Road protests must be punished by law

The defeats inflicted on the Police Bill in the House of Lords were not so much a setback for the legislation as its complete evisceration. Into the early hours of Tuesday, peers voted 14 times against government measures or to insert their own. As a revising chamber, the Lords normally give way to the Commons after a back-and-forth process known as ping-pong. However, when the Government’s amendments are introduced at a late stage in the Lords and then blocked, that option does not apply.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, proposed a number of new offences designed to thwart the use of disruptive tactics to further a cause. In particular, she has her sights on the climate change activists who last year staged days of protests on the M25 and other roads, causing widespread delays and serious inconvenience for many.

Although existing laws against obstructing the highways had been thought adequate, a number of judicial decisions have made that less clear-cut. Moreover, the tactics used by the demonstrators, such as glueing themselves to the road or locking arms inside metal casings so they are difficult to remove, are making the job of the police to uphold what many imagine the law to be much more problematic.

A Supreme Court ruling known as the Ziegler judgment, which has been treated almost as carte blanche by the activists to do as they please, muddied the waters further. Clarity in the law, therefore, is necessary but needs a full debate. The Government should come forward with a specific protest Bill with proper scrutiny by MPs of the measures defeated in the Lords. The Government will have the public’s support for this. Their Lordships may think it acceptable for a small number of campaigners to stop hundreds of thousands of people going about their daily lives, but most of the country does not.

Section 137 of the 1980 Highways Act makes it an offence “if a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway”. It is pretty clear what Parliament intended with that and attaching some great moral purpose to the subject of a protest does not change the law of land. There are problems with the Bill that the Lords are entitled to address. But it is also the duty of peers and MPs to strike a proper balance between the rights of a small number of protesters and those of everyone else.