are grateful for all the police do; they stand in our place and, very often, have to take very difficult decisions. But we already have the Public Order Act 1986, which grants the police powers to place restrictions on protests and to prohibit those which threaten to cause serious disruption to public order. We already have the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which introduced the offence of aggravated trespass. We have the offence of obstruction of a highway and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which allows for civil injunctions to prevent protesters demonstrating in a way which causes harm or harassment. As recently as last year, remarkably extensive powers, including on noisy and disruptive protests, were granted in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

Surely history indicates two things: first, that many protest groups are highly sophisticated and very knowledgeable about their rights and the law around protest, and are better and faster able to adapt than it seems the Home Office is able to legislate; and, secondly, that in attempting to outflank that speed of adaptation, Governments have thrown increasingly and worryingly broadly drawn powers to the police. It is clear, by the very fact that the Government deem this new Bill a necessity, that this is unlikely to succeed. It is hard to see how one more piece of legislation will be any more effective at reducing disruptive protests than the previous many pieces of legislation. It would be very instructive if the Minister could go through those previous powers in some detail to explain to your Lordships’ House how often they are used and what their impact has been.

Certainly, the case for new extensive police powers needs to be carefully constructed given the previous history. It is not a small thing to place such significant powers in the hands of the police. Some of what we are discussing today could see someone who has not been convicted of any protest-related offence—despite all the offences and laws which already exist—nevertheless being subject to electronic monitoring and prevented from attending protests, or even encouraging or enabling protests. What seems to be proposed in these serious disruption prevention orders is an incredible set of restrictions which could be imposed on nothing more than a civil standard of proof. It is our duty to look very closely at each of these proposals as the Bill passes through your Lordships’ House.

I am not here in any way to make the police’s job more difficult. As I have said, I think we all deplore unacceptable demonstrations and the huge amount of money that they have cost the public purse. However, in a democracy—as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said—sometimes that is the cost of freedom of speech and expression. It is a huge responsibility to maintain public safety and order and to balance that with the freedoms of expression and association. Not one of us here is under any illusion of the difficulties that we face.

I am sure the Minister will tell us that the powers created here will be rarely used and only in the most limited and exceptional circumstances, but I note what other noble Lords have already said: that many of these powers have not been sought by the police. I am not convinced that a “trust us” approach is sufficiently robust to protect against a possible future Government, or police force, who might on occasion, for other reasons, be tempted to overreach their powers. It is very easy to be complacent over rights and the inherent goodness and propriety of our institutions, and we are fortunate in this country to have been more blessed than almost anywhere else in the world in this regard. But we do not need to look very hard around the world to see rights undermined, slowly at first and then dramatically. Surely it is our responsibility to guard against that possibility. We have concerns about the scope of SDPOs, and I will certainly listen carefully to what others with experience in this area have to say on these provisions.

I briefly mention Clause 9, introduced by amendment NC11 in the other place, on abortion clinic buffer zones. I have serious concerns about this clause as it stands. The term “interferes with” is so broadly defined that it includes seeking to influence, merely expressing an opinion, or attempting

“to inform about abortion services”.

I cannot believe that this is proportionate given the existing powers possessed by the police and local authorities, and I am sure that we on this Bench will wish to look again at this clause.

I will listen with interest to the Minister’s response, but at this stage I express grave reservations on a number of aspects of what is being proposed. I hope that the Minister will provide rather more robust evidence of why the Bill will be effective where all the previous ones have apparently not been.