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Human Rights

The purpose of the debate is to consider the two reports from the Joint Committee on Human Rights on policing and protest. Peaceful protest is one of the cornerstones of a democratic society and we are rightly proud that the UK has a fine tradition of upholding the right to protest. However, protest has been the cause of major controversy in recent years. The law on protest around Parliament has been wholly criticised, as have the use of the containment tactic known as kettling by the police and the tactics used against climate change protesters at the Drax and Kingsnorth power stations. The Committee decided to look at policing and protest in the light of those issues, before the events at the G20 protest. We set out to: identify the problems with peaceful protest in the UK raised by both protesters and the police; assess whether the legal framework for protest was working and, in particular, compliant with the European convention on human rights; and look at police tactics, guidance and training to see whether they fully reflected the UK's human rights obligations. Although not an absolute right, the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression is protected by articles 10 and 11 of the European convention. The Government must not prevent or restrict protest, except in limited circumstances, and are obliged to facilitate the right to protest. Any restrictions must be necessary, proportionate and prescribed by law—a high threshold. The presumption is in favour of the right to protest. In practice, we recognise that the police have to balance the competing rights of protesters and those protested against, together with the rights of others involved in a protest—journalists or bystanders, for example—and counter-protesters. During our inquiry we heard from protesters, their representatives, the police and people who have been the subject of protest, such as the staff of Huntingdon Life Sciences and the Minister. Some protest targets complained of under-policing, arguing that there had been insufficient consideration of their rights. Balancing those competing interests is no easy task, and it is no surprise that the police cannot always get it right. Protests will always upset someone—that is the whole point of protesting. The Court of Appeal has said:""Rights worth having are unruly things…inconvenient and tiresome."" That view was echoed in the Home Office's most recent policing White Paper:""Rights are unwieldy things. The public can expect some inconvenience and nuisance as a consequence of the state upholding those rights. This is a hallmark of an open, democratic society."" I think that we all agree with that and congratulate the Home Office on that human rights approach. We published our first report in March 2009, but within days we saw the issues we had discussed and the need for our recommendations to be implemented brought vividly to the fore during the G20 protests in London. As a result of what happened, we reopened our inquiry in May 2009 and heard oral evidence from G20 protesters and observers, including the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), the chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, senior police officers and the then Home Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker). Our second report was published in July 2009. I am grateful for the constructive Government replies to both reports. Two other major reports were produced in 2009 on policing and protest by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary. Those were commissioned in the light of the G20 protests by the then new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson. HMIC's recommendations chime very much with the Committee's findings, which I had discussed with the chief inspector, Denis O'Connor, during his investigations. We also discussed the findings of our reports, those of HMIC, the Government's response and the White Paper with HMIC, the police—the Metropolitan Police Service, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Association of Chief Police Officers—the Crown Prosecution Service and the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), at a mini-conference we hosted in Portcullis House last week. In setting out the issues we identified on the policing of protest, I should begin by endorsing the police's assessment that the vast majority of protests in the UK pass off peacefully and without incident—there are 4,000 to 5,000 public order events a year in London alone. It is rare for the police to offer formal conditions under the Public Order Act 1986—we were told that that happened on 70 occasions across England and Wales in 2008—and large-scale protests that are difficult to police, such as those at the G20 or the Kingsnorth climate camp, are pretty infrequent. Nevertheless, a number of witnesses complained that police powers were being used more intensively than in the past. There were well-substantiated complaints about the misuse of stop-and-search powers, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, to intimidate or harass protesters and collect personal data without explanation. Hundreds of petty incidents, not much in themselves, have a cumulative effect that is frightening, worrying and undermines confidence and trust in the police. The National Union of Journalists and individual reporters raised with us the restrictions on photography and on the activities of journalists. For example, we saw video footage of a police inspector instructing journalists to leave an area during the G20 demonstrations and threatening them with arrest if they did not comply.