Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Cameron of Lochiel and Baroness Barker

Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for setting out the context behind this debate, which takes place against a backdrop in this country of large-scale funding by anti-abortion groups across the piece and almost daily articles in our newspapers about anti-abortion. That is one of the reasons why we have seen an increase in women being arrested. Noble Lords were very careful in the statistics they selected. Some chose to talk about 2018-22. It is undeniable that in the last three or four years there has been a huge increase in the number of women being investigated.

There are three groups of people in your Lordships’ House. There are those who are fundamentally opposed to abortion, and we have heard from many of them today speaking to many of the amendments. There are those who, like me in speaking to my Amendment 459C, support a woman’s right to make informed choices and who, for the last 10 years, have followed this debate about decriminalisation. To those who say that this was brought in as a measure by the back door, suddenly sprung on the House of Commons, that is wrong. For 10 years we have been discussing decriminalisation. Dame Diana Johnson brought Bills before another place. We have had a great deal of discussion about it at different stages. Then there is a third group: the people who have doubts. The speeches of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, typified some of them. They are the people who I want to talk to today, because they have some concern that this is not right.

In my preparation for today’s debate, which I have been thinking about for several weeks, I thought about a parallel and I went to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, went to, so I am sorry he is not in his place. I went to the fact that in 1961—a very good year in my opinion—this House debated the decriminalisation of suicide. I went, with the assistance of the Library, to look through the Hansard reports of that debate and the parallels are striking. At the point when it came into Parliament, what was the first criticism? That this had been sprung on us and was too big an issue to be brought in in this way. Yet there had been 10 years of debate prior to that by people who thought this was not the right way to deal with this issue. People in the Church had great debates about it. I suggest noble Lords read those Hansard reports, because the debates both here and in the House of Commons are profound. They are succinct, which is perhaps something we should relearn, because it is quite clear that there is no correlation between length of debate and quality of debate. These were people who were profoundly concerned about a moral issue and about what signal Parliament would be giving out were it to take this very grave step.

I will quote just one speech that took place not in the House of Lords but in the House of Commons. At Third Reading, the Conservative Minister Charles Fletcher-Cooke said:

“Because we have taken the view, as Parliament and the Government have taken, that the treatment of people who attempt to commit suicide should no longer be through the criminal courts, it in no way lessens, nor should it lessen, the respect for the sanctity of human life which we all share. It must not be thought that because we are changing the method of treatment for those unfortunate people we seek to depreciate the gravity of the action of anyone who tries to commit suicide”.


I suggest that there is a very strong and clear parallel with our debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, there are two evils here, and we have to decide between them.

Charles Fletcher-Cooke went on:

“One of the consequences of removing from the ambit of the criminal law this hitherto crime of attempted suicide is that it may be feared that some people may not be reached through the Mental Health Act; that there will be some who will not submit themselves to voluntary treatment, and cannot be persuaded by then medical advisers or members of their family to receive treatment. It may be apprehended that some gap in the welfare of the country may follow from that”.


He then said:

“We would all agree that it would be quite wrong either to keep the present criminal structure or to impose a new one purely for what we believe to be a very small minority. But we shall watch the situation and the Government will keep an open mind. We will see whether that small number increases and if a proposal not involving the odour of criminality is put forward to meet the situation, we shall certainly look at it again”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/7/61; cols. 822-23.]


Two noble Lords talked about deterrence. Behind our deliberations today has been a fear that, if we cease to treat these women under the criminal justice system, we are somehow saying that what they do is less grave. I do not agree with that. I hope that, if I had taken part in that debate in 1961, I would have understood the point that they were making then, which is the same as the one we are making now: if somebody is so desperate that they would do this, they will not be in the right place if they end up in the criminal justice system. This is a medical issue.

In all the speeches we have heard today from noble Lords trying to chip away at telemedicine, the one thing that they have not dealt with is the point made to us by the people who see these desperate women: if we do anything to stop them being in contact with the medical profession, we put them in danger, and we will never get them out. In listening to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, I wondered whether police officers find themselves in other situations where someone has done something illegal that might have had a profound effect on their health. Is the first thing that comes into the police officer’s mind that the person should go to the criminal justice system, rather than making sure that they are medically safe? That is what we are doing throughout this debate: we are treating these women as being exceptional.

