Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of police powers to consider the cumulative impact of protests on the right and freedom to peaceful protest.

The Government remains committed to protecting the right to peaceful protest, while ensuring that communities are protected from repeated and sustained disruption. The cumulative disruption provision in the Crime and Policing Bill places a duty on senior officers to take account of the cumulative impact of protest activity when considering whether to impose conditions under sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986. Police forces can already take cumulative impact into account when imposing conditions on protests.

All measures within the Crime and Policing Bill are assessed to be compatible with the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights.