The government lowered the threshold for taking action against protesters despite opposition from the House of Lords, a Lords committee has said.
The regulations in question allow the police to intervene in a wider range of circumstances, including by reducing the threshold for “serious” disruption.
Other changes include allowing the police to consider the cumulative impact of repeated protests in the same area and incorporating the phrase “absolute disruption” to take account of whether there is disruption in an area regardless of the protest.
The regulations were initially rejected by the House of Lords in February when put forward as amendments to the Public Order Act 2023.
Secondary Legislation
Committee member Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd said the government’s approach raises a “constitutional issue.”He said: “The changes to the law proposed by the regulations were rejected by this House when they were debated during the passage of the Public Order Act 2023 just a few months ago.
“As far as we can ascertain, this is the first time a government has sought to make changes to the law by making those changes through secondary legislation even though those same changes had been rejected by Parliament when introduced a short while before in primary legislation.
“This raises a constitutional issue as to the appropriate use by government of secondary legislation, particularly as it arises in the context of an area of law which is important and attracts controversy.”
Lord Thomas added that a full public consultation should have been carried out before the proposals were brought forward, because “the policy would affect a wide range of people and might attract strongly felt views both for and against.”
Sir Chris Bryant, a Labour MP who chairs the Committee on Standards in the House of Commons, also criticised the government’s action.
Coronation Arrests
It comes after a public backlash around policing at the coronation of King Charles III on May 6, during which 64 people were arrested under the sweeping powers of the new Public Order Act, which was signed into law just a week before.Six demonstrators from anti-monarchy campaign group Republic were arrested, including the group’s Chief Executive Graham Smith.
Smith told the BBC that he was arrested while unloading placards on the suspicion of being equipped to “lock-on” to an object or building, a jailable offence under the Public Order Act.
He denied this was his intention and accused the Metropolitan Police of lying, adding, “The whole thing was a deliberate attempt to disrupt and diminish our protest.”
“They stopped us because the law was introduced, rushed in last week, to give them the powers to stop us on any flimsy pretext.”
Volunteers from Westminster City Council’s night safety team were also arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit public nuisance.
Among items seized from them by the Met were a number of rape alarms, the force said.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley later claimed the police’s actions were influenced by intelligence which suggested protesters planned to throw rape alarms at horses in the coronation procession.
