Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

My proposed amendment, if enacted, would send a clear signal to police and prosecutors that speech that offends, shocks or disturbs is indeed lawful. At the same time, it would do nothing to remove real protection from victims who have suffered. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Is the noble Lord saying that, when I was on the Bench here and he hissed at me that I should shut up because I was rude, that was okay because it did not alarm me? Does he remember doing that? We almost came to blows outside.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I recollect that we have always had a robust exchange of views. I did not in any sense seek to alarm the noble Baroness, but, from memory, she arrived late for a group of amendments, pontificated for a few minutes on issues that she had not heard and then—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise, mercifully briefly, to come at this from a slightly different direction. Four years ago, when I was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, we had a debate in the assembly specifically about honour-based abuse in the part-session in September 2021. The point I want to raise is that this is not a UK-only phenomenon but an international phenomenon, and I am putting forward the idea that there is something to be gained from looking at the experience and examples of attempts to deal with honour-based abuse in different jurisdictions. The report that the debate was about looked at the incidence of honour-based abuse and how it is being dealt with in countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands. That was four years ago, so I suspect things have moved on since then. All I ask is that the Government are conscious of that when they are looking at the current state of international knowledge and the degree to which we can benefit from that.

Honour-based abuse comes underneath the Istanbul convention, which we have finally signed up to. Within that, there is an organisation called the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, which has the acronym GREVIO. It has been in existence for about 15 years. I have just checked, and I am ashamed to say that, at the moment, while there is a lot of international representation on this body, there is not a single UK representative, nor has there ever been. I suggest that looking at what this committee does—because it focuses very much on this area—and seeing whether we could not potentially nominate somebody who could go and participate in that and learn from it would be a very good idea.

The only other thing I would say is in the context of the research that the rapporteur for this, who was a representative from Monaco, did. She spoke quite extensively to Nazir Afzal—somebody who I suspect the Minister knows—a prosecutor from the north of England who has been particularly heavily involved in this. One of the things he said really struck me. The report says:

“The crimes were strongly linked to cultural factors”,


particularly factors

“which strengthened … male power and aimed to prevent women from making choices”.

What really struck me was this:

“A 21-year-old man born and raised in England had told him that a man was like a piece of gold which you could clean if you dropped it in the mud, whereas a woman was like a piece of silk, which would be stained forever”.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 356, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. First, I would like to apologise for my intervention earlier. I am afraid I am getting very grumpy, and the Christmas Recess has arrived just in time.

All the amendments in this group have validity, and it might be worth trying to combine them on Report, because this is such an important issue. When serious crimes are committed in the name of so-called honour, the law should recognise that for what it is: a particularly severe and controlling form of abuse. This amendment is to ensure that our justice system understands the dynamics at play in so-called honour-based abuse—abuse that is often collective, prolonged and enforced through fear and the threat of extreme violence.

The case of Banaz Mahmod illustrates this with devastating clarity. Despite reporting rape, violence and repeated threats to her life, and naming those responsible, she was not protected. After her murder, a police watchdog investigation found serious institutional failings, including a failure to grasp the specific risks posed by so-called honour-based abuse.

This amendment reflects the Women and Equalities Committee’s recommendation to explicitly recognise so-called honour in sentencing guidelines to ensure an understanding of such abuse. Recognising so-called honour as an aggravating factor in sentencing would send a clear and necessary signal that crimes motivated by perceived shame or dishonour are deliberate acts of gender-based violence.

This amendment is also supported by victims, survivors, specialist organisations, including Southall Black Sisters, and Banaz’s sister, who has campaigned tirelessly and at huge personal risk. However, there is one thing about all these amendments that I feel is totally wrong and we need to rethink, and that is the fact that I have been saying “so-called honour”. This has nothing to do with honour. This is dishonour, and that is what we should call it.