Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the remarks we have heard from around the Chamber, including from my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about the seriousness of anti-social behaviour and the rationale of the Government in bringing forward the measures that they have in this part of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, summed it up as the requirement for an effective and functioning system—hear, hear to that.

My concern is aligned with the sentiment, if not the letter, of Amendment 1, which would require the Government to explain why they feel that this set of measures, including respect orders, will work, when previous similar measures—ASBIs and so forth—have not worked to the extent, perhaps, that the Ministers who championed them when they were originally brought in expected. I do not believe that this is the moment for an independent review, but I think the Minister could give the Committee a detailed explanation of the specific circumstances in which he feels that these new respect orders will be deployed, why they are more likely to work than the existing arrangements and, in particular, the degree to which they will really make a difference. The Minister has brought forward these measures for the approval of Parliament, and he must be able to justify the result he expects them to have once they are implemented.

We know that that Governments of all flavours—this is not a specific reflection on the current Government—tend to reach for the statute book to address knotty problems, when in fact the answer may equally lie in better execution of existing powers. That probably is the overall challenge that has been put to the Minister this afternoon. I very much look forward to his answer.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the speakers in this debate so far. This Committee stage will be a long haul, but I hope that we can continue this level of discussion and scrutiny throughout. Sorry.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

No problem.

My Lords, I rise to speak very briefly to Amendments 4, 5 and 7 in my name. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has made a very clear case for each one, so I will speak briefly. I put on record my thanks to Justice, which has gathered insights from so many people working in this field and it has been really interesting reading case studies that are backed up by very clear evidence.

These amendments would provide essential safeguards, ensuring the powers contained within respect orders are proportionate. Amendment 4 would require orders to be made only where there is evidence of actual conduct, not speculation about what a person might do in future. Amendment 7 would ensure that an order is imposed with a clear end date, capped at two years. In my opinion, it is wrong that an individual could be subject to potentially serious restrictions in perpetuity as a result of behaviour that falls below the criminal threshold. In Amendment 5, we want to change the “just and convenient” threshold generally applied in civil proceedings to “necessary and proportionate”. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, put a very good case for this—much better than I could ever do, so I will not try.

Amendment 1, moved by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, calling for an independent review of existing anti-social behaviour powers before respect orders are rolled out, would improve the Bill considerably, because precisely what laws are already used, and what works in practice, is critical to their success.

On the subject of likely success, I welcome the fact that respect orders can include positive requirements that people have to, for example, attend rehabilitation—perhaps to deal with addictions to drugs or drink or both. However, such requirements can work only if every region has capacity in drug and alcohol treatment programmes. I am sure the Minister is aware that only 12 of the 43 police forces returned data last year on how many cases were referred for such treatment. Without that information, we cannot know how such rehabilitation can work. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister, when he responds, about what efforts are being made to ensure there are places available. Legislation alone is no good without resources.

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. I did want to hear what she had to say, but my enthusiasm to move on overtook me, unfortunately. I must learn to ignore nods from the Government Bench opposite as well.

As I said, the Committee stage will be a long haul, but I hope that we can continue this level of discussion and scrutiny throughout. On these Benches, we are not entirely sure of the need for new anti-social behaviour laws, and the validity of the proposed measure will be touched on more thoroughly in group 3. We feel the focus should be on enforcement first and foremost.

But as this proposal will become law, there are several individual parts of it that would benefit from being amended. I begin with Amendment 2 in my name, which is intended to probe the age at which a person can be given a respect order. The Bill states that this will be 18 and that younger offenders will be subject to a youth injunction. I cannot see why there should be two different powers to deal with the same behaviours. One of the benefits of anti-social behaviour injunctions is that they can apply to any person over the age of 10, rather than having different powers for different age groups.

To set the age minimum at 16 seems like common sense, and I would be surprised if the Minister disagrees with me. It is, after all, his party that believes in treating children of that age as adults. Why should 16 year-olds be allowed to choose the people who create anti-social behaviour laws, but simultaneously be exempt from those laws? Perhaps the Minister can explain the rationale, should he oppose the amendment.

