The area around the Palace of Westminster, the seat of British democracy, “has declined into a degree of squalor and disorder” a report by a think tank has warned. Violent crime and the safety of parliamentarians are among a string of concerns raised in a paper by Andrew Gilligan for Policy Exchange, entitled Tarnished Jewel: The Decline Of the Streets Around Parliament.
The analysis describes damaged property and areas where “protestors have privatised the pavement”, leading to a “dispiriting” experience for visitors. It says: “Windows of the great public buildings, broken by protestors, are splintered or patched with duct tape. Anarchist and anti-police graffiti is painted on those buildings’ walls; some of it has been there for more than two years. Urine trickles from the corners.”
It adds: “Crowds of people press round the entrances to Parliament, banging on the sides of MPs’ cars as they drive in…. MPs are verbally abused, occasionally chased. Some parliamentarians say they feel physically afraid to leave the building.”
According to the report, between 2013/14 and 2021/22, “violent crime in the quarter-mile immediately around Parliament has risen by 168%, against a 47% rise in the borough of Westminster as a whole and a 67% rise in London”.
Meanwhile, public order offences “have risen by 252% – three-and-a-half times – versus 75% in the borough as a whole and 93% in London.”
The report suggests governance of the area “is a mess”, with control of the public spaces around Parliament “split between eight different bodies, often with different policies”. It also points to a “lack of confidence and consistency by those in charge”.
It argues: “There is of course no right to urinate in the street, or cheat tourists, or vandalise, but the authorities often seem unwilling to challenge such practices. The law is often ignored around the very building where the laws are made.”
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The report makes a series of recommendations, including “zero tolerance for obstruction and intimidation around Whitehall”. It also calls for a “statutory duty on police to protect the UK’s democratic institutions and to protect the right of access to the parliamentary estate for those with business there” as recommended by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Westminster City Council, it added, “should take out a wider Public Space Protection Order, covering anti-social behaviour in the whole area round Parliament”. Additionally the “controlled area” for protests should be “restored to what it was until 2011, namely within broadly one kilometre of Parliament, covering all the main departments and Downing Street”.
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