§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Mather.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)Before I call upon the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann), to raise the subject of the effect on the Mitcham carnival processions of the ban on marches in London, I should inform the House that Mr. Speaker has considered the application of the sub judice rule to this proposed debate in the light of current proceedings brought by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament questioning the validity of the ban.
Mr. Speaker has decided to exercise his discretion to allow the proposed debate so far as it concerns the effects of the ban upon processions such as the hon. Member has in mind. He trusts that neither the hon. Member nor the Minister will find it necessary to canvass the vires of the current prohibition in the course of their remarks.
§ Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann (Mitcham and Morden)I take note of what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I assure you and the House that I had already taken account of the fact that proceedings are before the courts. It is not my intention to raise the vires of the present order.
I wish to raise the general issue of the ban on marches and processions in London and in particular the prohibition on the Mitcham carnival procession on Saturday 16 May. I shall not attempt to deal with the wider issues of the Public Order Act 1936, which are dealt with in the Green Paper published last April and in the Home Affairs Select Committee report of last August. I shall deal only with the question whether the existing powers under section 3 of the Act are sufficient to enable an order to be made that would prohibit the National Front from marching through Brixton, which is desirable, but which would also permit wholly innocent events such as the Mitcham carnival from taking place.
The ban has produced ludicrous results. The Fulham carnival has been banned and the procession of the Bromley Brownies Queen of the May was endangered, although I am glad to say that it was eventually permitted on condition that the band did not play.
The Mitcham carnival is a traditional event involving 70 or more local charities, schools and youth groups who have been working on the floats for the procession for a considerable period. That procession is also caught by the ban, even though the local police have, so far as I am informed, no objection to it. This sort of event is important, and not only for the charitable fund-raising that it achieves. It is what holds a local community together. It gets people away from their television sets to work with their neighbours for a communal purpose. If the law provided no other way to prevent the danger of serious public disorder, which some of the marches contemplated by the ban might, I accept, cause, it would be imperative that we should have legislation. But I submit that it is by no means necessary to use a blanket order of this type to prevent the kind of march about which concern is felt.
Section 3 of the Act gives power to ban a particular class of procession in a police area or any part of it. Section 3(1) gives power to impose conditions if the procession is to take place. At worst, if it were thought necessary—and I do not think that it is—one could ban all marches or 742 processions for a political purpose. Of course, there would be problems for the police in identifying which processions were political and which were not. If there were any doubt a ban could be imposed and the organisers of the march could apply to the courts for an injunction to prohibit the application of the ban. Such applications can be heard very quickly.
Even a ban on political marches is too wide. If, for example, the march of the unemployed from Liverpool were prohibited from entering London the political and public order repercussions would be enormously greater than those arising from any peaceful march. ft is regrettable but true that there are people who would much prefer a confrontation to a march. They should not be given the opportunity of turning a procession into a pitched battle.
I hope that the Minister will be able to assure me—I specifically ask him to deal with this point—that the banning of the Bromley Brownies and the Mitcham carnival is not being looked upon as a convenient precedent for a ban on this summer's Notting Hill carnival. It would be foolish to pretend that there is no danger of trouble or riotous disorder in the closing hours of the carnival. I live in Notting Hill and, like most of the residents of the area—white and black—1 deplore the events that have often occurred at the end of the carnival and dread their annual recurrence. But banning the carnival—certainly banning the carnival procession-will do nothing to prevent that violence if that is what a minority intend.
There was no carnival in Bristol or in Brixton when the riots broke out there. If a carnival had been planned and had been prohibited vastly more people would have been involved, and I dread to think what might have happened. I hope, therefore, that the Minister can assure me that my anxieties on that score, at least, are groundless.
