A government bid to ban “slow marching” protests has been thrown out by the House of Lords amid a series of heavy defeats for the controversial Public Order Bill.
The law is a reaction to protests by groups including Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain, and a series of legal battles over whether protesters are committing a crime by blocking roads.
A change that would have lowered the threshold for police intervention in demonstrations with a wide definition of “serious disruption” was narrowly rejected by 254 to 240 votes.
Because the move was brought in as an amendment to the law when it had already passed through the House of Commons, the defeat was fatal and the move cannot be reintroduced by MPs.
Another government amendment to prevent protesting “an issue of current debate” being used as a lawful excuse for blocking a road was also voted down by 248 votes to 239.
Several peers issued warnings about the strength of public feeling about climate change, with a Conservative peer suggesting that protest activity was being caused because people did not feel the government was “satisfactorily dealing with it”.
Lord Deben, chair of the Climate Change Committee, told the House of Lords: “The government have to realise that their policies must in some way reflect the deep-held worries and concerns of the public, or it does not matter how many laws they pass, because they will not be obeyed.”
In total, the government suffered six defeats on the second day of the Public Order Bill’s bruising report stage, but will be able to send some measures back to the House of Lords in the “ping-pong” process.
The bill was created after the House of Lords rejected some of the same powers when the government attempted to add them to last year’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which itself sparked nationwide protests.
New suspicionless stop and search powers for protesters, an attempt to tackle locking in tactics, were again rejected by the House of Lords on Tuesday – with five Conservative peers rebelling.
Concerns had been raised over the impact such a move may have on innocent members of the public, particularly black and ethnic minority groups, at a time when trust in the police has been rocked by a series of scandals.
Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe, now a crossbench peer, said existing powers to stop people without cause “has caused real problems”, warning: “Particularly in the context of London, I caution the government about extending without-cause stop and search.”
Former senior police officer and Liberal Democrat peer Lord Paddick said questioned “a significant expansion of police powers” at a time when confidence in the police is waning.
“There is potentially an endless list of objects that could be made, adapted or intended for use in the course of or in connection with protest offences,” he warned. “This could result in many innocent people being stopped, searched and potentially arrested for being in possession of commonplace objects.”
Peers went on to defy the government again in adding safeguards for journalists in the bill by 283 votes to 192, following the arrest of reporters covering Just Stop Oil protests on the M25.
The Lords also backed restrictions on the use of controversial protest banning orders, and stripped out completely a provision that would have allowed the sanction to be imposed against people who had not been convicted of any offence.
The Independent understands that senior police officers did not request large parts of the Public Order Bill and were not formally consulted by the government.
Some fear that controversial new protest powers could put them in danger and damage public confidence, and a report on potential laws by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said “most interviewees did not wish to criminalise protest actions through the creation of a specific offence concerning locking-on”.
