Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I think I can say yes to both those points. If I cannot, I shall revert to her shortly.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches, we support the intent behind this blizzard of government amendments. Of course, as the Minister says, the effect of these amendments and other consequential changes is to apply tougher maximum penalties and provisions relating to offensive weapons in Scotland and, in certain cases, Northern Ireland.

It would be extremely useful if the Minister could say whether the law in each of the home nations is the same. I assume that is the effect of all these different amendments—that the UK should be on exactly the same footing, however and wherever you commit that offence. Even though I understand that it was at the request, in the first instance, of the Scottish Government.

We very much support the way in which the amendments reflect the gravity of the kinds of violence that plague our communities from these offensive weapons and that the manufacture, supply and possession of these articles will be met with the full force of the law. We welcome not only the amendments but the original provisions of the Bill, but we need to think of not just penalties but prevention. I hope some of those provisions will make individuals accountable with the digital identity, which we also support.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I would like an answer to the question of whether the analogue identity provision will continue. Otherwise, that could lead to forms of digital exclusion, which I do not think that we or the Minister would welcome.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s comments, which I will respond to in a moment, but it is important that I clarify the point referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I was half right. The answer “yes” is to the question of passports; it is correct that digital passports or driving licences can be approved documents. There is a power by regulation to add other documents; at the moment, the PASS card is not added to that as a form of identification, but obviously it potentially can be in due course, if Governments decide to add that. That will again be subject to regulation. I apologise, but the noble Baroness asked me a question and I gave her the answer in good faith, but it is best that we clarify that point now.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and I am genuinely sorry. I understand where he is coming from, and I am grateful to him and the Opposition Whips’ Office for giving notification that they would have concerns over those matters, but I am sorry that he has done it. We are in the 21st century; digital ID is becoming a commonplace issue. I understand that we are going to have steps to have age verification, such as acceptable digital ID, as the norm in future.

As I set out earlier, it is to allow different forms of digital ID to be used to verify purchasers’ identity information. When changes to the acceptable proofs of identity, digital or otherwise, are proposed, they will be subject to the affirmative procedure, so there would have been an opportunity for the noble Lord, and in both Houses, to oppose or question at that time, but I understand where he is coming from. I am of the view that as technology progresses, there will be different types of digital ID which might be acceptable. It is not an attempt by the Government to speed up or usurp the process; it is just future-proofing, because there may be digital ID on a range of issues.

As an example, I have a digital and a hard copy of my railcard. I show both at different times, depending on which one is easiest to get to. Digital ID is progressing, and it will continue to do so. There are potentially new digital documents, such as the recently announced digital ID card, coming downstream. As with any new legislation, that is still a matter for Parliament to consider, but if a Bill comes before the House—after the outcome of a consultation, it might be in the next few weeks—that is something we are trying to future-proof accordingly.

I hope that, given those assurances, the noble Lord is prepared to support all the amendments, but I guess that he will not—that is a reasonable position for him to take and one we must look at. To help him today, in a genuine spirit of trying to help, if the noble Lord remains unpersuaded, which I think he is—he confirms that he is—I will move only Amendments 57 to 70 and Amendments 193 to 209 to Clauses 28 and 29, respectively. I will not move Amendment 210A, which makes equivalent provision for Northern Ireland to that contained in Clause 36 and, in due course, the related consequential and drafting amendments to the Bill, so that we can look at these matters on Report and not have that debate and discussion today. At this stage, I will not move the amendments to Clauses 31 to 35 and the associated back-of-the-Bill consequential amendments. The Committee should rest assured that I will bring them back on Report, and if the noble Lord has his disagreements then, we will test the House. If the House votes one way, we accept it; if it votes the other way, we potentially test the House again. That is a matter for discussion and debate downstream.

There is nothing to fear from the proposals for someone having a digital ID and showing it when receiving a knife or weapon through the post. That is not something to be afraid of. We are in the 21st century—I am in the 21st century at least, let us put it that way. We will go from there.

I also assure the noble Lord that paper documents such as passports and driving licences will be acceptable as forms of ID, as well as potentially any digital versions of those in due course. I hope that satisfies his question.

I welcome, in a spirit of co-operation and consensus, the agreement from both Front Benches to the provisions for Northern Ireland and Scotland, so that in those areas there is a United Kingdom response from the three Administrations who deal with these matters in a devolved or non-devolved way. I commend the amendments I said I would move.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Before the Minister sits down, I thank him for what he said. I am slightly baffled. There is no Bench more strongly against compulsory digital ID than the Liberal Democrat Benches, so I find the Minister’s assurance that the analogue form of identity will continue—and digital ID in this instance, whatever is prescribed by the Secretary of State, is an alternative form of identification—wholly convincing, but if we must come back on Report and debate this at length, so be it.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Will the noble Lord respond on the mandatory conditions on the digital proof-of-age pass, which he confirmed would be published before December?

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I think it is the Matterhorn at this stage, rather than Everest, but we will see. I thank the Minister for his very full reply, and I thank all noble Lords for their support for this set of amendments that I and my noble friend Lady Doocey put forward. The Minister has set out his stall; he is clearly very wedded to the current wording, and that will merit careful consideration. I recognise the point he made about this being a manifesto commitment, but Amendment 1 is not designed to negate respect orders; it is designed to review the existing suite of anti-social behaviour legislation in order to make sure that it is effective.

I recognise the point the Minister made about the 1 million incidents, but we do not know at this stage, other than from the Minister’s assertions, that the respect orders are going to be effective in dealing with those, or, indeed, whether existing powers would have themselves been effective.

