My Lords, I beg to move the Motion in my name. I will leave the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, to speak to his worthwhile and important amendment and, in view of the time, will concentrate on those in my name, namely A1 and B2. Amendment A1 would remove the noise provision from marches and one-person protests, while Amendment B2 would remove the noise provision from public assemblies. In other words, we have responded to what the Commons has said and narrowed it down to the particular issue of noise.
I am sure that, in her conclusion, the Minister will point to something that I suggest actually shows the importance of standing up against the Commons to get concessions. As a result of us doing that, the Government have made a concession; they tabled Amendment 73E, which was not in the previous concessions that they gave. As a result of us telling the Commons to think again, it did, and has come forward with Amendment 73E.
The same arguments were made to me last time: that we should not be pushing the Commons again, that we should not be standing up to it again, and that we had done our job and had pushed it as far as we could. Yet we pushed one more time and here is Amendment 73E, where the Government have promised a review—Governments always promise a review of one sort or another when they are in trouble. This amendment promises a review after two years to see whether the noise clause in the Bill is actually working or not. There we are—there is a concession. They do not say what will happen if they find it has not worked, why they have decided on two years, or why they did not include a review in two years of whether they should have put it in, but there we go—there is a review.
I say to the Minister that, of course, the elected House has the right to get its own way, but it does not have the right to do so easily without being held to account, without being pushed and without being made to think about what it is doing. I will come to that with respect to noise in a minute. We have narrowed it down; we have listened, but the Minister and others made exactly the same argument to me a few days ago. I resisted that and said we had every right to push the Commons again and, lo and behold, we get a concession.
I think that is the House of Lords doing its job; I think that is the Minister doing her job. She will have gone back to the Home Office and said: “He’s off again. We’ve got to offer something. What can we do?”—I am not doing a “Yes Minister” plot here, but they would have done “Yes Minister”-type activity. They will have sat in the office, and somebody will have said, “We can offer a review. Minister, it is always very easy to offer a review, because actually it does not mean very much but it sounds good, and we can add a bit around looking at whether the provision works or not. You do not have say you do or you don’t, but actually it is very good because Coaker will have to say, ‘Well, thank you very much for offering us a review.’” My important constitutional point is that it was not in there until I said that it was not our constitutional right to defeat or kill the Bill, but it was our constitutional right to say to the Commons, “You have got this completely wrong on noise.”
I will not name people here—although one is about—but I have been encouraged by noble Lords on all sides saying: “This is barking mad, but sometimes you have to vote for it because you are whipped to vote for it; but you carry on.” And I am going to carry on. I am sure that if people go through Hansard when I was a Home Office Minister, they will be able to find things quite as ridiculous as this, but banning something on the grounds that it is too noisy without any idea how you are going to define “too noisy” is, I suggest, ridiculous.
I say as a serious point that the Government have now adapted and adopted all sorts of conditions that they can put on marches but also added those to assemblies. That is a debate that we and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, have had on a number of occasions, but the Government have extended the power to put conditions on assemblies. We have now accepted that; we have said that that is the Commons having their way and we will accept it. But on the issue of noise, saying that you can ban a demonstration, a protest or an assembly on the grounds that it is too noisy is not only ridiculous but it undermines the right to protest.
I have said numerous times that I do not attack the Government for wanting to ban protests. I do not attack the Government for wanting to end the right to demonstrate. That is nonsensical; I do not believe that. Although not as much as me, I suspect that one or two Members of your Lordships’ House opposite have been on demonstrations. I hope they have not been too noisy. I do not know what “too noisy” means, but I just say that that is a problem.
The Minister knows that the police did not actually ask for this. I do not know who did. I do not know how it turned up in the Bill, but it did and there it is: we have noise. You can tell the Government are in trouble. I am not going to go through all the various issues that I raised about the brilliant publicity the Government got as a result of me pointing out certain thresholds that had to be met in order for the noise provisions to be implemented, but I say to noble Lords that they should read the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021: noise-related provisions factsheet. It is a brilliant piece of government explanation, an exposition on what thresholds have to be met in order
for noise conditions to be placed on a demonstration by the police. Only a senior officer will be able to determine what “too noisy” is. I forget the rank. I should have written it down. I think it is chief inspector or above. I wonder whether it should be a chief inspector. We have the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, here. Perhaps he could advise us. What is the correct rank for a police officer to work out whether something is too noisy? Goodness me, it is an important decision that impacts on the right to protest. It cannot just be a chief inspector, so a superintendent, maybe. It could even be something just for the chief of police to determine, but who knows?
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The serious point I am making is that, within this, there are thresholds to be made. I am sure every noble Lord has read this; if not, it is available on the GOV.UK Home Office website, which was helpfully updated on 31 March 2022. I thank the Minister for ensuring that we have up-to-date information to inform our deliberations—this is most helpful. It has a number of hypothetical scenarios in which the “too noisy” provisions might apply. For example, it states:
“A noisy protest in a town centre may not meet the threshold”.
I am pointing this out again because this is what noble Lords are being asked to vote for. We are being asked to vote to include the “too noisy” provisions. I do not know how many noble Lords live in towns—we have a levelling-up agenda, which is wider than it used to be. If you live in a town, it may not meet the threshold. If you are in a city such as London—the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, will be pleased to know—you will probably be able to use these provisions, but not in a town. In the town where I live, you will probably not be able to use these provisions. It is most disappointing that the “too noisy” provisions may not be able to be used in the place where I live. I almost want to ask, “Hands up, how many people live in a town?”. I am very disappointed by this legislation.
The factsheet also says:
“A noisy protest that only lasts a short amount of time may not meet the threshold”.
I tell the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that the more I think about this, the more it will require a chief officer. A chief inspector will not know what “a short” period of time means. The guidance says that “a short” period
“of time may not meet the threshold, but a protest creating the same amount of noise over several days might”.
In fact, I think this is not just a government factsheet but a script for “Yes Minister”, which has been leaked to the Home Office and which it has just adopted without reading it.
We then come to the double-glazing threshold. The Minister knows that I have huge regard for her but I would have thought that the Government would have done something about this. I said this last time and I just say it again. The reason I am using humour is that it makes the point. This is a government document; it is about legislation that we are passing. The “too noisy” provision includes:
“A noisy protest outside an office with double glazing may not meet the threshold”.
It just speaks for itself. This applies if you are going to have a demonstration, as I have said. Noble Lords are going to vote for a piece of legislation that will require the police to determine how much double glazing there is on a route to decide whether it will be too noisy. Goodness only knows what will happen with triple glazing. I think this needs an inquiry by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to determine the links between the Conservative Party and double-glazing companies. It is a very serious matter that, in a government document, we have what can be described only as incentives for double glazing and noisy protests. I could go on, but I will not—