TORY plans to hand police “chilling powers to stop and search protesters without suspicion” have been rejected by peers in another setback for the government’s anti-protest Bill. 

The measure, contained in the Public Order Bill, was voted down in the House of Lords on Tuesday by 284 votes to 209. 

Arguing for the measure to be struck out of the Bill, Lord Brian Paddick, who served as a Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner until 2007, said such powers had only been available previously to combat terrorism and serious violent crime. 

“Stop and search is a highly intrusive and potentially damaging tool if misused by the police,” he said. 

The Lib Dem peer warned that the power would have a “significant chilling effect on black and other visible minority peoples’ participation in protest” due to the disproportionate use of stop and search against ethnic minorities, describing this as “reprehensible.”

Peers also rejected plans to give police powers to shut down protests before any disruption takes place, a last-minute addition to the Bill that's been widely condemned by rights groups.

Labour peer Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, who also led the effort to delete the measure, recalled how past suspicionless stop-and-search powers to combat terrorism had been found unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights. 

“This broad power will be used against young people all over London on the day of the protest, it will cause such strife, it will poison relationships between the police service and the people they serve,” she warned. 

A separate bid to strike down a measure allowing officers to stop and search a person or a vehicle if they reasonably suspect they will find an object for use in, or connection with, a protest was withdrawn before voting. 

Peers warned this could result in people carrying normal household items like glue being stopped and arrested. 

“If a protest takes place in Central London for example, shoppers in Regent Street and Oxford Street can be stopped and searched for possessing household objects that they had just bought from John Lewis,” Lord Paddick said. 

The peer said he had to withdraw the amendment because it had not been supported by Labour. 

It comes after several other measures were stripped out of the Bill last week during its report stage. 

However, the powers could be reinstated into the Bill when it returns to the Commons.