Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I should like to speak to Amendment 307 standing in my name. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and we spent quite a lot of time considering this Bill. I hope that the Minister will not mind if I go public on a private conversation she and I had some little while ago. I buttonholed the Minister in the Corridor and said that I had an amendment that I was sure she would see to be so sensible that she would give it her support. She looked at me and said, ““Yes, that’s what they all say””. I still believe that this is a very helpful amendment. When we give powers to the police there should be codes of guidance under which the police would operate. There are many precedents for having such codes: I will come to them in a moment. The Bill contains complexities that the police will find it hard to work around. Reference has already been made to structures, sleeping equipment and authorisation for amplification such as loudspeakers. These will be difficult decisions for the police to make—all the more so because I think I am right in saying that one has to get authorisation 21 days in advance for using loudspeakers, but only six days in advance for holding a demo. One has to apply much earlier for the right to use loudspeakers than for the right to demonstrate at all. This is confusing, and it will be difficult for the police to implement. In evidence to the Select Committee, Liberty said something to the effect that if you are in a tent wearing a ““Kate and Wills”” T-shirt, you are more likely to be left alone than if your T-shirt has ““Stop the War”” on it. The point is that some people legitimately want to sleep overnight in Parliament Square in order to see an event such as a royal wedding. Again, it will be difficult for the police to enforce the powers in the Bill. There is the potential for conflict and misunderstanding. I will give the Minister another example. If a demo goes along the Embankment, as many do, and then turns into Parliament Square to go up Whitehall, there may be a point where it has to behave differently as regards amplification from how it behaves along the Embankment and along Whitehall. Unless the stewards are very nimble, somebody may use a loudspeaker going through Parliament Square without authorisation. Again, that is a difficult area. By giving the police codes of guidance that will be public, a lot of these difficulties could be eased. There are many precedents. When I was in the Commons, we spent many weeks debating what became the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, under which numerous codes were made available to us by the then Minister in order that we could consider them in relation to the powers given in the Bill. It is perfectly sensible to ask the police to operate under certain codes of guidance. Such codes in any case would protect them, because they would be given much better information than they have at the moment on how to exercise the powers in the Bill.