Policing by consent is central to how our criminal justice system works in the UK and the authority by which officers wield the power given to them. That is why this issue is challenging and why we are having this debate. It is seen as being about balancing the rights of protest in this situation with other rights to go about everyday legitimate business. It is important to take a balanced and sensitive approach.
Several legal minds here are much greater than mine. I am not a qualified lawyer, but I am standing here as the only former police officer participating in this debate. I know who the other two former police officers are and they are not here. I have approached this debate, these clauses and the Lords amendments by thinking about what would happen if I, as a police officer, went to attend a “spontaneous protest”, meaning that as a constable, the first person there, it would be on me to make the decisions about what was legitimate or not and about how I carried out my duties. I also thought about what would happen if I was part of a team of police officers policing a bigger protest, and about the instructions that I would be given by the silver and bronze commanders in relation to that protest and how they would tell me how to interpret the law.
I found it interesting when the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, who is no longer in his place, intervened on the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South
West (Joanna Cherry) to say that he would explain that this is confusing. Police officers are dealing with an ambiguity in the moment all the time. If we create legislation in this place that is confusing and if we have not provided clarity, it is not surprising that police officers will be found not to be applying the law correctly.
Interestingly, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is also no longer in his place, talked about the interviews that His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue undertook with police officers. I cannot totally repeat what the former silver public order commander to whom I am married called this Bill, but I can say that it was a pile of something. I will leave Members to speculate on what else he said. These are complex decisions to be made in real time, regardless of rank. Policing by consent is how we ensure that we carry out our duties safely.
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Others have spoken about Lords amendment 5. It is not applicable in Scotland, and I look forward to similar legislation by means of a private Member’s Bill. It is important that it is now perceived to be ECHR compliant. My party will not be whipped on the amendment, so it will be down to personal preference, but if as a police officer I was dealing with, for example, a case of harassment in which the allegation was racial in nature, I would listen to the victim in relation to how I applied the legislation and whether I would press for a charge. The tendency is towards how the victim or the person subject to the behaviour feels. If it is silent prayer that takes place outside an abortion clinic and women going into the clinic interpret it as harassing, that suggests to me that an offence has been committed and action needs to be taken.
On Lords amendment 1, the serious disruption definition is clear and, I would argue, more easily determined by a police officer in the course of their duties. Arguably, the Government’s version of “more than minor” is more subjective and therefore more difficult for an officer to gauge. We are back to the skills, knowledge and behaviour of police officers and their capacity to deliver. My concern, as I have made clear throughout the passage of the Bill, including in Committee, is that we have put so much pressure and expectation on what we require police officers to do and this Bill will add another whole wheen—that is a Scottish word that means a load—of elements that they will require training to deliver. I continue to have concerns about the capacity to deliver that training and the ability to extract police officers to undergo that training so that they can implement the Bill. That is very problematic, and that is before we even come on to the issues of the erosion of trust that we have seen in the police service more generally in the past year.
On Lords amendment 6 and suspicionless stop and search, I will quote the words of Lord Paddick in the other place. He has handled with this Bill on behalf of the Liberal Democrats since Second Reading, and my colleagues and I are hugely grateful to him. He is a former Met commander and he knows what he is talking about. He said:
“Stop and search is a highly intrusive and potentially damaging tool if misused by the police. The fact that you are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police if you are black than if you are white where the police require reasonable suspicion, and 14 times more likely where the police do not
require reasonable suspicion, presents a prima facie case that the police are misusing these powers.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 February 2023; Vol. 827, c. 1098.]
I understand that the House will not divide on Lords amendment 17, but it follows the arrest of journalists in Hertfordshire at a Just Stop Oil protest. If there is no need for the amendment, I would like to hear the Government outline what they will do to prevent the arrest of legitimate journalists and observers at protests in future. If we all care about democracy and freedom to protest and ensuring that those rights are applied, we need to have journalists and observers involved.