Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group address the very serious blight that is fly-tipping. The issue lies at the heart of community life. It is vital that we make every effort to ensure environmental protection and community confidence in law enforcement.

The scale of fly-tipping in the UK should not be understated. Between 2023 and 2024, local authorities in England dealt with around 1.15 million incidents, a 6% increase on the previous year. The majority of these cases involved household waste, sometimes dumped in bulk. Unfortunately, the absolute number of prosecutions is tiny in relation to the problem. There were only 1,598 prosecuted actions in that same year. Fly-tipping is organised crime, but it is local councils and private landowners who often bear the cost of clearing up the mess.

The amendments tabled in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Davies and my noble and learned friend Lord Keen seek to protect local communities from the destructive practice of fly-tipping by providing for harsher penalties and giving the police more powers to act. Amendment 41 amends Clause 9 so as to ensure that the Secretary of State’s guidance on fly-tipping makes the person responsible for the fly-tipping, rather than the landowner, liable for the costs of cleaning up. It is wrong that this is currently left to judicial discretion—that risks inconsistent outcomes. The amendment does identify the person responsible, who in this case is the convicted offender.

My Amendment 46 introduces a further enforcement tool. Where a person is found to have committed a fly-tipping offence, authorities would have the power to add three points to their driving licence. Rather than simply compelling fly-tipping offenders to pay a fine, which they may deem a worthy risk when compared with the profits of their actions, this measure places at risk the offenders’ ability to drive. By threatening points on driving licences, repeat offenders will be less likely to fly-tip as their licences will be in jeopardy.

I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for his Amendment 42, which seeks to ensure in statute that the cost of cleaning up fly-tipping should not fall on to the landowners. In many ways, this amendment seeks to achieve the same outcome as my Amendment 41. I therefore welcome it and hope that the Government will pay it due regard.

I also thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for his Amendment 40, which seeks to remove the provision of third-party protection for seizure of vehicles in respect of fly-tipping, which he spoke to most compellingly just now. This would mean that offenders cannot escape punishment by using someone else’s vehicle and that local authorities are better equipped to tackle fly-tipping. Again, I look forward to hearing the Government’s position on this proposal. If we are to tackle fly-tipping seriously, it is important that police are well equipped to act.

My Amendment 47 seeks to amend Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 so that the police can seize a vehicle which they reasonably believe has been used in association with fly-tipping offences. It empowers the police, not just local authorities, to take action.

In conclusion, these are practical, targeted interventions with a clear principle: those who dump waste illegally should be held to account and local communities should not be left footing the bill. I hope that all noble Lords recognise the importance of holding those who dump waste to account and protecting communities from the blight of illegal dumping. I earnestly hope that the Government will consider carefully the practical measures proposed by me and my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the broader structural steps proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in the amendments in the next group. Together they form a system for tackling fly-tipping. I look forward with interest to the Minister’s response.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his amendments. As he said, they include requiring the Secretary of State to designate serious and organised waste crime as a strategic threat; to create a national action plan to collect and publish quarterly information on waste crime; and to provide for an independent review of serious and organised waste crime.

On the strategic priority designation and the national action plan, of course I support taking fly-tipping and organised waste much more seriously. Fly-tipping goes far beyond simple domestic waste and is a widespread practice of criminals; I point to the comments I made in the preceding group. I earnestly hope that the Government take this amendment seriously and I look forward to hearing their thoughts on a national action plan.

On the publishing of quarterly data, we on these Benches are always sympathetic to the principle of transparency, which in turn drives government accountability. More granular and consistent data assist the Government in formulating their efforts to tackle fly-tipping.

On the third and final amendment, although I recognise the noble Earl’s thought process behind an independent review and the importance of scrutiny, my one worry is that it may divert scarce government resources away from tackling the problem at hand. Too large a focus on reviewing may unduly delay action. In our view, this Government are already all too keen to launch a review to solve every problem that comes their way. We do not need to give them any more incentive to do so. It is our priority to give the police the power to act as soon as possible. None the less, I hope the Government take all the noble Earl’s amendments seriously.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, explained, the purpose of these amendments is to take forward some of the recommendations of your Lordships’ House’s Environment and Climate Change Committee to tackle serious and organised crime in the waste sector. At this point, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the work of her committee, not just in their detailed examination of the issue but in the whole way their report has raised the profile of this important issue.

I am glad we have had an opportunity to discuss waste crime in the round. As we have noted, and I think we are all in accord across the Chamber, this is a serious issue. At the end of the debate on the previous group, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, mooted that perhaps we need to rebrand fly-tipping to make people take it more seriously. From reflecting on this debate, nobody can be in any doubt, as the committee’s report demonstrated, that this is a serious business—and it is a business. It incurs huge costs in terms of the damage done. It is obviously a very profitable business to those who engage in it and I think we are all determined to tackle it. We argue that there are certainly provisions in the Bill, as well as other government actions, that will help to address this.

As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, waste crime costs the economy an estimated £1 billion annually. We are determined to tackle it, why is why we are preparing significant reforms to the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime and to the waste permit exemptions regime. Bringing waste carriers, brokers and dealers into the environmental permitting regime will give the Environment Agency more powers and resources to ensure compliance and to hold operators to account. Changes will make it harder for rogue operators to find work in the sector and easier for regulators to take action against criminals. Our planned reforms will also introduce the possibility of up to five years’ imprisonment for those who breach these new laws.

We are also introducing digital waste tracking to make it harder than ever to misidentify waste or dispose of it inappropriately. By digitising waste records, we will make it easier for legitimate businesses to comply with their duty of care for waste and reduce the opportunities for criminals to operate. Furthermore, better data will help us manage resources more sustainably, reduce waste and protect the environment for future generations.

As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, noted, the Government have also increased the Environment Agency’s funding, including the amount available to tackle illegal waste operators. This year, we have raised the budget for waste crime enforcement by over 50% to £15.6 million. The Joint Unit for Waste Crime, which is hosted within the Environment Agency, has nearly doubled in size thanks to that extra funding. Overall, the EA has been able to increase its front-line criminal enforcement resource in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and area environmental crime teams by 43 full-time equivalent employees. They will be targeted at activities identified as waste crime priorities, using enforcement activity data and criminal intelligence. That includes tackling organised crime groups, increasing enforcement activity, closing down illegal waste sites more quickly, using intelligence more effectively and delivering successful major criminal investigations.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, touched on the terrible incident at Kidlington, which we discussed in the previous group. All I can do is repeat what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. The Government are engaging with the Environment Agency on the case with the utmost seriousness. An investigation is underway, and an Environment Agency restriction order has been served to prevent access to the site and further tipping. I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra; it is bad now, but at least this way it cannot get any worse. The local resilience forum has been notified to explore opportunities for multi-agency support. Noble Lords may be aware that there was an Urgent Question in the other place this afternoon asked by the local MP Calum Miller; I believe that my honourable friend the Minister Mary Creagh offered to meet with Mr Miller to discuss this further. This is an issue that we are taking very seriously.

As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will appreciate, the Environment and Climate Change Committee wrote to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as recently as 28 October, to set out the conclusions of its inquiry into waste crime. I am sure that noble Lords will appreciate that it will necessarily take a little time to consider fully the Government’s response. Having read the letter that the committee sent this morning, I know that it is a complex letter that raises many points, and rightly so. Notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, offered from the annals of classic British comedy, we do not want to rush our response, and it certainly would ill behove me to shoot from the hip in my response when my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will respond to it. I assure the Committee that the Secretary of State is carefully considering the report and will respond in due course.

Noble Lords will be aware of two facts, and I will put it no more strongly than this. First, the committee asked in its letter for a response by 9 December. Secondly, we are due to continue in Committee on this Bill until the end of January at the earliest—

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[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s interjection and for that clarification. However, as somebody who lived for 35 years with a footpath running through their garden, I have to say that I do not really agree with him.

We should be very careful about implementing these two amendments. They smack to me of the landed gentry attempting to keep the ordinary man and woman from enjoying the countryside. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that it would not be an easy task to prove that deliberate trespass had occurred over land and grounds or gardens with the intent of causing harm or wanton damage to those grounds.

In respect of Amendment 47B, I do not support increasing the fee should an offence be proved. I am nevertheless keen to hear the Minister’s views on the amendment, but at the moment I am not inclined to support the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for tabling these amendments. The case he set out seems clear and obvious. His amendment would ensure that the offence of trespassing with intent to commit an offence extended to people’s gardens and grounds, and it goes no further than that. Any intrusion into those grounds or gardens with mal-intent should be reflected in the level of criminal fines.

My noble friend’s amendments simply proceed on the assumption that gardens or grounds, in their simplest terms, should be treated the same in legislation as residences and buildings. Private property does not stop existing once you step out of a physical doorway; the grounds or gardens surrounding buildings are extensions to them, to be bought and sold just as freely. I think the word “curtilage” often appears—certainly in the law, but often more widely—to describe the land or garden around someone’s house. Indeed, there may be even as great a need to create an offence for this as there is for trespassing on a property with intent. I can imagine criminals using back gardens to navigate between houses to commit burglary. I can imagine confrontations taking place not inside a building yet still in the garden or grounds owned by a victim. They are just as serious as entering a property to commit a crime.

However, I acknowledge that there is generally a difference between entering someone’s house and entering their garden. The former is in most cases far more intrusive—a far greater infringement of someone’s right to a private property. It therefore follows that entering a house should regularly carry a harsher sentence than merely entering the grounds, but that can be the case while ensuring that both are offences. We do not have to disapply the latter simply because it might carry a lower fine than the former.

My noble friend Lord Blencathra’s Amendment 47B provides for this, as he set out. It seeks to give the court the discretion to alter the fines levied on an offender based on the seriousness of the offence, creating a higher maximum fine to be used for the most serious offences. Additionally, creating a minimum fine will ensure that any form of trespassing with the intent to commit another offence is dealt with to a minimal acceptable standard.

Whatever form it takes, trespassing in order to commit crime is incredibly invasive and often traumatic, and it is right that this is acknowledged in the range of the fine level. I hope the Minister has listened to these points, and I look forward to his response.

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

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for tabling the amendments. I hope I can half help him today and, in doing so, assist the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville.

I confirm that the Government will repeal the outdated Vagrancy Act 1824. In Clauses 10 and 11, the Government are legislating to introduce targeted replacement provisions for certain elements of the 1824 Act, to ensure that the police have the powers they need to keep our communities safe. Those targeted replacement measures include a new offence of facilitating begging for gain, which we will come on to shortly, and an offence of trespassing with the intention of committing a crime. Both were previously provided for under the 1824 Act, and the police have told us that it would be useful to retain them.

I hope this helps the noble Baroness, because the new criminal offence of trespassing with intent to commit a criminal offence recreates an offence that is already set out in the 1824 Act. It does not add to it; it recreates it. As is currently the case, it will be an offence for a person to trespass on any premises—meaning any building, part of a building or enclosed area—with the intention to commit an offence, and that is currently in the legislation.

Amendment 47A from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, seeks to ensure that trespassing in gardens and grounds of a private dwelling is captured by the replacement offence. This is where I think I can half help him by indicating that gardens and grounds would already be included in the definition of “premises” in the 1824 Act, so, in essence, that is covered already.

His Amendment 47B would introduce a minimum level 2 fine and increase the maximum level fine from level 3 to level 4 for this offence. Again, the measure in the Bill replicates entirely—going back to the noble Baroness—the maximum penalties currently set out in the existing legislation that we are repealing, but replacing in part, through the clauses addressed by these amendments. I agree with the noble Baroness on the proportionality of the current level of the fines. I say to the noble Lord what he anticipated I would say to him: sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary, and we need to afford it appropriate discretion. Parliament rarely specifies minimum sentences, and this is not an instance where we should depart from that general principle. I know he anticipated that I would say that—as the good old, former Home Office Minister that he is, I knew he would clock that that was the potential line of defence on his amendment.

It is important to say that the penalties set out in the current legislation, which we are replicating, are considered appropriate and proportionate to the nature of the offence. Therefore, with what I hope was helpful half clarification on grounds and gardens, and with my steady defence on the second amendment, which the noble Lord anticipated, I ask him not to press his amendments.

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This is a very simple, clear and effective mechanism by which the Government can do the right thing. Surely, they will seize this chance to do that, if not from the Dispatch Box this evening, then before we get to Report. However, if it gets to Report, we will have to bring this issue before the House again to make a decision, because it is simply unconscionable to leave it in the Bill.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for her amendment. Contributions have been thoughtful, and they have certainly highlighted some of the issues that certain communities face. There is no doubt at all that we are united in the belief that all communities should be treated with dignity and fairness, and that these considerations should guide interactions between them and local authorities.

However, I respectfully state that we on these Benches cannot support Amendment 49. The effect of this amendment would be to repeal the provisions introduced by the previous Government in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. That Act created the offence relating to unauthorised encampments and the accompanying enforcement powers. Those powers were introduced by a Conservative Government, after much consultation and representations from local authorities and members of the public, who repeatedly expressed concern about the impact of unauthorised encampments on local communities.

The provisions that this amendment seeks to remove were designed to address situations where unauthorised encampments caused significant harm, such as damaging land, obstructing highways and shops or creating fear and distress in local neighbourhoods. We are not talking about minor inconveniences; we are talking about serious damage and disruption. In many cases, these provisions have provided clarity and reassurance, enabling the police to respond more proportionately and local authorities to act more swiftly while still supporting negotiated stopping and offering lawful sites wherever possible.

The noble Baroness deployed the argument that these provisions have been declared incompatible with the Human Rights Act, but I do not think that is an overwhelming argument for repealing legislation passed by this Parliament.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but does he accept that there is no definition of “alarm and distress”, and that it is in fact a subjective view on the part of the landowner? Does he also accept that majority of the police did not want this provision when consulted?

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I think the point is that the lack of a definition gives the police the ability to act within their discretion.

As for the issue of incompatibility, it is worth noting that, when a declaration of incompatibility is made by the courts, such a declaration is not a strike-down power; it is not a mandate for immediate legislative repeal. It will come as no surprise that we on these Benches believe that there have been too many instances of judicial overreach, as to justify a repeal of the Human Rights Act and withdrawal from the ECHR. If we cannot prevent unlawful encampments by people with no right to reside on the land, which is, in our view, an absolutely legitimate aim, that is an indication that the Human Rights Act and the ECHR are not fit for purpose.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. He speaks about so-called judicial overreach, but building on what the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said, in a consultation in 2018, 75% of police said they did not want these extra powers and 85% said that they did not support the criminalisation of unauthorised encampments. This is across the justice system; it is not just what the judges are doing.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

That may be the case in the year the noble Baroness cited, but the fact remains that these provisions have been brought into force, have been effective and have responded to representations from local authorities and members of the public, who have repeatedly expressed concern about the impact of unauthorised encampments on their community. I earnestly believe that repealing these measures entirely would remove essential tools for managing the real and sometimes serious harms experienced by communities across the country. For those reasons, these Benches cannot support the amendment.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Whitaker for tabling the amendment. She has obviously secured widespread support—from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

As my noble friend explained, the High Court ruling in May 2024 found that the specific changes made by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 relating to Traveller sites were incompatible with convention rights. This is where I am going to depart from the view of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, because the Government respect the decision of the court. The Government—I hope that this is helpful to my noble friend—are working now on a response to that court judgment. I want to make it absolutely clear that I recognise the High Court ruling, and the response is needed. I hope I can help my noble friend by saying that I can undertake to update the House ahead of Report on this matter. We are not able to finalise the exact response as yet, but I hope that is helpful to my noble friend.

I cannot support my noble friend’s amendment today, but it is important that we signal to her that this matter is one we have to resolve speedily. In considering the court’s judgment, the Government will carefully balance the rights of individuals to live their private lives without discrimination, while recognising the importance of protecting public spaces and communities affected by unauthorised encampments. That balance will be made, and I hope to be able to resolve that issue by Report, as I have said.

A number of noble Lords and Baronesses have mentioned the question of the shortage of unauthorised sites available to Gypsies and Travellers, and that is an important point. Local authorities, as Members will know, are required to assess the need for Traveller pitches in their area and must plan to meet that need. These decisions are made locally; they reflect specific circumstances in each area and operate within the national planning policy for Traveller sites, which is set by the Government. We aim to ensure fair and equal treatment for Travellers in a way that facilitates the traditional and nomadic way of life of Travellers, while respecting the interests of the settled community.

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Moved by

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel]

50: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Removal of power of entry under Part 8 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003In the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, omit section 74 (power of entry in relation to complaints about high hedges).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would repeal provisions of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 that permit the local authority to enter a person’s property without their consent to investigate complaints about high hedges.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to repeal provisions of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 that permit the local authority to enter a person’s property without their consent to investigate complaints about high hedges. I entirely accept that this is a somewhat niche and technical amendment, but it is nevertheless an important one. The 2003 Act established a regime whereby individuals can make a complaint about their neighbour’s high hedge. This provision made its way into the Act after amendments to the Bill in your Lordships’ House during its passage in 2003.

The intention was understandable, but it is one thing to give people the ability to complain about their neighbour’s high hedge and another matter entirely to grant the state the right to enter a person’s private property without their consent simply to measure that hedge. Such a power is and must always be exceptional. It should be tightly drawn and robustly justified. We submit that the matter of high hedges, however irritating or capable of provoking neighbourhood disputes, simply does not meet that threshold. Section 74 was conceived at a time when the framework for powers of entry was far less coherent than it is today, and since then, Parliament has rightly legislated to reduce, rationalise and strengthen oversight of such powers. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in particular represents a significant step towards rebalancing the relationship between citizens and the state. Yet the power preserved in Section 74 stands out as an anomaly, disproportionate in nature and insufficiently justified in practice.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, for tabling what he termed a niche amendment today—there is nothing wrong with a niche amendment; it has generated discussion. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has just said, this puts the focus back not on the legislation or even on the enforcement but on whether, when discussions between parties break down, the local authority should be and is the arbiter of the dispute and, in order to be the arbiter of the dispute, whether the local authority can have access to the property.

