{"id":5632,"date":"2022-01-17T23:33:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T23:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5632"},"modified":"2022-02-01T21:38:32","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T21:38:32","slug":"police-bill-lords-defeat-some-measures-but-concerns-remain-over-a-number-of-provisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/5632","title":{"rendered":"Police Bill: Lords defeat some measures but concerns remain over a number of provisions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On 17 January 2022, the protest measures of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill were debated in the House of Lords. In a night of crushing defeats for the government, peers voted 14 times to block its proposals. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the provisions voted on were the\u00a0amendments inserted by the government at the 11th hour<\/a>, including new protest-specific stop-and-search powers, serious disruption prevention orders, and new criminal offences of \u2018locking on\u2019 and interference with key national infrastructure. Having been introduced at a late stage, peers were able to block these amendments from progressing any further through parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peers also successfully passed amendments to the original bill, including removing the new noise trigger for the power to impose conditions on protest and the power to impose restrictions on static assemblies. They also voted to\u00a0repeal the nearly 200-year-old Vagrancy Act<\/a>, which criminalises rough sleeping. If the government opposes these amendments, they will return to the Commons. These victories notwithstanding, the bill remains deeply concerning. Measures criminalising trespass \u2013 which would effectively extinguish\u00a0Gypsy and Traveller communities\u2019<\/a>\u00a0way of life, trap people in cycles of\u00a0eviction and criminalisation<\/a>, and\u00a0tear families apart<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 remain intact after an amendment to mitigate their worst effects failed by one vote. Serious violence reduction orders Earlier, on 10 January, peers debated serious violence reduction orders (SVROs), new civil orders that establish an individualised stop-and-search power, as well as reporting requirements and conditions, breach of which is a criminal offence. The Home Office\u00a0acknowledges<\/a>\u00a0that SVROs will disproportionately affect Black men. Violence against women and girls (VAWG) organisations have warned that the ability of SVROs to be imposed on people who \u2018ought to have known\u2019 that someone else involved in an offence would have a knife, will disproportionately affect\u00a0women experiencing domestic abuse and criminal exploitation<\/a>, and trap people in cycles of punishment and criminalisation. Campaigners have also warned that SVROs risk entrenching the\u00a0discredited doctrine of joint enterprise<\/a>, given that \u2018ought to have known\u2019 creates a lower threshold than \u2018foresight\u2019, which was considered in the Supreme Court case of\u00a0R v Jogee<\/em> [2016] UKSC 8<\/a>. Peers successfully passed amendments to the bill on 10 January to establish a more robust pilot for SVROs, and to require a parliamentary vote before they can be rolled out nationally. Serious violence dutyPeers have also debated the serious violence duty (13 December 2021), which is likely to drastically expand the racialised surveillance of marginalised communities by creating new powers on the police to demand information disclosure even when this may conflict with duties of confidentiality and data protection law, similar to practices in the Metropolitan Police\u2019s\u00a0gangs matrix<\/a>\u00a0that the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office found to be\u00a0unlawful<\/a>. Despite campaigning by\u00a0human rights, racial justice and data privacy groups<\/a>, alongside the\u00a0VAWG sector<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0front-line workers<\/a>, the duty has remained largely intact, although peers successfully fought to\u00a0exclude patients\u2019 medical data<\/a>\u00a0from the new data-sharing powers and obligations. The fight against the bill isn\u2019t over, but the government\u2019s defeats demonstrate what can be achieved through sustained and persistent collaboration and mobilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal Action Group LAG<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.lag.org.uk\/article\/212122\/police-bill–lords-defeat-some-measures-but-concerns-remain-over-a-number-of-provisions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 17 January 2022, the protest measures of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill were debated in the House of Lords. In a night of crushing defeats for the government, peers voted 14 times to block its proposals. Among … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,303,185,1061,48],"class_list":["post-5632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-bill","tag-killthebill","tag-law","tag-pcsc","tag-protest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5633,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632\/revisions\/5633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}