Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Cash and Baroness Chakrabarti

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention, but that is a separate issue—it is about who is allocated to which duty at the police station, and it is perfectly reasonable for the police themselves to organise who conducts a strip search and who conducts a strip search on whom. That is not what the first or second version of the amendment is about; it is about an obligation on the police to make a determination of the biological sex of anybody they are arresting, charging or cautioning. It comes from noble Lords who, as I understand it, oppose compulsory digital ID that could conceivably require some determination at the point of registration. I applauded those compelling speeches last week from noble Lords about that being too much of an intrusion on the citizen who is innocent until proved guilty at the point of encounter with the police. How are the police going to do this?

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

I have never spoken in this Chamber on digital ID; I want to make that clear for the record, because the noble Baroness used the plural in talking about all those present. I also want to come back on her very emotional intervention, for which I am grateful as she clearly feels very passionately about this. Most of us have more confidence in the police than she may be demonstrating, because a lot of this is common sense, as the public at large understand. Some 50% of the population are women and girls, and they deserve to be protected. The number of people we are referring to is very small, but among that number are some really bad actors. This is a foundational principle of our criminal justice system, so how does she square the emotional circle in saying that this is not possible without infringing rights?

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Cash and Baroness Chakrabarti

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

As we are in Committee, I welcome the noble Baroness’s comments on this. The 18-category classification is the gold standard of identification. In practice, a police officer may have a conversation with a suspect. Reality needs to be injected with a bit of common sense. If an individual does not know how to self-identify, a conversation helping them to locate their particular geography or identity may be facilitated with the common sense of the officer concerned. If there is an alternative, I welcome it, because I hear that the noble Baroness is in agreement on the principle and the general direction. What therefore would be a good system?

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. At the police level—at the level of arrest—it has to be some version of self-identification. The police need to ask—and, if necessary, have the conversation—but it cannot be that the police observe, decide and adjudicate. That is not viable. The noble Baroness may disagree with me, but if this is going to happen in relation to race and ethnicity it will probably have to be self-identification. As I say, anything else at the level of arrest or charge is not practical.