It is important to say that, when assessing a complaint or appeal, issuing a remedial notice to an individual or assessing whether an individual has taken the necessary action, entering a property to assess the hedge in question surely is not a niche issue; it is part of the role of the local authority to be able to assess that issue. The Government believe that local authorities are best placed to consider unresolved disputes on high hedges; the procedures are set out in national guidance.

On the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has mentioned, I note that the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 enables local authorities to intervene, as a last resort. It should be for neighbours to try to sort these matters out, but there are opportunities for people who are unhappy with the council’s decision to have a right of appeal to the Secretary of State in cases in England. The power of local authority officers to enter someone’s property is an important part of ensuring such disputes are resolved and any remedial action is taken.

I assure the noble Lord that the power of entry is a power to enter a “neighbouring land” to carry out functions under Part 8 of the Act. The term “the neighbouring land” means the land on which the high hedge is situated—effectively someone’s garden. A local authority must give 24 hours’ notice of its intended entry and, if the land is unoccupied, leave it as effectively secured as it was found. I stress to the noble Lord that there is clear guidance on GOV.UK for local authorities in exercising their powers. The Government will keep this guidance under review.

In the absence of disputes being resolved by neighbours themselves—as the noble Baroness has said—amicably between the parties, it is possible that there are remedial powers to step in and require the offending property owner to take action. Where they fail to do so, it is also right that the local authority should be able to undertake the remedial work itself and charge the householder concerned. To do this, it is necessary to undertake the niche point of entering someone’s garden to examine the fence or hedge or to erect a platform on the highway to do the same.

If we accepted the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, today, I do not know how local authorities would be able to assess in terms of the legislation under the Act. If he says he does not believe the legislation under the Act is appropriate, and we should not have high hedges legislation, that is a different point. If we do have that legislation, then we need a mechanism whereby the local council can enter a premises. There might well be occasions where the local council must do that because relations have broken down to such an extent that only the local council can resolve it, and therefore it must undertake entry into a person’s garden or erect a platform to assess the issue in the first place. That is not a gross invasion of a householder’s property; it is a sensible resolution by a third party—given the powers to do so under the 2003 Act—to resolve an issue that neighbours have not been able to resolve.

The local council may resolve the complaint in favour of the complainant or in favour of the person with the high hedge; that is a matter for them. But if the council does not have access to the property to do that, then the niche discussion will be about not being able to resolve the problem, so I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank those in your Lordships’ House who have spoken in this debate. I am delighted to have a degree of support from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, who, as she recounted, has had some personal experience of this issue. I reiterate to the Minister that it seems entirely disproportionate for local authorities to be able to enter a person’s private property without their consent to investigate this issue—that is what underpins this amendment. I do not want to beat around the bush any more, and, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 50 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel]

51: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Gang-related graffiti(1) A person commits an offence if—(a) the person defaces a relevant surface with graffiti, and(b) the graffiti is gang-related.(2) Graffiti is gang-related if—(a) the graffiti contains any symbol, sign, mark or slogan that is associated with, or is an identifiable marker of, a gang or gang activity,(b) the graffiti contains any symbol, sign, mark or slogan that a reasonable person would associate with a gang or gang activity, or(c) the person who defaced the relevant surface with the graffiti is part of a gang.(3) In this section a “relevant surface” is any of the following surfaces, whether internal or external or open to the air or not—(a) the surface of any street or of any building, structure, apparatus, plant or other object in or on any street;(b) the surface of any land owned, occupied or controlled by a statutory undertaker or of any building, structure, apparatus, plant or other object in or on any such land;(c) the surface of any land owned, occupied or controlled by an educational institution (including its governing body) or of any building, structure, apparatus, plant or other object in or on any such land.(4) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—(a) on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);(b) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.(5) In this section –(a) “gang” means the activities of a group that—(i) consists of at least three people, and(ii) has one or more characteristics that enable its members to be identified by others as a group;(b) “graffiti” includes painting, writing, soiling, marking or other defacing by whatever means.”

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this group speaks to the two amendments in my name and in the names of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower and my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie. They seek to address the long-standing problems of gang involvement in our cities and to probe the Government’s approach to this. I am grateful to the Minister for approaching me recently to discuss the issue, and I hope that we can continue that conversation.

Gangs are groups of people whose entire identities are founded on the control of a territory through the means of violence. They are established to exert power, maintained through the coercion and grooming of the youth, and exist to establish themselves over their counterparts by any means. They are exploitative organisations. The very idea that groups of young men should be able to gain de facto control of large parts of our cities through intimidation and aggression is one that should have been stamped out long ago. Unfortunately, we have let them fester. The result is that the Metropolitan Police believes there are 102 active gangs in London, each vying for their own share of the territory that is not, and cannot become, theirs. They commit a litany of crimes, with the most horrific reports suggesting that they keep scoreboards of the number of rival gang members they either stab or kill. This is not unique to the capital; it is the norm across many of our major cities.

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to legislate against gang involvement before a crime has taken place. They are uncodified organisations, and attempting to break them up would require a large infringement on every citizen’s right to associate freely. But that does not lessen the need for legislative steps to be taken. Amendment 52 would implement, in our view, the next best thing by creating the aggravating factor of committing an offence in connection to the activities of a gang. This would disincentivise group-based crime and would mean that criminals identified as gang members would be able to be imprisoned for longer.

Similarly, it is well known that gangs often leave tags to mark their territories. This graffiti comes at enormous cost to either the taxpayer or private businesses. Small local businesses can see the fronts of their stores defaced, leaving them to choose between forking out repair costs or seeing customers potentially put off by the vandalism. Councils are faced with even more bills as they are forced to pay for the upkeep of their local areas. It is entirely unfair on the law-abiding communities that are burdened with this.

Gang-related violence does not end at the physical crime committed; it extends to the psychological. There is also the problem of the tone that gang-related graffiti sets. It is bad enough seeing your neighbourhood vandalised by gangs, but it is far worse when it is vandalised by a violent group marking their territory. It sends a signal to locals that their community is not, in fact, their shared property but that it belongs to a small group of individuals with scant regard for the law. It alarms them that these people live among them; it causes fear, distress and alarm. It is an act of intimidation which makes society feel less safe.

On the subject of graffiti, I do not know whether noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches are aware, but my right honourable friend the shadow Lord Chancellor has received a letter from one of their colleagues, the honourable Member for Cheltenham, Max Wilkinson. In his letter, he said that our amendments would see anyone who paints a St George’s cross on a public surface jailed for up to two years. I was rather baffled when I saw that; the subject matter of Amendment 51 is, in explicit terms, gang-related graffiti. The amendment would criminalise graffiti that uses gang signs, symbols or slogans that is committed in the course of gang activity. It uses the same definition of “gang” as Section 51 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. In our view, a person who simply paints a cross on a public building is very clearly not in scope of this new offence.

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Put simply, I am satisfied that the courts already have the tools necessary to respond robustly to serious gang-related offending. For that reason, I consider both amendments unnecessary. However, if there is something particular that they seek to address and to which I have not spoken, I invite noble Lords to meet with me to discuss it. Notwithstanding this offer and for the reasons I have set out, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, and I thank the Minister for her kind comments at the start—they were slightly undeserving in my case, given her own experience. I listened carefully to what she said.

There were a couple of points I would like to come back on. Painting a St George’s cross, a saltire or whatever symbol might be chosen, would not and would never be caught by this, because it is not “gang related”. In addition, it is not too difficult for juries to understand the concept of something that is gang related.

On the issue of defining a gang, a point made both by the Minister and by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, the definition of a gang is the same as the one used in Section 51 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. It is the accepted definition. In that respect, I would not accept that it is too broad.

Underpinning these amendments is something that we all want to see: clean, happy cities that do not face the persistent threat of crime of any form. Unfortunately, a large part of the urban crime we currently face is the product of gang-related feuds and violence. The Centre for Social Justice has estimated that 60% of all shootings are gang related. Other reports suggest that they are responsible for as much as half of all knife crime. If we are serious about tackling crime, especially knife crime, we must do all we can to punish criminal gang members and disincentivise those who have not yet joined a gang. It is for that reason that we have put forward these amendments: to make gang-related offences specific and for them to require specific treatment in our law.

I could say much more about the amendments—and I am very grateful for the comments from all noble Lords, particularly for the support from my noble friend Lord Blencathra—but for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 51.

Amendment 51 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel]

53: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Offence of engaging in nuisance begging(1) A person aged 18 or over who engages in nuisance begging commits an offence.(2) Where a constable has reasonable cause to believe that a person is engaging or has engaged in nuisance begging, the constable may require the person to leave a relevant location as soon as reasonably practicable.(3) Where a person has been required to leave a relevant location by a constable, the person commits an offence if the person does not comply with the requirement.(4) A person who commits an offence under subsections (1) or (3) is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month or a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.(5) For the purposes of this section, a person engages in “nuisance begging” if subsections (6) or (7) applies.(6) This subsection applies if the person begs—(a) on public transport,(b) in a station or any form of public transport, or at an entrance to or an exit from any such station,(c) at a bus stop, tram stop or other place where members of the public get on to, or alight from, any form of public transport,(d) at a taxi rank,(e) on a carriageway or cycle track,(f) in any area outside business premises (whether or not the area forms part of a highway) where people are consuming food or drinks supplied by the business,(g) within 10 metres of an automated teller machine or night safe, (h) within 10 metres of a ticket machine, a vending machine or any other device through which members of the public obtain goods or services by making payments,(i) in, or within five metres of, the entrance to, or exit from, retail premises, or(j) in the common parts of any building containing two or more dwellings,(7) This subsection applies if the person begs in a way that has caused, or is likely to cause—(a) harassment, alarm or distress to another person,(b) a person reasonably to believe that—(i) they, or any other person, may be harmed, or(ii) any property (except property belonging to the person begging) may be damaged,(c) disorder, or(d) a risk to the health or safety of any person except the person begging.(8) In this section—“carriageway” and “cycle track” have the meaning given by section 329(1) of the Highway Act 1980;“distress” includes distress caused by—(a) the use of threatening, intimidating or abusive words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or(b) the display of any writing, sign, or other visible representation that is threatening, intimidating or abusive;“relevant location” means a location where the person is engaging or has engaged in nuisance begging;“retail premises” means premises used wholly or mainly for the purposes of the sale of anything by retail.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would introduce the offence of nuisance begging and permit a constable to move on a person engaging in nuisance begging.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments require a little bit of legislative background to be given. In 2022, the Government accepted an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824. Section 81 of the 2022 Act containing the repeal has not yet been commenced.

The previous Government stated their intention to commence the repeal of the Vagrancy Act only once appropriate replacement legislation was put in place. The replacement legislative framework was included in the previous Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, after which the current Bill is modelled. While almost one-third of the clauses of the Criminal Justice Bill have made their way into this Bill, the provisions to replace the Vagrancy Act have not. This amendment is intended to ascertain why.

The Criminal Justice Bill proposed to create a new framework of nuisance begging and nuisance rough sleeping, as well as creating three new related criminal offences. I entirely accept that the Government have carried forward the offence of trespassing with intent to commit a criminal offence and the offence of arranging or facilitating begging for gain, but we do not see anything relating to nuisance begging in the Bill. My question to the Minister is simply: why? Do the Government believe that the police will have sufficient powers to deal with anti-social begging once the Vagrancy Act is repealed? It appears somewhat counterintuitive for the Government to seek to criminalise the facilitation of another person’s begging but not to criminalise nuisance begging. Do the Government believe there is such a thing as nuisance or anti-social begging?

Regardless of the Government’s response to that, it appears to us that there will be a legislative gap if the Vagrancy Act is repealed and nothing is put in place to substitute it. My Amendment 53 therefore mirrors the proposals from the previous Government’s Criminal Justice Bill. It would create a very narrowly defined offence of nuisance begging and would equip the police with a proportionate and practical tool—namely, the power to require an individual to move on from a relevant location where disruptive or unsafe behaviour is occurring.

This amendment does not criminalise poverty, homelessness or the simple act of asking for help. It does not target those who are vulnerable or down on their luck, nor does it seek to sweep such people out of sight. It draws a clear distinction between legitimate, peaceful begging on the one hand, and conduct which crosses into harassment and intimidation—with danger both to the public and often to the person begging themselves—on the other.

We believe that the public have a right to move through stations, transport hubs, shopfronts and busy pavements without being impeded, threatened or placed at risk. Likewise, those who beg have a right to be treated with dignity. But it is precisely because dignity matters that we must address those situations where begging is carried out in a manner or in locations that create real harm.

The amendment identifies particular locations: public transport; station entrances; ATM machines; business forecourts; taxi ranks. These are points where there is little practical ability for a member of the public to avoid unwanted confrontation. They are places where one cannot simply walk around a challenging encounter. A narrow station staircase is not somewhere to negotiate past an insistent or aggressive request for money. These are the very locations where nuisance behaviour has taken root and where the police currently lack a clear and effective mechanism to act.

The amendment would set a threshold based not on the mere presence of a person asking for money but on conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress, fear of harm, risk to health or safety, or disorder. These are long-established, widely understood standards in public order law, and they ensure that the power is used only when behaviour becomes unacceptable.

The move-on power in subsection (2) is at the heart of the proposal. It is preventative rather than punitive. It would give a constable the ability to intervene early, to de-escalate situations and to protect all involved before matters deteriorate. For the individual concerned, it would avoid immediate criminalisation; it would give them an opportunity to comply and move on without penalty. Only wilful refusal to comply would constitute an offence.

For all those reasons, and with the balance that this amendment strikes so carefully, in our view, I commend it to the Committee, and I urge noble Lords to lend it their support. I beg to move.

Amendment 53A (to Amendment 53)

Moved by

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Amendment 53B (to Amendment 53) not moved.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a most interesting debate, and I thank all those who contributed. I listened very carefully to the Minister and his indication that the Government believe that they have all the necessary tools to prevent anti-social begging.

Underpinning these amendments is that those who work daily in town centres, transport networks and retail spaces consistently report situations where members of the public feel frightened or cornered. The law does not provide a consistent, targeted response to those problems. That is the basis of this amendment, which seeks to ensure clarity for the public and the police. The amendment is carefully drawn, limited, balanced and rooted in the principle that no one should be made to feel unsafe when going about their daily business.

We cannot ignore the reality that some forms of begging today bear little resemblance to what many of us have known in the past. We now see behaviour that is aggressive, persistent and sometimes strategically targeted at locations where people feel trapped. However, having listened very carefully, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 53 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, we recognise the legitimate concerns about persistent anti-social behaviour. Repeat offenders represent a significant challenge; within many communities there is a small core of individuals creating a disproportionate amount of misery and distress to victims. However, the Liberal Democrats remain sceptical about the approach taken by Amendment 54. On these Benches, we believe that youth incarceration should be a last resort, not an automatic consequence. Mandatory detention after three breaches not only removes judicial discretion, it risks criminalising young people for behaviour which is below the criminal standard.

The evidence shows that detention is largely ineffective and often counterproductive. In reality, it increases the likelihood of future offending. Indeed, a chief constable I spoke to told me that short-term sentences simply equip people to be better at crime. The aim of these measures may be to help victims, but the risk is that they could ultimately result in the creation of more of them.

We believe that the key to tackling persistent anti-social behaviour is properly funded community policing. There are about 10,000 fewer police and PCSOs and neighbourhood teams now than in 2015. More than 4,500 PCSOs have disappeared, and their loss is continuing. Some forces simply do not have enough personnel in neighbourhood teams to actively address anti-social behaviour. In his response, will the Minister say what is being done to reverse the exodus of community officers?

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, the contributions we have heard demonstrate the seriousness of the issue and highlight why communities and victims need reassurance that persistent anti-social behaviour will be confronted robustly and effectively. I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for bringing forward these amendments. They provide a welcome opportunity to examine whether the current response to repeat breaches of injunctions is sufficient.

It goes without saying that ongoing and persistent anti-social behaviour has a profound impact on the lives of ordinary residents, including the feeling of individual safety and a wider sense of cohesion in our neighbourhoods. Amendment 54 seeks to provide that if someone under 18 breaches three injunctions of supervision orders, they must be given a detention order. It seems likely, to me at least, that someone who has broken three such injunctions is plainly on the path to becoming an habitual offender. Repeated breaches should not simply be met with ineffective sanctions—communities have to know that the law has teeth and that those who repeatedly defy court orders will face meaningful consequences. The amendment seeks to reinforce that principle and to signal clearly that a cycle of breach, warning and further breach is unacceptable.

I hope that the Government give the amendment the thought and time that it deserves, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for Amendment 54 and for fessing up to Amendment 55, which we will accept as an honest mistake. I welcome his honesty in raising the issue.

There is a recognition that Amendment 54 still wants to provide for minimum sentences for persistent breaches of youth injunctions. I emphasise that the Government do not want to criminalise children unnecessarily, an aspiration we share with the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. That is why the new respect order in the Bill will not apply to those under 18. However, we know that in many cases the behaviour of offenders under 18 requires a more formal deterrent and intervention. That is why we have retained the civil injunction as is for those under 18. Practitioners have told us that it is a particularly helpful and useful tool to tackle youth anti-social behaviour and to ensure that their rights and the safety of the community are upheld.

