Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I know that many on the Labour Benches do not want to hear this, but this Government are actually more authoritarian than the previous one. Not only have the Labour Government accepted all the draconian laws of the Conservative Government, but they continue to add to them. I have been here for only 12 years, but how many times in the past 14 years have the Labour Benches spoken against laws clamping down on protest? But now they are supporting them, defending them and even adding to them. The values of liberty and democracy and a passionate defence of the right to protest—it all sounded great in opposition, so why did Labour drop them when it came to power?

The desire to quash effective protest is the aim of this legislation. Of course Governments do not mind if protest changes nothing. The bulk of laws in recent years have been aimed at the kind of non-violent direct action protests that stop big corporations from, for example, setting up damaging fracking wells in our countryside, or support people trying to stop an ancient woodland being cut down to build a destructive new road.

A lot of those protests were successful and led to policy changes, either locally or nationally—like the direct action protests a few years ago that led to the passing of the climate emergency Act. The oil and gas industry does not like countries switching to renewables, insulation or net zero. So it paid a think tank to come up with laws clamping down on effective protest, which the last Government passed and this Government have kept. That is why we need to enshrine a legal right to protest, and I intend to bring an amendment to that effect.

I have spent 12 years in this House warning about this country being on the path towards a Big Brother state. A combination of laws against effective protest while using digital ID will enable a future Government to carry out repression with a biometric link. The police are already using facial recognition without any proper regulation or legal restraints. With the proposed rules against face covering and the rollout of digital ID, just being seen on a protest against a future Government could see you losing promotion, or your job, or state benefits. It has already happened to dissenters in Hong Kong and other repressive countries.

The Government can blacklist people, just as the UK building industry did to trade unionists, in conjunction with the police. We have to allow people to disrupt, make a noise and get noticed. That is democracy. The police should, of course, be able to arrest for serious infringements, and people should still face legal consequences—but not the very severe punishments of recent years that labelled protesters as terrorists. The proscription of Palestine Action was another nail in the coffin of democracy and dissent. The new powers for the police to ban repeated protests are the state trying to shut down the people who are putting a spotlight on the Government’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza. After all, when you are supplying military intelligence to Israel and exporting arms to a country that wants to ethnically cleanse people from a land that it wants to settle, those are actions which could land you in an international court.

My noble friend Lady Bennett, who cannot be here today, will engage on the issue of Travellers’ rights and abortion law at a later stage. So I just have a few questions for the Minister to answer. I will cram in as many as I can. Does he suspect that the proscription of Palestine Action has discredited the use of anti-terror laws? Will the Government look instead at the case for proscribing members of the Israel Defense Forces living in or visiting this country? These are people who have taken part in potential war crimes, and who have murdered and terrorised thousands of women and children in Gaza. Finally, does the Minister really feel it is a priority for the police and security services to waste their time enforcing this unpopular and largely pointless proscription when they have real terrorists to track down?

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Russell.

Amendment 27 asks for a statute of requirement for police officers to undertake an anti-social behaviour impact assessment when a victim reports three incidents of anti-social behaviour in a six-month period. This would enable agencies to understand the level of harm that is being caused, so that victims are given access to the appropriate support.

Victims have cited several barriers to utilising the anti-social behaviour case review. A key barrier was a lack of knowledge and awareness about the case review among staff at key agencies with a responsibility to resolve anti-social behaviour. For many victims, this lack of knowledge prevented them being signposted promptly, if at all, to the case review mechanism. This posed additional barriers to them being able to successfully activate the case review process and get the anti-social behaviour resolved. This ultimately prolonged victims’ suffering—and none of us wants that. I ask the Minister to seriously consider this.

Amendments 28 and 31 ask for a statutory threshold for triggering an anti-social behaviour case review that removes any discretion for authorities to insert additional caveats which serve as a barrier to victims getting their cases reviewed. To ensure consistent access to anti-social behaviour case reviews, we are recommending the Home Office consults on the need to legislate to standardise the threshold for anti-social behaviour case reviews by placing it in statute as opposed to just guidance. This would prevent local authorities unilaterally adding caveats which make it more difficult for the victim to make a successful application. This consultation, we recommend, should look at mandating access to case review applications via a range of options, including but not limited to paper, online and telephone applications.

Amendment 29, which has already been outlined, would give victims a voice and enable them to explain the impact that the behaviour is having on them and their families, which is critical. To strengthen victim participation and ensure their voices are central to the process, we recommend the Home Office consults on the need to introduce legislation which guarantees victims the right to choose their level of participation in a way that best suits their needs. It might include attending a case review meeting in person, participating virtually or submitting a written impact statement detailing the anti-social behaviour effects, or being represented at the case review by a chosen individual to ensure their perspective is effectively communicated. We want them to have the right to choose the method in which this happens. There should be a statutory requirement that anti-social behaviour case reviews are chaired by an independent person—this is not an unreasonable request. Very often, when there is somebody independent who can see things that other people have not seen and bring it to people’s attention, fairness and confidence in a system is absolutely strengthened.

Amendment 30 seeks that local bodies should be compelled to publish data on the reasons an anti-social behaviour case review was denied to enable better overall scrutiny and an understanding of how effective and consistent the process is across England and Wales. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, stated, data is king, and we do not think this is an unreasonable request at all.

I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to these amendments and, if they cannot be accepted, he will explain in detail why.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, these are powerful amendments and it is hard to see how they can be argued against. We have all heard of cases where victims have had a very tough time demonstrating the persecution that they have experienced, and they often get challenged in court, unreasonably, I think. These amendments are excellent and we should encourage the noble Lord to push them to a vote later.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this group, so well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Stedman-Scott and Lady Jones, focuses on putting the victim first, a principle that we wholeheartedly support.

Clause 6 aims to strengthen the anti-social behaviour case review, and we support the package of amendments to the clause tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Hampton. We support the objective of establishing a statutory threshold for convening a review that explicitly considers the victim’s vulnerability. This is crucial, as it would remove the discretion for authorities to apply additional caveats and ensure that the severity of the impact on the individual is prioritised over mere persistence of the behaviour.

We back the proposal in Amendment 29 to ensure that the review is chaired by an independent person who has not previously been involved in the case. Independence is essential to restore trust and ensure objectivity when agencies review their own failures. We also strongly agree with the demand in Amendment 30 that authorities must publish the reasons for determining that the threshold for a review has not been met. This is a simple but powerful measure to increase accountability and transparency in the decision-making process. Amendment 27, which would require police officers to undertake an ASB impact assessment when the threshold is met, is a common-sense measure to ensure that victims experiencing high levels of harm receive appropriate support.

These amendments demonstrate how we can collectively strengthen the system to deliver genuine justice for victims of persistent anti-social behaviour, ensuring that their trauma and vulnerability are fully recognised. I very much hope that the Government will take them on board.

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[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 35 standing in my name says:

“Regulations may not require a relevant authority to provide information on social media posts which they may consider to be anti-social or have anti-social behaviour messages”.


I do not need to regurgitate much of what I said earlier on non-crime hate incidents, which could compose a large part of this, because I am looking forward to the Minister’s announcement in due course that he will have solved the problem of so-called non-crime hate incidents.

I was tempted to propose that Clause 7 should not stand part of the Bill, because I wanted to discuss the huge number of requirements in it, but I thought I would do it under the scope of this amendment. Basically, I want to ask the Minister: what will the Government do with all the information demanded by Clause 7? When I was a Home Office Minister—and I am certain the noble Lord has had this experience as well—we got lots of written requests from Members of Parliament, PQs, asking for information on all sorts of law and order issues concerning what the police were up to in England and Wales. We could not provide it, because the police forces were not under an obligation to send it to the Home Office.

Sometimes I would think, “Oh, I’d like to know that as well”, but whenever I asked the police forces if they could provide it, they would quite legitimately say, “What resources do you want us to divert from fighting crime to collating this information to send to the Home Office, and what practical use will you put it to?” Well, I think they had a fair point, but the demands for more and more statistics from the police have continued to increase. I will not suggest that it is in proportion to the rise in crime, but more information has not helped reduce it.

