Thursday 16th October 2025
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
Lords ChamberCrime and Policing Bill 2024-26 View all Crime and Policing Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 18 June 2025 - (18 Jun 2025)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)
My Lords, I do not want to disappoint anybody, but I am not my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint; it would not be a very convincing impersonation, not least because he is sitting next to me. Noble Lords will all have the pleasure of hearing from him later on.
This Bill reflects not only our manifesto commitments but demonstrates the careful stocktake we have made of the important parts of our criminal justice system and our determination to improve the law where needed. It aims to keep citizens safer and more confident in the daily lives of all of us and I am proud of our proposals. They are fair, proportionate and add to the law where needed.
As part of the Bill’s driving force, which is to make people and communities safer, it will build on what we have done already in the past year to rebuild neighbourhood policing. We are restoring public trust in the criminal justice system through the delivery of our safer streets mission and aim to halve—yes, halve—knife crime and violence against women and girls in a decade.
For too long, neighbourhood policing has been neglected and downgraded. That has ended. We are already delivering on our commitments, with 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of the Parliament, backed by £200 million in new funding this year. Alongside this investment, the Bill brings in new respect orders to tackle persistent offenders who engage in the anti-social behaviour that blights our town centres. There are also enhanced powers to tackle the anti-social use of cars and off-road bikes. The police will now be able to seize these without first having to give a warning.
Everyone should feel safe when they are at work. This Bill delivers stronger action to protect shop workers. Assaulting a shop worker will be a bespoke criminal offence with a presumption that the courts will, on conviction, impose a criminal behaviour order on offenders. We are also repealing the provision that treats low-value shop theft as a minor offence. Shoplifting is not minor, and we are sending a clear message that all shop theft should be taken seriously. I know both these measures will be particularly welcomed by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
Part 2 of the Bill brings in Ronan’s law. We are clamping down on dangerous knives and weapons on our streets by introducing a duty on retailers to report bulk sales of knives and offensive weapons, increasing the maximum penalty for offences relating to the sale of knives to children and strengthening the age-verification requirements for the online sale and delivery of bladed products and crossbows. We are also delivering on our manifesto commitment to hold senior managers of online platforms personally liable for failure to take action to remove illegal content relating to knives and offensive weapons.
I turn now to violence against women and children. The prevalence of violence and abuse against women and children defiles our society. We need more effective enforcement action against perpetrators and better protection for victims. To this end, the Bill strengthens stalking protection orders and the management of registered sex offenders, including preventing them changing their names on official identity documents where they pose a risk of sexual harm.
The Bill also creates a new offence of administering a harmful substance, including by spiking, to make it absolutely clear that such behaviour is illegal and encourage victims to report such incidents.
Recognising how dangerous online material is in perpetuating the growing epidemic of violence against women and girls, we will bring forward amendments in your Lordships’ House to criminalise pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, for her tireless work culminating in the pornography review which recommended that action be taken in this area.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation are among the most despicable crimes imaginable. It is estimated that half a million children every year experience some form of child sexual abuse. Alongside the new national inquiry recommended by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, we are pleased to be pressing ahead with the implementation of some of the key recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
As a result, the Bill creates a new duty to report child sexual abuse, backed up by strong criminal sanctions for those who seek to cover up such abuse by preventing or deterring a person from carrying out the duty. It makes grooming a statutory aggravating factor when sentencing and removes the three-year time limit for civil personal injury claims brought by victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
Part 5 of the Bill also helps to tackle the rising levels of online child sexual abuse. In particular, the Bill provides for new criminal offences to stop—and we mean stop—AI-facilitated child sexual abuse and hold accountable those who commit or enable these vile crimes. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for her earlier advocacy of the new child sexual abuse image-generator offence.
The Bill also provides enhanced protections for children and vulnerable adults against their exploitation for criminal purposes. First, it provides for a new offence of child criminal exploitation, where an adult intentionally uses a child to commit criminal activity. To complement this new offence, the Bill also provides for child criminal exploitation prevention orders to help prevent the criminal exploitation of children occurring. Secondly, the Bill introduces a new offence to tackle the practice of cuckooing, where criminals take over the home of a vulnerable person for the purpose of illegal activity, such as drug dealing. Thirdly, the Bill creates a new offence to combat coerced internal concealment, or plugging, where children or vulnerable adults are coerced into concealing drugs or other items in their body for criminal purposes, typically as part of a county lines operation.