Amendment 6 aims to ensure that an issued respect order does not place excessive restrictions on the recipient. It is similar to Amendment 5, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in seeking to ensure that orders are “necessary and proportionate”. As it stands, respect orders may require the recipient to do anything specified by the court—a power that does not contain any internal safeguards. This could lead to massive judicial overreach. The amendment in my name seeks to ensure that this is not the case. It is fair and proportionate that a recipient may be prohibited from doing anything that may cause a repeat of that which required an order in the first place. Prohibiting those actions is just, but that is where the powers of prohibition should end. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to this potential issue with the proposed policy.

Amendment 11 would remove perhaps the most egregious part of this clause: giving the Secretary of State complete discretion not only over which authorities fall under the scope of respect orders, but the definitions that define respect orders themselves. It means that the already strong and limiting orders can be altered and twisted by whichever Home Secretary happens to be in office. I am sure each noble Lord could think of a different set of hands that they would not want this power to reside in. The amendment in my name would prevent that occurring and leave this already forceful power as it is.

Amendments 13 and 14 seek to improve the clarity in the chain of command in issuing orders. In a policy with so many moving parts, efficiency is key. A respect order would currently appoint a supervisor, who would then have the discretion to inform an

“appropriate chief officer of police”

if the offender lives in more than one area. This adds an extra layer of responsibility to a supervisor already charged with monitoring the respect order’s recipient. I can foresee potential mix-ups and miscommunications whereby either no or multiple chief officers believe themselves to be responsible for a recipient. The easy solution would be to specify the relevant chief officer alongside the supervisor, disaggregating the chain of appointments and improving clarity. I hope the Minister considers this point.

Amendment 20 seeks to require that risk assessments are the basis of respect order applications. It seems wrong that, despite being required to carry out a risk assessment, an applicant can apply for a respect order without having to reference it to the court. Respect orders are potentially very freedom-limiting; the court that issues them should be able to reference the risks posed by the recipient as a justification for these sanctions. As always, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate on the first day in Committee on the Crime and Policing Bill. I feel like I am at base camp at the start of a climb to Mount Everest—but, as ever, Mount Everest has been conquered, as I am sure the Bill will eventually be as well. It feels like we are at the very start of a long, fruitful and productive process.

I will start by outlining a little about respect orders, because it is important to put them into the general context of why the Government are doing what they are doing. There were over 1 million recorded incidents of anti-social behaviour in the last year for which records exist. That is an awful lot of anti-social behaviour and does not include even the underreporting that may well exist.

There is a government manifesto commitment to take action on respect orders. The new orders will enable courts to both ban offenders from engaging in harmful anti-social behaviour, and/or—as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, noted—impose positive requirements to tackle the root cause of anti-social behaviour. That could be anger management or alcohol or drug awareness courses, which will hopefully tackle the root cause of that anti-social behaviour and stop it occurring.

Unlike existing ASB civil injunctions, breach will be a criminal offence enforceable by arrest and tried in the criminal courts. That goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. This goes to court only if an individual breaches the order put on them—the purpose of the order is to stop the behaviour taking place. Penalties for breach will include community sentences, unlimited fines and potentially prison time for the most serious breaches, but only on a breach. That is a really important point to recognise in our discussions today.

Because there are so many amendments in this group, although it is a slow process I will take the amendments in turn. Amendment 1, supported by the noble Lords, Lord Bailey of Paddington and Lord Clement-Jones, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, my noble friends Lady Whitaker and Lord Hacking, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, would require a Home Secretary within six months of the Bill becoming law to undertake a review of existing powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, prior to introducing respect orders.

First, the introduction of respect orders was a manifesto commitment, so the Government have put some thought into it. I also assure noble Lords that the Government are committed to ensuring that the powers to address anti-social behaviour remain effective. As such, they are subject to continuous review. I do not want to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, but there will not be a pilot on this, because the Home Office has regularly engaged with front-line practitioners and with the ASB sector to better understand how the powers of the 2014 Act are used and where improvements can be made.