The present reality is a prohibition of all marches and processions in the Metropolitan Police area until 23 May. This is one of seven similar bans that have been imposed this year throughout the country. However, over the past 30 years no such universal bans have been imposed. In 1978 the present Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis imposed a two-months' ban on all marches
except those of a religious, educational, festive or ceremonial character customarily held within the Metropolitan Police District.At worst, such a ban could be substituted for the present blunderbuss order, which hits far more targets than it was ever intended to strike.I suggest to the Minister, to the Home Secretary and to Sir David McNee that everything that they wish to achieve could be done by an order that prohibited marches or processions that are likely to involve incitement to racial hatred, or the display of banners, flags or emblems in any procession that might have that effect. I submit to the Minister that he should advise Sir David McNee to recommend that such an order should be introduced tomorrow because the existing powers are sufficient to achieve the objectives that the authorities may have in mind.
I urge that the present order be amended in time for the Mitcham carnival procession to take place on Saturday. I have spoken briefly, because the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stevens) wishes to say a few words. Without encroaching on the Minister's time, I hope that he will be able to do so.
§ Mr. Martin Stevens (Fulham)I shall add a few remarks to those made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann). He was kind enough to refer to the Fulham carnival. Although it was due to be held on 4 May, it is—alas—a casualty of the order. I make no complaint to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State about the conduct of the Home Office. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was personally concerned to help. He devoted a great deal of his own time to examining the order to see whether a variation could be advanced that would permit the type of carnivals that play a useful and, traditional role to take place, whilst excluding those processions and marches that might put the Queen's peace at risk. My right hon. Friend also found time to talk to me about it.
Unfortunately, no such formula could be found. I do not wish to compete with the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden about the carnival and the number of floats and marching bands and the size of the schoolboy and schoolgirl contingent that has been rehearsing Fulham football club songs for weeks. Not only has a great deal of charitable money been lost; a great deal of hard work has been wasted. In addition, next year it will prove that much more difficult to persuade those whose work and effort was wasted this year to put their shoulders to the wheel and to maintain our tradition.
I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will reply to the two points that I shall make. The order specified that all marches were to be prohibited with the exception of religious marches and traditional marches on May Day. When I heard that I was not worried, because many people think that bank holiday Monday is May Day. For three years—almost since the introduction of the bank holiday—the Fulham carnival has been held on that day. Late on Tuesday night, the local chief superintendent of police notified us that the ban applied to us. It was only then that I got Scotland Yard to read out the exact words of the order. The order stated that May Day was to be interpreted as Friday 1 May. That had the ironical effect that Labour Party marches and Trade Union Congress marches were permitted. However admirable such events may be, no one can deny that they are political. However, like the Mitcham Brownies event, the Fulham carnival is a non-political occasion. Members of all parties work cheerfully together to make it a success. Nevertheless, it was banned.
I understand that the Home Secretary's discretion is limited to signing or not signing the order. It is up to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to frame the order and to submit any variations to the Home Secretary. Between now and the next emergency I hope that the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police will continue the talks that took place following my intervention. I hope that they will be more successful than they have been. The order is clearly not in the public interest.
Secondly, and more importantly, from my conversations with senior officers in the Metropolitan Police, it became clear that they were looking for an open and shut formula. They wanted one that left no loopholes and that relieved the local police of any discretion. I do not believe that in these difficult times and in a matter of this complexity the police can expect to be wholly freed from the use of their discretion.
744 For example, if the questions had been put—"Has this procession taken place before? Has it taken place on this particular day? Have there ever been the remotest political overtones to it? Has there ever been the remotest danger to the peace? Have the police ever had to be involved in maintaining order?"—the answer from the local chief superintendent in the case of the Fulham carnival would have been "No", and I do not believe that it would stretch his capacity to ask him to make that decision.
If, of course, the procession had never been held before, it would be much easier to say "I cannot give that assurance because we do not know the people running the event and it has not happened in the past." But in this case, and in the case of the Mitcham carnival, it has happened before.
Those are the two points that I wished to put to my hon. and learned Friend, and I am most grateful to him and to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden for permitting me to intrude between them—not as the meat in the sandwich, since to say that would be impolite and inaccurate—but at any rate to intrude between them in this interesting and important Adjournment debate.
