Trade Union Bill (Third sitting)

Rishi Sunak Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 261 Specifically on Cobra, in your view would it be a very small number of instances where it would ever be appropriate for that system to be brought into play?

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: That is ultimately for Government to determine, but I see that there are often local disputes where Cobra would never need to get involved and manage that. The Government will make decisions as to when they need to activate that machinery.

[Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)]

Q 262 Thank you both for being here. I have a question for the deputy chief constable. I think you mentioned that your primary responsibilities are to keep the peace and uphold the law. Obviously there have been situations where that has not been the case on picket lines, and we heard evidence on Tuesday about that and talk of intimidation. I was looking around at how you deal with other organised protests, such as marches, and it says clearly on the Met police website:

“Organisers should try to give as much notice as possible”,

and provide the names and addresses of organisers. Given that, would it be a help or a hindrance for you to have the notice period in the Bill of two weeks and the identity of someone organising a protest? It seems pretty clear that it would be a help, rather than a hindrance, but I wanted to confirm which of those you think it would be.

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: Well, I think there are degrees of protest. If you look at protest across the country as a whole, there are some big, national-level protests, but almost on a day-to-day basis many smaller protests take place, too. We are certainly not notified of all of them, nor do I think it practical for police to be notified of them. Many protests are self-policed and are not ones that we would particularly need to get involved with.

Certainly for the bigger scale protests—the ones that are likely to involve some element of policing—some advance notice to plan around that is necessary. Very often, our intelligence structures provide that information to us anyway to enable plans to be put in place. Some of that comes through organisers notifying us, and some of it comes from information and intelligence that we receive into policing.

[Rishi Sunak]

Q 263 Am I right in thinking that it is helpful, then? The Metropolitan police ask for as much information as possible.

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: It is certainly helpful when plans need to be put in place, but I would say that not all protests are of that scale and not all protests on a day-to-day basis receive attention.

[Rishi Sunak]

Q 264 I have a quick follow-up for Steve. When you were describing the picket lines that you have been involved in, you were saying that people were thoroughly enjoying themselves and having a jolly. Part of why we are all here, and the Bill is here, is to tackle the issue of strikes being held on low turnouts and out-of-date ballots that then inconvenience millions of people across the country. We have been hearing from union representatives that, for the most part, they understand that strikes are a last resort and are taken very seriously. Do you also agree with that? The description that you gave just a minute ago about people having a bit of a jolly and thoroughly enjoying themselves, while inconveniencing millions of people, seemed a bit out of kilter with what we have been hearing from others.

Steve White: The context in which I answered that question was in relation to whether picket lines were threatening. I was just giving the balance that in my experience that picket line was probably not one of the threatening ones. In terms of whether a strike should be called and what the level of turnout should be, that is quite simply not a matter for the police service. That is a matter for others; our primary concern is that the peace is kept and that things happen within the law.

I just want to pick up on your previous point to Charlie in relation to notification. It would be great if the police service had more than two weeks’ notice for every single resource requirement that we ever have, but we do not. We have to have resources in place to deal with the unexpected. That includes whether or not we have been notified of something. As Charlie said, that does not necessarily mean that we will have to be used or deployed.

[The Chair]

Okay. We have two minutes and two more questions. Jo Stevens and Seema Kennedy, just a brisk question from each of you, please.