ILO Convention 190

Debate between Lord Young of Acton and Lord Katz

Monday 26th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very good point that enforcement has to be driven somewhat by example. It is important that we do not trivialise this issue, as some seek to do. I would widen that out past workplaces to the very issue of discrimination, harassment and violence against women and girls. That is why everybody in your Lordships’ House should be welcoming the Government’s violence against women and girls strategy that was published just before Christmas. We have a landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade. That is the way that we place women’s equality at the heart of the Government’s missions.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of the Free Speech Union. Can the Minister help define what third-party non-sexual harassment employers will have a duty under Section 21 of the Employment Rights Act to take all reasonable steps to protect their employees from? In the past, when I have raised the spectre of that duty being extended to indirect harassment—for example, overheard conversations, jokes, remarks or witticisms—I have been pooh-poohed. Can the Minister assure us that I was just being alarmist and that, when the Government do produce their guidance on this issue, which I understand they are about to do, it will specifically say that business owners are not responsible for protecting their employees from overheard conversations, remarks, witticisms and jokes?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

Well, I congratulate the noble Lord on getting through that question without mentioning the phrase “banter ban”. I am going to be absolutely clear: employers will not be penalised for failing to anticipate the unforeseeable or take other impractical steps. Employers cannot and are not expected to police or control every action of third parties. The measure does not change Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which applies in terms of interfering with the right to freedom of expression. It is clear that it is not about banning banter in a pub; it is about taking action against real hate, homophobia, racism and misogyny, which other customers or other workers should not have to face in this day and age.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Acton and Lord Katz

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his gracious response. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for co-sponsoring the amendment and for his excellent contributions to this debate. I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their contributions. I wish the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, a speedy recovery. I thank my noble friends Lord Kempsell, Lord Jackson and Lord Blencathra.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Blencathra that the police, under very difficult circumstances, do an excellent job on the whole and I admire what they do. But I think he is right that having to record and investigate non-crime hate incidents is as unpopular with ordinary police officers on the front line as it is with free speech campaigners. They do not want to be wasting their time in this way. Many of them have reached out to me to tell me that and to support this amendment. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her contribution.

If you look at proposed new subsection (4), you will find that nothing in the amendment would prevent the police recording information they regard as relevant about a suspect’s motive in the course of an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution. I am sceptical whether the police should be allowed to record incidents that clearly do not meet the threshold of being crimes for intelligence-gathering purposes, not least because there is very little persuasive evidence that that is helpful when it comes to preventing crimes, and I am generally suspicious of the concept of pre-crime—of trying to nip potential crimes in the bud by monitoring carefully incidents that do not quite meet the threshold of criminal offences. However, I am not going to die in a ditch and say that the police should never, under any circumstances, be able to record incidents that do not meet the threshold of being a criminal offence for intelligence-gathering purposes, provided that the recording of those incidents has no adverse consequences for the people they are recorded against.

That brings me to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Herbert of South Downs, which, on the whole, were very welcome. I am pleased that the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council recognise that NCHIs are not fit for purpose and that the regime should be scrapped and replaced with something much better, but I want to respond briefly to two points made by my noble friend.

First, my noble friend acknowledged, I think, that the recording threshold for NCHIs is currently too low, and that when the regime is replaced by another, such as the anti-social behaviour incident regime, the threshold as to what incidents should be recorded will be higher. The implicit acknowledgement that the threshold has hitherto been too low strikes me as a persuasive argument for scrapping those incidents that have been recorded under the lower threshold. If the threshold was too low, that is an acknowledgement that the incidents should not have been recorded. That is a good argument for why they should be deleted once this system has been overhauled.

Secondly, my noble friend Lord Herbert maintains that, even though chief constables have the discretion to disclose NCHIs when responding to enhanced DBS checks, the College of Policing could not find a single example of chief constables having done that. If that is the case then there is no cost to the Home Office agreeing that, henceforth, under the new regime, anti-social behaviour incidents—if that is what we are going to call them—should not be disclosed in enhanced DBS checks. The fear that they might be—that, not having committed a crime, that is recorded against your name and could stop you getting a job or volunteering at a school or for a charity—is why the current regime has had such a chilling effect on free speech. If none has been disclosed, why not go that one small step further and say that, henceforth, they will not be disclosed?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I hope the noble Lord is coming to the end of his remarks. When responding on amendments, you are meant to be relatively brief. He has had five and a half minutes now.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I apologise to the Committee for taking up its time. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Acton and Lord Katz

Committee stage
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I respectfully point out that we have now had more than two hours on this group of amendments and that we have just come up to 12 minutes for the response to this long debate. A fair person would say that this is excessive free speech. I respectfully ask the noble Lord to bring his remarks to a conclusion, so that we can make some progress.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. Sorry, I thought I had 15 minutes. I misunderstood.