We also recognise how dangerous online material is in perpetuating the growing epidemic of violence against women and girls. We committed in the other place to criminalising pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation in this Bill, and we will shortly bring forward an amendment to that effect.
I turn now to children who are victims of child sexual abuse. As noble Lords will be aware, 10 years ago the Street Offences Act 1959 was amended so that the offences of persistent loitering or soliciting in a public place for the purposes of prostitution no longer applied to children. Parliament was right to do that because it recognised that children, because they are children, involved in such conduct are not criminals but the victims of sexual exploitation. I am pleased to say that we will bring forward amendments in this House to introduce a new disregards and pardons scheme for anyone convicted or cautioned as a child for these offences.
I now turn to policing. We will address the need to rebuild trust in policing. In some serious and worrying cases, public confidence has been undermined by atrocious criminality and misconduct by a very small minority of officers. Deterrence and punishment of such misconduct is a priority for this Government, as it is for the police. A key strand of the Government’s safer streets mission is to increase public confidence in policing and the wider criminal justice system.
Since 2017, the College of Policing has operated a police barred list—an advisory list which ensure that those officers who are dismissed by a police force in England and Wales are prevented from just joining another force. Such individuals have no place in policing. The Bill extends this approach, ensuring that officers dismissed at disciplinary proceedings from the National Crime Agency and other specialist police forces cannot be re-employed by another force.
It is vital that the system of police accountability commands the confidence of both the public and the police. As a society we rely on the professionalism and bravery of firearms officers who put their own lives at risk to keep us all safe. Thankfully, the occasions where the police have to use lethal force in this country are few and far between. When they do so, it is entirely right that officers are accountable for their actions. But those accountability arrangements must be proportionate, timely and fair to all concerned. Regrettably, this is not currently the case. Measures proposed in the Bill will improve the timeliness and appropriateness of investigations by the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the rights of victims. That said, if firearms officers are charged with offences relating to and committed during their duties, the Bill will protect them from violent reprisals by establishing a presumption of anonymity in criminal proceedings up to the point of sentence.
The public rightly want to see crimes solved and offenders brought to justice. To do this, the police must have the necessary tools to do their job. If someone has their mobile phone stolen and the victim can trace its whereabouts, the Bill ensures that the police have the powers to enter premises quickly and, if necessary, without a warrant, to recover electronically tracked stolen goods.
It is also vital that police powers keep in step with the march of technology in other respects. Evidence of criminality is no longer routinely stored on a computer hard drive; it is instead held remotely in the cloud. The Bill clarifies the circumstances in which law enforcement agencies can access such information, subject to strong safeguards, as they investigate offences ranging from child sexual abuse to fraud and terrorism, thereby protecting the public and our borders.
The Bill also ensures that law enforcement agencies have the necessary powers to combat other forms of technology-enabled crime. We are banning the possession and supply of SIM farms, save where there are legitimate uses such as in broadcasting. We are giving the police and others the power to suspend IP addresses and domain names used to commit fraud or other serious crimes, such as the so-called pimping websites involved in commercial sexual exploitation.
I turn to protests. The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our vibrant democracy, but in facilitating peaceful protest, the police also have a duty to uphold the rights of others not to be harassed or intimidated and to go about their daily lives without serious disruption. The Bill ensures that the police have the powers they need to protect places of worship from intimidatory protests and protects specified war and other memorials, including the Cenotaph and the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, that have been the target of protest action. A new targeted offence of concealing identity at designated protests will strengthen police powers to require the removal of face coverings at protests where violence or other criminality either has occurred or is likely to occur.
The precious right to engage in peaceful protest and the equally precious entitlement to freedom of speech do not extend to threatening or abusing others, all the more so where those threatened or abused are emergency workers. The law already recognises that racially or religiously motivated threats and abuse should attract tougher penalties, but these currently do not apply where the behaviour takes place in a person’s private home. When the police, firefighters and ambulance staff attend someone’s home— for example, in response to a 999 call—they have no choice but to remain and to act. The Bill closes the loophole in the law so that anyone who threatens or abuses an emergency worker because of their race or religion within a private dwelling will be liable for the higher maximum penalties such hate crimes would attract where the conduct took place in a public place.
