Vladimir Johnson steamrollers "Stop Steve Bray" law through Commons

 To be more precise, in the early hours of this morning, the Commons passed a government motion to reject Lords amendment no. 73 to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill by 50 votes, much less than the normal government majority. There was a sizeable revolt on the Conservative back-benches, but not enough to stop the measure to give police powers to stop "noisy" protests. It is good to see that my party will continue to fight against this anti-democratic measure and others which were also approved this morning.

The full debate is reported by Hansard here.

Both Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour) and Conservative Steve Baker name-checked our own Steve Bray as the sort of protester whom the government wished to silence, but who was the epitome of the UK's tradition of free speech. 

The government's excuse for the repressive legislation was a HMICFRS recommendation, but Sarah Jones for Labour countered:

The Minister quoted an HMICFRS report, but he misunderstood its conclusions. The report said that we need a

“modest reset of the scales”

because police forces are usually good at planning protests but the “balance may tip”. The report’s recommendations were not legislative; they were to update and improve guidance to senior police officers, to improve the way in which the police assess the impact of protests, to improve police intelligence and to improve debrief processes, all of which are very sensible.

The Government asked the HMICFRS to look at some legislative options, which it did, and it gave some qualified support to some of them, but at no point was noise any part of that conversation. I have spoken to many senior police officers and at no point have any of them asked for any changes to the law on noise. The Bill goes way beyond the right balance between the right to protest and the right for others, which we agree with, to go about their daily lives.

Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael drew a parallel closer to home:

the noisy protests in this Chamber every Wednesday between 12 and 12.30. We are okay, because we are protected by parliamentary privilege, but surely if Conservative Members want to end noisy protests, they should be prepared to practise what they preach.

Many members  pointed out the irony of our politicians condemning the heavy-handed treatment of Russian protesters against the war against Ukraine by Putin's police forces and the government's introduction of law which would bring England and Wales closer to that régime.

One "chink of light", as Layla Moran put it, in the government's amendments was the repeal of the Vagrancy Act. She was very generous in her speech in welcoming the contribution by Conservatives who came rather late to public support for the campaign which she started four years ago, supported by colleagues Wera Hobhouse,  Christine Jardine, former party leader Jo Swinson and Green MP Caroline Lucas.

There was a widespread call for this and the more progressive new measures to be introduced as soon as practical.