Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (First sitting)

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I call Robert Goodwill. By the way, Members are free to take their jackets off if they feel so inclined.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Q Thank you, Chair. We have seen the police over recent months, and indeed over the last couple of years, having great difficulty in policing some protests, such as Extinction Rebellion protests, that have been disruptive to people in their everyday lives, stopping people getting to work and getting to hospital and, more recently the protests that have been conducted despite the covid restrictions and regulations. How will the provisions in the Bill help you to better police these protests? Do you feel there is a risk that if we go too far it could undermine the trust between the police and the general public and the right that we all hold dear to demonstrate and make our views known? At the same time, we must respect the rights of other people to conduct their everyday lives.

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: BJ, I will probably let you take that one first.

Chief Constable Harrington: First and foremost, all police training and all police responses to public order and protest, and those important freedoms that you referenced, are in accordance with the Human Rights Act. Of course, there is always the balance between the positive duties to ensure that people can express those rights, and those negative duties, ensuring that we infringe on those rights only when that is proportionate and necessary. I think the point is around getting the balance right in protecting the rights and freedoms of those who are impacted by that.

We asked for some of the changes that are incorporated into the Bill, including more currency around the powers in the Public Order Act 1986 as was. Protest and assemblies have changed since that time. There are issues such as when does a procession become a static assembly, and an assembly become a procession? There is the consistency of what the police can do, always within a landscape of balancing the competing rights of those affected and those who wish to express their rights. There is also the need for real clarity for both the officers who are required to make difficult decisions, balancing objectively and proportionately what they need to do, and for those who wish to express those rights or to have them protected.

We think that the proposals to align sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 really do bring that currency to what we see and how people protest, assemble and march now. There will also be consistency so that people can better understand. Of course, things like the public nuisance elements allow us—the police—to anticipate better where there will be significant or serious impact. “Significant impact” is the phrase we would want to see. You have seen and referenced some of that significant disruption to people whose rights are infringed by others. We think that the changes bring currency and consistency and, overall, greater clarity for all those who have to police it and those who take part.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Do you feel that the Bill goes far enough in giving you power? Many other countries, for example, use water cannon to deal with that type of demonstration and disruptive activities. Have the Government put enough tools in the Bill, or would you have liked to have seen more?

Chief Constable Harrington: From our perspective, we asked for the consistency between those two sections, and that is included. We asked for, and would like to see, particularly serious disruption—a very high threshold—to become more like significant impact on the community. Of course, we can prove disruption, and it is also about whether the impact is on, for example, a small business, an individual, a neighbourhood or, indeed, a large institution or Parliament itself. We asked for that, and we think the Bill starts to address that.

In terms of the powers and the response to that, the tactics and things, whether that is the use of force, that we apply—you referred to water cannon available to other police forces and other countries—always need to be in that balance and, of course, proportionate and necessary to achieve that legitimate aim. But the proposals give us greater clarity to be able better to balance those competing rights, which are always tricky and difficult and always require judgments about those who are affected by it and those who are expressing their rights, and there will always be opposing opinions. I think the Bill broadly gives us that extra power.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q During the Extinction Rebellion protests, we saw people taking the law into their own hands and, for example, pulling protestors off the roofs of tube trains. Do you feel that, with these provisions, the public will be less likely to feel they need to intervene to ensure they can carry out their ordinary lives, with the police powerless to do so?

Chief Constable Harrington: If I may reference Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire & rescue services’ survey of the public, where there is serious disruption, the public are very supportive of the police being active and preventing that action taking place. I think the public will perhaps always step in when they see a significant impact on them, or in terms of the lower elements, where it is just frustrating perhaps or just annoying. I think the public in the survey showed that they are more tolerant of that.

It goes back to the previous questioner’s point: in the police service, we guard the freedoms of expression and assembly very carefully, because they support police legitimacy in terms of the police being the public, and the public being the police. So I think the Bill gets the balance right. I think the public will always be concerned where people are climbing on top of tube trains, which is simply dangerous. That will always be a case where the police or the public would want to intervene.

[The Chair]

Is there anything you want to add, Mr Hewitt?

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: Not really. We police public order and protest in a particular way, and I am very proud of the way that we police that. As has just been said, it is always a challenge to balance the different rights, responsibilities and risks, and that is what our commanders do routinely. What the provisions in the Bill give us is greater consistency and clarity, which is really important for the commanders and the officers on the ground, but equally for people who are seeking to protest. This is an environment that changes and shifts, and the Bill gives us extra certainty and clarity in terms of dealing with situations as they arise.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I think we had better move on. I call Robert Goodwill.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Mr Apter, I would like to ask you a little about police drivers. The general public understand that from time to time, those driving police cars will need to break the speed limit, disregarding signals, pedestrian crossings and so on, but I understand that the Police Federation has been campaigning for more clarification in the law for those situations, to protect drivers who were acting in the public interest when something has, unfortunately, gone wrong. Could you give me a bit more information on why you think those changes might be needed?