I now turn to counterterrorism. We must also make sure that counterterrorism powers reflect evolving threats, ensuring that operational partners have the tools they need to keep the public safe. Part 14 of the Bill delivers on several recommendations made by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC. He has identified the need for a new diversion order in response to the increasing number of young people who are the subject of counterterrorism investigations. The youth diversion order provided for in Part 14 will be a new civil order that will enable the police to intervene earlier to prevent young people engaging in terrorism and divert them from the criminal justice system.
Finally, in addition to the three new measures that the Government will seek to add to the Bill to which I have already referred, we will table amendments to apply various further provisions in the Bill to Scotland and/or Northern Ireland. These amendments are being brought forward at the request of the Scottish Government and the relevant Northern Ireland departments.
This Government were elected to deliver change: change that will reverse the decline in neighbourhood policing; change that will tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls and the epidemic of knife crime. The Bill will help deliver that change by cracking down on anti-social behaviour, making our town centres safer, building trust in the police, clearing our streets of knives, protecting our children from sexual abuse, criminal exploitation and online harms, and safeguarding women and girls from stalkers and sexual predators. These are the purposes behind this Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, crime and disorder have reached such levels in this country that we certainly need more effective and meaningful policing, but it has to be done in a way that retains confidence, does not damage fundamental freedoms and keeps the criminal law clear and easily understood—or, rather, stops the law becoming ever more complex and harder to understand. I will not dwell on that point, as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier has made it eloquently, but I am sorry that the Bill continues down the road that the previous Government took of creating specific offences for things that are already crimes—for example, the offence of assault on a shop worker. Speaking as somebody who has been very critical of the way the pandemic and the lockdowns were handled, I cannot help seeing some irony in the fact that, four years ago, it was an offence to attend a demonstration without a face mask, and soon it will be an offence to attend one with one. Nevertheless, I am generally supportive, and in the time available I want to register two concerns briefly.
First, I note the Government’s intention, which we have heard about and which the Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention expressed in the Commons, to expand the scope of so-called hate crime offences by making all existing strands of hate crime aggravated offences. Given the way so-called hate crimes have recently, in practice, been used to chill freedom of expression and freedom of speech, I have quite a lot of concern about this; it seems to be going in quite the wrong direction. Rather, as a society, we ought to be going in a different direction, which is to begin to remove the concept of hate crimes from the statute book, and particularly to abolish the entirely illegitimate category, in my view, of non-crime hate incidents. An amendment to that effect was put forward in the Commons and did not succeed, but I hope and expect that it will be tabled again; indeed, I may propose my own amendment on that subject.
Secondly, as others have done, I register the deepest concerns about Clause 191. If this becomes law, it would be the biggest change to abortion legislation since the Act was introduced in 1967. As has been said, the permanent extension of the pills by post scheme, with no requirement for an in-person consultation, has made it possible to try to end a pregnancy at any point beyond 24 weeks. At the moment, that is still a criminal offence, and this clause would mean that it no longer was, provided that only the mother was involved. It is foreseeable that, in practice, this will make abortions up to birth more common, endanger more women because of the medical risks of termination after 24 weeks, and create pressure for a similar decriminalisation for medical practitioners themselves. People will argue, “How can it be illegal for a doctor to help with something that is not in itself illegal?” or they will say that doctors need to be able to perform late-term abortions to avoid the risks of terminations at home. It is the beginning of a slippery slope.
There is no demand for this. Polling shows that more than half the public favour keeping abortion after 24 weeks a criminal offence and only 1% of women support introducing abortion up to birth—and, in passing, 70% of women support a reduction in the time limit from 24 to 20 weeks.
