23
Examination of witnesses
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes, Chief Constable Mark Hobrough, Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes and Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson.
Q1 Chair: Welcome to today’s meeting of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is the fourth of this Session and the 54th of this Parliament. For anyone who is new to our work, the clue to our mandate is in our committee’s name. We are a rare parliamentary committee comprising Members of both Houses of Parliament—six from the House of Commons and six from the House of Lords—drawn from different traditions and backgrounds. Our committee’s numerous reports are available on our website. I note that our report on transnational repression was referred to extensively in yesterday’s House of Lords debate on the National Security (State Threats) Bill, and our report on supply chain transparency and modern slavery was referred to by Members of the House of Commons during their Westminster Hall debate on 18 June. Transcripts for both of them are available on the Hansard site. There will be a full House of Lords debate on that report on Friday 4 September.
Meanwhile, we are nearing completion of other reports, on children in social care and their human rights, and on our inquiry into artificial intelligence and human rights. Today, though, we return to our inquiry entitled, security, safety and protest: the role of human rights. This second oral evidence session will examine how protest powers are applied in practice, focusing on how policing professionals interpret and implement the current legal framework when managing protest. It will explore how officers balance the duty to facilitate a peaceful assembly with the rights of others, including how key thresholds such as serious disruption are understood and applied on the ground.
The session will be framed by established human rights standards, in particular Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, on freedom of expression and assembly, alongside the rights of those affected by protest activity, including the right to respect for private life under Article 8. In doing so, the session will gather evidence on the operational impact of recent legislative changes, including the use of preventive powers, stop and search and protest-related offences. It will also explore whether the current legal frameworks provide sufficient clarity, consistency and safeguards to support proportionate policing and how factors such as training, guidance and resources shape decision-making in practice.
Before I introduce our illustrious panel, I remind Members of the committee, and the panel, about the sub judice rule. As Members will be aware, the sub judice resolutions of both Houses mean that live legal cases should not be discussed in parliamentary proceedings. I ask Members and witnesses to avoid referring to any live legal cases in our discussions today.
Let me tell you something about the illustrious police officers that we have with us. Clair Haynes is a chief superintendent at the Metropolitan Police. She is a senior policing leader within the Metropolitan Police Service, with more than 30 years of operational experience. A highly qualified gold public order and police safety commander, she has directed the strategic and operational delivery of numerous large-scale and high-risk public order operations across London’s most challenging environments. That includes leading the operational planning and delivery of the Notting Hill Carnival, the world’s second-largest street festival, necessitating the deployment of more than 7,000 officers each day. With a strong background in front-line policing, she brings a community-focused approach, balancing robust operational effectiveness with the principles of community-led policing to strengthen public trust and confidence. She works closely with local authorities, emergency services and national partners to ensure preparedness, enhance co-ordination and mitigate risk across major incidents. She also has a background in covert and firearms policing and is accredited as a gold, silver and bronze public order commander, as well as being a gold CBRN—chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear—commander and multi-agency incident commander. You are very welcome.
We also have Chief Constable Mark Hobrough, who is the lead for public order at the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Chief Constable Hobrough has more than 30 years’ service. He joined Gwent Police in 2020 and became assistant chief constable in January 2022. His background is especially relevant to public order, protest, firearms, counterterrorism and major incident command. He is a trained tactical firearms commander, hostage negotiator, specialist strategic firearms commander, gold public order commander and gold, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear commander. Chief Constable Hobrough has led or supported major policing operations, including high-profile events such as the Commonwealth Games in Australia in 2018, and was gold lead for Gwent Police’s Covid-19 response in 2020. He has led significant operational reform within Gwent Police, including in roads, policing and specialist operations; changes to uniformed policing; and the creation of new units such as an investigations hub, a file management unit and a virtual response team. Most relevantly, he leads several National Police Chiefs’ Council portfolios, including public order and public safety, which involves working with the Home Office and partners on the policing response to protest and disorder. He was the lead for Operation Leste in 2025, overseeing policing responses to immigration and asylum-related protests. You are very welcome.
We also have Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes, who is the lead for public order public safety tactics, training and equipment at the National Police Chiefs’ Council. She was appointed assistant chief constable for local policing and prevention in March 2025. She began her policing career as a special constable with Devon and Cornwall Police, where she spent the majority of her service before transferring to Avon and Somerset Police on promotion to chief superintendent, where she has had a wide range of operational and strategic roles. Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes has developed significant national experience through secondments. She works with His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, contributing to police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy, and, more recently, she led on command training for senior officers at the College of Policing. She is a highly experienced gold public order and public safety commander and a strategic firearms commander. She is also trained as a gold chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear commander, and a MAGIC commander—I am told that that acronym means multi-agency gold incident command. She has had the opportunity to work with a number of international policing partners, including in the British Overseas Territories, and has supported leadership developments and capacity-building initiatives across the Middle East, North America, the South Pacific and Australia. You are very welcome indeed.
We turn now to our assistant chief constable from Merseyside Police, who joins us online from the great city of Liverpool: Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson, the public order lead of Merseyside Police. She joined Merseyside Police in 2000 and was appointed assistant chief constable in February 2025, with responsibility for response and resolution, matrix and force operations. As part of the new operating model with effect from 29 March 2026, she is the assistant chief constable responsible for contact and crime management, matrix, force operations and criminal justice. Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson has enjoyed a varied career, starting in local policing and response before moving into investigations. She then became a qualified detective before gaining promotion to sergeant, moving back into uniformed roles within response and community engagement in St Helens. On being promoted to inspector, she performed the role of critical incident manager in Knowsley and local policing before attaining the rank of chief inspector operations support in Knowsley. She later worked with corporate support and development as part of the project team to deliver the force functional model, before taking up the role of superintendent criminal justice and superintendent Knowsley. Latterly, before promotion, she was responsible for criminal justice, local policing and prevention, and she was head of professional standards, anti-corruption and vetting. Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson has undertaken the executive leadership programme at the College of Policing and is a strategic firearms commander, gold public order public safety commander, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear gold commander.
