On January 8, the government suffered a heavy defeat on plans to introduce legislation which would have potentially outlawed behaviour such as street preaching and political protests, with 306 peers voting against the Bill.
Sir Edward Leigh MP commented: ‘The House of Lords has sent a very clear message to the government that their plans to outlaw annoying and nuisance behaviour are unclear, represent muddled thinking and could have a chilling effect on free speech. Despite repeated questions, the government side failed to give a single example of thug-gish and loutish behaviour that would not be caught by the existing ASBO wording. The Lords proposed the threshold for the Injunctions to Prevent Nuisance or Annoyance (IPNA) should include “harassment, alarm and distress” ’.
Government reply
Constituents who have written to the Home Office have been given feeble responses to their concerns over the Bill, including the Department’s ‘belief [that] there is no court in the country’ which would accept that someone doing something lawful could ‘meet the test to grant an injunction’ against them. This entirely misses the point that an action that is lawful could indeed be annoying to someone and thus an IPNA could be given.