The clause would remove one of the few remaining legal protections for the unborn. In our country, if children are born prematurely after 24 weeks, the medical system will do everything it can to save them, and it is often successful. Yet this clause will make it possible to try to end the life of a baby after 24 weeks without criminal consequences. It is simply inconsistent, not just with current abortion law but with current law around maternal and child health more broadly. This clause had a wholly inadequate couple of hours’ debate in the Commons. Its proponents really should be embarrassed to legislate on life and death in this fashion. I hope it will get a lot more debate here, and I hope noble Lords will reject it.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, while I agree with so much that has been said so eloquently today, I want to focus on three areas close to my heart: the inadequacies of enforcement of the criminal law; how to deal with the Wild West of e-scooters and cycling; and the best way to reduce shoplifting. Although this is not declarable as an interest, my son is a detective in the Met, and I think he would agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, has just said about the need to retain skills and experience in the police.
In a long career in and outside government, at the top and on the front line, I have discovered that enforcement of the law is as important as the rules and regulations themselves. As Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, said, the laws of the country must be enforced. There is no substitute for law enforcement, and that is why, in March 2024, we the Conservatives ensured that police numbers were at their highest ever. For this Bill to be effective, they need to rise further, and the resource needs to be focused on the right things: away from the obsession with online harm, prosecutions for tweets and non-hate crime, and into neighbourhood policing.
The truth is that we have moved away from the founding Peelite principle that police need to be part of the community they serve. They are increasingly a wholly separate organism, usually absent from our streets and town centres, and sometimes appearing to want to control our thoughts. Part of the problem has been the huge increase in bureaucracy, with energetic police men and women weighed down by paperwork requirements and the inefficiency of the police, CPS and court interaction and its supporting and less than compatible IT systems. My noble friend Lady Coffey has drawn attention to the burden of yet more reporting requirements in the Bill. To my mind there is an enforcement crisis, and I ask the Minister what he is planning to do about it.
I am very pleased to see Clause 106, introduced in the other place, which creates new offences of causing death or serious injury by dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling. I also like Clause 8, which makes it easier to seize an e-scooter being driven anti-socially—I note that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, actually wants to go further. As noble Lords know, I have been horrified by this Wild West of scooters and cyclists, especially speedy electronic versions, dashing through lights, driving routinely on pavements and spreading terrors among mothers with pushchairs, the disabled, the infirm and sometimes me. I have been knocked over myself. The truth is that this lawlessness in London has got worse; the results can be seen in A&E admissions.
However, there is no need to wait for the new Act, as cycling on pavements is illegal. Current laws must be enforced. I ask the Minister to consider a hotspot policy, perhaps by the Transport Police, to crack down on bad behaviour by cyclists and e-scooterists. We know that this sort of enforcement works. When I worked at Downing Street in the 1990s, the Met got burglary down with Operation Bumblebee and, more recently, we have seen the successful crackdown on mobile phone thieves at Oxford Circus.
My final plea for better enforcement relates to shoplifting, which has also exploded recently. I know from my time at Tesco how this ruins honest endeavour and allows free-riders free rein. It is so difficult for the staff and there is a wider impact. I remember women putting large jars of Nescafé and beef fillet down their trousers to sell and fund their drug habit and I remember the drudgery and cost of adding security tags to every valuable item. The Bill rightly responds to USDAW’s long-standing campaign and creates a new offence of assaulting a retail worker. Clause 39 seeks to tackle the ridiculous situation whereby so-called “low-value theft”—under £200—tends to go unprosecuted. However, I note that the Opposition have concerns about how this is achieved. We would also like to see tougher sentences on shoplifting where there have been more than three occasions of theft.
In conclusion, I return to Sir Robert Peel. He not only founded the Met but gave officers clear guidelines on expected behaviour, so establishing a highly visible and positive relationship with the British people. In this respect, it is time for us to revisit our roots.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
I am grateful to the almost 70 speakers in today’s debate. I start by declaring an interest on my own behalf. I am a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and have been for 46 years. That will obviously have an impact on my view of the measures on shop theft and assaults on shop workers.
I am pleased tonight to have the broad support of HM Opposition and, indeed, the broad support of the Liberal Democrat Benches—with some caveats from both. I look forward to the noble and learned Lord’s amendments in Committee. I cannot give him a response tonight on those details, but we will have plenty of time to discuss that. In saying that, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, the noble Baronesses, Lady Browning and Lady Fox of Buckley, and others mentioned the length of time for debate and the size of the Bill. Indeed, so did my noble friend Lord Hacking. We will have time for that, and it will be discussed through the usual channels. I look forward to a full and frank debate on this matter in due course.
