Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Tenth sitting)

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

It appears that some of the Bill’s provisions intersect with the Welsh Government’s responsibilities. For example, the responsibility for public order is reserved to the UK Parliament, while the provisions relating to noise generated by persons taking part in a procession look set to overlap with the devolved Government’s responsibilities for environmental health. How have the Government addressed those particular concerns, and have they been resolved?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am so sorry; I do not understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. Are they that this matter is reserved?

[Hywel Williams]

I will explain again. As Dr Robert Jones of the University of South Wales points out, the Welsh Government have responsibilities that seem to overlap with provisions in the Bill; their environmental health responsibility on noise is a particular case in point. The Bill says that demonstrations should not be noisy if they cause alarm and so on, but the Welsh Government have those sorts of responsibilities as well. How have those overlapping responsibilities been addressed and how have they been resolved?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am told that all the provisions relate to reserved matters, so they fall within that framework.

[Hywel Williams]

I will not pursue this matter further, but is it not clear that the Welsh Government have responsibilities on an environmental basis for noise reduction?

[Victoria Atkins]

I cannot add to what I said earlier. These are all reserved matters.

I move on to public assemblies. I will explain why it is necessary for the police to be able to place the same conditions on public assemblies as they can on public processions. The case for the changes in clause 55 was made by Her Majesty’s inspector Matt Parr in his report on policing protest, published in March. The report included the following observation:

“there have been some conspicuously disruptive protests in recent years, both static (assemblies) and moving (processions). Protests are fluid, and it is not always possible to make this distinction. Some begin as assemblies and become processions, and vice versa. The practical challenges of safely policing a protest are not necessarily greater in the case of processions than in the case of assemblies, so this would not justify making a wider range of conditions available for processions than for assemblies.”

It is clear that the challenges of safely policing a protest are not necessarily greater for processions than they are for assemblies. The clause will therefore enable the police to impose conditions such as start times on public assemblies, and prevent excessive noise levels.