Clearly, we are extremely privileged to have four policing professionals with such extraordinary experience come and give us the value of what you have seen, heard and experienced on the ground in your roles. I would like to ask a scene-setting question before turning to my colleague, Sir Desmond Swayne, who will ask the second question.
When dealing with public protests, what are the principal harms that police are concerned about and seeking to prevent? How do police determine where the balance should lie between tackling those harms and facilitating protest? What role would you say human rights play in that determination? Would you regard a protest that proceeded peacefully and safely but caused significant public disruption, for instance, as a successful policing outcome? What are the reasons for your answer? Who would like to start us off? We will go through each one of you in turn.
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: I will make a start by giving a strategic oversight, as the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on public order and public safety. We have seen very different challenges emerging in the arena of protest and in public order itself, for a variety of reasons, which I know everyone will be aware of. It has become more dynamic, more fast-paced, less centralised and something which we are having to adapt to very quickly.
The oversight that I have definitely fed through to all commanders across the whole of the UK is that it is really important for us to keep that fundamental right and great British principle to legitimately protest over things in the right arena, but, with the changes that have come in and some of the things that we have seen in recent times, it is about keeping a balance between the rights to protest and the rights of people to go about their lawful daily business. Operating in that arena is becoming somewhat more challenging and subjective in relation to people’s viewpoints.
We very much welcome some of the changes that have been put in place through the Crime and Policing Act, and some of the proposals, but even they do not resolve some of the issues that we have. It is really important that we as police chiefs, gold commanders and commanders right across the public order arena operate in a way that is really considered, that tries to have a bearing of consideration for all parties and that is consistent. That is challenging because what is acceptable in one part of the country can be less acceptable in another due to capability and capacity issues.
Getting that right is really difficult. We are working in an arena where we are unable to get wholehearted agreement from all parties on whether taking action, not taking action or taking retrospective action is the right thing to do. It is an increasingly difficult scenario to work in. For me, it is about the command and communication being as consistent as possible and trying to operate in that way, but perhaps Clair will want to add an operational context to that, from what the Met is seeing at the moment.
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: On capability and capacity, London, as the capital city, probably experiences more protests than most of our colleagues and forces around the country. There is an expectation that there will be an element of disruption in London. Whether that is right or wrong, our communities are used to that. The context we have been operating in over the past few years is unprecedented in the size and scale of some of the protests that we are now seeing. In September last year, we saw a right-wing protest that reached in excess of 150,000 people in London. Despite the best efforts of policing and legislation, an element of disruption will always come with that size and scale of protest.
As colleagues have explained already, we have to look at and manage carefully the balance of the right to protest versus the right to go about your lawful business. That is why we use conditions to restrict some of those protests to try to minimise the disruption. It is why we work with our partners, local authorities and transport networks to try to understand the impact on them and then use the legislation in front of us to try to minimise that impact.
The protest that I mentioned in September is only a small part of what has been happening over the past few months and years. As you will have undoubtedly seen, we have had a number of national call-outs from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. We have had 34 large-scale marches in London since 2023, and that is only one theme of what we are dealing with in London as the capital city. I do not know how you feel, Claire, from the perspective of a slightly smaller force.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: I will probably wear two hats today, Lord Alton. You will hear from the largest force in the country and the second-smallest force in the country, Warwickshire, which I represent. In my role as the national lead for training, tactics and equipment in public order and public safety, we are starting to see some benefits of the legislation. I do not think it necessarily makes things more complicated for policing. It gives well-trained accredited commanders a far broader range of considerations and matters that they will need to carefully work through with their partners and communities. What we experience here in the capital will be very different compared with much smaller county forces.
Chair: Thank you, that is very helpful. Let us now go to Assistant Chief Constable Wilson to hear a view from Merseyside. Then, as we go into more granular detail, perhaps we can return to the subclause of my question, about what constitutes a good, peaceful outcome as far as the police are concerned.
Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson: Thank you Lord Alton. Colleagues have already alluded to our positive and negative duties and the balance that absolutely needs to be struck. For me, while there is lots of legislation, which Claire has just alluded to, that gives commanders a real choice and set of considerations. I would not want anybody listening to today’s proceedings to be mistaken or misled, in the sense that we do not ever use those powers light-heartedly. They are given careful consideration, and our commanders are trained and accredited to adopt a structured approach.
It very much centres, particularly here on Merseyside, around engagement with event organisers. That is also one of the challenges, because certain bits of the legislation require an individual to take responsibility for being the organiser, and that is not always the case. That engagement is paramount. Certainly here on Merseyside, we successfully engage with event organisers to have those conversations so that we can consider how we respect the right to protest but also absolutely maintain focus on upholding the rights of others to go about their lawful daily business. It is a very careful and fine balance.
Chair: We have a supplementary question before we turn to Sir Desmond Swayne. Dr Peter Swallow would like to pick up the point that has just been made.
Q2 Peter Swallow: Assistant Chief Constable, you mentioned that it can sometimes be really unhelpful when members of the public are not aware of what the rules are, which can sometimes create tensions. I happened to spot on social media last night a video of a person talking about it now being illegal in the UK to have a flag on you, for example. How are you finding some of the misinformation and disinformation out there on social media and elsewhere about what the actual rules are on protests? How is that affecting your ability to have those conversations with organisers in a responsible way?
Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson: Thank you for the question. Sometimes, through police liaison teams, we will have a particular point of contact within a group, but as soon as you start to ask specific questions about whether they are the organiser, quite often, because of their understanding of the responsibilities within legislation, they will say, “I am not the formal organiser. I am just engaging with you on behalf of a broader group”. There are two distinct challenges, one of which is knowing who the organiser of an event is, which can be really challenging to pin down.