In addition, under the last Government the department launched a public consultation in 2023 to understand how powers could be used more consistently and effectively. That consultation has helped inform the measures in Part 1 of the Bill. I draw noble Lords’ attention to Clause 7 of the Bill, which, to aid this ongoing evaluation process, provides for new requirements for local agencies to report information about anti-social behaviour to the Government to help us continually improve and review.

Therefore, the provisions in Clause 1 deliver on the manifesto commitment. We need to press ahead with respect orders as soon as possible to ensure that the police, local authorities and others have the effective powers to tackle the 1 million cases per year. Amendment 1 would require us to have a costly and unnecessary review, and it would slow and cause delay in the rollout. Therefore, with respect, I cannot accept it either today or on Report.

Amendments 2 and 3 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Blencathra, seek to lower the age at which respondents can receive a respect order from 18 to 16, or indeed to 14. Again, I hope the noble Lords understand that the Government do not wish to criminalise young people unless it is absolutely necessary, which is why our manifesto was clear that respect orders were aimed at tackling anti-social behaviour perpetrated by adults. The noble Lord, Lord Bailey, made some very valid points on that in relation to the potential criminalisation of younger people.

That does not mean there is no provision for the relevant agencies to deal with youth-related anti-social behaviour. The respect order, while replacing the civil injunction for adults, will remain in place for those under the age of 18, renamed as the youth injunction. Importantly, this will enable youth courts to impose behaviour requirements on younger offenders without resulting in criminalisation if they breach the injunction. There is still the potential for those orders to be placed, but it does not involve criminalisation.

Amendments 4 and 5 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and others would amend the legal test for issuing a respect order. Amendment 4 would mean that a respect order could be issued only in relation to ASB that a respondent had already engaged in, and not where the respondent had threatened to engage in this behaviour, as is the case with existing civil injunctions.

I stress to the House that respect orders are fundamentally preventive in nature. They are designed to stop bad behaviour by putting in place a restraining order that says, in effect, “Don’t do these particular actions”. If the offender abides by the terms of the order, there will be no further sanctions. That is an important point for the House to understand and grasp from the Government’s perspective. Anti-social behaviour can be insidious and difficult to prove and it can take many forms. We know that the threat of aggressive or anti-social behaviour can often escalate quickly into more serious, violent and criminal behaviour —a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. That is why it is crucial that we retain the ability to issue an order against those threatening to engage in ASB, in order to prevent that harm before it happens.

Amendment 5, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, would change the legal test for issuing a respect order, so that that the court would need to find it “necessary and proportionate” to issue the order to prevent the respondent engaging in anti-social behaviour, rather than using the legal test as currently drafted, in which the court must find it “just and convenient” to do so. The current “just and convenient” language mirrors that of the civil injunction and is therefore familiar to the courts.

Let me be clear—this again goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—that the current threshold still requires a judge, with all the relevant legal duties and safeguards that that entails, to be satisfied that the issuing of an order is just, reasonable and fair. Courts will already take the necessity and proportionality of an order into account as a result of their duties under the Human Rights Act. Given these considerations, the benefits of amending the legal test in this way are limited.

Moving on to Amendment 6—

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

8: Clause 1, page 2, line 26, after “court” insert “or a magistrate’s court”

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, we must ensure that courts can operate within their means. If we issue them with new responsibilities, we have to be sure that they have the capacity to fulfil them. Unfortunately, in restricting respect orders to the High Court and county courts, the Government risk not providing the bandwidth to deal with new orders.

At the end of Labour’s first year in office, the Crown Court backlog suffered an annual increase of 11%. There are over 74,000 cases waiting to be judged. Of course, that burden is not entirely at the door of the Crown Courts, but a considerable number of the outstanding cases will require their use. County courts are in a better—but still not ideal—state. The average time for justice to be delivered is just over 49 weeks. Reflecting on this, it makes sense for the Government to divide the responsibilities for the new respect orders as widely as possible. The logical conclusion is to permit an application for a respect order to be made to a magistrates’ court.

