Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Hazarika Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

The Committee will take its own view on whether I have answered the questions that have been put to me. I do not think that a reference to 1.5 million abortions really takes the argument any further forward.

I recognise the difficulties of this, and each Member of the Committee will have their own view, but my current view is that the nature of the investigations, the distress that they cause and the unlikelihood that they would lead to a prosecution is the paramount consideration. I therefore see great force in Clause 191.

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak to Amendment 459C, to which my name is attached. I very much support Clause 191, which I believe would modernise our society, but Amendment 459C would halt ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions for repealed abortion offences, no matter when committed. This would tighten up Clause 191 on technical grounds. It would stop ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions for repealed offences, no matter when they were committed; currently, Clause 191 applies only to actions after the Bill becomes law.

We are aware of multiple women who have been reported to the police by medical professionals in the months since the House of Commons voted in support of Clause 191. There was a clear signal from that vote—it passed by 397 votes to 137 votes—that Members of Parliament wanted women to stop being targeted. Existing guidance obtained from FoI requests indicates that Parliament cannot rely on police and prosecutors to make the decision to discontinue ongoing cases without a clear legislative process. This amendment would provide clarity for everyone.

I also want to lend my support to Amendment 461J, which my noble friend spoke about. This is about pardoning women with criminal records for abortion offences, in line with the Turing pardon. It also chimes with the scandal of young women who were the victims of the Pakistani grooming gangs, many of whom ended up with criminal records, which I am sure we will all agree was unforgivable.

Many of us in this House have spoken up bravely and passionately about the grooming gang scandal and talked about the plight of those young women and girls, and how vulnerable and alone they were. Well, let me tell you: many of the women who seek an abortion outside the law are often the same girls, and young women who face very similar circumstances. They are desperate. They have often been groomed, abused, violently attacked and raped, and they find themselves in very isolated situations. They do not have a loving partner or a lovely, warm family, and they do not trust the state at this point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

I have great respect for the noble Baroness, and I was delighted to see her come to the House. However, I think it would be in keeping to withdraw a comment that could be misinterpreted as ageist and genderist.

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

I hear the noble Baroness’s point, but I think this is really important. The outside world will look at some of the comments that have been made in this Chamber and will look at the age profile of those making them. That is okay; it is the truth. I am just looking around at who we are. We have many wonderful people with great wisdom and expertise, but we are currently talking about a group of women who are not adequately represented in this House. That is the point I was trying to make.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

Would the noble Baroness agree that we are all part of the same human race? Here in this House, we must legislate on behalf of everybody, not as if we were gender-blind about who we are as legislators but in the interests of society at large. I know the noble Baroness would agree that we must always consider the most vulnerable, and this debate is partly about who is the most vulnerable in this matter.

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

I absolutely agree that we must think about who is the most vulnerable, but the point is that we have heard a lot of language about the rights of the unborn child. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, however, what about the rights of the living woman—often a younger woman—who has found herself in the most distressing of circumstances? As I said, she may have been raped, or part of a terrible domestic violence situation where she does not feel like she has much support, and she feels very alone. I really think this is an important point: so few women take joy from having an abortion, particularly a late-term abortion. I do not think women do it lightly, with a skip in their step, to try to go on a holiday or anything like that. It is a very visceral, emotional, physical experience. We have heard from eminent members of the medical profession about the physical toll that it takes on a woman’s body.

We must understand how vulnerable a lot of these women are. We heard an example earlier from a colleague about a woman who went into premature labour at home. Seven police officers searched her bins before the paramedics arrived. She was not allowed home for a week because her house was considered a crime scene, and she was not allowed contact with her partner. Her forensic samples eventually showed no trace of abortion drugs, but she remained under police investigation for a year. She was allowed only limited supervision with her baby, who had survived the birth despite the very traumatic circumstances.

