Joint Briefing on the Public Order Bill for Report Stage in the House of Commons

This joint briefing, issued by a coalition spanning wide range of causes, urges MPs to oppose the Public Order Bill in full and, if it proceeds, to support key amendments to mitigate its most serious harms to the right to protest.

The Public Order Bill reaches Report Stage in the house of Commons just months after anti-protest measures passed into the PCSC Act come into force.

As a coalition spanning the human rights, privacy, criminal justice, democracy, children's rights, international development, environment, freedom of speech and expression, violence against women and girls, refugees' and migrants' rights, community and faith sectors, we stand against the Public Order Bill in its entirety. We urge MPs to defend everyone's right to protest by voting against the Bill in its entirety. Should this not be possible we ask MPs to vote in favour of:

• Amendments 1 and 2 (serious disruption prevention orders) in the name of Sit Charles Walker MP.
• Amendments 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 (step and search) and amendments 3 and 4 (locking on offences) in the name of Anne McLaughlin MP at Report Stage on Tuesday 13th September to ameliorate the most egregious aspects of this Bill.