The House of Commons voted to reject the Lords amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill this week, in a hotly debated late night vote.
MPs voted 288 to 238 in favour of reinstating a clause that would allow the police to close down peaceful protests deemed too noisy, and 298 votes to 236 in favour of a ban on protests outside Parliament.
MPs asked what was meant by ‘too noisy’? The policing minister Kit Malthouse MP did not address this but said the provision would be used for ‘rare and exceptional circumstances’.
Opposing the noise restriction, Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle said: ‘Democracy is noisy, that’s the point… the minister is a snowflake, and the Cabinet cry into their port at night because they can’t handle robust democracy.’
Some MPs drew comparisons with curbs on protests in Russia. Referring to the proposed curbs on noise, Conservative MP Jesse Norman said: ‘No case has been made, no serious case has been made, that this is a real and genuine problem.’ However, Steve Baker MP was the only Conservative to rebel, and the government won comfortably.
The amendments will now return to the Lords.
Human rights group Liberty responded, in a Tweet, the proposals reinserted by the government were ‘a clear attack on the fundamental right to protest’ and pledged to continue to fight the measures.
In January, the Lords rejected several amendments to the Bill, including the creation of offences of ‘locking on’, obstructing major transport works and interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure. These clauses, which were aimed at tactics used by climate protest group Extinction Rebellion, could not be resurrected by MPs because they were not included when the Bill went to the Lords and so would require a new Bill.
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