We should do what we have been doing for the past 10 years. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is right that Clause 191 could be far more radical than it is. It is not radical; it is a very small adjustment to say that, if women are that desperate, they deserve medical treatment. All the amendments that have been debated today are just barriers in the way of that happening. I hope that people in this House, just as has been done at the other end, will realise that we are back to the same dilemma we had in 1961 and that we should do the right thing by desperate people.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a full, difficult and passionate debate, and I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. I know that issues of conscience such as this arouse very strong feelings, but I am pleased that we have managed to keep the debate respectful, as we always do in your Lordships’ House.

At the outset, I recognise that there are two aspects to this debate that we must firmly and definitively distinguish. The first is a matter of substance and the second is a matter of procedure. More specifically, the first is about the merits of the substance of Clause 191 and the second is about the process by which it became part of a government Bill.

On the first matter, that is an issue of conscience, and on this the Opposition do not and will not take an official position. I acknowledge that there is a multitude of views across the Committee, and indeed within my own party. That diversity of opinion is to be expected and welcome, but this is and always has been a matter of personal conscience.

However, the second matter is very different. Regardless of one’s views on the rights or wrongs of decriminalisation, the process by which Clause 191 was inserted into the Bill was, on any view, insufficient and, as a matter of procedure, deficient. The amendment was proposed on Report in the other place by Tonia Antoniazzi MP. It was not discussed in the Public Bill Committee or a Select Committee. As others have said this evening, it received 46 minutes of Back-Bench debate. Many Members in the other place were limited to less than five minutes of speaking time. On such an issue of profound social change, in no way can that be described as a full and proper debate—compare that to the vigorous debate we have had today.

Because this was an amendment to legislation brought in on Report and not part of the Bill as introduced or as amended in Committee, and because it was not government policy, this proposal has not undergone any of the usual stages of policy formation. As your Lordships will well know, where a major change to the law is proposed, the Government would normally publish a White Paper or Green Paper, commission an expert panel or review, gather evidence, conduct a public consultation, and publish an impact assessment and relevant supporting documents. The policy proposal would then be published as part of the Bill. It would be subject to detailed scrutiny in a Public Bill Committee, where witnesses would be invited to give evidence. None of these steps has been taken. Whatever one’s views on the merits of Clause 191, that is not a recipe for good law.

Let us just pause and reflect on the wide variety of issues that have arisen today—the amendments themselves cover a lot of ground. We have discussed issues of police procedure and investigation, a panoply of medical issues, and issues around potential coercion, telemedicine, prosecution policy and the vulnerability of women. There is a multitude of difficult and intricate issues to cover.

It is interesting that, when Parliament considered the Abortion Bill in 1967, the abolition of the death penalty and, more recently, the legalisation of gay marriage, all were introduced as separate Bills that underwent the full process of parliamentary scrutiny. Indeed, your Lordships Committee is currently considering another piece of social legislation, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. Despite being a Private Member’s Bill, that Bill has been subject to a rather more robust process and more significant scrutiny than this clause before us today. Of course, that is absolutely right; these are matters that, if we get them wrong, could have severe and perverse consequences. Again, whether or not noble Lords support Clause 191, the Committee is being asked to pass judgment on a provision to alter fundamentally the legal status of abortion, for right or wrong, without the possession of all the necessary evidence.

Indeed, during the debate on the clause in the other place, when discussing wider abortion law reforms, Tonia Antoniazzi, who as we know proposed Clause 191, said:

“More comprehensive reform of abortion law is needed, but the right way to do that is through a future Bill, with considerable collaboration between providers, medical bodies and parliamentarians working together to secure the changes that are needed. That is what a change of this magnitude would require”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/25; col. 305.]


I agree that these are changes of magnitude. A separate and distinct Bill would be a better way forward. Comprehensive reforms of legislation on social matters should have considerable collaboration between all relevant stakeholders. That has not happened with Clause 191. It is fair to say that, whatever one’s views on the moral element of the change, Clause 191 is so far-reaching, consequential and of such magnitude that it is questionable whether it is appropriate for it to be bolted on to the side of a crime and policing Bill.

Finally, I turn to the approach of the Government to Clause 191. Ultimately, this is now a clause in a government Bill. The Government may or may not have wanted it in the Bill, but, regardless of their neutrality, this clause is now in their Bill. If the Bill passes with Clause 191 remaining, it will be the Government’s job to implement it. It will unequivocally be government legislation.