Policing and Crime Bill

I start by expressing sympathy for the contributions of the noble Baronesses both in terms of the intention to try to address the concern that we should not prevent, hinder or criminalise peaceful protest, but also I recognise from the Opposition Benches the wisdom of looking carefully at the whole scene rather than just one or two aspects of it. On the question of the Kingsnorth power station incident, which to put it at its mildest none of us thinks is a good training video for how policing should take place, I understand that the report into that was put on the Kent police website a month or two ago. The more pertinent question from the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, is whether we see legislation as the route. It is vital that we have a common standard in the policing of protests, particularly as we are going to see a series of national events in the near future, with perhaps the Olympics as the test of our ability to handle large numbers of people in confined areas. Certainly the G20, the Kingsnorth climate camp and other recent protests have shown that not everything we want to see actually happens. As the noble Baroness pointed out in moving her amendment, these events have been the subject of numerous reviews by the Home Affairs Committee, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Association of Chief Police Officers, all of which we welcome. While we take the concerns raised about public order policing very seriously and are committed to working with the police and public to ensure that recommendations coming out of recent reviews are acted upon, it is important to recognise, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, mentioned, that the police manage thousands of peaceful demonstrations, both large and small, every year. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, mentioned that we shall be setting out our proposals in the policing White Paper, which is due to be published next month. This in turn will be informed by the recommendations and lessons learnt emanating from the work of HMIC’s review into policing and protest. However, the direct answer to the noble Baroness does not necessarily lie in further changes to legislation, and at this stage I have to say that I do not accept that need. It is not a question of more legislation because what is clear is that those protests were not policed in an appropriate manner, so it is a question of focusing on the key principles that need to underpin the policing of protest and ensuring that these are reflected in police guidance and training. We also need to ensure that police forces comply with revised guidance and training which will help to ensure that the concerns we all have about issues such as officer identification, use of stop and search powers and proportionate use of force are properly addressed. The individual amendments tabled by the noble Baroness are, in our view, unworkable and would create confusion. For instance, Amendment 153 purports to exempt three or more people who take part in a peaceful demonstration or engage in an act of non-violent civil disobedience from the offence of violent disorder set out in Section 2 of the Public Order Act. While I understand the concern that peaceful protestors should not be criminalised for taking part in demonstrations, I do not believe that such exemptions are necessary or enforceable. They would introduce confusion to the existing tests set out in the Public Order Act, risk creating confusion for the police, protestors and courts alike, and make the various provisions of the Public Order Act framework anomalous. Equally, Amendment 156, which would place provisions directly into the PACE code of practice in respect of how stop and search powers might be exercised in public order situations, risks creating uncertainty in officers’ minds when policing a public order situation. Again, we feel these are issues best addressed in guidance and training rather than in a code of practice or, indeed, in legislation. Amendment 159 also causes confusion. It states that powers and offences set out in subsection (2)(a) to (i) must not be used for the purposes of preventing, hindering or obstructing a peaceful protest. I think that is fine, but it then makes an exception where a police officer has reasonable cause to consider that there is a "high risk of serious violence". The "high risk of serious violence" test represents a significant shift from the wording of some of the existing powers as agreed by Parliament. It would create considerable confusion to the police, courts and protestors as it would mean that existing case law, guidance and understanding could no longer be applied. I have a long, erudite and beautifully phrased series of arguments but I hope that in the brief argument I have made I have shown that the Government are intent on moving forward. It is not the legislation that is the problem; there are individual police officers—and maybe some groups of officers—who have not shown the required commitment. Training and guidance for those officers is probably needed more than increased legislation.