New powers to crack down on protests are not needed and go “too far”, senior police and crime commissioners have said.
MPs will vote on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which would lower the threshold at which police can impose legally-binding restrictions on protests, and make it easier to prosecute people for violating them.
Human rights groups have called the plans “an all-out assault on our right to protest”, and demonstrations were being mounted outside parliament ahead of the vote.
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“These are local matters for chief constables in consultations with PCCs, and I was concerned to see the draft clauses in the bill,” he said.
“I think politicians would be wise to leave decisions to the responsible people … they’ve got to leave people to make local decisions in local circumstances.”
Martin Surl, vice-chair of the APCC, said police “have the laws needed already”.
“When you make these laws, you can’t pick laws for the protests you like and don’t like,” he added.
“If you’re protesting about Me Too, climate change, racism, the laws have got to be the same. Police constables are operationally independent and don’t have an agenda, which some politicians do.”
Mr Surl, who is the politically independent PCC for Gloucestershire, said: “I don’t like law for law’s sake, especially on freedom of protest.
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“The laws need to be thought through and work in all scenarios, not just Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion. Today it’s this, tomorrow it will be another issue … I don’t think the new laws are particularly helpful, I think they go too far.”
Current lockdown restrictions in England neither explicitly ban, nor explicitly permit, protests and
Mr Surl, who was a police officer for decades before becoming a PCC following his retirement, said forces were struggling to interpret unclear laws.
“I don’t think there are many cases even during Covid where you can stifle that right to be heard,” he added. “People have to find a way lawfully to express themselves.”
Katy Bourne, the Conservative PCC for Sussex, said that if the new powers in the bill become law police would not necessarily use them.
“It’s down to chief constables in individual areas on how they police and if they use the law,” she told the press conference. “Just because they’re there doesn’t mean they’re used.”
Their comments came as Sir Peter Fahy, the former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said “we need to be very wary” about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
He told Good Morning Britain that the proposed legislation has “a lot of increased police powers” and “brings in a lot of new definitions that are not tested”.
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Sir Peter added: “The policing of protests has a huge impact on the longer term confidence in policing.”
Presenting the bill to the House of Commons on the first day of debate on Monday, Priti Patel said there was “a balance to be struck between the rights of the protester and the rights of individuals to go about their daily lives”.
“In recent years, we have seen a significant change of protest tactics, with protesters exploiting gaps in the law which have led to disproportionate amounts of disruption,” the home secretary told MPs.
“The bill will give the police the powers to take a more proactive approach in tackling dangerous and disruptive protests.”
The draft law states that conditions can be imposed on protests if the noise generated “may result in serious disruption to the activities of an organisation” or may “have a relevant impact on persons in the vicinity of the protest”.
Human rights groups have raised concerns that the law’s wording could allow restrictions to apply to any protests that make a sound.
The bill would give the home secretary the power, through secondary legislation, to define “serious disruption to the life of the community” and “serious disruption to the activities of an organisation”.
The current version of the bill would also allow police to restrict static assemblies and vigils, rather than just moving demonstrations, as well as protests “carried out by one person in a public place”.
Anyone who does not comply with conditions imposed by protests can be arrested and prosecuted for a criminal offence.
The law currently states that a crime is committed if someone “knowingly” fails to comply, but the bill would lower that threshold to if they “knew or ought to have known” about restrictions.
That would allow protesters to be prosecuted if they had not heard that conditions were imposed by police.
The bill would introduce a statutory offence of public nuisance punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The draft law states that someone commits an offence if they cause or create a risk of obstruction, damage to property, “serious distress, serious annoyance, serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity”.