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Patrick Mayhew)I am grateful to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Stevens) for the way in which they presented this matter to the House tonight. I wish to say at the outset that neither my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary nor the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has any wish to prevent people from enjoying themselves or to ban events that in themselves may pose no threat to public order, such as the carnival procession at Mitcham Common, which was to have taken place next Saturday, or the Fulham carnival to which my hon. Friend referred.
I do not for a moment doubt that, just as the Fulham carnival has never been a source of either trouble or disorder, the same may in all probability be said of the carnival at Mitcham. Both my right hon. Friend and I have the greatest sympathy with constituents who are affected by the ban that has had to be imposed and with the disappointment that they will feel. The fact that my right hon. Friend greatly dislikes the banning of processions is, I believe, well known. But the commissioner has a duty to try to prevent serious public disorder, and if we are to discuss the terms and effect of the present banning order it is important that we go back to the principle on which that order was based, namely, the prevention of serious public disorder being occasioned by the holding of public processions.
Under the Public Order Act 1936, which the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden has already cited, the commissioner may apply for the Home Secretary's consent to make a banning order only where he is of opinion that the other powers conferred on him by the Act will not be sufficient to enable him to prevent serious disorder from taking place. He has to take account of the total situation that may confront the police. There is no power to ban an individual event as such, although, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, bans may be made on a "class of procession". However, a narrow prohibition, attractive though it may seem to restrict its scope, may not alone be sufficient to achieve the primary aim of preventing serious disorder.
745 It follows, therefore, that careful consideration has to be given to framing the terms of an order. There is little point in imposing a ban if the organisers of an event likely to occasion serious disorder can nevertheless easily circumvent it by, for example, marching under the unmbrella, as it were, of another organisation, or marching for a professed purpose other than the purpose that has been banned. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the ban could be amended to refer to political processions or political purposes. The courts cannot in every case determine these issues in advance of the occasion.
Again, if the opponents of the organistion remain free themselves to hold a march, the confrontation that it is desired to prevent may take place in reverse. There are other ways in which a ban too narrowly drawn may be circumvented so as to occasion disorder. For example, a nearby venue may be substituted for the one prohibited under the order. I am sure that hon. Members can understand the problems that may arise.
On the other side of the line, to identify political marches as a prohibited class would give rise to equally great problems of definition and certainty. I understand that police officers may want certainty in the interpretation of an order and not have to make a difficult and perhaps politically controversial decision on definitions.
On the other hand, no one wants the effects of banning orders to be broader than the circumstances justify. It is a matter of judgment and balance, but, in the end, the terms of a banning order—if it is to achieve its object—must be governed by the circumstances with which the police are faced.
The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden asked about the prospects for the Notting Hill carnival. In considering the commissioner's request to make the current order, the Notting Hill carnival, which takes place in August, has not featured in my right hon. Friend's thinking. It has never been raised, let alone considered or discussed. It has simply not come up. The present order has no relevance to it. I hope that that disposes of any fears that there may have been that this intended to serve as a precedent for the Notting Hill carnival. It has no relevance to it whatever. I cannot deal more specifically or emphatically with that than I have done. I do not believe that it is possible to deal with it more emphatically.
§ Mr. Douglas-MannWhy has it been necessary to impose so many bans in 1981 and not for the previous 30 years? Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give an assurance that the bans imposed in the earlier part of the year will not be repeated?
§ Mr. MayhewI cannot give an assurance because I do not know what circumstances will arise in comparison with this year and previous years. The circumstances in recent months have not been the circumstances of recent years. In each case this difficult question has to depend on the circumstances that confront the police. In the present ban in London I know that the commissioner considered with great care the form that the banning order for the present ban in London should take. He was especially concerned about the difficulties that a ban might present for a large number of festive celebrations which take place at this time of year.
I assure the House that a decision to impose an order was not made without a good deal of careful thought and regret that it was necessary. That decision was not taken 746 lightly. Nevertheless, the commissioner reluctantly considered that an order in the present terms was necessary and my right hon. Friend with equal reluctance agreed to the order.
