HL Deb 24 July 1986 vol 479 cc458-78

8.22 p.m.

House again in Committee.

[Amendment No. 31A not moved.]

Clause 11 [ance notice of public processions

Lord Silkin of Dulwich moved Amendment No. 32:

Page 6, line 40, after ("procession") insert ("in which not less than one hundred persons are expected to participate and which is")

The noble and learned Lord said: Clause 11 of the Bill provides a new procedure for notifying the police of an intention to hold a procession. What it does not do, and I have not been able to find this anywhere else, is tell the police or the public what, in fact, is a procession so far as numbers are concerned. The clause limits the requirement to certain types of procession, excluding for example funeral processions although not, perhaps oddly, wedding processions. But numbers are not provided. The effect is that the public will not know how many people are required in a procession to make it obligatory upon them to give this notice. So they will be in difficulty. On the other side, if the police are constantly plagued by people coming to them and saying that they are going to have a procession when it is only going to consist of a dozen people or thereabouts, the police will not find this provision very much to their liking. It seems desirable therefore that some limit should be set below which this obligation would not extend.

We, in our Amendment No. 32, have put it at 100 persons, which seems not unreasonable. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, in Amendment No. 32A, uses the same wording but makes it 50 persons. I hold no strong feeling as between 50 and 100. If the Government can show some good reason why it should be the lower number rather than the higher number, we shall think about it.

Another amendment about which, with the leave of the House, I should like to say a word, while moving Amendment No. 32, is Amendment No. 33. Clause 11 provides that, where notice is given to the police of an intention to hold a procession, they should be told the time of starting, the proposed route and other matters. If there is to be a number limit of the kind that we are discussing, it seems common sense that the police should also be told the anticipated number of people expected to take part in the procession. One may not know exactly. In many cases, one may have to make a guess. If someone goes to the police saying that it is intended to hold a procession and that 40 people are expected to take part, the police will be able to say that there is no need to give notice of it either under the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, or under mine. There must be an advantage to the police in knowing the approximate number that people have in mind. I beg to move.

Lord Denning

It is quite unnecessary to put in any numbers here. One may not know before a public procession how many are going to join it. Surely, the words "to hold a public procession" are quite good enough. Those holding a public procession may not know how many—50, 20 or whatever the figure—will be taking part. I should have thought it was unnecessary to put in the numbers.

Lord Elwyn-Jones

It gives me great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and once more to disagree with him. That seems to be our constant habit. It does neither of us great deal of harm. As regards the amendment, the requirement for notice at the moment is much too wide. There is no limitation. Any two persons gathered together in the name of whatever it may be might suffice. The aim of requiring notice—perhaps, here, the noble and learned Lord will agree with me—is to avoid serious disturbance and disruption. It should not extend wider than is necessary for that purpose. Apart from other matters, it would burden the police with yet more unnecessary paperwork.

What inspires this amendment is our view that notice should not be required where the number of demonstrators believed likely to attend is less than the number with which the police would find it difficult to cope. It would be most surprising if most police forces could not handle 100 or fewer persons without difficulty. That is the explanation of the proposed amendment moved by my noble and learned friend.

8.30 p.m.

Lord Hutchinson of Lullington

I have put down my name in support of the amendment. I should like to know from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, how he would view having to decide under this Bill what is in fact a public procession. The only assistance available from the definition section is one that takes place in a public place. That does not really take matters much further. If one looks up the definition in a dictionary, the first definition that I find is a body of persons going along in an orderly succession. Surely, there must be some limitation on what constitutes a public procession. There must be some limitation when the question of giving notice actually creates a criminal offence.

One cannot criminalise, I should have thought, totally harmless and innocent people who wish to share each other's company in order to celebrate some event or to show their identification with some small cause or other celebration of solidarity and togetherness. Quite apart from protests, these are surely part of the pleasure of ordinary social life. Are you going to ask a local cricket team walking through the village with their cup which they have just won, or ramblers opening a new section of a walk and congregating together, and walking together, to give notice to the police? Are you going to ask a group of handicapped people who have got together to raise some money for a local hospital—four or five or seven of them in their chairs—to give notice to the police if they are to walk through a small town or village?

In the Committee stage of another place the Minister accepted that the definition was inadequate and introduced an amendment, which is now Clause 11 (2), at the Committee stage in order to meet the criticisms which are similar to those now being voiced to this Committee. But there all that is covered are processions which are commonly or customarily held, and the funeral procession. If I may say so without being facetious, the fact that one has to put into an Act of Parliament dealing with public order an exception for a funeral director with a funeral procession, surely highlights the enormous breadth and the stupidity of the breadth of this definition.

An assembly in the following clause is defined as 20 or more people. Here we have in the procession no definition and no limitation at all. I would ask the Minister this. What, for instance, does one do about a sponsored walk which is so fashionable nowadays? What happens on a sponsored walk? Does a sponsored walk have to give notice to the police six days beforehand, and so on? There must surely be some limitation on this definition.

8.30 p.m.

Lord Monson

It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to speak at this point to Amendment No. 32A, which is an alternative to Amendment No. 32. It is fairly self-explanatory. It represents a compromise between the Government's position and the position of noble Lords who have moved Amendment No. 32, although it is not compromise for the sake of compromise; there are more practical reasons for suggesting a limit of 50. I tear that coping with a procession of as many as 100 people could indeed impose a strain upon police resources. A procession of no more than 50 or thereabouts is very much more manageable.