Youth injunctions are civil orders and fundamentally preventive in nature, which again goes to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. It is more important to intervene to prevent than it is to punish afterwards, particularly when young people are the individuals who are causing those challenges in the first place.

The important point about youth injunctions, which, again, goes to the heart of the noble Lord’s amendment, is that if the respondent abides by the terms of the order, they will not be liable for any penalties but, self-evidently, where a respondent does breach an order there needs to be some action. The noble Lord has suggested one course of action. I say to him that the courts already have a range of responses, including supervision orders, electronic tagging, curfews and, in the most serious cases, detention orders for up to three months for 14 to 17 year-olds.

I hope there is a common theme across the Committee that detention of children should be used only when absolutely necessary, and that courts should consider the child’s welfare and other risks before imposing such a response. This should be on a case-by-case basis, and the prescribing of a mandatory minimum sentence, even for repeat offenders, would both undermine the ability of the independent judiciary to determine the appropriate sentence and potentially be disproportionate. There is a place in our sentencing framework for mandatory minimum sentences, but I submit that this is not it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, is quite right again that one of the best preventive measures we can have is to have large numbers of boots on the ground in neighbourhood policing. She will know that the Government have a manifesto commitment to put 13,000 extra boots on the ground during this Parliament. In this first year or so, the Government have put an extra 3,000 in place. We intend, where we can, to increase the number of specials, PCSOs and warranted officers to replace those who were lost between 2010 and 2017. When I was Police Minister in 2009-10, we had 20,000 more officers than we had up to around 2017. That is because they were hollowed out and taken out by the two Governments who ran the Home Office between 2010 and 2017.

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that visible neighbourhood policing is critical to tackling anti-social behaviour, but the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, seeks to provide minimum sentences, which I do not think will achieve his objective. It does not have my support either. I hope he will withdraw the amendment, having listened to the argument.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I hope to be as brief as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra when introducing these amendments.

There is an urgent need to ensure that the mechanisms we put in place under the Bill are both workable and effective. My noble friend’s amendments seek to ensure that the person appointed as the co-ordinating officer is simply the most qualified regarding the internet and online sales. There seems to be broad agreement that those responsible for enforcing penalties for illegal online sales must have the right skills. Whether or not such individuals wear a uniform is less important than whether they understand the digital channels through which harmful goods are marketed and moved, and criminals should not be able to exploit technological advantage to stay one step ahead of enforcement. I therefore hope that the Government take these amendments seriously as practical suggestions to help tackle a serious problem.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for his amendments to the clauses that implement this Government’s manifesto commitment to hold senior managers of online platforms, be they social media platforms, online marketplaces or search engines, personally liable for the failure to remove illegal online content relating to knives and offensive weapons. His Amendment 55B would require the co-ordinating officer—that is, the person appointed by the Home Secretary to administer these new powers—to have the necessary internet and online sales experience and skills, stating that they need not be a warranted officer. Amendment 55F would make these criteria explicit in the statutory guidance for these measures.

I agree with the sentiment behind the amendments. It is of course important that the co-ordinating officer responsible for the administration of these powers be suitably experienced. I reassure the noble Lord that the Government are providing £1.7 million for a new national police unit to tackle the illegal online sale of knives and weapons, including the issuing of content removal notices. The unit will be dedicated to co-ordinating investigations into all aspects of online unlawful knife and offensive weapon sales, and to bringing those responsible to justice. It will also improve data collection and analysis capability in order to expand police understanding of the knife crime problem and how enforcement activities can best be targeted. The intention is that a senior member of this specialist unit will be appointed as the co-ordinating officer, and they will have the necessary skills and resources to administer the powers.

Whoever is appointed as a content manager must be experienced in both aspects of the problem we are trying to tackle. They should have experience not only of online sales but of the investigation of illegal online sales of knives and weapons—that is, they must be able to understand the investigatory and evidential process as well as having experience of the internet. This will, to paraphrase the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, not be any old bobby with a warrant card but someone highly experienced in internet sales and the investigatory and evidential role. That is why, in short, we feel that the role must be held by a warranted officer. It is a police role. They will be issuing enforcement notices and, as part of the criminal process, they need to have that experience as well as the essential online experience that all noble Lords who spoke in the debate mentioned; we agree that that is necessary.

Given the assurance that we are not neglecting the online side of things, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, will be sufficiently reassured and is content to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has so concisely described—he gets more concise as the evening goes on—this group deals with the sanctions applied under the online weapon advertising regime.

We very much welcome the Government’s commitment to ensuring accountability for businesses and sellers who facilitate the online sale of knives. However, if the penalties imposed are too small, they merely become a tolerable cost of doing business for large, wealthy online service providers. As the noble Lord explained, the Bill proposes maximum civil penalties for service providers of up to £60,000 for failing to comply with content manager requirements or for failing to comply with a content removal notice. His Amendments 55C and 55D directly challenge that maximum limit by proposing that the penalty for a service provider’s non-compliance should instead be a minimum of 500% of the value of the illegal goods advertised.

In our view, that proposal shifts the focus decisively towards financial deterrence—although I hate to agree with the noble Lord twice in one evening. The argument embedded within these amendments is sound: fines should reflect the scale and profitability of the illegal advertising business they enable. By linking the minimum fine directly to five times the value of the illegal goods advertised, we ensure that the penalty scales proportionally with the volume of the illicit trade facilitated by the platform, making it financially unsustainable to turn a blind eye to illegal weapon content.

The noble Lord’s Amendment 55E applies this same principle to the penalties imposed on the service provider’s content manager. Clause 23 currently sets the maximum penalty for the content manager at £10,000. Amendment 55E seeks to replace that cap with a minimum penalty of 100% of the value of the illegal goods advertised. That would ensure that the individual responsible for overseeing compliance within the organisation also faces a penalty that reflects the seriousness of the content they failed to manage or remove, particularly where that content is tied directly to the advertisement of unlawful weapons.

These amendments force us to consider how we can make our laws genuinely tough on organised online crime. In our view, legislation must be proportionate; and proportionality, in the face of corporate digital crime, means that penalties should meaningfully exceed the profits derived from facilitating criminal activity. The amendments rightly push us to consider the financial consequences that would truly deter platforms from risking public safety for private gain.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blencathra for these amendments and offer support from the Front Bench for them.

The three amendments by my noble friend all have the same aim: to tie the level of financial penalty directly to the value of the illegal knives being advertised and the profits generated from their sale. The logic behind them is obvious—and they also raise an important point. Fines that merely represent a modest operational cost to criminals will do little to deter those who deliberately trade in dangerous and illegal weapons. If the economic reward remains greater than the economic risk, the deterrent effect is minimal. Therefore, it seems prudent to put into statute appropriate provisions to ensure that that never is the case. The purpose of penalties must be both to punish wrongdoing and to disrupt the business model that makes it worth pursuing.

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Moved by

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel]

56: Clause 27, page 31, line 16, leave out “4” and insert “14”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would increase the maximum sentence for the new offence of possessing a weapon with intent.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 56 in my name seeks to increase the maximum sentence for the new offence of possessing a weapon with intent, where conviction is conviction on indictment, from four to 14 years. The principle behind a new offence of possessing a weapon with intent to use violence is well intentioned. It is one that we support. We are living through an epidemic of knife crime, and the level of general offensive weapon offences has shown no signs of declining over the past decade.

I appreciate that the Government are taking some of the necessary steps to attempt to curb this situation and this new offence is one of them. Creating more offences to eliminate the problem at source is the right approach, in our view, while introducing additional measures that target the most dangerous in our society is also necessary. This Bill creates a separate category for those who have violent intent, which, in principle, should achieve the latter. But it is worth implementing this offence only if it is accompanied by sufficient corresponding punishment. The Bill as it stands does not achieve this.

There is, of course, the current law that prohibits the carrying of a bladed article in public. That offence carries a maximum sentence of four years. It is a blanket offence which does not consider additional factors; it treats offenders the same regardless of whether they hold some kind of ill intent. This new law, conversely, will consider intent. Violent intent will become an additional factor to be considered, and rightly so, because the extra element of meaning to commit damage or harm makes it a worse crime than simply carrying a weapon. It will differentiate between those who might and those who intend to cause a threat to society. In essence, the question behind this amendment is: why then is this not reflected in the punishment? Why does the new law carry the same maximum four-year sentence?

This law should work to do two things. It should allow the justice system to differentiate between those who pose intentional threats and those who may not. It should deter those who have intent from leaving the house with a weapon in the first place. If the penalty does not differ from the current law, it will do neither. If the maximum sentence remains identical, the courts will not have the means to sufficiently differentiate criminals who have been convicted. The criminals themselves will not be deterred in the first place, as there will be no greater threat of repercussion than that which already exists.

If we are to treat carrying an offensive weapon with violent intent as a separate, more serious crime, it must be reflected in the punishment. It is an incredibly serious offence that someone should not only break the law by carrying an offensive weapon but do so with the intent to inflict damage or harm. It self-evidently threatens the safety of our citizens and shows complete disregard for the functioning of society. Sentencing these criminals as if their violent intent is merely a secondary factor that does not deserve consideration will not do, in my respectful submission.

Amendment 56 seeks to solve this disparity. It increases the maximum sentence to 14 years. It is a maximum sentence, a ceiling, not the sentence to be imposed whenever. That, in our view, is the right thing to do. It will give the courts the means to reflect this in practice. There is no reason why the Government should not wish to achieve both these things, but the punishment must be reflective of the crime. I look forward to the Government’s response on this. For those reasons, I beg to move.

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Coupled with the measures in the Bill, we are seeking to do what I hope all noble Lords and the noble Baroness wish, which is to send signals that there are significant penalties for carrying a knife and for possessing a weapon with intent. We think that the proposals in the Bill are proportionate. There is a difference between us on that. If the noble Lord remains unsatisfied, I am sure we can examine those issues further on Report, but that is the view of the Government. That is a firm commitment. It is new legislation and I hope it is welcomed; if he wishes to pursue the issue of a higher penalty, we can discuss that and, no doubt, vote on that on Report.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Goschen and Lord Blencathra, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for their support for this amendment. I really hope that the Minister will reflect on the support for it from different quarters of the Committee.

I particularly want to comment on the speech of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, in which he pointed to the 12-month summary conviction, because under the Government’s Sentencing Bill, that sentence would be suspended. A convicted criminal, having just been proven in court to hold violent intent, will not go to prison, but will instead be released back into the public. I really hope that the Minister reflects on that specific point, as well as the more general one, which is that it is self-evident that legislation must give the courts the necessary flexibility to account for different levels of crime. If we cap the maximum sentence at four years, which is the same as for the lesser crime of carrying a bladed article, we risk not effectively penalising those planning to commit the worst possible crimes.

As the Minister said, it is a differentiation, this new offence. It is a more serious offence, and it must be sufficiently different from the existing law: that difference must continue through to a different level of sentence. It is consistent that the maximum punishment is increased to reflect this additional consideration, but the Bill does not yet do this. The maximum sentence remains at four years, even though it is for a more serious crime. Therefore, I really hope that the Minister reflects on everything that has been said tonight and that he looks again at Amendment 56 in my name.

It is an amendment that solves these issues: it gives the courts ample room to adapt their sentences, based on the severity of a crime; it gives the judiciary the discretion to issue longer sentences than it is currently able to do; and it is a maximum—I say again, it is a maximum—sentence. It is a ceiling. It would allow the justice system to effectively deal with criminals who pose a tangible risk to their fellow citizens, and act as a great deterrent. We all want a system where the worst criminals are proportionately punished and the courts are able to adapt to achieve this. Although I listened very carefully, I am not convinced that the legislation as it stands achieves this, and I really hope that the Government reconsider this. For the time being, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 56 withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard some very powerful and emotional speeches, and I very much hope that, having seen the unanimous support all around the Committee, the Minister will respond positively today. I wholeheartedly support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin; I would have added my name to all of them, had there been space on the Order Paper.

This has been quite a dark debate, but as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, these are the direct, evidence-based conclusions of her independent pornography review. I very much welcome the questions the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked about the lack of a response to the Creating a Safer World review. It analysed 132,000 videos and clearly established an unambiguous link between the consumption of extreme pornography and violence against women and girls, both online and offline. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, it is poison; as the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Boycott, said, it is motivated by money; and as the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, said, it is the worst end of human nature for profit.

As we have heard today from all around the Committee, we are extremely mindful of the emotional impact on young women and girls in particular. I acknowledge that, in their later Amendments 294 and 295, the Government have made some progress on the possession and publication of pornographic images portraying strangulation and suffocation. The review by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, found that such content is rife on mainstream platforms and has normalised life-threatening violence, to the extent that 58% of young people have seen it, so I welcome the Government’s moves to close that specific gap.

However, while the Government have addressed the issue of strangulation, these amendments address the remaining glaring legislative gaps identified by the review. We cannot shut the door on one form of extreme violence, while leaving the windows wide open for others.

Amendment 314 seeks to establish a fundamental principle: parity between the online and offline worlds, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, and others, have explained. Since 1984, we have prohibited content offline that the British Board of Film Classification would refuse to classify, such as material promoting non-consensual acts or sexual violence. Again, like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I hope that, given the extremely effective way the BBFC has carried out its duties, we will not find it too difficult to find a way of sharpening that amendment to make sure that there is a very clear definition of the kind of content online that is equivalent to that offline, which we are seeking to regulate.

Amendments 290 and 291 address content that mimics child sexual abuse and incest. The noble Baroness’s review highlighted that “teen” is one of the most frequently searched terms, often leading to videos featuring performers styled with props, such as lollipops and school uniforms, to look underage. Experts working with sex offenders have made it clear that viewing this type of violent or age-play pornography is a key risk factor. Men who offend against children are 11 times more likely to watch violent pornography than those who do not. By allowing this content to proliferate, we are effectively hosting a training ground for abuse. These amendments would extend the definition of extreme pornography to cover these specific, harmful depictions.

Amendment 292 would introduce a duty for pornography websites to verify not just age but consent. We know that the average age of entry into trafficking for pornography in the US is just 12.8 years. Currently, once a video is online, a woman who has been coerced, trafficked or simply changed her mind has often no legal mechanism to withdraw that consent. What the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, said on this was particularly telling. This amendment would provide a necessary right to erasure, ensuring that platforms must remove content if consent is withdrawn. If the banking sector can verify identity to secure our finances, the multi-billion pound pornography industry can verify identity to secure human dignity.

Amendment 298 addresses the rapid rise of AI nudification apps. As my noble friend Lady Benjamin said, the Internet Watch Foundation reported a 380% increase in AI-generated child exploitation imagery between 2023 and 2024—a staggering figure. These tools are being weaponised to humiliate women and children. This amendment would criminalise the possession of software designed to create non-consensual nude images, closing a loophole before it widens further. I add to what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said on the need for wider guard-rails on large language models in, I hope, future government legislation.

The Government have rightly recognised the harm of strangulation content, and I urge them now to accept the logic of their own position and to support these additional amendments to deal with incest, child-mimicking content and the fundamental issue of consent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said, we should be ashamed of ourselves, and I hope that we now ensure that the legislation catches up with the reality of the digital age.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Bertin not just for tabling and speaking to these amendments but for the excellent work she has done and continues to do in this area, which by all accounts has taken its toll. She has campaigned on these matters for a long time and deserves so much praise from all of us.

When I first discussed these amendments with my noble friend, I could hardly believe what she was telling me. Essentially, their underlying premise is that certain forms of extreme pornography are still allowed despite the fact that they have been proven to have highly damaging impacts on the development and behaviour of young boys and adolescents, not to mention the exploitation of children, women and so many victims and potential victims of this subject matter.

We have heard compelling speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Kennedy, and, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, in support of these amendments. There are so many perspectives from which one can look at them. One slightly personal perspective I have is that of a father of teenage children. I have teenage sons. Like all teenagers, they are bombarded with technology, challenged by social media and confronted with the unlimited scope that access to the internet can provide, with all its positive possibilities but also all its temptations, and in particular the dangers inherent in online pornography of an extreme nature. My sons, in effect, are the target audience of much of this material and I do not want this to be the new normal, as one of my noble friends described it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, spoke of poison and how we have to find ways of dealing with it. I concur completely. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, who said so powerfully that technology is outpacing regulation. That is the real danger here. As my noble friend Lady Shawcross-Wolfson said, we have to close the loopholes.

My noble friend Lady Bertin has highlighted that, at present, we criminalise child sexual abuse in all its forms. We thus criminalise sexual activity within certain family relationships and the making of indecent images of children, yet, astonishingly, online content that depicts, fantasises about or encourages these same criminal acts is legally and widely available.

Amendment 290 confronts the deeply troubling reality that material which appears to portray a child—even when the performer is an adult—can be used to groom, normalise or encourage sexual interest in children. We know that such material is not harmless fantasy. Law enforcement, child protection organisations and international research bodies have all warned that material appearing to depict children fuels harmful attitudes and increases the risk that individuals progress towards real-world offending.

Crucially, Amendment 290 would also create a new offence of producing or distributing material that glorifies or encourages sexual activity with a child or family member. No one in this Chamber needs reminding that such conduct is criminal and profoundly harmful, yet text-based, audio and visual material explicitly celebrating child abuse and incest remains widely accessible on mainstream pornography sites and user-generated content platforms. The law should recognise the role of such material in grooming, desensitisation and normalisation of abuse.