On your second point about the management of social media, misinformation, disinformation and malinformation, it is absolutely critical for policing to get ahead of those challenges and make sure that the communications are really effective. That goes back to understanding your local communities, having built relationships with key networks. We do that really well here on Merseyside. We often hold stakeholder briefings and meetings online where we communicate key messages to members of the community for wider dissemination. We also use other methods, such as different social media platforms, to highlight our key messages and make sure that we are myth-busting or challenging any myths and disinformation that may exist. We have used that to good effect in the past, but the speed of social media and how that information can gather traction remains a challenge for the police in the UK.
Chair: Thank you. I guess that colleagues will want to return to that question, regarding the training of police officers. I know that my colleague Baroness Hamwee wants to ask about that in due course, and some of your colleagues on the panel will be able to add to what you have just told us. I now go to Sir Desmond Swayne, Member of Parliament, before we turn to Baroness Hamwee.
Q3 Sir Desmond Swayne: How confident are you that the threshold of serious disruption is consistently interpreted across forces? Are legislative attempts to define it welcome, or do they merely constrain operational decisions?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: It might be best to start with training, Claire, and what you have been engaged with at the College of Policing.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: Thank you for the question. We do not have colleagues here today from the College of Policing, but it is important to recognise that training, guidance and legislative updates are all owned and designed by the College of Policing, and we work really closely with it to make sure that they are accurate, up to date and cascaded throughout the country. We have a really strong cadre across the country of gold, silver and bronze commanders, who are required to carry out mandated CPD training and maintain an annual accreditation. We do that by learning from examples across the country, paying close attention to things that are happening in the capital and elsewhere, seeking feedback, working with partners and building that into our learning.
One of the challenges that we face is that more legislation does not necessarily mean that we need to use it. If we were in a position where our commanders might need to put some restrictions on an event or a protest, we would still need to have adequate resource to be able to police that effectively and keep people safe. Commanders will always be guided by the community impact, the intelligence, the threat, the risk and the harm, and that will vary across the whole of the country. It is vital that commanders use the frameworks they are trained to use and are cognisant of the legislation. They might not get to the same decision, but, given the disparity across the country in the size and resources of forces, that might not always be a negative outcome.
It is important that they use the framework that underpins the legislation and their training and guidance.
Chair: Does any of your colleagues want to chip in on that?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: Thank you, Claire. In relation to your question, Sir Desmond, on the operational context and the confidence aspect, I would add that there is definitely a discrepancy in certain areas in how things are used, because of the context and of the capability, capacity and resource levels in forces. The figures that we use to measure the use of things under the Act record incidents only where restrictions were put in place. What is not being collated at the moment is the number of protests at which restrictions were not put in place or were considered but not used. At the moment, the record does not show the full range of considerations that a commander has when they are faced with a set of scenarios.
Chair: Is that the situation in London, too, Superintendent Haynes?
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: Very much so. When we consider the cumulative impact of disruption—what it looks like and how it feels—we do a continual assessment of what that means for London and our communities. As has been described by colleagues on the panel, the fact that the legislation exists does not necessarily mean that we invoke it, but we constantly assess what we see in front of us, using all the available intelligence and looking at the threat, harm and risk of what is occurring. We make those decisions using the framework that underpins all our decisions across every protest that we manage.
Chair: Thank you. Let us go to Baroness Hamwee, after whom we will hear from Lord Sewell.
Q4 Baroness Hamwee: To continue on the theme of training, Chief Constable Hobrough, you used the terms fast-paced and dynamic. As well as applying that to actual protests, you might apply it to the legislation, which has felt, from this end, to be quite fast-paced. We have passed new specific powers and there are new offences—they come in almost every policing Bill—so I want to understand a bit more about the training that officers receive. I take the point about gold, silver and bronze commanders being accredited, but how does that work on the ground? What training do other, lower-ranked officers have on the law, and on guidance? They are not quite the same. How is it all kept up to date and how do you satisfy yourselves that it is effective?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: I will allow Claire to add to what I am about to say, but what I read from that is that you are talking about non-specialised public order officers—the standard officers who are entering the organisation.
Baroness Hamwee: Yes, the people who are seen by the public and who may be drafted in from other forces, particularly in London.
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: Forgive me if you know all these details already—
Baroness Hamwee: It is all right; get it in as evidence.
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: There are different levels in relation to PSU training. The officers deployed to conduct what I will call everyday public order duties—serials who go on mobilised duties across the country—are trained to criteria in line with the APP, and they are level 2 officers.
Baroness Hamwee: APP means authorised professional practice.
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: Yes, sorry. Then you have a higher level of training for level 1 officers. But many of the standardised officers that you are talking about, probably the rank and file across the whole of the organisation, are trained up to level 3, which is a basic level of dealing with elements of disorder, but not escalation as we might picture it, with the full kit. That forms part of every force’s basic training of their officers, and it is revisited on a regular basis. Claire will know the detail on the annual accreditation and things like that.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: Thank you. You are absolutely right, Baroness Hamwee: the training and guidance are ever evolving, as is policing, and at times it is very difficult to keep up. However, recently we ran a series of knowledge-sharing events, which are national events for anybody in policing, led by the College of Policing. They are uploaded on to a secure knowledge hub that can be accessed 24/7 by anybody who wishes to view them.
The accreditation period for commanders is mandated between about December and April each year, and we are able to feature common themes. It is perhaps not unexpected that this year there is a heavy emphasis on the new legislation.
One of the challenges that we face is around consistency, which you have alluded to. The College of Policing plays a role in carrying out regular moderation visits of the licensed training centres across the country that deliver training to the officers you will see on protests and events day in, day out, across the country. The purpose of those visits is to ensure that standards are being met. We work very closely with the National Police Coordination Centre, because it is important to make sure that people who are deployed have the right level of training and accreditation so that there is no risk, and we are constantly seeking to increase the numbers to ensure that we have the right level of capacity and capability. For anybody who does not meet the standard we are able to put on more intervention training, if necessary.
The protest operational advice document has recently been updated. It is well used in the public order public safety world. Together we are constantly evolving the training and, from my perspective as the national lead, I pay very close attention to make sure that standards are met and there is a range of learning methods for everybody to access.
