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Human Rights

On the Committee's report, there are still points at issue between the Government and the Committee. The hon. Member for Hendon was right to start and end with the communication and dialogue between the police and the protesters. I am not sure about the police, but the Government have not quite grasped the importance of communication in defusing situations and in reminding both sides why they are there. The protesters want to protest, and the police want to ensure that the protest does not become disorderly or violent. If the two sides stay in communication, they will remember that, rather than getting into a conflict about the process, about who said what and about the policing itself. I return to the meeting that I organised between the police and the climate camp protesters on 31 March last year. The police seemed unwilling to engage directly with the protesters, while the protesters were reticent about telling the police their plans. The Committee rightly picked up on the unwillingness on both sides to communicate, but it has not quite picked up on the reason why the protesters were unwilling to communicate their plans to the police. That unwillingness came from the protesters' previous experience, particularly at the Heathrow climate camp, where they believed that the police had tried to disrupt the protest once they became aware of the protesters' plans. For example, the protesters believed that the police attempted to persuade landowners in the area not to allow protests on their land, even though the protesters were trying to go about their business of protesting in a lawful way by asking for permission. That is the key point. The lack of trust that built up over the years between the protesters and the police caused the protesters' reticence about talking to the police. That reticence is still there because of that lack of trust. The situation is very brittle and fragile. Given where we are, it would be easy for the progress that we have made to be undermined by a further breakdown in trust as a result of other incidents. Examples include the pre-emptive action by the police at Ratcliffe power station and the use of pre-charge bail conditions against both protesters there and protesters who came into this building. That appeared to be an attempt to make it unlawful for protesters to organise protests or to communicate with one another. Documents in which ACPO issues guidance and includes environmental protesters in a list of terrorists have also come into the public domain. Such instances tend to undermine the degree of trust that is slowly being built up between peaceful protesters and the authorities. I urge the Government to bear that in mind in dealing with policy. If communication starts to break down again, the whole thing will go into reverse, regardless of what the reports say. Reports are one thing; practice on the ground is another. I should mention in passing that I agree with the Committee on the need to review the status of ACPO. One of the themes of my life last year was coming up against ACPO over and over again, as if it were not just a regulator of the police and a kind of alternative inspectorate, but a kind of legislator. ACPO policy seems to have the same force within the police as secondary legislation. We need to get a grip on ACPO and its various subsidiary agencies, which deal with domestic extremism. At the very least, we need to subject it to the Freedom of Information Act and treat it as a public authority, to go back to another of the themes of the hon. Member for Hendon. Ultimately, we should say that if it is to be a sort of national policing body, it needs a national-level accountability mechanism.