Public Order Bill

Public Bill Committee, 14 June 2022.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

A few preliminary reminders for the Committee: please turn off electronic devices, or switch them to silent. No food or drink is permitted during sittings except for the water provided. Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members emailed their speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk, or passed their written notes to Hansard colleagues.

We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection and grouping list is available in the room; it shows how the selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or similar issues. Decisions on amendments are taken not in the order in which they are debated, but in the order on which they appear on the amendment paper. The selection and grouping list shows the order of debates. Decisions on an amendment are taken when we come to the clause to which the amendment relates. Decisions on new clauses will be taken once we have completed consideration of the clauses of the Bill. Members wishing to press a grouped amendment or new clause to a Division should indicate that when speaking to it.

Clause 1 - Offence of locking on

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I beg to move amendment 29, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, leave out

“or is capable of causing”.

This would limit the offence to an act that causes serious disruption.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 46, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, leave out from “disruption” to the end of line 12.

Amendment 30, in clause 1, page 1, line 15, leave out

“or are reckless as to whether it will have such a consequence”.

This would limit the new offence to ensure that there must be intent to cause serious disruption.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

As the Minister and others may be aware, I am a former police officer; I served with the Lothian and Borders police between 1999 and 2011. I am working with my colleague Lord Paddick, who is in the other place; he is also a former police officer, and considered the provisions of the Bill that were put in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in the other place, so we have some experience of police debates.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Order. I am sorry; none of the mics is working, so we will have to suspend the sitting for a few minutes.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

As this is my first Bill Committee, I was worried that I had already made a mistake. I am glad to hear that the issue causing us difficulty was beyond my purview.

As I say, I have policed events and protests; Lord Paddick has been the commander at them. I highlight the evidence that we heard last week from police officers, particularly Chief Superintendent Phil Dolby, who leads on the management of such events. What really came through for me in the evidence was the need for ongoing dialogue and agreement with those exercising their democratic right to protest. I have concerns that the legislation will hinder that dialogue. As former Chief Constable Peter Fahy said, we do not live in France or any other country with a paramilitary aspect to their policing. We do not want any legislation to risk our approach. I have concerns about that balance, about unnecessarily criminalising protesters, and about bringing into the scope of the legislation people who have nothing to do with a protest.

Chief Constable Chris Noble observed in his opening remarks last week that the vast majority of protest activity is non-contentious. I urge us all to remember that in our deliberations. The provisions in the Bill were introduced into the Police, Crime, Sentencing Courts Act 2022 when it was in the Lords last Session, and they were resoundingly opposed in the other place, so I am surprised that the Government are pretty much reintroducing the same measures and are not taking the experience in the Lords into account. I thank Lord Paddick, who spoke strongly against the provisions; the Chair may find that some of my remarks bear a resemblance to his.

Clause 1 will criminalise people who lock on even if there is no disruption caused, as long as there is potential for disruption. Amendment 29 would remove the words

“or is capable of causing”

which are incredibly broad and uncertain. If the Government are determined to create these additional offences—it appears that they are, given that we are back considering this Bill—the law that introduces them must be legal. These provisions are vague, undefined and open to subjective interpretation, as we will see in the law courts if the Bill as drafted passes into law.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council said in evidence that it is concerned about the phrasing, as it will be open to interpretation, and the onus will be on officers to decide the meaning. As I said in our evidence session last week, the first officer to attend a protest, whether they be a police constable, sergeant or inspector, is in charge and takes control and command—they lead. No one officer has the overall picture necessary to make such decisions, and I argue that this measure places the onus on individual officers to decide its meaning. Not only are the police unable to enforce such restrictions, but, as we have heard from organisations such as Amnesty International, the lack of certainty and broad scope makes the conduct in question illegal from the outset. That is not what we should intend to do in legislation. The provision severely curtails the fundamental human right to protest peacefully and will further damage our global reputation.

The clause potentially criminalises all sorts of protests. What about a counter-demonstration to stop holocaust deniers marching past a synagogue? If protesters linked arms to protect the synagogue, they could be caught by this clause. There is no definition of “capable of causing”. We do not criminalise behaviour that might cause crime. We prosecute people who have caused crimes.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Amendments 29, 46 and 30 target clause 1, which introduces a new offence of locking on. Locking on is an extremely disruptive and often dangerous tactic that can place both protesters and police at extreme risk. It is unacceptable that protesters can use bike locks, glue and an imaginative range of other equipment to inflict disruption on businesses and the public, and the testimony we heard in the oral evidence sessions highlights the need for the Government to act.

Amendment 29 would raise the threshold of the offence by requiring a person’s lock-on to have caused, rather than be capable of causing, serious disruption before they were liable for the offence. That would not account for situations where, for example, a person locks on with intent to cause serious disruption but is quickly removed by the police before serious disruption can be inflicted. If there is to be a deterrent effect, it is important that those who commit acts that could cause serious disruption face appropriate penalties. I do not see the value of accepting the amendment.

Amendment 46 would inadvertently lower the threshold for serious disruption; it would remove the statement that serious disruption is caused by a lock-on only if the disruption applies to two or more individuals or the activities of an organisation. It is entirely reasonable to assume that if someone commits a lock-on that causes serious disruption to one or more person, they may be arrested and charged with the offence. I am not sure the hon. Member had the intention of lowering the threshold of application of this clause.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

I am looking at subsection (2) which says:

“It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1) to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for the act mentioned in paragraph (a) of that subsection.”

Will the Minister please explain what is meant by that, and who might be caught by the Act? Who would actually have a reasonable excuse? Can he give us an example?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

The notion of reasonable excuse is well defined in our common law and is adjudged by courts daily, particularly in protest situations. We have seen that over the last few months. Although I assume that the hon. Gentleman seeks some precision in definition, “reasonable excuse” is for the courts to define, and they do so regularly.

Amendment 30 would raise the threshold for the offence of locking on by requiring individuals to have intended their lock-on to cause disruption, rather than having been reckless about that. Recklessness is, however, also a very well understood term in criminal law, and it applies to numerous criminal offences. I do not see the value in removing it from this clause, not least because, as I am sure the hon. Member for North East Fife knows, it is a well-known term in Scottish law and is often used in Scottish courts to adjudge an offence. For the reasons I have set out, I ask hon. Members not to press the amendments.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife for tabling her amendments, which we are happy to support. She spoke clearly and eloquently about them, and I echo some of her arguments. We agree with the narrowing of scope proposed in amendment 29, which would mean that locking on must cause disruption, rather than just being capable of doing so. The Minister has already spoken, but I think there is an issue with the wording, and with defining an act as being capable of causing disruption. The definition is so broad and imprecise that it could include almost anything.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

On Cromwell Road in west London, a lorry pulled up and scaffolding was quickly brought out and semi-erected, but as Territorial Support Group 5 happened to be on the scene, the scaffolding was quickly removed. That offence was capable of causing significant disruption, but because of swift police action, it did not. Does the hon. Lady believe that an offence was committed in that case, and that the sentence should deter those people from trying again?

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

It was jolly good that the police were there and able to deal with that case. We do not need new legislation to enable them to do their job, which they did swiftly and well.

We will come on in more detail to the fundamental flaws in the Bill, but our underlying argument is that it will not deal with the small number of repeat offenders who come back time and again. It may, however, criminalise people who protest peacefully. Whatever the Government intended, that is not necessarily how the provision will be interpreted. That is why laws need to be drafted very clearly. As the former Prime Minister has said on several occasions, she might have thought that she would interpret her powers very sensibly when she was Home Secretary, but who knows who will come next? If we do not have sensible people making decisions, we do not necessarily want them to be able to interpret these very broad powers, so the law needs to be precise.

The hon. Member for North East Fife referenced Lord Paddick, who made the point that if the locking on

“were on a different road or at a different time, it would be capable of causing serious disruption. But if it is 3 am on a Sunday, is that still capable of causing serious disruption?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, insert date in form 1 January 2057; Vol. 816, c. 980.]

That is a good and interesting point. We are happy to support the amendments put forward by the hon. Member for North East Fife.

Amendment 46 addresses another of our concerns. All those who gave evidence last week discussed the scale of the disruption caused by protest. We were all horrified by the astronomical costs involved, such as the £126 million that High Speed 2 spent on protester removal, which might rise to £200 million next year. However, under clause 1, the offence is triggered where a lock-on causes disruption to just two people. There is clearly a huge difference between the enormous scale of disruption caused to HS2, or by lock-ons on the motorway, and disruption caused to two people. They are simply not the same thing, and it is problematic that the clause appears to conflate them.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

The hon. Lady has referred to the astronomical costs. The Minister said that it is for the courts to make some of the decisions around the wideness of the scope. The reality is that if we arrest more people for these offences and they go through the criminal justice system, those costs will increase. By having such a wide scope, we are making the situation more expensive in the longer term.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Sadly, the Government are good at wasting taxpayer money. We have seen lots of cases of the profligate use of funds; let us hope this will not be a similar case.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

To be clear, all the people who currently lock on are arrested and charged with other offences, including in Scotland. It is not necessarily the case that more people would be arrested. In fact, given the specificity of the offence, and as we hope that the sentence that we attach to it will prove a deterrent, in time fewer people will commit this offence and cause serious disruption; there will therefore be fewer arrests. Is that not the point of the laws we pass in this place?

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

The point is that the offence would not be a deterrent, given that there are plenty of other things that people are charged with, and imprisoned and fined for. It would not be a deterrent to those difficult people who come back time and again, as they can already be arrested, charged and sent to prison for a multitude of existing offences.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

My hon. Friend is correct. I was surprised to hear the Minister say, “It’s okay: we can already charge these people. There are plenty of offences that they can be charged with and fined for.” Why the new legislation, then? I do not quite understand the Minister.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I absolutely agree. In addition—this is most peculiar—a whole raft of legislation on protest has been passed by this House but not yet implemented. We are layering legislation on top of a whole raft of legislation that has passed but not yet implemented, before we even know whether the previous legislation has worked.

Amendment 46 aims to amend clause 1 so that it actually deals with the scale of the disruption that our witnesses were concerned with. In doing so, it will also address the concerns of the public. I do not think that the public are much interested in protests that cause disruption to just two people. That is not so egregious, and certainly not egregious enough to risk seriously harming the right to protest. The National Police Chiefs’ Council agrees; it states in its written evidence that:

“we believe using the definition of ‘serious disruption to the community’ may be preferable to ‘two or more people, or an organisation’, as the former is more widely understood and will allow more effective application consistent with human rights legislation.”

Amendment 30, tabled by the hon. Member for North East Fife, would

“limit the new offence to ensure that there must be intent to cause serious disruption.”

As I have mentioned, one of our key concerns with this clause is how widely drawn it is. With such broad wording, it is fair to ask the police to determine whether there is genuine intent to cause serious disruption. As has been pointed out by Liberty and other organisations, the Bill already carries the danger of criminalising peaceful protest, and has the potential to sweep up many peaceful protesters. Recklessness is not a good measure in the law. How should the police try to prove that an individual has been particularly reckless? Recklessness is not a good measure in the law. Can the Minister say what “recklessness” is? Is it defined by a lack or an abundance of action? What would his definition be?

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

It is obvious that on this side of the Committee we are keen to ensure that there is definition to what the Government are proposing so that people do not fall inadvertently within the scope of this. I agree with the shadow Minister, and we heard this in evidence last week, that those who see locking on or committing such offences as a badge of honour will not be deterred by what the Government propose. Although I do not intend to press either amendment 29 or 30 to a vote, it has been important for us to understand what the Government propose and the fact that they are continuing to press ahead with a wide scope for the clause. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Sarah Jones, do you wish to move amendment 46 formally?

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I know it is early in the morning to test the will of the Committee, but I wish to move the amendment formally, in part because the NPCC has concerns about the wording, as do many other organisations.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I beg to move amendment 31, clause 1, page 1, line 21, after “fine” insert

“not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale”.

A person convicted of an offence of “locking on” may be subjected to a fine. Under this clause there is no limit on the fine that may be imposed. This amendment would place a maximum limit on the fine.

The Bill allows for unlimited fines but the amendment would limit the fine for the offence to level 2, £500. The amendment belongs with my amendments 34 and 37, because as currently drafted the offences of locking on, being equipped to lock on or obstructing major transport works can carry an unlimited fine.

To divert slightly, reference was twice made during last week’s evidence sessions—and this morning— to Scots law, although I appreciate that the Bill relates to England and Wales. Last week, the Minister referred to the crime of malicious mischief in Scotland, which carries an unlimited fine or prison sentence. That took me right back to my basic training days at the Scottish Police College—is it vandalism or malicious mischief? It is a crime at common law, and that is why it carries unlimited fines or imprisonment. The Scots Advocate, Andrew Crosbie, a member of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland, describes common law offences on his crime.scot blog as follows:

“I tend to summarise common law cases…they’re crimes because they just are.”

You know us Scots, we are blunt and to the point. But common law crimes such as assault, theft, murder, fraud and breach of the peace were not created by Parliament, and as such are not defined in legislation. In fact, David Hume, whose statue stands outside the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, pooled all the High Court decisions to produce the authoritative account of the state of Scots criminal law in the 1840s. All of those offences could result in unlimited fines or prison time, and I have lost count of the number of times that I charged someone with the breach of the peace, because it is a catch-all piece of legislation. The reality is that those offences do not carry those sanctions because sentencing decisions are usually made within a scale and scope, dependent on the seriousness of the offence and previous case law. I would argue therefore that, contrary to the Minister’s argument last week, it is not as straightforward as it first looks that Scots law is more draconian; it is about the scope of previous stated cases and decisions.

