Public Order Bill

Debate between Paul Bristow and Stewart Hosie

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Bristow]

As always, my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Interference with key national infrastructure, as set out in clauses 4 and 5, is not legitimate protest.

[Stewart Hosie]

There is an inconsistency here that is just breathtaking. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) has just described how he stood on a picket line during the miners’ strike. Those picket lines were designed to stop scab workers going into somebody else’s colliery in many instances. That is not indirect action; it is direct action. Is the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) saying that all the people on picket lines should have been arrested? Is that really what he is saying?

[Paul Bristow]

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to relive the battles of the 1980s, and if he wants to say that preventing legitimate people from earning a living to provide for their families is illegitimate or wrong, I am quite happy to be on the other side of the debate from him.