Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 109D to remove the negative procedure for all subsequent revisions of this guidance. I shall do that in my capacity as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee, but first I want to make some brief comments in a personal capacity on this whole, in my view, iniquitous concept of innocent people being put on a criminal records database.

As other noble Lords have said, it seems that there are 120,000 people who have not committed any crime, have not been found guilty by a court of any description and yet are held on a database with other people who have been convicted of terrorism, paedophilia, rape, murder, armed robbery and every crime on our statute book. Some may argue that it is not really a criminal record, but if an employer asks for an enhanced criminal record check, the police hand over the names of innocent people whom the police have tried and convicted. I am not convinced that their system of control is as accurate as they claim it is.

If someone complains that they have encountered a hate incident—and we see a growing mountain of these bogus claims—the police investigate. Even when no crime has been committed, the police may decide that the person should be convicted of having done a non-crime hate incident—no magistrate, no proper judge, no jury, just the police.

I will now return to the amendment in front of us in my capacity as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee —your Lordships will be relieved to know that I am being relieved of that position on Wednesday of this week when a new chair is appointed. I welcome the Home Office taking responsibility for these guidelines. If we are going to put innocent people on a criminal records list, it must be done under regulations which have proper parliamentary scrutiny every time—as these will have, at least the first time they are made.

When the Court of Appeal in the Miller case announced that the College of Policing—not a statutory body but a private limited company, as we discussed last week—had produced and implemented partly unlawful guidance, the comment from an assistant chief constable at the college was:

“We will listen to, reflect on, and review this judgment carefully and make any changes that are necessary.”


That is all right then. There is no need to bother 650 MPs or 800 Peers; this assistant chief constable will write our laws. Thank goodness the Home Office realised that it is completely wrong for the liberty and reputation of the individual to be subject to rules written by a private limited company. Thus, I partly welcome—no, largely welcome—the Home Office amendment before us today, but I am afraid it adopts the usual ploy that the Delegated Powers Committee sees in so many Bills, namely the first-time affirmative ploy. This means that the Bill says that the first set of regulations will be made by the affirmative procedure but subsequent revisions will inevitably be minor and technical. Therefore, we need not worry our pretty little parliamentary heads about them and the negative procedure will suffice.

We have seen no evidence to suggest that any subsequent revisions to this guidance will be minor or technical. Indeed, they could be substantial. Suppose, in a hypothetical instance, that the first set of regulations stipulates that these records for non-crime shall be retained for two years. A year later the Home Office issues a revised set with just one word changed: delete “two years” and substitute “10 years” or “25 years”.

The Minister may say—we get this a lot from all departments—that Ministers have no intention whatever of doing that and in the Delegated Powers Committee we always say that the intention of the current Minister is irrelevant and what the law permits them to do is the only thing that matters.

This business of recording non-crimes is such a contentious matter that we suggest that the affirmative procedure must be used on every occasion. The net result of that will be that any time the guidance is revised a Minister—usually a Lords Minister as the Commons will probably bounce it through on the nod—may have to do a 90-minute debate in your Lordships’ House. It is not a very heavy burden to impose on the Government.

The Court of Appeal said:

“The net for ‘non-crime hate speech’ is an exceptionally wide one which is designed to capture speech which is perceived to be motivated by hostility ... regardless of whether there is evidence that the speech is motivated by such hostility … There is nothing in the guidance about excluding irrational complaints, including those where there is no evidence of hostility and little, if anything, to address the chilling effect which this may have on the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression.”


I simply say that so long as these rules remain, Parliament must approve all regulations on this matter, whether it is the first set of regulations, the second, the 10th or the 50th iteration of them.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as other noble Lords have said, this is a contentious issue. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, may recall from his time in a previous role a report from the probation service called From Murmur to Murder—the noble Lord is nodding—when those in the probation service decided that they would engage with racist clients to challenge their abhorrent views, because of where it might lead.

From stalking to domestic violence, to murder motivated by hatred, including terrorism, we know that non-crime activity can provide indications of individuals’ journeys towards serious violence, but the recording of such intelligence must be subject to a statutory code of practice. I have sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in insisting on the affirmative procedure for any changes once the original guidance is issued. We welcome the government amendments and thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for raising the issue.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I welcome that the opposition is united in support of this amendment.

