Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Baroness Bousted

Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am just wondering if the Committee would allow me to speak at my extreme age. I have put my name to the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and I do not propose to repeat anything he has said. But there are two aspects I will speak about, particularly those raised by the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Pannick.

First, in what they are both saying, we are looking at women who are not guilty of any offence. We are being asked to pass a law to protect offenders for the sake of people who are not offenders. Speaking as a former lawyer, I find that an extraordinary proposal. I absolutely understand what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is saying, about the difficulty of balancing. But he is talking about the innocent. We are being asked to pass a law that would actually protect the guilty for the sake of the innocent. It is the first time anyone has pointed this out, and I find it rather extraordinary. We are being asked to look at women who have suffered a stillbirth or an abortion not at their request but because it has happened at a very late stage, who are now being investigated by the police. I gather the whole thing has gathered momentum after pills were being sent by post. Prior to that, the police did not investigate a lot of cases, but because of the pills being sent by post, the police are now investigating to a greater extent.

Particularly in relation to those who are suffering domestic abuse—this relates to the amendment the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and I have put forward—it looks to me as though we are being asked to change the law because the police are taking a year to investigate, treating women extremely badly in the process. But surely, we should be looking at the guidance to the police. I am very relieved to hear the right reverend Prelate is going to get Lincolnshire Police to have a look at this. We should find out why the police are not looking at potential abusers or investigating the partner as well as the woman. We are being told again and again that the partners are not being investigated but the woman is being investigated. It is taking a year or longer—in some appalling cases, six years. But that is the failure of the police. We know they are overstretched, but it is an appalling failure, particularly if they do not investigate.

[Baroness Bousted (Lab)]

Would the noble and learned Baroness, with her outstanding history in the law, recognise that women and men are not treated equally in the criminal justice system, nor in police investigations; that it is the case that women, when they are convicted of an offence, are often sent to prison for offences for which men are not sent to prison; that women are sent to prison for longer than men for the same offences; that there are many women in prison for things that men would not be put in prison for; and that exactly the same is the case in investigations? We have to ask the question: why did it take six years, why are the police not—

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Baroness Bousted

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bousted (Lab)]

I absolutely acknowledge that, but it is important to note that such a provision was available and was defunded. The number of centres was decimated, which has had long-term consequences that noble Lords have been so clear about: the effect on the poorest children of that poverty of provision. I think that is really important to note.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I feel the need to move on. I very much support early years strategy, and I particularly appreciated the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Young of Cookham. I remember a mother and her three year-old daughter. The mother had never learned how to speak to her daughter, who had no speech and had never heard anything from her mother. They were invited to join what was almost certainly Sure Start in north Kensington and, three months later, hand in hand, near Christmas, they danced down the steps of the preschool, singing carols together. That place closed—and this is one of the sadnesses that we have.

I very much support what the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, said, because I have a granddaughter who at five was said to be stupid. Thank goodness she changed school; she was found to be dyslexic and, I am glad to say, she got a good degree at Edinburgh—but with a great deal of help. To identify children at an early stage, long before they go to school, would make the most enormous difference. It did to my granddaughter, who was extremely unhappy at her first school, because she kept being told she was stupid, and she was not stupid at all. She is one of countless children who are not identified at one stage early enough.

Dare I ask the Minister whether it is at all possible that this Government, from the party that produced Sure Start, which was so excellent, could think one day, when there is a little bit more money, they might reintroduce it again?