Many processions of 100, or in excess of 100, are more likely than not in practice to be political, and therefore inherently more likely to be potentially troublesome. The kind of procession which attracts 50 people fewer on the other hand will tend, by and large, to be the kind of non-political procession which aims to demonstrate, for example, against the absence of pedestrian crossings or speed limits in a town or village where a child has been run over by a car or lorry. In other words, those taking part are likely to be more mature both in age and behaviour and therefore less likely to get out of control than the kind of people who go on a purely political demonstration. One must bear in mind the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, that in the absence of any such amendment as has been discussed, a procession of as little as two people would be caught by this provision. I therefore hope that the Committee will regard my amendment as a reasonable compromise.

Lord Mishcon

I wonder whether I might intervene before the noble Lord the Minister replies only so that his reply can be complete.

I shall not repeat any of the points that have been so worthily made already. I am not talking now about the difficulties of a court, as was addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. I am talking in terms now of an adviser. With the clause standing as it is, I would not know how to advise any clients as to whether they were under a duty to give notice of a proposed procession. Let us consider a group who told me that they were eccentric people. They knew that their cause was a lost one, and that there were only five of them who were going to march down a little street saying that they wished the church to which they belonged was to take on a certain type of service as against the one that now existed. If they said, "There will be only five of us", I would have to tell them this. "This clause as it left Parliament is so vague, you had better be on the safe side. You had better give notice". This is absolutely absurd from the point of view of bureaucracy, of troubling the police, and troubling human beings.

I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, was in no way in a mocking mood, as he said, when he directed his attention to the funeral director. May I in the spirit of yesterday, and on a more joyous note, refer to a wedding procession and not a funeral procession. Clients have come to me and said, "We are having a very happy event, a wedding in our family. We shall get married in the local church. There will be a procession of cars but quite a few of us are walking together to the church. Could you please tell us whether we have any statutory duty in the way that this Public Order Act left Parliament?"

I must tell noble Lords that I would not have the vaguest idea whether I was giving correct advice if I said, "No, it is a wedding procession and you are walking down the road to the church and"—looking under Clause 1 l(l)(c)—"it is to mark or commemorate an event. There is no doubt about it. You are marking or commemorating an event. This is a wedding in your local village. I am extremely sorry but under Clause 11 of the Bill as it left Parliament it has left you in complete and absolute doubt." There must be some definition. If the Minister cannot accept the question on numbers, would he at least say that what we have to do at Report stage is to come forward with an amendment—it will be a Government amendment I hope—which covers all the matters which have been referred to in this short debate and to make sense of it instead of it being such vague nonsense as at the moment? It is in that spirit that I know the amendments have been moved. It is to get some real definition for citizens to know where they are, and for the police to know where they are, We cannot leave it as it is at present.

Lord Hylton

One can sympathise with the points that have been made about how one defines a procession. One can also sympathise with the intention of my noble friend and the noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench, in trying to have a de minimis provision to exclude very small events. But the weakness of the amendments as printed lies in the words "are expected". Let us imagine a situation of industrial dispute, or an area in which there has been racial harassment. Somebody may organise a procession intending it to be small but it snowballs, What was intended to be below 100 ends up as 1,000 or any number you like. That is where serious problems are likely to arise in special situations. I do not think therefore that the wording of the amendments is quite adequate.

Lord Glenarthur

The noble Lord who moved this amendment, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and his amendment, have explained their purpose. It is to remove the burden of giving advance notice from the organisers of small marches. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Silkin, would exempt marches with an expected attendance of less than 100 persons, and the noble Lord, Lord Monson, as he said, in the form of a compromise, would put the threshold at 50. I assume that in both cases the organisers themselves would be left to estimate the likely numbers involved and either give or not give notice accordingly, whether the march grew as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, suggested it might well do or whether it did not.

I have some sympathy with the general idea behind these amendments. The Government recognised in another place that it was certainly not necessary for the police to have advance notice of all processions. Therefore, Clause 11 was substantially recast in order to limit the kinds of processions for which advance notice was required. In this way we excluded processions such as school crocodiles or processions of tourists having the simple aim of getting from point A to point B. However, I am afraid that we cannot accept a further limitation based on numbers, both because that would exclude processions which the police ought to know about and because it would be impossible to operate such a provision in practice. I entirely accept that most small processions will cause little trouble for the police or for the local community, but this is sadly not true of all of them. I understand from the police that small marches are by no means unknown. The police have of course been consulted about numbers, and they are quite firm that they do not want to exclude small processions by means of a numbers threshold. To some extent I believe that takes care of the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Silkin.

So far as the description of a public procession is concerned, the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, gave one definition. I have to say that the definition which we believe to be the current and accepted one is that a public procession is a moving body of persons, moving along a route. I believe that this was given in the case of Flockhart v. Robertson in 1950 by Lord Chief Justice Goddard. I believe that that is the accepted definition.

The National Front can seldom muster more than a couple of hundred marchers these days. Indeed, a rally they recently held in Liverpool attracted only about 50 people. However, I am sure the House will be aware of the difficulties of the kind which such marches cause and of the need for the police to know about them in advance. The National Front have taken to concealing their plans from the police because of the risk of encountering a ban, and they could quite plausibly claim in relation to many of their marches that they did not reasonably expect more than 50 or a 100 persons to attend. That brings in just the sort of point that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has raised. Under the terms of these amendments, this could exempt them from the need to give notice; but it is vital that the police should know where the National Front are going to march. In the example I have just give there was a counter-demonstration of more than 400 persons.