Chair: For the purposes of our report, that is a very comprehensive and helpful reply, but I think Baroness Hamwee has a quick supplementary.
Q5 Baroness Hamwee: At the beginning of that answer, you mentioned resources being available online for anyone who wants to use them. That sounds as though there is personal discretion about doing so, but presumably you keep on top of that to ensure that they are being used.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: Yes, we do that through registration. I said that it could be done at any time because a large proportion of our officers who work in this space work 24/7 shifts, so we try to ensure that they have access to training materials that can fit around their working requirements.
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: May I add something, Lord Alton?
Chair: I am very keen that we should in some cases bring people in again where they can add something more in answer to other questions, so let us do that now, on this. Please go ahead, Chief Constable Hobrough.
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: At the start of your question, Baroness, you made a commentary, which is understandable, about the fast-paced, dynamic changes that have been made to the Act. I agree with you, but we are working in unprecedented times. We have already talked about malinformation, which we now call “information disorder” because it has such a context of public order. Some of the tactics that we are seeing coming at pace and some of the changes that have been made to recent legislation to address lock-ons, tunnelling and new tactical things that protesters are doing, have been really welcomed by policing, to give us those options.
Chair: That is very helpful, thank you. We will now go to Lord Sewell, after whom we will hear from Dr Peter Swallow, Member of Parliament.
Q6 Lord Sewell of Sanderstead: My question is about the tension between human rights legislation and the reality of the violent demonstrations that you encounter. For example, how do the police take into account human rights when demonstrations become violent? To what extent can the rights of a peaceful majority be upheld when a violent minority engages in behaviour that falls outside the protections of ECHR Articles 10 and 11?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: I will bring in Claire in a moment on the operational context of this. Over a number of years now, we have in our training—I am sorry, Claire, to go into training—tried very much to make sure that we treat different groups differently, so that we do not have a group dynamic on all protesters and treat people exactly the same. We try to identify those individuals who are at the higher end of risk and violence so that we can use a proportionate tactic to address that and look after public safety while allowing the vast majority of people to protest legitimately. Having that ability to differentiate between different groups is something that has been drilled into our staff and is very much part of our continuous professional development and annual training, to ensure that we are able to tackle those issues.
Chair: If I may, I would like to bring in Assistant Chief Constable Wilson on this before we come back to colleagues here in the room. The floor is yours.
Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson: Thank you. To build on the Chief’s answer, it is absolutely critical that our staff recognise that there will be groups within groups, and it is not a one-size-fits-all approach. This comes back to capacity, capability and thresholds. Locally, despite being a metropolitan force, we are really small geographically, which means that our staff have a really good understanding of what normality looks like in that particular community, which helps them work through the proportionality decisions over any dynamic intervention or action that needs to be taken and when the tipping point or threshold is met. Failure to act properly can of course lead to an escalation, which puts the wider public at risk.
We expect our officers to make dynamic decisions based on the information in front of them, and a key element of that is picking a proportionate tactic with the minimum use of force possible, so that they can address that problem and prevent a worsening for everybody else. Sometimes, that will mean dynamic arrest and intervention there and then; at other times, it might be more proportionate to gather evidence and prosecute outside that environment. Again, it all comes down to what resources you have available and whether you have the capability, in terms of the public order resources, to be able to manage the situation without exposing other members of the public to harm. For every arrest you make, you lose two or three resources from that public order operation, which means that they are not then available to respond to everything else that may occur. It is a finely balanced decision that can be tricky for commanders.
Chair: Thank you, that puts it very well. Lord Sewell, do you want to come back on this?
Q7 Lord Sewell of Sanderstead: Yes. This is a slightly provocative question. In future, we may have a Government who do not want to have ECHR protections any more. Are you happy with that?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: Having been in policing for 31 years, I have seen different Administrations, but the way in which policing manages things, looks after people and looks at our core responsibilities does not change, regardless of the Administration. The aspects of doing the right thing long term will be embedded within policing, and those sorts of matters will be discussed at the National Police Chiefs’ Council so that we can ensure that they are very much verbalised and demonstrated on a regular basis, regardless of which political party is in power. The policing core responsibilities are there to look after people.
Chair: Thank you. You have clearly differentiated between the role of the police and the role of Parliament in making the law. Let us go to Dr Peter Swallow, after whom we will hear from Mr Afzal Khan, Member of Parliament.
Q8 Peter Swallow: Chief Constable, that is a really helpful point to pick up on for the question that I want to ask, which is a reflection on the incredibly challenging environment that I know the police sometimes face when they are managing a protest or demonstration. You may have thousands of people at one of these demonstrations, sharing their views enthusiastically and displaying banners or slogans, the vast majority of whom will be doing so peacefully and lawfully. But then there is always the challenge, which I know the police have to weigh up very carefully—and you have all already spoken about it—where a very small minority might be going beyond the law as it stands. How can police officers ensure that the line is properly drawn between legitimate, lawful expression and criminal behaviour? Does the law as it stands allow that differentiation to happen in a live situation, allowing the at times uncomfortable but nevertheless lawful expression of people’s democratic rights to take place without preventing you doing the difficult job that you have to do of stepping in when it crosses that line?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: There is a live example that Clair can provide of the difficulties that the Metropolitan Police had to manage in a recent event and the way that they involved criminal justice partners to be able to navigate some of that difficult territory, and then I was able to get that communication out across the country as well.
Chair: Chief Superintendent Haynes, I think the ball is yours.
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: I think the example that the chief is referring to is the recent event in London on 16 May, which I am sure you will have seen and heard about, in relation to two very opposing groups in the centre of London. There were two large-scale demonstrations with opposing views, both potentially with views that were in opposition to the wider community and so could have an impact. Our job is to manage that, as we have discussed here, balancing the rights of people to lawfully protest and looking at what is perhaps grossly offensive versus what is an offence, so where a criminal offence might be committed. We use the powers available to us to intervene in those instances; that comes back to the training and understanding the framework and the legislation that we are working in.