The police have failed to own up to many of their mistakes. I personally have experienced police evasion, police spying and police deceit. It beggars belief that there is no duty of candour on our police force already. It actually imposes their own idea of what the law says and this is completely wrong, so I very much support this amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as a former police officer, I must tell the House that leaving the failure to abide by such a duty of candour to the police misconduct process, as the Government are asking us to do, is inadequate, as the decision on whether to investigate or take misconduct proceedings will be left in the hands of the police themselves.

If it is in the interest of the police that something is covered up, they will not investigate and they will not take action against the officers responsible. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has just explained, her experience of the inquiry into the Daniel Morgan murder demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt the need for this amendment, and we support it.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I have not thought an awful lot about this, but the principle, which seems unarguable, is that police officers should have a duty of candour. They are not the only ones who should; many other groups might want to adopt a similar approach, but so far as the police service is concerned, which is what this amendment is about, it is rather unarguable. How it works ought to be clearly thought through, which I guess is why the Government are consulting on it. The only question I had, which I have just discussed briefly with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, is how this would work with the criminal disclosure process and how that would impact on any ongoing prosecution or, obviously, any separate public inquiry. However, that is a matter of implementation rather than of principle. In general terms, I see no reason why it should not be implemented for the police; perhaps others may consider it too.

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[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am proud to have added my name to this amendment, which I believe is vital. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for his kind words but, most importantly, for giving the stalking facts and figures, which are truly startling. The scale is huge and the complexity daunting, and he gave a brilliant and well-informed exposé of the problem.

It is true, as noble Lords have said, that great progress has been made in the last 10 years since stalking was first recognised as an offence. I am grateful to the Minister for her work and to noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber who have pursued this issue. I must also mention the indefatigable work and campaigning of Laura Richards, our mutual friend John Clough, the families of victims, and courageous survivors. My work at Oxford, for which I refer noble Lords to my interests as set out in the register, brings me into contact daily with staff and students who suffer from the insidious crime of non-domestic violence-related stalking. They live in constant fear alongside the 1.5 million other victims.

Among the progress that has been made, I am of course delighted that there is now a national strategy for the policing of violence against women and girls but, as has been said, that does not cover the vast number of people who are being stalked where the stalking does not relate to domestic violence. However, it is brilliant that violence against women and girls must now be a strategic priority for all police forces and that they will be assisted by a new local duty to tackle it as part of any work in partnership with other parts of the criminal justice system and all parts of the policing landscape. I celebrate that at last there is a truly national approach that should lead to the identification of the most dangerous and serial perpetrators of violence, more focused investigations, an increase in prosecutions and a reduction in the murder of women, serious harm and repeat victimisation.

Of course, there is a “but”, hence the amendment. We desperately need a strategy for all categories of stalking, and I endorse the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell. When are we going to have a more global strategy in relation to stalking?

Strategies are crucial and welcome but, like legislation, they have to be implemented in order to have their desired, much-needed effect. That requires systematic specialist training. As noble Lords will be only too aware, my long-standing concern has been about stalking in all its forms, not just that which involves domestic stalking. Training must be provided relating to all forms of stalking. There must be a national approach so that no matter where a victim seeks help and reports an incident, and wherever a perpetrator is apprehended, those who answer the phone and take whatever steps are necessary to support the victim and investigate a case must have similar experience.

As we know from the excellent inspections by HMICFRS, reports by experts and the evidence of survivors and the friends and families of victims, to date that has not been the case. These women, and sometimes men, have been utterly failed by the piecemeal approach to training. It is no exaggeration to say that countless women, such as Hollie Gazzard, would be still alive if there had been appropriate training, if their calls had been responded to in the proper manner and if the people answering the calls had understood what stalking was. Helen Pearson called the police 144 times over five years. If they had understood that she was a victim and was not wasting the police’s time, her situation could have been properly dealt with.

My strong preference would be to have a regulation in the Bill to provide for mandatory training, but I know from long experience that that would not be accepted by the Government. I first spoke about this in moving an amendment in February 2012, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, when we secured agreement to create the offence of stalking. I have been told on countless occasions since then that the appropriate place for training requirements is in guidance—but guidance has ensured that only a few police forces have taken the need for training seriously and most have not, and women have been murdered and others have had their own lives and those of their families destroyed. Over the years it has been cruelly apparent that guidance is not enough.