I believe that sponsored walks are covered by the fact that individuals walking separately are not a procession under the definition I have given. If they walk as an organised body they will indeed be a procession, but a sponsored walk whose only purpose is fund-raising would not be required to give advance notice. Notice would only be required under Clause 11(l)(a), (b) or (c) if the walk was intended to publicise a campaign or cause of some kind. I do not in fact believe that in general any sponsored walk would be seeking to publicise in that way.

As for a wedding procession which is simply proceeding from the church to the reception, that is not caught by Clause 11. The wedding procession is only caught if the procession is itself celebratory and therefore falls within Clause 1 l(l)(c). So far as I can tell this is true, but similar considerations may apply to other small but difficult groupings. I referred to the National Front just now, but I will also mention the anarchist group Class War and the Stop the City campaign. The following of these groups may not be large, but they have a considerable capacity to cause trouble. The Stop the City campaign has in the past deliberately split into small groups in order to make life more difficult for the police. They think nothing of dividing into separate marches, each pretending to be less than 50 or 100 persons strong, but all converging on a single rallying point where they plan to cause some mischief. This would lead to the handling problems which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, thought the police would be able to handle but which clearly the police would find it extremely difficult to handle. Those groups are not co-operative and do not readily discuss their plans with the police. Hence it is vital that they give notice.

I realise that in the light of yesterday's events what I have just said about wedding processions may not fully cover all the matters of concern. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, is shaking his head, and clearly he believes that i am right to say that. I will certainly look at wedding processions, without any commitment, because I should like to examine precisely how they stand. I believe we can find a way forward on that point. I will examine it very closely; but I hope that in the light of the explanation I have given about the more serious aspects of those who split up into smaller bodies and they come together, and the possibility of counter-marches, the noble Lords will feel able to withdraw their amendment.

8.45 p.m.

Lord Hutchinson of Lullington

Before the Minister sits down, may I ask one question about a recent sponsored walk which received a great deal of publicity and which was undertaken by Mr. Ian Botham from John O'Groats to Land's End? If I remember rightly, that was specifically undertaken to publicise the cause of, and to raise money for, leukaemia patients. Are not many of these sponsored walks for just such a specific purpose?

Lord Glenarthur

They are certainly intended to attract attention; I have no doubt about that. However, I do not think that they necessarily fall within the close definition of Clause ll(l)(a), or indeed (b), if it can possibly be said that leukaemia is a cause or campaign. However, I understand the force of the noble Lord's argument and I will undertake to look at that problem and see whether or not we do in fact meet the point concerning those who wish to take part in sponsored walks and wedding processions. I hope that with that undertaking the noble Lords will see fit to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Monson

Could the Minister clarify one point? Assume that a small child has been knocked down by a lorry in a village where there is no pedestrian crossing or 30-mile an hour speed limit, and at very short notice angry parents decide spontaneously to assemble at the village post office and walk twenty yards to the main road, where they sit down across that road and hold up traffic for twenty minutes as a protest. How would they fare if there was no amendment along the lines that the other noble Lords and I have suggested?

Lord Glenarthur

I believe that is covered.

Lord Mishcon

It is covered in the third line on page 7.

Lord Glenarthur

The third line on page 7 covers the case where it is not practicable to give advance warning of the procession, and the noble Lord's particular case is covered.

Lord Silkin of Dulwich

The more I listen to the noble Lord the Minister the more I feel that this clause as it stands is full of holes and anomalies. The Minister has kindly said that he will think about wedding receptions, and I hope he will also think about sponsored walks and events of that kind which may fall within Clause 11(1)(b). Indeed, there must be other events analogous to those which will be caught by the provisions of the clause as it stands at the moment. If we do not have some form of limitation by numbers, what we are going to have, if we want a clause which is logical on the basis of excluding those who clearly ought not to be within it, is a whole series of exceptions. That would be nonsensical and contrary to what is intended.

I quite agree with the Minister that it is difficult to know where to draw a numerical line. I entirely agree that it happens that people genuinely believe that the procession will not be more than, say, 40 and then they find that others tack themselves on so it becomes more than 50 or more than 100. That is the kind of difficulty which cannot be avoided.

If there was a genuine intention that there should not be more than, say, 40 then under either of the amendments before the Committee there would be no obligation to notify and no breach of the criminal law if there were not notification. However, if a body like the National Front, knowing perfectly well that it was likely to get more than the 50 or 100 marchers, did not notify because it thought that in due course it could persuade the police or the prosecuting authorities that it really did not expect to have more than 40, and then a number of people tacked themselves on to the procession, I do not think that any court would be likely to accept that kind of excuse. Therefore, I believe that that difficulty has been very much overrated. I entirely accept the point which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, made on it and occasionally it might genuinely happen. That I accept. However, it seems to me that the balance of convenience is to accept that there will occasionally be anomalies of that kind rather than that there should be no limit at all.

My noble friend Lord Mishcon, is, as he said, in a position where he is quite unable to give proper advice—the more so as a result of what the Minister told us: that, certainly as regards the police, they do not want a numerical limit of any kind. If that is the position and if that is to be the approach of the police to non-notification, then my noble friend Lord Mishcon will have to tell his clients that, if they fall within paragraphs (a), (b) or (c) when commemorating some event or other, they will have to notify even if there are only four or five of them, because that is what the police think is necessary. Surely that is an absurdity and, therefore, I very much hope that the Minister will take the advice which my noble friend Lord Mishcon gave and come forward at Report with a sensible Government amendment which will cover all these points.