The Bill deals with a number of key issues, and Members have talked about a theme in it. There are several themes in this Bill: making our communities safe, strengthening child sexual abuse prevention, tackling anti-social behaviour and knife crime and, dare I say it, supporting free speech—while at the same time ensuring that we have some measures on protests. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Lords, Lord Frost and Lord Vaizey, and indeed my noble friend Lord Hacking said that there is a mixture in this Bill, that it does not have a theme and that it is very large. It is a government programme, much of it based on a manifesto commitment. As my noble friend Lady Levitt mentioned in her excellent maiden speech from this Front Bench on a Second Reading debate, it is a manifesto commitment from the Government to do most of the things in this Bill, and therefore we are going to do most of the things in it, with the support of this House and the House of Commons.
A lot of issues in the debate have been about legislative proposals, certainly, but we have touched on neighbourhood policing, courts, speeding, police presence, speeding up justice, police numbers, et cetera. My noble friend Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate mentioned that. The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, talked about delivery, which is extremely important. Those things are not in the Bill, but they are extremely important matters that are before us today.
I shall concentrate, if I may, on what is actually in the Bill and the points that have been debated by noble Lords today. Let me start with respect orders and youth diversion orders, which were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. Respect orders are a substantial new power that gives police and authorities effective levers to deal with anti-social behaviour. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, made some criticism of them and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, challenges them as well. We believe them to be an effective tool, and we will have a chance to debate that in due course in Committee.
Youth diversion orders are an important measure. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, that we will come back to them, but they are designed to help prevent terrorism and prevent people drifting into terrorism.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey, Lady Stowell, Lady Hazarika and Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lords, Lord Herbert, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Davies of Gower, all raised the issue of shop theft. Shop theft is extremely important, and something we should not tolerate. That is why we are removing the £200 threshold, are putting a focus on it with policing and have encouraged police forces to tackle it. The measures that we are removing will send a signal. It is still for judicial discretion, but it will send a very strong signal—as will, on the issue of mobile phone theft, giving tracking powers for officers to be able to visit a premise straightaway. I look forward to debating them, but it is important to take action.
The issue closest to my heart in this Bill is that of retail workers and attacks on retail workers. The noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell, Lady Doocey, Lady Thornton, Lady Browning and Lady Fox, and my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton contributed to this debate. This is a long-standing campaign, which is why I declare my membership of USDAW. When in the House of Commons I moved amendments on this issue over many years, and I appreciate very much the support of my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton and the members of USDAW, along with the businesses—the Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and others—that have raised this issue. The new offence will put in place an obligation to ensure that those who uphold the law—which is what colleagues do in shops on solvent abuse, cigarette sales and alcohol—are also protected by the law. I hope that will have good support.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
Before the Minister moves on, will he respond to my question? Why have the Government decided to legislate only for that group of workers?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The argument I will put to the noble Baroness now is that shop workers are upholding the law on solvent abuse, alcohol, cigarette sales and other things. There will be representations on other areas, and we will examine those representations, but I really want to get this over the line after a long campaign. I hope that the noble Baroness will support those measures, whatever amendments she may bring forward.
There has been considerable debate around civil liberties from the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, Lady Chakrabarti, Lady Doocey and Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, my noble friend Lord Cashman and others. We are making some changes, and we will bring some further changes forward, but the principle of this is that we are trying to ensure that we have freedom of speech and the right to protest, but that we also have the right to ensure that protest is managed in an effective way. There are responsibilities in protest as well as the right to protest.
We have looked at the question of the Vagrancy Act; the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned that in particular. The Government have been clear that no one should be criminalised, which is why we are repealing the outdated 1824 Act. We are committed to a repeal of the Vagrancy Act once a replacement can be determined. I hope that clarifies that for him.
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, among many other issues that I will come back to in a moment, raised the issue of policing and suicide. We are working closely with the National Police Wellbeing Service to examine that.
