Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

There were a number of points there. If my noble friend will allow me, I intend to answer the points made during the course of the debate. I say to her straightaway that we have published our analysis of the ECHR obligations; I can refer her to it. I will ensure that if she does not have it to hand, I will send it to her. It is published and is available for that. As I will come on to in a moment, the rights that we are seeking in this piece of legislation for protesters, the community, the Government and police forces are measured in a way that I believe is acceptable. In recent years, policing large-scale protests has posed significant challenges; the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, referred to that. While most participants exercise their rights peacefully and lawfully, a small minority have engaged in criminal acts while concealing their identity. It is because the police have highlighted this issue with existing powers to identify those committing offences during protests that we have brought these issues forward. It is essential that the police can identify those committing offences during protests, not only to ensure accountability and justice but to protect peaceful demonstrators and the wider public from harm. As a whole, Clauses 118 to 120 strike a careful balance. This will not apply to all protests. It applies only to protests that have been designated by a senior police officer of inspector rank or above. In addition, as was mentioned by a number of contributors to the debate, although the police currently have powers to remove face coverings in designated areas, they themselves have said to us—this goes back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe—that those measures are not always effective in the context of managing protests. People often comply but then replace a face covering later, which is difficult to monitor in large gatherings. The new offence addresses this by making it unlawful to wear a face covering once a locality has been designated by a police officer—not by a Minister or by the Government—in the light of upholding rights as a whole. That senior police officer, who will be at least of the rank of inspector, must reasonably believe that a protest is likely to occur, that it is likely to lead to criminal behaviour—that is the critical point, which comes to the contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and others—and that it is necessary to act to prevent or reduce such offences. That is an important caveat, not the Nineteen Eighty-Four dystopia that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, seems to—