Lord Glenarthur

I accept the difficulties that have arisen on one or two issues. I am not quite sure that the difficulty about the National Front and the figure of 40, which the noble and learned Lord quoted just now, is really valid when one considers that the National Front and perhaps one or two other organisations, such as those which I quoted earlier, are capable of whipping up an enormous amount of opposition, and in so doing they are likely to promote disorder. That surely is another very important point when considering whether or not one ought to apply a number, because it can grow unexpectedly. It is very much the same as the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, except that the number is growing not with the crowd that is starting to march, but with these people who are in opposition to it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, referred to Mr. Botham's sponsored walk, which attracted an extraordinary variety of people and, from time to time, a pretty considerable crowd. It also provided a pretty serious obstruction to traffic, about which I believe the police should have known in advance, because it would seem perfectly reasonable to suppose that those who would otherwise find themselves in all sorts of difficulties might have been able to be helped if the police had been able to make proper plans. I do not think that just because advance notice is given that means that conditions will be imposed; it is merely that to make the knowledge gained available to those who have to try to steer traffic around the sort of processions which we are talking about—and traffic is only one aspect and no doubt there will be others as well—does not seem to me to be unreasonable. It is only a way of getting discussion going between the police and the organisers so that both can be served in the best possible way.

As I said, I shall of course study in particular the very valid point which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, raised about a procession. There may be more to it than this, especially when one is talking about the military being involved in the way in which they were yesterday. I am afraid that I do not know the answer to that, but I believe that there is a statute which deals with it. I shall study that, but, in the light of those two further expressions, I hope that the noble Lord may feel somewhat appeased.

Baroness Seear

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he will accept that it goes further than simply weddings and funerals. For example, quite a few Churches process on various occasions, particularly at Whitsun. There are also pilgrimages and processions of that kind, and groups of people who go in procession on Armistice Day. Do all these people have to inform the police that they are going to process? There are quite a few events of that kind going on.

Lord Glenarthur

Armistice Days are covered because, if the noble Baroness looks at subsection (2), she will see that it says: where the procession is one commonly or customarily held". That will cover Armistice Days. I accept that there may be other aspects which suddenly spring to mind. There are difficulties, and that is why I said earlier that I accepted that there was some force in the arguments. However, the difficulty is an apparent difficulty; it is a real difficulty; it is one which the police have to face day by day. We owe it to the police to provide them with the safeguards which they need in order to deal with these difficult processions, especially the ones that split up in the way in which I have described.

Lord Silkin of Dulwich

I am grateful to the Minister for promising to think about this again, even within the limits that he has indicated. I cannot help feeling that at the end of the day we may find that a numerical limit of some kind is the only practical solution. However, by all means let the Government think about other possibilities. We, for our part, will also think about the very real problem, and no doubt we shall return to it at the next stage.

Lord Mishcon

With the permission of the Committee, which I do not really need but which I think out of courtesy I ought to seek because I have jumped up again, in order that the discussion is complete and as all of us are trying to help and make a sensible clause and not, as I have said, make a sacrifice to bureaucracy and put burdens upon citizens and the police which are inapplicable, perhaps I may give another example that readily springs to mind. It is that of the Salvation Army, which, most likely, will hold its procession every Sunday but not necessarily in a particular area. It may come from another area, and the fact that it happens to be a different branch of the Salvation Army which does not customarily process by way of march in the particular area will bring it outside this exemption.

However, in order to complete the discussion of this matter, and only for that purpose, I want to read again to the Minister the words which he very properly quoted as being an answer to, for example, a Church procession, to which the noble Baroness referred. Let us look and see how very vague these words are: Subsection (1)"— which is the whole of what we are discussing— does not apply where the procession is one commonly or customarily held in the police area (or areas) in which it is proposed to be held". If the National Front annually, biennially or whatever holds a procession or march in an area, is it entitled to claim exemption from the provision which obliges it to give notice on the basis that it says that it has been doing this for the last five or six years before the Bill became an Act?—as they have been doing in Brick Lane, as I am reminded by my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones. This clause must be examined, as the noble Lord the Minister has been gracious enough to say, but I hope that the discussion that we have had this evening will help the Government to come forward with some suggestions to see that the vagueness of this clause and the all-embracing nature of it is relieved before the Bill leaves this House.

9 p.m.

Lord Glenarthur

Before the noble and learned Lord—finally, I rather hope—withdraws his amendment, may I answer the point about Salvation Army marches? Where a march by the army or a particular troop is a regular or customary event, then the exemption should be sufficient.

Lord Mishcon

No.

Lord Glenarthur

May I just finish before the noble Lord completes what he is going to say? A one-off procession called for a particular purpose would not, however, be covered. Clearly, there is a need to exempt common processions of whatever type, of which the police will already be aware. The exemption provision was drawn from a number of precedents in local Acts and from recent Scottish legislation which seem to have worked well in practice. The noble Lord is obviously not convinced, so I think I had better stand where I did earlier and agree to look at it in the same light.

Lord Silkin of Dulwich

It is my intention in not more than 30 seconds from now to ask leave to withdraw my amendment. Perhaps I may first say one word in support of what my noble friend Lord Mishcon said with regard to subsection (2). The provision there is that the exemption applies where the procession is one commonly or customarily held in the police area (or areas) in which it is proposed to be held". In other words, it need not even be over the same route again and again, provided it is within the same police area, or areas, which is a wide exception to the rule and one that could be taken full advantage of by, for example, the National Front. However, the point is well in the Minister's mind now and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Monson had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 32A: Page 6, line 40, after ("procession") insert ("in which not fewer than fifty persons are expected to participate and which is").

