Metropolitan Police: Use of Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: responses to public order breaches have to be proportionate. He asks what constitutes serious disruption. It might be subjective, but nobody who has gone around London in the past two weeks could argue that this did not cause serious disruption to the city. The proportionality will, of course, be tested through the courts. The noble Lord asked me how long the ban will be in force. We know when it started but I do not know when it will finish.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not think that the whole country should recognise that, when it comes down to it, both the Liberal and Labour parties are not prepared to stand up for hard-working people in this country going about their business—indeed, that they are prepared to support tactics that have nothing to do with free speech and have resulted in resulted in huge congestion and pollution, which are the very things that some of the protesters say that they are concerned about? Is it not a disgrace that the Mayor of London is not prepared to support the police in carrying out their duties?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with my noble friend on all counts. Coming back to his point about hard-working people, I saw the protesters described last week as “Glastonbury meets Waitrose”. Some of those people do not know what it is like to have to use the Tube because you simply cannot use the bus. It affects people’s pockets, particularly those of the hard-working people of London.