Malicious mischief consists of the wilful, wanton and malicious destruction of, or damage to, the property of other persons. There must be malice, either actual or inferred, on the part of the perpetrator, as destruction or damage caused by accident or under a reasonable belief of right, is not criminal. One main difference between that offence and vandalism is that the latter must result in damage to actual property, whereas under malicious mischief financial damage brought about by a criminal act would suffice. I hope Members will note why malicious mischief might be an appropriate offence in Scotland for some of matters that we are considering in the Bill.

From a police officer’s perspective, if property is damaged and the value of the damage is high, it may be more relevant to label the act as a common law crime other than vandalism. That is certainly how I recall it from my police college days—if it was high value, or involved cruelty to animals, it was malicious mischief, otherwise we preferred statutory vandalism.

I wanted to touch on that because in a democracy punishments are made to be proportionate to the crimes. Is it proportionate to fine someone potentially tens of thousands of pounds for a single act of protest? My simple proposal is that the fine should be limited to level 2 on the standard scale at £500. I am happy to hear from the Government should they have other proposals for a limit, but I argue that it cannot and should not be limitless.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

The intent behind the amendment—to prove whether an unlimited fine is proportionate or not—is sensible. It is difficult to find examples of offences that have resulted in huge fines, and I wonder whether the Minister could provide some examples of the scale of fines for the offence set down in clause 1. I know that the coalition Government introduced an unlimited fine in 2015 under the terms of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. The explanatory notes to those regulations state:

“For the most serious offences tried by magistrates that maximum is generally £5,000 although for certain offences where the financial gain from offending is substantial—for example in some environmental offences—the maximum fine can be as high as £50,000.”

How will the offences we are considering compare? I understand that when a similar amendment was considered during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Minister in the other place said,

“We think that an unlimited fine is appropriate in the case of these new offences; a level 1 or level 2 fine…would not…in our view…reflect the seriousness of the conduct in question. An unlimited maximum fine allows courts to determine the level of any fine on a case-by-case basis, having regard to the gravity of the offence and the ability of the offender to pay.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 November 2021; Vol. 816, c. 994.]

It would be helpful if the Minister could shed some light on an estimated fine that he believes could reflect the seriousness of the conduct in question, which, as we have just debated, is so broad in scope.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I have already spoken about the harm that locking on can cause and we feel strongly that those who commit locking on should face a sentence proportionate to the harm they cause. The maximum fine of £500, which the amendment provides, is simply not proportionate to some of the offences we have seen and the courts should have the discretion to impose an unlimited fine on a case-by-case basis. Judges do this on a regular basis within the framework set for them, dependent on the individual’s circumstances, their relative wealth and the likely deterrent effect the fine will have.

Although I understand and hear what the hon. Member for North East Fife says about what happens north of the border with malicious mischief, it is the case that in theory that offence carries an unlimited fine and, indeed, an unlimited prison sentence, notwithstanding the guidance judges operate under. I am conscious that the fuel protestors recently arrested outside Glasgow have all been charged, as I understand it, with malicious mischief. We will wait to see what the result may be, but I have no doubt that Scottish judges will look to the circumstances of those individuals and the damage and disruption they caused while they decide what the fines should be. Although she might say that that is not more draconian, we are simply seeking to mirror what would be experienced north of the border, and I urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

We ask the Minister to accept that because malicious mischief is a crime of common law there are unlimited fines and imprisonment attached to it. We have no legislation that does not have a fine scale within it, which is why I think we should ensure that we have something on this. My amendment is very much intended to probe what the Government would consider reasonable, so I have no intention of pressing it to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Clause 1, as we know, establishes a new criminal offence targeting people who engage in the act of locking on. It criminalises those who attach themselves to another person, an object or land, those who attach a person to another person, object or land and those who attach an object to another object in the same scenario, as long as such activities cause or are capable of causing serious disruption to two or more people or to an organisation in a public place. Those involved must intend the act to cause and be capable of causing serious disruption to two or more individuals or an organisation or be reckless as to whether it will have that consequence. A reasonable excuse is the defence, and breach of this offence means a maximum of 51 weeks imprisonment, a fine or both. That is how the clause is laid out in the Bill.

I should make one thing clear at the start. During the evidence sessions last week we heard examples of really egregious breaches of law—smoking on oil tankers, gluing oneself to motorways and tunnelling under High Speed 2. There should be no doubt that those are examples of criminal behaviour. They are also highly dangerous to the protestors, to the police and to the public. Many of the examples of what is called protest, as several witnesses explained last week, involve people who have gone way across the line and are committing criminal acts. We do not think that those are examples of legitimate protest; they are criminal acts.

We heard about the deportation flight in 2017, scheduled to take off from Stansted. Protestors cut through the safety fencing around the airport perimeter and locked themselves on to a Boeing 767 jet. Flights were disrupted, delayed and cancelled and the runway was closed for an hour. For oil refineries or oil tankers, as Elizabeth de Jong mentioned, people lock themselves on or attach themselves to the top of stationary tankers, often full tankers. They have locked on at height, often with machinery. Once again, that is illegal behaviour. We also heard evidence of protestors blocking motorways. Insulate Britain blocked junction 25 of the M25, which is the Enfield junction to the north-east of London. Four protesters sat on the road, on both sides of the carriageway. There can be no doubt that that is dangerous to road users and the police as well as the protesters.

That is targeted disruption by a hardcore few. Those individuals could be, and were, arrested and charged under existing police powers. In the words of Adam Wagner, the barrister who gave evidence last week, that is “absolutely uncomplicated”. It is really important that, as lawmakers in this place, we are precise when talking about contentious issues. Police are able to arrest people for obstruction of the highway, in the same way that they have been able to do for a long time.

The Public Order Act 1986 gives the police a wide range of powers to deal with peaceful protest. The Highways Act 1980 makes wilful obstruction of the highway without lawful excuse illegal. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created the offence of aggravated trespass, where a person trespasses on land to intimidate, obstruct or disrupt the lawful activity of others.

Natalie Elphicke (Conservative, Dover)

Will the hon. Lady comment on there being an offence for every crime she has described? We heard in evidence, and I commented on it, that the Court of Appeal said of the Stansted incident that there was not an offence that reflected the gravity of the situation there. Does she agree that it is important to ensure that that gap is filled?

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I thank the hon. Member for her remarks. I hope she will forgive me, as I do not have the evidence in front of me, but as I recall it, clearly the charge made there did not lead to the outcome that those people had intended. Perhaps there were other offences, of aggravated trespass, for example, which is imprisonable and could have led to a charge.

Trespass laws can apply even on public roads, when someone is not using them for a permitted purpose. Other legislation is also available. In the evidence session, the Minister suggested that some existing legislation does not allow prison sentences, but it does. Wilful obstruction of the highway comes with a fine but in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022—

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

It does now.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Well, it does not, because it has not been implemented. When it is, there will be six-month sentences attached to that. Criminal damage can lead to up to 10 years in prison, depending on the value of the damage. Aggravated trespass can lead up to three months in prison, a fine, or both. Breaching an injunction, as we have heard, can lead to two years, a fine, or both. Public nuisance can lead to 12 months on summary conviction, or 10 years on conviction on indictment.

Failure to comply with a condition can lead to a fine, but one year in prison if someone incites someone else to breach a condition. Organising a prohibited trespassory assembly can lead to three months in prison, a fine, or both. Participating in a trespassory assembly can lead to a fine. It is clear there is a broad list of offences of which criminal protesters can be found guilty. On fines, as we discussed, the law changed in 2015, to allow magistrates courts to issue unlimited fines for serious offences. Prior to that, there was only an unlimited fine in the Crown court.

Conditions on protests only need to be applied to public land. That was again an issue that the Minister raised in the evidence session. The de facto position on private land is that permission for protest is not granted, unless an invitation has been extended by the landowner. If people protest on private land, they could be found guilty of either aggravated trespass or trespassory assembly. Even if the threshold for those offences is not met, they would still be committing an offence, merely by their incursion on to private property and, whether they were aware of doing so or not, of the more basic offence of trespass, which is a civil wrong, not a criminal one.

Two things are required to commit aggravated trespass: trespassing and intentionally disrupting, obstructing or intimidating others from carrying out lawful activities. Further, a senior police officer has the power to order any person believed to be involved in aggravated trespass to leave the land. If they refuse to do so, that is an additional offence. The maximum penalty is three months’ imprisonment or a fine of £2,500, or both. First-time offenders would likely get a fine of between £200 and £300. I could go on, but I will not.

There are several examples in recent history of the police responding to lock-on protests. In September 2020, 80 Extinction Rebellion protesters were arrested and charged with obstruction of the highway after blocking printer works at Broxbourne and Knowsley. In October 2021, Kent police arrested 32 people for obstructing a highway and conspiring to commit public nuisance on the A40 and M25. In early 2021, the police used trespass offences to clear anti-High Speed 2 protestors from Euston Square. The police are entirely able to use reasonable force—indeed, they should be encouraged to do so—to, where necessary, unlock people who are locked on.

In the case of Insulate Britain, people have been jailed for defying a court order preventing them from protesting on the M25. Five Insulate Britain campaigners who had held a demonstration on the motorway in September were jailed and all charged with contempt of court. Ben Taylor, Ellie Litten, Theresa Norton, Stephen Pritchard and Diana Warner were given jail terms, each lasting between 24 and 42 days. Eleven others from that group received suspended prison sentences. A number of High Court injunctions were put in place after Insulate Britain’s road blockades last year. Nine other Insulate Britain campaigners were given jail time or suspended sentences. Two protestors were handed prison sentences of two months and 30 days, while seven others received two-month suspended jail terms for breaching injunctions.

As Liberty has pointed out, people have not gone to prison in some cases, but have in others. The courts look at the location and the manner of the protest. They are very unsympathetic to protesters who block the M25, because they have a damaging effect on people who have nothing to do with their cause, but more sympathetic to those who demonstrate against the actual object of their protest, because they do not affect the public in general.

Sometimes the police do not use the powers at their disposal. There is a number of reasons for that, including lack of training. We heard from John Groves from HS2, who said:

“Certainly, there is frustration from my team on the ground that the police are not more direct with some of the protesters”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 23, Q43.]

Part of that is about resources. We do not have the French system, nor do we want it, but in some cases we do not have enough people. As Peter Fahy said:

“There is not a standing army waiting to deal with protest. They come out of normal policing when they are required to do so, and the amount of neighbourhood policing that is affected by just keeping up with that demand is…quite acute.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 63, Q123.]

The other reason why the police do not always act on a raft of existing legislation—as HS2 found, to its frustration—is lack of training. We have debated several times the report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services. Written by Matt Parr, it looked at protest, the nature of protest and what should be done. Most of its recommendations had nothing to do with changing the law, focusing instead on training for officers. Its findings included that,

“protester removal teams…are trained to remove protesters from lock-on devices. But we found that forces do not have a consistent way of determining the number of trained officers they need. As a result, the number of specialists available varies widely throughout England and Wales.”

Matt Parr also highlighted that

“the police should develop a stronger rationale for determining the number of commanders, specialist officers and staff needed to police protests.”

He looked at whether chief constables were making good use of their legal services teams, and at a raft of different systems for gathering intelligence on protests and for dealing with them when they happen. In the evidence that Matt Parr gave us, he was really clear and enthusiastic that his changes are beginning to be implemented in the way in which he wants them to be. Before seeking to change things again, we need to wait for the implementation of all of those recommendations—which he has said will significantly improve the police response to protests—and of the Bill that has recently been passed.

The police seem to be in possession of some very useful powers to help deal with lock-on protests when they go beyond the scope of a legitimate protest. Even if we look further back into history, we find really good examples of peaceful lock-on protests and of the police making good use of the powers available to them when they need to.

For example, people look back on the Greenham Common women’s peace camp as a protest by a group of women who made good points and achieved some success. It involved a series of protest camps against nuclear weapons at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire. Women began arriving in 1981 after cruise missiles were stored there, and they employed lock-on tactics by chaining themselves to the base fence. The camps became well known in 1983—I was 11 at the time—when, at the height of the protests, about 70,000 people formed a 14-mile human chain around the base. It is interesting that we are talking about the methods used by Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil as if they are a new phenomenon. I do not remember it, as I was too young, but it must have been quite something to have 70,000 people form a 14-mile human chain—a lock-on—around the base.

Another encircling of the base occurred in December of that year, with 50,000 women attending. Sections of the fence were cut, but the police acted and arrested hundreds. Protest activity continued to occur at Greenham, and the last missiles left the base in 1991, following the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty. The Greenham women clearly left their mark on history. They used peaceful lock-on tactics, and when they entered the RAF site, they were arrested by the police. As today, the women were apparently subjected to abuse and hatred. Vigilante groups attacked them with slogans such as “Peace Women: You Disgust Us”.

Lee Anderson (Conservative, Ashfield)

The hon. Lady says she was 11 years old at the time. I was about 16 or 17, and I remember the Greenham Common women coming up to Ashfield during the miners’ strike. I can remember the scenes at Greenham Common—they were disgusting scenes—although they made it a legitimate protest. Does the hon. Lady recall the time when they were hanging certain feminine products around the perimeter fence? That was disgusting.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Gosh. I do not know what feminine products the hon. Gentleman means, but perhaps I will not ask further. [Interruption.]

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Order. Can we stop shouting across the room, please?

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

My point is that where the police needed to intervene at Greenham Common, they intervened. Where they needed to arrest and charge people, they arrested and charged people.

