Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House; I was not ready, but it is worth waiting for. This amendment would change the legal test for imposing a respect order, requiring the court to consider this step “necessary and proportionate”, and not merely “just and convenient”, in preventing a person engaging in anti-social behaviour. This small, targeted change would ensure that the test is more proportionately aligned with the potentially serious consequences of these quasi-criminal orders, since a breach can result in up to two years’ imprisonment. It would also better reflect the Government’s stated intention that these orders should be used to tackle the most persistent cases of anti-social behaviour.

As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, noted in Committee, these cases would be adequately covered by a “necessary and proportionate” framework. The Minister says that judges must already take necessity and proportionality into account under the Human Rights Act. If that is so, I struggle to see why that very safeguard cannot be placed transparently in the Bill. This is a critical point, given the well-documented failures of previous anti-social behaviour powers. The evidence shows that, in practice, vague legal tests not only lead to inconsistent decisions: they sometimes deter the courts from using orders.

A more rigorous test would also address concerns about systemic bias. Existing anti-social behaviour powers continue to fall more heavily on minority-ethnic and other disadvantaged groups. Without stronger safeguards, this will almost inevitably be repeated by respect orders. Tightening the test is a modest way to reduce that risk, and will provide greater clarity for all concerned—judges, counsel and victims—as well as those made subject to these orders. It also better aligns the order with the risk assessment duty already outlined in new Section J1 inserted by Clause 1.

In Committee a number of Peers expressed concern about judicial overreach, particularly with tools so sweeping that they can order somebody to do anything described. But the current broad and vague test will do nothing to solve this. In fact, it will make matters worse. The quasi-criminal nature of these orders will invite legal challenge, causing delay in already backlogged courts, potentially clogging the system with marginal cases while doing little for victims of persistent and ongoing anti-social behaviour. A clear necessity and proportionality requirement would sharpen the law, focus efforts on the worst cases and help ensure that respect orders become the tool of choice for serious or repeat anti-social behaviour, rather than just another broad but inconsistently used power added to an already confusing landscape.

I have one final point. In Committee we welcomed the Home Office’s plan to pilot these orders, only to be told that the Government had decided that this was no longer necessary. On that occasion, the Minister informed me that things change. However, since then things appear to have changed again: the latest policy paper says that respect orders will now be piloted before being rolled out nationally. That is obviously very welcome, but I hope that today the Minister can reassure the House that—in this matter, at least—there will be no further changes. One change I strongly advocate is that outlined in Amendment 1. If it sharpens the law, improves enforcement and offers greater protection against injustice for the price of a modest drafting alteration, why resist it? I beg to move.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. As I understand the Government’s position, they accept that it would not be appropriate to impose such an order unless it is necessary and proportionate, and indeed that is the test applied by the European Convention on Human Rights, so the only question is whether the language of the Bill, and the Act that it will become, should reflect the true test. It seems to me, as it seems to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, highly appropriate that what is in the legislation should set out the true test. This has to be applied not just by judges but by police officers, local authorities, communities and everyone who is responsible for considering and enforcing this legislation. Let us put the true and proper test on the face of the Bill.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, there is a lot in this group. The Government are undoubtedly sincere in wanting to use the Bill to further tackle anti-social behaviour, and such moves to take on this blight on communities will certainly be popular. However, we have to pause a moment and say that there is already a plethora of tools on the statute book designed to tackle anti-social behaviour, and yet it does not seem to be improving. This is the group in which we need to ask why. Perhaps anti-social behaviour orders and injunctions in all their various guises, from community penalty notices to public spaces protection orders, are just not fit for purpose.

I fear that, instead of tackling this, the Government are taking an easy and performative route and affording the state even more of the same—with more draconian powers—under a different label, that of respect orders. They are doing all this with little clarity or evidence of efficacy. That is what the amendments in this group are designed to tackle. By and large, I support them all.

I tabled Amendment 6, which calls for an independent —I stress the word “independent”—review of existing powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which should be published prior to the commencement of Sections 1 and 2 of the Act. As legislators, we have an obligation to take responsibility for assessing the impact of, and the evidence about, laws that we made in the past before we duplicate their weaknesses. We need to understand the pros and cons.