I come back to the point: will the Minister tell the House exactly what use the Home Office will make of all this information, since what is demanded is fairly extensive? If this information was free, it would be okay, but we all know what will happen. All councils will employ at least one, probably more than one, special information-gathering co-ordinator to collect the information required and transmit it to the Home Office. New computer systems will be needed to provide it in “the form and manner”, as per new subsection (4)(b).

This, I suggest, is not a low-grade clerking job, since the information demanded in subsection (2) is not just a collection of numbers or reports, but provision of the reports, plus the authorities’ responses, plus the details of ASB case reviews. Then subsection (3)(d) calls for the information collected to be analysed by the local authorities. As I say, analysis of the plethora of different anti-social behaviour orders and responses to them in sufficient quality to be sent to the Home Office will be regarded as a fairly high-level job, not one for a low-paid junior clerk in the council.

I think we are probably looking at a salary of about £50,000 for the lead person and £30,000 for the assistant, and with national insurance and pensions we are looking at about £100,000 per authority. Multiply that by 317 local authorities and we will have local government costs of £32 million. No doubt many local authorities will love it; there will be more office-bound jobs as they cut dustbin collections and social services work and leave potholes unfilled. Okay, that is a sinister, cynical comment, but that will happen in some local authorities.

I simply ask the Minister to tell the Committee, if that £32 million I calculate will be the cost of every authority supplying all the information requested in Clause 7, will that be money well spent? My little amendment would do my bit to limit some of the costs, since I do not want local authorities wasting time and resources by collecting and analysing so-called anti-social social media posts which have happened in their area, either to the poster or to the complainant. They will be chasing their own tails if they attempt to go down this route. It would be a self-defeating waste of time. That is the purpose of my amendment: to ask the Government to justify what they will do with all the information collected under Clause 7 and to ask whether my calculation of £32 million is roughly right. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 55A, which is supported by StopWatch, a campaign organisation that is concerned with the use of stop and search. I disagree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.

Amendment 55A would require the Home Office to publish quarterly data on the issuing of anti-social behaviour orders and related injunctions. Specifically, it would ensure that these reports include the number of occasions when stop and search has been used by the police prior to the issuing of such orders, and the protected characteristics of those who have been issued with them. These powers can have serious and lasting consequences for those subject to them, particularly young people and those from marginalised communities. Yet at present, the public and Parliament have very limited visibility of how these tools are being applied. This would ensure transparency and accountability about how anti-social behaviour powers are being used across England and Wales.

We know from existing evidence that stop and search disproportionately affects people from black and non-white ethnic backgrounds. The Government’s own figures last year reported that there were nearly 25 stop and searches for every 1,000 black people and yet only around six for every 1,000 white people. There is a real risk that these disparities could be echoed or even compounded in the issuing of anti-social behaviour orders or injunctions. Without clear data, broken down with protected characteristics, we cannot know whether these concerns are justified, nor can we properly evaluate the fairness and effectiveness of the system. By requiring the Home Office to publish quarterly data, this amendment would bring much-needed transparency. It would allow Parliament, bodies with oversight and the public to monitor trends, identify disparities and ensure that anti-social behaviour powers are being used proportionately and appropriately.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is clearly very exercised about the use of resources. He actually said that more information does not reduce crime. I think that is probably completely wrong, because the more information you have, the better you can understand what is happening. So this is about good governance and evidence-based policy. If these powers are being used fairly, the data will confirm that. If not, then we will have the information necessary to take corrective action. Either way, the transparency will strengthen public trust in policing and the rule of law.

This amendment is about shining a light where it is most needed. It would do nothing to restrict police powers. It would simply ensure that their use can be properly scrutinised. I hope the Minister will agree that accountability and transparency are not optional extras in a just society; they are actually the foundations of it.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, we support Amendment 55A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. She has already highlighted the importance of improved data collection around the use of anti-social behaviour legislation. This is essential because it is impossible to gauge the fairness or effectiveness of anti-social behaviour powers without adequate data and transparency.

We also support Clause 7. It is important to have more transparency around how these powers are used by local authorities and housing providers. The evidence is that they already have this information but are failing to share it. As a result, little is known about how these powers are being used in practice.

The charity Crisis wants the Government to go further by making this information publicly available. This would provide full transparency around patterns of anti-social behaviour and the powers used to tackle it. Is this something the Government might consider? Perhaps the Minister could let us know.

The police, too, must improve their recording practices around anti-social behaviour. A report last year by HMICFRS found that some forces’ recording is very poor, while others do not always record the use of statutory powers. We believe that transparency is key to ensuring that future orders are applied reasonably and proportionately, and to prevent discrimination.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

My proposed amendment, if enacted, would send a clear signal to police and prosecutors that speech that offends, shocks or disturbs is indeed lawful. At the same time, it would do nothing to remove real protection from victims who have suffered. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Is the noble Lord saying that, when I was on the Bench here and he hissed at me that I should shut up because I was rude, that was okay because it did not alarm me? Does he remember doing that? We almost came to blows outside.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I recollect that we have always had a robust exchange of views. I did not in any sense seek to alarm the noble Baroness, but, from memory, she arrived late for a group of amendments, pontificated for a few minutes on issues that she had not heard and then—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise, mercifully briefly, to come at this from a slightly different direction. Four years ago, when I was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, we had a debate in the assembly specifically about honour-based abuse in the part-session in September 2021. The point I want to raise is that this is not a UK-only phenomenon but an international phenomenon, and I am putting forward the idea that there is something to be gained from looking at the experience and examples of attempts to deal with honour-based abuse in different jurisdictions. The report that the debate was about looked at the incidence of honour-based abuse and how it is being dealt with in countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands. That was four years ago, so I suspect things have moved on since then. All I ask is that the Government are conscious of that when they are looking at the current state of international knowledge and the degree to which we can benefit from that.

Honour-based abuse comes underneath the Istanbul convention, which we have finally signed up to. Within that, there is an organisation called the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, which has the acronym GREVIO. It has been in existence for about 15 years. I have just checked, and I am ashamed to say that, at the moment, while there is a lot of international representation on this body, there is not a single UK representative, nor has there ever been. I suggest that looking at what this committee does—because it focuses very much on this area—and seeing whether we could not potentially nominate somebody who could go and participate in that and learn from it would be a very good idea.

The only other thing I would say is in the context of the research that the rapporteur for this, who was a representative from Monaco, did. She spoke quite extensively to Nazir Afzal—somebody who I suspect the Minister knows—a prosecutor from the north of England who has been particularly heavily involved in this. One of the things he said really struck me. The report says:

“The crimes were strongly linked to cultural factors”,


particularly factors

“which strengthened … male power and aimed to prevent women from making choices”.

What really struck me was this:

“A 21-year-old man born and raised in England had told him that a man was like a piece of gold which you could clean if you dropped it in the mud, whereas a woman was like a piece of silk, which would be stained forever”.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 356, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. First, I would like to apologise for my intervention earlier. I am afraid I am getting very grumpy, and the Christmas Recess has arrived just in time.

All the amendments in this group have validity, and it might be worth trying to combine them on Report, because this is such an important issue. When serious crimes are committed in the name of so-called honour, the law should recognise that for what it is: a particularly severe and controlling form of abuse. This amendment is to ensure that our justice system understands the dynamics at play in so-called honour-based abuse—abuse that is often collective, prolonged and enforced through fear and the threat of extreme violence.

The case of Banaz Mahmod illustrates this with devastating clarity. Despite reporting rape, violence and repeated threats to her life, and naming those responsible, she was not protected. After her murder, a police watchdog investigation found serious institutional failings, including a failure to grasp the specific risks posed by so-called honour-based abuse.

This amendment reflects the Women and Equalities Committee’s recommendation to explicitly recognise so-called honour in sentencing guidelines to ensure an understanding of such abuse. Recognising so-called honour as an aggravating factor in sentencing would send a clear and necessary signal that crimes motivated by perceived shame or dishonour are deliberate acts of gender-based violence.