There is another case study that I want to raise, because the human stories are very important here. Laura was at university, and she was the mother of a toddler when she pled guilty to ending her pregnancy using illegal drugs. She was also in a very abusive relationship and her partner told her not to go to a doctor under any circumstances, so she was very much left to her own devices. She ended up being sentenced to two years in prison. The abusive partner was never investigated. Let that sink in: an abused mother of a toddler is sent to jail while her abusive partner gets off scot free. This is not Kabul, by the way; this is here in the United Kingdom.

I do not know about you, but I want my rather overstretched police services to be investigating crimes such as domestic violence or other serious crimes, instead of rifling through the bins of a traumatised woman who has just given birth. I would like our rather overcrowded prisons to be housing serious offenders, not abused women who have small children. I feel that it is simply morally wrong, an utter waste of police and criminal justice time, and a waste of taxpayers’ money to go after these kinds of distressed and vulnerable women. They need psychological and medical help, not a costly investigation. I think most of us in this House are coming to a consensus that the police have been wasting their time on things such as non-crime hate incidents, so surely common sense would dictate that going after these women is misguided. The police should be catching criminals.

There has been a lot of heated debate around the question “what is a woman?” I know what a woman is, and I believe in her right to choose what is best for her reproductive health. I believe in protecting women when they need help the most, not hounding them like a criminal. That might be okay in some repressive regimes far away, but I know we are better than that.

[The Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, I am one of those old men. I am also a single man, so I have no children of my own, but I am regularly in contact with very young families through baptism. Only last Thursday, I was in hospital in an acute cardiac unit for babies, anointing a two week-old baby who had just had open-heart surgery. So I know quite a lot about babies through a very long ministry. I also offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for a television series that he oversaw about seeing a pregnancy from conception to delivery some years ago. That series reinforced my conviction about the sanctity of life.

The fact that we are here today in this Chamber means that we must recognise that we are on precious ground. Of course we are here to support women who have been abused and coerced. I think that the amendment proposing that we should require the Attorney-General to intervene would be rather too late if there had been a year-long investigation of a woman in between. I have been investigating this with the Lincolnshire constabulary: we need to look at how police procedure can be changed and invested in, enabling us to move away from treating these women as criminals to treating them as witnesses and victims, so that the police activity is primarily engaged in going after coercers and bad actors. I therefore agree with the noble Baroness in how that should proceed.

At the same time, noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me say that I entirely endorse the Church of England’s principle position in opposing the abortion of late-term foetuses who are viable, unless otherwise affected by the Abortion Act. I would like to see a different way of interpreting the law, which is differently enforced, which does not decriminalise or take away investigation, precisely for the protection of women and the preservation of unborn life.

To do that, we need to look urgently at how we allow investigations to take place and how we seek to support a woman, often a woman going through acute distress and bereavement. I quite understand the point about unexplained deaths, and we need to make sure that women are protected. But I signed a letter with 200 other clergy, back when Clause 191 first came out, expressing our dismay at the way in which this decriminalisation could so easily lead inadvertently, even if it is only a small number of babies, to the termination of the lives of viable children into the future. That, I am afraid, I could never support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I would like to proceed a little further and then I will give way to the noble Baroness.

If we wish to change abortion law, we are perfectly entitled to do so as a society, but this clause raises significant questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer, even though—I accept this—the Government said on Second Reading that they remain neutral on the clause and that they anticipated a free vote. As the clause seeks to repeal Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, can the Minister explain how charges could be brought in a case such as Mr Worby’s and others? This was a poisoning and an attempt to procure a miscarriage without the woman’s consent—and it happened without repealing those offences.

As the Government have not carried out a consultation on this proposed change, how will providers of pills by post be regulated further to ensure that late-term pregnancies still carry protections under the Abortion Act and other criminal law? Will the Government commit to carrying out an overall review of the extent of the problem with police investigations of these women and to opening discussions with the relevant authorities to ascertain how better to focus police interventions? That is the objective of our Amendment 456.