Amendment 291 addresses the glaring inconsistency whereby extreme pornographic content is prohibited in many contexts yet explicit depictions of unlawful sexual acts between family members—including those involving persons described or portrayed as under 18 —are not necessarily captured by existing legislation. Incest is a criminal offence, reflecting both the safeguarding imperative and the inherent power imbalance within some familial relationships. Yet, again, pornographic content portraying incest, often stylised to appear illicit, coercive or involving younger family members, remains permissible to host, sell and distribute online so long as it is performed by adults.

This amendment would not criminalise lawful adult behaviour; it would criminalise the possession of extreme pornographic images depicting acts that would themselves be criminal if performed in reality. Once again, the principle is consistency. What is an offence offline should not be freely commodified online under the guise of entertainment.

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[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Brinton has made a powerful case for removing the limitation period. The Government have already signalled a willingness to act, so objections are likely about timing rather than policy—at least, I hope that is the case.

The amendment would align the law with what Parliament has already accepted, which is that child sexual abuse is distinct from other offences. This is a crime defined by secrecy, grooming and a stark power imbalance. We know that victims often take decades to come forward, so allowing offenders to shelter behind time would reward fear and coercion.

Amendment 293 provides clarity for all parties—victims, police, prosecutors and, indeed, defendants. It removes the scope for technical argument about whether a particular course of conduct falls outside time and instead focuses everyone on the core question, which is whether the evidence available can support a fair trial. It also brings coherence. Across the system, we are rightly moving away from arbitrary cut-offs that prevent past abuse ever being heard in court. The amendment is a modest step in the same direction in accordance with the recommendations of inquiries and the expectations of survivors.

There must be no time bar on prosecuting sexual activity with a child. If we are serious about saying that such conduct is never acceptable, surely we should also be serious about saying that it is never too late to pursue justice for it. The amendment achieves that and warrants the support of the Committee and the Government.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for bringing forward the amendment. Obviously, victims of child sexual offences should always be able to seek justice, no matter how long it takes them to come forward.

We absolutely understand and respect the intention behind this proposal. Many survivors of abuse do not feel able to disclose until years—sometimes decades—after the offence, and there is a very real sense of injustice when the law appears to stand in the way of accountability.

However—and on this point I side with my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier—I think there exists no limitation period for offences that would occur under Section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act. The Limitation Act 1980 applies only to civil cases, and indictable criminal cases do not have general limitation periods in England and Wales. As offences under Section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act are indictable only, we do not think the amendment is strictly necessary, despite the fact that it pursues a very noble aim. While sympathetic, therefore, to the principle—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Briefly, has the noble Lord opposite considered Section 127 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act, which has a six-month time limit on prosecutions brought in the magistrates’ court? Has he considered that Section 9 is neither a way of—my noble friend the Minister is shaking her head at me, so maybe it is not necessary for the noble Lord to answer.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that. I will just wait for the Minister to explain to all of us what the position is.

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[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, these dangerous practices of strangulation and suffocation are often used to control, intimidate and silence in domestic abuse situations. The growing normalisation of strangulation during sex risks giving abusers a veneer of acceptability and a false sense of impunity. Strangulation was the cause of death of over a quarter of the women killed between 2014 and 2025—about 550 in total. In that context, the case for criminalising such images is compelling. Mainstream platforms must be put under a duty to remove this material or face sanction.

The related amendments in this group are welcome, in order to ensure that the new offences operate coherently across England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We on these Benches very much support this group of amendments, which sends a clear signal that such material is totally unacceptable.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I thank the Minister for tabling this group of amendments, and I am happy to offer the support of these Benches. The criminalisation of strangulation in pornography is part of a wider initiative that has been championed across the House and discussed today, particularly on this side by my noble friend Lady Bertin, but by many others as well.

The prevalence of strangulation in pornography and the harm it causes are very clear. Distributing such material is already illegal offline; the fact that its online equivalent is not is a gap in the law, and these amendments correct that. They close that gap and prohibit the distribution of a practice that is both dangerous and extreme. I know that there are reports from some GPs of an exponential rise in incidents of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation among younger generations, which they largely attribute to pornography; the least we can do is to provide restrictions on dangerous content that should not be normalised. As has been said, distributing non-fatal strangulation images is unlawful offline; it makes little sense that that is not replicated in our online legislation. This group aims to correct that, and I willingly offer the support of these Benches.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords for their support for these amendments, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Bertin, Lady Gohir and Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. I also note the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, about enforcement and regulation. As I said in the debate on the second group, I am very keen to continue working with the noble Baroness on other matters related to online pornography— there is much more to be done.

I hope that, in the meantime, your Lordships will join me in supporting the important steps the Government are taking in relation to strangulation pornography. I beg to move.

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In closing, I very much share the impatience of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. We have a widening group of those interested in online safety, who have taken a strong interest ever since the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill. We will keep pressure up on the Government, but I very much hope that they will not need too much pressuring and will respond with alacrity to these amendments.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge for bringing these important matters to your Lordships’ Committee and for speaking so passionately and clearly about the subject matter of her amendments. There is very little that I can add. My noble friend has an impressive track record in this area, her Private Member’s Bill being a striking example of that, and these amendments are very much in the same vein. As she made clear, we must all remember what is truly important here, and that is the victims of these events. They must be at the centre of all our debates, and today they have been.

I am very pleased that my noble friend has retabled Amendments 333 and 334, which were brought forward in the other place by my honourable friend Joe Robertson MP. The omission of recklessness as part of the offence of spiking is, as many noble Lords have said, a severe oversight by this Government; we believe that it should be rectified. My noble friend Lady Owen has our full support for this amendment and our broad support for the rest of her amendments.

Finally, I draw the Minister’s attention to my Amendment 295C, which is a probing amendment. By way of background, Schedule 9 inserts new Sections 66AA and 66AB into the Sexual Offences Act 2003. New Section 66AB contains exceptions to the new offences of taking or recording intimate photographs or films, and its subsection (3) contains an exemption for healthcare professionals who are taking intimate photos of a person who is under 16 and lacks the capacity to consent. My probing amendment would remove the provision that the person has to be under 16 for the exemption to apply. It seeks to probe the Government about a situation where, for example, a doctor has a 30 year-old patient with severe learning disabilities or an 80 year-old patient with dementia. Neither has the capacity to consent, but the doctor has to take a photo of the patient in an intimate state to show the patient’s condition to their consultant, for example. That doctor would not be included in the exemption and therefore would be liable to prosecution.

This is simply to try to understand the Government’s reasoning because, if the exemption is to apply—and it should—there should be no distinction based on age. The doctor is performing the same professional duty to a person who is 15 and cannot consent and a person who is 18 and cannot consent. I will be grateful if the noble Baroness can clarify that particular point.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I join with all other Members of your Lordships’ Committee in expressing gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for bringing forward this large group of amendments, as well as to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, for bringing forward Amendment 295C. I am also pleased to commend government Amendments 300 to 307 in my name, which make two changes to the existing intimate image abuse provisions in Clause 84 and Schedule 9.

This is an eclectic, disparate and rather large group of amendments. I will endeavour to address them in as concise a manner as I can, but it is going to take a bit of time, so I hope your Lordships will forgive me. I start by stressing that the Government are committed to tackling the complete violation that is non-consensual intimate image abuse. However, before I turn to the noble Baroness’s amendments, I want to make a few general comments that apply to many of the amendments in this group, and to some of the others that are being considered by your Lordships’ Committee today.

I start with a comment with which I am sure we can all agree: it is essential that the law is clear and easy to interpret. In that context, I make the following observation, not so much as a Minister, but drawing on my past experience as a senior prosecutor and judge. It is very tempting to add new offences to the statute book. Some of these are intended to spell out the conduct of which society disapproves, even when it is already caught by more general offences—or, some would say, to make something that is already criminal, more criminal.

It is tempting to say that, if such an additional offence makes no substantive change, then why not—the Government should simply accept it. However, such changes are not always without consequence. In my experience, it can sometimes make it harder to prosecute, and thus secure convictions, when there are a number of different offences on the statute book, all of which cover the same behaviour but often with slightly different elements or maximum penalties. I know that that is absolutely not the intended effect of many of these amendments, but I would gently suggest to your Lordships that it is worth bearing in mind that legislating for large numbers of new offences may not be without adverse consequences.

That said, I have the utmost respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. She and I share the determination to deal with some pretty repellent behaviour that has the ability to ruin victims’ lives; the question is how best to achieve it. As I said before, I want to make it absolutely clear that the Government and I are very much in listening mode. I was very pleased to meet the noble Baroness recently, and I thank her for that. I wanted to understand better the intentions underlying some of her amendments, and I look forward to working with her closely over the coming months.

I am thankful for the contributions of my noble friends Lord Hacking, Lady Curran and Lady Chakrabarti. I am afraid that I am going to have to disappoint my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti on the implementation date for the deepfake legislation, as she will probably not be surprised to hear. It will depend on a number of factors, and I cannot give her a date today. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bertin, Lady Maclean, Lady Sugg and Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who was kind enough to leave the question of the ombudsman with me. I am also thankful for the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Banner and Lord Cameron, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville.

I turn now to this group of amendments. Amendment 295BA seeks to create a reporting mechanism for non-consensual intimate images to be removed within 48 hours. The Government recognise the calls to go further than the existing protections afforded by the Online Safety Act. We share the concern that some non-consensual intimate images remain online even after requests for removal have been made by the Revenge Porn Helpline. Worse still, some remain online following a successful conviction for non-consensual intimate image offences. We absolutely acknowledge this problem. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are considering how best to tackle this issue, and I hope to be able to provide more detail on the work in this area on Report.

I turn to Amendment 295BB. As I have just said, the Government recognise the harm caused by the continued circulation of intimate images and thus share the intention underlying this amendment. There are existing mechanisms that allow the courts to deprive offenders of images once they have been convicted of intimate image abuse offences. We are already amending deprivation orders so that they can be applied to seizing intimate images and any devices containing those images, regardless of whether the device was used in the offence itself. An example would be an external hard drive: even if it was not used to perpetrate the offence, it can be seized if it has the images on it. This will significantly limit the defendant’s ability to retain or access intimate image abuse material.

That said, we recognise that these existing powers were not originally designed with intimate images in mind, and that, as a result, they currently do not extend to devices that contain images but were not directly used to commit the offence. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are taking steps to strengthen the framework.

I turn to Amendments 295BC and 295BD, which were also spoken to by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. I must say that the noble Viscount slightly lost me with some of the more technical details of what he was describing.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for the explanations of their amendments. I support the Government’s Amendments 308 and 309 for reasons that will be explained by the Minister. I go further and support the Amendments 312 and 313, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie. It must be so difficult for social workers and charities to steer sex workers away to a better life if they have to admit to these offences when seeking legitimate or conventional employment, when they have not even been found to be dishonest. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, in her Amendment 316B for the reasons that she explained. This is yet another online problem.

I am afraid that I cannot support Amendments 310 and 311, which seek to make buying or organising the provision of sexual services illegal. I come at this from a similar position to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone.

In the recent past, and for centuries before, we erroneously thought that we needed to stamp out gay sex because we did not like it. Thanks to the effort of great campaigners, people like me now recognise that the policy was absolutely bonkers. We made otherwise law-abiding citizens out to be criminals, we turned patriots into security risks, and we made sure that around 5% of the population could never reach their full potential—and we hurt them. We made sure that gay people could not have stable relationships, which then caused a variety of health issues for both the gay and the straight communities. We do much the same with prostitution.

We have an especially nasty name for sex workers—we call them prostitutes or worse. However, quite a lot of people, mainly men, are happy to use them for a variety of reasons—some understandable and some not so good. We do everything that we can to make it a dirty, horrible, seedy, disgusting business, in the vain hope that doing so will reduce the problem. It does anything but.

We ensure that only criminals can engage in managing the paid-for sex business, just like the drug trade. Worse still, and just like homophobia, we create a health problem with sexually transmitted diseases, when we could minimise the problem if we so desired. The noble Baroness explained the logic behind her amendments. If the policy were successful, there is no doubt that it would be a great moral success. However, to be successful, the police would have to devote huge resources to absolutely stamp out prostitution in the UK, and I am not confident that they can.

I see considerable problems with these amendments. The first is around the safety of sex workers, and the noble Baroness touched on this. I would imagine that, very often, appointments are made via an ordinary mobile phone. If something goes horribly wrong with the encounter, no doubt the police can access the mobile phone records and use relevant detection techniques. Sex workers can currently identify regular, and therefore safe, clients. If these amendments became law, clients would not use their main mobile; they would surely use burner phones, regularly change them and turn them on only at railway stations and the like. Of course, this activity would no longer be a red flag; it would be quite understandable. If the booking is online, clients would use a website that might be far away from the UK, in authorities such as Russia or the Far East. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, talked with great knowledge about this issue. It would lead to significant cyber and espionage risks compared with sex workers using certain well-known UK sites.

One would hope that someone who acquires a sexually transmitted disease would be honest with the health professionals seeking to identify the source of the infection, particularly if it were hard to treat. If the amendment is accepted, very few clients would agree to reveal that they have paid for sex, where and with whom.

I can understand why the noble Baroness has sought extraterritorial jurisdiction. If she did not, we would be exporting our problems—if they are problems—to another country, which might be as close as Germany, for instance, which has for many years done what I am about to propose. If the police are given concrete evidence that this offence has been committed somewhere on the continent, are they going to go in hot pursuit? I am not sure that the police in Berlin, for instance, would be very helpful, given that it is not an offence there.

When certain state employees are security vetted, it is necessary to understand the applicant’s sexuality because it could obviously be a major vulnerability, but there is never a problem if the applicant is honest and candid, and the vetting team is not easily shocked. However, it would be a problem if the applicant admits to serious criminal offences. If they successfully lie to the vetting team, they make themselves a security risk.

Unlike the online problems that we have been discussing, we are talking about the world’s oldest profession. If we think that we have stamped it out, we may only have driven it deep underground, as explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone. Those seeking paid sex would have to use dangerous IT solutions, which would leave them, and possibly their employers, much more vulnerable to cyber attacks and blackmail. The sex workers involved would be involved in a very serious criminal undertaking—not just, as at the moment, perhaps three girls setting up a flat together.

What is to be done to address the ills that the noble Baroness has so skilfully articulated? I do not disagree with her analysis of the problem and the evils. Hitherto in the UK, we have taken a priggish and prudish attitude to these matters and made things far worse, just as we did with gay people. The answer is that we should regulate, license and tax this activity, just as we do with alcohol. We should license establishments, whether large or small—the larger establishments could be discreetly located so that they do not interfere with the local community. We should ensure that sex workers never again have to give the majority of their earnings to an immoral criminal who will abuse them if they do not. The economics of the profession would be favourable for sex workers if there were no immoral parasites involved. We should ensure that criminals are not able to be involved in the business at all. We should license sex workers to ensure that they have not been trafficked and are not being coerced into the business. This policy would make it far more difficult to force people into the business and would drastically reduce the risks for sex workers.

If we went down this route, there would be significant benefits apart from the tax take, which would be significant. We could require regular health checks and make sure that any drug dependencies were properly managed. We could make this a condition of the personal licence. It is reasonable to argue that sex workers would not have to entertain so many clients in a day, and in any case, as I have suggested, it would be a far less sordid activity for all. If the Minister is cautious in his response to these amendments, I will gladly support him.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in what has been a thoughtful and at points sobering debate on this group of amendments. Each amendment has been brought forward with a genuine desire to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society, a shared goal among all of us.

On Amendments 308 and 309 in the name of the Minister, I of course understand and respect the intention that lies behind them, which is to ensure that individuals who were exploited as children, often in circumstances of profound vulnerability, are not burdened in adulthood by convictions or cautions that arose from their victimisation. We share the Minister’s desire to protect children from such exploitation and absolutely recognise that those under 18 involved in prostitution can very often be victims.

The amendments as drafted would create an automatic disregard or pardon for every offence of loitering or soliciting committed under the age of 18. Will the Minister explain whether a blanket approach of this kind is the right mechanism? Young people under 18 can be convicted of a wide range of offences, many of which the law rightly considers on a case-by-case basis with great care and nuance. It is not immediately clear why this category of offence should be given automatic treatment when others are subject to a case-by-case consideration. I totally accept that that is a difficult question. While we are very sympathetic to the concerns that underpin the amendments, we hope to hear from the Minister a more detailed rationale for them.

Amendments 310 and 311, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, raise significant issues about the role of those who enable, promote or profit from prostitution, including through online platforms, and about the criminal liability of those who pay for sexual services. Again, we absolutely support the underlying principle that exploitation, whether offline or online, must be robustly tackled and that those who profit from the abuse or commodification of vulnerable people should face meaningful consequences. The growth of online facilitation has created new and disturbing avenues for exploitation, and we support efforts to ensure that our legislative framework keeps pace with these developments.

However, the approach that the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, has suggested through these amendments, which is effectively to repeal the current offences in the Street Offences Act and replace them with the new offences in her amendments, is a very wide-ranging change to the law. Such a sweeping and significant alteration to our legal framework should not be undertaken, in our view, without a serious consideration of the impact and should be the subject of a serious examination, consultation with the police and other groups and the publication of proposals by the Home Office. It is not a change that we can simply make on a whim.

Finally, Amendments 316A and 316B, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, concern the rapidly evolving landscape of online sexual exploitation. We share the noble Baroness’s concern about the ways in which digital platforms can facilitate harmful or coercive practices and about the need to ensure that those who profit from the exploitation of vulnerable individuals are held to account. We recognise the seriousness of the issues that she has raised this evening and the need for continued work to ensure that offenders cannot simply exploit technological advances to evade scrutiny or sanction. I hope the Government will consider these amendments very carefully.