This amendment is also supported by victims, survivors, specialist organisations, including Southall Black Sisters, and Banaz’s sister, who has campaigned tirelessly and at huge personal risk. However, there is one thing about all these amendments that I feel is totally wrong and we need to rethink, and that is the fact that I have been saying “so-called honour”. This has nothing to do with honour. This is dishonour, and that is what we should call it.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support the proposed new clause establishing an express statutory right to protest and will speak to my amendments which, I believe, would make that right workable, balanced and fair to all members of the public. I begin by saying that the right to protest is a cornerstone of any free society. It is a mark of confidence, not weakness, when a nation allows its citizens to gather, speak, dissent and challenge those in authority.

I support that principle wholeheartedly, but rights do not exist in isolation. They exist in a framework of mutual respect, where the rights of one group cannot simply extinguish the rights of another. That is why I have tabled these amendments: to ensure that alongside the duty to respect, protect and facilitate protest, public authorities must also ensure that those who are not protesting are not hindered in going about their daily business.

My amendment proposes a new subsection (2)(d), which makes that duty explicit. I have proposed two further subsections in Amendment 369ZB, (3)(d) and (3)(e), to make it clear that preventing inconvenience to any member of the public and permitting people to go about their daily lives are legitimate grounds for proportionate restrictions on protest.

This is not an attempt to water down the right to protest; it is an attempt to anchor it in the real world. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, in the words of the convention, it is to protect the rights and freedoms of others as well. In the real world, “the public” is not an abstract; the public are individuals: it is a nurse trying to reach her shift on time; it is a carer who must get to an elderly relative; it is a parent taking their child to school; it is a worker who risks losing wages, even a job, because the road has been blocked; it is a small business owner whose customers cannot reach them; it is the disabled Peer in this wheelchair who could not get across Westminster Bridge three years ago because Just Stop Oil were blocking me getting across—I should have borrowed one of their banners and then the police would have helped me across.

All these people matter every bit as much as those who are protesting. Their rights are not secondary. Their needs are not trivial, and their lives should not be treated as collateral damage in someone else’s political campaign.

Some argue—I think the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said so—that inconvenience is a part of protest, but inconvenience is not a theoretical concept. Inconvenience has consequences—missed medical appointments, missed exams, missed care visits, missed wages, missed opportunities. For many people, what is dismissed as mere inconvenience is in fact material harm.

I want to be absolutely clear that a legitimate public interest does not need to be a crowd of thousands. It does not need to be a major national event. It does not need to be a threat to infrastructure. Sometimes a legitimate public interest is one person, one individual, who simply needs to get to work or go to school or go to hospital. A democracy protects minorities, and sometimes the minority is a minority of one.

My amendments recognise that reality. They would ensure that the right to protest was balanced with the right of everyone else to live their lives. They would give public authorities clarity rather than ambiguity, because at present the police are often placed in an impossible position. If they intervene, they are accused of supporting protests. If they do not intervene, they are accused of failing to protect the public. My amendments would give them a clear statutory duty: protect protests, yes, but protect the public and ensure that daily life can continue.

This is not about silencing anyone; it is about ensuring that protest remains peaceful, proportionate and legitimate. If protests routinely prevent ordinary people going about their lives, public support for them will erode. When public support erodes, the right itself becomes more fragile. I think we all saw on television recently motorists getting out of their cars and dragging people off the road. That should not happen. They had to become vigilantes to clear the road. That was because they felt the authorities were not doing their duty in keeping the roads clear.

My amendments would strengthen the right to protest by ensuring that it was exercised responsibly, in a way that commands public respect rather than public resentment. The proposed new clause before them is well intentioned, but without my amendments it risks creating a one-sided right that elevates the interests of protesters above the interests of everyone else. That is not balance, that is not fairness, and it is not how rights should operate in a democratic society. My amendments would restore that balance. They recognise that the right to protest is vital but not absolute. They recognise that the rights of protesters must coexist with the rights of those who are not protesting. They recognise that sometimes the legitimate public interest is not a grand principle but a simple human need—the need to get to work, to keep an appointment, to reach a hospital or simply to go about one’s daily business without obstruction. I commend my amendments to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it was quite difficult to sit here and listen to that, but I will come to that. I very strongly support Amendment 369, and I do so with a real sense of fury that we are in this position, that we actually have to do this, and that it is not obvious to any Government that in a democracy we need the right to protest to be protected. To engage in peaceful protest means irritating other people. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but, unfortunately, what he said just now was complete and utter nonsense.

Over recent years, we have seen a real erosion of protest rights through one Bill after another. I sat here and watched it all and protested at every single move. Each was justified on a narrow, technical or operational point but, taken together, they amounted to a clear political direction—making protests harder, riskier and much easier to shut down.

Amendment 369 does not invent new rights. It states in clear and accessible language that peaceful protest is a fundamental democratic right and that public authorities have a duty to respect, protect and facilitate that right.

Amendments 369ZA and 369ZB seek to qualify that right by reference to whether members of the public are “hindered”, experience “inconvenience” or are able to go about “their daily business”. These amendments fundamentally misunderstand the nature of protest. Almost all meaningful protest causes some degree of hindrance or inconvenience. If it does not, it is very easy to ignore. From the suffragettes to trade unionists to civil rights campaigners, protest has always disrupted business as usual, precisely because that is how attention is drawn to injustice. For example, proscribing Palestine Action was such a stupid move by the Government and has caused more problems for them and the police than if they had just left it alone and arrested its members for criminal damage and similar.

I come back to these embarrassing amendments. It is not just the problem of their intent, which I disagree very strongly with, but their vagueness. Terms such as “hindered” and “inconvenience” are entirely undefined. Being delayed by five minutes could be an inconvenience. Noise could be an inconvenience. Simply being reminded of a cause that one disagrees with could, for some, be considered an inconvenience. If those concepts become legal thresholds for restricting protest, the right itself becomes meaningless.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, used the phrase “in the real world”. I live in the real world, and I understand what protest does and why it is needed. Under these amendments, any protest that is visible, noisy or effective could be banned on the basis that someone somewhere was inconvenienced. Democracy is by its nature sometimes noisy, disruptive and inconvenient. It is very inconvenient being here at night debating these issues, quite honestly, in a moderately cold Chamber.

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

Moderately?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

All right, in a cold Chamber.

If we prioritise convenience over conscience, we should not be surprised when people feel shut out of political decision-making altogether. For those reasons, I support Amendments 369 and 371. In essence, protest law is a terrible mess, and we have got here by a long series of government decisions and government weirdnesses. The whole thing is confusing for the police, as we have been told by senior police officers. It means that police officers make mistakes based on their own judgment. That is a terrible thing to happen in a democracy. Let us get this into the Bill to make clear exactly what a democracy looks like.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The terms of the noble Lord’s review have been published and they are available to the Committee now. The review will examine whether current public order legislation is fit for purpose in the light of contemporary protest tactics, community impacts and the need to safeguard democracy. It will examine how effectively police are using the powers available to them. It will consider whether further measures are needed to reassure the communities who are most affected by current tensions, while respecting the right to protest. Those are all important issues. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, expects to submit the review to the Home Secretary by spring 2026 and, in doing so, will give an overview of all the legislation that is in place.

The noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, commented on Palestine Action and the right to protest of Palestine Action. I want to reaffirm that both the House of Commons and this House had an opportunity to vote in favour or against that legislation. Both the House of Commons and this House voted in favour of the legislation, which is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said, police officers are implementing the legislation that was passed by both Houses. As I recall, although I cannot remember the exact figures, a number of Members of this House voted against that order, including Members from my own side. It was a difficult debate in July. It was a free vote; many Members voted against it in the Commons and this House, but both measures were passed in both Houses.

It is not illegal for anybody to go outside now and campaign against the Israeli Government or any actions by the Israeli Government, or to campaign in favour of the Palestine organisations that are seeking to change the status quo in that part of the Middle East. What is illegal is to show support for an organisation that I, Ministers and the Government, on advice from the security services and others, determined was engaged in activities that crossed the threshold of the Terrorism Act. The noble Lord, Lord Walney, is well aware of the complexities of that, as a former adviser, but that was the advice we got.