On all sides of the Committee, we recognise the distress caused to women by unfounded police intrusiveness. There must be other measures that could address how that can be done with care. Upholding the rights of women in terms of their bodily autonomy, as well as society’s obligations to provide the appropriate medical care for them at this vulnerable point of pregnancy, exists on the one hand. On the other, we have obligations to the rights of the unborn child.

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I will say one more sentence before I sit down, and I will be happy for both noble Baronesses to intervene then.

We have obligations to the rights of the unborn child, as that is what very late-term abortions are about in terms of viability. These things engage our ethics and responsibilities in law. I suggest that the Minister seeks to engage with those of us tabling amendments to guide us on how we in this Committee can do both responsibly.

--- Later in debate ---

Not all women, particularly those who have never had a child, know what to expect in childbirth. If a woman, by whatever means, ends her baby’s life in the womb, she still has to deliver it. Having a baby is difficult and painful—I have had five, and there is no other way to describe it. The body has to contract to expel the baby from the womb. If the body is not contracting, drugs are administered. If wrongly administered, they can cause the contractions to come too fast, which is acutely painful. If issued too slowly, they can be ineffective. So, a dead baby must be delivered. It may be too big. She is on her own. It may be lying at the wrong angle. The woman may be unable—

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

I wish to finish my sentence.

The woman may be unable to deliver it. It may get stuck in the birth canal. If it survives the attempt to terminate its life, it may be born alive, as babies still are. What then? What of the mother? When one gives birth, one is monitored by doctors to ensure no crises occur, if possible. Those crises can include haemorrhage, damage to the womb and bladder, and, in the worst cases, death.

If the Bill is passed and a mother chooses to terminate her baby other than as provided for in the Abortion Act, she will not be prosecuted. She may have been coerced into it, as we have heard at length, for a variety of reasons, but, despite being decriminalised, she may die or face life-changing injuries.

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

The noble Baroness paints a very vivid picture of how traumatic it is for a woman to go through this once late-term. I am sure all of us would agree that nobody would do this lightly. Does that not reinforce why it is so important that the woman should not be in a position where she thought she could be investigated by the police at this point and why she should go and seek medical advice, safe in the knowledge that she was not potentially going to end up in prison?

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

There are situations in which the woman in that case, under the Abortion Act, can seek help. I would expect that she would, but there are situations in which she may not. I simply ask the Government how they expect it to happen. Doctors administer these drugs. Doctors look after us in childbirth. We do not do it ourselves.

I move to Amendment 461. A considerable danger associated with Clause 191 is the activities of abusers and exploiters. The shield, which would be reimposed if telemedicine were stopped, is a requirement for all women considering abortion. It is not possible on the telephone to ensure a woman’s privacy and that she is not being coerced, or to verify that the person seeking the medication is the person who will actually take it, particularly in cases involving domestic abuse, child abuse and trafficking. It is important that the medication is not taken by a woman whose pregnancy exceeds 10 weeks. The NHS reported in July 2025 that, since 2020, 54,000 women have been admitted to hospital in England for complications from birth pills. Last year alone, there were 12,000.

In removing the criminal status of abortion, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, says, we perversely incentivise abusers to pressure vulnerable women into dangerous, isolated and self-administered late-term abortions. My Amendment 461 is a safeguard against that, which I hope noble Lords will be minded to support. It would create a provision analogous to that found in Section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961—a special offence of encouraging or assisting an abortion which is unlawful under the terms of the Abortion Act.

The amendment would not chill medical advice or online information. It requires intent, which is a distinct threshold. Ordinary clinical counselling or neutral provision of information would not meet the test. The amendment does not engage with or change what is lawful under the Abortion Act. It concerns only unlawful terminations and intentional encouragement or assistance. If an abortion is lawful, the offence does not arise. Perhaps most importantly, its desired effect is safeguarding vulnerable women.

Under the current wording of Clause 191, there is a risk, if self-administering an abortion is no longer a crime, that the woman can be pressurised. By legislating expressly where safeguarding is paramount and creating a clear specific offence, we would send a strong protective signal for women. My amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult and to talk to clinicians, et cetera. It is a measured, reasonable and necessary response. I urge noble Lords to support it.