There is clear recognition of the need to strengthen protections for vulnerable people and to ensure that those who exploit them, whether in person or online, are met with the full force of the law. I look forward to continuing discussions with the Government as the Bill progresses and to hearing from the Minister tonight so that we can ensure that the legislation is robust and proportionate and delivers the protections that victims so clearly deserve.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, the problem of prostitution has been around since biblical times. I can understand why the noble Lord might not be very supportive of Amendments 310 and 311, but does my noble friend on the Front Bench not offer any solution to the problem of prostitution?

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I thank the noble Earl for that question. I have made the position of the Front Bench clear and think it is now for the Minister to answer such a testing question.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick for commencing this discussion and debate. A number of views have been expressed in Committee today and some go wider than the amendments that are before us. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, raised a number of issues which go beyond what is before us. My noble friend Lady Ritchie also touched on the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Goudie. It is clear that there are differing views in the Committee—from the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, on the Front Bench opposite—which tells me that this is a truly complex area where there are very different legislative options open and where the Government need to consider very carefully what needs to be done.

The Government are absolutely committed to tackling the harms associated with prostitution and sexual exploitation, including where it takes place online. This is an important part of our work on tackling violence against women and girls which, as colleagues in the Committee will know, is a top government priority, and about which we will be saying more shortly. But we need to look at the evidence. We have limited evidence as to what will most effectively reduce demand for prostitution and disrupt exploitation without—and this is the key point that came out of some of the contributions—unintentionally causing harm to victims and survivors and making life more difficult for those who choose that lifestyle. I say to my noble friend that the Government are not in a position to accept the amendments today, but I want to make it absolutely clear that we are in the business of taking steps to tackle sexual exploitation and to gather evidence to inform further interventions in the future.

Amendment 310 in the name of my noble friend Lady Goudie would make it an offence to assist, facilitate, or control the prostitution of another person, regardless of whether the individual secures any personal gain from this facilitation. The broad wording of this offence could—and again this echoes what the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, said—have an adverse consequence for people who choose to be engaged in prostitution, for example, by criminalising professionals such as healthcare support workers, charities which provide sexually transmitted infections testing or those providing contraception or safety planning. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, made a compelling case around some of the issues that the Government have reflected on in relation to that amendment. My noble friend Lady Goudie’s amendment would also make it a criminal offence to operate a website hosting adverts for prostitution, and I will come back to that again in a moment, if I may.

My noble friend Lady Ritchie, in Amendments 316A and 316B, would introduce new criminal offences to tackle the sale of personalised sexual content online, including audiovisual and visual content. Amendment 316A would make it an offence to own, manage or facilitate one of these online platforms, while Amendment 316B would create an offence of causing or inciting an individual to sell personalised sexual content on these platforms. It would also introduce a duty on the online platform to remove personalised sexual content within 24 hours if an individual is convicted of the offence and if an individual who is incited to sell the content has requested its removal.

The Government recognise very strongly that we need to take action to tackle these websites. The so-called pimping websites need to be addressed and tackled. However, I would argue that criminalising those websites may have safety implications for people who sell sex and may result in displacement to on-street prostitution, which is more dangerous for individuals. It may also disrupt policing operations. The police can scan adult service websites for signs of vulnerability and exploitation and to gain data to support criminal investigations.

I accept that members of the Committee might want government Ministers to say that, but Changing Lives, an organisation supporting people who have been sexually exploited, also advocates against criminalising adult service websites. Instead, it is calling for stronger regulation, more referral mechanisms and more funding to support people affected by exploitation.

Amendment 311 in the name of my noble friend Lady Goudie would make it an offence for an individual to pay for or attempt to pay for sex either for themselves or on behalf of others. The Government have looked in detail at this approach in other countries which have taken it and have seen indications that the law can be misused to harass and victimise people engaged in prostitution. Again, that is a matter for debate and discussion, but that is the view the Government currently take.

Amendment 312, in the name of my noble friend Lady Goudie, would repeal the offence in Section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959 which criminalises a person aged 18 or over who persistently loiters or solicits

“in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution”.

Amendment 313 would disregard prior convictions and cautions. There may be some common ground here, because I absolutely recognise the concern that this offence may criminalise vulnerable individuals and restrict their opportunities for employment. However, I am also mindful that on-street prostitution can have an impact on local communities, and it is important that we consider their views.

My noble friend Lady Goudie, were she able to be here, would say that the criminal law rightly evolved in 2015 to make it clear that children cannot be prostitutes and that any child who is paid in exchange for sex is clearly a victim of child sexual exploitation. Therefore, I would argue that it is long overdue that individuals issued cautions or convictions for the offence in Section 1 of the Street Offences Act before 2015 have their criminal records expunged.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, asked for details. I simply repeat: children cannot be prostitutes. Children who are paid in exchange for sex are clearly victims of sexual exploitation. The records currently in place provide significant barriers to the employment and psychological rehabilitation of those who are now adults. It is important that we look at the long-term consequences of those incidences and help support them in rebuilding their lives. That is why we have tabled government Amendment 308, which will disregard convictions and cautions for Section 1 offences issued to under 18s. Amendment 309 will provide pardons for such convictions and cautions.

In each case, what we have tried to do—I hope the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, will reflect on this—is to ensure that the disregard and pardon are automatic. We do not want to retraumatise victims and survivors of childhood abuse by requiring them to go through an application process. I asked today in our internal Home Office discussions how many individuals this could impact. We have looked at the figures for the last 30 years and assess that 350 to 352 individuals would fall under the auspices of that. Someone aged under 18 30 years ago is now approaching their 50s. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, that for that person an offence committed as a child would still be on their record. Something they maybe did not have responsibility for at the time would therefore impact upon their employment and life chances. Therefore, I would welcome his support for that repeal.

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[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment exposes the indefensible gap between Parliament’s clear intent and women’s lived reality. The new offence was deliberately framed to capture deliberate, targeted and deeply damaging conduct, with a suitably serious maximum penalty, but without commencement, there are no consequences for offenders and no visible progress for the public. The Government’s delay sits uneasily alongside their stated ambition to halve violence against women and girls, particularly given previous assurances that implementation would follow swiftly as part of their wider strategy.

From these Benches, the message is simple: Parliament has already done the hard work in legislating; what is now required is immediate commencement, not further consultation or prevarication, so that this cross-party achievement can finally begin to offer real protection on the streets and in public spaces.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for moving this amendment, which, as she says, seeks to accelerate the commencement of the 2023 Act. The intention behind the amendment is clear and wholly understandable: to ensure that victims of sex-based harassment benefit from protections that Parliament has already approved, and to do so without further delay.

Without doubt, there is a shared desire across this House to see individuals, particularly women and girls, better protected from harassment in public spaces, and while I entirely understand that commencement provisions often involve important practical and operational considerations, including the readiness of policing and guidance frameworks, and that there has to be an explanation of the implications of altering the timetable set out in the original Act, we on these Benches recognise the motivation behind the amendment and the concerns that it seeks to address.

If the Government do not agree with the amendment, we look forward to hearing from the Minister what progress there has been towards commencement and whether the approach proposed here would assist the effective implementation of the Act’s provisions.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for raising the important issue of public sexual harassment. As has been discussed, Amendment 315 seeks to automatically commence the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 when the Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent. I remind the Committee that this Government have been responsible for periods of activity since July 2024, not for two years. As members of the Committee will know, tackling public sexual harassment is an important part of the Government’s mission to halve the levels of violence against women and girls in a decade.

As the Committee knows, and as I have said on numerous occasions, including today, the new violence against women and girls strategy is to be produced as soon as possible. It will include a range of actions to tackle sexual harassment. I reassure the noble Baroness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, that the measures we are developing within this to address sex-based harassment include options for commencement of the 2023 Act.

I echo fully the sentiments of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and agree that timely implementation of legislation is an important principle to follow. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that, if we pass legislation, we must look to introduce it. The Government have heard what noble Lords have said: namely, that we need to set a timeline for the commencement of the 2023 Act. It is important to fully consider the issues of implementation of the new offence, including engagement with the police and operational partners. We want to ensure that, when the offence comes into force, it is used often and well.

I assure all noble Lords who have spoken today that the Government intend to commence this offence as soon as is reasonably practicable. By bringing the provisions of the 2023 Act into force through the usual commencement regulations, we can ensure that this can be timed so that the police and others are ready. Accordingly, I suggest that the amendment is unnecessary. I ask the noble Baroness to be patient and wait for our violence against women and girls strategy, which will appear in short order. In the meantime, I hope she is content to withdraw the amendment.

I say that because we are looking at options to commence the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023. We believe that it will tackle this issue and ensure that women feel safer on our streets. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, as with all primary legislation, we need a preparatory period, but my officials in the Home Office, along with my ministerial colleagues, are working through the next steps. We are taking the time to get this right. I assure noble Lords that we will provide an update in due course and that they will not have too long to wait.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments reflects the realities that the police, the NCA and child protection agencies now face, with children being coerced online into self-abuse, harming siblings or even abusing their family pets under pressure to provide images or live streams as proof. The overlap between child sexual abuse—as the noble Lord, Lord Black, has so clearly demonstrated—offline offending and animal cruelty is now recognised in safeguarding and law enforcement practice. It comes alongside a wider surge in online animal abuse content, in which abuse is staged, filmed and shared for attention or gratification. Strengthening the law on animal sexual abuse so that it reflects how this behaviour is perpetrated and disseminated online is therefore necessary and overdue.

Two points are critical. First, terminology matters. Animal sexual abuse is now used in policing and safeguarding precisely because it captures a wide range of exploitative conduct that is formed, traded and used to control and terrorise victims, including children. Narrowing the language risks opening loopholes that offenders will exploit. Secondly, these reforms need to go hand in hand with better investigation, data sharing and sentencing so that the growing volume of image-based offending against children and animals results in real accountability rather than just statistics.

The sexual abuse of animals and the use of such material within wider abusive networks, which is reprehensible, must now be treated with the seriousness the evidence demands.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Black for his contribution this evening and for his amendments. I welcome the moving of Amendment 316.

As others have said, animal sexual abuse is one of the cruellest acts imaginable. It sees the taking advantage of defenceless creatures, often by those who are expected to be caring for them, and shows complete disregard for living, conscious, feeling creatures who frequently become damaged, traumatised and often die as a result of ASA. I wholeheartedly agree with all noble Lords that it is an offence that deserves to be dealt with using the full force of modern law. The amendment would ensure that the law reflects the severity of the crime. As has been outlined by other noble Lords, applicable legislation is currently fragmented and often parochial. At present, too many offences fall outside the scope of prosecution and the legislative framework is not reflective of the current reality.

I will not repeat all the statistics presented in my noble friend’s excellent opening speech, but it is worth emphasising a couple of his points. The first is the connection of ASA with child sexual abuse offences, general sexual offences, domestic abuse and coercive and exploitative behaviour. As was demonstrated, there exists empirical evidence that proves this correlation. In the United States of America, for example, nearly one-third of ASA offenders have also sexually offended against children and adults. In the UK, 71% of domestic abuse victims have reported that the abuser also targeted pets. There is clear evidence that certain offenders commit similarly related crimes.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I was not going to participate in this debate until I heard about the Scottish case and the Scottish Prison Service admitting that it got it wrong and that it did not carry out what they should have done.

I recall Julia Hartley-Brewer interviewing the SNP Scottish Justice Secretary. The Justice Secretary was saying that it was terribly difficult to reach an assessment, make a judgment and try to get it right. Julia Hartley-Brewer said, I believe, “What is the problem? Just look down his trousers and you will find the answer”. I commend that as the best answer I have ever heard.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, beginning with the amendments that regulate the name changes of sex offenders, I am glad that Members across your Lordships’ House agree on the necessity of regulations. Clause 87 is a sensible measure from the Government, and the amendments that build on its principle are similarly prudent. An individual who commits a crime as intrusive and offensive as a sexual offence demonstrates that they are a threat to public order and safety. After all, that is the reason why we have a sex offender register. Criminals who have proven that they pose a risk should be monitored by the authorities, and the authorities should have the necessary details to monitor and manage them.

Amendment 317 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would ensure that those who change their name by deed poll are legally required to alert the police of this change. The amendments in the name of the Minister extend the provision restricting the granting of driving licences in a new name to Northern Ireland. All these amendments seek to consolidate the existing legislation to ensure that there are no gaps there or in the Government’s new law, and we support the principle behind them.

The most consequential of the amendments in this group is that tabled by my noble friend Lady Maclean of Redditch. It would serve to bar those who commit sexual offences from obtaining a gender recognition certificate. This is a very necessary measure. I am glad that the Government have not yet granted an exemption for sex-offending transgender criminals, which would allow them to attend a prison different from their biological sex. Hailing from north of the border—where, as others have commented, there have been several incidents of that happening—I believe that it is a very worrying scenario indeed.

The Government have still not implemented the Supreme Court’s judgment in the For Women Scotland case, neither in statute nor in guidance. There is still the chance that those who commit sexual offences can end up in the wrong prison through obtaining a gender recognition certificate. I am not remotely suggesting that the Government would wilfully do this, but I hope that, given their record on prisoner administration, the Minister can understand our concerns.

No safeguards currently exist outside of ministerial discretion. A way to guarantee that this does not happen would be to bar sex offenders from obtaining a certificate in the first place; it is a bare minimum. In sending such people to prison, we are admitting that they are not trustworthy among the public; why, then, should we risk the safety of prisoners of the opposite sex? For those reasons, I support my noble friend’s amendment, and I hope the Minister can too.

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

My Lords, I am grateful for the amendments in this group from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch. There are also a number of amendments in my name, which I will formally move and explain what they mean in a moment.

Clause 94, which we will come to in more detail later, provides for the police to restrict changes of name on registered sex offenders’ identity documents. Where the police consider it necessary to prevent sexual harm, they will be able to issue a notice to a registered sex offender, which may require them to apply for the police’s authorisation to change their name on specified documents. This will ensure that registered sex offenders who are deemed to be at risk of using a name change to commit sexual harm are unable to continue offending under a new name and pass under the radar of law enforcement. I am grateful for noble Lords’ broad support for the Government’s general direction of travel on these points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. Many of the amendments seem to be shaped by individuals’ bugbears that they experience a lot on the streets of London. This group of amendments looks to increase penalties for dangerous cycling and raises other issues regarding cycling and scootering which cause danger to others. I welcome some of the amendments; they have raised interesting points.

The Bill sees cycling offences updated and brought in line with driving offences. I will give some context to the debate today. It should be remembered that, according to figures released by the Department for Transport in September, in 2024, 82 pedal cyclists were killed in Great Britain, while 3,822 were reported to be seriously injured and 10,645 slightly injured. Going further, in the latest DfT accredited official statistics, published on 25 September, its pedestrian fact sheet shows that nine pedestrians were killed and 738 seriously injured by one pedal cycle. Let us compare this to the 1,047 pedestrians killed by one car, and the 19,241 seriously injured. Clearly, any death or serious injury on our roads is one too many, but it is important that, as we debate this legislation, we understand the full picture.

We on these Benches support a proportionate and evidence-based approach to updating the law, where any changes do not discourage people from cycling, which we believe is an important mode of sustainable transport. However, as we have heard in this debate, we have seen a rise in fast food deliveries by e-bikes and e-scooters, and in micromobility sharing schemes. They have become like an explosion across our cities. Time is literally money for all of these riders—those delivering food are being paid per minute to use these bikes or scooters. Therefore, riders take risks. They break the Highway Code, moving at high speeds across pavements and roads, as we have heard, putting themselves and others at risk. We want to see an end to this danger on our roads.

I am intrigued by the discussion on the e-scooter trials, which have gone on a long time. Let us be clear: they were extended five times by the previous Government. They started in 2020 and have now been extended to May 2028. It is clear that this has been going on under two different parties in government.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, look to tackle the issue of dangerous cycling through the disqualification of a person from cycling. While at first glance this may appeal, in reality it would pose significant challenges with regard to enforcement, as cyclists, as we have heard, do not require licences. It is very unlikely that a person disqualified from cycling who decides to ignore that disqualification would be caught and convicted.

Logically, the only potential way to address this would be to introduce a licensing system for cyclists, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, proposes in Amendment 346A, where he has set out his thinking in detail. However, that is likely to be complicated, costly and disproportionate. In contrast, the noble Lord’s other amendments—seeking to add 12 points to a person’s driving licence for dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling that causes serious injury or death—seem more sensible and a reasonable way forward, which would give a greater range of options for the judge in such cases. We agree that this would be far more manageable than trying to bring in a national licensing scheme for all cyclists and cycles. Given that 84% of people aged 18 years or over who cycle hold a driving licence, according to the latest Cycling UK report, this could be an effective penalty.

Amendment 337F, from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, looks to define a “cycle” as including a pedal cycle, an e-bike and an electric scooter. Given the rise in different types of micromobility, we believe that this is a reasonable amendment to try to cover all types of cycles that can cause injury, as they may otherwise fall through a loophole.

Amendment 346B, from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, seeking to clarify the definition of e-bikes and motorbikes, looks reasonable—certainly on an initial reading—but we would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on it. Are there any practical reasons that could make this difficult? We have sympathy with its aims, but we look forward to hearing the Government’s response.

