Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Deferred
Initiate post-legislative scrutiny of Public Order Act 2023 two years after Royal Assent.
Recommendation
We recommend that the Government carries out post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023, to begin two years after it received Royal Assent. (Paragraph 24) Israel-Gaza protests
Government response summary AI-generated
The government's response discusses the Police Uplift Programme and efforts to maintain officer numbers and develop workforce plans, completely unrelated to the recommendation for post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
The Public Order Act 2023 (the Act) received Royal Assent on 02 May 2023. The Act introduces a variety of measures including the new offences of locking on and causing serious disruption by tunnelling, alongside the introduction of Serious Disruption Prevention Orders which target protestors who are determined to repeatedly inflict disruption on the public. The Act does not prohibit protests, it targets the highly disruptive tactics used by a selfish few. The legislation has already partly come into force and has not led to the end of protests, which continue to occur peacefully and without police intervention. The usual practice for Government legislation is to carry out post legislative scrutiny between three and five years after Royal Assent. This would mean that the post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023 would take place between May 2026 and May 2028 if the standard timetable were to be followed. The Government is happy to consider the report’s recommendation that we review the legislation sooner than this. Israel-Gaza protests
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