Rupa Huq (Labour, Ealing Central and Acton)

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I am not quite sure what the previous intervention had to do with it. Is it not the point that, after the passage of time, people who were criminalised for what they did are now seen as valiant? Not far from here, there is a statute of Viscount Falkland in St Stephen’s Hall. The statue’s foot spur was broken off by suffragettes in, I think, 1912. At the time, that was a locking-on offence, because they attached themselves to the statue and the police took them away. The foot spur has never been replaced because it is part of our history, and we now see the suffragettes, the women at Greenham and the anti-apartheid protesters as valiant people who were on the right side of history. This clumsy offence gets it all wrong by getting heavy-handed at an early stage.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not all lockons are a criminal offence and nor should they be, but where people are locking on in a way that is dangerous and disruptive, that should be an offence.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Does the hon. Lady accept that, in the Bill as drafted, the reasonable excuse defence and the serious disruption requirement mean that not all lock-ons will necessarily be a criminal offence? If something similar to the St Stephen’s Hall example given by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton were to occur, that would not necessarily cause serious disruption to the life of the community, and would therefore not necessarily constitute an offence under the Bill.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Well, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton could get a 10-year prison sentence for damaging a statue. Clause 2, which we have not got to, is even more vague, but a person does not have to cause serious disruption; they can intend to have a consequence that will cause serious disruption. I know several very respectable elderly ladies in my constituency—I am sure the Minister has the same—who attend environmental protests. Given that the Bill is so vague, I am absolutely sure that they will be scared of being arrested just for turning up to or taking part in protests. That is the point that we are trying to make.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

The hon. Lady has given a very good example. We on the Opposition Benches accept that there are forms of protest that are illegal, which we heard evidence about last week from witnesses. However, we also heard that there is a hard core of illegal protesters who will not be deterred by this Bill. The people who will be deterred are those who wish to engage in peaceful and legal protest, as is their democratic right, but will be prevented from doing so.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and it is also the case that we have seen protests of this scale and nature for many years. The problems we see now are not unique, and they are able to be dealt with through existing legislation.

Our fundamental argument is not that people who are gluing themselves to motorways are not committing an offence or causing a major problem. It is not that the people who were digging tunnels at HS2 sites were doing nothing wrong, and nor is it that the representatives of HS2 and the others who gave evidence to us are wrong to ask that something be done. Our argument is that, first, the Bill will not act as a deterrent to the small number of people we are talking about—those who repeatedly offend and, indeed, want to get arrested. Secondly, it will not speed up the practical business of removing those who lock on. As we heard about the protest at the newspaper, it took several hours for specialist police to arrive. That was the cause of the delay, but once those police arrived and removed those who were locking on, the problem was dealt with. The delay was the problem, and the Bill will not do anything about that.

Thirdly, there are plenty of existing powers that can be, and are, used by the police. Fourthly, lots can be done, and is being done, to improve the way in which the police manage protests, as a result of Matt Parr’s report and other things. Finally, the Bill is drawn so widely that it risks criminalising non-criminal contact, which will have a huge, chilling impact on people who want to peacefully protest. In short, it seems that the Minister wants us to move towards the French, Spanish and Italian systems that we heard about from Peter Fahy. I will read a paragraph from his evidence, because I thought it was incredibly powerful:

“People do not realise that we are pretty unique. When you hear about the sophistication and negotiation the chief superintendent talked about”—

that was the West Midlands chief super—

“that is the British style. In all the protests it is escalation, which looks in the early stages like the police are being weak, but in the background they are talking to people and they are escalating. They are saying, ‘If you keep on coming back, we will use this power and that power. Have you heard about that?’ That is the British style of policing. You do not start with the heaviest. You work up to it, and that then maintains the confidence in your legality and proportionality.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 62, Q122.]

Peter Fahy also said:

“We are not like France, Spain and Italy, which have paramilitary police forces. If this had happened in France, they would have turned out the CRS very rapidly...they would use water cannon, they would probably use rubber bullets, and essentially the French population would accept that level of force. Thankfully, we do not live in a country like that”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 50, Q110.]

The reason why we are here in this House is to make the best law we can, but as it stands I do not think that the breadth and scope of clause 1 is proportionate to what we are trying to deal with. The right to protest is not an unconditional one; nobody says that it is. It will always be about mediation and compromise, and action where there needs to be action. I and other Opposition Members are horrified by some of the disruption that we heard about in the evidence sessions.

Tom Hunt (Conservative, Ipswich)

On that topic, I am interested to know whether the hon. Lady would condemn the protest that took place at the weekend in Peckham, where immigration officers and police officers were actually prevented from carrying out their role in upholding the law of the land. I understand that a Labour councillor may have been involved in the organisation of that; and many Labour Members of this House have actually applauded those protesters in the media.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I did not see that protest. I am sure the police did the job that they needed to do, but—

Tom Hunt (Conservative, Ipswich)

It was widely reported.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I have not read about that.

As I said, Opposition Members have been horrified by the disruption that we heard about in the evidence sessions. However, everybody who gave evidence was clear that it is a very small proportion of protests that cause disruption; the vast majority pass by with no problems at all.

The final issue that I want to cover is the chilling effect that Matt Parr writes about in his report. If we look closely at the drafting of clause 1—the hon. Member for North East Fife has referenced this—we see that it is so broadly drawn that it criminalises an innumerable list of activities and not just what we typically consider to be lock-on protests, which would be dangerous and require intervention. The term “attach” is very broad and goes undefined in the Bill. Does it perhaps include the linking of arms? Yes, technically it does. Liberty, in its recent briefing, notes that the wording might interfere with articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR, as laid out in the Human Rights Act 1998. We have already debated what is a reasonable excuse and how that is defined. We note that someone does not even need to actually cause any disruption in order to commit an offence. They have only to be “capable” of causing serious disruption. That provides a practical difficulty and perhaps a headache for the police when determining the crucial context of a protest that might well cause serious disruption if it were to take place at a different time, but actually happens on empty roads in the middle of the night.

I will sum up by saying that clause 1 is unnecessary for the proper policing of protests. Most of the extremely irritating and disruptive events that were described by our witnesses were criminal acts, and they were already covered by a raft of existing legislation that allows the police to deal with protests. The police have the power; they need more support and more training, but this broad and ill-defined clause does not provide that support. Instead, it tips a crucial balance and risks criminalising, at a very low threshold, legitimate and peaceful protest, one of our core human rights.

Kerry McCarthy (Labour, Bristol East)

I echo what my colleague on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central, was saying about how we approach the policing of protests in this country. Obviously, Bristol has had quite a reputation for protests, particularly around the time of the events involving the Colston statue. We know that the people involved in that protest were eventually acquitted of criminal damage.

I have been out with the police to see how they approach things. There were a number of weekends in a row when there were protests against the Bill that has become the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. People were, quite rightly, very unhappy about what the Government were trying to do. I went out with the police and also went to the operations centre to see their approach; what they wanted to do was to facilitate protest. They wanted to facilitate peaceful protest and were very good at trying to ensure that it did not turn into something that put people at risk. For the most part, they were successful. Can the Minister say where the parameters of the clause come in?

There are historical examples. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central mentioned Greenham Common, but if we look back at the suffragettes, part of their tactics was to tie themselves with belts or chains to Buckingham Palace or Parliament. In January 1908, Edith New and Olivia Smith chained themselves to the railings at No. 10, which would not happen now, while one of their colleagues, Flora Drummond, went inside to disrupt the Cabinet meeting. I dread to think what the response would be now; they would not get anywhere near it. They chained themselves because that they wanted to make their voices heard. If they were immediately arrested, they would not have the chance to make their speeches, so it was a tactic to stay in place and at least get a few sentences out before they were removed.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

We might as well address that point straight away. As I said to the hon. Member for Croydon Central earlier, there are two tests that the police or, indeed, the courts will have to apply. The first is that serious disruption is caused. I am not sure necessarily that somebody chaining themselves to the railings outside this place would cause serious disruption. Secondly, there would be a defence of reasonable excuse. In the case of the suffragette who chained herself in St Stephen’s Hall, we would imagine that there may well be other offences but I doubt that this provision would apply. Indeed, if someone were able to chain themselves to the railings serious disruption would not necessarily be caused. We are trying to address some of the events we have seen over the last couple of summers, not least the fuel protests, which have been dangerous and caused massive and serious disruption to the community.

Kerry McCarthy (Labour, Bristol East)

The Minister has rather pre-empted what I was going to say. The suffragettes knew that they would be arrested but took the decision because they felt their cause warranted it and they knew, roughly speaking, what the response would be and the sort of punishment available. If people are going to engage in this sort of activity and knowingly do things that would break the law, when we have an offence that treats something so seriously, my concern is at what point people can make that calculation on whether they are going to be arrested and taken to court under lesser legislation or whether the clause will be invoked. Its vagueness means that it is not clear where those parameters are.

This silly example is more for the Committee’s amusement: we had the case of an Extinction Rebellion protestor in Bristol who tried to glue himself to the doors of City Hall. However, they were automatic sliding doors, so the moment someone approached them, they opened. I think it was caught on camera, but every time he tried to glue his arms to the door, they opened. He could not manage to do it. I do not suppose the protestor would be dealt with under an offence of this kind and he probably deserves a prize for entertaining everybody.

That was an aside, but to give an idea of the sort of calculations people make, in my constituency I have a good activist on disability issues who has disabilities himself. He has a personal assistant who went on a protest with him, and he insisted that his personal assistant chain handcuff him to the pole by the door of a London bus. There was a big protest of disability activists blocking the streets—I think it was around Piccadilly Circus—to protest about accessibility and public transport. When the police came along, they did arrested not the guy who was chained up but the personal assistant for locking him to the pole. It was the personal assistant’s birthday and he spent the night in the cells, while somebody else managed to get my friend, the activist, home.

There is a clause in the Bill about locking somebody else to something and that raises interesting issues about the situation for a personal assistant. They are there to act at the will of the person they are assisting and to do anything they ask. If somebody were asking a personal assistant to commit a criminal offence, such as assaulting someone or something that is generally regarded as beyond the pale, the assistant would not do that. If disability activists want to exercise their right to protest, are they allowed to exercise their right to break the law as well? Personal assistants are not meant to have their own opinions on such matters; they are meant to do as they are asked.

I raise those points as examples of the calculations that enter people’s minds when they decide whether to act. Sometimes, protests will not be pre-planned. People will get caught up in them, which can result in criminal behaviour and arrests. There is already legislation that covers such examples. I am more concerned about people who decide they are not getting anywhere, such as disability activists, suffragettes or some environmental campaigners. If they feel they cannot get their voices heard through legitimate means, they are entitled to make the decision—

Andrew Bridgen (Conservative, North West Leicestershire)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Kerry McCarthy (Labour, Bristol East)

If I may just finish this point. They are entitled to make the decision to break the law and suffer the consequences. That is something that we accept in this country. People can choose to do that, provided they are willing to accept the consequences. To make that decision and exercise their democratic rights in that way, they need some certainty about how they will be treated by the law. It is a basic concept of operating in society that we ought to know how the criminal justice system will treat us.

What is likely to happen if the provision on excuses is invoked? If the clause is invoked when people do not feel it should be, the courts will acquit because it is unfair. I do not get a sense of clarity and I am looking for one from the Minister. We know that the clause will apply to the most serious cases, of people chaining themselves to planes. We know that it will not apply to a guy trying to superglue a hand to a sliding door at Bristol City Hall.

Gagan Mohindra (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

Why would it not?

Kerry McCarthy (Labour, Bristol East)

The Parliamentary Private Secretary asks why not. That is quite worrying. Would that cause serious disruption, if he had one hand attached to the door and was wiggling backwards and forwards as everyone went in and out? That is exactly my point. If that is deemed to cause serious disruption, that is very worrying. I cannot think of many locking-on offences that would not be deemed serious disruption. It proves my point if the PPS thinks that the provision would cover a case as ludicrous and minor as that. That proves my point, so I will sit down and ask the Minister to explain where the middle ground and that clarity is.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Clause 1 is a key part of the Government’s plans to protect the public from the dangerous and disruptive tactic of locking on. Recent protests have seen a minority of selfish individuals seek to cause maximum disruption by locking themselves to roads, buildings, objects and other people. That has seen traffic disrupted, public transport impacted and the transport of fuel from terminals ground to a halt, to name just a few examples.

Such tactics cause misery to the public, with people unable to access their place of work or schools, or to attend vital hospital appointments. It is impacting people’s ability to go about their daily lives and is causing considerable anger. The Committee will remember the frustration and anger expressed by members of the working public at Canning Town station in 2019, when protesters from Extinction Rebellion glued themselves to a Docklands Light Railway train during the morning rush hour, risking their own safety and that of the travelling public.

I welcome the condemnation of some of those protests by the hon. Member for Croydon Central, and her possibly belated support for the increase in sentencing in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which has just received Royal Assent. As she said, there is now a suite of offences that may or may not be committed. To address the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East, we want people thinking about using this tactic to make a calculation about whether and how they break the law. It is not a human right to break the law. If people calculate that they want to do that, they must, as she said, face the consequences. In employing dangerous tactics and causing disruption, those who call themselves protesters, but are in many cases trying to effect a mass blackmail on the British public, should make a calculation about whether they are causing an offence, and there should be an air of jeopardy to what they do.

Andrew Bridgen (Conservative, North West Leicestershire)

The hon. Member for Bristol East said that many of these people’s protests might be spontaneous and not pre-planned. Does the Minister agree with me that it would be very unlikely that people would have the equipment to lock on if it was not a pre-planned protest?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

My hon. Friend makes a very strong point. Certainly a lot of the most disruptive protests that we have seen will have taken meticulous planning and preparation and the acquisition of materials, not least the adhesive chemicals required, scaffolding poles and vehicles. We have seen all sorts of tactics employed, which, as he rightly says, take serious preparation to put into effect.

