Dear Constituent,
Thank you for contacting me about the protests and public order.
Recent protest activity from a minority of individuals utilising guerrilla tactics has caused misery to the hard-working public, disrupted businesses, interfered with emergency services, cost millions in taxpayers’ money, and put lives at risk.
Indeed, 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 Government is therefore legislating to equip the police to better manage and tackle dangerous and highly disruptive tactics, as well as prevent major transport projects and infrastructure from being targeted by protestors. As you know this follows the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PSCS) Act, having received Royal Assent at the end of the last parliamentary session, which introduced a number of measures to enable the police to better manage protests.
The new Public Order Bill seeks to: introduce new criminal offences of locking-on and going equipped to lock-on; make it illegal to obstruct major transport works such as HS2; create a new criminal offence for interfering with key national infrastructure; extend stop and search powers for police to search for and seize articles related to protest-related activity; and introduce Serious Disruption Prevention Orders where a breach of the order would constitute a criminal offence.
As you mention in your email the Government also plans to introduce Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs), a new preventative court order targeting protesters who are determined to repeatedly inflict disruption on the public. This will allow courts to place prohibitions or requirements they consider necessary to prevent someone from causing serious disruption. These may include prohibiting an individual from being in a particular place, being with particular people, having particular articles in their possession, and using the internet to facilitate or encourage persons to commit a protest-related offence.
The court may also require a person subject to an SDPO to wear an electronic tag. Breach of an SDPO is a criminal offence carrying a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both.
I would like to reassure you though that the threshold for imposing an SDPO will be suitably high. At least two of the circumstances listed in the legislation must be met for the court to be able to issue an order. Furthermore, for all the circumstances given, the relevant period for consideration of convictions or behaviour will be five years prior to the day an SDPO is imposed.
I also note that the Government has also recently tabled an amendment to the Bill in the House of Lords providing greater clarity on the definition of 'serious disruption'. As such, the measures contained in the Bill will only be used to deal with specific incidences and protests that prevent people from being able to go about their daily lives.
I am confident these 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.
Thank you for getting in touch.
Sincerely,
