Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

This is a dangerous Bill in many ways, both in what it contains and in what it omits, including in its stark failure to really tackle violence against women. I want to concentrate, in my three minutes, on the draconian threat to the right to protest.

Under this Government’s plans, protests will still be allowed, just as long as the police say so, just as long as the protests are not too noisy, just as long as they do not cause too much of a nuisance, just as long as they do not seriously annoy anyone, and just as long as they are not too near Parliament. So protests can go ahead, just as long as they do not do what protests are meant to do. And those who do not abide by the new rules could get 10 years in prison—longer than the sentences most men convicted of rape ever get.

Let us be clear: this is a political attack—an attack on people’s ability to exercise of one of their key democratic rights, an attack on one of the ways people have to speak out against Government policies they oppose, an attack on free speech. The Government have already made it much more difficult for people to go on strike, and now they want the police to make it much harder for people to protest.

Even without this new law, we have seen the state, under this Government, clamping down on democratic rights: last week, a nurse fined £10,000 after protesting against pay cuts; women at the Clapham common vigil attacked. And it goes way back: students kettled for opposing higher tuition fees; fracking activists jailed.

This Bill, written in direct response to the growth of Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion, is aimed at suppressing further political opposition and dissent. Instead of tackling the underlying grievances, the state is responding by attacking those challenging injustice. It is a form of state intimidation, designed to stop people organising and attending protests, but people will not be stopped.

Throughout our history, significant gains have been won through demonstrations: eight-hour days won by the trade unions; votes for women won by the suffragettes. Such movements were always denounced at the time as violent by politicians standing on the wrong side of history. If the Government proceed, this law will be broken repeatedly, and trust between the state and its citizens further shattered.