--- Later in debate ---

Whether you believe access to abortion is an inviolable right or not, this is a deeply sobering reality for us to consider, and it is vital context for our debate on this group of amendments. This is an issue not just of reproductive rights and bodily autonomy but of human rights, and I was disappointed that the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, sought to strike a slightly discordant tone about circumscribing who could comment on these issues and who was more qualified than someone else. I think that was regrettable—

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

I think we can all agree on the fact that there are a certain number of people in this Committee who have never been pregnant and never had to go through this. That does not mean that everybody else does not get to have an opinion on it, but there will be a lot of young women looking at this debate because the consequences of this debate will be very profound. That was the point I was making.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I have never committed murder or been a hangman, but I can take a view on capital punishment from a moral view. To disaggregate people and their right or obligation to comment on the debate is not helpful. I caveat that by saying I have an awful lot of respect for how eloquently the noble Baroness put her case.

As I said at Second Reading, this will harm women, increase the number of late-term abortions and dehumanise children in the womb in a way I find chilling. But that has not been reflected on in the way that this has come to form part of the Bill.

During the debate on Report in the other place, which lasted a little over two hours in total, three new clauses were debated: proposed new Clause 1, which is now Clause 191; proposed new Clause 20, which proposed an even more extreme form of decriminalisation than that which we are considering today; and proposed new Clause 106, which I am delighted to see tabled again as Amendment 460 in the name of my noble friend Lady Stroud, which, needless to say, I strongly support.

In fact, saying that there were two hours of debate on such a significant proposal is perhaps overly generous. Sandwiched between the remarks of the three Members moving the proposed new clauses and the responses of the Front Benches, just 46 minutes were given over to speeches from Back-Bench MPs. The point is that there has been a scandalous lack of consideration of this change in our law and its impact.

I accept that some aspects of abortion law are an issue of conscience, but that is not a “get out of jail free” card for failure to undertake any form of due diligence, particularly on proposals that many of us regard as potentially dangerous. There is no impact assessment, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny and there has been no consultation of any kind. I hope that the Minister, in responding to this group, addresses those issues.

I strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, in her proposal to remove Clause 191 from the Bill and will do so again on Report. However, the danger of Clause 191 is compounded by the continuation of the pandemic hangover policy of pills by post, which provides for easy access to abortion pills without sufficient checks. I am afraid I simply cannot understand the view that holds that Clause 191 is pro-women. In combination with the ongoing availability of pills by post, it instead seems to me to offer the worst of both worlds. It opens the gates for overly expeditious access to less-than-safe care.

As the Member for Reigate in the other place has said:

“Being pro-choice should not mean supporting fewer checks and worse care for women seeking an abortion. Indeed, this is an issue where both sides of the abortion debate ought to eschew tribalism and unite in support of common-sense measures that safeguard women”.


I hope that we can rise above tribalism on this issue and find some common ground.

There are amendments in this group which I strongly support, including Amendments 455 and 459, but I will move on to my own Amendment 461F. While I would pick out other excellent amendments from this group, in the interests of time I will speak to my amendment particularly. My amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance on the investigation of offences relating to abortion and infanticide within 12 months of the commencement of Clause 191. The amendment is concerned with providing clarity and clear protocols to distinguish between what would be a decriminalised self-induced abortion and a criminal act of infanticide or child destruction.

My amendment is also designed to reassure proponents of Clause 191, including some who advise concern about possible intimidation or distress caused to a woman who may have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. I recognise those concerns. Women facing miscarriage, stillbirth or medical crisis deserve care, dignity and compassion and nothing in my amendment would change that. However, I point to the other way around and suggest that the absence of clear guidance is what can produce overreach and inconsistency. When professionals are left uncertain about the law and about thresholds, practice understandably becomes variable. Some cases may be mishandled—