Kerry McCarthy (Labour, Bristol East)

To clarify, when I was talking about protests in general and people breaking the law during a protest, I was not talking about locking on.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I will give way to the hon. Member for Croydon Central.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

To be clear, the clause makes it an offence to attach oneself in any way to any person, which means that any form of linking arms is a criminal offence. Does the Minister genuinely believe that a group of women standing outside Parliament locking arms would be committing a criminal offence as soon as they do that?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

That is just nonsense. The hon. Lady will not address the issue of disruption or reasonable excuse. I am sure the police are able to determine and the courts will interpret what is designed in this legislation. She has said rightly that the people we are talking about should go to prison. She said they are committing crimes. The only dispute between the two sides of the Committee is what offence they should be charged with, which is what we seek to provide.

Opposition Members have sought clarity and precision. We have seen that those who are arrested and charged in these circumstances are charged with a range of offences—obstruction of the highway, aggravated trespass, which the hon. Lady referred to, and criminal damage and public nuisance, depending on where the offence occurred and the circumstances. Unfortunately, we have seen situations where, on technicalities, a lack of precision in our ability to deal with the offence has meant that people have got off. For example—

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

rose—

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

As the hon. Gentleman will know, there were protesters who locked on to a printing press in Knowsley in Liverpool. They were charged with aggravated trespass, but avoided conviction because the prosecution was unable to prove where the boundary was between the private and the public land. We are trying to provide precision in that offence area, and that is what this part of the legislation does. Aside from the disruption and anger that they cause, lock ons also waste considerable amounts of police resource and time, with specialist teams often required to attend protest sites to safely remove those who have locked on.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central seems to imply that we should have at-height removal teams on stand-by in all parts of the country 24 hours a day, but it is not realistic for British policing to do that. Some lock ons, particularly those that occur at height, place both the police and protesters at serious risk of injury and even death. For example, protesters at HS2 sites have deployed bamboo structures, necessitating the deployment of specialist teams who are trained to remove them at height at considerable risk to themselves and the protesters they are removing. That is why the Metropolitan Police have asked us to provide them with more powers to tackle that kind of reckless behaviour, and the Government have now responded.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I just want to clarify what the Minister says because he misrepresented my point, which was not that we should have thousands of officers ready in a kind of French-style tool. My point related to the points that Matt Parr made about how forces do not have a consistent way of determining the number of trained officers they need. There are not enough specialist roles in the right places at the right time. That was his recommendation, and there is a programme of work to fix that. I am arguing that we should wait for that fix so that the police can do the best job that they can.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

As the hon. Lady rightly says, Mr Parr said, I think, that the responses had been exemplary. Work is ongoing. She referred to the printing press incident in Hertfordshire, and she put the problems experienced down to the delay in the police getting there—in the middle of the night, in some numbers—to remove protesters who had managed to erect scaffolding very quickly and glue themselves effectively to the top of it. It is just not realistic for the police to be there in seconds to deal with such an incident. I believe that the hon. Lady said that the main problem was the delay.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Nothing in the Bill will fix that type of delay.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

No, but the point is that the clause will make such protesters think twice about their actions, because the offence that they are committing when charged is not necessarily vague.

Rupa Huq (Labour, Ealing Central and Acton)

Will the Minister give way?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Just a minute.

The clause creates a new offence of locking on that will be committed when an individual causes serious disruption by attaching either themselves or someone else to another individual, an object or to land, or attaching an object to another object or land. Their act must cause or be capable of causing serious disruption to an organisation or two or more individuals, and the person intends or is reckless as to that consequence. The offence carries a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

Referring only to the act of locking on rather than to the equipment used recognises that protesters deploy a wide range of equipment to lock on, from chains and bike locks to bespoke devices, and ensures that the offence will keep pace with evolving lock-on tactics. The offence can be committed on either public or private land, and that ensures that those who use that tactic in, say, an oil refinery do not evade arrest and prosecution for the offence. Furthermore, new stop and search powers that we will consider shortly will allow the police to take proactive action to prevent locking on in the first place, by seizing items that they believe will be used by protesters to lock on.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

The Minister has just referred to oil refineries and private space. Chris Noble said in his evidence

“If we moved more into a private space than currently, we would see that as potentially being incredibly significant for money and opportunity lost in terms of policing communities. Those abstractions would probably quite fundamentally change my local model of policing, in terms of being able to maintain that.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 13, Q17.]

Does the Minister accept that he is putting greater pressure on the police, and certainly on their resources?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

As I said earlier, I do not accept that because if we get the cocktail of deterrent correct, and get those protesters—

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

It is not going to be a deterrent.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

He has to see all the clauses in the round. If we get those protesters to think twice about their actions, we hope that they will desist—

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

But they won’t!

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Or at least they will be incarcerated, such that they will not be able to continue with their protests.

Tom Hunt (Conservative, Ipswich)

The Opposition are arguing that the Bill will not act as a deterrent and will not bother some of these extreme protesters. If that is the case, why are they being so strong in their opposition to the Bill?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

That is—[Interruption.] It is a strong point.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Order. Minister, just a moment. We are actually dealing with the Public Order Bill, and I would like a little bit of order in here as well. Can we stop shouting across the room and keep some order?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

We are trying to provide some precision in the offences that the police are able to charge offenders with in certain protest situations that have evolved in the past couple of years. Lock ons have caused significant distress, alarm and disruption to the community. The police, particularly the Metropolitan police, have asked us to introduce the offence and we are pleased to be able to help them. We heard in evidence to the Committee from the operational police chief that he thought that the legislation would help with the situation. We also heard from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, notwithstanding the fact that he thought there was an exemplary response to his original report, that what we were doing seemed sensible. The clause will ensure that those who resort to inflicting misery on the public by locking on will face the maximum sentences, proportionate to the serious harm that their actions cause.

Clause 2 - Offence of being equipped for locking on

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, leave out “may” and insert “will”.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 32, in clause 2, page 2, line 14, leave out “or in connection with”.

This is to probe what actions may also be criminalised "in connection with" an offence.

Amendment 48, in clause 2, page 2, line 14, leave out—

“in connection with the commission by any person of”.

Amendment 33, in clause 2, page 2, line 14, leave out “any person” and insert “them”.

Currently the offence of “being equipped for locking on” does not require the object to be used by the person with the item specifically, but by “any person”. This amendment is intended to limit the offending behaviour to a person who commits the offence of locking on.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Amendments 47 and 48 are in my name, and I will speak to amendments 32 and 33 in the name of the hon. Member for North East Fife.

Amendments 47 and 48 are similar and intended to deal with a similar problem. Amendment 47 narrows the clause and puts the onus on the police to be sure that a particular object was absolutely intended to be used in a lock-on, not just that it “may” have been. We should be clear—again, we will talk about this when debating clause stand part—that, if the police are to criminalise someone for being equipped to lock on, which we disagree with, then they must be entirely clear that the object in question is absolutely there for a lock-on.

Liberty, for example, expressed concerns about a vast range of possibilities of things that “may” be used in the course of locking-on. I hope that the Minister will help us with his ideas of what “may” means. Speaking to amendment 48 as well as this amendment, would bottled water or food for other people who are locked on come under that definition? They may be used in a lock-on, although also most likely would not be.

Amendment 48 also contains important wording changes to protect those good people who attend protests with entirely the best intentions, but who risk being criminalised by drafting that is too broad. The amendment removes the possibility that an individual could be criminalised due to the possibility that an object in their possession may—“may” is the important word here—be used by someone else in the course of a lock-on. Let us imagine that my son is on his way to a protest. He cycles there, much as my staffer cycles to work. He is already at risk of criminalisation by having a lock in his bag. As it turns out, however, he is doubly at risk, as that lock could be used by any person for a lock-on and he would be liable for it. It should be noted that the clause also does not contain any reasonable excuse defence.

Such issues, because bad and careless drafting gives clauses such breadth and scope, cut to the core of what we are grappling with in the Bill. As I said earlier, the Opposition do not stand with those who cause serious disruption and break the law, but we absolutely stand with those who protest peacefully, not causing disruption, and who wish to be loud, annoying and proud in a peaceful manner about the issues that they deeply care about.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

My party and I are happy to support Labour’s amendments 47 and 48. The scope of my amendments 32 and 33 is similar.

The intention of our amendment 32 is to probe what might be criminalised in connection with an offence. The theme this morning has been the broadness of the legislation as drafted, and the Opposition are looking to get some definition of what that might look like. Amendment 33 intends to ensure that the person who is prosecuted for the offence of being equipped also did the locking on themselves.

My concerns are linked to those set out by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central. As she asked, will the provision of food and drink to someone engaged in protest activity be included? What about medical supplies, if a protester is injured in the course of the protests? What about a parent, simply worried about the safety of a young adult, who makes sure before they go to a protest that they are wearing sturdy clothing? What about the community group that lends its loudspeakers to an event?

The scope is so broad that such people, arguably, could get caught. This morning, we have discussed how the law will be interpreted. Those interpretations, given the Bill’s existing scope, are valid. What about people who happen to be caught passing a protest while carrying material used for locking on? For example, lots of MPs cycle in to Westminster, and demonstrations happen in Westminster all the time. Are MPs to be caught by this legislation simply because they are carrying their bike locks as they make their way into the estate? Under the Bill, that could theoretically happen.

While the police may not prosecute MPs, we know from the evidence we heard last week and from other evidence that sections of the population are overly policed. We will discuss the stop-and-search powers later—I am sure that Members will have much to say then—but if the evidence currently says that black people are eight times more likely to be stopped and searched, it follows that black people will also be disproportionately criminalised for carrying innocent items in the wrong place at the wrong time. As such, I am keen to hear from the Minister what this clause includes, and for amendments to be tabled that will limit its scope appropriately.

Amendment 33 addresses some of those problems. As drafted, the Bill allows for someone to be prosecuted for carrying an item that someone else uses to lock on. This has the potential to criminalise people who are peacefully protesting, or indeed those who are not protesting at all. We need to be clear: it is not a crime to attend a protest, nor is it a crime to carry the sorts of household items that are used for locking on—if that were the case, how would anyone purchase those items? Doing so without then breaking the law, simply put, cannot be a crime.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I will speak to the amendments now, and then speak more substantively on stand part.

The amendments seek to raise the threshold for the offence of going equipped to lock on. Amendment 47 would raise the threshold for that offence, requiring that individuals “will” intend that the equipment be used in the course of locking on, rather than “may” intend. It is important that the police can protect the public from the possibility of someone locking on. Raising the threshold of the offence to “will” rather than “may” would restrict its effectiveness and the ability of the police to take proactive action against lock-ons, which we heard from the operational police chief during our evidence session was critical to minimising disruption.

Amendments 32 and 48 would remove from the scope of the offence of being equipped to lock on, someone who carries equipment intended to be used in connection with the locking-on offence, rather than in the course of that offence. Amendment 33 would also narrow that offence by applying it only to the individual who commits a lock-on. These amendments would mean that during disruptive protests, those who deliberately brought lock-on equipment to hand over to fellow protesters for them to use would not be criminalised for doing so, effectively allowing protesters to continue to legally provide lock-on equipment to others and removing a key deterrent aspect of the offence. Doing so would severely limit the effectiveness of the offence in stopping the use of lock-ons from spreading during a fast-moving protest situation, and I am afraid that we cannot support it. We ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Given the vote that we have had on a similar measure, I see little point in pressing amendment 47 to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I beg to move amendment 34, in clause 2, page 2, line 17, after “fine” insert

“not exceeding level 1 on the standard scale”.

A person convicted of an offence of “being equipped for locking on” may be subjected to a fine. In the Bill there is currently no limit on the fine that may be imposed. This amendment would place a maximum limit on the fine.

The amendment is very similar to the amendment to clause 1 that I tabled previously. It ensures that any fines levied for the offence of being equipped for locking on are quantified, rather than left as an unlimited fine. I have very little to add beyond the remarks that I made regarding my previous amendment.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

As I made clear when speaking to the hon. Lady’s previous amendment, we disagree with lowering the maximum fine available for this offence. We feel strongly that those who commit lock-ons and carry lock-on equipment should face a proportionate sense of the harm they cause. The maximum fine that the hon. Lady proposes, £200, is simply not proportionate; we believe that the courts should have discretion to apply an unlimited fine. As such, I encourage the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

The clause creates a new criminal offence targeting people who have an object with them in a public place with the intention that it will be used in the course of or in connection with the commission of the new offence of locking on, as we have been debating. The punishment for the offence is an unlimited fine.

Our concerns about the clause should be read and understood in conjunction with our concerns about clause 1. This very short clause is too vague and ambiguous to be useful. Line 12 talks of an “object”, but that object need not be related to protesting at all. All that is required to be criminalised under this offence is that a person might have intended to use the object—potentially, any object—in a certain way. Perhaps more pressingly—I will come back to this later—the object does not have to be used by the person who has it in their possession. It needs to be used only

“in the course of or in connection with”

a lock-on.

It is so important that we consider the limits of the legislation that we create in this place. None of us who works here in Parliament is a stranger to protests. We see them outside our offices almost every day. The example of the bike lock is real and I do not think it has been meaningfully disputed by the Minister. Perhaps it is in someone’s bag or attached to the bike, but that makes no difference.

