Slow-walk protest law heads for further Lords clash

The government is being accused of trying to by-pass Parliament and rewrite the laws on public protests by "sneaky" means.

MPs and peers are due to debate new regulations next week, which will give the police clearer powers to stop slow-walking protest marches blocking roads and bringing cities to a halt.

The changes are designed to provide a clearer definition of what "serious disruption to the life of communities" means, so the police would be better able to block or impose conditions on demonstrations thought likely to cause it.

The new definition would cover the cumulative impact of repeated protests and disruption and delays, with "community" defined as any citizens who might be affected.

Taken together these would provide a much clearer legal basis for imposing bans or restrictions.

Conservative peer Lord Jackson said the government was reacting to public concern about protests by groups like Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, and slow-walking tactics, which could "clog up whole city centres".

The government majority in the Commons should see the order voted through by MPs on Monday, but it must also be approved in the Lords, on Tuesday, and there is no government majority in that House, so it is at least technically possible that the regulations could be defeated.

There's also a looming row about the way the regulations have been introduced.

Peers defeated exactly the same policy, when the government attempted to add it to the Public Order Bill in the Lords, in February.

So many are now angry that a policy they rejected has been brought back as regulations, particularly because they are not allowed to propose changes, and, by convention, they never reject them.

Conservative former Cabinet minister Lord Hunt of Wirral said the government was seeking to bring the changes in, "in a way, through the back door", completely ignoring the decision the House of Lords had made in February.

He will be calling for assurances that ministers would not try the same thing again.

Meanwhile, the Green Party's Barones Jones has put down a "fatal motion" to block the regulations. This by convention is something peers virtually never do.

She said she had thought long and hard before putting her motion, but she said: "We threw this out and they're bringing it back in a sneaky way - and quite honestly it's breaking all the rules."

Lord Jackson retorts that the Lords would in danger of "legislative over-reach" if it believed it knew better than the elected Commons - their role was to revise legislation, not strike it down.

Labour stance

For the opposition parties to defeat the government in the Lords, they need Labour on board, and Baroness Jones hopes they will allow their peers at least a free vote.

But Labour shadow Home Office minister Lord Coaker says his party is not prepared to break the normal conventions of the Lords to defeat the changes.

"We certainly aren't going to vote to kill it. Our position is very clear. The government have brought it back in what we regard as an underhand way.

"We're going to vote against it in the Commons on Monday to lay out our position, but we're not going to fall into the elephant trap of the government using this to show us standing in the way of the democratic will of the elected government, or the elephant trap of them saying we're somehow in the pockets of Just Stop Oil."