Name: The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill explained: how will it change protests?
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The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill explained: how will it change protests?

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For more facts and explanation behind the week’s biggest political stories,&nbsp;&nbsp;– straight to your inbox every Wednesday afternoon for free.MPs have , which caused a stir in Parliament in the wake of the .The Labour Party had originally planned to abstain on the legislation&nbsp;, arguing that some of its measures to give police powers to deal with protesters could be applied to similar vigils and peaceful events in the future, threatening the right to protest.Demonstrations have taken place across the country against the passing of the legislation.The&nbsp;&nbsp;turned into a riot, with&nbsp;police vans&nbsp;set alight&nbsp;and injuries&nbsp;sustained by some police officers.Home Secretary, Priti Patel, condemned&nbsp;the riot, describing it&nbsp;as&nbsp;"thuggery and disorder by a minority".Despite opposition on both sides of the House, the Bill passed by 359 votes to 263 on the evening of March 16.David Lammy, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said too little of the new legislation was focused on protecting women, calling it a "missed opportunity to tackle violence against women and girls that has become endemic in the UK".The Bill is 300 pages long, and contains dozens of new measures to increase sentences for child killers and other violent criminals, toughen penalties for attacks on police officers and change sexual offences legislation to tackle abusive adults in positions of trust.But the . If the legislation passes through readings in both Houses, police will be handed new powers to control the length of protests, impose maximum noise levels and prosecute activists for causing "serious annoyance"&nbsp;– a concept opponents argue has not been clearly defined.Mr Lammy called the limits on the power to protest "draconian", and warned that, if they had been in place during the 20th century, many successful progressive protests would never have happened.The anti-protest measures in the&nbsp;Bill have been designed to tackle&nbsp;, who ground London to a halt in the summer of 2019 by gluing themselves to Tube trains, towing large boats onto busy traffic junctions and lying in the road.Since then,&nbsp;Extinction Rebellion have&nbsp;, stopping papers including The Telegraph from reaching readers, defaced Government buildings and held marches and protests in cities around the world.Ministers say no one should have their lives "seriously disrupted" by protesters, and call Extinction Rebellion a nuisance group that police should crackdown on. But opponents of aspects of the Bill, including many on the Conservative benches, are worried that it restricts the right to free protest, which has also been reduced by measures in the Coronavirus Act that prevent large gatherings.Sir Charles Walker, a senior Tory backbencher, on March 15 pointed out that despite , it was MPs rather than police who had criminalised protesting during the pandemic in the first place. "We're up to our eyeballs in this," he said.Opposition MPs on March 15 told Boris Johnson that his measures would "make a dictator blush" and showed his Government's liking for "authoritarianism".After days of criticism from the Tory benches, the&nbsp;Government announced that&nbsp;, the same day it is legal to socialise outside in a group of six.The vote on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was significant for the Tories, because they built much of their manifesto around tough crime and justice legislation.Steve Baker, a libertarian Tory, told The Telegraph a full-scale rebellion was unlikely but that the clauses on "serious annoyance" had caused some grumbling from MPs who think they set a precedent for tougher policing of non-violent protests.Ultimately, he said, most supported the wider measures on sentencing, protecting the police and shortening the length of the conditional release of serious criminals.Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, said on March 15 that the murder of Sarah Everard had acted as a "catalyst" for debates on justice issues, while &nbsp;to vote against new police powers and some Conservative manifesto pledges on crime and justice."They're cynically exploiting events over the last few days to vote against loads of things that they never really supported anyway,"a Government source said. Laura Trott, a Tory MP, on March 16 accused Labour of "playing party politics on an issue which goes far beyond any point-scoring".For Sir Keir Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, the move to oppose the Bill altogether signalled a shift from his native position of being tough on crime. Labour's position was that if the Government is going to bring about wholesale change of the criminal justice system, it ought to use the political will created by Ms Everard's murder to put more protections for women in the Bill.Jess Phillips, Labour's shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, said the Bill's priorities as it currently stands signalled that "women matter less than cars, fly tipping and statues".It is possible that with the committee stage of the Bill and its passage through the House of Lords, extra amendments could still be tacked on to make protections for women a greater focus. But with Mr Johnson's majority in the Commons, a significant Tory rebellion would be needed for Labour to meaningfully change it.The debate over the contents of the Bill raged in the Commons for two days, but with the Government proposing a host of complex new measures in 300 pages of legal text, arguments were necessarily distilled down to issues that inspired the most passion.The Policing Bill was not a response to what happened to Ms Everard earlier this month, but the national mood around the abuse of women and the role of the police in protests has forced the Government into an inconvenient row about many of its manifesto pledges.The failings of the Metropolitan Police last weekend have made many MPs uneasy about handing them greater powers over protesters, even if that means the disruption of organised activism like that of Extinction Rebellion continues.Related TopicsThe Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our.You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. Find out more.Show commentsAdvertisementRelated TopicsWe rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.Thank you for your support.Need help?Visit ourpage.Close

For more facts and explanation behind the week’s biggest political stories,&nbsp;&nbsp;– straight to your inbox every Wednesday afternoon for free.MPs have , which caused a stir in Parliament in the wake of the .The Labour Party had originally planned to abstain on the legislation&nbsp;, arguing that some of its measures to give police powers to deal with protesters could be applied to similar vigils and peaceful events in the future, threatening the right to protest.Demonstrations have taken place across the country against the passing of the legislation.The&nbsp;&nbsp;turned into a riot,...

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Tony Diver

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The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill explained: how will it change protests?

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