Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Simon Hart Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

In the first world war there were pages in newspapers listing the fallen and those missing in action, so it would not have been practical then, but it is practical in this conflict. Sadly, we are still losing soldiers—about one soldier a week dies in Afghanistan—so it is absolutely right to continue reading out their names and making such announcements. The Government should not stop doing that. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend agrees that MPs should be forbidden from reading out the names of the fallen, but I do not think that was a reasonable decision. I have challenged it and been stopped and I am sure that you would stop me now, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I attempted to read out the names of the fallen.

We really must pay tribute to Brian Haw. On nights when we have finished here and gone out, even in the middle of winter and sometimes in the early hours of the morning, he has been there, night after night, with his simple, anti-war message. Whether we agree with him or not he deserves our admiration and we do not need any attempt to sweep him and his companions out of sight to have a cosmetic effect on the square for an event that will be forgotten in a few years’ time.

I agree entirely with those who have said that the right to protest is honourable. It is a matter of pride when visitors come to London from countries in which any sign of protest would be swept away from their well-manicured streets and tourist attractions. The majority of the world’s countries would not allow such protest to take place in such a situation, but we are better and more advanced than them, and we should be proud that we have the right to protest. It is not available in the House, as it might be, but it is in Parliament square.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I join the diverse coalition of interests championing the right to protest in Parliament square, but I suspect that that is where the similarity between my interests and theirs comes to an end. Suffice it to say that the Government’s proposals take us a long way towards the goal we are all attempting to reach. Some Members might be aware that between 2000 and 2004 I was responsible for eight protests, in different forms, in and around Parliament square, six of which were resoundingly successful but two of which were not. I shall explain why things went wrong on those two. In each circumstance there were conditions that made it almost impossible for the police to safeguard the community and the protestors in a reasonable way. We are getting away from that situation and I commend the Government for their measures in that regard.

In championing the rights of legitimate protest, there are three areas that I want to address—accessibility, affordability and spontaneity. My first point on accessibility is fairly obvious: most protestors need to have the necessary access to make their point while the interests of other users of Parliament square and this building, as well as those of members of the public going about their business, are safeguarded.

Affordability is a rather different issue. It must be in the interests of those of us in this House and outside it to ensure that people who wish to protest can do so with the minimum of obstacles in their way in the lead-up to their protest. If any protestor has to go through a process that involves going as far as obtaining a licence in some instances—not in this one, I add—we will be putting obstacles in the way of those who wish to register, often in the only way they can, their distaste for what we are doing in this House.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the hon. Gentleman’s tolerance for protest extend to defending those who invaded this Chamber in support of a cause that he represented?

[Simon Hart]

I shall say only that I am surprised that it took so long for that point to be made. I prefaced my contribution by saying that I was going to discuss legitimate protest, so I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.

I want to discuss spontaneity. It is vital that we enable people who wish to do so to rise up in anger, frustration and exasperation and express their view loudly and lawfully in the minimum amount of time. If there was a problem with the previous legislation it was that the preparation time for protest was rather lengthy if people followed the measures sequentially. The Government’s proposals will ease that, which is why I am a big supporter, but it is right and proper to enable people who have read the papers one morning metaphorically to bang on the gates the next morning. If we prevent them from doing so we will fall into the trap to which most speakers have referred of setting one set of rules for our country while condemning those in other countries who adopt a different procedure on protests.

I have referred to the two occasions on which protests in which I was involved went wrong. The first took place in 2004, and there was a legitimate presence of angry protesters as well as of police to ensure the safety of the community. The protesters came that day with every intention of being peaceful, and the police policed the event with every intention of its remaining peaceful. However, Members who have taken part in a protest know that it is a potent and often high-temperature environment, and it does not take much to spark something that leads to a sequence of events which, in our case, led to 425 complaints from members of the public, about 60 people being treated in hospital for serious head injuries, a number of arrests, and an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission that lasted nearly a year, cost a fortune and regrettably resulted in a number of Metropolitan policemen being recommended for disciplinary action or worse. That was a thoroughly unsatisfactory conclusion to what should have been a perfectly legitimate protest.