As we know, the threshold for arrest is different from the threshold for prosecution. Officers used those powers and we made around 40 arrests that day, 20 of which were for hate crimes. That was officers being proactive and robust in using the legislation. You will know the difficulty that officers face when they are standing in a very dense crowd and seeing or hearing some of those chants and slogans. We also know the impact that social media has and we saw it on that day, with many of those slogans and chants being repeated on social media, so then we are looking to pursue those individuals who are committing crimes online, some of which are being utilised in the way that we have discussed around information disorder. So, in terms of a difficult and complex situation for our officers, I officers, that is a clear example of how we have had to balance the democratic right to protest—what our communities feel is offensive to them versus what is a criminal offence, and how we balance the needs of the community with the needs of those protesting in order to maintain and keep the peace across London. I think we managed to do that on that day effectively.
Peter Swallow: There are those who see the way that the police respond to situations like that—including, it has to be said, senior politicians who have significant roles in this place—and claim that it is two-tier policing. Do you accept that criticism?
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: No, I do not accept that criticism. From my perspective, it does not reflect how officers make their operational decisions. We police without fear or favour. We make decisions based on threat, risk and harm from intelligence, an evidence base or community impact. We do not make those decisions based on ideology, cause or ethnicity. We encourage our officers to police to the law and use the legislation. I think sometimes that two-tier narrative is perpetuated by those in the public eye versus media versus protest organisers, who all have perhaps a different agenda from that of policing. I reject that suggestion and very much believe that we police without fear or favour.
Alex Sobel: We have this very difficult issue around policing Palestine protests where—I want to be careful here—people may use phrases similar to the name of a group that is proscribed. I want to know how you judge how to police those and when to make arrests. That is probably one for Chief Superintendent Haynes as it is mainly a Metropolitan Police issue.
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: We need to be clear about Palestine Action versus other groups that protest under the banner of Palestine Coalition or Palestine Solidarity Campaign, or offshoots of a variety of Palestinian causes. As we have mentioned before, it is policing’s job to enforce the law. We do not make the law. Palestine Action as a group are a proscribed organisation so, in terms of people coming out in the streets of London, as we have seen over the last few months, and committing offences by supporting a proscribed organisation, you will have seen policing step forward in London and making arrests.
That talks to the capacity and capability concerns. We in London, as the largest force, have the ability to step in and make large-scale arrests, but that comes at a cost because every officer we bring into London is an officer we are taking out of the neighbourhood or away from front-line policing. Every colleague who we bring in from around the country is an officer who we are taking away from their communities. So we will always do our best to enforce the law. We will look generally at the protest in front of us and make arrests to the capacity and capability that we have, and then take those arrests through to prosecution where it is possible and practical.
Q9 Afzal Khan: Building on this discussion, what is the police response to demonstrations that may be non-violent and non-criminal but are nevertheless experienced as intimidating by certain groups? Can imposing conditions on protests address these concerns without undermining the right to protest for the protesters?
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: It is really difficult to give an assurance that powers and legislation are used consistently across the country. I do not say that lightly, so I shall explain the reason why. You have heard from all of us today that the communities that we police are very different. We deal with many different groups and complex communities, and we all face different challenges when it comes to threat, harm and risk. A key thing that we all do consistently is make sure that we engage with communities, understand their concerns and listen to them so that their voices are heard and we can act accordingly. In order to do that, we need to make sure that commanders—public order commanders at every level—consistently apply the framework of the legislation and the guidance that is available to them. We have seen the use of conditions in the capital, in London, put to good effect. They have helped policing but they have also helped our core purpose of keeping people safe, recognising that it is challenging. When we are policing protests, we have to have a graduated response because within the protest itself there will be different groups and different voices, and we need to make sure that we can respond appropriately.
Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson: Building on what Claire has just said, within Merseyside we use those conditions under Sections 12 and 14 quite sparingly. We have used them in an exceptionally small number of scenarios and often the higher-risk protest environments that have brought significant disruption. While there are considerations about the pre-emptive use of those conditions, it is important that commanders are able to evidence what is happening there and then to justify the use of those powers. A key part of that is effective community engagement beforehand and understanding what a state of normality would look like for that community.
I know we have spoken about the conditions. While obviously they are an option, they are impactive. Again, it is the balancing act between respecting the right to peaceful protest versus respecting the right of others to go about their ordinary everyday business. From a resource perspective, if you impose conditions, you absolutely have to be in a position to police those conditions effectively. The fact that they are there does not mean that they should or will be used, and they are used sparingly here in Merseyside.
Q10 Alex Sobel: When protest groups seek permission to march past places of worship, it is not unusual for the worshippers to find that those groups can be intimidating. When you go through a process of considering routes, how do you judge those concerns in particular, which usually are vocalised well in advance of the demonstration taking place? Assistant Chief Constable Armes, this may be one for you.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: I really do not want to sound negative but I do not want to paint a picture where there is a lack of consistency, because we are consistent in a number of things that we do in policing. Despite the large number of protests that we see, not just in the capital but elsewhere, we have to ensure that each and every single one is assessed and policed according to any threat or risk that is posed. We will always seek to listen to the voice of the community to understand the challenges, and to make sure that we do that in equal measure to everyone who wants to be heard. There are times when we may not get that right because we may not have listened to someone or heard them. We do our very best to make sure that we are able to, but all of us in this Room will have seen played out on social media the challenges that we face in those dynamic situations.
I come back to the point about making sure that commanders are trained, they understand the legislation and—this is a different matter again—they have the confidence and the courage to use the powers available to them. It is really important, when you are a gold commander, that you are communicating with everyone on that policing operation, you are listening and you are understanding what is going on in the ground through your silver and bronze commanders. If something changes, because quite often that happens—a protest will start out and we will have planned and resourced for it, but it suddenly changes, and that could be an atmosphere or risk—we have to make sure that we are able to adapt and respond accordingly. I do not know if you have another example, Clair, but that is what we see on a regular basis now in the Metropolitan Police.