As hon. Gentlemen will know, the commissioner sought my right hon. Friend's consent to an order which enabled the traditional May Day marches to go ahead. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham for what he said about my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's concern to try to meet my hon. Friend's constituents' natural and proper desires. It did not prove possible to accommodate their wishes within the wording of the order. But my right hon. Friend is entitled to considerable credit for having gone out of his way to permit the marches that traditionally take place under Labour Party auspices on 1 May. He was anxious, as he made clear in the House a few days ago, that a Home Secretary should not appear to be seeking to stifle the political opinions of those who oppose the Government of which he is a member. But it proved to be impossible to frame that to accommodate those whose marches traditionally take place on or about 1 May. We shall take careful account of what has been said by my hon. Friend in considering any further applications that may be made. We understand how important such events are to many people—not only to members of the Labour Party but to many public-spirited organisers of charitable and other worthwhile events.
As my right hon. Friend made clear at Question Time, he considered it necessary to make that exemption. He was unhappy not to be able to go further but he believed that that was not possible. Even the narrow relaxation of the ban posed difficulties for the police. It is important that they are understood. Members of the National Front were advised to try to join the traditional TUC march and they duly attended. Fortunately the police were able to keep order, and the march passed without serious incident. However, no fewer than 3,000 police officers had to be deployed in the professional judgment of the commissioner. There were fears that the outcome would not be so peaceful.
Had the exemptions that are often made for festive and ceremonial events been included in the order—in which event the Mitcham and Fulham carnivals might have been able to take place—it was for consideration whether other marches, less innocuous in character and intent, might have gone ahead also, with grave risk of serious public disorder, especially in the light of the demands that they would have made on the manpower resources of the police.
The judgment necessary in deciding the scope of a banning order is difficult. It is a practical judgment. That is why the initiative for a ban rests with the police. Problems of principle are also involved and they must be considered. My right hon. Friend and the commissioner are aware of the scope for abusing their great powers and they are careful to be seen not to do so.
The Government are reviewing the Public Order Act 1936 and related legislation under which the orders are made. We are examining carefully the power to ban processions. The Home Affairs Committee has recently examined the subject and concluded, albeit reluctantly, that the present power to impose bans in general terms should be retained.
We realise that however strong the case for a fairly comprehensive banning order at present, it is little comfort 747 to those whose carnival procession cannot take place. However, other attractions appear at such events. They are free to go ahead as planned—but the procession is not. When local events are disrupted the police are ready to assist the organisers to find alternative ways of exhibiting the floats and would-be marchers. I hope that hon. Members will accept that we do not seek to pretend that the ban on marches has not presented the organisers of such events with difficulties. However, in present circumstances it seems right to try to prevent, as fully as possible, serious public disorder in the streets of London.
The need to impose a ban illustrates the harm done to innocent citizens by people who seek to abuse the privileges of our free society by creating or provoking disorder and violence in the streets for their own disreputable ends. My right hon. Friend must try to achieve a balance. He can never hope to satisfy everyone.
It would have been tempting to make the order much narrower in scope. That would have been more popular at first. However, if it had been exploited by troublemakers and events had gone badly wrong at some event, such as 748 the Mitcham or Fulham carnival, with injury to innocent people and damage to property, my right hon. Friend would rightly have been subjected to trenchant criticism.
My right hon. Friend has to achieve a balance between conflicting interests, each of great importance and value to society and individuals. He can never hope to satisfy everyone, as he is well aware. It would have been tempting to try to make such an order, but he knows that although one is never able to satisfy everyone, if he can demonstrate that he has sincerely attempted to strike the right balance he will be judged fairly by the people of this city. That is what he has sought to do.
We fully recognise the disappointment that the order has caused, but we are satisfied that the ban was and remains justified, both as to its scope and duration. However, we shall pay great attention to what has been said in this short debate. In the unhappy event of further circumstances arising in which it might be considered necessary to apply for a ban, I am sure that what has been said tonight in the two constructive and helpful speeches to which I am replying will be of great help to the commissioner and to my right hon. Friend.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Two o'clock.