Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Indeed, the amendment, if it were enacted, would raise the expectations of people such as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that there is a right to protest that will expand on current rights. It will not because Amendment 369, were it to be introduced into our law, would have to give way to other express statutory provisions that give powers to and impose duties on the police and others, so it would cause confusion. Are we really going to incorporate into our law express statutory provisions that echo each and every one of the protections under the European Convention on Human Rights? I doubt whether this is a sensible way to legislate.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 369 because I like the fact that it creates a duty on public authorities to respect, protect and facilitate the right to protest so that:

“A public authority may only interfere with the right to protest, including by placing restrictions upon its exercise, when it is necessary and proportionate”.


That is the balancing that the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, explained so well in his introduction. It is undoubtedly the case that there is a balancing act.

I am pleased to support the amendment because I feel it has never been more necessary to reassert why the right to protest matters. Despite the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, advising us to not panic—I did not mean that to be quite the pun that it came out as—I feel there is a danger of complacency here. I think that restating this in this amendment is essential. The fact that we need to restate the importance of the right to protest as a fundamental right in a healthy democracy gives us an urgency in championing and guarding carefully and closely what I think is under threat. It allows protest that, as the UN notes,

“enables individuals to express themselves collectively and to participate in shaping their societies”.

It is

“a system of participatory governance”.

I worry that if people believe that that right to protest is being eroded consistently, that leads them to take more dangerous, extreme measures. The right to protest is political free expression. We have all watched over the last week or so the protests in Iran and the absolute bravery of those protesters; it strikes me that we are happy to cheer them on and say how important it is. Closer to home, we have to carry on and expressly say that political ideas expressed on the streets that challenge the status quo allow people to express anger and their dissidence and opposition. That is worth restating.

I think there has been a relentless attempt at curbing such democratic expression. Since I have been in this House, which is for more than five years, there seems to have been a relentless stream of laws threatening the right to protest. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, just explained, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have substantially expanded police powers to impose restrictions on protests and to arrest people for breach of these restrictions, as well as increasing sentences for peaceful protest offences and lowering the threshold for what would constitute serious disruption to the life of the community.

Those laws have been passed and are ongoing, and they have led to legislative crackdowns on peaceful protests—but here we are again, because it is never enough. It seems to me, as I have argued before, that every time the law is changed those laws are not enforced, or the police or people in authority say, “We can’t do anything. We need more laws and more restrictions”, and so it goes on and on. As this has been the third piece of primary legislation in less than five years to chip away at the right to protest, we should be worried.

That is why I put my name to Amendment 371 looking for a review of the existing protest framework. There is an awful lot of legislation now that can control and curb one’s right to protest. I am delighted about the Macdonald review, by the way, but we need to make sure that the law is fit for purpose. We should not just keep adding on laws all the time. I fear the impact of the Acts on freedom of association, freedom of expression and so on, so I support both amendments.

I want to admit something, though. I do not want to be naive. Despite what I have just said, I know that protests have changed in many ways. This is the balancing act. As we enter into a new discussion now on all aspects of protest, I am aware that I also need to be open-minded. I am completely principled on the right to protest, but I understand that we have to take certain things into account. I have watched demonstrations and protests over the last few years in which intimidation, antisemitic slogans and toxic, intimidating behaviour have happened. I have seen that myself; I cannot deny it. It is also true that there is a more violent vibe around some protests. I genuinely could not believe that pro-Palestinian protests happened after the Manchester synagogue murders; I just could not get over that.

It is not just on that question—I do not want to obsess on that question. There is a whole range of issues in which I am interested. When I have been to events, I have been approached, or rather screamed at, by masked-up, unpleasant, scary protesters. I do not want to deny that. I am also aware of the fact that, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, pointed out—he was using the examples of the likes of Just Stop Oil in the past—in some protests it is almost as though disruption has been used to bully people into adherence rather than persuading the public to agree, and that has made me feel uncomfortable. But that is all the more reason why we need to review what is on the statute book. Is it fit for purpose? We cannot just keep adding laws, becoming more repressive and more draconian, and hoping that we are going to sort it all out. That is what I fear.

By the way, in response to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which I do not support, I remind him of the kind of disruptions that one gets at modern demonstrations. You have a situation where, for example, a protest outside an asylum hotel organised by the Pink Ladies—for those who know who they are—is met with Stand Up to Racism protesters, who are protesting against the protesters, and there is a clash. It is then argued that it is disrupting the local community and that both protests should be banned.

It strikes me that that is not very helpful, because it is perfectly legitimate, for example, to say that you are worried about people being put into local hotels as asylum seekers. I cannot just say that, because I support those concerns, I then want to ban the Stand Up to Racism protesters who are worried about them.

We also have to be aware of the fact that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has explained, protest does disrupt communities. Somebody—I cannot remember who now—talked about the farmers. I was actually outside Downing Street on a protest with farmers on Budget Day. What was shocking was that the farmers had been banned from driving their tractors even though, until the day before, it had been long agreed that they would be allowed to have a protest of tractors on that stretch. The night before, the tractors were banned and farmers were arrested for trying to drive them in the vicinity. I am aware that the argument that it is too disruptive and would disrupt people can be used in ways that are very unhelpful.

I would remind people as well about the terrible scandal that is emerging in relation to what happened at the Aston Villa match, from which Israeli fans were banned. I know people who went to that match. When protesters went in solidarity with the action of people who were fighting antisemitism, they organised a vigil at that football match in Birmingham. They were fenced in by the police and treated almost as criminals, even though in fact they were showing solidarity with Jewish people in the local area.

The reason I am giving those examples is that we have to admit that it is a bit complex. Therefore, just saying that protests that are disruptive of everyday life will be banned would be a very dangerous precedent, and I disagree with it. But I concede that it is a hard argument and we should therefore take it seriously, not just keep passing laws to ban protesting even more.