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: Obviously, London is the capital city. Thinking about the volume, the risk and the dynamic, I want to take you back to 28 March. There was a Together Alliance demonstration, which was social justice groups coming together. We also had a notification that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign wanted to come out, starting at a different location but joining the main march. We had a notification of a counterprotest that was going to be carried out by an Iranian anti-monarchy group who wanted to counterprotest the Palestine Solidarity campaign. At the same moment we had Palestine Action, who turned up outside New Scotland Yard showing support for a proscribed organisation, and then we had a funeral service for the Ayatollah at the Islamic Centre of England with a counterprotest outside. Some of those events were spontaneous, but that is a snapshot of a day in the life of London. You are trying to balance the rights of protesters with understanding the needs, the dynamics and the concerns of the community, which are really important.
You have heard from all colleagues here about the necessity for engagement, and that starts really early. Some protest groups will notify us; others will not. We talk to those protest groups that we know. We have good community links, both with protest groups and with the community. We use our police liaison teams to start that communication early. As a gold commander, I would also meet those groups. So we take those concerns really seriously. However, we talked earlier about balance, and there has to be balance regarding the right to protest, although clearly without allowing anybody to intimidate another section of the community. So that is a snapshot of a day in the life of London in terms of how we balance all those different needs and how we use conditions.
Unlike colleagues in Merseyside, because of the volume and extent of events that we have in London, we use conditions to restrict the rights of protesters with a justified reason. Since October 2023, we have used conditions around 188 times in London. That shows you the size and scale of how we have used conditions to restrict routes, times, start locations of events, end times and noise. As colleagues in Liverpool have described, we have conditions and we police those conditions but we also use our own lawful powers of stop and search and normal criminal offences that we manage every day, including hate crime legislation. We teach our officers to intervene, and we teach that it is not just a protest; it is still a situation where crimes may be committed, and they have all the legislation available for them to do that.
Chair: Thank you. For the purposes of our inquiry and report, you have made a lot of very clear observations about the challenges you face but also some helpful and constructive suggestions about what more needs to be done to help you in your challenging role of trying to balance those considerations. I would like to move us on now to questions about intelligence gathering and facial recognition. These are questions that have troubled some members of the committee.
Q11 Tom Gordon: Obviously a huge amount of work will go into trying to assess the issues that will be coming with these protests as and when they are being planned and under way. When you are gathering intelligence in relation to those protests, how do you ensure that you do so in a way that is necessary and proportionate and focuses on genuine risks of criminality or serious disruption, rather than lawful participation in a protest in its own right?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: Intelligence is the basis of what we work on now in a modern environment. We have a lot more ability to gather that now, and we have definitely invested within policing in making sure that it is accurate. A lot of information is put on open forums and we have intelligence officers who work on a daily basis, and I am sure Clair will add context to that in a second. So the Met have invested, and we have done that at a national level too through our National Police Operations Co-ordination Committee.
There is a distinct difference between different types of protest. We have a team in the centre who collate data nationally, looking at regional feedback from intelligence sources and feedback on community tensions monitoring, and at particular times over particular issues we have to dial up the scale. For example, we had some very high-profile protests in the last month or so in Hampshire and Belfast. That has been scaled across the country and some of that protest has turned violent, so it is really important that we effectively monitor intelligence so that we can co-ordinate resourcing plans to adapt accordingly across the country. Clair, do you want to talk about the Met’s way of doing it?
Chair: I ask everyone to be brief because I am conscious that the House of Commons is voting later on, and we do not want to have to disrupt the committee proceedings if we can—but nor do I want to rush you in the excellent evidence you are giving us. I add the caveat that, if there is anything that you do not feel has been said that should be said, we will be very open to a written submission subsequently, and I promise that will be included in the evidence.
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: I will keep it brief, and we will follow up with anything else that you may need. From a Met perspective, as the chief describes, obviously the national intelligence collation is really important to the work that we do. We have a bespoke public order intelligence unit that is the focal point of where we start gathering our intelligence. That starts with social media scanning, our press liaison teams and our communities, our local BCUs—effectively, our boroughs coming together. We gather intelligence from all those areas, and we keep fastidious and accurate logs of the intelligence that we are gathering. We take our professional judgment from previous events and experience that we have had in London. Unfortunately, because of the nature of London and the numerous protests that we have, we have a lot of experience of what has happened at previous events. We bring all that intelligence together and assess it collectively to understand what we are dealing with, what the threat harms and risks are and how we use that intelligence to decide on our resourcing and how we plan.
Tom Gordon: Can I push this a bit further? I understand the concept of how you are describing you go about it, but the question I am getting at is more about what parameters, restrictions or limits there are on this to make sure that what you are doing is proportionate. You mentioned monitoring social media. Does that mean monitoring people who have already been flagged up as a risk, or are we talking Facebook groups where innocent people might be? What restrictions, or what framework, are you operating within?
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: You will know that there are levels of authority that we need to utilise if we are doing any intelligence scanning that puts us into a private space or a covert space. The public order intelligence unit that I have talked about is predominantly what we would call open-source scanning, meaning anything that is readily available on social media online that you or I could access, and we can see what is happening in those spaces. I mentioned audit trails: we keep an accurate record of the intelligence products that we are looking at, how we are using them and how we decide whether that is proportionate, lawful or necessary to do what we need to do, and that sits within those intelligence-gathering models.
As a gold commander, I set the strategic intelligence requirement. I set out at the beginning my requirements for intelligence products to fit the event that I am looking at policing, whatever that might be, and then I expect my intelligence-gathering teams to start that process, working within the parameters in the legislation relating to how we go about intelligence gathering, and working to the law on that basis.
Chair: Thank you. Let us go to Baroness Hamwee with a question about facial recognition.
