13 June 2016

Speaking in the Police and Crime Bill debate, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown calls for the removal of the need for prior written consent before a police officer can ask for a protestor to remove a face mask.

I wish to address new clause 23 and take the Minister on a very short metaphorical journey with me, although perhaps nowhere near as far as new clause 23 seeks to go. I am sorry if I am trying the patience of the Minister and the House, because the Minister has been exceptionally courteous today, as he has been to me on previous aspects of the Bill.

Let me explain the mischief of face coverings, with which the House is well acquainted. In my intervention on my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), I mentioned two events: the Conservative party conference in Manchester, and an incident in my constituency in which, during the badger cull, two people in masks parked outside a farmhouse several evenings in a row as it was getting dark, deliberately intending to intimidate. A similar thing happened at the Blackpool conference. I was there when people, women in particular, were intimidated by people in masks. If only the police had been able to ask those people to take off the masks, I think the intimidation would have stopped almost on the spot. I suspect that in those two incidents, the mere act of the constable on duty asking those people to take off the masks would have stopped the mischief there and then.

That is the journey on which I want to take my right hon. Friend the Minister. It is perhaps not the entirety of new clause 23, but let us simply look at section 60AA of the Public Order Act 1994, which requires a constable on duty to obtain prior written consent before a mask is taken off—[Interruption.] The Minister is going to intervene. May I just explain where I am coming from on this? Very often, a constable will get on the radio and obtain verbal consent, and the written consent is given afterwards. Technically, a crime is being committed because they have not got prior written consent.

Let us do away with the whole issue of written consent. We train our constables to a very high level, and we put a great deal of trust in them. Let us trust them in individual situations. If they think that face masks are a problem, we should give them the power to demand that the face masks be removed immediately. It may even be possible to do this by secondary legislation. ​Section 60AA—[Interruption.] Does my right hon. Friend the Minister want me to give way? If he does as I suggest, I think we will achieve what we want to achieve.

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Earlier intervention in the same debate

I am one of the co-signatories of my right hon. and learned Friend’s new clause. The problem with the situation at the moment is that the constable on duty may require a face covering to be removed but he does then require post-authorisation from a senior officer on duty. In the Blackpool case and in my own case on the badger culls, where someone was parked in a car late at night for several nights with masks on deliberately to intimidate the residents inside the nearest farmhouse, I am not sure whether the constables on duty knew whether they would or would not get that prior authorisation or post-authorisation, and my right hon. and learned Friend’s new clause will make this crystal clear if it becomes part of the Bill.
 
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support, and I hope our new clause will make it easier for the police to do what the public require them to do, which is arrest frightening people who are intent on doing criminal things.