Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department are taking to provide the police with support to stop disruptive protests.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 is already in force. This raised the maximum penalty for wilful obstruction of the highway, put public nuisance on to a statutory footing, and brought much needed updates to the Public Order Act 1986. The police are already using the public nuisance measure to tackle disruptive.

The Government intended to add further measures to the PCSC Bill but these were blocked in the Lords. Consequently, we introduced the Public Order Bill, which is now passing through Parliament and will further improve the police’s ability to respond to highly disruptive tactics. For example, lock-on offence and the associated stop and search power will allow the police to pro-actively prevent the selfish minority of protesters from causing serious disruption to the lives of the hard-working majority.

The Government will continue to work closely with the police going forwards to make sure they are able to make full use of these powers.