Someone could wheel their bike through Parliament Square—multiple protests might be going on at once, which is not uncommon—and be in potential breach of this legislation. No proof that the bike lock is to be used in a lock-on is needed, only that it “may” be. Hard-working, law-abiding people simply trying to get in to their place of work are at risk of being found to have committed this offence. The original drafting of the clause is deeply ambiguous.

It was notable that so many of our witnesses last week spoke of the deterrent effect that they hoped the Bill would provide—a desire for something to be done to act as a deterrent. John Groves from High Speed 2 Ltd hoped that

“this legislation is about the deterrent effect”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 18, Q28.]

Nicola Bell noted:

“what is included in the Bill, I hope, offers that deterrent.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 20, Q37.]

We have real doubts, however, as to whether the Bill will provide anything close to a deterrent to hardcore repeat offenders. Instead of providing a deterrent to the hardcore of the protest movement, who are intent on causing disruption, such people might be delighted that their lock-on protests would be criminalised. We were told last week that those protesters

“will not be deterred by this legislation.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 44, Q91.]

For them, going to prison for the cause is a badge of honour.

Sir Peter Fahy said:

“I do not know whether there is actually any evidence that people are deterred...but clearly some people are so determined, and have a certain lifestyle where it does not really have any consequence for them, that—if anything—it makes them martyrs.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 58, Q120.]

However, we must absolutely not ignore the people who will be deterred, those who are not willing to go to prison, but who might not do anything illegal at a protest—those who just want to express their democratic right.

The title of Matt Parr’s report was “Getting the balance right?”, and it seems abundantly clear that the Government have not got the balance right with this legislation. I note that, with regard to lock-on, he was

“impressed by forces for the work they have done to make sure that PRTs”—

protester removal teams—

“are able to deal safely with lock-ons.”

He noted:

“It is vital that PRTs remain up to date with the rapidly evolving problems presented by lock-on devices.”

I agree, and much of the evidence from last week suggests that improved sharing of best practice, more resources and better training would help the police to deal with nuisance protests much better—without the need for this specific legislation.

Lord Rosser noted in the other place:

“The reality is that powers already exist for dealing with lock-ons. What we should be looking at is proper guidance, training and…improving our use of existing resources and specialist officers.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2022; Vol. 817, c. 1433.]

Matt Parr’s report also notes that most interviewees, who were junior police officers, did not wish to criminalise protest actions through the creation of a specific offence concerning locking on. With regard to his fifth proposal, Matt Parr noted explicitly that the purpose was not to create an offence of lock on during a protest. He did not call for that in his report.

The Government have brought back these overreaching clauses without any real evidence that they will work. Our witnesses were unable, quite rightly, to comment on the new clauses with any specificity. Elizabeth de Jong was unable to be specific about how the clauses would help. She noted:

“I can see a direct reference to locking on.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 33, Q59.]

Steve Griffiths stated:

“I am really here to talk about the impact of disruption, and I am probably not qualified to comment intensely on the Bill.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 34, Q60.]

He later noted:

“I cannot really talk about the policy itself”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 39, Q81.]

Those witnesses were right: they were present to define the problem as they saw it, and not to tell us that the legislation will work: that is our job. In the Opposition’s view it will not work. It is fair and understandable that the witnesses instinctively feel hopeful about something being done, but they did not claim that they had the expertise to know that.

The clauses, which make provision for the offences of locking on and going equipped to do so, are ill thought through and represent a knee-jerk reaction to events that have caused real disruption and annoyance—no one disputes that. There were criminal acts that were infinitely more disruptive to people and the police acted. There is no evidence that the clauses will act as a deterrent and it seems likely that they will be welcomed by the hard core of protestors who are willing to go to prison for their cause. The clauses will, however, deter those who come to protest peacefully, and that is our concern.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Clause 2 supports the new offence of locking on created by clause 1, and specifically it creates a new criminal offence of going equipped to lock on and cause, or risk causing, serious disruption. During fast-moving protest situations, the police need the power to proactively prevent individuals from locking on to roads, buildings and objects, as we heard powerfully from the operational police commander during our evidence sessions. Therefore, along with the associated stop-and-search powers, which the Committee will scrutinise later, the new offence will allow the police to prevent lock ons before they occur, taking punitive action against those who attempt to lock on and deterring others from considering doing so.

Much has been made of criminalising people who happen to be carrying everyday items such as bike locks—the hon. Member for Croydon Central raised that—near a protest. To be clear, that will not be the case; the offence will be committed only when someone is carrying an object with the intention that it may be used by themselves or someone else in the course of, or in connection with, committing a lock-on offence as defined in clause 1. The police will need reasonable grounds for suspicion to arrest someone for that offence. There is a clear difference between a person pushing a bicycle past a protest and a person walking purposefully towards a gate with a lock in hand.

As the hon. Member for North East Fife knows from her policing experience, the offence of going equipped is well used by the police in England and Wales, and indeed in Scotland, in the prevention of burglary. I have had individuals arrested in my constituency who were going equipped to commit a burglary, and I am not aware of a plethora of plumbers, carpenters or builders with vans full of tools being arrested in my constituency on the basis of their going equipped, or having the capability to break into my home. The police are well able to adduce intention—and often that is tested in court—in charging someone with going equipped.

As we heard most powerfully from the operational police commander in our evidence session, the ability to stop and search, which we will consider later, and the ability to charge with going equipped would allow the police to operate in a situation where there would be less infringement on people’s right to protest, rather than more. He was strongly supportive.

Rupa Huq (Labour, Ealing Central and Acton)

I remind the Minister that it is not just the Opposition who think that the locking on offence and the offence of preparing to lock on is a crazy idea. The last time the matter was subject to a vote in the Lords it was defeated massively, in a vote of 163 to 216. Has he got any new arguments for them, because the offence of being equipped to lock will never make it to a vote? Is there not a definition of insanity that is repeating the same action and expecting a different result? That saying is attributed to Einstein. I just wonder what new arguments the Minister will pull out of the bag for the Lords.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

As I understand it, one of the main arguments used in the House of Lords to vote against the measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was that they did not feel that the matters had been properly scrutinised by the House of Commons. Those measures were introduced as amendments in the Lords, and therefore would not have gone through Committee here. So here we are, listening to their advice and subjecting the measures to democratic scrutiny by a forensic Committee of which she is a part, in the hope that the House can now the support them. We can then signal to the Lords that the intention of the democratic House is to strengthen the police’s ability to deal with this difficult and dangerous tactic.

Anyone found guilty of the offences will face a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Clause 3 - Obstruction etc of major transport works

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I beg to move amendment 35, in clause 3, page 2, line 26, leave out sub-paragraph (iii).

This amendment seeks to limit the range of acts potentially criminalised by this provision.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 36, in clause 3, page 2, line 29, leave out paragraph (b).

This amendment seeks to limit the range of acts potentially criminalised by this provision.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I am speaking to the amendments, which we have some sympathy with, on behalf of the hon. Member for North East Fife, who is not in her place at the moment. We are moving on from the lock-on offences we debated this morning to a new offence of obstruction of major transport works. Amendments 35 and 36 would remove some of the language that perhaps makes the scope of the clause too broad. We have already covered the principle behind the objections to the present clauses, which are similar to those on locking on and being equipped to lock on. These clauses are broad, and indeed potentially infinite, but as was said this morning, restrictions on people’s fundamental rights must be limited to what is absolutely necessary.

I repeat that no one is denying that people who commit criminal acts should be arrested and charged—in many cases, we know that that is why protesters do what they do—but there are already laws to deal with these behaviours. The Public Order Act 1986 contains offences of organising or taking part in a prohibited trespassory assembly. Where a chief of police reasonably believes there will be a trespassory assembly that may result in serious disruption to the life of the community, they can place a pre-emptive ban on it, and breaching that ban is a crime.

The key point we seek to make in thew amendment is that there must be a balance. The Government should not go too far down the road of criminalising protest; that is not what happens in our democracy, and that is why the hon. Member for North East Fife tabled amendments 35 and 36.

Amendment 35 would limit the offence of obstruction to blocking the core activities of major transport works, removing clause 3(1)(a)(iii), which appears to be a catch-all for any protest near or relating to major works. Would that provision also catch construction workers who are on strike at their own places of work or a protest at the entrance to the land where works are being done?

Amendment 36 would remove reference to interfering with or moving apparatus, because the provision in the clause is broad and goes too far. The disruption from apparatus being moved is not such that the Government should seek to introduce legislation to stop peaceful protest.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Amendments 35 and 36 take issue with the scope of the offence of obstructing major transport works. I understand that the hon. Lady is concerned about the wide scope of the offence, but it is clear from the evidence that the Government need to protect vital transport construction sites across the country. I think the whole Committee was shocked to hear evidence from HS2 that the cost of protest to the scheme was £122 million and likely to rise to £200 million.

Amendments 35 and 36 attempt to limit the potential acts that fall within the offence by removing references to any acts that obstruct steps “in connection with”, or “reasonably necessary” to facilitate, construction or maintenance of a particular project. They would also remove references to acts that interfere with, move or remove any apparatus that relates to the construction or maintenance of major transport projects.

As I said, I understand that there are concerns about the wide scope of this offence, but a balance needs to be struck. Protest against transport sites comes in many different forms and is constantly evolving, as a small minority seeks new ways to inflict further disruption. It is entirely proportionate for this offence to capture behaviour that obstructs any stage of these projects. Furthermore, it is right that this offence should protect from interference key machinery, materials and other necessary apparatus, without which construction or maintenance of projects cannot occur.

It is worth remembering that we are talking about projects that have been decided through a democratic process. In many ways, individuals seeking to impede such projects are latter-day King Canutes. seeking to stop something that has been decided by the House of Commons or other democratic process and should therefore be allowed to take its course.

Natalie Elphicke (Conservative, Dover)

Does the Minister agree that the health and safety measures that are so vital to protect everyone, as well as equipment, on construction project sites are simply not respected by those seeking to disrupt, and that that puts everyone at risk?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which we have seen throughout some of the protest tactics that we aim to deal by means of the Bill. They include a complete disregard for the safety not just of the protesters but of the workers on the sites affected and indeed the police, who have to go and remove the individuals.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

What is the Minister’s view on the Prime Minister’s intention to lie in front of bulldozers at the start of the construction of the third runway at Heathrow?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

The Prime Minister was then Mayor of London and made his views known in a light-hearted way to indicate his opposition. If he had lain down in front of the bulldozers on a project democratically decided by the House, he would have committed an offence. Having said that, it is fair to say that the leaders of all major parties at the time went and planted trees at Sipson in the hope that a forest would flourish there. We will see whether those trees last. In any event, for the reasons I have outlined, I urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment, with which the Government cannot agree.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Given that the amendment is not mine and I have only supported it in principle, I will not press it to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I beg to move amendment 37, in clause 3, page 3, line 3, after “fine” insert

“not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale”.

A person convicted of an offence of obstructing major transport works may be subjected to a fine. Under this clause there is currently no limit on the fine that may be imposed. This amendment would place a maximum limit on the fine.

I think that if the hon. Member for North East Fife were here, she would say that this amendment makes the same point that she has made in previous amendments and that she has nothing to add.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

We oppose this amendment for the same reason I have given in consideration of previous amendments in a similar vein. Lowering the maximum fine for the offence to £500 is simply not proportionate. The penalties available under the Bill must be proportionate, otherwise they will not be a sufficient deterrent. I urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Clause 3 introduces a new offence of obstructing the construction or maintenance of any major transport works. That would include if a person obstructs a construction worker

“in setting out the lines of any major transport works”,

or

“taking any steps that are reasonably necessary for…facilitating, or in connection with, the construction or maintenance of any major transport works”.

It will also be an offence to interfere with, move or remove

“any apparatus which…relates to the construction…of any major transport works”.

There is a reasonable excuse defence, and the maximum penalty is 51 weeks imprisonment, or a fine, or both.

There is an interesting two-part definition of what constitutes major transport works for this offence. First it is transport infrastructure covered by Acts of Parliament which provide legislative authority, HS2 being the obvious example. The second is nationally significant infrastructure projects that have been granted development consent orders under section 114 of the Planning Act 2008. For example, that could be new airports or airport extensions, major road projects, or railway works.

Like other clauses, the clause is drawn far too broadly and risks having a chilling effect on protest. This clause seems particularly targeted at climate protesters. Megan Randles, Greenpeace UK’s political campaigner, said:

“Time and again, it’s activism that has dragged a reluctant UK government into confronting vital issues, whether it’s the climate crisis or women’s rights. Ministers who…talk about freedoms at every turn should rethink this attack on one of the most fundamental freedoms we have.”

Furthermore, this Bill arrives before the protest clauses in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 have come into effect, and that seems illogical. Would it not make more sense to introduce into law the statutory instruments for those clauses before bringing in a new raft of proposals?

People across the country want to be able to protest against major transport projects or changes in their local area, such as a library closure, or changing woodland into a car park. That fundamental right must be protected, but so must our vital infrastructure and major transport works. There is a balance to be struck. When the measure was debated in the House of Lords, many Members of that House said that the offence of obstructing transport works in clause 3 was “overreaching” and “unnecessary”. Liberty has pointed out that such a low threshold risks disproportionately interfering with people’s rights under articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights felt that there could be issues with the proportionality and necessity of the measures, and that their potential to stifle peaceful and legitimate protest could mean that they were in breach of articles 10 and 11. The Home Office says that the clause is proportionate because the court would take into account the specific facts, but Liberty points out that the Home Office’s human rights analysis says nothing about whether the offence is necessary or how, and the extent to which, it adequately weighs individuals’ fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly in the balance of rights.

