MPs must follow the House of Lords and reject the “deeply
authoritarian” provisions of the Controversial Police, Crime,
Sentencing and Courts Bill when it returns to the Commons for
debate this week (Monday 28 February), Amnesty has said.
Last month, the Government suffered a series of defeats in the
House of Lords when peers voted against various measures in the
bill.
Tomorrow, the bill enters into a “ping pong” process when it
returns to the Commons for MPs to reconsider the Lords’
amendments, before then being returned to the Lords for their
further consideration.
More than 800,000 members of the public have signed a petition
calling for a major rethink of the measures, while thousands of
people have written to their MPs urging them to take a stand
against the bill since it was last in the Commons
(see https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/policing-bill-demand-action).
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s CEO, said:
“The extensive cross-party opposition from the Lords shows the
Government got it wrong on this one and MPs should reject the
deeply-authoritarian provisions of this Bill, which fly in the
face of the values and historic liberties of this country.
“The right to protest is fundamental to a free and fair society.
Protest is a cherished part of British history - from the
anti-slavery movement, to the suffragettes and recent anti-war
marches.
“The police simply do not need vast new powers to arrest ordinary
people exercising their right to protest.
“This bill will also further entrench racism and discrimination
in British policing.
“A huge expansion in stop-and-search powers is likely to have
hugely disproportionate impacts on Black people, who are already
much more likely to be stopped and searched, to be Tasered or
even to die in police custody.
“We hope to see MPs standing up for the basic rights and freedoms
of their constituents by rejecting this dangerous power
grab”.
