Culture secretary Lisa Nandy has said that the government has no plans to make any legal changes to support charities’ right to campaign following this week’s launch of the Civil Society Covenant.
Speaking to Civil Society at yesterday’s launch event for the covenant in London, Nandy said that despite the covenant’s promise to protect charities’ right to protest peacefully, the government was not considering repealing any recent laws that some feel have curtailed the sector’s freedom to campaign.
She said the government was “not planning legislative change in this area” but insisted it was focused on “rebuilding the civic space” and that it welcomed challenge from people like “any government worth its salt”.
This means that key pieces of legislation introduced by the previous Conservative administration – such as the Lobbying Act 2014, Elections Act 2022, and the Public Order Act 2023 – will remain, despite their unpopularity with some in the sector.
These legal changes led CIVICUS Monitor to downgrade its assessment of the UK’s civic freedoms to “obstructed” and it warned in 2023 that a decline in protest rights was delegitimising civil society action.
Meanwhile, many charity sector leaders have welcomed the launch of the covenant as a positive step forward in resetting the sector’s relationship with the government, but warned that its commitments “mustn’t stall at warm words” and must be matched by action.
‘We are determined to rebuild the civic space’
Nandy said that the government’s promise to rebuild the civic space “runs like a silver thread” through the four principles laid out in the covenant.
However, she emphasised the importance of the government’s role to “keep people safe […] where protest becomes obstructive, where it threatens the safety and security of the British people […] we can’t tolerate that, we have a duty to step in”.
Nandy added: “ Just yesterday I was in parliament, there was protests going on outside. You could hear the Brexit protestors. You could see the Palestinian flags. That is a really important part of our democracy.
“We are determined to rebuild the civic space through the work that Georgia [Gould, parliamentary secretary for the Cabinet Office] is doing at the Cabinet Office through contracts, through the work that we’re doing with the LGA [Local Government Association] to make sure that that same attitude is embraced across local government through the work that we’re doing through the covenant.”
Related articles