In evidence, Sir Peter Fahy, who was the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, and before that the chief constable of Cheshire constabulary, said:

“I would still doubt whether the appetite would be there—the judicial appetite. Police officers are very wary…when cases get to court, the judiciary or the magistrates often give out very minor sentences—whatever might be allowed in the legislation. They find, as happened with the Sarah Everard case, that higher courts then disagree and bring in human rights legislation, or bring in a different interpretation that is in the legislation, which then completely takes the legs of the police from underneath them.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 53-54, Q116.]

Will the Minister respond to the idea that if the courts take into account human rights legislation, they may not see as proportionate the punishments introduced by these new provisions? Surely, he does not want to give the police the difficult job of interpreting and applying to peaceful protesters such complex and broadly drawn powers, only to have the courts disagree with them.

During the Lords Report stage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, when these offences were first proposed, the JCHR raised a concern about their excessive breadth. For example, the proposed new offence of obstructing major transport works would potentially cover a wide range of minor acts, including moving any apparatus that relates to the construction or maintenance of major transport works, and even moving any apparatus that belongs to a person acting under the authority of the person in charge of the works. The Bill contains no requirement that these acts are committed with any disruption or disruptive intention. Will the Minister explain how he understands the term “apparatus”? I think it would be helpful to the Committee to understand how far this goes. The terms “interfere”, “move” and “remove” are also very broad. Perhaps he can shed some light on the kinds of actions that would be covered by those terms.

Amnesty says:

“This provision fails the three-part test of legality, necessity and proportionality. The language is again vague and so broad that even coincidental obstruction of construction work by a big march that just happens to pass through a street where such works are ongoing could be covered in its scope.”

The problem, as articulated by those who gave evidence, is that our vital public infrastructure, such as HS2, should not be seriously disrupted to the detriment of the community and our national life, but we must also protect the rights to free speech and public protest. We believe that the Bill does not manage to deliver either of those objectives. During the evidence sessions, Steve Griffiths, managing director of London Stansted airport, said a couple of times that he was not the expert on legislation. He said:

“I am probably not qualified to comment intensely on the Bill”.–– [Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 34, Q60.]

Another thing we do not understand about the legislation—we covered this briefly this morning—is that using the term “serious disruption to two or more people” is not a sensible way to draft legislation. We need a better definition of serious disruption to start with and to make sure that any legislation we pass is targeted only on the kinds of cases we heard about in the evidence session.

With the deportation flight protest that Mr Griffiths spoke to us about last week, the problem was not that the protesters could not be arrested and people could not be taken away. They were arrested and they were removed. The issue was with the charge that was laid when they went to court. The disruption that those 1,700 people faced that day would not change if the new offence had existed at the time and it is likely that these protesters would not have been deterred from protesting since they were already breaking existing laws.

The police and courts already have a range of powers that they can use in the minority of cases that involve serious disruption or criminal activity. These include wilful obstruction of a highway, criminal damage, aggravated trespass, public nuisance, breach of the peace, breach of conditions on processions and static protests, harassment, threatening, abusive and disorderly behaviour, trespassory assemblies, preventing others from going about their lawful business and injunctions. John Groves from HS2 acknowledged that in the evidence session:

“We have recorded 1,600 incidents against HS2 since the end of 2017. All of that is unlawful activity—trespass, violence against staff, criminal damage.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 18, Q28.]

We think there is a strong case for using injunctions where appropriate to deal with the kind of disruption we saw from protesters at HS2. Chris Noble, the NPCC lead for protest, said:

“Injunctions have been used increasingly frequently, but the challenge is framing them appropriately and securing them within a reasonable timescale so they can have maximum impact.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 8, Q7.]

As we heard, HS2 has asked the court to grant a full route-wide injunction, which will have some effect on the behaviour of illegal protesters. Not only can they potentially act as a deterrent but, crucially, they include judicial oversight, which ensures that powers are not misused. The Government could be working to ensure that more effective partnerships are in place to ensure that companies co-operate and that the police and authorities have the capacity, training and guidance in place.

I want to make it clear again that we are horrified by illegal disruption. Some £126 million of taxpayers’ money is spent on protester removal or the cost to HS2 of dangerous and illegal protest. It is not a question of whether we agree or not but a question of what we should do about it. The Bill will not fix these problems, it will not speed up the removal of protesters who are causing serious disruption and it will not be a deterrent for those who want to break the law, for whom fines are of no consequence.

We heard from witnesses such as Steve Griffiths about the large number of people affected by the protests and the scale of the disruption, but that does not mean that we should accept broad-brush legislation that will not even address these issues. The new offences are unlikely to act as a deterrent for the hardline repeat offender protesters we are talking about. Their objective, often, is to be arrested. The more offences for which it is easier to be arrested might be the effect they desire.

Liberty’s briefing quoted Lord Beith, saying that,

“if you try to write legislation around an individual set of circumstances that has arisen, you get into trouble. You turn into general law attempts to deal with very specific cases.”

The reality is that the Bill will not make it easier to minimise the disruption from protests on major transport works. It will just bring more and more people who are peacefully protesting into the criminal justice system.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am extremely concerned about the unintended consequences that will result from the introduction not just of this clause but of the other provisions as more and more people are criminalised, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central said. We have already heard from police chief Chris Noble about the additional stresses the Bill’s contents will have on the police service and the difficulty the police may well have in interpreting which action they can take in which circumstances.

As the Government strive to build up the number of officers, and to replace at least some of those whom consecutive Governments have got rid of, we can expect more arrests, more charges, and perhaps even more convictions, and there will be a knock-on effect on our prisons. I have another interest, alongside that of improving public protection: my nephew Lewis Cunningham, who lives in Beverley, starts his police training in September. I am sure that colleagues across the House will join me in wishing him well. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I thank them for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central has outlined in great detail the flaws in the clause and in the rest of the Bill. There will be another major knock-on effect of the Government’s measures, which will potentially criminalise thousands of people: the measures will affect our courts, which still have dire backlogs. The most recent statistics from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services reveal that the Crown court backlog remains great, and despite various measures having been put in place—they range from extra sitting days to Nightingale courts—it will take years to get the backlog down to a reasonable and manageable level. In the autumn Budget statement, the Treasury claimed that the backlog was caused by the coronavirus pandemic. That is completely false.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Order. I appreciate that this is an important matter, but I must ask the Member to stick to the clause, which is on the obstruction of major transport works.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

I accept the reprimand, Mr Dowd, but I wanted to emphasise that the Bill has unintended consequences. It will have a knock-on effect on the number of arrests made, the number of police available, the number of court days required, and the number of officers called to court. Those are all consequences of this legislation, which I submit is totally unnecessary, and will criminalise many people. The crisis in the justice system could have been avoided, but this legislation may add to the problem. I am skipping over some of the stuff in my notes that relates directly to courts.

The Chancellor talked about providing more police officers; the same 20,000 were promised years ago, many of whom remain to be recruited. If that promise is fulfilled and more people are brought to justice—I keep saying this—it will mean more officers in court, more arrests, and more stress on the system. The Government need to account for that. We have seen some changes. There have been supportive comments from some people in the justice system, but the bottom line is that the impact on the courts will be tremendous. A National Audit Office report says,

“The Ministry has removed the limit on the number of Crown Court sitting days, but their use relies on courts having enough physical and judicial capacity.”

That capacity does not exist.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Order. I appreciate the wider ramifications of the issue, but I must exhort the Member to focus his attention on the clause.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

I recognise that, Mr Dowd, but the whole system is in crisis, and the point that I am trying to get across is that the Government have not properly addressed the Bill’s impact on the entire justice system. We cannot look at these measures in isolation; we have to look at their effect across the whole system. The measures could needlessly criminalise hundreds, if not thousands, of people, so we have to consider their knock-on effects.

The crisis in the system means that justice can often be denied, even to those impacted by protesters or those locking on. Those affected deserve justice; unfortunately, it will have to come in the longer term, given the breakdown in the system.

I was going to quote former Member Anna Soubry on the problems that she had in court, but I will not. The Government must look at these measures in the round, rather than in isolation. Resources will need to be available across the piece, and there is no provision in this clause, or any other clause, to ensure that the entire system operates effectively. The time for action is well past. I submit to the Minister that instead of messing around with clauses as simple as this one, the Government should start tackling the crisis in policing, the rise in violent crime, the epidemic in antisocial behaviour and the massive courts backlog.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

I must ask the Member to stick to the clause. I have asked three times now.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

With that third reprimand, Chair, I shall wind up my remarks.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I think we can take from that that the hon. Gentleman is voting against the clause. As the hon. Member for Croydon Central says, the clause creates a new offence of obstructing major transport works. We heard in strong evidence from the police, High Speed 2 and others why the offence is needed, and why the offence should ensure that all stages of construction and maintenance are protected from disruptive action, including necessary steps prior to construction, such as ecological surveys, and why the offence should also cover the removal of, or interference with, apparatus needed for construction.

I reassure the hon. Lady that “apparatus” is a usual term in legal circles; any strict definition in the Bill might result in the Bill not being future-proof, or in its being too definitive in a way that protesters could find a way around. I am sure that it will not be beyond the wit of courts to interpret what “apparatus” means. When they do, anyone found guilty of the offence will face a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both.

As with other offences in the Bill, we have provided a reasonable excuse defence. In reference to something the hon. Lady said earlier, there is a defence for trade disputes, so those on strike will have a defence against this kind of offence. As she pointed out, “major transport works” are defined as works that have either been authorised by an Act of Parliament, such as HS2, or by a development consent order under section 114 of the Planning Act 2008, such as the Silvertown tunnel. The definition ensures that transport works of strategic importance in England and Wales are protected.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of human rights. That is a common issue that courts have to address when looking at offences committed by all sorts of people in all sorts of circumstances, and it is something we are used to. I confess that I am confused by the hon. Lady’s position. She is encouraging and supportive of national injunctions, which carry unlimited fines and prison terms that depend on the views of the judge at the time. They also provide less protection for the accused, as judges generally require a lower burden of proof in deciding whether the case is proven. Of course, we heard strong evidence last week that injunctions are cumbersome, long-winded, expensive for people to put in place and unpredictable in their efficacy.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

We will talk properly about injunctions under the new clauses, because we have a new clause on that. To clarify, we are not calling for big thing called a national injunction; we are calling for a national approach to dealing with all the complications that arise when there is a large infrastructure issue, and when we might need local authorities and the private sector, working with Government, to do what is needed as quickly as possible. We did not suggest a national injunction that is one chunk of a thing.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Maybe I misheard the Leader of the Opposition on the television when he called for exactly that: a national injunction. The hon. Lady has neatly pointed out the complexity—for example, in HS2, there are different landowners, geographies, areas and phases of development—of obtaining an injunction that covers the whole of the works. The point still stands that, as far as I can see, she is content for people to be punished and to go to prison under an injunction, but strangely not under a criminal charge. I do not understand that asymmetry. As far as I can see, a criminal court has greater protections for our fellow citizens who are accused of such crimes—not least a higher burden of proof—than the civil courts, where injunctions are heard.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

The Minister made that point to several of the people who gave evidence to us, but they did not accept it. Our point is that the Bill automatically criminalises things that are not criminal offences. An injunction is time-limited, specific, and pertains to an area where serious disruption is being caused; that is not the same as a lock-on offence, which might just be some women locking arms and therefore automatically committing a criminal offence. Those are very different things.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Part of the hon. Lady’s repeated case is that there are already plenty of criminal offences with which we could charge all these people. There is no one yet who she thinks should not have been charged with an offence. Some of them, I am afraid, seem to get off on technicalities and through loopholes; I outlined a couple of examples. High Speed 2 in particular expressed frustration at the police’s inability to get some charges to stick. We are trying to satisfy the hon. Lady’s requirement for more specificity in charging decisions, as well as creating a sentencing regime that we hope will act as a deterrent. It is unacceptable that a handful of individuals repeatedly delay and add costs to important works that have been through the democratic process. They are vital to the levelling-up agenda, and the measures in the clause will support them.

Clause 4 - Interference with use or operation of key national infrastructure

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I beg to move amendment 49, in clause 4, page 4, line 30, leave out “interferes with” and insert “prevents”.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 50, in clause 4, page 4, line 32, leave out “interfere with” and insert “prevent”.

Amendment 51, in clause 4, page 5, line 3, leave out subsection (4).

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I have the wrong speech in front of me. I am so sorry.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Does anyone else want to speak?

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I have a speech. The amendments are concerned with the scope of the new offence of interfering with the use of key national infrastructure. Amendments 49 and 50 replace the words “interferes with” with “prevents”. We assume that the intention is to raise the threshold of this offence to actions that completely stop a piece of key national infrastructure from being used for its intended purposes, although in fact subsection (4) already defines “interferes with” as preventing use or operation. Amendment 51 supports the change by removing that definition.

I understand what I presume are the hon. Lady’s concerns about the scope of the offence, but I do not see a need for the amendments. Subsection (4) already defines interference with key infrastructure as an act that

“prevents the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent for any of its intended purposes.”

Removing that subsection and replacing “interferes with” with “prevents” would leave the threshold of the offence undefined, leading to ambiguity over what sort of acts it would apply to.

Furthermore, I reiterate that it is vital that this offence applies to a range of disruptive actions against infra-structure, rather than ones that halt operations completely. As we have seen during protests by groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, even acts that delay the use of infrastructure—for example, acts that stop roads being used by the public—can cause severe disruption. Ambulances cannot get through, key deliveries are delayed, contracts cannot be fulfilled—the list goes on.