The noble Lord said: On the understanding that I reserve the right to return to this matter if the Government do not come forward with a satisfactory amendment of their own at the next stage of the Bill, I do not intend to move this amendment.

[Amendment No. 32A not moved. ]

[Amendment No. 33 not moved.]

Lord Teviot moved Amendment No. 34:

Page 7, line 18, at end insert— ("(c) the traffic commissioner in whose area the procession is to be held: and (d) the management of each registered bus operator who runs a local bus service on a route along which the procession is to be held.")

The noble Lord said: I am dealing with a very different amendment on this same clause. It is incumbent on me, before I start, to make a few paving remarks. It has been fascinating listening to the speeches on this clause. One has been having a lesson in either etymology or lexicography. In the recess and before we come to the next stage I shall look up "procession" and "demonstration". Sir James Murray, whom we must not forget, began the Oxford English Dictionary in 1878 and got to the letter "P" or the letter "T" in 1915—and it was not finished until 1928—and I think we must always refer to it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, was talking about sponsored walks, I think slightly with his tongue in his cheek, and I felt his glances in my direction, because I occasionally walk over that area referred to in the territorial part of his title. It is only a sort of pocket handkerchief, a mere few acres. I think he is probably one of a total population of 10 in Lullington, and that is absolutely excellent. But there are walks other than sponsored walks. Other people do it for pure escapism, and they are not sponsored and belong to the Long Distance Walkers Association.

Here, without going beyond the rules of the House, one must pay tribute to the very recently deceased Lord Crawshaw of Aintree who walked 255 miles in 76 hours, and I think must have been the world record holder for this. There are people who do this, and it is not inappropriate to pay tribute to the late noble Lord.

Having said that, I shall now refer to this amendment, which is very different. I have not even done the formalities. I beg to move Amendment No. 34. It is because the organisation of public demonstrations has become a growth industry that Part II is included in the Bill. It is because of the degree of disruption this causes to public transport that I ask for provision to minimise this disruption.

We are all conscious of the number of demonstrations in London, if only because of the frequency with which Parliament is besieged by mass lobbies, but that is only a small part of it. To give another example, which I know well, I shall refer to Brighton. Scarcely a week goes by without a procession or public assembly. Brighton is vulnerable to these processions because the main thoroughfare, Western Road and North Street, which runs parallel to the coast, is most frequently chosen by organisers of processions. Because it is a focal point, 90 per cent. of the local buses also use the route—60 an hour in each direction. Yet other buses have to cross these roads. The processions may be fun for those taking part and for passers-by, but they are frustrating for the people in the buses, who may be delayed for up to 20 minutes while the walking road blocks make their way through.

It is no exaggeraion to say that bus services are thrown into chaos on some occasions. However, when there is advance warning, some rerouting and alteration to bus services can be achieved to the general benefit of the public. Without warning, the bus operators can do nothing. Surely Brighton's 46 million-plus bus passengers are entitled to out consideration.

It is the same all over Britain, but the hope of free media coverage is a great spur to demonstrators to advertise their cause without cost to themselves and without regard to its value to the community as a whole. As I reminded your Lordships at Second Reading, there are in all 6,200 million bus passengers every year and they are particular sufferers from the activities of a minute fraction of this number who become involved in public processions—often just for the fun of it. As was stressed in the White Paper Review of Public Order Law (Cmnd. 9510), it is all a question of balance. Most people agree that the right to demonstrate is a safety valve and is not lightly to be taken away, but we have to find ways of reducing to minimum the inconvenience caused to the great majority.

Again at Second Reading one was at some pains to stress co-operation by the police with others affected by demonstrations. Even so—and it is not always the case—the sooner bus companies receive information regarding a procession on their bus routes, the more they can do to reduce the disruption caused to their passengers.

We take our buses for granted when they run to schedule—the same thing goes for trains—and either complain vociferously or with silent resignation if they do not. Few ever give a thought for the art of the scheduling clerks who make our complex city services possible. Like most things in life, the end product is taken for granted with scant consideration for the complexity lying behind its production. I would assure your Lordships that it is a considerable skill to prepare bus schedules, and this is actually underlined by the problems which occur when just one bit of the schedule goes wrong. When we have a demonstration a large part of the schedule goes wrong and our schedulers must do their best to cobble over the hole left in their network. Staff rotas—which, as the word implies, share the duties regularly between bus crews—have to be reworked; suitable alternative routes have to be established; and connections between different services have to be taken into consideration. The more time there is available to unravel and recreate the schedules, the better it will be for the travelling public.

It is for this reason that I ask that notice should be given at the earliest possible moment to the management of bus operators affected by a procession; otherwise we may face the problem of waiting bus queues themselves becoming riotous assemblies! Perhaps I exaggerate but I think the Committee will see the point in that remark. Undoubtedly there is advantage in early notification to affected bus operators and it is little to ask that, while notification is given to the police, the same notice should be given to the bus operator. I hope that the Committee will find it is a small requirement when weighed against the interests of 6,200 million people.

At the same time, it is appropriate that this notification should be given to the Traffic Commissioner in whose area the procession takes place. The Traffic Commissioner is the disciplinary body responsible for the proper operation of authorised bus services and many other matters. If there are complaints from members of the public that there has been unreliable operation of the buses, contrary to Section 111 of the Transport Act 1985, the commissioner should know if this has been due to circumstances wholly beyond the control of the operator and caused by a public procession.

I repeat that this is a small but important amendment, intended solely to benefit the greater part of the public and to help them to view with greater sympathy the emotional, but usually unproductive, action of the lesser part.

