Home Secretary stands firm on promise to tackle guerrilla protest tactics

• Home Secretary brings back measures to tackle highly disruptive protests that are causing misery for millions
• New Public Order Bill will make it a criminal offence to interfere with oil terminals or glue yourself to roads
• Serious Disruption Prevention Orders will be brought in to stop selfish minority of repeat offenders

Crucial new changes to public order law will put a stop to the relentless reoffending and significant disruption caused by a selfish minority of protesters, which impinge on the rights of the British public to go about their daily lives in peace.

Announced in the Queen’s Speech, the Home Secretary will today introduce a new Public Order Bill with a range of proposals to better protect the integrity of transport networks and fuel supply in England and Wales, making it a criminal offence to interfere with key national infrastructure.

Police will also be given the power to proactively stop and search people and seize items intended to cause serious disruption by ‘locking-on’ – for example gluing themselves to busy roads or complex bamboo structures. This tactic is dangerous and removing people safely is a significant drain on police resource.

Despite a rise in these dangerous and highly disruptive protests in recent years, which have stopped the hard-working majority from going about their days, getting to work and even hospital, the measures introduced today were previously blocked in the House of Lords.

Home Secretary, Priti Patel, said:

“What we have seen in recent years is a rise in criminal, disruptive and self-defeating guerrilla tactics, carried out by a selfish few in the name of protest.

“Not only do these anti-social protests cause untold delays and misery for the law-abiding public wanting to get on with their lives, it tears police away from communities where they are needed most to prevent serious violence and neighbourhood crime.

“This Bill backs the police to take proactive action and prevent such disruption happening in the first place. These measures stand up for the responsible majority and it is time that Parliament got behind them.”

Most recently, fuel supply has been disrupted by protesters tunnelling under oil terminals and cutting the brakes on tankers, and police officers have spent hours trying to unglue people’s body parts from some of the UK’s busiest and most dangerous motorways. This includes groups like Just Stop Oil, which alone has cost the police over £5.9 million in a matter of months.

The Public Order Bill will:

• Make it a criminal offence to:
• • Interfere with key national infrastructure – including rail, road and air networks, printing presses, oil and gas refineries and power stations.
  • ‘Lock on’ (e.g. gluing one’s self to roads or structures), or coming equipped with the intent to lock-on and cause serious disruption
  • Obstruct the construction of our major transport networks, such as HS2. 
• Give the police the power to stop and search:
• • Individuals where there is reasonable suspicion they may be carrying items they intend to use to cause serious disruption by locking-on and other public order offences.
  • Anyone within a tightly-defined area for items that could be used to commit locking-on and other public order offences.
• Give the courts the power to impose Serious Disruption Prevention Orders on those with protest related convictions or a history of causing serious disruptions at protests, to prevent them from continuing to commit such acts.
• Allow the leaders of the Metropolitan and City of London Police Forces to delegate the powers to set conditions on protests to senior officers in their forces, ensuring police resources for responding to disruptive protests in London can be managed more efficiently. 

The measures complement the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, recently passed into law, which will that mean from Thursday 12 May there is an increased penalty for wilfully obstructing a highway of a possible prison sentence of up six months and/or an unlimited fine.

The Act will also make public nuisance a statutory offence – ensuring that the penalties for both these crimes reflect the severity of such guerrilla tactics.

Deemed by police as one of the most challenging aspects of modern-day policing, the Government’s public order proposals have been drawn up based on policing feedback and will enable them to take more proactive action to prevent serious and dangerous disruption – and deter those determined to break the law.

Part of the reason today’s measures were not supported in the Lords was because the House of Commons did not have the chance to scrutinise them, which this new Bill allows for.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

• This week the Home Secretary visited the Metropolitan Police Service’s specialist training facility in Gravesend, where she heard from police officers as to why public order policing is one of the most challenging aspects of modern-day policing; and how officers have to balance the rights of everyone involved, both those wishing to protest and also local communities and businesses seeking to go about their lawful business unimpeded and without serious disruption. This summer there will be a number of events in the capital that give the police the opportunity, and challenge, to show the value they bring in maintaining the safety of Londoners and allowing people to celebrate, protest, and attend large events without fear of serious crime or disorder.

Costs to policing

• Extinction Rebellion protests in April and October 2019 cost the police £37 million.
• Insulate Britain protests between September and November 2021 cost the police in excess of £4 million.
• Just Stop Oil has so far cost the Police £5.9 million.
• Illegal protestor action against the Government’s high-speed rail project (HS2), undertaken by a small but committed cadre of protesters, has also increased costs to HS2 by approximately £122m.

Penalties

• The offence of interference with key national infrastructure will attract a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both.
• The offence of locking-on will carry a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both. The maximum penalty for the offence of going equipped to lock-on will be an unlimited fine.
• The offence of obstructing major transport works will attract a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both.
• The court may require a person subject to a SDPO to wear an electronic tag. Breach of a SDPO is a criminal offence carrying a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both.
• Early commencement of one of the new laws in the PCSC Act will means that from Thursday 12 May, it becomes a criminal offence to wilfully obstruct a highway. From the 12^th, there will be:
• • Increased penalties for committing the offence – any person who is found guilty from Thursday 12 May will be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine or both. (The current maximum penalty is a £1,000 fine and no custodial sentence). As a result of the higher penalties, those arrested for this offence may be held on remand until their appearance in court.
  • It does not matter if free passage along the highway has already been temporarily restricted or prohibited by protesters, the police, the traffic authorities, or otherwise. Therefore, if a highway is already obstructed by other protesters or the police have closed the highway to traffic for the safety of the protesters and somebody then joins the protest to contribute to the obstruction, the offence can still be committed.