Fundamentally, the Government consider acts by a small number of determined, disruptive protesters who significantly delay the use of key infrastructure to be just as damaging as those that prevent its use entirely. I therefore encourage the hon. Member for Croydon Central to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I think I might have handed my speaking notes to Hansard in my previous handover of information. We have tabled three simple amendments to clause 4, which is on interference with use or operation of key national infrastructure. It is similar in some ways to the previous clause, which looked at major transport works.

A person commits an offence if

“they do an act which interferes with the use or operation of any key national infrastructure in England and Wales”

and

“they intend that act to interfere with the use or operation of such infrastructure or are reckless as to whether it will do so.”

In amendments 49 and 50, we seek to replace “interferes with” with “prevents”. We believe that it is a stronger word and has the clarity that the law requires. The term “interferes with” is broad and difficult to interpret; “prevents” is much stronger.

In amendment 51, we seek to remove a passage that says:

“For the purposes of subsection (1)”,

which is the offence itself,

“a person’s act interferes with the use or operation of key national infrastructure if it prevents the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent for any of its intended purposes.”

Andrew Bridgen (Conservative, North West Leicestershire)

Will the hon. Lady concede that if the wording is changed from “interferes with” to “prevents”, it will leave a loophole for the protesters? They will say that they did not prevent; they merely delayed.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I think that the psyche of the protesters we are talking about, as we have said many times, means that they will not be deterred by legislation generally. The argument we keep making is that we do not want to over-criminalise people who are going about their business, making a protest that nobody would have a problem with. Our amendments are designed to tighten the clause and improve its scope.

Lee Anderson (Conservative, Ashfield)

Is there a timescale on preventing something? It strikes me that “prevents” could be more destructive than “interferes with”.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

We are talking about key national infrastructure and whether the use or operation of any key national infrastructure is interfered with or prevented. If an oil refinery is being blocked—we would argue that there is already plenty of legislation in place to deal with those protesters—that would clearly prevent the operation of key national infrastructure. That is the point of our three amendments. On this occasion, I will not test the will of the Committee. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I beg to move amendment 52, in clause 4, page 5, line 18, after “newspaper printing infrastructure.” insert—

“(j) emergency services.”

The amendment adds emergency services to the list of key national infrastructure in clause 4(6), on page 5. This is really a probing amendment. As we have already discussed, we have issues with the entire clause. However, there is something interesting in how one defines national infrastructure.

Labour is the traditional party of work and workers, and over the last several years, we have spent much time clapping, thanking and cheering key workers in the emergency services, particularly through the covid pandemic. As shadow Minister for police and the fire service, I spend much time in and around the blue-light services, as I am sure the Minister does in his role. We see at first hand the incredibly important work that they do, night or day, come rain or shine. I therefore find it strange that the Government have not added emergency services to the list of key infrastructure. I actually think that the fire service, the ambulance service and police forces are just as important, in terms of infrastructure, to the continued smooth running of our country as all the other things on the list. They keep people safe and secure and save lives in a multitude of ways.

Let me explain our amendment a little further. We do not think that protests should be able to stop the emergency services from doing their jobs. An ambulance should not be stopped when rushing a patient to hospital. A fire engine should not be halted when people are trapped in burning buildings, and the police must be able to reach the scene of a crime as quickly as possible. We know that time is often of the essence in those things. However, I should also make it clear that we do believe that there is scope for protest, in some instances, around such sites, for instance with protests against the closure of a GP surgery, a police station—the Minister may well remember several of those from his time at City Hall—or an accident and emergency facility.

In April of this year, for instance, protesters staged a protest in Shropshire, in a little town called St Martin’s, at the closure of a GP surgery. The surgery in St Martin’s, Shropshire, has been closed since March 2020 and made an application to the health board to close permanently. Hundreds of people have signed a petition calling for the practice to remain in the village. In recent years, there have also been protests in Lincolnshire at the closure of A&E services in Grantham.

Those are very legitimate protests; they are examples of local people taking a stand at closures that will really affect their local area and the health of their families and neighbours. The key point is that they were done in proportionate ways. It is important that we make that distinction; they did not and do not stop the emergency services. Our amendment to this clause provides protection for emergency services but does allow for legitimate protests around sites that may come under the aegis of the emergency services, such as a police station or an A&E site.

I think that we can all agree that the emergency services do an exceptionally important job, and the Minister might therefore like to comment on their inclusion on this list of key national infrastructure. Would he not agree that blocking a police car as it races towards a crime, such as domestic violence, ought to be considered interfering with key national infrastructure?

I hope that I have given Members on both sides some food for thought about what should come under the definition in the clause. Emergency services are an essential service, and if an oil refinery is going to have such offences applied to it, the logic stands that emergency services infrastructure should too.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I must say that I have some sympathy with what the hon. Lady is trying to achieve. However, her Government, she will be please to know, got there before us by creating the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2006, which has already created an offence of intentionally obstructing an emergency worker from exercising their functions, punishable on summary conviction by an unlimited fine.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

There are lots of other bits of legislation that can stop protests and stop people from interfering in all kinds of different ways. The key point that we were trying to make is that if we define national infrastructure, it is peculiar not to include emergency services in that definition.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, although it was only a breath ago that she was telling me that the clause was broad, and, now, she is attempting to broaden it. As I said, we already have significant legislation that will assist us. We should not forget that some of the offences that we have already considered will assist. The police use the roads and therefore our ability to deal with people glued on to the roads will be critical. The police need fuel and ambulances need fuel, so locking on to fuel depots will similarly be covered.

We do not feel that there is a need to legislate for this particular offence. We think there are significant protections already and very stringent punishments for impeding emergency workers in their work. While I have sympathy with the hon. Lady’s intentions, and she is quite right that emergency workers should seek and deserve all the protection we can give them, I urge her to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I am glad the Minister accepts that this is an issue that deserves to be thought about. As this was a probing amendment, we will leave it at that. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Clause 4, as we have been talking about in the debate on the amendments, introduces a new offence of interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure. Subsection (1) makes it an offence for a person to

“do an act which interferes with the use or operation of any key national infrastructure”

where the person intends the act to have that effect or is

“reckless as to whether it will do so.”

Subsection (2) provides a defence of “reasonable excuse” and a defence applying to industrial action, which the Minister referred to. The clause sets out the maximum penalty for the offence—namely,

“on summary conviction, to imprisonment for term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court”,

rising to 12 months, or an unlimited fine, or both—imprisonment, a fine or both.

Subsections (4) and (5) define interference as an act that “prevents” or “significantly delays” the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent of its intended purpose. The clause then lists the key national infrastructure, which we have been debating, and that includes, apart from emergency workers, transport sectors including air transport and harbours; oil, gas and electricity infrastructure; and newspaper printing infrastructure, which we will talk about later.

We think clause 4 defines interference incredibly broadly, as any act that

“prevents the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent for any of its intended purposes.”

Liberty has pointed out that the low threshold appears to contradict the Supreme Court’s finding that deliberately obstructive protest can come under the protection of articles 10 and 11, and risks criminalising an extremely wide range of activities, including where the use or operation of infrastructure is “significantly delayed”. That term is not defined in the offence.

We have tried to remove clause 4. We hear the concerns that some protests can tip the balance of rights in the wrong direction. I repeat that protest is not an unqualified right—campaigners who block people from reaching relatives in hospital and oil protests that prevent people from crucial travel are breaking the law—but there are a raft of measures already in place. This is a fundamental point that the Minister has not acknowledged: a panoply of existing powers on public order is available to the police.

In the debates we have had over the past year on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, the way some Members have talked about the policing of protest has sometimes implied that the police are not doing anything and that there are currently no powers they can use. We are not starting from a position of nothing; we are starting from multiple pieces of legislation. There is wilfully obstructing the highway, the offence of criminal damage or conspiracy to cause criminal damage, the offence of aggravated trespass, the offence of public nuisance and the offence of breach of the peace, which we have not yet talked about much.

More than 20 people were arrested for criminal damage and aggravated trespass at Just Stop Oil protests in Surrey. Injunctions were granted at Kingsbury oil terminal following more than 100 arrests, and there were further arrests for breaching those injunctions, which are punishable by up to two years in prison: nine people were charged. When Extinction Rebellion dumped tons of fertiliser outside newspaper offices, five people were arrested. Earlier this year, six Extinction Rebellion activists were charged with criminal damage in Cambridge. In February this year, five Insulate Britain campaigners were jailed for breaching their injunctions, and in November, nine Insulate Britain activists were jailed for breaching injunctions to prevent road blockades. It is important to point out that for the kinds of protesters we are talking about, breaking the law and being arrested is often the aim.

During our evidence sessions, we heard from police officers about how well the police can use the existing laws. Chief Superintendent Phil Dolby from West Midlands police spoke to us about a large, disruptive protest in Birmingham, where he negotiated conditions using the Public Order Act 1986:

“I just gave a warning about the police’s power to who I was evidentially satisfied was the organiser. I negotiated and said, ‘Look, I’ve got this power. It’s ready, and here it is. Do you want to carry on, or can I encourage you to stop? You have had your opportunity, and you need to move on.’ There was a negotiated approach that I thought tried to keep the balance for everyone.

Similarly, Extinction Rebellion recently blocked a fairly minor road…They had a tactic whereby instead of staying in the middle of the road all the time, they would use the pelican crossing but let the traffic stop by the traffic furniture. They would then occupy the road for about five minutes and when the traffic built up, they would move away…

We have our protest liaison teams, and there is a five-step appeal that officers go through, which we document and fill, giving every opportunity for the protesters to reach the decision themselves. Eventually, I said, ‘Okay. There is a power here to stop you. This is an unlawful assembly because it is now causing serious disruption. There’s a children’s hospital that is starting to be affected, so now that’s enough.’

I brought forward the van that is a mobile prison cell—kind of a show of strength, really—and said, ‘That is what I am prepared to use’. They said, ‘Okay’, and that was enough. Again, both the powers were available to us. They were being prepared to be used. We were not just tolerating it; there was a negotiated approach, and both of those are examples of where that has been successful. On the serious disruption element in the Bill, I would encourage as much precision for that definition as possible.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 57-58, Q119.]

As Peter Fahy aptly said,

“In all the protests it is escalation, which looks in the early stages like the police are being weak, but in the background they are talking to people and they are escalating…You work up to it”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 62, Q122.]

The concern about the definition of serious disruption is shared by many people across policing. In the written evidence submitted by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Chief Constable BJ Harrington—the national lead for public order—wrote that,

“the term ‘serious disruption’ has been subject to much discussion and debate. Within any new legislation we would welcome clarity or guidance about the threshold and interpretation of this to allow operational commanders to best apply their operational responses.”

I urge the Minister to bear in mind the consequences of these provisions for the police officers trying to put them into practice.

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

For me, that is the issue: one of the impacts of this legislation will be that we give the police nowhere to go, other than straight to arrest. In my policing experience and that of Lord Paddick, once the police start arresting people, they very quickly run out of cops before they run out of protesters. Does the hon. Lady agree?

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I absolutely agree; the struggle within policing to have enough people to do the day job is already bad enough. I have been to Berwick, and very often in the summer months, when there are vast numbers of holidaymakers at the caravan parks, the police will only have one or two officers on. If there is a fight and they choose to arrest somebody, they then have to take that person into custody, which means there is no one left, so they have to make very difficult decisions. In the case of a protest, the police can have a negotiation and allow people to make their point, which is what protesters want to do and what we all want to facilitate. Then, the police can get to the stage where they say, “You are now causing serious disruption, so now we need to begin to use some of our powers.” That is a much preferable way of policing.

The police did not ask for most of these powers, and there has not been a proper consultation process with them on this piece of legislation. The big piece of work that was done by Matt Parr took place before the then Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and, as we heard in evidence, some aspects of this Bill were considered by him, but some were not, including the infrastructure and transport sections. There has been no proper consultation with the police on these clauses.

The police should not have to make decisions about definitions of vague terms in legislation. They will look like political decisions and put even more pressure on the police. During progress of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, many Members from different sides of the Chamber made that point in the House.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council wrote:

“It is essential that any powers or legislation are straightforward and capable of use by officers and staff at all levels. Experience has shown that unless legislation is clear and simple for use in complex and fast-moving public order situations that it can fail to have the positive impact intended and sometimes create an expectation that cannot be met or lead to unintended issues.”

I also note the points in the NPCC’s excellent evidence about police responsibilities on private land. It wrote:

“We want to ensure that any new legislation does not inadvertently transfer or encourage reliance on policing for security or reduce the ability or necessity of organisations to obtain injunctions. This would not only be a fundamental change in the role of policing but would create a significant capacity issue that would detract from force’s wider duties to prevent and detect crime.”

The NPCC argues that,

“police powers that are practical for use on the front line…Police responsibilities on private land—The funding and resourcing of Home Office police forces is applied primarily to ensure effective policing of public spaces.”

There is an interesting section on this issue that I will not read out, but I am sure the Minister has seen it and will be thinking it through.

The NPCC goes on to say,

“we believe that the question of the responsibility for policing of private land is key. There is a question about the definition of ‘key national infrastructure’, and we would have concern about an explicit duty being placed on policing to deal with activity on private land.

We would be concerned about the impact to our operational response were the responsibility, risks, and costs for securing these sites to be moved from private sector organisations to the police. The impact on police resources, especially for the forces where much of this key infrastructure resides, could be substantial. We believe there is potential for other agencies and organisations to have the powers which would go some way to prevent this.