If an organisation is breaching the threshold for terrorism, it is the duty of this Government to act, and that is what we did in those circumstances. So I want to place on record again, for clarity, that the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, can go outside tonight and campaign for a Palestine state and against the Israeli Government, and no police will arrest him or, as he mentioned, any grandparent, teacher or professional. But if he goes out and supports Palestine Action, which has been determined to have crossed the threshold of the Terrorism Act, he will face the full force of the law. If he does not like the law, he can try to change it, but that is the law passed by both Houses and therefore the police have a duty to uphold it. It does not stop peaceful protest.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I would love to reopen the Palestine Action debate, because I was the person who pushed for the vote and, as we exited the Chamber, several Peers said to me, “This is going to cause trouble”. So people knew.

However, on the review led by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, can the Minister say whether the noble Lord set the time limit or whether the Government did, because it seems a lot of work for such a short time?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I always try to be helpful to the House. I was not directly party to the issue with the Home Secretary and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, about the time limit, so I cannot say with any certainty whether the Home Secretary said to the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, to do it by April, or the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, said that he will deliver it by April. If the noble Baroness wants me to write to her to make that point, I will do so.

The key thing at the heart of Amendment 371 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, is that it provides for the review to be undertaken within 12 months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that the review we are doing currently will have been completed by April 2026.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Debate on whether Clause 118 should stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

How nice it is to be back here again. I oppose Clauses 118, 119 and 120 standing part of the Bill. These clauses introduce a pre-emptive targeting of people based on location rather than behaviour. That should concern anyone who cares about the right to peaceful protest. Under these clauses, a senior police officer may designate an area in anticipation of a protest, based on a belief that an offence is likely to occur. Once that designation is in place, simply wearing an item said to conceal identity becomes a criminal offence. This applies to everyone in a designated area. Criminal liability comes not from conduct but from being in a certain place and from what a person is wearing. That is a profound shift in approach and one that I cannot support.

It is also a massively broad discretion. An inspector can designate a locality for up to 24 hours, extendable, on the basis of a prediction or guess, rather than evidence, of immediate serious violence. The result is a huge power to ban everyday protective coverings across a place at a time based only on an estimate of what might happen. That is exactly the kind of power that leads to overenforcement and a chilling effect on protest, particularly for those who already face risks from being identified.

The Government may say that defences to these provisions exist for health, religion or work, but those protections operate after arrest and charge, not at the point where the person decides whether it is safe for them to attend a protest at all. That is the key issue here. Liberty’s supporters have been clear about the real-world impact. One disabled person wrote:

“I am clinically vulnerable … Forcing disabled people like me to unmask is surely disability discrimination”.


Another said:

“As a single woman, I do not want to be identified”.


Women who have experienced domestic abuse may cover their faces for the same reason.

For others, including diaspora activists and those with credible fears of transnational repression, anonymity is not a political statement but a basic safeguard. We have already seen reporting on how mask restrictions at solidarity protests in the UK, including those linked to Hong Kong, have deterred participation because surveillance and reprisals are real concerns. This then becomes about who feels safe enough to exercise their democratic rights.

I must also ask: are these clauses really necessary? The police already have a targeted power, under Section 60AA of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, to require the removal of certain items where this is justified. That power has been used in recent protest policing, including at protests outside a migrant hotel in Epping. Can the Minister say what evidence the Government have of a gap in existing targeted powers that they cannot meet, rather than simply a desire for broader, pre-emptive control? The Government have not demonstrated an operational gap so far. What we appear to have instead is a preference for wider, pre-emptive control rather than targeted, evidence-based policing.

That matters because Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights are absolutely clear: any restriction on protest must be necessary and proportionate, and the Strasbourg court has repeatedly warned against measures that deter peaceful participation through fear of sanction. A clause that criminalises ordinary behaviour across a designated area, without reference to a person’s actual behaviour, is precisely the kind of measure that risks crossing that line.

Will the Government consider narrowing the trigger to “imminent and serious violence or disorder” and introducing a clear front-end reasonable excuse protection, rather than relying on defences only after arrest? If the Government’s concern is intimidation or disorder, then the answer is the better use of existing targeted powers, not a blanket approach that sweeps up disabled people, women concerned about safety and minority communities, along with everybody else. For all those reasons, I support removing Clauses 118, 119 and 120 from the Bill.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I stand to oppose the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and to suggest that it is vital that these clauses stand part of the Bill, because protest is strongest when it is open, accountable and proud. A movement that hides its face borrows the language of secrecy; a movement that stands unmasked invites public judgment and moral authority.

History teaches us that the most effective and morally persuasive movements were led openly. Emmeline Pankhurst marched into the public square and faced arrest and imprisonment without concealment, because the suffragette cause depended on moral clarity and public witness. Arthur Scargill led the miners in mass action, visible and unhidden, because solidarity is built on faces and names, not anonymity. Martin Luther King Jr stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and in the streets of Birmingham with nothing to hide, because non-violence and moral authority require openness. Mahatma Gandhi led millions in acts of civil resistance with a visible, symbolic presence that made the movement impossible to ignore.

The Government’s own summary of the Bill is clear about the purpose of these measures. It refers to:

“A new criminal offence which prohibits the wearing or otherwise using of an item that conceals identity when in an area designated by police under the new provisions”.


That designation is constrained by a statutory trigger:

“A designation can only be made … when the police reasonably believe that a protest may or is taking place in that area, the protest is likely to involve or has involved the commission of offences and that a designation would prevent or control the commission of offences”.


These are targeted powers, aimed at preventing criminality while protecting lawful assembly. It is not about silencing dissent; it is about responsibility and transparency. The fact sheet also notes a practical enforcement tool:

“The bill also creates a new power for the police to require someone to remove a face covering during a protest”.


That power underlines the expectation that those who lead and speak for causes should be prepared to be seen and held to account.

I mentioned older historical protest leaders, but I can bring the Committee more up to date. Contemporary political figures continue to lead visibly. We all have tremendous respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who has led a few protests in the past. I have looked at about 50 absolutely magnificent photos of the noble Baroness protesting in Westminster and other areas. She has been at the forefront of various Green Party protests. She said that she had been protesting all her life, but I could not find any of her as a schoolgirl at the anti-Vietnam War or Aldermaston protests.

She has a varied repertoire: stop the police Bill; stop pension financing; outside the Royal Court of Justice with a banner saying “Neither Confirm Nor Deny”; stop fracking in Lancashire; stop dumping sewage, South West Water; renters’ rights; and many more—all with her trusty loudhailer. She also said that part of protest was to cause inconvenience and disruption. I suggest that the three of them on the green holding up a banner against Guantanamo Bay did not cause much inconvenience.

The serious point, as I tease the noble Baroness, is this: in every single photo, after her last 50 years of protest, she and her colleagues had their faces uncovered, demonstrating modern political leadership in public demonstrations. To all other organisations I say that, if the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, whom I admire as a conviction politician, can protest so frequently with her face uncovered, so can and should everyone else. So I say, “Go on, organisers: encourage openness, train you marshals and make sure your aims are clear”. To the police I say, “Use these powers proportionately and protect lawful assembly”. To the public I say, “Support the right to protest and expect those who lead to do so with courage and transparency”.

I conclude by saying that, when protest is unmasked, it persuades rather than intimidates; it invites debate rather than hiding behind anonymity. That is how movements achieve lasting change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, time is pressing for the response, but that is largely due to interventions. I say to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, that the main objective of the police in this process will be to ensure that there is a peaceful demonstration, with no trouble for the community at large. If the police overpolice an issue, that is potentially an area where trouble can commence. So I give the judgment to the police to do this in a proper and effective way.