There has been a major debate from noble Lords and noble Baronesses on the question of child exploitation, child sexual abuse and the IICSA implementation. The noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Hamwee, Lady Royall, Lady Benjamin, Lady Kidron, Lady Cash and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Faulks, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and others all raised and discussed that issue. We are going to have a big debate on this. We are trying to meet the IICSA recommendations. The Private Member’s Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, stretches us a bit further. We will have a discussion around that. I hope that this Bill, at the end of its process in this House, will have achieved an improvement in child protection services as a whole.
We have also had a discussion around the big issue of abortion, raised by many Members: the noble Baronesses, Lady Spielman, Lady O’Loan, Lady Coffey, Lady Mattinson, Lady Hazarika, Lady Thornton, Lady Lawlor and Lady Monckton, the noble Lords, Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, Lord Jackson, Lord Frost, Lord Farmer and Lord Hampton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. There are different pressures on that: some want that provision taken out and some want it maintained. The Government will remain neutral on this matter and facilitate whatever Parliament agrees and settles on in the end. We will look at those issues, and the Government will have a free vote on that matter as a whole.
The issue of police misconduct and police vetting was raised very strongly by my noble friend Lady Lawrence, the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, and others, particularly in the light of the “Panorama” investigation we touched on in Question Time today. There are a number of measures in the Bill to support strengthening police vetting, and I very much welcome those and hope they will be looked at positively in the future.
Knife crime was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Hampton, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Birt, and my noble friend Lady Lawrence. Again, the measures in the Bill are designed to regulate the supply of knives by people who wish to use those knives in a way that is not conducive to good behaviour and that causes death, misery and injury. We have to take those actions, and I think it is important that we do so.
There has been a lot of discussion around the issue of hate crime. First of all, I want to touch on the issue raised by my noble friends Lady Donaghy and Lord Cashman and the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green: the aggravated offence. It was a Labour manifesto commitment at the general election. We are carefully considering now how best to amend the law to ensure the protected characteristics have that fairness. We will set out our conclusions later, during the passage of the Bill, but that commitment has been given and we will examine that in due course.
That leads me on to the question, a live issue for noble Lords, of non-crime hate incidents. The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, indicated very strongly what has happened in relation to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and I am grateful to him for his support in giving the review on this matter. We have recently had discussions from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and others in the House, including the noble Lord, Lord Young, about this matter, and we are going to have a debate about it, but I am hoping that the review that the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, has instigated will help colour whatever amendments are brought forward. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned it as well. It is important that we have that debate and discussion, but I want it to be influenced by the review from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, if noble Lords think that is appropriate.
A number of noble Lords mentioned the pornography review, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, in particular for the work she has done on that. The noble Baronesses, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, Lady Kidron and Lady Sugg, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and my noble friend Lady Donaghy all made contributions today on the pornography review. We are committed to taking any necessary action following consideration of the noble Baroness’s recommendations. We have committed to criminalising pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation in this Bill, and we will bring forward an amendment to that effect. Where we can, in relation to the recommendations of the noble Baroness’s report, we will take early action to undertake that as a whole.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned honour-based abuse, and I am grateful to her—I was looking for her, and she was there when we started but has now moved over there. She called for a statutory definition of so-called honour-based abuse, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. We will work closely with the honour-based abuse sector to develop that statutory definition. We have given that commitment. I agree that it is vital that all professionals with safeguarding responsibilities have the right framework to identify victims and perpetrators, and I will be looking at that during the passage of this Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, mentioned spiking. It is an important measure and, again, I will reflect on the points she made in this discussion.
I was pleased by the welcome from the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, for the measures on cuckolding—
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Cuckooing, not cuckolding. Sorry, it has been a long day in the Chamber today—apart from a very quick 20-second call of nature, I have been in for the whole day. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support for that measure as a whole.
We have also had a range of new ideas for the Bill, and I look forward—honestly—to developing and arguing and having a discussion around the amendments during the passage of the Bill.
I am happy to meet any Members, if I can, who are going to raise those issues. I have firearms and cycling from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. Historical weapons were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, takes an interest in that. I have had measures on child abuse from the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. I have transport issues from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, deceased children from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the chatbot issues. I have new proposals on cyber-digital from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, The noble Lord, Lord Walney, raised a number of issues to do with the terrorism review.
