Parliament Square (Management) Bill [HL]

Lord Desai Excerpts

Friday 1st July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I welcome the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. He and I came to the House at the same time, so we have a special bond of affection. For me, too, this is the fourth or fifth time that I have spoken on this subject. I welcome the Bill because it treats Parliament Square as a particular unit and addresses the current fragmentation of authorities that have bits and pieces of control over the square. The Bill suggests a committee that would co-ordinate what happens in the square.

It is very interesting that Clause 3(b) states that Parliament Square includes,

“the footways that immediately adjoin the central garden of Parliament Square”.

Currently it is the footways that people are occupying: they are not occupying Parliament Square. Finally we have got to a situation where there are restrictions on demonstrating around Parliament Square and where people who want to demonstrate—as they have a perfect right to do—have been pushed to this very scary paved edge of the square. Some of the tents erected are very small, and the variety of protests is quite fascinating. It is not just the old Brian Haw protest about Iraq; there is something about Freemasons murdering somebody and all sorts of interesting things.

Whatever we do to organise Parliament Square, we must foster and encourage people's right to protest. I very much think that we ought not to use these various pieces of legislation as restrictions on people's right to demonstrate. It is a great tribute to our democracy that right across from Parliament people can support causes that often have nothing to do with Parliament but which they feel strongly about and want to bring to Parliament’s attention.

[Lord Cormack]

The noble Lord will remember that only three weeks ago we had a debate on this subject and some of us tried to make the distinction between a place of legitimate protest and a squalid encampment permanently defacing the square. It seems that the elegant solution of my noble friend meets both the noble Lord's concerns and my own.

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I am coming to that. My background is that of a demonstrator. I demonstrated in Grosvenor Square against the American war in Vietnam, I helped students occupy the LSE and I did various other things.

[Lord Richard]

My noble friend demonstrated in Grosvenor Square, he did not sleep in it. He is making a link between demonstrating and sleeping somewhere in a tent. That seems somewhat tenuous.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Desai]

I am warming up to my solution to the problem. I said in your Lordships' House in a debate on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill that very often people use the grounds of things being squalid, unruly or unkempt as a way of restricting the right to demonstrate. I am very keen to make quite sure that whatever we do does not restrict that right. The noble Lord has proposed his solution. However, one reason they do not want to go away is that they are afraid that if they do, they will not be allowed to come back the next day. That is very much the fear. They have a tenuous hold on a space in which to demonstrate and they fear losing it.

One thing which the Committee on the Bill could do is not only to accept what is in Clause 2(2)—which all seems terribly negative, not positive—but to allow people to lease rights, as it were, to come back to demonstrate day after day. They should have some sort of assurance that if they go away, they will be able to come back the next day and resume the demonstration. That is important, because all sorts of excuses are made by referring to all sorts of ancient Acts which can be used against people demonstrating.

One elegant solution which my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has proposed to me—it was in the Bishops’ Bar, if I may reveal such confidences—is that we should perhaps have a structure within the central garden where people can have stalls that they can book for a week or whatever. They could have their little display there and not on the precarious footpath surrounding Parliament Square. They could have the demonstration and keep their stuff neatly. They will be able to be seen but will have limited tenure in the structure. This was very much not my idea, but I like it very much. I suggest it to the noble Lord whose Bill this is because, in a sense, we want to make it possible for people to demonstrate but remove some of the uglier aspects of the scene. It will work fine if we can have this compromise whereby people have an assurance that they can come back day after day to demonstrate.

If I may go off from my central argument, one has to admire the determination of someone like Brian Haw who came back year after year to demonstrate for the things that he strongly believed in. We might not agree with him, and year after year the Government tried their best to remove him, but he always came back. One has to admire that sort of citizen, who is a valuable person in a democracy. Although I commend the noble Lord’s Bill very much, I hope that in Committee we can add some positive aspects to Clause 2(2). I wish him God-speed on his Bill.