Protests realising “unsustainable pressure” on policing resources

Recent protests have placed severe pressures on police forces and their officers, particularly so in London. The size and frequency of protests over the conflict in Gaza have strained resources. Policing representatives told the Home Affairs Committee that the well-being of officers was being put at risk, with over 4,000 rest days cancelled in a three-month period alone in order to ensure protests could be policed on a safe basis.  

The cross-party Home Affairs Committee of MPs is calling for police forces to be given greater support and a comprehensive workforce plan put in place to identify and respond to demand on resources nationwide.

If protests continue to take place at this scale on a frequent footing, the Home Affairs Committee believes the Home Office should consider requiring protest organisers to give more notice such that police forces can better prepare.

The Home Affairs Committee is deeply concerned by the rise in hate crime as a result of continuing events in Israel and Gaza. However, the Hate Crime Action Plan expired in 2020 and has not yet been updated. At this point, Government-commissioned reports intended to inform and develop policy also remain unanswered. Urgent action needs to be taken in order to set out the Government’s strategy for dealing with hate crime.

In the context of the policing of the Israel-Gaza protests, as well as the policing of His Majesty The King’s Coronation protests, it’s the Hom Affairs Committee’s view that police forces have generally maintained the balance between the right to protest with the right of others to go about their lives without disruption, although individual incidents have inevitably tested that balance. It’s felt too early to assess whether new powers provided to the police in the Public Order Act 2023 to deal with disruptive protests are effective. The Home Affairs Committee is calling for post-legislative scrutiny to accurately assess their impact.

While the right to protest must be respected, no-one – including elected representatives, their families and their staff – should be made to feel unsafe by protest activity outside their home and no-one should be intimidated when they are coming and going from their place of work. In a democratic society, elected representatives must be able to do their job in accordance with conscience and free from intimidation.

Democratic process  

Dame Diana Johnson, chair of the Home Affairs Committee, said: “The hard-won right to protest is a vital part of our democratic process and must be protected. So must the right for everyone to feel safe on our streets, at their workplace or in their private home.”

Further, Dame Johnson observed: “It’s clear that the current demands on policing resource and the level of complexity in policing protests are unsustainable without proper reinforcement. It’s vital that the right framework is in place to ensure protests can continue without the burden on policing becoming intolerable and without regularly taking resources away from communities that have their own local crime-fighting challenges. Alongside laws that strike the right balance on the lawful parameters of protest, policing needs the strategic planning to cope with those demands placed upon it.”

In addition, Dame Johnson stated: “Going forward, we need to ensure that behaviours designed to intimidate and silence alternative opinions are not allowed to become commonplace under the guise of protest. That’s no matter if it’s 20 people or 20,000 involved. For the rule of law that underpins our free and democratic way of life to prevail, the principle of equality before the law must also be applied and be seen to be applied, whatever the size of any assembled gathering. Our laws on matters such as incitement of violence, hate crime and glorifying proscribed terrorist groups must be enforced without fear or favour.”

According to Dame Johnson, there’s a careful balance to be struck and the Government should look carefully at how recent new legislation on the policing of protests is operating in practice. “It;s deeply dispiriting to see the fight against hate crime stuck in Home Office limbo. Commissioning work is pointless if the findings and recommendations are not then fully embedded in the policy process.”

In conclusion, Dame Johnson asserted: “We need to see much more action from the Home Office, both in terms of how it reacts to the constructive advice it receives and also how it develops strategy. At a time when some communities in the UK feel highly vulnerable, and community cohesion is under some considerable strain, the hate crime strategy is several years out of date with little sign of action. That situation needs to change now.”

Key findings

In recent years, the increased scale and frequency of protests, and the evolution of disruptive tactics by protestors, has been a challenge for policing and served to heighten scrutiny of police service performance.

Police forces need appropriate powers to ensure this balance can continue to be maintained. Post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023 is needed to assess whether the new powers provided are effective.

Forces need the right strategies in place to fully enable them to tackle the acute demand that protests can cause and ensure there’s no knock-on impact in terms of their ability to respond to other policing priorities. The Home Affairs Committee is renewing its call made in the policing priorities report for the Government to set out a ten-year workforce plan for policing, replacing the current system of individual plans for each police force. This should cover office numbers and skills, as well as the strategy for addressing shortages.

The Home Affairs Committee is “deeply troubled” by the rise in hate crime since October last year. The Government has been “slow” in prioritising its response to this form of crime and has yet to respond to the reports it commissioned from the Commission for Countering Extremism.

This pattern of behaviour, where the Government “disregards and fails to act on” the findings and recommendations of expert advisors is “seriously concerning” for the Committee. The Government must set out when it intends to produce an updated strategy for tackling hate crime and provide its response to outstanding reports “as a matter of urgency”.