Public Spaces Protection Orders as contained in the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill would provide local authorities with unprecedentedly wide-ranging powers over public spaces.

As currently drafted, they could be used by councils for actions including: banning spitting, banning homeless or young people from parks, banning begging or rough sleeping, banning smoking in outdoor public places.

We are calling for more checks to be placed in law, or failing that in guidance, to limit the potential for abuse of powers and interference in public liberties.

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The Manifesto Club’s Banned in London map showed the worrying extent of public space regulation, with hundreds of banned zones within which ordinary rights are suspended.

The new anti-social behaviour legislation announced in the Queen's speech makes all this look very mild. Every draconian power has been replaced with something far worse.

Our Visiting Artists Campaign opposed the requirement for universities and arts venues to monitor international visitors throughout their visit. Under pressure from the UK Border Agency, many universities have now introduced passport checks for visiting lecturers or external examiners.

Now the Queen's speech includes plans to extend these obligations to doctors and landlords, envisaging passport checks in doctors' surgeries, and private landlords checking tenants' documents and visas under the threat of thousands of pounds in fines.

A guest blogpost by SA Mathieson, author of Card Declined: How Britain said no to ID cards, three times over

Margaret Thatcher represented liberty for many in eastern Europe, but she was not always its greatest supporter at home. In researching my new book on identity cards, I realised that her government gained royal assent for the Football Spectators Act, enacting identity cards for football fans, on 16 November 1989 – one week after the Berlin Wall fell. The scheme was never implemented (the Hillsborough stadium disaster earlier that year had shown the consequences of treating football fans like criminals) and the act was finally repealed in 2006.

Last September the coalition introduced a series of measures with the aim of reducing criminal records checks to 'common-sense levels'. Officials predicted that vetting would halve.

A written question by Lord Vinson, however, reveals that September's changes have had no effect on the overall level of checks. There were 1.9 million criminal records checks between September and February last year - exactly the same number as the year before. There has been a slight reduction in the number of barred list checks, but no change in the overall level of enhanced criminal records checks.

We received this email from a gentleman who was given an on-the-spot fine for drunk and disorderly behaviour, though he says that he was 'at no time disorderly'. His description of events shows the inherent problems with these penalties, which involve the police playing judge and jury. As a teacher, this penalty could have a negative effect on his career. He says that fine will remain on the Police National Computer, even if it is revoked or if he is found not-guilty in a court hearing.

A post by Peter Lloyd, author of Criminalising Football Fans - The Case Against 'Bubble' Matches:

Huddersfield Town’s forthcoming Championship fixture on 30th March with Hull City is a ‘bubble match’. This means that away fans must travel only on licensed coaches from Hull, or pick up their tickets from a specified motorway service station in exchange for vouchers bought earlier, joining the coaches at that point. That is a relaxation of the even more onerous original conditions which required all supporters to start their journey to the match in Hull itself, even if they lived hundreds of miles away.

On-the-spot fines have become the ‘penalty of choice’ for public authorities including the police, local authorities and schools.

Almost unknown a decade ago, these £75 or £80 fines are now issued for a whole range of incidents, some as serious as theft or criminal damage, others as trivial as handing out leaflets, putting up lost-cat posters or swearing.

This report shows how fines have extended punishment into new areas of minor misdemeanour or perfectly innocent behaviour. These summary penalties are inherently prone to corruption. The report shows how levels of fines fluctuate in direct response to targets and financial incentives - and that this is especially the case when public authorities contract private companies to issue fines on a commission basis.

• Download the report, Pavement Injustice: How On-the-spot fines are Undermining the Rule of Law

A Manifesto Club report finds that criminal records checks are continuing apace for school volunteers. There have been over 50,000 checks on school volunteers since September, many of them parents of children at the school.

The report argues that this widespread practice goes against common sense, and government recommendations, and creates a barrier for volunteers.

Read the Manifesto Club briefing document

See the report in the Daily Telegraph

NEW! Sign petition against leafleting bans. See Lord Clement Jones' Draft Private Members' Bill for the deregulation of leafleting.

It has become almost impossible to hand out leaflets in many town and city centres. Local councils including Brighton, Leicester and Leeds have introduced leafleting zones, within which you have to pay a fee (and often wear a badge) if you want to flyer. These rules have been catastrophic for grassroots organisations, including village halls, comedy clubs and nightclubs, who rely on leafleting to inform local people about their events.

This campaign defends the right to leaflet as one of the key civic freedoms. We call for a review of councils' no-tolerance policies - and for a new regime that recognises people's right to leaflet as essential for a free and vibrant civic life.