We believe that there needs to be a strong rationale behind what is considered key national infrastructure, taking into consideration the potential impact of any disruption taking place, so that there is no risk to confidence in policing in being seen to protect private business interests or placing an unreasonable burden on policing that will detract from our core mission.”

We argue that it is not fair to keep piling on new offences. In his evidence, Sir Peter Fahy talked very well about expecting the police to make sense of the new offences, then interpret them and then do all the work.

The Government could do more to work with the police, those who run public and private infrastructure and local authorities to support the right to peaceful protest, to work together to safeguard essential infrastructure, to review the measures that they have just introduced before coming back for more, to work on training, guidance and the resources that public order teams need, and to work on streamlined plans for injunctions that could protect the smooth running of essential infrastructure, if needed.

I again make it clear that we do not support those hardline protesters who keep returning to make people’s lives a misery. We do not believe that clause 4 will fix the problems that our evidence sessions highlighted. It will not speed up the removal of protesters who are causing serious disruption or be a deterrent for those who want to break the law. It risks creating more flashpoints for the police.

Our national infrastructure needs protecting. We hear the anger, irritation and upset when critical appointments are missed, when children cannot get to school and when laws are broken. Of course, the police must act but, unamended, the legislation is too broad to be workable.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

As the hon. Lady said, clause 4 introduces a new criminal offence of interfering with the operation of “key national infrastructure”. As we heard in our evidence, recent actions by protestors, including activity blocking or obstructing our printing presses, roads and fuel supply, have inflicted misery on the hard-working public.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said on Second Reading, the Government cannot stand idly by and let small groups of disruptive individuals prevent people from getting to their places of work by blocking trains and roads, or stop vital supplies of fuel reaching the public by preventing oil tankers from leaving terminals across the country. Such actions cause enormous damage and have a serious economic cost. For example, policing Insulate Britain’s sit-down protests on our major highways cost £4 million, while the policing cost alone of responding to Just Stop Oil’s campaign against terminals and fuel stations is over £6 million in total so far. It is clear that we have to act.

Individuals commit this offence if they intentionally or recklessly engage in an act that prevents the use or operation of key national infrastructure to any extent, including through acts that significantly delay the operation or use of such infrastructure. The range of infrastructure covered by this offence will ensure that our major transport networks, and our energy and fuel supplies, are protected. I will say more on this issue when the Committee scrutinises clause 5.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central pointed out that I have failed to accept certain principles that the police have put forward, but in turn I ask her to accept that we heard quite clearly from the operational police chief, our first witness, that the measures in the Bill would help. He said that he required more assistance in dealing with these protesters. I hope that she will also accept that over the last couple of years we have seen a change in the tactics employed by these protesters. It is something that we have not seen since the last major revision of public order legislation back in the 1980s.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

We have seen some new tactics, but the tactics are mainly old. I understand that Swampy, who we will remember from decades ago, is in a tunnel somewhere under HS2¸ so these things do come around again.

As for the Minister’s point about the police, it is important to note that there has not been a proper consultation on the clauses on infrastructure and transport. I have spoken to lots of police officers about the Bill, and there is not as much knowledge about it as there might be, because there has not been a proper consultation process, whereas there was with the previous piece of legislation. The police quite rightly do not take a political position, but there are plenty of people who have concerns about the breadth of this legislation, not necessarily because they do not want new powers—some of them are saying, “We need new powers”—but because they worry that interpretation of the Bill, which is so broad, will put them in a very difficult position.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I am glad that the hon. Lady accepts that the police are asking for more powers; indeed they are.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Some.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

And they have specifically requested a number of the powers in the Bill. The person who, as I hope she will agree, was the most credible witness was the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for public order and protest, who said positive things about the legislation.

The hon. Lady is perhaps struggling with the notion that while we can define offences and human behaviour in this place, there is an entire industry of lawyers out there who then go on to interpret what we say. There are common terms that might appear that have particular meaning in colloquial English that have developed meaning over time in the courts. “Serious disruption” is the one that the hon. Lady is speaking to, and I will give some thought as to whether we need to think more about that, but “serious disruption” to the life of the community has been an established part of public order policing and indeed general policing for some time—at least, I think, since 1986 and the Public Order Act of that year. That Act has been interpreted through the courts in a number of ways, which means that it is well understood by police, lawyers and indeed protesters.

Jackie Doyle-Price (Conservative, Thurrock)

As the Minister will be aware, in my constituency, we have significant amounts of fuel infrastructure. Indeed, in the recent Just Stop Oil protests, more than half of the arrests made nationally were made in my constituency. The proposals in this legislation absolutely reflect the conversations that I have had with the local police and with local authorities. I pay tribute, through the Minister, to the great efforts of the local police and local authorities to ensure that the disruption caused did not spill out into the wider community, because the role of Thurrock in the dispersal of fuel across the country is significant, so things could have been much worse. These proposals will make it much easier for the police to act and will make them more fleet of foot.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; she makes a very strong point and she is quite right; that is my experience of talking to the police officers dealing with those protests. She points to the importance of particular locations in our fuel supply network. A number of key, large, strategic fuel depots take the bulk of the load, and even a small interference with their ability to get fuel out could have a significant ripple effect that would be felt by the public.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central seems to be under the impression, or possibly trying to create the impression, that the police will change their practice and thousands of protesters will be locked up. I am confused; she seems to imply that those who are disrupting High Speed 2, for example, deserve to be arrested. She said that the cost was “horrifying”—I think that is the word she used. She accepts that HS2 has been approved by a democratically elected Parliament, and was voted for unanimously across the House. It was supported by all parties, and those protesters are seeking to frustrate that democratic decision.

All we are talking about is what offence those individuals should be charged with. We are seeking to give the police more of the options that they have asked for, and more tools to use. That reflects the fact that a number of individuals have avoided charges on technicalities, because of the complexity of the operations and the landownerships involved.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

At the risk of more repetition, the point is if there is a new offence of locking on, the police might see people linking arms at a protest and think, understandably, “That is an offence! I need to arrest them.” I did not make the point earlier, but there is also an issue around resources. I wanted to ensure that I mentioned to the Minister the issue around resources for protests. For example, the number of police horses has been cut significantly in recent years. They are a very useful tool in managing protests. I am sure that the Minister understands that, and has seen how successfully police horses can manage a crowd. In this cost of living crisis, the cost of horses has gone up by £2,000 or £3,000, so the police are finding it difficult to replace horses. That is slightly niche, but it is a very important part of our ability to protest. I ask the Minister to support our police horses as much as he can.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I am always keen to support all forms of non-human participants in crime fighting, from dogs to horses. I am not sure what relevance that has to the legislation. The hon. Member is right that in certain crowd-control situations, police horses can prove enormously calming to a crowd, which is important. However, that is a crowd situation. Horses are often used in the control of football crowds, as she will know. In a protest situation, particularly a violent protest situation, they are often used more as a dispersal tool. That is where I have seen them used. We have to be careful about straying into police tactics, rather than the legislation, which is our responsibility.

The hon. Lady seems conflicted: she is happy for protesters to be arrested and charged under current offences, or for them to go to prison under an injunction that may have been obtained by HS2, News International or any other site owner, but she seems strangely reluctant to achieve the same effect through the criminal charge that we are putting in place through this legislation. I find that asymmetry difficult to explain.

I explained earlier how seriously the Government take the offence in clause 4, and the maximum penalties available reflect that. Individuals can face a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both. It is completely unacceptable that small numbers of protestors can attack the vital infrastructure that keeps this country running. This Government stand on the side of the public, who want to go about their lives free from the disruption and misery that these protesters can cause.

Clause 5 - Key national infrastructure

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

The clause defines the different types of key national infrastructure for the purposes of clause 4. I was critical of the breadth of clause 4 earlier. It defines “interference” incredibly broadly as any act that

“prevents the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent for any of its intended purposes.”

Given that low threshold, we should be wary of the risk to the protections afforded to protest under articles 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

As we heard from legal experts in the evidence sessions last week, the courts have a tendency to look more kindly on disruptive protests when they are directed towards the perceived social, environmental, political or ethical ill identified by the protesters and take place at the site of that perceived ill. It is worth exploring that in a little more detail, as it is important to keep that in mind when looking at the raft of infrastructure that the Government have deemed worthy of the title “key national”.

Let us start with the Greenham Common protests, which were motivated by a desire for nuclear disarmament and carried out in opposition to the Government’s placing of missiles on its Berkshire base, RAF Greenham Common. Crucially, the protests were carried out on that site. Hands were held, arms interlocked and songs sung around the base. There were shows of solidarity, kindness and compassion at Greenham Common, as well as criminal behaviour, which was dealt with. Whatever our views, those protests hold a special place in our national history and consciousness.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

Greenham is on the edge of my constituency, as I am sure the hon. Lady knows. I hope that she will accept that defence installations are not defined as key national infrastructure in this legislation.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Why not, when nuclear energy is? My point is broader: it is not about the definition but the way that courts define whether a protest is significant. The kind of punishment they give often depends on whether the protest is near the thing being protested about. I will explain what I mean. If we look at more recent protests, such as the Insulate Britain protests on motorways, there is no clear relation between the issue being protested about and the site of the protest. In other words, there is no direct link between insulation and the M25. The M25 has nothing to do with poorly insulated homes. It is not the Government Department responsible for insulating homes. I can see why Insulate Britain might choose to protest outside a Government Department.

I am sure that Insulate Britain would argue that there is a link between the M25 and insulation, but when the courts passed their judgment on Insulate Britain, they came down much more harshly because there was no connection between the place and the people whom the protesters were interfering with and the issue that they were arguing about. Members of Insulate Britain have gone to prison for the M25 protests because the courts take such a dim view of that lack of connection.

The point about clause 5 is that often these key national infrastructure sites are key to the point of the protest. As Liberty notes,

“one of the key ways that people seek to make their protests effective is to draw attention to sites of power”.

The manner and location of protests are key to their power. Had the suffragettes not protested in Downing Street or Parliament, but outside a building a few hundred metres away, their protest would not have had the same impact. Had the Greenham Common women not been allowed to protest around the site of the missiles, and had they instead protested in Basingstoke, they would not have had the same impact.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I understand the parallel that the hon. Lady is trying to draw with the Greenham Common women. I do not think that they were necessarily responsible for winning the cold war, although I do believe a woman—the then leader of our country—was. Does the hon. Lady understand that although the Greenham Common protest has passed into lore, it did not actually interfere with the operation of the base? Missiles came and went, the Americans flew in and out, and the base was supplied; there was no interference. Strictly in terms of the offence that we are talking about, the protesters did not commit an offence.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

I think there was interference, in that they broke through the perimeter on several occasions.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

But they did not interfere with the operation of the base.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

That must have interfered with it to some degree.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

That would have been another offence, because—

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Order. Can we keep to the clause, please?

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

Subsection (2) concerns road transport infrastructure. As I have mentioned, we already have laws to protect roads. Wilful obstruction of a highway comes with a fine, and the Government’s recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 increased the maximum penalty for that offence from £1,000 to an unlimited fine and/or six months’ imprisonment. Earlier, the Minister made a remark about the Labour party’s position. To clarify, we tried to limit the scope of that piece of legislation so that it applied only to motorways and A roads, and not to very small roads, and we would have supported the provisions had the Government accepted our amendment. Given the changes made by the 2022 Act, we do not understand why clause 5 on transport infrastructure is necessary. As the Labour party has said all along, there are already laws to protect roads.

I turn to rail. Let us imagine that there is a Starbucks on a train station platform, and a group of children have chosen that platform on which to protest about the lack of corporation tax that Starbucks pays in the UK. It could be platform 4 in Taunton, which I imagine would be delightful today. It could be at London Marylebone—perhaps after the protest—or at platform 1 at Coventry; there are Starbucks franchises on all those platforms. Such protests would be legitimate, I believe. This speaks to the importance of the place and manner of protests.

It is busy at Taunton, and the protestors delay the driver in getting to his train by half an hour. Does that count as infrastructure being significantly delayed? They do not mean to block the driver; that was not their intention. Under the Bill, would the Minister consider those children, or the adult who is with them, to have committed a criminal offence? Such broad-brush legislation opens up all kinds of possibilities.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that protesting on a crowded railway platform, particularly if fast trains pass through it—she mentioned Tiverton Parkway—is quite dangerous, for other passengers and for the protesters. Does she not agree that there should be some way for us to control that kind of behaviour? Byelaws on the railway need to be obeyed.

Sarah Jones (Labour, Croydon Central)

There are byelaws, and there are others laws that could be used in that situation. My point is that two children protesting outside Starbucks might be considered to have committed an offence under clause 5.

On airports, we know from evidence that all the people who cut through the fencing surrounding Stansted airport and made their way to the Boeing jet were arrested. The police had the powers to deal with them and did. Once again, the right to protest is not absolute, but the Bill will prevent potentially peaceful protests.

Kit Malthouse (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

The clause supports the new offence of interfering with the operation of key national infrastructure created by clause 4 by defining the categories of infrastructure in scope of the offence.

The offence will cover major roads, railways, airports, harbours, and downstream oil and gas infrastructure in England and Wales. It will also cover newspaper printing presses, onshore oil and gas exploration and production, and larger-scale onshore electricity infrastructure. Minor infrastructure such as undesignated roads and small-scale power stations will be out of scope, as will offshore infrastructure, because much of it lies outside our territorial waters.

We recognise, however, that protest tactics evolve, and that it is entirely possible that infrastructure currently out of scope will be targeted. We have therefore included a delegated power to allow the Home Secretary to amend the list of infrastructure in scope of the offence. That will ensure that the clause keeps pace with evolving protest tactics.

Written evidence to be reported to the House