Coronation: Policing of Protests

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend puts it very well, and I join him in opposing Sadiq Khan’s appalling ULEZ idea.

The police and armed forces did a great job of policing the coronation. Between the Metropolitan police and Thames Valley police, who policed the Windsor concert the following day, almost 30,000 officers were deployed at one time or another during the relevant period. I think 11,500 officers were deployed on the day of the coronation itself, in addition to 6,500 armed forces personnel. There were 312 protected people who came to this country from around the world, and we deployed almost 1,000 close protection officers. All those officers did a fantastic job in a moment of national pride for all of us.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am a little surprised that the Minister apparently accepts, without question, the proposition that the Metropolitan police now apologises to people who have been lawfully arrested. Even by his standards, that is something of a novel departure.

The Public Order Act has given police officers broad and sweeping powers, which in turn require the police to exercise discretion and judgment with no context or guidelines. If there is no change to this legislation, such things will keep happening. There should have been better pre-legislative scrutiny of the Act, but there was not. Will he now commit to allowing post-legislative scrutiny?

[Chris Philp]

Many pieces of legislation require on-the-ground interpretation, whether by the police or subsequently by the courts in case law. Indeed, the new Act contains much more precise definitions of what constitutes serious disruption, which was previously extremely ambiguous. The police and others had called for that clarity. Obviously, the House is welcome to conduct scrutiny whenever it wants. It is standard for new legislation to be subject to post-legislative scrutiny some time later, but in many areas this new Act, which recently received Royal Assent, provides additional specificity, clarity and precision that were previously lacking.