If respect orders were confined to the serious criminality that we expect to be dealt with by the High Court and county courts, I would accept placing additional pressures on to them and excluding magistrates’ courts. It is right that those facing serious harassment or other forms of anti-social behaviour have the ability to make application to these courts, but the scope for respect orders is far wider than that. The definition of anti-social behaviour is to include actions causing alarm and distress. These are two very subjective metrics: they are fundamentally different from harassment and more serious forms of anti-social behaviour. So I see no reason why magistrates’ courts should not be available to deal with these less serious and potentially menial forms of anti-social behaviour. This is the reasoning behind Amendments 8 and 16, tabled in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel and my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie.

There is also precedent for this. When the last Labour Government introduced anti-social behaviour orders in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, they could be made only by a magistrates’ court. This recognised that anti-social behaviour should be the purview of summary justice. The Minister might argue that the Government are simply replicating the application process for anti-social behaviour injunctions and that they were the action of the previous Government. That may be a fair criticism, but that would not mean that the Government are right. Simply following the case of previous legislation does not automatically mean that the legislation before us today is following the right path; nor does it acknowledge the very different state of the backlog in the High Court and county courts today, as opposed to 2014. It makes far more sense to permit the use of magistrates’ courts for this purpose today, given the historic case burden.

Finally, I can see no downside to this. It will permit burden-sharing between three types of courts. It would not alter the nature of the orders, nor the process by which they are made. But it would make some progress toward reducing the waiting time for the making of a respect order. Surely the Government do not want to see a 49-week wait for a respect order to be made. Would that not hamper the effectiveness of these supposedly tough new respect orders? I hope the Minister will consider these amendments carefully and sensibly.

The other amendments in this group seek to minimise the pressure placed on our courts by the new measures and ensure that our shared principles of justice are upheld. Interim respect orders interact with the principle of innocent until proven guilty. They can be made following a court adjournment up until the final court hearing. They have the same function as a regular respect order and can impose the same restrictions. I am conscious that this may sometimes be necessary. I reiterate the debilitated state of our courts and the fact that adjournment is sometimes out of their hands, even if the defendant is likely to engage in further anti-social behaviour. In these occasional instances, I can understand the need for an interim respect order.

Amendment 15 aims to find a balance, creating a presumption against issuing an interim order, while still leaving the option open. Amendment 19 exists to forward the argument that these orders can be issued to prevent only further harassment, and not the vague concepts of alarm and distress. These amendments aim to ease the administrative burden on the courts. Amendment 17 seeks to ensure that, if an appeal is made against a decision to refuse to issue an interim respect order, the defendant is notified. It is right that a person should know when they might be subjected to a respect order, especially when they have not yet been proven guilty. I beg to move Amendment 8.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I have just a few comments. I am quite concerned that the latest figures show that the magistrates’ courts’ backlog of cases to be heard reached 361,000 as of September 2025, a record high and a significant increase on previous years. In the other place, the Minister said the legal test for respect orders was being kept “broad and flexible” to enable them to be used for a wide range of anti-social behaviours. Again, this suggests significant extra pressure on courts. Jamming up the system further is not going to help victims. Can the Minister say what the Government’s assessment is of the impact on the wider criminal justice system?

Giving evidence in the other place, the Police Federation also pointed to the pressure these orders would put on custody places, saying that infrastructure was needed to make new legislation “effective and believable”. Perhaps the Minister could also address that.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is a very wide question, my Lords. Let me say that the purpose of Committee is to provide a significant number of days for Members from all sides of the House—as we have had today, from the government side as well as from the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats—to test Ministers and raise points. If the noble Baroness has points she wishes to raise during the passage of the Bill, as ever, I will try to answer them, either on the Floor of this House or in writing afterwards.

