Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Strasburger Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strasburger (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Big Brother Watch. I welcome the earlier comment by the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, that the non-crime hate incident regime is not fit for purpose. This Bill has much to recommend it, but four minutes is nowhere near enough to do it justice, so I will focus on just two concerning aspects.

Until recently, our country was an exemplar of how government and other institutions could be held to account by citizens through peaceful protest. However, in 2022, the previous Government gave us the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which handed senior police officers and Ministers powers to impose extensive constraints on protests. Then, in 2023, the Public Order Act further enhanced police powers to restrict and criminalise protest activity. As a result, in just two years, 712 protests in England and Wales were subject to police conditions, 95% of them in London.

Now it seems the Government want even more powers to restrict protests. Clause 124 will enable police to ban protests in the vicinity of a place of worship. Whatever “in the vicinity of” means, it will certainly include Parliament Square and most urban centres. Clause 118 will have a chilling effect on some people’s willingness to engage in protest. Furthermore, the Government are promising additional clauses to enable the police to ban repeating protests—which is, of course, most protests.

Protecting the right to protest is vital to maintaining a healthy, vibrant democracy where power is questioned and balanced by the collective will of citizens. The cumulative effect of more and more restrictions on protest is one of the reasons why our country is sliding down the world’s free speech league, and this trend needs to be reversed.

I turn to an astonishing omission from the Bill. The collection of DNA, how it is retained, examined and used as evidence, and its eventual destruction, are quite rightly controlled by several Acts of Parliament and detailed regulations, all overseen by a statutory regulator. However, when it comes to the relatively new facial recognition technology, none of these protections and none of this oversight exists—nothing at all. Facial recognition is far more intrusive than DNA; it is as if citizens are walking around the streets with a barcode on their foreheads that police can read from a distance to identify them. It drives a coach and horses through our time-honoured right—with limited exceptions—to withhold our identity from the police. When this technology is incorporated into this country’s vast network of CCTV cameras, as it surely will be, it will be possible to track us wherever we are, going about our lawful business. Since the technology was first used in south Wales in 2017, police forces have reluctantly had to cobble together their own rules and mark their own homework, falling foul of the courts in the process.

So we would assume that the new Government would seize the opportunity of a major Bill on policing to introduce the long-overdue statutory regulation of facial recognition technology. But if you thought that, you would be wrong. The Bill does nothing to urgently fill the black hole where the essential regulation should be—the black hole that is crushing our privacy. Instead, the Government are presenting a Bill that says nothing about facial recognition, other than in Clause 138, which seeks to make the technology even more intrusive by linking it to the DVLA database. This extraordinary regulatory vacuum must be filled by amendments during the passage of the Bill.

Gaza Protests: Anti-terrorism Legislation

Lord Strasburger Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Strasburger]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following further arrests of people protesting about the situation in Gaza, whether they are reviewing the appropriateness of using anti-terrorism legislation in relation to peaceful protest; and what assessment they have made of the implications for the UK’s international reputation.

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

The Government currently have no plans to amend the existing legislation. Palestine Action has satisfied the test in the Terrorism Act 2000, having conducted an escalating campaign involving intimidation and sustained criminal damage. Some of its members have been charged with serious and violent offences. In passing, I thank the police for their professionalism in policing recent protests. The House should note that there were 17 arrests for assaults on police officers at the demonstration on 6 September, which is totally unacceptable.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his sadly predictable reply. Using terrorism laws on peaceful, elderly protestors is ridiculous. They are no more terrorists than the Minister himself. This absurd misuse of terrorism legislation is deeply damaging to our freedom of speech. Will the Government please stop shooting the messengers in Parliament Square and start listening to their message, which is that Britain is doing nowhere near enough to stop the daily atrocities in Gaza?

Public Order Legislation

Lord Strasburger Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches next.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords, I point out to the Minister that the large majorities he is so proud of were achieved by bundling together Palestine Action with two obvious and very extreme terrorist organisations. In Israel, many citizens are lawfully protesting against the slaughter and starvation of the people of Gaza. By contrast, here, right outside this building, 522 peaceful protesters—also protesting about Gaza—were arrested under terrorism legislation. This spectacular own goal against our right to protest was the entirely predictable consequence of the Government’s proscription of Palestine Action as terrorists. That was enabled by our far too broad definition of terrorism, which includes damage to property that most people do not consider to be terrorism. When will the Government review and correct this overreach in the Terrorism Act 2000?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord will remember that, although the three organisations were put together, Palestine Action has committed three attacks that met the threshold set out in the very Act he mentions: at Thales in Glasgow in 2022, at Instro Precision in Kent and at Elbit Systems in Bristol—not to mention the recent situation at the airbase, on which I cannot go into detail because of ongoing legal proceedings. Palestine Action is encouraging terrorist action and working online to do so. There is a definitive difference in supporting a Palestinian state, which I happen to do, issues around the situation in Gaza, which raise real concerns for the Government and beyond, and criticism of Israel, which many Members of this House have made. These are all reasonable. What is not reasonable, under the orders of this Act, is to support the measures that Palestine Action has taken and is taking.

Apple: Advanced Data Protection Service

Lord Strasburger Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Strasburger]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on the privacy of Apple customers of the company’s decision to withdraw their advanced data protection service in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and I draw the House’s attention to the fact that I am chair of Big Brother Watch.

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

This Government take privacy very seriously. We have a long-standing position of protecting privacy while ensuring that action can be taken against child sexual abusers and terrorists. I cannot comment on operational matters today, including neither confirming nor denying the existence of any notices. This has been the long-standing position of successive UK Governments for reasons of national security.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

Once again, the Home Office has demonstrated its disdain for the privacy and digital security of British citizens and companies. Strong encryption is essential to protect our data and our commerce from attack by organised crime and rogue states. Any weakness inserted into encryption for the benefit of the authorities is also available to those who would do us harm—yet that is precisely what the Government are demanding from Apple. Can the Minister please explain why the Home Office wants to make Apple’s British customers the most at risk in the world of being hacked?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I know the noble Lord has long had an interest in these matters, because we served together some nine or 10 years ago on the Investigatory Powers Act. But he has to understand that, today, I cannot comment on operational matters relating to any issue, including neither confirming nor denying the existence of any notices. That is standard government procedure, and I cannot comment upon it. I know that I will, I am afraid, disappoint the noble Lord, but that is the answer I have to give him.