With the ever-increasing focus on and understanding of the extent of the appalling violence against women and girls, including stalking, and with the appointment of Maggie Blyth to spearhead the policing strategy, I hope that the need for quality nationwide training will be understood and that it will be implemented. However, I would like an assurance from the Minister that the Secretary of State really will seek to ensure that the training takes place and, vitally, that there will be the necessary funding to enable it. I would also be grateful if she could explain what mechanism is or will be in place for that to be monitored, and how we as a Parliament can hold the Government to account on this vital issue.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the tireless work over many years of all three noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. Stalking remains widely misunderstood by many in the criminal justice system—specifically, how serious and complex it can be and how widespread it is, as noble Lords have explained. The amendment aims to remedy that situation, and we support it.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for tabling this amendment. I praise the tireless work of the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Brinton, in this area. I am delighted to put my name to the amendment because of the work of Laura Richards, who has also worked tirelessly. Even though she is not in the UK, she still works tirelessly on podcasts, which I suggest that everyone listens to; they are brilliant in the stories that they cover, but it is very sad to hear the journeys that some women go through.

I will not add much more to what my colleagues have said. Stalking, on its own, is horrific. I really welcome what we now have on domestic abuse stalking and I thank the Minister for the conversations we have had. However, it scares me that this piece of legislation has been left to wander in the fields again. I feel we have taken 10 steps forward and 50 back. Listening to victims of this horrendous crime in my former role as Victims’ Commissioner—victims I am still listening to—I know that the problem with stalking is that you cannot see it. If you had a scab on your hand and we could see it, we could then do something tangible. Stalking is horrific and coercive, both mentally and physically.

When we look at amending and putting this legislation into place, the default is that we must train better. Now we are asking that we have a standard of training for non-domestic abuse stalking. I believe that every word from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Royall, adds to the quality of what this training should be. Unfortunately, if a stalking victim phones up, it will not be the first time; they will be at the end of their tether. In society and under Governments past and present, we have waited until somebody is murdered brutally—taken. That should not be the case, as the horse has already bolted.

I ask the Government to look at this again: please put this national strategy for non-domestic abuse stalking right next to domestic abuse stalking. Then it will not be piecemeal and all these agencies will fully get what happens to victims of stalking.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the original amendment, moved so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and to oppose the amendment to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, which she moved just now. I hope she will forgive me for saying that her introduction of her amendment displayed a great deal of confusion, which is being much magnified in debate, about the differences, in so far as they exist, between the words “sex” and “gender”.

Gender is causing no confusion in the law, but I would urge the noble Baroness and others to take the trouble to have a look at the first legal textbook written on this subject, called A Practical Guide to Transsexual Law; it is authored by Robin White of Old Square Chambers in London, who is a trans woman herself and extremely expert in cases arising from trans issues, and her colleague in the same chambers, Nicola Newbegin. If noble Lords are suspicious about a lawyer in your Lordships’ number recommending the reading of a legal textbook, I reassure them that it is not because I want to make them go to sleep while doing their reading before they go to bed at night; it is actually one of the most fascinating textbooks written in recent years—and it has the virtue of being short as well.

The issues described in that book, which have interested me since I introduced the first transsexual rights Bill in the other place when I was a Member there, have evolved greatly over the years. I would say to those who are suspicious or uncomfortable about these issues that young people—people born after 1995, to date at random—they do not understand the problem. To them, trans people are included among their friends, and it is “just a thing, not an issue”, to quote one of my own daughters on the subject. It is becoming increasingly common for young people to move in circles where trans men and women, and, for that matter, gender diverse men and women, are absolutely standard parts of the community.

The Equality Act, which has been in existence for a considerable time, says that you must not be discriminated against because of your gender reassignment as a transsexual and that you may prefer the description “transgender person” or “trans male” or “female”. There is much more I could read out to your Lordships that illustrates that the law has been in place and has been well understood for a long time.

Let us just consider what the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, is trying to achieve in subsection (3) of her proposed new clause. I need to confess a sort of interest at this point, in that I am married to a circuit judge who tries criminal cases only. So perhaps I have a little bit more evidence in my mind—she certainly does not agree with everything I say, by any means— on how judges behave not just from my own practice but from a lot of discussion about these issues. The amendment provides:

“A court considering the seriousness of an offence … must treat the fact that the offence is aggravated by hostility or prejudice towards sex or gender as an aggravating factor when determining a sentence.”


