The more serious problem was, from the police point of view, having powers to impose conditions for reasons of safety and security. The witnesses also felt that it was important to have prior notification of demonstrations, primarily for practical purposes. There are so many demonstrations that there can be problems with accommodating them if several take place at the same time.

Chris: in many respects, the answer to your question is to be found in what you write. The Countryside Alliance was involved in one of the biggest demonstrations in Parliament Square in recent years.

My overall assessment, on the basis of the evidence, was that it is clearly difficult to do anything in practice about loudhailers. They cause a nuisance but may be necessary (a) to give directions in the event of a large demonstration and (b) to enable a protestor to be heard above traffic noise. We will need to give serious thought not only to whether but also how anything can be done about them.

The 2005 Act was instigated initially by a desire to deal with Brian Haw’s protest in Parliament Square. The evidence tended to confirm my view that, if Parliament wished to deal with that permanent protest site, the best way to have dealt with it would be to provide that the pathway in the square be deemed a highway. Instead, we have a piece of legislation that is highly problematic. We need to think about the practical implications of allowing protests while giving priority to the presumption that people have a right to demonstrate in front of their national legislature. As I have said before, there is only one thing worse than having noisy protestors demonstrating in front of Parliament and that is having no protestors at all. If people ignore Parliament, then we lack a healthy polity.

Why wee they were given legitimacy by being invited to give evidence at this committee?

Please let us know what the police, the council, and the Mayor’s office say – and thanks for this.