This week marked a milestone in the Government’s legislative programme as the Public Order Bill today finally passed the House of Lords and is set to become law.
While this government fully supports the right of individuals to engage in peaceful protest; recent protest activity by a minority of individuals using guerrilla tactics have caused misery to the hard-working public, disrupted businesses, interfered with emergency services, cost millions in taxpayers’ money, and put lives at risk.
Indeed, fuel supply has been a regular targeted by protesters tunnelling under oil terminals and cutting the brakes on tankers, and police officers have spent hours trying to unglue people’s body parts from some of the UK’s busiest and most dangerous motorways. This includes groups like Just Stop Oil, which alone has cost the police over £5.9 million in a matter of months.
It is no wonder, then, that my constituents have demanded urgent action to crackdown on these nuisances.
Through the Public Order Bill, the Government has legislated to equip the police to better manage and tackle dangerous and highly disruptive tactics, as well as prevent major transport projects and infrastructure from being targeted by protestors.
This follows the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PSCS) Act, having received Royal Assent at the end of the last parliamentary session, which introduced a number of measures to enable the police to better manage protests.
The new Public Order Bill introduces the new criminal offences of locking-on and going equipped to lock-on; making it illegal to obstruct major transport works such as HS2; creates a new criminal offence for interfering with key national infrastructure; extends stop and search powers for police to search for and seize articles related to protest-related activity; and introduces Serious Disruption Prevention Orders where a breach of the order would constitute a criminal offence.
These new measures are needed to bolster the police’s powers to respond more effectively to disruptive and dangerous protests. Protests such as these removes police from their regular duties tackling crime in local communities. The measures in the Public Order Bill will improve the police’s ability to manage such protests and take a proactive approach to prevent such disruption happening in the first place. This in turn will ensure that police can better balance the rights of protesters against the rights of others to go about their daily business and to focus their resources on keeping the public safe.
I am confident these new changes to public order law will put a stop to the relentless reoffending and significant disruption caused by a selfish minority of protesters which impinge on the rights of the British public to go about their daily lives in peace.
The following measures in the Public Order Bill will commence on 3rd May 2023. More information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-order-bill-overarching-documents/public-order-bill-factsheet