Can one seriously suggest that a circuit judge, or a magistrate for that matter, does not understand what that means? If the judge understands what that means, surely it is as just as any other aggravating factor.

Let us look at it down the other end of the telescope. Five or six young women go out for a night out, and during the course of that night out an offence takes place in which there is hostility or prejudice towards the one of them who is a trans woman. Would it really be right for the other five to have an aggravated sentence brought upon the offender, if the hostility was towards them as women on the grounds of sex, but not that trans woman, if the hostility was shown to them on the grounds of gender? It is a nonsensical suggestion, and what is in the noble Baroness’s proposed new subsection (3) is just common sense—the sort of common sense that judges apply in the courts every day. So I would urge your Lordships to take the view that the use of the phrase “sex or gender” in this amendment is just good 2022 common sense and, if one is minded to support the amendment, one should support it in its original form.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I want to take a slightly different view of this. We support misogyny being treated as a hate crime and, personally, I do not understand the arguments of the Law Commission in relation to domestic violence and sexual offences. The same objections could be made to existing hate crimes such as homophobia, but they exist alongside these serious offences without difficulty. I wonder whether proposed new subsection (4) in the amendment is necessary.

May I suggest an alternative way out of the gender debate? I wonder whether, in line with the Law Commission’s report on hate crime in relation to other aspects of hate crime, the words in brackets—“or perceived sex”—should be added to the word “sex” at the end of new subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b) proposed by the amendment. I am thinking of the following hypothetical example. A man who shouts demeaning and derogatory terms for a woman, indicating a hatred of women, and who without provocation attacks a stranger in the street, indicating that the attack is motivated by a hatred of women, should be charged with the aggravated misogyny offence, whether the assailant is mistaken in identifying the victim as a woman or not. It should not matter whether the victim is a woman or not; it is the motivation of the attacker that is important. If that motivation is hatred of women, it should be an aggravating factor.

However, despite my concerns about the wording of the amendment, we have waited long enough for this important and necessary change in the law. Any defect in the wording of the amendment can be addressed in the other place, and if the noble Baroness divides the House, we will support her.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I also believe in freedom and in common sense. There are a number of provisions in this group, including the list we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. Now as I understand it, the Government are responding to the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s concerns. The council feels that, in the new world that has been described by others, public order legislation is not any longer appropriate and does not allow them to respond to the sort of disruptive protest tactics being used by some groups today that perhaps would not have been used in the past. I look forward to the Minister’s response, particularly on the issue of noise, which people have highlighted.

I have two questions to add. First, how will these provisions help against Insulate Britain and what its members have been doing? How will the new arrangements work, particularly the developments as regards juries that others have mentioned? Secondly, I know that there have been concerns about the overuse of delegated powers in this part of the Bill. Indeed, there was an excellent debate in the House last week on that very issue, which some noble Lords were present for. What were the recommendations from the DPRRC and Constitution Committee in this area, and can my noble friend explain how they have been met? My understanding is that definitions of “serious disruption” have now been added to the face of the Bill, which was a concern. But does that meet the concern expressed by our committees?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that this group includes 26 amendments, and that noble Lords are entitled to speak only once on each group, in case people were thinking of having another go. I cannot possibly speak on all 26 amendments; if I spent only one minute on each, I would be here for 26 minutes. But we on these Benches oppose all the measures in Part 3 of the Bill, including the new government amendments introduced late at night in Committee. We will come to those in a later group.

I am a former senior police officer and part of a small, specially selected group of senior police officers trained in the policing of protests. My view, and the view of the majority of police officers interviewed by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has just said, is that the limiting factor in the policing of protests on the police’s ability to control protests is the number of suitably trained police officers available, not a lack of police powers or legislation.

Not only are new powers and new offences unnecessary but there is a very real danger of dragging the police into political decisions on which protests should go ahead and which should not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, has just said. There is a very real danger of more scenes like those we saw at the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common happening with greater frequency. There is a real danger of more and more police officers being drawn into policing protests to enforce more and more restrictions and bans, taking them away from policing their communities and, as a result, further undermining trust and confidence in the police and their ability to enforce the law.

I spoke at length in Committee and do not intend to repeat myself. I refer noble Lords to the Official Report. We support all the non-government amendments in this group. Particularly, we do not agree that protests should be banned because the police think they might be too noisy—so we will be voting in support of Amendment 115.