We could debate the cause for hours, but I will suggest one particular reason why it ended up in that unsavoury position. Both parties were the victims of legal rigidity. In the case of the protesters, there was arguably not enough flexibility to enable nearly 20,000 people at one stage to engage in reasonable protest. From the police’s point of view, the confines or boundaries were set too tightly to enable them to adapt and adjust their policing as the protest unfolded over the day. When the IPCC report was eventually published, it focused on three things including, first, a complete breakdown of communications for technical reasons between the police and the protesters. That is not an issue for the Government—it is an issue for protesters and police in future—but the second and third reasons are important.

The IPCC confirmed without any doubt that the lack of loudspeaker equipment in the south-east corner of Parliament square led to an inability by the organisers and the police to communicate with a crowd that was contained and angry, which led to unfortunate downstream consequences. That happened because there was confusion about whether Westminster city council, I think, would allow us to have loudspeakers lest we contravene noise abatement conditions. In the circumstances, the police, in my humble opinion, should have had the operational ability to insist on having equipment on site that could have prevented that incident from arising in the first place.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point. During one of the Tamil demonstrations that I attended with a number of colleagues from the House, loudspeakers were not allowed for the demonstration. People needed to be moved, because there was a crush in one corner, and the police lent us loud hailers so that we could address the crowd. One could argue that that is breaking the law, but it was sensible and practical. We just need to be a bit more sensible, because there is a safety issue about being unable to communicate with a loud crowd.

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The point I am trying to make is that in such circumstances the police should not be encumbered in any way by having to refer to a local authority, some guidelines or a piece of statute. They should be able to make decisions that protect public safety and the interests of this building and of the demonstrators as an event unfolds. It was the inability to do that on the day in September 2004 that led directly to the unfortunate consequences I have described.

[Dr Huppert]

It is interesting to see the coalitions developing across the Chamber on shared interests.

The hon. Gentleman will presumably be pleased to see that clause 142(3)(a) states that for police purposes it is not an offence to proceed with such activity, which I think will allay his concerns. On a slightly broader point, has he seen the transcript of the discussions that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has had with the TUC and the Metropolitan police about the planning for the demonstration on 26 March, which looked at the use of loud hailers, other facilities and social media? Would he welcome that level of preparation for events so that problems can be planned for?

[Simon Hart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The short answer to his question is yes, notwithstanding my earlier comments about the need for spontaneity in—perhaps smaller—events. Steps are being taken in the right direction. However, having been personally responsible for a number of events between 2000 and 2004, I know that we were always led to believe that lessons had been learned from previous protests, but it became quite clear that they had not.

In more recent events in and around Parliament square, and indeed at the G20 demonstrations, it was quite obvious that some of the findings of the IPPC report, which were produced several years ago, had not been implemented, which was unfortunate. Perhaps there is some value, despite the views of one or two Opposition Members, to having this discussion and debate yet again, because it would perhaps lead us a little closer to a situation that is in the interests of protesters first and foremost and parliamentarians last and least.

The third point made in the IPCC’s findings was loosely described as relating to lines. I recall only too vividly being told at my meeting with the responsible commander on the morning of the demonstration in September 2004 that there was an invisible line—a line on his order paper—across which protestors could not pass under any circumstances. It was a ludicrous situation, as he admitted. We explained that it was ludicrous because there was no way to guarantee safely with 20,000 people that none of them would at any stage drift across that line for one reason or another. Flexibility was needed, but there was none. The result was that when protestors did drift across the line, officers fulfilled their orders, which was absolutely right, and started to make arrests, which led to a sudden and irreversible rise in the temperature. That contributed to the transition from an angry but peaceful protest to one that fell apart and resulted in serious injuries for a number of protestors and career-threatening implications for the officers concerned.