This review would look at solving the evidence gap. It is extraordinary that there is significant variation in data captured across relative authorities. Because ASBIs are locally administered in a patchwork of varied use, there is a worrying variation in the types and quality of data collected, the location of that data and the ability of that data to be extrapolated and shared internally or with relevant agencies where appropriate. This is surely a slap across the face of evidence-based policy-making, because without data it is not possible to adequately assess the effectiveness of behaviour orders and to fully understand any trends arising out of their imposition, enforcement or breach, including disproportionate impacts.

That is why Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who is not in her place, which would require the Home Office to publish quarterly data, is so important, as well as Amendment 12 from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, which calls for an annual report. Both amendments positively try to tackle the limits of the availability of the evidence base, without which I do not know how we can make informed policy decisions.

At present, all the critiques of present behaviour orders are invaluably brought to us from sporadic academic research, FoI-based research led by the likes of Josie Appleton and her team at the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life, and the excellent campaign group Justice. They want their work to be made redundant by the Government; they want the Government and officialdom to do their work instead. If the Home Office does not understand its own legislative tools because it does not have the data, the misery of anti-social behaviour will remain untouched while the statute book grows.

I hope the Minister will listen to the front-line workers who have to implement and use these orders and who, reasonably, bemoan the lack of proper consultation with those who understand the ASBI regime in real life. I note the government amendment on consultation, which is welcome.

The majority of practitioners who Justice consulted believe that the new respect orders are unnecessary and replicate flawed laws already available. Only 6% conclude that they will improve outcomes for victims; 82% of respondents to the practitioners survey have called for the review of the existing 2014 Act and of existing powers prior to respect orders being introduced. There was unanimous agreement that the Government should address problems inherent in existing injunctions and orders before creating more, and that failure to properly consult has meant that opportunities to resolve problems with the way orders operate in practice, not on paper, and to increase their effectiveness have been missed. Surely the Minister will want and feel the need to understand why research shows that a significant proportion of CPNs and PSPOs are, for example, being overused for trivial activities, such as feeding the birds, honking horns, gathering in groups or idling in your car, or imposed in inappropriate circumstances against, too often, the homeless and the mentally ill, where the behaviour complained of falls far below the threshold of antisocial behaviour that the public are concerned about and that the 2014 Act was envisaged to tackle.

All that we are asking in these amendments is for the Minister to look at what has gone wrong so that we can improve it. Surely the Government are worried about the vastly varied use of existing orders, which creates a postcode lottery for victims and means that British citizens do not know what is allowed from one town to another. Conduct that is totally lawful in Lincoln might be subject to state sanction in Leeds. Surely such a differential variation in the volume of orders imposed, the type of orders imposed, the conditions imposed, and so on, undermines the rule of law that I know this Government strongly support. It makes enforcement dependent on the victim’s location, rather than circumstances, or on the perpetrator’s location, rather than precisely how they are behaving badly. This makes a mockery of the notion of all of us being equal under the law. A review would look at these problems and recommend practical solutions.

Amendments 1 and 3, especially, are important in relation to ensuring that respect orders are used only when necessary and in a proportionate way. We have already heard about that. I think this is very helpful, particularly in creating a right to appeal. I am worried that the statutory test and the language used for imposing these new respect orders are so broad that, rather than capturing behaviour that is serious and persistent in nature, they will criminalise more trivial behaviour. That these orders can be imposed on individuals without their knowledge and, most egregiously, for an indefinite duration—for example, until further notice—is why we need this appeals process. How is it fair or proportionate that an individual who has never been found guilty of an offence is required to comply with serious restrictions on their liberty and personal life indefinitely, yet someone convicted of an offence by the criminal justice system is at liberty and free of prohibitions once they reach the end of their defined term of sentence, or even sometimes before that these days? This is reminiscent of that stain on our justice system, the abolished and abominable IPP indefinite sentence, which caused such a scandal. Why would the Government now create these new, oppressive orders that flout the important principle that if individual lives are subject to state interference, they need to know how long the interference will last and when it will end?