I seek the support of the Committee, and I beg to move this amendment.

Lord Glenarthur

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising a matter of understandable concern, not least to bus operators whose services can sometimes be severely disrupted by large demonstrations. I am afraid that the Government find considerable difficulty with my noble friend's amendment. We fully acknowledge the need for bus companies to be given advance warning of demonstrations which are likely to disrupt their services, but we do not believe it is necessary to require march organisers to give notices direct to the traffic commissioners or to bus companies to achieve that result. We are, as I think my noble friend will be aware, anxious to keep the advance notice requirement as simple as possible while nevertheless making it effective.

We believe that both these aims can be achieved by requiring an organiser to give notice to the police and relying on the police to contact any other services which are likely to be affected. This would not just be the bus companies, as I believe my noble friend recognises in his second amendment, Amendment No. 53, to which he will come in due course; it could be the local authority, the ambulance service, or the gas, electricity or water boards. To require the march organiser to contact each and every agency which might be affected really would be unduly onerous. But the police are the central agency involved and it is right that they should contact other agencies when the need arises.

My noble friend seems to suggest that on occasion bus companies may not have been given adequate warning, but he does not say whether the police themselves had more information. That is the important point. If necessary, we may need to include in the circular about this Bill a reminder to the police to contact the other services likely to be disrupted by a march—in particular the bus companies. I hope that my noble friend realises that we accept that we may need to do that and I hope he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Teviot

I shall be very brief, and I shall certainly withdraw my amendment. My noble friend says that if the police had warning of demonstrations, they would pass it on to others. If there were any infringement of that, I should certainly table another amendment. That was my noble friend's second point, to which I shall return. I thank him very much for explaining it. But underlying this point—which I think is going on to my next amendment—I may say that of course, it is all right to demonstrate; and I am sure that many of those who demonstrate have a great point to make. But I believe that they should be aware that others may be inconvenienced. For example, in travelling by public transport, when one has allowed oneself, say, an hour to get from one place to another or perhaps even half an hour, one can find that, totally without warning, the journey time stretches to perhaps two hours because one has to take a most circuitous route because of a demonstration. But I shall not delay the Committee any longer and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9.15 p.m.

Lord Airedale had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 35: Page 7, line 19, after ("delivered") insert ("to a police station").

The noble Lord said: Since putting down this amendment, I have had an exchange of letters with the Minister and I no longer need to move the amendment.

[Amendment No. 35 not moved.]

On Question, Whether Clause 11 shall stand part of the Bill?

Lord Gifford

I have held my peace during discussions on the amendment to this clause because I thought it neither proper nor practicable nor principled to tinker about with Clause 11. I find Clause 11, the requirement that a citizen is to give notice to the police if he or she wishes to exercise in a group the right of passing down the highway, to be absolutely repugnant. Unless there are compelling reasons why it is necessary, we should not allow it. I speak as someone who has been involved in organising a great number of marches and demonstrations, some of which, the noble Lord, Lord Teviot might like to know, achieve a lot of points and a lot of purpose. I recall once organising 15 in a week when the dictator of Portugal, Mr. Caetano, visited Britain. His visit was a fiasco; and nine months later he was booted out of office. I do not say that it was because of demonstrations but they certainly underlined the unpopularity of that regime.

There are two main kinds of processions which will be caught by this clause. The first kind is the large, well-organised procession which relies on attracting as many people as possible in order to make it a success. Those processions nearly always are organised in collaboration with the police, and even if they are not the police are in no way disadvantaged if they were not told about the procession because they are advertised in the newspapers and in the political press, which the police clearly study and will continue to study, in order to keep themselves informed on what is going on. I have not heard of any inconvenience caused to the maintenance by the police of order by the absence in the present law of any requirement for notice of that kind of well-planned demonstration which is organised weeks, and sometimes months, in advance.

The second kind of procession is one which is held at short notice in an impromptu way by a smaller gathering of people in order to make their protest or their point about something about which they feel concerned. Sometimes, the reason for such impromptu, short-notice processions will have occurred only very recently; for instance, if there is the death of a popular figure. I recall organising a procession to a foreign embassy after the assassination of the leader of a liberation movement when many people were very grieved and wanted to express that grief. Sometimes the reason for the procession will have been in existence for many weeks but the impetus to organise the procession will have emerged only shortly before it is to take place.

For instance, it may be known that a local authority is to debate a certain issue at a certain time or that a local employer is to make his workforce redundant. But it is only when people come together in a meeting that they decide that they want to make their protests by walking, either there and then or the next day or in three days' time, to the place where this is to take place—to the town hall or to the factory. Sometimes it is a political event. The bombing of Libya was followed about three days later, the next week-end, by a major procession down Oxford Street.

Let us see how the Bill impinges on those kinds of impromptu processions. First of all, the Bill says: Written notice shall be given … unless it is not reasonably practicable to give any advance notice of the procession". It will nearly always be practicable to give some advance notice even if a demonstration is to be organised, let us say, on the following day. It can be argued, and with force, that it is perfectly practicable to deliver the requisite notice to the police station in the evening of the day upon which the decision is made. Therefore, the occasions on which the requirement for notice can be completely dispensed with are going to be rare.

What form does this notice have to take? It has to be in writing. There is nothing in the Bill which allows the requirement to be dispensed with by, for instance, ringing up the police station. The telephone appears not to have been invented for the purposes of this clause. The notice has to be in writing and it has to stipulate, in accordance with subsection (3), a lot of details. It may be easy for someone who is advised by my noble friend Lord Mishcon to comply with that, but it is not people who are regularly advised by solicitors who want to organise demonstrations. On many occasions they will not know the law and, even if they do, they will not know its detail; and unless there is some overriding reason, why should they be told that they are committing a criminal offence unless they get it right as to the route of the procession, the time of the start, the name and address of the organiser, and so on?