[John McDonnell]

That is an extremely valid point. When a particular line is used to demarcate a geographical area, often the protest spills out into another area and matters become confusing. On that basis, I believe that the legislation will simply lead to encampments elsewhere. It is almost a provocation for other encampments breaking out around the city. We should watch Trafalgar square in future; we will be back here in a few months’ time, with Members urging us to bring forward further legislation to deal with other areas of London.

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. He might be interested to learn that a week after the demonstration we held in September 2004 in Parliament square, the same angry army protested outside the Labour party conference in Brighton. It would be fair to say that the organisers—me—were getting quite nervous at that stage about what might happen in Brighton, but the lessons learned by Sussex police in those few short days in between the two protests were very evident when we got there, because they successfully achieved a flexible attitude to protestors, and as the temperature rose so they retreated, and vice versa.

The second point that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made, which I should address, and which the Metropolitan police acknowledged at the time and subsequently, is that although the law said one thing back in those days, which was, “You cannot march within a mile of the Palace of Westminster when Parliament is sitting,” its enforcement by the police would have been entirely foolhardy. They knew and made it very clear to us that, had they prevented legitimate and angry protestors coming to the gates of Parliament to make their point, the consequences might have been even worse.

I am encouraged by the fact that the Government are moving a significant, if not the whole, way towards a situation in which there is greater recognition of the arguments that I have set out—enabling, I hope, the police to exercise that operational flexibility which is so important, which was so lacking and which led so directly to very unfortunate injuries and consequences for a large number of people who were already angry and frustrated.

I endorse absolutely the comments made by pretty well every other speaker. We should not underestimate the anger and the frustration sometimes at the consequences of the decisions that we make in this House, or the helplessness felt by many people who perhaps reside a long way from here, who can play no part in the political process and for whom protest is the only way in which they can make their feelings loudly and clearly heard not just by us in here, but by the media and the wider public.

I support any measure that makes it easier for protestors to exercise that absolutely ancient and important right, and I am not persuaded by arguments, which I hope will be put not too seriously, that the tidiness of Parliament square for the royal wedding is somehow more important than the ability of people to protest. If in the next few weeks we make a decision that has profound consequences for very many people, and those very many people wish to make their feelings heard, why on earth should they not do so? If that happens to coincide with the royal wedding, I argue that their right to protest is far more important, and I am glad that the Government recognise that point and are enabling protest to take place legitimately.

[Mr MacShane]

I much appreciate the speech from the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart)—his apologia pro vita sua.

I am trying to find out who was responsible for the dramatic changes to Parliament in my short time here, including, for example, the security screen that we now have between us and the Public Gallery. That came about because somebody who felt passionately about the cause of Fathers 4 Justice also felt that he had the right to come in here and throw a pink powder over the Bench—actually, where the hon. Gentleman is sitting; it did not quite arrive on the Front Bench. As a result, we changed the security laws dramatically.

Then, people felt so passionately about fox hunting that an hon. Member allowed a protestor to infiltrate this very Chamber, and as a result we have much tougher security. In the name of protest, we thus have a denial of the right of British citizens to come freely and easily into this House of Commons. When I was first elected, not so long ago, I took an American intern to Central Lobby, where he watched people coming in. I told him, “Any citizen can come here and ask to see his Member of Parliament,” and he replied, “My God. You let your voters get that close?”

On Monday night, I hosted the Belarus Free Theatre with Mr Jude Law and Kevin Spacey, the two actors. It was a marvellous moment, except that our police—acting under orders; I do not blame them—kept out the men who had been booted out of Belarus by dictatorial policemen. They were not even allowed into our House of Commons in time, so we need to set in some context the importance of access to this Parliament for MPs and for citizens who want to exercise their parliamentary, political and constitutional right to talk to their MPs.