Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Part of the debate – in a Public Bill Committee at 12:00 pm on 20 January 2011.

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Shami Chakrabarti: That is really helpful. I need to be clearer. On the one hand, I am saying that of course people want to go and protest in Parliament square because of its significance and, therefore, we should be particularly slow to interfere with protesting in Parliament square. People want to influence all of you, and that is as it should be. On the other hand, I am also saying that generally speaking one law of the land that has general applicability—whether it is in Parliament square or another square—is probably a good idea. We need one public order framework that says, “What are the reasonable restrictions on peaceful protest and what are the proper justifications?” It can be obstruction or a risk to public safety. We should start with the justifications for interference rather than just say that we have not thought about why we want to get rid of these people, and that we are just being specific to Parliament square. You would basically be saying, “You will be prohibited here.” It is much better to have a law of general applicability with all sorts of reasonable restrictions that have been expressed. Get to the crux of the harm and then use that as a justification for restrictions in public order legislation rather than have special cases and special orders for this, that and the other geographical locations.