If the provision for notice is not complied with and if no notice is received by the police and they observe, or are told about, a group of people processing down the street, what is then the situation? It is then for the police to decide whether in their view it has been reasonably practicable to give notice. Let us say they take the view, probably on inadequate evidence, that they could have been told about this and therefore it is an illegal procession. The organisers are therefore committing a criminal offence and all those who take part in it—provided they have some knowledge of the lack of notice—will be taken to be aiding and abetting that criminal offence.

The user of the highway, which normally is completely open to those who want to pass down it, will become an illegal user, and although there is no power of arrest for the actual criminal offence specified in the clause there is a power of arrest for obstructing the highway. Obstruction of the highway is caused by any illegal user of the highway, and the police will be within their rights to arrest all the people proceeding down that highway, at any rate if they express the intention of continuing with their march. Therefore the police are in the position of having to decide on those criteria whether or not effectively to ban or to stop a group of people walking down a street.

Do we really want to give that sort of power to the police—the power to judge whether, for instance, the procession in which I took part after the Libyan bombing ought to have been notified to the police because there were one or two days between the bombing and the procession in which that could have been done? I do not believe that we should thrust upon the police that discretion. The judgment that needs to be made is not one we would normally want the police to be making in the course of their important duties.

Of course, if everyone is arrested it is then for the magistrates to decide whether a criminal offence has been committed; and again the issue will have to be argued in a magistrates' court months after the event, by which time the opportunity to express the protest has gone, the impetus has been lost and important freedoms of the citizen will have been interfered with. Of course, if the group that wanted to organise this impromptu protest had decided instead to organise a static protest the group would not have to give notice at all under this Bill because the requirement only affects processions, even though static protests are capable of causing just as much, if not more, obstruction than a moving protest which moves down the highway.

Why is this? We look at the White Paper to find out, and in paragraph 5.4 of the White Paper we find the reasons why it has been thought not to be proper to impose this requirement upon static assemblies, pickets and the like. The Government said this: Discussion of an advance notice requirement has made it clear that it would produce much unnecessary work for the police to little purpose. There is no legal definition of a static demonstration: an assembly covers the whole range of public gatherings, from political rallies to religious services and pop festivals to football matches. The Government has considered possible definitions based on the nature of an assembly, or its likely size; but it has not proved possible to devise a definition which restricts the category to those events of interest to the police. An advance notice requirement would therefore inundate the police with notifications of perfectly peaceful meetings. The administrative burden would far outweigh the information gain. We therefore learn that this requirement is being imposed upon processions, not because there is some overriding necessity for the police to be informed in advance in order to make their dispositions, but because it happens to be in the Government's view not administratively inconvenient for the police to be told about processions, but it is administratively inconvenient to be told about meetings. This is an argument not of principle, but of expediency

I suggest that we regard infringements of basic rights of protest and of freedom to move down the highway as matters of principle. One therefore has then to see whether there is anything about a procession down the street, as opposed to static assembly, which makes it so much more necessary for the police to be informed in advance. I suggest to the Committee that there is not. There is no overriding reason. In fact, if a group of people is seen to be proceeding down the street in a disorderly manner, the police are likely to be told very quickly and to come on the scene. I have certainly organised marches to embassies on this sort of occasion. I have sometimes not bothered to tell the police, because there has not been very much time and there is always a police officer there anyway, because the word has got around. It is usually known that the issue is a serious one and one then liaises on the spot.

What then are the reasons for this clause? The Government will no doubt pray in aid the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, and I am sorry that he is not in his place tonight. It is true that in the Brixton Report he said that he was persuaded of the need to give notice, and because of the importance of that, which may well be relied on, I should like to quote some words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, on an earlier occasion when he reported on the Red Lion Square disorders. He said this of the requirement for notice: I do not think the need for it has been established and it does present really insuperable difficulty for the urgently called demonstration. Certainly, the lack of any such requirement played no part in the causation of these disorders, for the police had all the notice they needed. In the few instances where no notification is given, the police have so far experienced no difficulty in finding out that a demonstration is planned. An effective demonstration needs a degree of advance publicity. The police therefore are seldom ignorant of what is planned. I do not therefore recommend this change in the law. That is why one hoped that the noble and learned Lord would have been here, to see whether we could change his mind back again to the view that he had in 1978. A requirement of this kind comes perilously close to giving the police a power to licence the holding of processions down the highway when one couples this with the power given in the next clause to impose conditions, because that will immediately come into play when notice has been given.

The only point of any substance that has been made in the debate so far is that made by the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, about the kind of processions organised by the National Front. We must hesitate long before allowing the actions of an organisation like the National Front to be used as the pretext, or the excuse, for infringing basic liberties which have stood for many centuries to use the highway for public procession. It is, I suggest, a dangerous argument.

I am quite sure that the National Front and other organisations of that kind would wish to make a virtue of not giving notice of the sort of marches to which the noble Lord the Minister referred. They would wish to make a virtue of being accused of holding an illegal march. They will not be deterred by a £400 fine nor coerced in that way into giving notice to the police. Those organisations are exactly the kind of organisations that would defy a law such as this. Therefore this is a serious clause. I oppose it absolutely and that is why I have given notice of my intention to oppose the Motion, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

The Earl of Halsbury

One man's freedom for some particular action and its reconciliation from some other man's freedom from that particular action is what government is all about. A point of view which refuses to recognise that reconciliation is necessary is, I think, naive and superficial. That condemnation I would apply to the arguments deployed by the noble Lord, Lord Gifford. I shall vote that Clause 11 stand part of the Bill and I hope that noble Lords will do so too.