We agree with the former Conservative Home Secretary who led on the original public order legislation in 1986 that the police should not be able to dictate where and when public meetings or assemblies should take place or to ban them completely. To quote Lord Hurd of Westwell,

“that would be an excessive limit on the right of assembly and freedom of speech.”—[Official Report, Commons, 13/1/1986; col. 797.]

The Minister may say that the provisions simply bring limitations on assemblies into line with the limitations on processions, but I ask what has changed. It is still an excessive limit on the right of assembly and freedom of speech. I will therefore be testing the opinion of the House on Amendment 132. These measures are an outrageous limitation of people’s fundamental right in a democracy, and we oppose them.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I start by quoting the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, who said that good debate relies on good listening. I hope that noble Lords will listen, as they did in the previous group, to what I have to say.

My noble friend Lord Deben and the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Coaker, were all in agreement that many of them would have been in breach of these provisions in protests that they took part in. No. I disagree with that; the police rarely impose conditions on a protest, and we expect that to continue to be the case.

I thought the noble Lord, Lord Walney, made some compelling arguments about how lucky we are to live in a democracy and how much we value protest—we can hear the drumbeats outside, which no one is going to stop. To answer the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, the provisions are not new today; they have been in the Bill from the start.

The government amendments give effect to the recommendations made by both the DPRRC and the Constitution Committee. Under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Bill, the police may attach certain conditions to a public procession, public assembly or one-person protest, including where that is necessary to prevent serious disruption. The Bill enables the Secretary of State to define the meaning of “serious disruption” in regulations, and we have published an indicative draft of such regulations.

However, both the DPRRC and the Constitution Committee argued that definitions should be in the Bill, although the DPRRC agreed that there should be a power to amend the definition by regulations subject to the affirmative procedure. The government amendments therefore take the definitions as set out in the draft regulations and write them into the Public Order Act. Again, I express my thanks to my noble friend Lord Blencathra—although I do not see him in his place—the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, and the other members of the DPRRC and the Constitution Committee for their scrutiny of the Bill. I trust that the amendments will be acceptable to them and indeed to the House as a whole. The word “significant” is lifted from the draft regulations that the Constitution Committee said were not unreasonable.

Amendment 115, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, would remove the new noise triggers for the police to impose conditions on public processions. Amendments 123, 124, 125 and 147 would collectively do the same for public assemblies and single-person protests. In response to those amendments, I reiterate to the House that noise generated by protesters can have a significant and detrimental impact on the wider public. It is unacceptable, as my noble friend Lord Hailsham says, that certain protests can seriously disrupt the lives of ordinary people.

It is absolutely right that the Government give the police the tools that they require to tackle disruptive protests. As the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, stated during the debate in Committee on these measures,

“noise can be more than an irritant.”—[Official Report, 24/11/21; col. 944.]

In some contexts, it can be tortuous, and it is important to contextualise the different situations in which it can happen, such as the time of day or where it takes place. Is it outside an old people’s home, or is it in Parliament Square? Is it anti-vaxxers outside a school, or in St Ann’s Square in Manchester?

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Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

132: Clause 57, leave out Clause 57

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I hope we are all refreshed after that break, particularly the Minister. I thank her for giving the time and energy to meet me last week to consider my objections to Clause 59.

I have brought Amendments 133A and 133B before the House because Clause 59 has been too tightly drawn. It will prohibit large, peaceful and well-organised demonstrations taking place in Parliament Square at any time, even at the weekend, if there was any danger that the weight of numbers would obstruct a vehicle going into Parliament or even, in the words of the clause, make

“the passage of a vehicle more difficult”.

Parliament Square is the temple of protest. It is where the people of this country have gathered for centuries to voice their opposition to government policies, hoping their concerns will penetrate the walls of Parliament. In 2002, more than 400,000 people attended the countryside march. In 2018 and 2019, millions came to the People’s Vote and Brexit day celebration marches, and the women’s march drew thousands to support women’s rights. All ended with massed but organised protests in Parliament Square, all of which, by dint of huge numbers, will have obstructed the vehicle entrances to Parliament. I ask your Lordships to imagine the fury on all sides of the country if these were banned in future.