I have universal jurisdiction from my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. I have the cumulative impact issues from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. I have facial recognition from the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. I have vehicle non-compliance from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I have fraud from the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Birt, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Coffey. On all those things, I am happy to meet and discuss. Let us look at what is tabled, let us look at what is put down, and the Government will reflect on it. We may disagree at the end, but let us have that discussion as a whole.
On the fraud issue, from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, in particular, I am the Government’s first Fraud Minister—Anti-Fraud Minister, really, but is called Fraud Minister for the purposes of the discussion here today. I have a challenge from the Government to produce a new fraud strategy. We are in the process of working on that. By January or February of next year, there will be a three-year fraud strategy, which will cover some of the points that the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Birt, and others mentioned.
I know that facial recognition issues are important to the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, and I want to ensure that we examine those.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, and others made representations about the stalking measures in the Bill. I hope they will welcome those, but we will have a debate around that in due course.
My noble friend Lady Whitaker argued for the repeal of the provisions on encampments in Part 4 of the Police Act. We are aware of the High Court ruling and of the points made there. We will consider how best to respond in due course and will do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, again mentioned the recording of offences of intimate images. I am not sure we are going to agree on some of these issues, but at least I look forward to the amendments in due course if they are brought forward.
I also note the points from the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, which I will reflect on and look at in due course.
This is indeed a very large Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act and the implementation of that for farmers. We are looking now at when we can implement that and trying to bring the necessary regulations later this year—so I can give him the answer and support on that.
Although it is very rushed, I think I have covered every point raised by every Member who has spoken in the debate today. I may not have satisfied every Member, but I hope I have recognised that—
Lord Cromwell (CB)
Can I make the briefest of interruptions? That is a terrific to-do list and I congratulate the Minister on a spectacular summation. The one thing that has not really been touched on, which I think almost all of us spoke about, is resources. How are we going to pay for it?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Again, the Bill covers a range of legislative options on a range of matters. In parallel to that, there are two other aspects of work. We will produce a policing White Paper very shortly, which will look at some of the issues in policing and how we can improve efficiencies. With the National Police Chiefs’ Council and colleagues and police and crime commissioners, we will look at how we can get better value and better focus on the key policing issues that Members have talked about today.
The very point that the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and others have mentioned—about delivery, about use of resources, about focus and about asking what the police do on particular issues—is extremely important. It is absolutely vital that we focus the police on government priorities. Aside from the police White Paper, we have issues with police funding and budgets. We have given £1.2 billion extra this year to policing. There is a challenging settlement, but our job is to get better value out of that. But I think there is commonality between all of us in the Chamber today that the issues that matter to people are anti-social behaviour, shop theft, violence against women and girls and child sexual abuse. Although there are many policing priorities, those are things that this legislation is dealing with. Therefore, we are hoping that the resources and focus will follow the legislation. The work we have done already—putting an extra 3,000 neighbourhood police on the ground and focusing on neighbourhood policing—means that over the next two to three years we try to increase the number of forward-facing neighbourhood police officers on the ground.
Nobody expects that there will be no challenge in all this, but the purpose of this Bill is to give legislative framework to government manifesto commitments. I think it meets a number of important objectives. There will be debate between Members; there will be differences; there will be votes; there may not be a meeting of minds on certain issues. But I am hopeful that, when this process is over, this Bill will pass, that it will be put into effect and that Members of this House and the House of Commons will hold the Home Office to account for making sure that we reduce crime, increase confidence in policing and make sure that there are fewer victims in the future. I commend the Bill to the House.
Lord Hanson of Flint
That the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 5, Schedule 2, Clause 6, Schedule 3, Clauses 7 to 18, Schedule 4, Clauses 19 to 55, Schedule 5, Clause 56, Schedule 6, Clauses 57 to 65, Schedule 7, Clauses 66 to 72, Schedule 8, Clauses 73 to 84, Schedule 9, Clauses 85 to 96, Schedule 10, Clauses 97 to 117, Schedule 11, Clauses 118 to 122, Schedule 12, Clauses 123 to 127, Schedule 13, Clauses 128 to 136, Schedule 14, Clauses 137 to 139, Schedule 15, Clauses 140 to 145, Schedules 16 to 18, Clauses 146 to 164, Schedule 19, Clauses 165 to 186, Schedule 20, Clause 187, Schedule 21, Clauses 188 to 203, Title.