The noble Baroness asks whether things have changed. Even today, there are a number of amendments that the Government have brought forward in the groups of amendments that we are deliberating on today. Things move; the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, was saying with regard to the immigration Bill that a number of things have changed over the course of time, and things move. It is now 16 months since the King’s Speech which introduced this legislation. We continue to monitor and move; where necessary we bring forward amendments, and I am open to testing on all matters at all times. But I would welcome the noble Lord withdrawing his amendment today.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and to those who have contributed. I know we all have the interests of a functioning justice system at heart, and the discussion has reflected that. We must approach this debate with pragmatism as our guiding principle. That means that, when legislating for new crimes, the best outcome is the one that sees offences prosecuted. In a perfect world, perhaps the Crown Courts and the county courts alone would have the capacity to handle these new respect orders. But, as I have outlined, the courts system is incredibly backlogged, and it is therefore necessary to use as many courts as possible to deliver the policy.

Considering the scope of respect orders on top of that, my amendments and the amendments of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel and my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie are perfectly reasonable. To consider causing alarm as on the same level as causing harassment, as prosecuting them in the same courts effectively does, defies sense. Making use of magistrates’ courts is both the rational and practical solution to this problem.

Similarly, approaching interim respect orders from a more conservative standpoint would be prudent. They are very illiberal measures and should be used only in the most necessary circumstances. Amendments, such as those tabled in my name, to create presumptions against them and to narrow the preview of their power seek to ensure that this is the case.

I hope that the Minister will agree with the important principles behind these amendments and will perhaps take them away and consider them, but for the time being I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

Debate on whether Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled and de-grouped this clause stand-part notice because it would be helpful to the Committee to probe the real purpose of respect orders. We have no plans to insist that this part of the Bill be removed on Report.

This Government appear to be making the same errors as those of the previous Labour Administration. The Blair Government seemed to believe that, the more they legislated on crime and anti-social behaviour, the less of that behaviour there would be. We saw Act after Act, many repealing or amending Acts that they had passed merely a few years before. This flurry of lawmaking meant that, by the end of its term in office, Labour had created 14 different powers for police to tackle anti-social behaviour and criminality. My noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead undertook to simplify this system by condensing all these measures into just six powers. However, with this Bill we see that old pattern of the new-Labour years re-emerging. This Bill creates four new powers: respect orders, youth injunctions, housing injunctions and youth diversion orders. I cannot see what real-world impact this will make.

As I said at Second Reading, the concept of respect orders appears to be little more than a gimmick. It is legislative action to make the Government appear to be tough on anti-social behaviour when in fact they are not. Respect orders are no different from the existing anti-social behaviour injunctions. Applications for both are made by the same list of people to the same cause. The requirements that can be placed on the respondent are the same for ASB injunctions and respect orders. Both permit the making of an interim order or injunction. Both permit the exclusion of a person from their home in the case of serious violence or risk of harm. Both permit the variation or discharge of the order or injunction. They are, in almost every aspect, exactly the same.

The only difference is that one is a civil order and the other a criminal order. The Bill creates a criminal offence of breaching a condition of a respect order. A person found guilty of that offence on conviction or indictment is liable to a jail sentence of up to two years. Anti-social behaviour injunctions, however, do not have a specific criminal offence attached to them. A person who breaches a condition of an ASB injunction does not commit an offence of breaching the injunction. The Government have argued that this difference makes their respect orders tougher and therefore justified. However, this overlooks two important facts.

First, the court granting the ASB injunction can attach a power of arrest to the injunction under Section 4 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Section 9 of that Act states that

“a constable may arrest the respondent without warrant”

where they believe that the person has breached a condition of their injunction. The person arrested for a breach of their injunction can then be charged with contempt of court, which carries a punishment of up to two years’ imprisonment. It is entirely understandable that the Government wish to introduce a specific criminal offence of breaching conditions. It is easier to prosecute someone who breaches their respect order than to prosecute someone for contempt of court for breaching their injunction. That is not least because a police officer would have to know that a person had an injunction against them, that they had breached the condition and that their injunction contained a power of arrest. It is also because, even though ASB injunctions are civil orders, the criminal standard of proof is applied when determining whether a person has breached a condition.