Q12 Baroness Hamwee: Which is developing very fast, of course. In a previous committee on which I sat, two successive Home Secretaries gave us great assurances that the human would always be in the loop in every use of facial recognition, but I think the term “the human in the loop” should not be used any longer; frankly, it is rather misleading. As part of the exercise that you have just described, I know you will have a watch list to use on the ground when facial recognition technology is deployed. How do you ensure that it is not going to have a chilling effect on members of the public who are exercising their right to protest when it is in use?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: Live facial recognition has a lot of positive aspects to it, especially when you think about some of the violent protests that we have seen. It gives us the ability to have on a watch list certain offenders who we would not want in particular areas because they have a propensity to cause violence. I can give the assurance that every deployment of live facial recognition is very carefully thought about by the gold and silver commanders of that operation to make sure that it really is justified and proportionate in relation to the event. It has a lot of positives and a lot of benefits.
In the recent surveys that we have undertaken, over 80% of people gave feedback that they felt it was a very positive thing. However, like everything, people have subjective opinions on whether things are right to use or not, so we revisit that regularly. It is rationalised throughout the command logs when it is put into place. There are parameters around particular areas and times where it will be used to make sure it is addressing the threat, risk and harm that it is there for.
Baroness Hamwee: How do you get the message over to the public about what you have just been saying?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: That is a challenge because there are people and certain groups who feel that it is an infringement on rights and people’s civil liberties. We keep working on that, answering questions and trying to be quite open and transparent in relation to what we achieve out of it, but there is more we can do. It is an evolving piece of technology that has got more capability as time goes on. We have to showcase that so that we can keep public buy-in in relation to it.
Chair: Thank you. The committee would also be interested to know about bias that can appear in facial recognition. If you have anything on that which you would like to say to us in writing afterwards then we would be interested to hear it.
Tom Gordon: Obviously, live facial recognition technology is just one of the tools that you might use when you think about policing protests. I wondered what other tools that you use, and whether there is utilisation of AI in other ways, in intelligence gathering. I think back to the notable issue that we had with West Midlands, when there was the Tel Aviv-Aston Villa football game, how AI hallucinated in preparing that briefing, and the whole fallout that we saw from that. Right now, are you aware of any police forces using AI when it comes to preparing briefings and intelligence gathering or policing protest?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: AI is a fantastic piece of developing technology for us but, as you have alluded to, it has to be used very carefully. I cannot speak on behalf of every force across the country in relation to the use that you have just articulated, but I can say that chiefs have been clear that its use should not replace the human aspect of things. If you were to use elements of AI to put together any form of report—I will come to intelligence separately—then the human has to do the checks in relation to that; it cannot just be left to an automated process, because that would be wrong.
I get that the purpose is that there is capacity and capability issues that it saves, but it cannot be inaccurate in any shape or form over something that is so vital.
In relation to intelligence, I would be extremely reluctant to be reliant solely on AI. It has some purposes in narrowing certain things down but it cannot replace the element of human oversight. I do not know whether Lord Alton wants colleagues to give specific examples from other forces.
Chair: Yes, if they have a specific point.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: I can offer some reassurance. There is a time and a place for the appropriate use of AI, but from a training perspective we could not be clearer that the strategy that will underpin the whole of the policing operation is written and owned by the gold commander. We are very clear that that should be done without the use of AI because that strategy contains outcomes and strategic intentions. There will be a summary of information, intelligence, powers and policy, all the things that you would expect to see, and the gold commander owns it from the start of the policing operation right through to the end. They therefore have to be in a position where they are able to defend that, should it be subject to scrutiny.
Chair: Thank you very much. That is new, cutting-edge technology. However, the question that Mr Gordon is now going to ask you concerns some very old methods. Indeed, I would like to hear the first answer to it from Assistant Chief Constable Wilson because this is about stop and search, and I am long enough in the tooth to remember, as a Liverpool Member of Parliament at the time of the Toxteth and Brixton riots, that part of that was generated because of the overuse of stop and search. Still, I shall not steal Mr Gordon’s thunder; I ask him to ask his question.
Q13 Tom Gordon: Thank you, Chair. I think it was Chief Superintendent Haynes who mentioned stop and search earlier. Stop and search without reasonable suspicion can be authorised when a senior officer reasonably believes that a protest-related offence may be committed in a specified locality. Given that no individual suspicion is required, what safeguards are in place to prevent this power being used disproportionately or having a chilling effect on protest?
Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson: Thank you. Chair, you are absolutely right in your recollection. We are still one of the highest users of stop and search. It is a power that absolutely needs to be used proportionately but it sends a clear message to people that if you are carrying weapons, if you are arming yourself—this is outside of the protest arena now, talking about serious violence and knife-related criminality—you can expect to be stopped and searched. As with every power, this power needs to be utilised properly and clearly explained; it is not just what you do but how you do it. Merseyside is one its highest users and our find rates are highly positive. We get a low volume of complaints, and we have a robust public scrutiny group wrapped around the use of stop and search. It is important to note that it is difficult to quantify the success of stop and search legislation in terms of the prevention and deterrent elements.
On proportionate use, within the legislation there have to be authorities from certain ranks in policing, and that is within a set of parameters. We are really robust in terms of the profile of individuals who can fall subject to non-suspicion stop and search, recognising the impact that that can have on communities. Again, it is advertised; we are open and transparent in its use, and we have lots of independent members, either our independent advisory groups or members of the public, who join us in open scrutiny of stop and search, including review of body-worn video. That learning and debrief makes sure that we are constantly learning and building that back in to robust training to make sure that we get the balance right between keeping members of the public safe and maintaining and building trust and confidence.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: To be honest with the committee, there is nothing further I could add because my colleague has given a very eloquent answer. I would say that is the position in a number of forces around the country.
Chair: Thank you. If there are other points that people want to make subsequently, please let us have them in writing and we will include them.