The other amendments in this group are clearly looking to tighten up further the law on dangerous, careless and inconsiderate cycling. Some, such as Amendment 341, from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, look to change the penalties for causing death by dangerous cycling. We do not believe that these amendments are needed and we do not support them. However, it is important that road traffic law is enforced with equal vigour for cyclists and all road users, to secure everyone’s safety. One of the challenges not covered in the Bill or in our discussions today—it is the elephant in the room—is the limited number of road traffic police officers across the country and the clear need to invest in this part of the police workforce.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the many important points that have been raised by noble Lords today, to see how we can ensure that our streets are safer for all road users.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken to this important group of amendments.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, I believe that the data provides an important context to this area. In 2023, there were four pedestrian fatalities and 185 serious injuries where a pedestrian was hit by a cyclist. Over the past decade, the average number of pedestrians killed annually by a cyclist has been three per year. On the roads more widely, in 2023, there were 87 pedal cyclist fatalities in Great Britain, with almost 4,000 people seriously injured and a further 10,000 classed as slightly injured. The most recent data from 2024 shows that fatalities from pedal cycles fell to 82 but serious injuries remained significant, even as overall pedal cycle traffic increased.

Moreover, as the Government recognise, the current maximum penalties for dangerous or careless cycling—a fine of up to £2,500 for dangerous cycling or £1,000 for careless cycling—are plainly inadequate to reflect the severity of incidents that result in serious injury or death. I therefore welcome that the Bill introduces the new offences of causing death by dangerous cycling, punishable with up to life imprisonment, and of causing serious injury by dangerous cycling, punishable with up to 5 years’ imprisonment. Those are severe sentences, but rightly so. In my view, they are reasonable and proportionate measures.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh spoke to her Amendment 341, which would remove the life sentence from the causing-death offence and replace it with 14 years’ imprisonment. With all due respect to her, I believe that, on this occasion, the Government have got the maximum penalty right. The penalties for the new cycling offences exactly mirror the penalties for causing death or serious injury by dangerous driving in the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988. Causing death by dangerous cycling is just as serious as causing death by dangerous driving. As such, it is entirely appropriate for the punishments to be the same. However, we must do more.

While cyclists are required to abide by the Highway Code and other relevant traffic legislation, we know that far too many do not. We have heard many descriptions from across your Lordships’ House this evening of the conduct of cyclists in London and elsewhere. One only has to walk down Whitehall and over Lambeth Bridge to witness the appalling conduct of a number of cyclists. We heard from my noble friend Lady McIntosh about her own experience, from the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and from my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe.

All too often, cyclists jump red lights, and they fail to stop at pedestrian crossings. While we rightly take injuries and death caused by cycling very seriously, the far greater problem is the general nuisance caused by cyclists who do not abide by the rules of the road. We currently hold drivers to a far higher standard than we do cyclists, and, quite frankly, enforcement needs to catch up.

This is even truer with regard to electric cycles. My Amendment 346 would create a new offence of altering the maximum speed and the rate of acceleration of an electric bike. Currently, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, referred to, an electrically assisted pedal cycle is defined by 2015 regulations as being a bike with a maximum speed of 15.5 miles per hour and having an electric motor not exceeding 250 watts of continuously rated power output. Any bike with a maximum speed above that should be classed as a motorbike for the purposes of road traffic policing. In this regard, I agree entirely with Amendments 337F and 346B tabled by my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, respectively. The Bill as drafted focuses on cycles but does not explicitly include electrically assisted pedal bikes—e-bikes—or e-scooters. That legal ambiguity could quickly be exploited. Amendment 337F seeks to ensure that there is no loophole. Amendment 346B in the name of noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, seeks to make absolutely clear that where an electric bike is capable of exceeding 15.5 miles per hour, it should be treated as a moped or motorbike for policing purposes.

These amendments complement the new offence that I am proposing through my amendment. By placing penalties and sanctions on those who might try to modify their electric bikes to increase the speed above the limit, we give the police the necessary enforcement powers to prevent anti-social and reckless cycling that places pedestrians in harm’s way. Many modern e-bikes are heavy, fast and capable of inflicting severe harm, especially if ridden irresponsibly on pavements or in pedestrian zones. To treat such vehicles as equivalent to push bikes would be to ignore both the mechanics and the risks.

On Amendment 337E, I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend Lord Blencathra. Pavements are designated for pedestrians. Cyclists riding on pavements or in pedestrian-only areas pose a clear danger to the most vulnerable. By making it explicit that cycling on a pavement or in another pedestrian-only area counts as

“cycling without due care and attention”,

the amendment eliminates the ambiguity that currently hampers consistent enforcement. It is another aspect of a cyclist’s behaviour that should not occur but is all too often the norm. It reflects a simple principle of equity. Where a pedestrian is hit by a vehicle on the road, the driver of such a vehicle may be prosecuted for careless or dangerous driving. A pedestrian hit by a cyclist on the pavement deserves to be treated with no less seriousness.

I also support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, relating to putting penalty points on driving licences for serious offences. That recognises the true severity of such offences. Misconduct on a bike should impact the standing of those with driving licences, especially where the behaviour demonstrates a disregard for road and pedestrian safety. On all these amendments, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments ask employers not only to react when something goes wrong but to look ahead, identify the risks and take sensible steps to prevent harm before it happens. That is especially important for women and those in insecure or public-facing roles, who we know are more likely to be targeted and less likely to feel safe reporting what has happened to them.

The statistics are damning. There were nearly 700,000 incidents last year alone, with attacks on lone workers surging by 132% over three years. We strongly support the aim of these amendments; however, as we did previously, we have questions around how a duty to eliminate risks, so far as reasonably practicable, would work in small businesses on tight margins. Layering new mandates on top of existing duties under the Equality Act and employment law risks confusion, which could dilute accountability. This is not an argument against doing more, but a practical issue which needs to be addressed.

There is also a wider cultural point. Legislation can set clear expectations, but workers will be safer only if staff feel confident to report incidents and these reports lead to action, not to victims being sidelined or blamed. Training, confidential reporting routes and proper follow-up, all mentioned in the amendments, are not extras; they are essential if any new duty is to change what has sadly become everyday reality for many people just trying to do their jobs.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her thoughtful amendments, which seek to place prevention of illegal violence and harassment in the workplace on a clear statutory footing and to expand the duties of the Health and Safety Executive accordingly.

It is clear from the debate that, across your Lordships’ House, we take violence against women and girls extremely seriously, whether that violence occurs at home, on the street, online or in the workplace. We know that gender-based violence remains alarmingly prevalent. Data for the year ending March 2024 shows that 6% of women aged 16 and over experienced domestic abuse, 4% experienced sexual assault and 4% experienced stalking.

These amendments focus on violence at work, in the employment context. Sexual harassment at work is far from uncommon. A recent study by UCL found that nearly one in seven UK workers encountered workplace abuse in the past year, with women reporting significantly higher levels of harassment and assault. Those figures remind us that work must of course be a place of safety, dignity and respect for all employees.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I have listened to this rather short debate against the particular backdrop of the Government’s increasingly unsettling approach to public order—a direction of travel that raises real concerns on these Benches. The current stance seems to involve simply doubling down on the pattern set by the previous Administration, which, in our view, risks overpolicing protest, overburdening an already stretched justice system, diverting resources from serious crime and threatening legitimate speech.

In that context, we have sympathy with this proposal. However, I have some concerns about changing a standard legal formula in public order and anti-social behaviour law. It is widely embedded in guidance and operational policy; in removing it, there is a risk of creating uncertainty and confusion within the police, local authorities and the courts. At the same time, it is equally clear that the concepts of alarm and distress have, in practice, been stretched far beyond what Parliament ever intended. Some people are very easily alarmed or distressed by noisy but peaceful demonstrations, or simply by views with which they profoundly disagree. These cannot be a sound basis for criminal liability.

There is a real risk that an overbroad test inhibits free expression, penalises vulnerability and hands too much discretion to those who are most intolerant of difference. If the Government will not support this amendment, will the Minister explain how they intend to ensure that public order powers are not used to criminalise mere annoyance, eccentricity or disagreement, but are focused on genuinely threatening, abusive and harassing behaviour?

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough for tabling Amendment 352. It is welcome to see such a cross-party collection of noble Lords supporting it: the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, are not names always seen together on an amendment.

The amendment proposes to remove “alarm” from Sections 4A and 5 of the 1986 Act, as we have heard. As others have said, alarm is a word that denotes impression, mood and temperament. It is a word that allows the criminal law to stray beyond the prevention of genuine disorder and into the policing of irritation, discomfort or unease. Several legal cases have shown where this can lead. In a case called DPP v Orum in 1989, a conviction was upheld under Section 5 for shouting abuse at police officers. The court accepted that even trained officers, accustomed as they might be to a degree of verbal abuse, could none the less be persons likely to be caused “harassment, alarm or distress”. Although that may be understandable up to a point, it demonstrates how low the threshold has been set. If professionals whose job it is to face confrontation can be alarmed by rude language, one begins to wonder who cannot be.

Another case is called Norwood v DPP in 2003, in which a man was convicted for displaying a poster saying “Islam out of Britain” in his window. The reasoning again rested partly on the likelihood of causing alarm. Whatever one thinks of the views expressed—many of us would deplore them—the case illustrates how “alarm” can operate as a gateway through which deeply subjective reactions become the basis for criminal liability. It seems that these cases represent symptoms of a statutory provision that has no clear boundary. “Alarm” does not mean “fear of violence”—it does not require intimidation; it does not even require serious upset. It has been stretched to cover being offended, unsettled or merely uncomfortable. I suggest that is not a sound basis for criminal liability.

As others have said, the law retains and contains safeguards where genuine harm arises: “harassment” would remain in the wording of the statute, “distress” would remain in the wording of the provision, and Section 4 remains available for

“Fear or provocation of violence”.


Other statutes address stalking, threats and coercive conduct. My noble friend’s amendment would remove nothing that is truly necessary to protect the public. It would restore a measure of seriousness to public order law. Criminal offences should address conduct that is objectively wrongful, not speech or behaviour that happens to alarm someone whose threshold for alarm may be very low. This amendment has our wholehearted support, and I hope that it has the support of the Minister too.

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

My Lords, I confess that when I woke up this morning I did not anticipate having a discussion about Thames Valley Police and a gay horse. Such is political life on the Government Front Bench. Nor did I anticipate talking about the Prime Minister’s private parts, referred to by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti.

On a more serious note, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for his amendment. I begin by confirming what my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said, which is that the right to express views, even those that may be unpopular, is a vital part of our democratic society, and freedom of expression is vital. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti have argued to remove “alarm” from Sections 4A and 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, for giving some balance to the argument and coming to a conclusion that I share. To remove from these offences behaviour that causes alarm would mean that behaviour that frightens or unsettles someone but which does not amount to harassment or distress would no longer be covered. Why does that matter? It matters because it would narrow the scope of the law and reduce the police’s ability to intervene early in potentially volatile situations. An example was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, in relation to activity on a train, late at night, by an individual with too many beers in their body. That is a valuable cause of alarm.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, that these provisions have been in place for many years: in fact, they were passed under the Government of Mrs Thatcher, which is not usually a thing I pray in aid when discussing legislation in this House. Removing “alarm” at this stage —this goes to the point mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey—would affect how offences operate in practice, including the thresholds that have developed through case law. It would impact on the existing legal framework, which already ensures that enforcement decisions are made proportionately and in line with human rights obligations. This includes the important right, as my noble friend said, to freedom of expression.

The balance that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, struck is the one that I would strike as well. It is a long-standing, 39 year-old piece of legislation that has held up and has been interpreted in a sensible way by those who have legal powers to use it, both police officers and the CPS. Ultimately, we should ensure that the alarm element remains.

Having said all of that, noble Lords will be aware that the Home Secretary has commissioned an independent review of public order and hate crime legislation, which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, KC, is considering. He will consider the thresholds relating to public order and hate crime legislation, whether they remain fit for purpose, if legislative changes are required and if we could have more consistent approaches to the offence of inciting hatred. He will also consider how we ensure offence thresholds do not interfere with free speech and how we deal with the type of issues that the noble Lord has mentioned.

I believe we should stay where we are for the reasons I have outlined, but a review is ongoing. It is important that we allow that review to conclude, which it will do by spring next year. The Government will consider and respond to whatever recommendations come forward. We do not know what those recommendations might be, but they are there to be done, and that is one of the reasons the Home Secretary commissioned the review. I understand where the noble Lord is coming from, but I hope I have put a defence of why we should maintain where we are. In the light of the potential review, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with everything that has been said about the need to highlight this appalling practice and, so far as possible, bring it to an end. But if one’s chosen means is the fettering of the discretion of a sentencer, one has to be extraordinarily careful about definitions. There, I rather echo what has just been said.

I understand how difficult this is, but, for example, the definition in Amendment 353 would mean that if there is an incident motivated by the perpetrator’s perception that an individual has shamed the perpetrator, the sentencing judge would be required to treat that as an aggravating factor. That could be two young lads outside a nightclub; one of them has shown a compromising picture of the other, and the other feels shamed or that he may be shamed if he shows it. That is how the violence begins. Violence is always bad and it always has to be punished, but of all the possible motivations for violence, is that really one that we are going to single out as a mandatory aggravating factor?

I must admit that I slightly wonder whether the best way to achieve the spotlight that the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, so rightly wants to place on this is by amending the sentencing guidelines. I thought that inherent in a lot of what she said was perhaps the implication that there ought to be a specific offence, rather as we managed to do with non-fatal strangulation and suffocation. If we are to adopt this means, imperfect and relatively low profile as it may be, we must be very careful about the words. As the Minister knows better than any of us, it is very easy to legislate for what one has in mind, but the unintended consequences are also there, and the law of unintended consequences is, I am afraid, one of the strongest on the statute book.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for bringing this matter to the Committee and for her eloquent elaboration of the rationale behind her amendments. I also thank other noble Lords for speaking, particularly those who recounted the moving stories of specific women who have been victims of this abuse.

It is safe to say that this is an issue that unites us all; no one wants to see any form of abuse perpetrated against women and girls, but honour-based abuse is perhaps one of the most pernicious forms of abuse. Due to its specific character and profile, it can all too often be swept under the carpet, hidden by communities that perpetrate it and ignored by authorities that should put a stop to it. I welcome in particular the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, for making the important point that this is an international criminal phenomenon. It is very easy to see it within a UK bubble, but it is incredibly important to remind ourselves of that context.

The many victims of honour-based abuse are left without justice because of fears of inflaming what are termed community tensions. That is borne out by the facts. Only 95 prosecutions were brought forward for honour-based abuse cases in the year 2024-25, and of those cases only 46 led to convictions. The reason behind these appallingly low conviction rates is the persistent failure to recognise the unique characteristics of honour-based abuse—the fact that it often involves numerous perpetrators, many of whom are family members or members of an extended community, acting collectively to abuse and in many cases, as we have heard, murder the victim.

It is important to recognise that there has been a concerted effort more recently to better recognise and respond to honour-based abuse. The Government should be commended for committing—on 26 August, I think—to legislating for a statutory definition and the publication of multiagency guidance on how to deal most appropriately with such abuse.

Again in August this year, the College of Policing, as referenced by my noble friend Lord Blencathra, launched a new advice note to police forces to support officers in their efforts to identify and tackle these forms of abuse. That followed the recommendations that emerged from the Tees Valley super-complaint, which was an important investigation for many reasons but especially because it found that police forces generally tended to include the risk of honour-based abuse only in their domestic abuse policies, not in other policies, thereby leading to an incoherent approach. The investigation also found that police forces generally lacked the cultural awareness to recognise the wider religious and cultural drivers behind this form of violence, and that this had led to police officers failing to recognise the wider risks of honour-based abuse after victims reported it.

I commend and fully support Amendments 353 and 355 by my noble friend Lady Sugg. They simply attempt to put into the Bill two of the measures that the Government have already committed to: a statutory definition informed by the actual experiences and the reality of the victims, and a comprehensive set of multiagency guidance. That is an important step and the Government should be commended for committing to it, but it will be of no use if the Government do not speedily implement these measures.

I echo the sense of urgency expressed by noble Lords from across the Chamber. I believe that the Bill is the legislative vehicle for these changes, and if they are not included in this Bill then there will likely not be another opportunity for quite some time. I urge the Minister to bring forward amendments on Report to make good on the Government’s promise to the victims of what can only be termed the most horrific patterns of abuse and violence.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Finally, the Government say that we can add other amendments later by regulation. But we have a good list here, so why on earth not add them now? Then you can add others by regulation. I conclude by saying we should perhaps add another one: we should look at the National Memorial Arboretum. I would like the Government to say that they will consider the National Memorial Arboretum, where there are 400 memorials, and the big one is the one to the Armed Forces, which should be protected in all circumstances. I look forward to many more supporting speeches tonight.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay for highlighting the importance of protecting the public realm. We support fully the inclusion of Clause 122 in the Bill. The prohibition on climbing on specified memorials was first introduced by the previous Conservative Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, and I welcome the current Government carrying this forward.

My noble friend Lord Parkinson has, in his customary eloquent way, spoken to the rationale and the substance of his amendments. In light of the late hour, I am going to very briefly comment on a few of the points made. I was going to select from his list in the amendments of the various people whose statutes he seeks to protect, but, given the lateness of the hour, I will just comment that these amendments do not ask us to agree with every decision made by the individuals whose statues we have. They simply ask us to recognise that our history is not something to be curated by omission or protected only in part. If the purpose of Clause 122 is to protect memorials and monuments from desecration and safeguard, in so doing, the shared inheritance of this nation, the memorials and statues in the amendments plainly belong within its scope. To exclude them would not be an act of neutrality; it would be an act of judgment by silence. For those reasons, I hope the Minister will give my noble friend’s amendments very serious consideration.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 370B and 370C, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, seek to expand the list of war and other memorials covered by the new offence of climbing on a memorial, which is provided for in Clause 122.