A number of comments have been made, and we will always reflect on those comments, but I stick, particularly because of time, to the contention that the clauses should stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I cannot tell you how much energy and self-control it has taken to stay seated, with all these interventions and comments. First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for his very kind comments and the photographs, which have obviously brought back a lot of very nice, happy memories. I thank him for that. The other aspect to my having to exercise loads of self- control in staying sitting down is that I get very agitated —very irritated, in fact—and I scribble all over the papers I have in front of me, which sometimes makes it difficult to reply fully. I am going to do my best, and I beg the patience of the House in allowing me to go through all my scribbles.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Fox, and the noble Lords, Lord Strasburger and Lord Marks, for their support. I am very grateful. Obviously, this is a day that will go in my diary: the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, actually agreed with something I said. That is quite rare.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I did not necessarily agree that the Baroness, Lady Jones, should be mentioned in the same sentence as Martin Luther King and Emmeline Pankhurst—I just wanted to make that clear.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord. I would like to say, by the way, that I did go to Aldermaston, but my first real protest was in 1968 when I was 18. I went on a CND rally, and it was peaceful—at least, I think it was; I cannot remember.

It is not difficult to counter the arguments from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. He talked about my being brave enough—perhaps he did not use the word “brave”—to go to protests without a mask, but, of course, I am a highly privileged white female and he is a highly privileged white male. It is not for us to say who might be vulnerable and who might not, and who might fear reprisals and who might not. Let us remember that there are people who live in fear of other people, and those people could easily be deterred from going to protests.

On the points from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and the Minister, the fact is that the police have enough powers already. If they really are requesting this, surely the Government should have a little bit more pragmatism about what they are passing. The fact that the Minister is so happy that two Tories are supporting him is something I honestly find quite shocking. If they are the only people he can rouse to support him in your Lordships’ House, that really says something—and I do not mean for any of you to stand up and support him: it is not necessary.

On the issue of the police getting confused, because the legislation at the moment is very confused—there is so much of it—

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

Too much.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Thank you. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, is absolutely right. For example, Steve Bray, the man who does all the loud Brexit protests in Parliament Square—

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

Lock him up.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I will thank Members on this side not to comment on my speech if possible.

Apparently last week the police tried to close Mr Bray down in spite of the court ruling that said that what he was doing was legal. They made, I am told, the absurd and fatuous claim that the judgment had been repealed. That is completely wrong; it is complete nonsense. That is what the police said. They are confused. I do not blame the police for that; I think that the law on protest has now reached such proportions that they really cannot be expected to stay up with what is happening. The Minister said that the police are going to make these decisions and that we have to trust the police and have lots of confidence in them, but if you make bad law, you are responsible and not the police. You are responsible for passing laws that are, first, unnecessary and, secondly, plain wrong. The police have to try to put that into practice, and that is not fair.

I think I might have said everything actually.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I think this is terrible; these clauses should be thrown out or should at least be rewritten, because they are not useful. They are not useful to people who are in genuine fear of their lives but who want to protest about something, and they are not useful for the police, who already have the powers. I asked in my opening speech whether the Minister could point me to the gap in legislation. If the police have really asked for these clauses, then they do not even know the legislation properly.

Very unwillingly—and I am glad the Minister suggested I bring this back on Report—I will withdraw my opposition to the clause standing part of the Bill.

Clause 118 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I should just begin by agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, about the farmers, but I note that they did not call to globalise the intifada.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Walney, and thank him for the work that he has done and continues to do on counterterrorism. It is deeply appreciated by many, and, from the point of view of the Jewish community, he is a leading non-Jew—a righteous gentile, if I may add—in everything he does.

I have added my name to Amendment 370A and to two or three other amendments in this group. Supporting this amendment would ensure that those creating a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions and the rights of others are curtailed. This can include all sorts of groups, and we know some of them. These groups can pose a clear and tangible threat to public order and public safety, even where their activities may not, in every instance, meet the statutory threshold for terrorism.

The Committee will recall, for example, the incident in November 2023, when Just Stop Oil protesters obstructed an emergency ambulance with its blue lights flashing on Waterloo Bridge—an action that plainly placed lives at risk. An amendment of the nature of Amendment 370A would ensure that such groups, which demonstrably endanger the public and interfere with essential services, could be addressed at an early stage. It would enable more timely and effective intervention where there is a sustained pattern of reckless, disruptive conduct, before serious harm occurs.

On Amendment 370AA, “intifada” is not a neutral expression but one rooted in campaigns of organised violence and terrorism, yet the Government seem to fail to understand, or choose to ignore, what intifada really was and what it truly means, with tragic consequences. I look over at the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and think of Heaton Park synagogue at Yom Kippur. Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby are no longer with us. Sydney might be the other end of the world, but what went on there—15 innocent people murdered—was a massacre that shows the results that antisemitism can lead to. These people are the victims of the so-called global intifada. When this Government and Governments around the world do not heed the warnings about the severe and dangerous impact that these words have, this is what happens. This amendment would help stop Manchester or Bondi Beach happening again and would provide clarity for CPS enforcement, in ensuring that Parliament draws a clear line before more lives are lost rather than afterwards. Waiting until loss of life to act is, quite simply, deeply shameful.

I have added my name to Amendment 380. It cannot be right in a free society that any community feels unable to go about its daily life because of repeated demonstrations, however lawful they may each be. This was starkly illustrated by the protest that took place the day after the Manchester synagogue attack, when a traumatised community was given no space to grieve. In such circumstances, managing or conditioning a protest is not always enough. The police must have clear legal authority to prevent such protest going ahead where the cumulative effect tips into serious disruption and intimidation. This amendment would provide that clarity and ensure that the law properly protects public order and the right of communities to live without fear. I would be very interested in the views of the Minister on that.

Finally, Amendment 486B would address a serious problem in our framework for public funding. This problem was exposed most clearly, I guess, by the debacle surrounding the band Kneecap, which was permitted to retain a grant of £14,250 from the British taxpayer, despite a catalogue of deeply troubling activity. This includes behaviour glorifying terrorism, when one of the band members held up a Hezbollah flag on stage, shouting, “Up Hamas! Up Hezbollah!” Artistic expression must be protected but it must never be allowed to cross the line into incitement—and when it does, public money should certainly not be supporting it. This incident demonstrates how ill equipped our current law is to prevent funds flowing to individuals or organisations whose conduct runs directly counter to our values and our security.

However, the problem is not just Kneecap. An organisation funded by the UK taxpayer, the Collections Trust, issued guidance referring to Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation, as “anti-colonial freedom fighters”. That language is not accidental or trivial. It legitimises and sanitises terrorism, and it was disseminated with public funds.

This amendment would make it clear that no organisation should be permitted to receive or retain taxpayer support if it promotes or excuses criminal conduct or narratives that undermine our democratic values. Again, I ask the Minister whether he agrees that public money must never be used, directly or indirectly, to legitimise extremism, and that we here in Parliament have a duty to draw that line clearly and unequivocally.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have given notice of my opposition to Clause 124 standing part of the Bill. I have done this for two reasons. First, I think it is unnecessary and, secondly, it could be even more repressive than the law that this Labour Government have already passed.

Let me be clear: I support the right to worship and to access places of worship freely and safely. I would go along to anywhere where people are protesting and making life difficult for anybody who wants to worship, as that is unacceptable. However, this clause is not a targeted protection against genuinely threatening behaviour. It is a broad, low-threshold power that risks sweeping up lawful, peaceful protest on the basis of guesswork rather than evidence, exactly the same as was discussed in the previous group.

Clause 124 allows conditions to be imposed where a protest

“may intimidate persons of reasonable firmness”

in “the vicinity” of a place of worship. The word “may” is doing a lot of work here, as is “vicinity”; neither is defined and together they create a power that is open to misuse. This is not about stopping harassment or threats—we already have strong laws for that. If someone is genuinely intimidating worshippers, the police already have plenty of powers to intervene. What does this clause actually add?