The Minister did not really explain why the current legislation is inadequate. He also did not for one second admit that the current regime of PSPOs and CPNs had its faults.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The real difference between this legislation and the existing legislation is that action can be taken immediately. I think I did touch on that point, but if it was not to the noble Lord’s satisfaction, I apologise. We can take action immediately on a breach.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I think we are going to need some more convincing that that is the case, compared to anti-social behaviour injunctions. So, we remain somewhat unconvinced.

We have the common aim across the House of achieving an effective system that is fair and proportionate. The one chink in the Minister’s armour was that he was prepared, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to consider the wording “necessary and proportionate”. I very much hope that he will consider that as a possible amendment to his proposal.

I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, that Governments reach for the statute book; we need to consider whether existing legislation is sufficient. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, called for a pause. Whether it is a pause or a review, we will definitely want to return to this on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Just briefly, because this is a very important aspect of the enforcement of respect orders, I ask whether the Minister is saying that all that is needed is that it is shown beyond reasonable doubt that the respect order has been breached, or does one go back to the original decision on the civil balance of probabilities—the reasons for the respect order? Is it purely that you have to show beyond reasonable doubt that the respect order has been breached, in which case it is still a civil balance of probabilities requirement for the original respect order to be enforced?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

There is a determination, and I believe the legislation before us today is clear on that matter. We will debate this still further, undoubtedly, but there is essentially a respect order where the court will consider the potential breach and will make a judgment on it, and having examined that, it will determine the issue in relation to that breach. The noble Lord raises that issue now, but as regards Amendment 19 before us today, which is the point I am making now, limiting the scope of where an interim respect order can be issued risks further harm for communities as a whole.

I will just focus on the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, mentioned. She covered in the last series of amendments the same issue, in a sense, about capacity, which is important. It will be a matter for discretion of the applicant and the court to determine what requirements will be most suitable in line with the resources and options that are available in a given area. So, again, that discretion is there at a local level to determine; for example, if an alcohol awareness course is required, then self-evidently an alcohol awareness course has to be available for the individual to take up that course. Those judgments will be made at a local level by the local individuals who are determining these matters.

Again, I refer noble Lords to the economic impact assessment that we have published. The ASB package is expected to lead to

“an overall reduction in prison places”.

The respect order replaces the civil injunction, and we are not expecting additional cases per se. Once in a steady state, annual prison places for respect orders will stay more or less the same, and we expect respect orders to have a neutral impact on prison places, given that they are replacing civil injunction powers. So I hope that that again reassures the noble Baroness in relation to the resource question of the additional impact of these matters. With those comments, I respectfully request the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are technical amendments that affect provisions in the Bill containing data-sharing provisions. Within the relevant clauses and schedule, there are general provisions that bar the disclosure of data if such disclosures would contravene data-protection legislation. These protections against data-protection overrides are now no longer needed within the Bill, as a general provision to the same effect is now made by Section 183A of the Data Protection Act 2018, which was inserted by Section 106(2) of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. That Act came into effect on 20 August and, now that the general provision is in force, the amendments remove the redundant duplicative provisions from the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s confirmation that the amendments are matters of purely technical housekeeping, because they remove provisions that are no longer needed, and that this is caused by the insertion of Section 183A into the Data Protection Act 2018 by Section 106(2) of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. I must confess, having spent time in the salt mines of the then Data (Use and Access) Bill, that this did not come to my attention at the time, but I am sure it is a valuable piece of legislation.

This creates an overarching safeguard, ensuring that new enactments such as this Bill do not automatically override core data protection requirements. However, I must say that the fact that the Government’s intentions are technically sound in this respect does not remove the need for clarification and specific statutory safeguards in certain highly sensitive policy areas, which we will be debating in due course. I thought I would put the Minister on notice that we will be calling for the adoption of additional safeguards ensuring that new powers in the Bill are fair and proportionate: for instance, the DVLA access and facial recognition provisions in Clause 138, which grant powers for regulations concerning police access to DVLA driver licensing information. We remain deeply concerned that the power granted by Clause 138 could be used to create a vast police facial recognition database, and we will be looking for additional safeguards.

On Clauses 192 to 194, concerning international law enforcement information-sharing agreements, the cross-border transfer of data inherent in such agreements presents significant civil liberties concerns, so we will be calling for mandatory privacy impact assessments. That is just a taster.

In conclusion, while the Government’s amendments are technical in nature, we will in due course be using the opportunity to embed specific, robust statutory safeguards for a number of new powers in the Bill.

Apple: Advanced Data Protection Service

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Clement-Jones

Monday 31st March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I can only say that to my knowledge, that is a matter for another nation and not this one, and not this Home Office.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, further on a non-operational matter, are the Government always clear that their actions conform to the judgment of Podchasov v Russia by the European Court of Human Rights last February? It held that weakening end-to-end encryption or creating back doors could not be justified. Therefore, the Government could be in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to privacy. Are the Government happy to be in the same boat as Russia as regards individual rights and encryption?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord will know that Russia and this UK Government are so far apart that there is no correlation between the two under any circumstances. In fact, we will also once again publicly condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. That is how far apart we are on these matters.

Access to data happens only under specific circumstances and with strict safeguards, so that robust action can be taken against child sex abusers and terrorists. That is the position of the Government. If any data is accessed, it is accessed by the Investigatory Powers Act for the tribunal, and under strict regulation, for the purposes of stopping bad people doing bad things.