Human Rights (Joint Committee)

1 July 2026

Contents updated on 1 Jul 2026

The Chair opens the Joint Committee on Human Rights, explains its cross‑House remit and recent work, and frames the inquiry’s focus on protest, security and ECHR Articles 8, 10 and 11, before introducing the senior policing witnesses and probing their overall approach to harms, human‑rights‑based decision‑making and the balance between protest and others’ rights.

Committee Wed, 1 Jul 2026 House of Lords

00:02 - 03:28

Speaker 2

Order. Welcome to today's meeting of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. It's the fourth of this session, the 54th of this Parliament. The clue to our mandate for anyone who's new to our work is in our committee's name. We're a rare parliamentary committee comprised of members of both Houses of Parliament, six from the House of Commons, six from the House of Lords, drawn from different traditions and backgrounds.

Our committee's numerous reports are available on our website, and I would note that our report on transnational repression was referred to extensively in yesterday's House of Lords debate on the National Security State Threats Bill, and that our report on supply chain transparency and modern day slavery was referred to by members of the House of Commons during their Westminster Hall debate on June the 18th, and both of those transcripts are available on the Hansard site. We will also be having a full House of Lords debate on that report on Friday, September the 4th. Meanwhile, we're nearing completion of other reports on children in social care and their human rights, and our inquiry into artificial intelligence and human rights. Today, though, we return to our inquiry entitled Security, Safety and Protest: The Role of Human Rights. This second oral evidence question session will examine how protest powers are applied in practice, focusing on how policing professionals interpret and implement the current legal framework when managing protest.

It will explore how officers balance the duty to facilitate a peaceful assembly with the rights of others, including how key thresholds such as serious disruption are understood and actually applied on the ground. The session will be framed by established human rights standards, in particular Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights on freedom of expression and assembly, alongside the rights of those affected by protest activity, including the right to respect for private life under Article 8. In doing so, the session will gather evidence on the operational impact of recent legislative changes, including the use of preventative powers, stop and search, and protest-related offences. But it will also explore whether the current legal frameworks provide sufficient clarity, consistency and safeguards to support proportionate policing, and how factors such as training, guidance and resources shape decision-making in practice. Before I introduce our illustrious panel, I should remind members of the committee, but also the panel, about the sub judice rule.

As members will be aware, the sub judice resolutions of both Houses mean that live legal cases should not be discussed in parliamentary proceedings. So I would ask members and witnesses to avoid referring to any live legal cases in our discussions today. So let me tell you something about the illustrious police officers that we have with us. We have Claire Haynes, who's the Detective Superintendent at the Metropolitan Police. She's a senior policing leader within the Metropolitan Police Service with more than 30 years of operational experience.

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