The real problem is that the clause allows restrictions to be imposed even where the protest is peaceful, so long as someone claims they might feel intimidated. That is not a hypothetical risk. Almost any protest that touches on controversial issues could be said to intimidate somebody. Pride marches, trade union demos, climate protests and peaceful protests against war or injustice could all be caught by this wording if they happen to be near a place of worship. In many places in our cities, including London—particularly central Westminster, where so many protests happen—it is very difficult not to be near a place of worship. That creates a very real danger of rolling exclusion zones where protest is progressively pushed out of public space altogether, not because of evidence of harm but because of location and perception.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I appreciate that clarification. Considering the time, I say to the noble Baroness that the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, is forthcoming. I dare say he will be reading this debate in Hansard with some interest.

Amendment 380, from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, seeks to apply the changes made by government Amendment 372 to Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act to the provisions of Section 13 of the Act. I simply say that, in a democratic society, the threshold for banning a protest should always be markedly higher than that of imposing conditions on a protest. That is why, sadly, we will resist his amendment.

Amendment 382E, from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, similarly touches on one of the guiding principles of the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald—namely, whether our public order legislation strikes a fair balance between freedom of expression and the right to protest with the need to prevent disorder and keep communities safe. The ability to impose conditions on, or indeed ban, a protest based on the cumulative impact of protests on policing resources goes to the very heart of how we strike that balance.

Finally, Amendment 486B, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, is concerned with access to public funds for organisations promoting or supporting criminal conduct. I understand from what he said that this amendment may stem from comments made by the Irish hip-hop group Kneecap, which previously received funding from the Government through the music export growth scheme. I want to make it clear that I unequivocally condemn the comments that were made, which the noble Lord, Lord Polak, and others mentioned. In the light of that case, DCMS has made changes to the scheme, including requiring applicants to declare activity that may bring the scheme into disrepute, introducing further due diligence processes, adding a clawback clause to the grant agreement, and, where concerns are raised, escalating decisions to Ministers.

This has been a wide-ranging and thoughtful debate. We recognise the vital part played by peaceful protest in the functioning of our democracy. For the Government’s part, the measures in Part 9, together with Amendments 372 and 381, address gaps that we and the police have identified in the current legislative framework. We stand ready to address other operational gaps in the law, but before doing so we should await the outcome of the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald. I hope that that addresses all the questions that have been posed tonight. We will of course review Hansard and write if we need to. In response to the specific request from my noble friend Lady Blower, we are of course always keen to have conversations, and we can take that offline outside the Chamber.

We all have a part to play here and I observe that those organising, stewarding and attending protests, as well as having a right to protest, have a responsibility to ensure that what they chant and the placards they wave are not racist and do not threaten communities or intimidate fellow citizens. Sadly, that has not always been the case. With that, I commend the government amendments to the Committee.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I have two small points to make. First, there seems to be a lot of prejudgment of the report by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald—the Minister seemed to say that the noble Lord will not disagree with anything that has gone through in the Bill. I do not understand why we did not wait for the report to be published before the Bill was introduced. Secondly, I did not hear an answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, about why Labour has done a complete 180-degree turn on Amendment 372.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

In answer to both the noble Baroness’s points, the lived experience of the Jewish community, and that of other communities—the actions we saw against mosques and the Muslim community in parts of this country during the summer and since October 2023 provide a different context and this was recognised in the Metropolitan Police and GMP statement on chants to “Globalise the intifada”—over the past couple of years leads one to draw different conclusions. It is absolutely the case that the Home Secretary saw the importance of putting cumulative impact and providing reassurance to communities as a priority that could be folded into part of the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, and that there was no need to wait for it and we could use the Bill to do it. That is what we have done, and I will be proud to move those amendments.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I agree and disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, in equal measure, which may surprise him. On the protest point, he reaffirmed what I tried to say the other day, which is that the ECHR does not give the term “facilitation of protest”, but the police have given that term and put that sobriquet over the articles. The danger is—and I am afraid it is what materialised—that it has been interpreted as almost arranging some of the protests rather than the simplistic expression of “facilitation”. I do not think that we are a mile apart on it, but I come at it from a slightly different angle.

I think that facial recognition is an incredibly good thing. People during the debate have agreed that it has a value. It has two purposes: one is to try retrospectively to match a crime scene suspect with the database that the police hold of convicted people; and the other one, which has caused more concern and on which there may be common ground, is about the live use of it.

One thing that I think needs to be amplified—the Minister may mention it when he responds—is that the Court of Appeal has decided that the police use of facial recognition is legal. However, it did raise concerns—this is where I certainly agree with the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Doocey, who already made this point—that it needs to treat all people equally. It is not okay to have a high failure rate against one group by race and a different success rate against another race. That is not acceptable. I was surprised, as I know the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, was, when this had not been made public and was discovered in whatever way it was discovered. That needs to be got right. There is no justification for that error rate, and it must be resolved.

Secondly, this may surprise the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, but I agree that there should be more regulation of its use, and that it should be regulation by Parliament, not by the police. Where I disagree is on whether this Act, and this proposed amendment, is the right way to do it. We are going to have to learn, first, how the technology works, how it is applied by the police, where its benefits are and where its risks are. I also agree that there ought to be independent oversight of it and that anybody who is offended by its use should have the opportunity to get someone to check into it to see whether it has been misused. They should also be provided with a remedy. A remedy may be financial compensation, but I would argue that it is probably better that something happens to the database to make it less likely to be ineffective in the future. There needs to be some reassurance that somebody is improving this system rather than not. I am for facial recognition, but there should be regulation and I do not think that this Act is the right time. As has already been said, the consultation that started just before Christmas and concludes, I think, in February will give us a good way forward, but it will need a bit more thought than this Bill, when it becomes an Act, might offer us.

Finally, there are an awful lot of regulators out there, and we all pay for them. There are surveillance commissioners, intrusive surveillance commissioners and biometric commissioners. They are all examining the same area—if they ever get together and decide to have one commissioner to look at the lot, we would probably save quite a lot of money. This is an area in which the existing commissioners probably could do two things. One is to regulate and the other, potentially, is to approve, either in retrospect or prospectively depending on the emergency or the urgency with which it should be used. There is therefore some need for help but, for me, I do not think that this Bill is the right opportunity.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have signed this amendment because I think it is very sensible and covers some ground that really needs tackling. It would ensure that the police could not use live facial recognition technology when imposing conditions on public assemblies or processions under Sections 12 or 14 unless a new specific code of practice governing its use in public spaces has first been formally approved by both Houses of Parliament—that sounds quite democratic, does it not? It is intended to safeguard public privacy and civil liberties by requiring democratic oversight before this surveillance technology is deployed in such contexts.

It is always interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, former Met Commissioner, on the tiny little areas where we do overlap in agreement; I think it is very healthy. However, I disagree deeply when he says this is not the legislation and it should be something else. We keep hearing that. I cannot tell noble Lords how many times I, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, have raised this issue here in Parliament and in other places. The noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, asked a quite interesting question: why should we care? Quite honestly, I care because I believe in justice and in fairness, and I want those in society. As I pointed out yesterday, I am a highly privileged white female; I have been arrested, but I was de-arrested almost immediately by the Met Police when all the surrounding people started saying, “Do you know who she is?” and they immediately took the handcuffs off.

At some point we have to accept that this needs regulation. We cannot accept that the police constantly mark their own homework. We were reassured that all the flaws in the algorithm and so on had been fixed, but clearly we cannot be sure of that because we do not have any way of knowing exactly what the flaws were and who has fixed them. Live facial recognition represents a huge departure from long-established principles of British policing. In this country, people are not required to identify themselves to the police unless they are suspected of wrongdoing. Live facial recognition turns that principle on its head by subjecting everyone in range of a camera to an automated identity check. It treats innocent members of the public as potential suspects and undermines the presumption of innocence.

I disagree deeply with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, when he says that it is not a blanket surveillance tool—of course it is. It is a blanket surveillance tool and is highly dangerous from that point of view. It is a mass biometric surveillance tool. It scans faces in real time, retains images of those flagged by the system and does so without individuals’ knowledge or consent.

