§ Mr. Hastingsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he received a recent memorandum from the Associations of Chief Police Officers and Police Superintendents requesting the Government to give them powers to arrest anyone picketing if he was not directly involved in the dispute; and what action he has taken.
§ Mr. Merlyn ReesI refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) on 8 February. In their comments on the Government's consultative paper on the law of picketing, neither the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland nor the Police Superintendents' Association of England and Wales suggested that the police should be given powers to arrest persons, not involved in the dispute, who were engaging in peaceful picketing.—[Vol. 962, c. 260.]