This is the mother of parliaments, outside which voters should gather to speak truth to power and where we, the parliamentarians who make the law, should hear them loud and clear. At this time, when politicians are seen to be out of touch with the feelings of the people, it is unconscionable that the House should pass a law shielding us from hearing what they have to say. A new poll shows that 79% of people disapprove of a ban, and 75% of them are Conservative voters.

The problem is that Clause 59, as with so much of Part 3 on public order, has been drafted to deal with the headlines about Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain deliberately blocking roads and bridges across the country and deliberately obstructing access to Parliament. The drafters have not considered the effect of the clause on large, peaceful protests outside Parliament.

I feel sure that many noble Lords have held protests outside Parliament and understand that permission first needs to be obtained from the GLA and the police. As it stands, the clause will make it impossible for the GLA, which controls the garden at the centre of Parliament Square, to give permission for any protest to take place if there is a danger of obstruction to Parliament by large numbers of protesters. The clause expands the controlled area beyond the garden to the roads and pavements of Parliament Square and half way up Whitehall, to the entrance of Downing Street. When granting permission, the GLA will now have to consider whether numbers of protesters will spill off the garden on to the road. The GLA considers 5,000 people to be the capacity of the garden. Any more will block the roads around Parliament Square.

These amendments are aimed purely at the permissions process between the GLA, other responsible bodies and the organisers of a protest. They are based on the existing wording granting the use of amplifying equipment in the square. They will ensure that large, peaceful protests continue to take place outside Parliament. I know that noble Lords will be worried that the wording of my amendments appears to give permission to protesters to obstruct vehicles; this is not the case. The police will still be involved in the consent process, requiring protesters to move on if they are deliberately blocking entrances to Parliament. Proposed new subsection (6) in Amendment 133B reinforces this by allowing the responsible person to withdraw an authorisation for a protest if the conditions are not being observed.

The Government and the Joint Committee on Human Rights are concerned that the police do not have powers to move on demonstrators who deliberately block access to Parliament. Even if these amendments are accepted, the powers granted in Clause 59 will still be available for the police to exercise. I urge the Minister to accept my amendments to ensure that Clause 59 does not cause an unintended ban on protests in Parliament Square. I know from talking to her that she does not want to become the Minister who bans protests outside Parliament. I beg to move.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support all the non-government amendments in this group. In particular, we agree that, just as protesters can be given permission to use amplification equipment in the vicinity of Parliament under existing legislation, large demonstrations should be able to block roads temporarily, given the necessary permission. We will vote for Amendments 133A and 133B should the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, divide the House.

In Committee, I spoke at length on why we oppose this clause and support Amendment 137A. I refer noble Lords to the Official Report.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to these amendments. I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, on his excellent introduction. This is the first time I have spoken this evening but my remarks apply to many other aspects of this Bill and many of the other areas that we are voting on.

There are some excellent and important measures in this Bill. I agree that banning dangerous or violent protestors is important; I am pleased that my noble friend the Minister said in an earlier debate that the law must protect the public and prevent extremist protests such as those by Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain. However, I respectfully suggest that the measures in Clause 59 are like using not a hammer but dynamite to crack a nut.

The Conservative Party has always championed law and order but also freedom of speech and expression, most importantly around Parliament Square—the very heart of our democracy. Amendments 133A and 133B would protect the public’s right to demonstrate and express views in Parliament Square, which is so important. I hope that colleagues on these Benches will consider supporting these important changes to the Bill.

I do not believe that the Government really intend to ban peaceful protest. My noble friend the Minister will assure the House that such protests can still proceed, and I have no doubt that she is sincere in that assurance. But I respectfully point out that, without these amendments, this legislation could prove a Trojan horse, allowing future Governments to introduce the shadow of repression into our country, and could represent a potential attack on the most fundamental freedoms of our democracy. We could allow this and any future Government to ban large demonstrations around Parliament Square on the basis of a ministerial diktat and police connivance. Indeed, the grounds on which such protests can be criminalised are quite flimsy. One example, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, mentioned, is proposed new subsection (4A)—to be inserted by Clause 59(3)(c)—which states that

“obstructing the passage of a vehicle includes making the passage of a vehicle more difficult.”

What does that mean? Is it a 30-second delay? Every large protest would be banned, which would effectively change the way our democracy has worked for centuries.