I understand this entirely, but it does not explain why the Government are seeking to replace injunctions in their entirety. Surely, given that every other aspect is the same, it would be far easier and more expeditious to retain the injunctions and simply amend them to create an offence of breach of conditions. That would mean that the ASB injunctions remain in place but they have the same power of enforcement. Why did the Government not follow this route? Why did they not simply amend the anti-social behaviour injunctions, as opposed to creating a whole new class of order?

The answer cannot be that one is a civil order and one a criminal order because, as I have demonstrated, the civil order could easily have been upgraded to criminal status by way of legislative amendment. I would hazard a guess and say that the reason is perhaps bluster. Is it not the case that the Government wanted to seem to be tough on crime, so they came up with a rehash of ASBOs with a slightly catchier name? These new respect orders will likely have little effect on reducing anti-social behaviour. What would have a positive impact would be to increase the number of police officers. Unfortunately, the Government have failed on that front. Since they entered office, the total police officer headcount has fallen by 1,316. That record to date stands in stark contrast to the previous Government’s successful recruitment of 20,000 additional police officers during the last Parliament.

If the Government are serious about getting tough on crime, they should stop the gimmicks and start with enforcement. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have listened to the quite detailed discussion that we have had so far in our attempt at line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill in relation to respect orders. Weighing up the pros and rather more cons, I am very aware that what I am going to say might seem glib about anti-social behaviour. People listening in might think, “This crowd who are raising problems of civil liberties are not aware of the real scourge of anti-social behaviour and the impact and the misery that it can cause on ordinary people’s lives”. The noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Blencathra, gave us a taste of what that anti-social activity can feel like in local areas. I recognised the descriptions from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, of young people potentially running amok in local areas. Where I live, that has been known to happen, so I recognise that.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I accept that, but it would be fair to say that I would be making promises or guessing about issues that I could not guarantee. But I can guarantee for the noble Viscount that we will monitor the use of this and that the measures that I have already outlined—those in the Bill, those on police numbers and the focus that we are putting on certain police initiatives through central government discussion with the National Police Chiefs’ Council—will make a difference. They will be judged on that.

Self-evidently, a manifesto commitment to reduce and tackle anti-social behaviour requires this Minister, this Government and this Home Secretary to go back to the electorate, at some point, to say, “That is the difference that we have made”. While I cannot give the noble Viscount an aperitif today, I hope I can give him a full-course meal after the discussions have taken place further down stream.

It is important, as we have just heard, that if perpetrators breach an injunction multiple times, the police cannot take action unless they take them to court. Under this measure, there will be a criminal action so police can take action immediately.

I wish to tell the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that, for a respect order to be issued, two tests must be satisfied. First, the court must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the respondent has engaged in or threatened to engage in anti-social behaviour as defined. Secondly, the court must be satisfied that issuing the respect order is just and convenient. A further safeguard introduced is that the relevant authorities carry out risk assessments prior to the respect order being put in place.

These clauses, about which the noble Lord has quite rightly asked questions, are important and I wish to see them retained in the Bill. I am grateful for his overall indication that, when it comes to determining that, he will not oppose these clauses, but I will take away his comments and I hope to continue our discussions in the positive way that we have to date.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I am grateful for the contributions made and to the Minister for his response. Of course, I have no intention of opposing the passage of respect orders. They were part of the Government’s election manifesto and, as such, shall become the law of the land. This does not prevent my criticising them. Indeed, simply because they were part of the Government’s manifesto does not mean that they are a good idea that would have a positive impact on the streets of Britain.

I have provided substantive justification for why I believe that respect orders are, simply put, an effort to paint a picture of a Government bearing down on crime and anti-social behaviour when, in reality, they are not. The proof will be in the pudding; we will see whether the Prime Minister’s so-called tough new respect orders have any actual impact, in due course. For now, I will leave it there.

Clause 1 agreed.