Conduct of Undercover Policing and Surveillance Operatives Bill [HL]

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for bringing the Bill before your Lordships’ House today. I begin by declaring an interest: I was a police officer for 32 years, serving in the Metropolitan Police and the then National Crime Squad, where, as a senior investigating officer, I conducted a number of covert operations.

I should start by saying that I entirely understand the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has raised. There have been scenarios where covert human intelligence sources and undercover officers have acted in a manner that is totally unacceptable. These have been acknowledged, and I fully appreciate her intent with the Bill.

We need to also acknowledge that undercover policing has been a developing aspect of criminal investigations through the years and, by its very nature, is intended to push the boundaries and test the law through the courts in order to arrive at an agreed level of acceptance. Above all, it is an essential tool in the investigation of serious and organised crime. Knowing what I know and having been there on the front line, I cannot support the Bill. A blanket ban on undercover officers forming these kinds of relationships is something we should be very cautious of indeed. The simple fact is that undercover operations are incredibly dangerous—potentially the most dangerous aspect of policing, but also one of the most necessary. Some of the biggest successes in policing have come from undercover operations.

To successfully and safely deliver these operations, uncomfortable decisions often need to be made. We may not like these decisions, and they may offend our liberal sensitivities, but they are necessary decisions none the less. Sometimes those decisions require officers and sources to break the law or to engage in unethical behaviour. In 2021, Parliament legislated to create a framework in which covert human intelligence sources could be granted authorisation to break the law in the course of their operation. We did that because we recognised that a statutory footing was required, with the necessary oversight that goes with it, but also because we understand that there are occasions that warrant such action.

In some deployments, the operational environment necessitates the covert officer establishing a romantic or intimate relationship with a target, and this has to be weighed against the national interest. That may be a hard truth, and one that the noble Baroness might not wish to hear, but it is the truth none the less. It might be that establishing such a relationship is the only way to keep the source close enough to the target, so it might even be the only option to keep the source alive.

I am even more concerned about the breadth of the offence in Clause 1. It states that a CHIS commits an offence if they engage in an intimate sexual relationship with any person they have been deployed to target, a person who is a member of the group they have been deployed to target or, and this is the problem, a person whom they encounter during their deployment. But the Bill does not define what is meant by deployment, nor does it place any restrictions on what would be considered to be the bounds of a deployment. What if an officer is involved in an operation that requires them to be undercover and involved only at certain times of day? What if, outside the times they are embedded in the operation, they are in a genuine intimate relationship? They may have a partner or romantic interest whom they have just started seeing. This might not apply to most undercover operations, but it may very well apply to some. The language in the offence is so broad and loose that it could be taken to mean any person whom the CHIS encounters at any point during the operation, irrespective of whether that person is connected with the operation. I suggest to the noble Baroness that the drafting of the offence in Clause 1 does not live up to scrutiny.

I also take issue with the maximum criminal penalties that the noble Baroness has included. An officer or source found guilty of committing this new offence would be liable in conviction to a sentence of life imprisonment—for forming a relationship with a person in the course of investigating serious criminality. Ultimately, these people put their lives on the line. They deserve our support and our respect, and they deserve Parliament giving them the tools they require to get on with their operations. A Bill such as this would simply hamper their ability to infiltrate and disrupt organised crime groups, terrorist cells and the like, and could put them in greater peril. This is not something I can ever accept and that is why, on this side of the House, we cannot support the Bill.