John Apter: This is a longstanding problem for policing and actually for all the emergency services. What we have seen far too often was highlighted in a case in the Hampshire constabulary, when a traffic officer—a roads policing officer, who was fully trained—was engaged in the pursuit of someone who had stolen a vehicle after quite a nasty burglary. It was a textbook pursuit; nobody was injured and we caught the baddies at the end of the pursuit. However, that officer and his crewmate were prosecuted for dangerous driving and they ended up in Crown court. The reason is that the law, as it is currently, does not recognise the training that the officer has received or the purpose to which the vehicle is being put. That puts my colleagues in a very vulnerable position.

So we have been campaigning for many years to try to redress the balance. I want to say on the record that this is not about the Police Federation saying that colleagues can drive as they wish without any fear of scrutiny; some people may have to face prosecution or inquiry. But far too many of my colleagues are prosecuted for simply doing what they have been trained to do.

All that we are seeking is for the training and the purpose of the journey to be recognised in law, because I think the public watching this would be astounded if they were to see a police vehicle engaged in a pursuit or an emergency response and that driver is then judged as any other member of the public. So, you take away the blue lights and the police markings, and that vehicle is treated as one being driven by any other member of the public. That is bizarre; that should not be allowed to happen.

We expect police officers and indeed other emergency drivers to get to a particular place as quickly and as safely as they can. The law fails to protect them at the moment. So, yes, we are seeking those changes. I am really pleased to see the Bill but there are some amendments that we want to see, and we are working closely with the shadow team and the Home Office to see if we can bring about those changes, to make sure that the legislation is fit for purpose and protects the officers who deserve to be protected.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Is it easy to define a situation when a police officer will disregard, for example, a speed limit? If there was a domestic incident, presumably there would be a judgment call as to whether a woman may be in danger, or whether it was just a case of getting there within the law. Is it difficult to define when a police officer can use that discretion—I suppose that is the word—to break the speed limit?

I guess that with an ambulance and a fire engine, it is less nuanced, but with the police you would not necessarily know until you get to the scene whether life is at risk and whether it is necessary to speed there.

John Apter: Indeed, and the training has certainly evolved. The emergency response and the pursuit training for police drivers has evolved over the years, and the training certainly brings in the judgment—it is all about the information that the officer will receive.

I was a roads policing officer for many years. I was trained in response and that judgment is so important because very often at the end of a pursuit or an emergency drive, it is the driver who is responsible for their actions—nobody else. So, yes, you can only deal with the circumstances that you are presented with and you have to risk-assess in that moment. It is a fine balance.

However, I would say, and I genuinely believe, that we have the best driver training in policing in the world—I really do believe that. Our driving standards within policing, with the emergency driving, are exceptional. We just need that element of protection, but it is not to say—I have used this phrase before—that I condone a wacky races culture. That is not what I am supporting. It is about balance.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Perhaps Mr Griffiths might want to add to that, although it was a fairly comprehensive answer.

Chief Superintendent Griffiths: The only bit I would add is that there are circumstances where officers still have to exceed the speed limit as part of their duty. So it would be quite important for us to consider surveillance officers, those doing diplomatic escort and so on, where their driving may leave them in a position where they are under investigation, and it would be reasonable to have the same standards applied to them in the circumstances that could prevail.

[Maria Eagle]

Q May I ask you both whether the new powers for policing protest contained in the Bill are necessary, and do you welcome them?

Chief Superintendent Griffiths: I know that you have had extensive evidence on this from Chief Constable Harrington as the NPCC lead. Our members play a significant role in protest, whether they are silver or gold commanders, depending on the size and scale of the protest. One emerging trend that has caused them great difficulty has been the change in tactics with some of the protest processes, such as protesters gluing themselves on to certain items involving vehicles—locking on. That change in their movement and the inconsistency have caused our members considerable challenges in terms of how best to interpret the law and apply it in a necessary and proportionate way, so there is support in terms of providing consistency for some of the challenges that they face as the operational public order commanders.

In terms of some of the definitions around “serious disruption” or “significant impact”, we will obviously wait for that to be clearly defined by Parliament, but the training mechanisms that are in place for our public order commanders and public order teams are really significant, are quite detailed and do allow them to really play through and work through some of the judgment calls they have to make, and some of the judgment calls may have to be made within seconds, so some of the changes and amendments do gain support from us.