King’s Speech

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am shocked and saddened by the death of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. He was a lovely man. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, and the noble Lord, Lord Houchen, on their maiden speeches, which were impressive in different ways. They will soon be followed by the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, whom we will, I am sure, be equally impressed by. If noble Lords will forgive the informality: “Good luck, Shaun”.

I declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Metropolitan Police Service. My role in the police is to be an independent adviser, but I do not intend to stop sharing my experience of policing with this House, nor waste the weeks—perhaps months—that I have spent in this House debating police-related legislation.

A Liberal Democrat Peer whom I respect and admire told me not to comment on the situation in the Middle East unless I had been there and experienced both sides. I have not been. All I will say is that it is a truly dreadful situation with many innocent victims and no easy or universally acceptable solution. Jewish friends around the House have been incredibly supportive of me personally this year; I offer them my support on a personal level at this distressing time.

Against this backdrop, the police have been accused time after time both of undermining freedom of speech and assembly and of not enforcing the law against demonstrators. I was one of a small cadre of advanced-trained senior officers in public order policing. In my experience, when compared with a peaceful protest, the police need about five times as many officers to enforce conditions on protesters who do not want to follow them and 10 times as many officers to enforce a ban on a procession that participants are determined to engage in. The police operate in the real, unpredictable world.

We should not forget the lessons of the policing of the Sarah Everard vigil at Clapham Common, where front-line police officers were placed in an invidious position when senior police officers decided to enforce a ban on the protest during Covid lockdown. What the police cannot do, and will not do, is make judgments based on the merits of the cause of the demonstrators, as many Government Ministers have rushed to do. What the police will focus on is the preservation of the peace.

In 1981, in his report on the Brixton disorders, Lord Scarman explicitly prioritised peacekeeping over law enforcement. Arresting offenders in the middle of a mass demonstration can create disorder: documenting, identifying and subsequently arresting those involved is often the best solution, albeit that the police appear not to be taking action at the time. There will always be political activists and hostile foreign actors who seek to exploit peaceful protests to create unrest, using those who wish peacefully to express their genuinely held concerns as cover for their criminal activities. That is where the police and the intelligence services work together to try to identify, isolate and take action —sometimes pre-emptively—to prevent breakaway groups causing violence and disruption.

The circumstances in which the police can ask the Home Secretary to ban a march are set down in law and are extremely limited. It is only if the imposition of conditions on a procession is unlikely to prevent serious public disorder that the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis can make an application to the Secretary of State, under Section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986, to ban all public processions or classes of public procession in a particular area for a limited time. That is a very high bar and a draconian imposition. If the Government believe that the bar is set too high before a ban can come into effect, it is for them to ask this House and the other place to lower it through legislation; it is not for politicians to criticise the police for failing to ask for a ban in circumstances in which the law does not allow it.

There is a worrying trend currently where polarising issues are being exploited not just by fringe elements but by politicians holding senior positions in government, leaving the police to deal with the fallout. Where in the gracious Speech are the measures or the rhetoric designed to reduce the political temperature and to promote peaceful co-existence here in the United Kingdom? All of us have a responsibility to ensure that we do not further inflame already difficult situations, no matter what our personal political ambitions may be.

Having said that, I welcome the Prime Minister’s comments this afternoon, following a meeting with Sir Mark Rowley, that freedom is the right to peacefully protest.