If the police randomly stopped people in the street to check their fingerprints against a database, for example, we would rightly be alarmed. Live facial recognition performs the same function, only invisibly and at scale. Its use in the context of protest is a dangerous crossing of a constitutional line. We already have evidence that facial recognition has been deployed at demos and major public events, with a chilling effect on lawful protest. People will not go to these protests because they feel vulnerable. They are deterred from exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly because they fear being identified, tracked or wrongly stopped. While this amendment proposes a safeguard through parliamentary approval of a statutory code, we should not allow that to imply acceptance of live facial recognition at protests in principle. In my view, this technology has absolutely no place in the policing of democratic dissent.

We should reflect on the broader direction of travel. Live facial recognition is most enthusiastically embraced by authoritarian regimes, while a number of democratic countries have moved to restrict or even prohibit its use. That alone should surely give this Government pause to reflect on whether this is the right legislation to bring in. Independent observers have witnessed cases in which live facial recognition has misidentified children in school uniform, leading to lengthy and very distressing police stops. In some instances, those wrongly flagged were young black children, subjected to aggressive questioning and fingerprinting despite having done nothing wrong. What safeguards are in place to prevent misidentification, particularly of children and people from UK minority-ethnic communities? That is a basic question that we should be asking before we pass this legislation. I support the amendment as an essential check, but I hope that this debate sends a wider message that Parliament will not allow the routine use of intrusive biometric surveillance to become the price of exercising fundamental democratic rights.

I want to pick up something that the Minister said on Tuesday. He directed the Committee to the front page of the Bill and said that, in his view, the Bill was compliant with the ECHR. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, pointed out, that is his belief and his view. It is absolutely not a certificate of accuracy. I am not suggesting for one moment that there is any intent to deceive; I am merely saying that it is not a certificate of truth. With claims about seemingly authoritarian laws being compliant with human rights, that assessment can be challenged and should be challenged as much as possible. It remains subjective and is challenged by the organisation Justice, for example. We are clearly going to disagree about a lot in this Bill, but we are trying our best over here to make the law fair and representative of a justice that we think should exist here in Britain.

[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

My Lords, I was hesitant as to whether to speak here, but some years ago I had very close acquaintance with facial recognition software, so I thought it might be useful to say a couple of things.

First, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that this is an extremely good technology. I will get to the concerns expressed about it in a minute. This software has been used to apprehend murderers. For example, I think the Australian outback murderer was apprehended because of it and a far-right group of extremists in Sweden was identified by some very clever use of this facial recognition technology. It can be used successfully in preventing crime. Now, that is not all live use of the technology, and these amendments are about live use of the technology.

I very much respect the work of the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. I am a great supporter of Big Brother Watch, and he and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, make good points. Much is made of the disparity in accuracy between white and black faces. The software I was involved with had that problem. The reason for that is that it was trained on white faces—they were afraid of being thought of as racist if they focused on black faces. Therefore, the accuracy for black faces was much worse, they discovered, and so they quickly started training the software on black faces and the disparity closed right up. As far as I know, the disparity, if it still exists, is quite small, but others may know better than me. This was several years ago, but that definitely happened with this set of facial recognition software.

There is the issue of perfectly innocent people being stopped and searched. That happened to me several times when I was in my teens and twenties. I had rather long hair and looked a bit—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Shifty.

[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

Shifty is a great description—the noble Baroness could have said far worse than that.

I was given a hard time and then let go. We have to accept that there will be errors, but we have to understand where this is going. We can less and less afford to have police on the streets—we have seen that problem—and technology has to take over. Look at the super-spotters, a very successful crime-fighting group in New York. They would go to an area where there was a lot of crime—noble Lords will know that there was a process in New York where they directed people to crime hotspots—where they looked at the gait of individuals to see whether they were carrying guns or knives. Soon, people in those areas discovered that they had better not carry guns because they would be stopped by these super-spotters and arrested. If you are not carrying a gun, which they had all stopped doing, you cannot kill somebody because you do not have a gun to kill them with. It was a tremendously successful operation in lowering crime.

State-of-the-art facial recognition, at least before I stopped looking at it a couple of years ago, was more in gait than in face. We have to understand that you can start training technology to be much more effective than even these super-spotters at spotting people who are carrying, using their gait to recognise an individual rather than their face. There are all sorts of ways in which this software will be used to recognise people. It will get better and better, and fewer mistakes will be made; mistakes will always be made none the less, but that is the way of policing. They were mistaken when they stopped me—I was this tremendously law-abiding good chap, but they stopped me, and so will the facial recognition.

I loved the description from the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, of the 20 police hanging around, which I am sure resonated with noble Lords around the entire Chamber as the sort of thing that happens, but over time we will have to depend on technology such as this. We will have to be extremely careful about civil liberties, but we cannot blanket get rid of this technology, because it will be very important to policing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I do not think that it does. We will leave it at that. There is a proper and full consultation document, a copy of which is, I am sure, available in the House for Members to look at.

I revert to my starting point. For the reasons that have been laid out by a number of Members in the Committee today, across the political divide and none, it is a valuable tool. Do the noble Lord and the noble Baroness who raised this have an objection to automatic number plate recognition? Under current regulations, every vehicle that goes past a camera at the side of the road is an “innocent” vehicle but some of those number plates will lead to crime being solved or individuals being caught. The principle is there. If they object to the principle then we will not find common ground on this. We need regulation—I have accepted that. We are bringing forward the consultation, but, ultimately it is a valuable tool to stop and prevent crime and to catch criminals.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The Minister cannot compare cars with people—that is a completely false comparison. I do not know whether the Minister has been in a van with a camera looking at number plates. There is no mistaking number plates; there is a lot of mistaking human faces.

The Minister earlier used the word “proportionately”. There is a significant distinction between proportionately and expediently. The test for lawful interference with ECHR rights is proportionality rather than expediency. We have covered this before, but it has come up again now. Having expediency in the Bill gives police the powers beyond what is reasonable for human rights. We are not sitting here for hours into the night doing this for fun—we can all agree that this is not fun. We are doing this because we believe that the Bill is wrong.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am doing it because I believe that we need to catch criminals and reduce crime. That is a fair disagreement between us. That is why I am doing this Bill and that is what this Bill is about. We may disagree, but facial recognition technology is an important mechanism to prevent crime and to reduce crime. I can tell the noble Baroness that we have agreed to bring forward regulations and are consulting on what those will include. I hope she will submit some views. I remain convinced that the type of technology that we have is valid and useful.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

416A: After Clause 144, insert the following new Clause—
“Review: compliance and enforcement mechanisms in relation to police powers(1) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish a proposal for approval by the House of Commons on the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the enforcement powers of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) in relation to the police.(2) The proposal for an independent commission must include terms of reference, which must include, but may not be limited to—(a) a review of the powers available to other independent regulatory and investigative bodies, such as Ofqual, the Care Quality Commission, the Financial Conduct Authority, and Ofsted, for the purposes of comparison,(b) the lessons learned from other regulatory bodies with stronger enforcement powers, and(c) an examination of whether a statutory framework of coordination between HMICFRS, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and Police and Crime Commissioners, could enhance the enforcement powers available to all three sets of bodies and the accountability of policing in England and Wales.(3) The proposal for an independent commission must set out a timetable for its work including that—(a) the commission should conclude its deliberations within nine months of its establishment, and(b) the Secretary of State must lay a copy of the report before both Houses of Parliament and ensure that time is made available, within a fortnight of the report being laid, in both Houses for a substantive debate on the report’s conclusions.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require the Government to publish a proposal for an independent commission for approval by the House of Commons to review the enforcement powers of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), including consideration of a statutory framework to enhance the collective enforcement powers of bodies supervising Police Forces in England and Wales.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this is an unusual amendment for me because it is very exploratory. At the end, I am going to ask the Minister three questions, which I would really like an answer to, perhaps in writing if it is not possible today. This amendment is supported by StopWatch, an organisation that seeks accountable and fair policing. This is a crucial element of creating fair policing. When serious problems are found, how confident are we that the system can put them right? The system as it stands is a little jumbled. I suggest that it could do with some streamlining.