I fully acknowledge that many of the memorials listed in these amendments commemorate events and individuals of great national importance. However, the lists of war memorials in Parts 1 and 2 of Schedule 12 include only those on Historic England’s list of grade 1 war memorials, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, pointed out. This provides an objective basis for inclusion in the legislation, as being those of the greatest historical interest, and ensures consistency and avoids arbitrary additions.

The one exception currently—and I will not go into all the variations that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, mentioned, because of the lateness of the hour—is the statue of Sir Winston Churchill. This is included in Part 3 of Schedule 12 because there have been repeated incidents of intentional targeting of this statue during protests. The Government consider that as a prominent national symbol of Britain’s wartime leadership, and due to the targeting of the statue by protesters, it is right that Churchill’s statue is included.

The Government are also committed to including the national Holocaust memorial and the national Muslim war memorial, once they are built. The provision includes a power for the Home Secretary to add further memorials by secondary legislation, and she will no doubt want to ensure that any further additions follow a methodical approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, specifically mentioned the issue of inserting “animals” as well as “individuals” in the legislation, and he got it in one—that is around the potential consideration of the national Animals in War Memorial on Park Lane that he mentioned. But, again, that is about leaving options open so as not to rule out including that at a later date.

In the knowledge that we have a power to add to the list of memorials to which the new offence applies, I hope that the noble Lord will be content to withdraw his amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Massey of Hampstead (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, and to add to the dialogue by saying that we are becoming desensitised to violent, harassing and intimidatory protests. The ideal of having local senior police officers in charge of restricting these protests is becoming much riskier, so the need to legislate has become much more urgent. I endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, in supporting this amendment.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group, tabled by my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley and spoken to by him so powerfully today, address an important gap in the Bill as drafted. They would ensure that faith schools and community centres are included within the definition of religious sites for the purpose of restrictions on protests. At their core, these amendments are about protecting people’s ability to practise their faith freely and without intimidation. Places of worship are more than simply buildings used for ceremonial services; they are frequently part of a wider religious campus that often includes schools, halls and community sites. It is wrong to draw an artificial distinction, even if inadvertently so, between a synagogue, a church or a temple and their adjoining faith school or community centre.

Clause 124 itself, and these amendments, do not seek to ban protest, nor to diminish the right to peaceful assembly. Instead, they allow the police to impose proportionate conditions where a protest in the vicinity of a religious site may intimidate people of “reasonable firmness” and deter them from accessing or carrying out religious activities. We had a long and vigorous debate on Tuesday about the clause itself. It is crucial, as many said on that day, that the test be rooted in reasonableness and necessity, and is not used as a guise for police forces to stifle people’s free speech and right to protest. Self-evidently, that must be counterbalanced against people’s safety, particularly that of children, which is where these amendments are so apposite.

This is particularly important given the heinous terrorist attack that took place at Heaton Park synagogue. The aftermath of that attack saw armed police required to stand guard at Jewish schools and community centres. That this had to happen should shame us all. In a civilised country, no one should have to live in such fear. Not only that but in recent years there has been a troubling rise in protests which target religious communities in ways that stray from robust political expression into sheer intimidation.

Faith schools and community centres are where children and families in particular gather, who should never be subject to threatening activity simply due to their faith. They are often places of education, as we have heard from noble Lord, Lord Marks. They are places of leisure and places of play—all in a religious setting.

With that said, it is my submission that the amendments in the name of my noble friend are a welcome step. I hope that the Minister pays them very close regard. I look forward to hearing his response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Very briefly, I do not think that the noble Lord is making a bad case at all. Live facial recognition, whether in the hands of the public sector or the private sector, needs a proper legal framework: there is no doubt about that. My noble friend made it clear that we believe it is a useful technology, but, the more useful it is, the more we need to make sure that it is under proper control.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments touches on how the police should deal with modern threats and how we balance civil liberties with the clear duty of the state to protect the public.

I listened very carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, when she introduced her Amendment 379, which, as she said, would prevent the police using live facial recognition when imposing conditions on public processions or assemblies under the relevant provisions of the Public Order Act, unless and until a new statutory code of practice had been approved. If we accept—as we on these Benches and, I think, others in your Lordships’ House do—that live facial recognition can be a legitimate and valuable policing tool in preventing crime, identifying suspects and protecting the public, it is difficult to justify singling out its use in this specific context for an additional and likely onerous layer of bureaucracy. The police already operate within an extensive framework of legal safeguards, such as data protection law. To require a further code of practice, subject to affirmative approval by both Houses of Parliament, risks delaying or deterring the deployment of technology precisely where it may be most needed. So, regretfully, we cannot support the amendment.

Amendment 471, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, goes further in seeking to affect the Government’s ability to use live facial recognition technology. It would restrict the circumstances in which live facial recognition could be used; it would require prior judicial authorisation in the specific circumstances of its use; and it would create an extensive new enforcement and oversight architecture. Public order situations are often fast-moving and unpredictable. Senior officers must be able to make operational decisions quickly, based on risk and intelligence on the ground. Introducing additional procedural hurdles at the point of use risks undermining that agility. We should focus on rolling out effective technology at pace to combat crime and disorder, while ensuring robust safeguards and scrutiny.

In particular, the requirement for prior judicial authorisation is, in our view, particularly problematic. One of the principal advantages of live facial recognition is its speed and flexibility. It can be deployed rapidly in response to emerging intelligence, acute threats or serious risks to public safety, and requiring prior judicial approval risks rendering the technology ineffective in precisely the circumstances where it could prevent serious harm. In dynamic operational scenarios, such as events of violent disorder, knife crime hot spots or rapidly evolving threats, delay can mean failure.

I was particularly taken by the speech of my noble friend Lord Moynihan, who spoke about the position in New York, where, because of there being fewer police on the streets, the technology had to take over. He was right to say that.

We on these Benches are concerned by the attempt to narrow the scope of live facial recognition to a tightly defined set of purposes, because, if Parliament accepts the use of this technology in principle, it makes little sense to confine it to only a small number of scenarios. Crime does not present itself neatly within statutory categories. Policing requires judgment and discretion. Artificially restricting the use of a tool that has demonstrated value risks depriving the police of one of the most effective capabilities available to them.

We of course recognise the need for appropriate safeguards to be implemented in the use of this technology. This new and expanded use of people’s data, even if to facilitate an objective that we support, must be enacted with transparency and proportionality. But these amendments would constrain the police’s operations and weaken our ability to respond to modern threats. At a time when criminals are increasingly sophisticated and technologically adept, Parliament should be empowering the police to use lawful, proportionate and effective tools rather than tying their hands.

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

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for tabling the amendments and starting this important debate. Facial recognition is an increasingly important tool that helps the police, and I am grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra, Lord Cameron of Lochiel and Lord Hogan-Howe. I was particularly struck by the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, on gait and movement, which point to why this is valuable.

Currently, facial recognition technology is used to identify those suspected of committing crime, those who may be in breach of a court order and, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones said, those who are missing persons and could be found. To put some context to it, for example, there were 127 people arrested following the use of facial technology during the disturbances in the summer of 2024 around asylum protests. According to the Metropolitan Police’s figures, between January 2024 and September 2025, 1,300 people were arrested for offences including rape, robbery and GBH, and, in that period, 100 sex offenders were arrested for breaching their conditions: that is, going to an area where they should not have gone. That is quite a valuable action, tool and resource. But that does not mean—which goes to the heart of the amendment the noble Baroness moved—that the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, the noble Baroness herself and the Liberal Democrat Front Bench are not ones that need to be examined.

Noble Lords will be aware that, currently, the use of facial recognition technology is already subject to safeguards, including the Human Rights Act and Data Protection Act. The Government accept that there is a need to consider whether a bespoke legislative framework is needed. We need to get it right. We need to balance the need to protect communities from crime and disorder with the need to safeguard individual rights.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, will know, and as has been referenced in this debate, on 4 December, the Government launched a consultation: I have a copy available for the House. It is a 10-week consultation on a new framework for the enforcement of the use of facial recognition and similar technologies. The consultation explores when and how these technologies should be used, what safeguards are required to protect the issues that noble Lords and Baronesses have raised today and how to ensure that their use is proportionate to the seriousness of the harm being addressed.

I refer the Committee to page 5 of the summary to the consultation:

“The government is therefore committed to developing and introducing a new legal framework that sets out rules for the overt use of facial recognition by law enforcement organisations”.


That is a clear government objective. The consultation is about how we achieve that government objective. It runs until 12 February and I encourage all those who have spoken to submit their views.

I take Amendment 471 as a positive contribution to the consultation. Some aspects would cause difficulties, but it is a fair point to put to the Committee today. I hope noble Lords will accept that I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the consultation, which runs until 12 February. However, the clear objective, which I have read out, is to find the framework that noble Lords are seeking. We will need legislation to put in place the new legal framework, and that will come when parliamentary time allows.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, these two amendments after Clause 144 from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, are trying to give further powers to address the issue of dockless bikes and scooters, which we have discussed many times in this Chamber and which have become an issue on many streets in cities across the country, whether they are part of a scheme or privately owned. This is a big issue for pedestrians, as we have heard, as they find their route blocked by bikes and scooters, despite a number of local authorities installing dedicated parking places for such micromobility schemes.

We are all aware, as we have heard in this debate, of the challenges that local authorities have faced trying to manage these vehicles on pavements and highways. However, there is a further issue. As City AM reported last month, a London property firm had to invoice Lime for nearly £8,000 for removing, storing and returning dockless bikes left on private land. Despite the ability to geofence where bikes can be left, I understand from reading this article that it took Lime 11 months to fence off this bit of private land as a no-parking zone on its app—and even then bikes continued to appear. This is about the management and regulation of these schemes. There are many stories like this, where riders park up their bikes near stations or other transport hubs, cluttering pavements or indeed parking on private land, causing issues with access and deliveries for residents.

The devolution Bill making its way through the House will start to help with the management of micromobility schemes across the country, some of which, as we discussed earlier in this Committee, have been on trial many times over many years, partly extended by the previous Government. We need legislation on this issue. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether future legislation will come to tighten up the rules on what is safely allowed on our streets, on how people park and the regulations, and on what a safe and legal vehicle is on our streets.

These amendments are trying to deal with the inevitable consequence of recent Governments not acting to keep up with the explosion of different types of micromobility on our streets. I hope to hear some assurance from the Minister about future legislation to deal with the understandable concerns across the Committee.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has just said, we have spent much time in our previous debates in Committee on provisions regarding the use or misuse of electric cycles and scooters. Much of what can be said has already been said, so I hope not to detain the Committee for long.

As always, my noble friend Lord Blencathra raises a strong argument in favour of his amendments in this group. I thank him for his tenacity in this area. There are strong feelings on this in your Lordships’ House, as many of us have had negative experiences with users of electric bikes and scooters, but these amendments address a slightly different problem.

Amendment 416H would permit the police to confiscate electric bikes and scooters that have been abandoned in a public place. As other noble Lords have said, if one requires any evidence as to the extent of this problem, they need only take a stroll down any major road in London. The pavements seem to have become obstacle courses of undocked electric bikes. All this presents serious challenges; they block users of wheelchairs and parents with pushchairs, as well as those with visual impairments, creating hazards for pedestrians, who may be forced into the road. For this reason, these Benches see no reason to object to the police being given greater powers to confiscate such scooters and electric bikes. If the Government have any objection to this proposal, I look forward to the Minister outlining precisely what they plan on doing to tackle this issue.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I was slightly sad to hear that this is the last of the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on tackling e-bikes and scooters and, as someone coined, the Wild West that is our streets. Before he rides into the sunset on this subject, I would like to say that we share the intention behind these amendments, which seek to tackle obstructive parking and other use of hire e-scooters and bicycles. It may not surprise the noble Lord to hear, however, that the Government are not persuaded that these amendments are necessary.

I have to be very unfair before the dinner break and say that, if the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is Butch Cassidy, we had the Sundance Kid of this debate in the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen. Once again, he asked about action being taken. I repeat what I said earlier, on Amendment 416, and say to him and to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that the police are taking action. I refer again to the winter action initiative, running from the start of December last year to the end of January. That is focused on making town centres across England and Wales safer as a whole by building on the summer streets initiative, continuing efforts to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. This is not an issue that the police are blind to. Ultimately, we cannot want them to have operational independence in theory but not let that be carried out in practice.

I will not detain the Committee any further and will move on to the meat of the amendments. Amendments 416H and 416I would risk creating confusion in an area where the Government are already establishing a clear and proportionate regulatory framework. We are empowering local leaders to license shared cycle schemes, and potentially shared e-scooter schemes, in future through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which, as we speak, has started its Committee stage next door in the Grand Committee. This licensing framework, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, referred, will empower local authorities to set parking requirements and act quickly and decisively where these are not met. To respond to the noble Baroness directly on micromobility, this is something that we have signalled an intention to act on when parliamentary time allows. I am afraid that I cannot be any clearer on that.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Banner for introducing this series of amendments and congratulate those who supported him. This is an important public policy question that can, from time to time, raise its ugly head—although it is then ignored. I hope that, as my noble friend has so attractively argued for his amendments just now, we will gain some momentum.

I turn to a related but not exactly identical subject: compensation for overseas victims of crimes committed by British defendants. I raised that question during Second Reading of the Victims and Courts Bill on 16 December, just before Christmas. The Minister there, who is in her place—I think it is the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, who will kindly respond to this group, and I am, as always, grateful to him for bearing that burden—recognised that the question of compensation for overseas victims was a matter of some importance that she would think about. Indeed, she suggested that she might like to meet me to discuss it further. I am open to that invitation, as I am sure would be my noble friend Lord Banner.

My noble friend has opened up a discussion about a lacuna in our law, in that we fail adequately to compensate victims. The victims could be those who have suffered at the hands of the Russians or of those that we, the European Union or the United States have sanctioned. I say in parenthesis that part of my practice at the Bar involves sanctions law, so anything that legislates to increase the size of my practice is to be welcomed. More to the point, it seems to me that we have two parallel streams, which demonstrate that the way we treat victims is insufficient and inadequate.

I thank my noble friend for bringing this to the attention of the Committee and the Government more directly. I trust that, when the Minister comes to respond, he will do so positively. If he is unable to do so, I invite my noble friend to reintroduce his amendment to the Victims and Courts Bill when it comes back to us in Committee at some as yet unannounced date.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Banner and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their amendments in this group, and all noble Lords who spoke.

Amendments 417 and 419, tabled by my noble friend Lord Banner, would provide courts with the power to make public interest compensation orders during the sentencing of certain offences. He made a typically eloquent and compelling case for these amendments. He has consistently and powerfully campaigned, especially on Ukraine and the proceeds of sanctions, and I pay tribute to him for that.

Public interest compensation orders would grant the courts the ability to compel offenders to pay money to approved international or public interest bodies that support victims of serious human rights violations, such as torture or aggression. The courts would have to consider relevant factors, such as the broader human rights impact of the crime and the need to prioritise direct victims where relevant.

The amendment also lists relevant eligible recipient organisations with powers for the Secretary of State to update them, creating a structured mechanism for using the proceeds of sanctions-related crime in reparative funding for victims in the wider public interest. The amendment proposes a reasonable and practical process through which courts could divert illegally obtained funds to support victims, and I hope that the Government consider it very carefully. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Amendment 418 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, similarly proposes a mechanism through which the courts could direct a portion of confiscated proceeds for public interest or social purposes. It is very similar in nature to Amendment 417; it differs slightly in that it specifically requires the courts to consider whether the crime in question

“involved serious human rights violations, mass atrocity crimes, or grand corruption”.

But like Amendment 417, it raises very important issues as well as a broader question: if we are to make public compensation orders, what crimes should they apply to? I look forward to the Minister’s thoughts on that matter too.

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

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Banner, for his amendments. He has had a wide level of support today from, among others, the noble Lords, Lord Kempsell, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Alton of Liverpool, the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and my noble friend Lady Goudie. They have all spoken well on this series of amendments. I will try to address the amendments, self-evidently, but I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Banner, in particular, that I know how committed he is to Ukraine. He has my support in addressing the viciousness of the Russian regime and the international crimes that it has committed by invading Ukraine. There are obviously a number of consequences to that, but the principles that he puts forward today could apply to a number of other regimes as well.

The amendments seek to amend the Sentencing Act 2020 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to enable courts to issue public interest compensation orders. These orders would be for public interest or social purposes to support those who may be impacted by offences under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, including victims of human rights violations, as well as other offences added by the Secretary of State via secondary legislation. I recognise the intentions behind these amendments and affirm the Government’s support for victims of human rights abuses and our commitment to tackling economic crime.

On Amendment 417, courts already have the power to impose a compensation order on an offender, which would require them to make financial reparation to a direct victim of a specific offence for any resulting personal injury, loss or damage. Therefore, in seeking to amend the Sentencing Act to allow courts to award compensation orders for public interest or social purposes, there is a danger that it would undermine the current victim-centred approach of the legislation to date.

In passing, I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, that I know he is seeking a meeting with my noble friend Lady Levitt. It may be my fault that it has not happened, because of a diary clash, but we are agreeing to examine that, and either my noble friend’s office or mine will get back to him with regard to a meeting on those issues.

I recognise the critical importance of supporting victims of crime. As noble Lords will know, the victim surcharge is imposed on offenders by the court in the public interest to ensure that they hold some responsibility towards the cost of supporting victims and witnesses. The revenue raised from this surcharge is currently used to fund victim services through the victims and witnesses general fund, so the principle has been established.

