5. What assessment has the Counsel General made of the impact of the UK Government's Public Order Bill on Wales? OQ59004

The Public Order Bill impacts on the vital right of people in Wales to have their voices heard and express their concerns freely. I will continue to impress upon the UK Government that Wales’s views must be heard in respect of the importance of the right to protest.

The Counsel General, the Minister, like me, will have been on many protests of different types over the years. And, in fact, over the decades, and indeed over generations and centuries, in Wales, there has been a vigorous tradition of public protest, and it's right that there should have been. From the earliest Greenham Common protestors drawn from Wales, including my own late friend and reliable critic, Eunice Stallard from Ystalyfera, to Ann Clwyd MP joining Tyrone O'Sullivan and miners in a sit-in deep underground at Tower Colliery, the Trawsfynydd protestors, Welsh language campaigners, anti-racism protestors, more recently environmental protestors, too, these campaigns have always led to heated debate and sometimes to controversy, and they've often inconvenienced people deeply. Indeed, Dirprwy Lywydd, many of us will recall the go-slow petrol protests and blockades led by a farmer from north Wales—the upstanding chair of the Flintshire branch of the Farmers Union of Wales, a member of the council of the Royal Welsh Show, the Welsh Pony and Cob Society, who then became an Assembly Member here—the late Brynle Jones. He was also part of the dumping of 40 tonnes of meat into the sea off Holyhead, in his version of the Boston Tea Party. So, what does he think, what does the Minister think that Brynle Jones, Eunice Stallard, Tyrone O'Sullivan or the protestors for the Welsh language or many others would think of the sweeping powers that UK Government are now taking for themselves to block public protest? And frankly, is it even needed when the powers they already have are so wide ranging?

Before you answer, Counsel General, for the record it's Brynle Williams. 

Brynle Williams, my apologies.

I remember Brynle Williams well.

It's a really important question, and one that is arising so frequently on items of legislation. The Public Order Bill continues the UK Government's regressive approach towards the right to protest and free expression. It is another attack on the democratic rights of people across Wales. The latest amendments to the Bill would allow police to restrict protests even before they become disruptive, only to make the Bill more regressive and authoritarian. It reminds me of that film. Do you remember the film with—? I can't remember who it was, but they were arresting people because they could see into the future and they'd find out about and stop crimes by arresting people beforehand. Well, this is almost exactly the same power, where the police would have the power to arrest people who haven't actually committed any offence because they have the belief that an offence might be committed, irrespective of evidence, but almost an arbitrary power. 

The Bill follows the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which again restricted civic rights and, again, we refused legislative consent to that, but the UK Government overrode it. We have to see what is happening, I think, within a series of regressive pieces of legislation that, bit by bit, are chipping away at freedoms and fundamental rights. We can talk about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, we have the Bill of rights being resurrected again, which seeks to take away the rights of citizens to exercise their rights on human rights in the UK courts. We have the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, which gives arbitrary powers to a Secretary of State without any reference to evidence or any other party. So, basically, this is legislation that is really creating a more and more authoritarian form of government. Obviously, there will be on this, because I believe it does impact on our position here, consideration in respect of legislative consent. We'll have to look very carefully at that and at amendments to that. But, there is a warning and there is a responsibility on law officers and on parliaments to continually be alert to the freedom of its citizens. I have to say that this legislation, day by day, is taking away the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Wales.