9.30 p.m.

Lord Glenarthur

What the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, failed to mention is that advance notice of processions is already required in some 92 local authority areas in Engalnd and Wales, by virtue of local Acts. I have not heard it suggested before that these existing provisions constitute some terrible infringement of civil liberties in the way the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, seems to feel that Clause 11 does. There is also a national advance notice requirement in Scotland, which I understand works well. So there is nothing unprecedented whatsoever about Clause 11. Where advance notice provisions already exist, they have none of the untoward side effects which the noble Lord seems to think would exist if Clause 11 were on the statute book.

The Home Affairs Committee of another place recommended that there should be a national advance notice requirement. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, in his report on the Brixton riots also recognised the need for such a provision and the majority of commentators on the Green Paper were in favour. So there is really a great deal of support for the proposal.

The arguments in favour of advance notice were well described by the Select Committee. It should help to encourage discussion between the police and organisers, to agree the ground rules well in advance and reduce the need for the police to exercise more formal powers. It would underline for the organisers their responsibilities for the safety and good behaviour of their supporters. Thirdly, as the Select Committee puts it: It is obvious that although the police may come to know of intended marches, additional expense and pressure on a public service might be reduced if a reasonable period of notice and full details as to expected numbers and the like were given. There is an element both absurd and slightly sinister in the police of a democratic country having to resort to chance and intelligence in order to obtain knowledge about matters touching upon their duties to minimise traffic disruption and to preserve the peace". The Government most certainly agree with that analysis. Of course the vast majority of responsible march organisers already discuss with the police their proposals, and they do so well in advance. Nothing in the Bill will discourage that in any way whatsoever. But there are some who deliberately avoid giving details of their proposed marches. I have already given the example of the National Front which has taken to concealing its plans from the police in order to avoid banning orders. I really do feel that it is a rather astounding suggestion of noble Lords that the National Front or anybody else might defy the law should this particular clause remain part of the Bill. That surely is a rather terrible thing to suggest that anybody should do. The law is the law and must be upheld wherever and whatever it is.

On Tameside some years ago the Troops Out Movement and the National Front both decided to hold marches. Troops Out refused to disclose to the police any information about the route or the time of its march. In the event, the march passed off peacefully, but the police had to deploy much larger numbers of policemen than they would have done with better information. In Staffordshire last year the March for Jobs caused similar problems. No notice was given to the police of the route for the march. In consequence, larger numbers of policemen had to be deployed in order to keep open a number of alternative routes.

No one is in any sense criticising the value that people attach to particular causes. That is not at issue. What is at issue is the fact that the police had to deploy large numbers of men because notice had not been given of what was intended to take place, where it was to take place, and in what detail. In neither case would the civil liberties of the organisers have been infringed by giving the police advance notice of their proposed route.

The police will not be in the position of giving permission for a march to be held. I thought from what the noble Lord said that he was under the impression that they would be. That is quite wrong. The elements of Clause 11 are qualified, as the noble Lord himself confessed when towards the end of his speech he referred to the conditions imposed by Clause 12 and the prohibition on public processions in Clause 13, both of which are amply described in the need to prevent serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of a community; or intimidation in the case of Clause 12.

If advance notice is not given in accordance with Clause 11, the organisers may be liable to prosecution. But the march itself cannot be stopped. Marches can only be banned under the special procedure in Clause 13, which I have briefly described. Nor is the failure to give advance notice a reason for imposing conditions. This can only happen if one of the four tests in Clause 12 is satisfied. So the advance notice requirement is not a serious infringement of civil liberties. It is no more than a useful regulatory measure designed to encourage discussions between organisers and the police, to their mutual benefit. I should have thought that would give practical effect to the need for balance which was described by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury.

I am surprised at the suggestion made by the noble Lord that the requirement does not recognise the need to provide an exception for marches arranged at short notice. I thought I had made clear earlier that Clause 11(1) provides for just that. If it is not reasonably practicable to give notice because a march is spontaneous, then none need be given. I do not know how short the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, is in arranging the marches which he has organised in the past, or whether he proposes to organise them more shortly in the future—that I cannot tell—but if a march is called at short notice then the organisers need only give such notice as they can reasonably manage in the time available. I cannot believe that it is beyond the wit of the noble Lord opposite to walk into a police station and fill in the form, or whatever, to say precisely what is proposed. Surely that is not too much to ask—and he would have complied with Clause 11.

We have done our best to minimise the impact of the requirement. There is no requirement to give advance notice for the organisers of processions which are commonly or customarily held, and I said earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that I would look at the particular question of weddings. Regular events such as May Day parades, and so on, will be exempt. We amended the clause in another place to enable the organisers to give advance notice by post rather than have to take it by hand to the police station. As I said, for the march organised at short notice the obligation is only to give such notice as is reasonably practicable.

In the light of all this I find it difficult to accept that Clause 11 is in any sense a serious infringement of civil liberty or represents any threat to peaceful and lawful marches. It is a useful regulatory measure designed to encourage early discussions between organisers and the police to the benefit of both. On that basis I hope that your Lordships will agree that Clause 11 should stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11 agreed to.

Viscount Davidson

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resume.

House resumed.