This country has a proud record of standing up to despots, authoritarian rulers and corrupt dictatorships. We have offered sanctuary to those fleeing repression, for which I will be eternally grateful. The most recent example is of Hong Kong residents fleeing Chinese repression, who witnessed their Government recently tearing down the statue memorialising the Tiananmen Square massacre. When those Hong Kong exiles arrive here and learn that this mother of all parliaments no longer allows large protests outside its door, at any time, what will they think?

Democratic Governments must not surround themselves only with yea-sayers, hearing only what they want or choose to hear and squashing dissent. I believe it is important for noble Lords to stand up for our cherished freedoms, prevent any descent into authoritarian rule and support these wholly reasonable amendments to this Bill.

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Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

147: Clause 62, leave out Clause 62

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[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

If someone is stopped and searched without good cause, either maliciously or for any other reason, I do not care whether they were a criminal in the past or a good person; it is a bad thing. Regardless of their background, there has to be a good cause for that stop and search unless the law says that it should be done without cause.

As I was saying about prevention orders, the reason that they were considered was that the rate at which people were being released from bail to return to the protest was overwhelming the ability of the police to deal with the disruption. That is what is being looked at, to see whether there is a possibility of exerting some inhibiting behaviour on the protesters. It would still not be easy. If protesters turn out in sufficient numbers, they will always overwhelm the police—that is the nature of a democracy—but in these disruptions, quite often relatively small numbers have disrupted many people and, frankly, put their lives at risk. So in fact it is a serious matter and the Government’s proposals are fairly reasonable. There may be things that people can argue at the edges, but I do not object to this and I support the Government’s proposals.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could deal with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, to begin with. My recollection is that the report on public order from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services showed that many officers did not want additional powers to deal with locking on. That is in the report. My experience is that the police are getting better and better at dealing with locking on, particularly people supergluing themselves to roadways—people are not now glued to the roadway for very long.

On hospitals that are on minor roads, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made it quite clear that he wanted the increased penalty of imprisonment for highway obstruction on the strategic road network where there is no realistic way around a blockage that has been put in. A hospital may be on a minor road, but there are other ways of getting to it, and I do not feel that that argument holds water. I will come to the noble Lord’s comments about the serious disruption orders shortly.

The Minister said that these amendments were debated in Committee. That debate started at 11.50 pm. The Minister stood up to make her closing remarks at 1 am. Does she really think that that is serious consideration and debate of these measures?

These government amendments were a hurried response to the Home Secretary’s knee-jerk, populist reaction to Insulate Britain protests at the Conservative Party conference. Consideration of this part of the Bill had to be taken out of order, to give civil servants time to cobble together these last-minute, ill-conceived, badly thought-through acts of desperation, introduced into this House late at night on the last day of Committee without any consideration by the other place. If the Government are determined to bring in these draconian, antidemocratic laws, reminiscent of Cold War Eastern bloc police states, they should withdraw them now and introduce them as a separate Bill to allow the democratically elected House time to consider them properly.

We oppose all these government amendments, for the reasons I set out in Committee—albeit in the early hours of the morning—and I refer noble Lords to the Official Report. Given the hour, we will vote against the most egregious measures: Amendment 151, which is clearly targeted at climate protesters; Amendment 155, which gives police the power to stop and search anyone and everyone in the vicinity of a protest, including innocent passers-by; and Amendment 159, by which the police can apply for an order to ban people from their democratic right to protest, even when they have never been to a protest in their life, let alone been convicted of any offence in connection with a protest. That is the power in these measures—you do not even have to have been to a protest to be banned from future ones. You do not even have to be convicted of an offence in connection with a protest before you can be banned from going to protests.

If the Official Opposition decide to vote on Amendment 148, on locking on, we will support them. We will also vote in favour of Amendment 150A, to restrict imprisonment for highway obstruction to blocking motorways and other parts of the strategic road network.

The anti-protest measures in the original Bill were dreadful. These measures, and the way they have been introduced, are outrageous.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether noble Lords want more time to debate or me to hurry up. If noble Lords will indulge me for a minute, I will thank them for the support for the new measures that has come from one area of the House, but it is clear that a number of other noble Lords are less enamoured of the government amendments. As I said in opening the debate, I think the British public will fully support these reasonable and proportionate measures to ensure that their daily lives are not disrupted by the sorts of tactics we saw from Insulate Britain last autumn. This is not an argument for or against climate change; it is about the disruption caused to the lives of the working British public.