BILL
EXPLANATORY NOTES
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 hardworking 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, , 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 antisocial 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:
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 6 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.
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