Coronation: Policing

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the policing arrangements during the Coronation weekend.

My Lords, I refer to my policing interests in the register and beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper—which of course was submitted before the decision on yesterday’s UQ was made.

My Lords, the policing of the Coronation was a tremendous success. The event passed off without incident and tens of thousands of people were able to witness it, while hundreds who do not support a monarchy were able to express their views. I am grateful for the opportunity once again to pay tribute to the police, volunteers, staff, military and everybody else who was involved in delivering such a momentous day on behalf of the nation.

My Lords, I would want to be associated with precisely that tribute, as I think would all the Members who spoke yesterday in the UQ. I think the Minister said to us yesterday that some 600 people had been arrested under the Public Order Act.

Sixty-four.

The Minister corrects the figure. I am sure I listened, but it does not really matter. My point remains this: one of those who was arrested was a 59 year-old woman volunteering for Night Stars, which is run by Westminster City Council, providing slippers, vomit bags and rape alarms for vulnerable women coming out of nightclubs. She was arrested in the early hours of Saturday morning and held for 14 hours. I suggest that this sort of incident—I am not privy to the sort of intelligence that the Metropolitan Police may have had—suggests that we need to look at how the powers, which were highly criticised in this House, are used in practice. Will the Minister ask the Home Office to ask His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to look at all the cases of people arrested and charged under the new Public Order Act—not just at the Coronation but over the next few months—so that this can be reported publicly, we can see whether the actions were proportionate and appropriate and whether new guidance needs to be issued or the law itself needs to be tweaked?

There were a number of questions there and I will go into the detail. There were 64 arrests. Only six were under the new powers in the Public Order Act, all of which were under Section 2, which is about locking on. Regarding the specific case the noble Lord referred to, and in particular rape alarms, as I mentioned yesterday at the Dispatch Box, there was serious intelligence that was enough to disturb the military—it provoked a call between the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, the Home Secretary and the mayor quite late on Friday night—suggesting that rape alarms would be used in an effort to cause disruption to the procession. That may have included disturbing horses, which were on display in large numbers. I will not comment on the operational background to this particular arrest because I cannot, but obviously there are powers of redress and if a person thinks they were wrongfully arrested, they should absolutely use those. It will then be for the police to justify their reasonable suspicion and to prove that it was proportionate.

Will my noble friend the Minister pass on the congratulations of the majority of people in this House and the overwhelming majority of people in the country on a very well policed and very important occasion? I do not think anybody can doubt that it was well done. Can he also pass on the feeling that, while we all allow peaceful demonstrations, the idea that such an important occasion should have been disrupted by self-indulgent young people—or indeed middle-aged people—is outrageous? I think the majority of people in this country support that.

I agree with the thrust of my noble friend’s remarks, but of course it is important that people are aware of the powers the police have. I should have said yesterday, in answer to a question from the right reverend Prelate, that the College of Policing did issue guidance on the day of Royal Assent. The police chiefs’ lead on public safety also wrote to chief constables and the Police Powers Unit in the Met wrote to five particular organisations it felt might be affected by this. Also, as Sir Mark said, the police explained in advance that there would be low tolerance of disruption and zero tolerance of security and safety threats. No one can say they were not warned, but I agree with my noble friend that, overall, the whole event passed off magnificently.

My Lords, my question does not detract from the superb job the police did in managing what they had to do to make the Coronation work as it did. However, from the figures that the Minister has just given us and information we have received from the Metropolitan Police, there were some six of those arrests for which an apology was given. That is an apology rate—or an error rate—of between 10% and 12%. Does the Minister accept that that is an issue he would be concerned about? Does he also agree with the chief constable of Manchester that the powers in general given to the police force need to be re-examined because they are too broad?

My Lords, I do not agree that an apology was given for these arrests. The Metropolitan Police expressed regret that six people who were arrested were unable to join the protest—not that they were arrested but that they were unable to join the protest. This is what I agree with: “Most people say police need powers to deal with Just Stop Oil and some of their tactics. They do need powers to deal with that. Legislation needs to bed down. We need to let it bed in. We need to look at how it operates in practice”. That quote was from Sir Keir Starmer.

My Lords, I want to ask particularly about one arrest, because in the Public Order Act it was agreed that people covering protests—journalists, film-makers et cetera—were not going to be arrested. However, Rich Felgate, who was filming both the wonderful ceremony as well as the protest, was stopped by a policeman. He said:

“He stopped my filming, they handcuffed me behind my back”.

He started to say,

“‘the police are arresting a journalist’ and they proceeded to rip off my press pass lanyard, I presume because they didn’t want it to be visible that they were arresting a journalist”.

He was taken into police custody, held for 18 hours, interviewed and released under investigation. Could I have the Minister’s comment on this case and whether what was passed in the Public Order Act actually does stand?

I failed to answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on when this part of the Act will commence. I can give her a better answer today. It is on 2 July this year. However, I can also say that this gentleman was not arrested under the Public Order Act. He was arrested for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. I cannot go further in commenting on the specifics of the case.

My Lords, why did the Government not bring in the protection at the same time that they brought in the new powers?

I cannot answer that, I am afraid. I do not know.