Q14 Peter Swallow: As you will know, serious disruption prevention orders were introduced in the Public Order Act 2023, and they can impose some significant prohibitions and requirements on a person’s future protest-related activity. I have some questions about how that relates to people’s Article 10 and 11 rights, but we should start by getting an understanding of whether this new power is in fact being used. The committee is not aware of any examples at all of any police force applying for an SDPO. Could anyone shed any light on that?
Chair: Assistant Chief Constable Wilson was shaking her head. Let us hear a voice from Liverpool.
Assistant Chief Constable Jennifer Wilson: We have not applied for one here within Merseyside, and as far as I am aware the CPS has not applied for one either. We had one case where we were considering application for a serious disruption prevention order, but we pursued prosecution for another substantive offence. Again, that was a case of close liaison with the Crown Prosecution Service and making sure that we picked the most appropriate route, recognising the impact that those orders can have in terms of restrictions.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: I would like to answer from a training perspective. You are correct in your observations with regard to their use, and I recognise that there is more that can be done in this space. At the moment I am working with the College of Policing to understand what that could look like so we can make sure that commanders have sufficient knowledge and understanding, and there is a further piece of work that we are doing in consultation with our colleagues from the Crown Prosecution Service.
Peter Swallow: Obviously I do not want to go into individual cases—that would not be appropriate—but I imagine that everyone around this horseshoe can think of a few individuals who we could imagine might undergo certain activities that could well open them up to us if we had our way in wanting to see such powers used to stop those activities.
It is perhaps surprising to hear that this possibly very broad power exists but since 2023 no police force has thought it appropriate or the right tool in the toolkit to use. Assistant Chief Constable Wilson, you mentioned that there was a situation where you thought a different power was more appropriate. I would like to just broaden out and ask the rest of the panel the reason why it is not being used. Chief Superintendent Haynes mentioned training, which I take on board. Is it not being used because it is the wrong tool in the toolkit, because other tools exist and they are better or simply because so many powers are coming online and this one has not been reached for yet but absolutely will be helpful in the future? I know that is a broad question that is difficult to answer, but this would be helpful for us as a committee to understand when we are looking at these very wide-ranging powers.
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes: For us, it is a mixture. There is training that needs to improve from our perspective as a police service, and we work closely with the college and the national leads to improve that training. Like colleagues in Merseyside, we too have had instances where there has been another route that the prosecution in conjunction with the CPS have decided is the right path for us to take because of the impact on them.
As time moves on, SDPOs may become more relevant in certain spaces, as you have alluded to—certain individuals that we could probably think about in this room in terms of how these orders would apply. That is certainly something we need to take away and look at, both regarding our own police service and, more broadly, probably nationally.
Up to now we have been in a space where there is other legislation that has been more well used and more traditional for us to turn to, legislation that we are familiar with and whose use and success mean we have reached for it first.
Chair: Let us move on because the clock is against us, I am afraid.
Q15 Sir Desmond Swayne: In the dialogue that precedes a demonstration, how do you attempt to overcome the innate distrust of the police that will exist in some protest groups? To what extent are operational plan red lines laid down, or are you prepared to negotiate and be flexible to accommodate the interests of a peaceful demonstration?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: Your question is very valid, Sir Desmond. The protest liaison officers perform an essential role for us. They do that early engagement, and they are able to outline what would be acceptable outcomes to meet the objectives of what the protest tenders want themselves while causing minimal disruption but not serious disruption. That engagement has truly had positive consequences for us. Protest liaison officers have been specifically trained. They have built up experience of working with different groups and over time have built up the trust that you referred to with the groups. What is really important is that what is negotiated in the build-up to an event is stood by in the delivery. That ongoing dialogue is essential for us.
Assistant Chief Constable Claire Armes: We must not forget that the absolute bedrock of policing in our country is neighbourhood policing. Our neighbourhood policing officers are working tirelessly within communities on a day-to-day basis, feeding back information to us and supporting us in our strategic objectives. All of us—I speak for my colleagues on the panel as well as gold commanders—will hold stakeholder briefings. You will probably be familiar with the phrase “no surprises”. By that, we mean that we are open and transparent in our communication. That sometimes means we have to deliver difficult messages, but likewise it is important that we hear difficult messages as well so that we can reach a position where we are acting proportionately and legally but also responding to the needs of the communities.
Q16 Alex Sobel: I have been an MP for nine years and in that time we have had a lot of legislation relating to protest and public order, particularly since 2022. Has all this legislation made the way that you police easier? Has it reduced disruption and disorder connected with protest, or has it made relating to protest activity more complex?
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough: It would be wrong for me to say that things have got easier and protest has reduced, because the facts would belie that statement. In recent years we have seen an astronomical increase in the number of protests over different things, for a variety of reasons that we have already talked about in this meeting today. The legislation has had to come to Parliament for different amendments, as we have already talked about, with regard to rapidly changing scenarios and different tactics being used.
You will be more than aware that Lord Macdonald has been tasked with looking at the Public Order Act, which is 40 years of age and was written at a time when international things did not have a local impact. It was written at a time where macro was not going to micro as rapidly, and it did not have any context for the digital era or online activity. The review that he has undertaken and the recommendations that he submitted to the Home Secretary are under consideration right now by the Government. The changes that have been made in the interim are based on the amendments to the existing Act and have been helpful in tackling some of those issues—I have already talked about some of the tactical challenges that they have addressed—but they have caused some issues too. Just because something is written down in an Act as a power, as colleagues have said, that does not always mean that it is right to execute it at that time. The context of it, the area where it is being undertaken and the capabilities of the staff at the scene might mean that it is not the right thing to do or that it is something to do retrospectively. So there is a bit of a difference in what happens and then policing gets criticised in relation to that aspect.
Chair: A visitor once asked, “What are all the bells about?”, and was given the reply, “It’s just one of the prisoners trying to escape”—although that might not be appropriate, given the witnesses that we have here today. The bells you can hear mean that a Division has just been called in the House of Commons, so my parliamentary colleagues from the Commons will have to go and do their duty. When they return, I hope we will be able to pick up where we left off, but for now I must adjourn the meeting with these words: order, order.