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services does really important work in shining a light on what is going wrong, but inspection takes us only so far. My amendment asks whether the follow-through is strong enough and whether lessons from other regulated sectors could help turn findings into lasting improvements. In healthcare, education and financial services, regulators are able to require change. Those systems exist because inspection without action does not protect the public. The amendment invites us to consider whether policing oversight could benefit from similar clarity and grip. The amendment also raises the issue of co-ordination. Are HMICFRS, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and police and crime commissioners working together as effectively as they can when forces fail to improve? Would clearer statutory alignment help ensure that warnings are acted on and not simply repeated?

Where concerns about proportionality and legitimacy keep resurfacing, it is right to ask whether the oversight framework is strong enough to drive change. As this Bill and others give more and more power to the police, this is the perfect time to ask. I would welcome the Minister’s response on three points. First, how do the Government judge whether inspection findings are actually leading to improvement on the ground? Secondly, have the Government considered whether closer co-operation between oversight bodies could strengthen accountability? Thirdly, are there lessons from other regulatory systems that the Government believe policing can learn from? I look forward to the Minister’s reply and to continuing this discussion as the Bill progresses.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for moving her amendment. Noble Lords will recall my work on a particular police force and abnormal loads. I am confused that it was the chief inspector who informed the Home Secretary that there was a big problem. I am grateful to her for dealing with it, but I thought that the IOPC was responsible for dealing with misconduct and that the chief inspector was looking more at efficiency and the proper use of resources. It would be extremely useful to the Committee if the Minister could explain where the dividing line is between the activities of the IOPC, which I see as being concerned with conduct and discipline, and of the chief inspector, who is concerned more about efficiency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The White Paper will set out a number of proposals that the Government intend to bring forward in policy, legislation or executive action. There are a number of areas around police efficiency—what is done centrally and what is done locally, how it is done centrally and how it is done locally—that will form part of the wider debate on the police White Paper. The noble and learned Baroness will not have long to wait for the police White Paper. When it does come, undoubtedly there will be a Statement in the House of Commons and, as ever, I will have to repeat the Statement here in this House. There will be an opportunity to look at that direction of travel and how, importantly, we are going to implement the measures that we are putting in the White Paper, which, again, will be produced very shortly. I am sorry that I cannot give the noble Baroness any more comfort than that.

I share the reservations of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, that the proposal in the amendment would kick this matter of efficiency, co-ordination, performance and implementation further down the line than is already planned with our police White Paper proposals very shortly. So I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment on the basis of those comments.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, and I take to heart the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies. Of course I want fast action. I want it all and I want it now—that is my motto for life. It seems that this Committee is always hearing, “Oh, it’s all right, the Government’s dealing with this but you can have it shortly”. It does not matter whether it is talking about protest law or this particular point about accountability and action; there is always a White Paper coming along and we are going to have to wait for that, and why are we doing this Bill now if we do not have all the information we need? Anyway, I do note the Minister’s good intentions, I very much hope to see them put into action, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 416A withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

That is the thinking behind these two amendments—they are probing only. It is right that there are appropriate criminal offences and police powers that move with the times—in the last debate, we heard eloquently argued the need to shield brave police officers. That is all well and good, but the other side of the equation is that with power comes responsibility. When a sacred and vital trust is breached—not just as in the Everard case, but what about that “Panorama” documentary of last autumn, “Undercover in the Police”, set in a London police station, where we saw the levels of racism, misogyny, bullying and physical abuse of power that our colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, warned about?—confidence needs to be rebuilt, because it will serve none of us, including most police officers, for public confidence to be undermined in that way. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am never sure what a probing amendment means, because surely all our amendments are probing, and I certainly would support both these amendments on Report, because they are actually crucial. Although I am vastly older than the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, I, too, have been working on this for quite a long time, but only for two and a half decades. The number of police officers who have, in some way, been found guilty of a crime and yet still get their police pensions and all the benefits of having been a police officer for some years, however badly it has ended, really is annoying.

Police officers do a very difficult job—I am very appreciative of that and understand the problems—and most do it well. But when someone abuses that role, the damage is much greater for public trust. It is wider than any single case. Trust in policing depends on people believing that no one is above the law. In the previous debate the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, made the point that the rule of law is for us all, and I will bring that issue up again when we get to the public whatsit Bill, on—

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

Accountability.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the noble Baroness very much.

At the moment the rule of law is not for us all, as exemplified by the way we treat police in some cases. On pensions, why do the Government prefer decisions about pension forfeiture to be taken later behind closed doors rather than in open court, where reasons are given and can be tested on appeal? If a judge has heard all the evidence in a criminal case involving a police officer, and has seen the harm done and the abuse of trust, why do the Government think that a judge should have no say at all over a publicly funded police pension?

I ask this out of long experience. We have been told for decades now that existing systems are enough or that reforms are coming, and clearly that is not happening. I personally would like to see, instead of these little baby steps, a bold, straightforward move towards the kind of accountability that people can see and understand. Time and again, in cases of serious police misconduct, the consequences remain unclear and invisible to the public.

From the public’s point of view, the current system makes very little sense. Some serious criminal convictions of police officers fall outside the pensions rule altogether, simply because they do not meet a narrow legal definition. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why judges who hear the evidence are excluded and why transparency in court is still seen as a step too far.

When this Labour Government got elected, I really hoped for some changes in the way that we apply a sense of fairness to the whole of our legal system. Quite honestly, they have disappointed me very badly. They are no better than this side of the Chamber. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, we have been waiting a long time for this, and a Labour Government should really put it right.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, both these amendments seek to sharpen the consequences for police officers, serving or retired, who commit criminal offences. High-profile cases and damning reports have exposed toxic elements of policing culture, eroding public trust. Yet the vast majority of police officers do an excellent job and are let down by a small minority. Recent cases highlight public expectations that the law should rightly demand higher standards of personal integrity from police officers and, at the very least, adherence to the law of the land.

There is also no question but that public confidence in policing’s ability to police its own is fragile. While the latest figures from the Independent Office for Police Conduct show record high complaints, over a quarter of the public lack confidence in the organisation itself, most cannot even describe what it does, and nearly half distrust the police complaints system. That should give us pause for thought, because it is really quite serious.

When officers are seen to evade scrutiny or punishment, trust erodes further. This has major repercussions for those doing the job properly, because many members of the public then say, “Well, they’re all the same, aren’t they?” I fully accept the noble Baroness’s argument that more can and should be done.

Amendment 425 would create a rebuttable presumption that police service can be treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing. This rightly recognises the unique betrayal of public trust when those entrusted to uphold the law instead break it. However, I have a concern that in marginal cases, being a police officer could flip from helping to reduce the sentence, as somebody who has served the public, to becoming an automatic burden.

Amendment 426 goes further, granting courts the power to forfeit a sizeable chunk of an offender’s police pension. This could serve as a highly effective deterrent. However, I worry on two counts. First, it could discourage quality recruits, who fear that one mistake could destroy their and their family’s lifetime financial security. Secondly, it could entail taking away pension benefits that the officer has already earned fairly during what were presumably good years of service.

These amendments definitely merit serious consideration, but they also focus on symptoms rather than causes. From these Benches, we want to see the Government go further to strengthen the front line of police misconduct systems, with vetting that catches risks early and misconduct processes that are swift, transparent and trusted. Only then will sentencing reforms such as this land with any amount of force.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I did not hear an answer to my question about why a judge should not hear about pension forfeiture in an open court. The forfeiting of pensions does happen, but it happens outside the court in closed rooms, and we never really understand the reasons given. Why not allow it to happen in court in front of a judge?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As I just said, it can be done in court in front of a judge on appeal. The decisions are taken by the police and crime commissioner and/or the Home Secretary, who is accountable for those matters, and the Government intend to hold to that position. It may not satisfy the noble Baroness, as ever, but I look forward to her support on the key issue, which is improving vetting to make sure that we do not have those significant bad apples in the police force in the first place. That is our key focus in the White Paper and the measures in the Bill.