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Human Rights

Yes; I agree on both those points. The appointment of Sir Hugh Orde is an excellent one, and I look forward to a great deal of progress under his leadership. The hon. Member for Hendon mentioned kettling—or containment, depending on which side of the issue one is on. One of the areas of most concern is a police tactic that I think can legitimately be called kettling. It happens when containment is pushed in on the demonstrators. The demonstration is contained in a smaller and smaller area; that raises the pressure and the temperature, and it is kettling. Throughout the debates on the issue—and the hon. Member for Hendon may be right about there being exceptional circumstances in which containment is necessary to prevent further harm—that aspect of the tactic has never been properly explained. I have seen it, and have seen film of it, and it seems inexplicable to me. It always leads to more trouble and raises the temperature. It always increases the risks for all concerned. As for media reporting, the Committee came to the conclusion that although accounts of the run-up to the G20, for example, included a good deal of ramping up of the expectation of violence, that was largely down to the activities of the media and not the police. However, the problem was that the police did not take the opportunity to reduce the temperature. It was being raised by the media, but what was the police response? I have still not seen a satisfactory answer from the Government, or from the police via the Government, to the Committee's point about that. It seemed very specific to me: the media strategy of the police should be aimed at calming everything down, and taking active steps to do so. Will the Minister confirm that the Government's position, which seems to be the same as the police position, is that current regulations on police numerals are sufficient, because under those regulations it is already a disciplinary matter not to wear them? If so, that does not seem adequate, because we know that the current regulations have been ineffective at making sure that police officers wear their numerals clearly when on duty at demonstrations. Behind the issue is culture, and its somehow being acceptable for police officers on duty at demonstrations to be what someone called a designated hitter, with the job of applying violent methods so that they are hidden and unattributable. I think that that lies behind the numerals issue, and we need to address it. The Committee rightly raised the question of protests around Parliament, and further legislative action is being taken in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill—to which we shall return on Report, so I do not want to say much about the matter now. The Committee was rightly concerned; not only had the previous powers been removed, but new ones, which were vague, unclear and possibly very broad, had been introduced. I would go further than the Committee. First, there is an argument that all the powers already exist to ensure that there is access to Parliament. Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 and all the legislation about demonstrations already give the police sufficient power to do what we want them to. Even if that is not the case, the only gap is specifically about what the police can do when access has been blocked. However, the new version that has been passed in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which we should revisit, seems to keep the regulation in place in advance of any trouble. That is still prior restraint of demonstrations and assemblies. I fail to see the justification for having extra prior restraint around Parliament, as opposed to extra powers to clear the way and ensure that Members of Parliament can get into the building. The most disturbing aspect of all incidents such as the climate change camp and other demonstrations, and the confrontation between the police and demonstrators, has been the excessive use of counter-terrorism powers against those demonstrators. I do not deny that there has been progress, but I was disturbed to hear what the hon. Member for Hendon said about the Government's response to the Gillan case. This is about the abuse of stop-and-search powers. More than that, it is about whether it is legitimate at all to have stop-and-search powers that can be exercised without any reason or underlying evidence, but merely on a hunch. The Court was absolutely clear on that. Its conclusion was that section 44 is not an adequate law because it does not give people sufficient advance knowledge or warning about what the powers of the police are, and when they will be used. It gives the police a vast opportunity to act arbitrarily. Paragraph 84 of the judgment says that""the Court is struck by the statistical and other evidence showing the extent to which resort is had by police officers to the powers of stop and search under section 44 of the Act. The Ministry of Justice recorded a total of 33,177 searches in 2004/5, 44,545 in 2005/6, 37,000 in 2006/7 and 117,278 in 2007/8...In his Report into the operation of the Act in 2007, Lord Carlile noted that while arrests for other crimes had followed searches under section 44, none of the many thousands of searches—"" we are getting up to half a million—""had ever related to a terrorism offence; in his 2008 Report Lord Carlile noted that examples of poor and unnecessary use of section 44 abounded"."