Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Desai Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

We need this legislation to be as clear as possible and for the freedom to demonstrate to be as enabled as possible.

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I spoke on this section of the Bill at Second Reading and I very much support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. If we have subsection (1) of Clause 142 in place, which re-establishes the Public Order Act 1986 as the ruling legislation, the rest of that clause/section is completely unnecessary. We can omit all that. If we have the 1986 Act, all subsequent legislation is not required, including Clause 143 and the rest of the provisions in this section.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I have an amendment in this group but we agree with the repeal of the provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 relating to demonstrations in the vicinity of Parliament. We also agree with the need for further proposals and for the use of the 1986 Public Order Act. The 2005 Act created a new offence of demonstrating without authorisation in what is described as a designated area, which was defined by order. That designated area had to be within 1 kilometre of Parliament Square. The use of loudspeakers in the designated area was also banned.

However, that Act had unacceptable and unintended consequences on the right of some to protest and it soon raised concerns that the Act had not, in reality, struck the correct balance between the right to protest and the rights of people to go about their everyday business and for them to enjoy Parliament Square. A proposal to repeal the provisions of the 2005 Act was included in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. That proposal fell in the wash-up at the 2010 general election.

In looking at the Government's proposals we have some questions to raise, simply to test whether they are likely to achieve their objectives. It would certainly be helpful if the Minister could define the problem that the Government feel that their proposals will address, and to define the harm that the Government are trying to deal with. The Government’s proposals are, in many ways, similar to the provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act but they apply to a much smaller area, namely Parliament Square. How did the Government decide that Parliament Square should be the limit of the area to which their proposals should relate? Although he is not in his place, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, had amendments proposing, as I understand it, to include Abingdon Green. How would the situation be addressed if those protesting—the permanence of existing protests is an issue—moved just outside the area of Parliament Square?

Do all the parties directly involved support the Government’s proposals, including the Greater London Authority, Westminster City Council, the Metropolitan Police and indeed the House authorities here? Are there any areas of disagreement over the scope or the practicality of the proposals?

We recognise that this is not an easy issue to resolve and that at the end of the day it will not just be about what is or is not in the Bill or any associated documentation. It is also about the degree of common sense—which, hopefully, will be considerable—that will be applied by all concerned in implementing the powers in the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, with nine clauses to deal with, worrying about a very small traffic island seems on the face of it to be a bit excessive, but I recognise that there is concern about the current situation in Parliament Square, the overkill that SOCPA applied to it and the question of what we put in place as we remove SOCPA. On the problem that we are trying to address and the harm that we are trying to remove, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that the democracy encampment actually produced a considerable amount of harm to Parliament Square Garden. The garden, which should be there for the enjoyment of all, is still fenced off, as the noble Lord well knows, and not only tents but some semi-permanent structures now obstruct the pavement.

I also recognise that this is part of a much wider discussion that we need to have, not just on the Bill but about the future of Parliament Square and of this part of Westminster as a whole. We had a useful debate on this on Friday, to which one or two Members here contributed. I recommend that those who were not here on Friday read Hansard. The debate raised some much wider questions to which I hope this Chamber will return, and which I hope that Members of both Houses and the authorities of the Abbey and the Supreme Court will address.

[Lord Desai]

Is there not anxiety on the part of the demonstrators that if they do not have permanent structures they will not be able to come back the next day and demonstrate? They are worried that if they demonstrate only during the day and then go home, the next day the police will say, “You can’t come here”. They are probably trying, in a clumsy way, to establish a right. I quite agree that these structures are ugly but that right is a crucial one to protect, and we should not worry too much about the structures.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is no evidence for what the noble Lord has just suggested. We are talking about proportionality in a whole range of different ways here. Parliament Square, Old Palace Yard and the area around them, as some noble Lords were saying on Friday, ought to be a great democratic space to be enjoyed by a large number of people, not just those who come to visit Parliament or those who wish to make their views well known—loudly known—but also tourists and those substantial numbers of people who pass through Parliament Square every day on their way to and from work. It is a transient population that is obstructed by those who wish to be here permanently. Some of those structures are semi-permanent. I think that the noble Lord will agree that if the Aldwych—to take where he and I used to work as an example—had a similarly permanent encampment, there would be real problems of obstruction of the footway and so on.

The question that we are dealing with is: how best to arrange Parliament Square for the enjoyment, and the presence, of the maximum number of people under shared rules for all who come. This is a very large area. The intention of this part of the Bill is to give much greater clarity to protestors, public and the police as to what is and is not acceptable in Parliament Square. As I said on Friday, overnight protests and vigils are clearly one sort of acceptable behaviour. Being there for a year at a time—or, in the case of Brian Haw, several years—is a different sort of presence. It begins to obstruct the rights of others. I am sure that the noble Lord is familiar with John Stuart Mill and On Liberty, and the question of how one’s liberty has not to obstruct the rights of others. The maximum number of people in the democracy encampment was, I think, nearly 150. Brian Haw’s group has always been a mere handful. So we are trading off different rights. That is the purpose of this place.

I therefore say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that scrutiny of this is taking place in a wider context, not simply today. We discussed this on Friday and there is, indeed, another Private Member’s Bill. This will continue to be a large set of issues.

The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked whether the policeman was a mind-reader. No, certainly not. Before anyone can commit an offence under these provisions, they must first be issued with a direction to stop: a warning. It is acceptable to issue a warning to someone you see carrying their sleeping bag and various other things that they should not put it down and spend several nights on it. That is what is intended in this clause.

The noble Baroness talks about fears of domestic extremists. I do not particularly want to go down that road beyond saying that I recall that when I once turned up to speak to the Campaign for the Accountability of US Bases in Britain at RAF Menwith Hill, it was remarkable how quickly the MoD policeman appeared to recognise who I was—my name and everything else. Perhaps I am on the list, too. We do not need to go too far into that for the moment.

These amendments rightly test the replacement for SOCPA. The Government’s view is that getting rid of SOCPA and replacing it with measures that existed before—as far as demonstrators are concerned, the previously operating Public Order Acts—is the right response. There is a trade-off between different users, as I have already said. However, there is a clear consensus on all sides of this Chamber after five years of debate that Parliament Square should be fully developed as a democratic space and that we should be discussing with the Palace authorities, the Abbey, the Supreme Court and others how to use it better. That discussion is rather wider than the Bill goes and needs to be continued elsewhere.

The question of Abingdon Green was raised briefly. There are particular problems because Abingdon Green is private, not public, property. Noble Lords will be aware of the many subtleties of who is directly responsible for which bit of the various facilities around here. There are risks of hybridity if we apply this Bill to Abingdon Green. However, we understand the practical challenges in terms of applying these various remedies. The Government will therefore additionally discuss with the House authorities the benefits of moving an amendment on Report to make provision for a power of seizure to be attached to Royal Parks regulations, which apply to Abingdon Green, to support the position that we have taken for effective enforcement of GLA and Westminster City Council by-laws.