Public Disorder at NUS Rally

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement and for the further clarification that she has just given regarding the Home Secretary.

I start by agreeing with the Minister’s right honourable friend, the Police Minister. The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental part of our democracy, supported on all sides of this House. Tens of thousands of students and lecturers came to London from across the country yesterday to exercise that right and to make their voices heard. However, the Police Minister is right to say, as the Prime Minister said last night, that the vandalism and violence that we saw yesterday were completely unacceptable. They were perpetrated by a small minority of thugs who hijacked what was planned to be a legitimate and peaceful demonstration and in so doing denied tens of thousands of students the right to have their voices properly heard.

The Metropolitan Police have told us that the National Union of Students worked closely and co-operatively with them before and during yesterday’s events, as it has done in the past. The president of the NUS rightly said yesterday that the actions of a small minority were despicable and designed to hijack a peaceful protest. We on this side of the House are clear that there is no excuse whatever for such criminal behaviour and that those responsible must be brought to justice. We note that 50 arrests have been made. It is the job of the police not only to tackle crime and protect the safety of all our communities but also to keep public order as they ensure that the law-abiding majority can exercise their democratic right to protest and make their voices heard. The police ensure that thousands of major events and demonstrations pass off peacefully each year, often in difficult and challenging circumstances. I am sure that all noble Lords will want to join me in commending the hundreds of individual officers involved in yesterday’s events, particularly the small number outside 30 Millbank and Millbank Tower early yesterday afternoon, for their bravery and dedication.

When things go wrong, it is vital that we ask questions, find out what happened and learn lessons for the future, so we welcome the urgent investigation that was ordered later yesterday afternoon by the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and his straightforward and responsible admission that these events were “an embarrassment for London” and that there were lessons to be learnt. The Metropolitan Police have acknowledged that there was an operational failure and it seems sensible and appropriate in this instance that the investigation be conducted by the police themselves quickly and reported to the independent police authority.

I am sure that this investigation will look at a number of operational policing issues, including: whether sufficient officers were on duty to police what was expected to be a peaceful demonstration; why, when estimates of the size of the demonstration were revised up from 5,000 people to 15,000 and then 25,000, the Metropolitan Police made the judgment that this would be a peaceful demonstration; and whether there was any intelligence to suggest that violent actions were pre-planned. We also need to know whether sufficient back-up was available, how quickly it was able to be deployed and how operational decisions were made about which buildings and public spaces to protect.

However, wider questions were raised by yesterday’s events, which go beyond the direct operational responsibilities of the commissioner and the Metropolitan Police and which are rightly also matters for the Home Secretary and the Government. Given the failure of intelligence in this case, will the Home Secretary assess whether the gathering of intelligence by the police and security services was sufficient and sufficiently well co-ordinated? Will she discuss the procedures for assessing risk and intelligence in advance of protests of this kind to ensure that the full risks are understood in advance? Given that yesterday and on previous occasions mobile phones and social networking have been used during demonstrations to co-ordinate actions and build momentum at short notice, what work are she, the Home Secretary and her ministerial colleagues doing to support the police and others in responding to this new challenge and what wider public order issues does this raise?

Given that this was a demonstration against a controversial aspect of government policy and that police officers were deployed outside the party headquarters of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, did the Home Secretary or her advisers have any advance discussions of possible risks with the Metropolitan Police and lead party officials? At what time was the Police Minister alerted to the risk of elements in the demonstration becoming violent? What plans does the Home Secretary have to update the House following the conclusion of the Metropolitan Police investigation and the wider investigations that are now taking place?

Yesterday’s events were at root the fault of no one but a small minority of violent demonstrators, whom we all roundly condemn. They are a timely reminder of how all of us are reliant on the police to maintain public order and ensure legitimate and peaceful protest. Is the Minister confident that the police will have the resources that they need in the coming years to deal with threats to our national security, to tackle organised crime, to ensure a safe and successful Olympic and Paralympic Games, to continue to provide visible neighbourhood policing in all our communities and to ensure public order at major events?