[ad_1]
Boris Johnson’s government will seek to tackle disruptive protests head on with new laws that will allow sentences of up to 12 months in prison for those who “interfere with key national infrastructure” such as airports or printing presses.
A new public order bill to be included in Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech will target protesters from groups such as Extinction Rebellion who have brought disruption to the country in recent years.
The legislation will create new criminal offences of “locking on”, or even “going equipped to lock on”, to prevent people from fixing themselves to building sites or transport systems to cause disruption. This will carry a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment or an unlimited fine. It will also become illegal to obstruct major transport works such as the High Speed 2 rail link from London to northern England.
The Queen’s Speech will feature 38 bills. This more than usual and is despite briefings by officials that the prime minister wants a more slimline legislative calendar for the coming year. There will be bills on economic crime, financial services, a Brexit freedoms bill and a levelling up and regeneration bill, among many others.
Prince Charles will read the speech after Buckingham Palace announced the Queen, aged 96, was pulling out of the state opening of parliament because of “episodic mobility problems”.
The government said the public order bill was targeted at a “small minority of protesters” deemed “dangerous and highly disruptive” by the authorities. These included groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil in addition to Extinction Rebellion, it said.
The bill will also extend stop and search powers so police can seize items related to these new offences.
The initiative comes after the government suffered several defeats this year in the House of Lords over a police, crime, sentencing and courts bill.
Among controversial proposals voted down were “serious disruption prevention orders” designed for those who attached themselves to property while protesting. The new bill will once again seek to legalise these orders.
Priti Patel, home secretary, said the bill would allow police to clamp down on “outrageous” behaviour. “The law-abiding, responsible majority have had enough of antisocial, disruptive protests carried out by a self-indulgent minority,” she said.
Meanwhile, the government is set to widen a ban on the use of exclusivity clauses to ensure that very low-paid employees can work in more than one job in order to boost their earnings.
Business minister Paul Scully said on Monday the ban would put “more control in the hands of the lowest paid”, helping those whose hours had been cut because of the pandemic, while also easing labour shortages for employers.
The change in the law will be enacted through secondary legislation and therefore will not be mentioned in the Queen’s Speech.
It will apply to workers earning less than the lower earnings limit of £123 a week that allows people to qualify for certain benefits, such as the basic state pension. An estimated 1.5mn people have weekly earnings below this threshold, and about a fifth of those with one job in this earnings bracket would like to work longer hours, the government said.
However, it is unclear how many would gain from the measure, which is already in place for those on “zero hour contracts” that tie workers to employers without the guarantee of any work.
The Trades Union Congress said the ban’s extension was “tinkering around the edges” and would do little to help people with insecure contracts, who found it difficult to juggle two jobs because they were being offered shifts whose timing clashed with very little notice.
[ad_2]
Source link