Finally, I have added my name to Amendment 7, an excellent contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, on fixed-term penalty notices, based on the work of the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life. This, I hope, will ring true with any Labour Government, because ensuring that private companies dishing out on-the-spot fines for antisocial behaviour, and doing so to profit financially, is surely something that offends the Government’s values. There are concerns that antisocial behaviour orders have been corrupted for income generation and commercial purposes. With fines increasing so much under this Bill, surely that tendency will be turbocharged. I think it is something that the Government will want to tackle, because all the orders in Clause 4 being issued at such a low benchmark are likely to result in fines going up. I am worried that this will encourage councils to become trigger-happy with orders and so on.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, will remember, as I do, the scandal of Kingdom Security in north Wales in, I think, 2019, when councils including Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd and Anglesey outsourced the collection of their on-the-spot fines to a private security group, Kingdom, which illustrated that the behaviour of the enforcers could well be seen as being far more anti-social than any of the behaviour of local residents for which they were supposed to be fining them. A grass-roots campaign attracted 8,000-plus members to its Facebook page and led to numerous protests all over north Wales, with the security group’s wardens accused of threatening, bullying and even stalking north Walians, following dog walkers and smokers at a distance just so they could catch them out and fine them. They expressly targeted the elderly and women and children; the tissue of one 95 year-old lady blew from her wheelchair to the ground, and she was fined.

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There is a point to be made, and if the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, wish to make it, that is fine, but this is consistent with Acts of Parliament that are currently in place on similar orders. Courts will take the necessity and proportionality of an order into account as a result of the duties that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, raised under the Human Rights Act. Therefore, it is an unnecessary procedure to amend the legal test, particularly as the effect would be to increase the threshold for the use of these orders, making the job of the police, local authorities and others in protecting communities that much harder.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Would the Minister accept that it is very difficult ever to think of circumstances in which it would be appropriate for a court to impose a respect order, with all the implications that has for an individual, unless the court is satisfied that it is necessary and proportionate?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord has made his point. I am trying to give the defence from the Government’s perspective. That is our view. He has made a reasonable point, but that is our view and I hope he accepts our comments on those issues in good faith.

On Amendment 2, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, will understand when I say that I agree with the points that he made. Amendment 2, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is rather bureaucratic, in that the council must carry out a full public consultation prior to any application to the court for a respect order to be made.

I was leader of a council for some years. We had six or seven meetings per year. Does the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, really expect, in the event of this legislation becoming law, that the council would consider respect orders and agree them on a six or eight week basis, six times per year, before the police could go? I am with the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, on this one. Some areas undertake this as a matter of course as part of local practice, but there is no requirement for a public consultation prior to a public spaces protection order being implemented. It is certainly my and the Government’s view that such requirements would add an inappropriate and disproportionate barrier to respect order applications and delay important relief for ASB victims. I hope that, on reflection, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will agree with His Majesty’s Opposition and me. He may not, but I put that point to him for his consideration.

Amendment 3, again tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would add a provision for a respondent to appeal the making or variation of a respect order. I hope I can assure noble Lords that there are express provisions in the Bill that provide for an application to be made to vary or discharge a respect order. The ordinary rules of appeal will apply to decisions to grant a respect order or a refusal to vary or discharge an order. To be absolutely clear on this issue, decisions to grant or vary respect orders, as well as decisions not to grant or vary one, will be appealable through the usual avenues under Civil Procedure Rules. I hope that assists.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, for his Amendment 5. I know that he wished to speak to that in Committee. He seeks to add for-profit registered social housing providers to the list of relevant agencies that can apply for a respect order. I recognise the importance of relevant agencies having the tools to tackle anti-social behaviour, but we should exercise caution before extending these powers without more consideration. I say that in the spirit of friendship and co-operation with the noble Lord. The Home Secretary has a power to amend the list of relevant authorities that can apply for a respect order. If it is considered appropriate to add a for-profit registered social housing provider to the list then we can do that via secondary legislation after the Bill has achieved Royal Assent, but I would like to give more consideration to this point. This is not a “no”; it could be added later with more consideration. I hope that will at least help him in the discussions that he has had today.

Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, would require the Home Secretary, within six months of the Bill becoming law, to commission an independent review of the existing powers under the 2014 Act prior to introducing respect orders, housing injunctions or youth injunctions as a whole. Again, I go back to what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel. It is a manifesto commitment that we fought the election on to improve anti-social behaviour responses, and one such response that we specifically put in the manifesto at the general election was respect orders. So, the idea that we wish to—

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, we support the principle underlying this amendment. Serious and organised waste crime both is an environmental nuisance and has real consequences for communities and the taxpayer. As we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the Government’s own estimates say that around 20% of waste in England may be illegally managed at some stage in the supply chain, and that over a third of waste crime is linked to organised crime groups. These figures underline that waste crime is not simply limited to opportunistic fly-tipping; in many cases it is co-ordinated criminal activity driven by profit. It is therefore entirely understandable that noble Lords wish to see it recognised as a national strategic priority.

However, we have some reservations about placing such a requirement in statute. Under Section 3 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, the Secretary of State already determines the NCA’s strategic priorities following consultation. At present there is no fixed statutory list of priorities, and to single out one specific crime type in primary legislation would be unusual. The question, therefore, is not whether waste crime is serious but whether this is the right legislative mechanism. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to ensure that serious and organised waste crime receives a sustained and meaningful focus.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I too have concerns about this amendment. Nobody could dispute that waste crime is a very serious problem that needs to be addressed. But as I understand it, the NCA’s strategic priorities at the moment—whether they are required by the Secretary of State or otherwise—focus on degrading the highest-harm organised crime groups, with a particular emphasis on tackling drugs, online fraud and organised immigration crime. There may be others. The NCA surely cannot treat all serious matters as a priority. The whole point of a priority is that it focuses on the most serious criminal offences that our society faces. I am not persuaded that identifying this very real problem as a strategic priority is going to assist.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his amendment. As he explained, it would allow the Secretary of State to include serious and organised waste crime as a strategic priority for the National Crime Agency. We have all agreed that waste crime blights local communities, that it damages the environment and that serious organised crime—which is on the rise—is a factor in that. The Environment Agency is now regularly alerted to new illegal waste sites.

As evidence for the noble Earl that the Government take this matter seriously, the Environment Agency’s additional waste crime enforcement budget for 2025-26 has been increased by more than 50% to £15.6 million, a £5.6 million increase on the previous year. That is because we recognise that there is a potential area of concern here. It has allowed the Environment Agency to increase its front-line criminal enforcement resource by 43 full-time staff in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and area environmental crime teams, as well as bringing additional staff for enforcement duties under our major waste reforms.

The Environment Agency works closely, as the noble Earl mentioned, with the National Crime Agency and the Joint Unit on Waste Crime. There are multi-agency prevention and disruption tactics taking place, as well as investigatory activities to impact successfully on criminals. Between the organisations, they have developed enhanced intelligence-sharing and an enhanced approach to targeting organised criminal gangs. We are looking, with other law enforcement bodies, at recommending and introducing new technical capabilities to look at how we can, through an agreed strategy, target waste crime.

Therefore, there is a role for the National Crime Agency but, as the noble Lords, Lord Cameron of Lochiel and Lord Pannick, alluded to, the National Crime Agency is not the lead agency for tackling waste crime. That is the Environment Agency. Under the Crime and Courts Act 2013, the strategic priorities for the National Crime Agency need to reflect changing threat levels in respect of different crime types. I am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, here, who would have been lead Minister on the 2013 Act that established the National Crime Agency. I served as a shadow Minister at the time, when dealing with that Bill. Section 3 of that Act is deliberately silent on types of organised crime because it does not want to fetter the National Crime Agency—the very point the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made in relation to the Home Secretary’s discretion to skew the National Crime Agency’s priorities. Therefore, to insert a crime type, however well-meaning or needed, would be to undermine the principles of Section 3 of the 2013 Act.

In short, the Government fully agree with the sentiment underpinning the amendment. We take waste crime extremely seriously; the increase in the budget is evidence of that, as is the co-operation between the NCA and the Environment Agency. I hope that with those comments, the noble Earl will agree that his approach of tying the National Crime Agency to specific targets would not be as helpful as he had hoped and that he can withdraw his amendment.