The UK provides support for victims of human rights and sanctions violations worldwide. Noble Lords may wish to know that we have committed to provide £22 billion of funding to Ukraine. The Government are currently exploring further avenues—such as the extraordinary revenue acceleration loan to Ukraine—alongside our colleagues in the G7 and the EU. This has seen a $50 billion loan to Ukraine, which—this goes to the heart of the amendments tabled—is to be serviced and repaid by future profits generated from frozen Russian sovereign assets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, for his Amendment 420. In general, of course, these Benches abide by the notion that policy and practice should be guided by the feedback of evidence and outcomes, and the amendment would support that objective with regard to childhood convictions and cautions. I believe the data that currently exists on this would have to be thoroughly analysed to determine whether the measure is necessary, and I hope the Minister can shed some light on that existing evidence in her response.

We have great sympathy with the general thrust of Amendments 476 to 478. I have some reservations about Amendment 476, in that we have already removed the automatic disclosure of youth cautions on DBS certificates and I am unsure whether that should be extended now to the more serious youth conditional cautions, which of course include duties alongside the original caution. But I completely understand the principle behind Amendment 477, in the name of the same noble Lords, and why the legislation as currently drafted may lead to individuals being treated as adults when they commit an offence as a juvenile—all the more so given the backlog that the courts are currently suffering and delays in the court system, as the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, pointed out. Likewise, I see the rationale behind Amendment 478, which seeks to ensure that custodial sentences received by youths are removed from their criminal records after five and a half years.

On Amendment 486D in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, as others have said, children of course make mistakes, and there is a spectrum of offences, where avoiding a fare payment and travelling without a ticket is certainly on the less severe end. There is plainly a case that, as first-time offences, these do not warrant a criminal conviction certificate being issued.

My only point in conclusion is to echo what my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington said: we have to be a little careful not to increase the incentives for petty crime. As he pointed out, that can perhaps lead—especially with regard to criminal gangs—to a potential for danger. With that said, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Carter of Haslemere, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede for tabling Amendments 420, 476 to 478 and 486D. They form a formidable trio in terms of not just their expertise but the respect that they rightly command in your Lordships’ House.

A number of noble Lords have raised the question of the age of criminal responsibility. I hope I will be forgiven for not addressing that now; I know for certain that we will be addressing it at least twice in the days and weeks to come.

The Government acknowledge the principle that underpins these amendments—namely, that having a criminal record will have a significant impact on children and that such a record can, in some circumstances, follow them into later life as adults, again with profound consequences. That said, as I think all noble Lords agreed, it is critical that our criminal records disclosure regime strikes the right balance. On the one hand, we want to support people who have committed criminal offences, either some time ago or when they were very young, to be able to move on with their lives. But there is also a need for appropriate risk management in the public interest, as well as to safeguard the most vulnerable.

I will deal first with Amendments 420 and 476 to 478. The existing regime helps employers make informed recruitment decisions through the disclosure of appropriate and relevant information. This will mean that some serious offences, even when committed as a child, will always need to be disclosed, particularly where a person is applying to work with children or vulnerable adults. As some of your Lordships will be aware, in his recent independent review of the criminal courts, Sir Brian Leveson recommended that the Government review the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. In the Statement I made to your Lordships’ House on 2 December, I said that we will consider opportunities to simplify the criminal records regime to ensure that it is both clear and proportionate, particularly in relation to childhood offences.

I would be very happy to meet with any of your Lordships over the coming weeks to discuss this in more detail. It is of the utmost importance to the Government that we work together to ensure that we get this right. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I was very struck by the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, that this is not always as straightforward as it might appear, hence the need to make sure that we do this carefully, in a structured and thoughtful way. As I said, I would be delighted to see any of your Lordships. Given the offer made by my noble friend Lord Hanson in the previous group, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and I may be seeing rather more of each other than perhaps he had intended—but it is always a pleasure on my part.

Turning to Amendment 486D, I am very surprised to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Carter, says because the Government’s view echoes what my noble friend Lord Ponsonby said: children are generally treated leniently when fare evasion occurs. This offence is most commonly dealt with by transport staff, so usually no question arises of a child acquiring a criminal record for fare evasion and similar offences. The police usually become involved only in cases of a refusal to pay for a ticket, for repeat offences or because of some other complicating factor. Even when the police become involved, this does not usually result in a prosecution taking place because the Code for Crown Prosecutors requires prosecutors to consider, as a specific public interest factor tending against prosecution, where a child is young or where it is a first offence.

Police officers can give out-of-court disposals, which allow them to respond to low-level offending proportionately and effectively. These out-of-court disposals, of which there are a variety, provide opportunities for children to make reparation and restoration to victims, and to be diverted into courses or services which can help to change their offending behaviour. Most types of out-of-court disposals are not automatically disclosed on criminal record certificates.

The Government believe that it would be very unusual for a child or young person to get a criminal conviction for this type of offence but, were that to happen, the disclosure time limits under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act are very different from those that affect adults. Rehabilitation periods for children are typically half the length of those for an adult. For example, if a court were to impose a fine for fare evasion, there would usually be a requirement that the child disclose their conviction for only six months, as opposed to the case of an adult, who would have to disclose it for a year.

For all these reasons, under the existing legislation, the Government’s view is that there is a very small chance of a child who is a first-time offender getting a criminal record for a fare evasion offence in the first place, and an equally small chance of such a conviction following them into adult life. I will, however, make inquiries and write to the noble Lord giving such statistics as I am able to find.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel]

420A: After Clause 148, insert the following new Clause—
“Child cruelty offences: notification and offender management requirements(1) A person (“relevant offender”) is subject to the notification requirements of subsections (2) and (3) for the period set out in subsection (4) if the relevant offender is convicted of an offence listed in subsection (6). (2) A relevant offender must notify to the police within the three days of the time of their conviction or their release from custody, and annually thereafter, providing —(a) the relevant offender’s date of birth,(b) their national insurance number,(c) their name on the notification date and, where using one or more other names on that date, each of those names,(d) their place of residence on the date of notification,((e) the address of any other premises in the United Kingdom at which, at the time the notification is given, they regularly reside or stay, and(f) any information that may be prescribed in regulations by the Secretary of State.(3) A relevant offender must notify to the police, within the period of three days beginning with the event occurring, about—(a) their use of a name which has not been notified to the police under subsection (2);(b) a change to their place or residence;(c) any other prescribed change of circumstances as defined in regulations made under this section.(4) The dates of discharge from notification requirements under this section are the same as those set out in Section 88B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.(5) The information required by subsections (2) and (3), once received, must be—(a) monitored regularly by the police and probation service, and(b) retained for the purposes of offender management.(6) The relevant offences are—(a) causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult, or allowing them to suffer serious harm (section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004);(b) child cruelty, neglect and violence (section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933);(c) infanticide (section 1 of the Infanticide Act 1938);(d) exposing children whereby life is endangered (section 27 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861);(e) an offence under sections 4, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 or 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1860, if the victim is under the age of 16;(f) an offence under any of the following provisions of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003—(i) female genital mutilation (section 1);(ii) assisting a girl to mutilate her own genitalia (section 2);(iii) assisting a non-UK person to mutilate overseas a girl’s genitalia (section 3);(g) cruelty to children (section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933).”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would create notification requirements for people convicted of child cruelty, analogous to the Sex Offenders Register. Their information and personal details would be kept on record by the police for the purposes of offender management, with the aim of reducing the risk to children from future offences.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to move Amendment 420A. Although it is in my name, it is a product of tireless campaigning from my honourable friend Helen Grant MP. I thank her for her long-standing commitment to this issue. It is thanks to her unwavering commitment that we are one step closer to making a child cruelty register a reality.

I thank the Government for their ongoing communication with us on this important topic and their assurances that they would like to implement a policy that supports a child cruelty register. When this amendment was tabled during the passage of the Sentencing Bill in your Lordships’ House, government officials requested that it be reserved for Home Office legislation, rather than that of the Ministry of Justice. That is why I am moving this amendment today.

This proposed register would be very similar in kind to the register for convicted child sex offenders, for whom notification requirements already exist. It would ensure that those convicted of cruelty to vulnerable children must notify the police of their home address and other relevant details following their release from prison. The register would act as a safeguard by providing the police with the oversight needed to manage offenders and reduce the risk to children. It would mean that those who commit cruelty to children in a non-sexual manner cannot simply disappear back into the community.

These provisions already exist for sex offenders, and we see no reason why they should not similarly pertain to those convicted of child cruelty. Although the offence is different, its effects are detrimentally serious in nature. Child cruelty is a heinous crime that can have a lifelong impact on victims and affects the most vulnerable individuals in society.

Common sense requires that those who commit crimes such as allowing the death of a child, neglect of a child, violence towards a child, infanticide or female genital mutilation should not be able to slip under the radar in local communities once their custodial sentence is spent. There should be a centralised mechanism for the police to know where these people live. This is particularly so given that, in the vast majority of child cruelty cases, the offender has parental responsibility for the victim. They are therefore likely to have connections to the child’s guardian, who, in many cases, will be a family member.

There is a clear gap in the child protection systems that unnecessarily endangers children. The child protection system must exist to free children from the conditions of cruelty towards them, but it must also contain preventive measures to ensure that children are not placed in such appalling situations. Child cruelty offences have doubled in the past few years; now more than ever, it is important to act swiftly to curb this rise. Given the Government’s previously stated support for this measure, I hope that the Minister will be equally able to offer her support today.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my colleagues in the Commons very much supported Helen Grant in her campaign for this amendment. I pay particular tribute to Jess Brown-Fuller MP. It is very helpful that it has been directed to this Bill, and we on these Benches are very pleased that the Opposition have laid the amendment to this Bill.

It is getting late, and I will not speak for very long. The only other people we need to credit are Tony Hudgell and his parents. After being taken away from his birth parents, he has lived for many years with his foster parents, who he describes as his parents. He has endured 23 operations after injuries that resulted in him losing both legs when he was a toddler. That is the sort of cruelty—although unusually bad in this case—that the amendment is intended to address. For all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, outlined, we absolutely support the progress of this amendment, and we hope that the Government will look favourably on it.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, notification requirements received attention during the passage of the Government’s Sentencing Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for ensuring this important matter remains firmly on our agenda. I join the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in paying tribute to Helen Grant MP and to Paula Hudgell, both of whose tireless campaigning has done so much to advance the protection of children. As my noble friend Lord Timpson set out in Committee on the Sentencing Bill, this Government are committed to safeguarding children and ensuring robust measures are in place to protect them from those who seek to cause them harm. We are working hard to consider the best way to manage such offenders effectively.

We are unable to support the amendment at present, as further work is needed to determine the most effective way to strengthen offender management. We need to consider fully all aspects of implementation when it comes to adding notification requirements to a new cohort of offenders, particularly in light of the Government’s recently published violence against women and girls strategy, which sets out significant reforms to offender management.

It is right that we take the time to understand the potential impact of these proposals. One of the issues is that adding notification requirements to a new cohort of offenders would involve significant costs for policing. For example, notification duties such as taking biometric data, verifying personal details, recording changes, conducting compliance visits and managing ViSOR data must all be absorbed into the general workload of the police. One of the tasks for the Government is to reflect that this could mean shifting resource from other important areas of police work.

I can reassure noble Lords, however, that since December, Home Office and Justice Ministers have met regularly to discuss options in this space and have held initial discussions with national policing representatives. So, I can add my reassurances to those already given by my noble friend Lord Timpson: Ministers will continue to pursue this issue with vigour. With these reassurances, I hope that at this stage the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful both to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and to the Minister for their contributions. I think we can all agree that child protection should be a priority for any Government and that we must ensure that any gaps in the law are plugged with immediate effect.

This amendment, unlike many in this Bill, is not about creating a new category of offender or about an expansion of the criminal law; it simply reflects and seeks to fix the troubling reality that individuals who commit acts of cruelty or violence or neglect do not have a monitoring regime upon leaving custody. That is what we believe needs to be corrected. We already accept, as a matter of principle, that where an offence demonstrates a clear and ongoing risk to children, the state has a responsibility to ensure appropriate oversight in the community, and that is why notification requirements exist for child sex offenders. This amendment merely extends the same logic to offences that, while different in nature, can be as devastating in their consequences and no less indicative of future risk.

I am grateful to the Government for acknowledging the need and the advantages of this amendment both inside and outside of this Chamber. I am grateful for the Minister’s words of support tonight, and I understand the point she made about considering this properly, but the rise in child cruelty offences demands action rather than any kind of delay. Every year that passes without a mechanism of this kind leaves children unnecessarily exposed to harm. Therefore, I want to give, with the greatest of respect, notice to the Minister that unless there is an amendment from the Government on Report that supports the substance of this amendment, it is likely that I would want to bring it back. I re-emphasise my gratitude for the Government’s co-operation on this point, but for present purposes I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 420A withdrawn.

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We cannot continue with a framework in which highly experienced senior officers are pushed out not because they failed the public but because the governance framework leaves them vulnerable to political whim. This is not about shielding chief constables from accountability; it is about ensuring that accountability sits within a framework that protects the public interest and respects the line between governance and operational control. If we get this wrong, we will continue to lose good leaders and further erode the independence that is so essential to policing by consent. I beg to move.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said, if ever there was a pertinent time to debate this matter, it is now. The mechanism by which chief constables can be removed has faced significant scrutiny, given the very controversial actions taken by West Midlands Police in the Maccabi Tel Aviv scandal. I pay tribute to my honourable friend Nick Timothy MP for his tenacity in pursuing the truth of that matter. I think it is now axiomatic that the former chief constable of West Midlands Police failed in his professional duties, and it is welcome that he has now accepted that his position is no longer tenable and has announced his retirement. It is against this backdrop that we discuss the amendments in this group.

On Amendment 421, I am of course aware of the Government’s indication that they will abolish PCCs in due course; that is important context to this amendment. For the time being, of course, they remain in place. I am not entirely convinced about the necessity of Amendment 421. With the Maccabi Tel Aviv affair, it was evident for quite some time that the PCC for the West Midlands should have dismissed the chief constable. As it happens, he did not, but I am not sure that consulting His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services beforehand would have had any bearing on the PCC’s decision. Furthermore, if the PCC was required by statute to consult the inspectorate, would that not have provided further delays to any decision?

Amendment 438EC seeks to grant the Home Secretary the power to remove chief constables. In her Statement to the other place on the 14 January, the Home Secretary said that until 2011, the Home Secretary had the authority to dismiss a chief constable, but the power was removed by the previous Conservative Government. On the face of it, that is correct. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 repealed the direct power of the Home Secretary to remove the chief constable of a police force, and Section 38 of that Act grants the power of dismissal to the PCC of the police area. However, the Home Secretary has the power to give directions in relation to police forces and local policing bodies under Sections 40 and 40A of the Police Act 1996. If, for instance, it was clear that West Midlands Police was failing to discharge its functions in an effective manner, the appropriate measure to remedy that failure would have been the removal of the chief constable. Therefore, according to those sections, the Secretary of State has perhaps an indirect ability to remove chief constables.

In her Statement to the other place, the Home Secretary also said that the Government are going to reintroduce the Home Secretary’s power to dismiss chief constables and that this will be part of the Government’s upcoming White Paper on wider police reform, with legislation to follow. Does the Minister have a timeline for when the police reform White Paper might be published, and, if he does not have precise date, can he give us an indication of its rough progress? Will any change in the law be brought forward in time for Report on this Bill, or will we have to wait until the next Session for another policing Bill?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her amendment, which concerns the process by which police and crime commissioners may call on a chief constable to resign or retire. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, has mentioned, the Government’s intention is to replace police and crime commissioners with a mayoral model or, in some cases in which the mayoral model is inappropriate, with a policing board made up of local councillors, and that will be brought forward in due course. Further details will be set out again in the policing White Paper. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, asked me when that would be produced. I say again to him the time-honoured phrase of “shortly”, but by shortly I do mean shortly; I hope he will not have too long to wait for the report be published as a White Paper. Self-evidently, it is a very complex document with lots of discussion items in it. Again, any legislative proposals in it will be brought forward when parliamentary time allows. I am not trying to short-change him, but we will give that detail in the near future.

As the noble Baroness has explained, the purpose of her amendment is to ensure that, before taking steps to dismiss a chief constable, a police and crime commissioner must first seek the views of HMICFRS. I agree that this is a desirable approach, and I am pleased to tell your Lordships that this is already in place as a requirement. The noble Baroness should know, and I hope that it is helpful to her, that under Section 38(3) of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, PCCs may call upon the relevant chief constable to resign or retire. Before exercising this power, and under regulation 11A of the Police Regulations 2003, police and crime commissioners are required to seek the views of HM inspectorate in writing and provide them to the chief constable and the relevant police and crime panel, alongside their rationale for why the PCC is proposing to call for retirement or resignation. I appreciate that it is a confusing landscape to have regulations under the Act and under police regulations. However, the position currently is there in black and white, and what her amendment seeks to do is already enshrined in law.

The noble Lord, Lord Walney, is not in his place so I will not say too much now, if anything, about Amendment 438EC. However, because it was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, I want to place on record for the Committee the fact that the Home Secretary has already announced the Government’s intention to reintroduce the Home Secretary’s power to remove chief constables. It has been a difficult few weeks in the West Midlands and, following the changes that were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, it has highlighted the absence of such a power allowing the Home Secretary to act. We believe that action is needed, and I can assure your Lordships that this is high on the Government’s agenda. The White Paper is due in very short order. It will set out exactly the Government’s intentions in this regard and will be followed by legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows, because we need to make changes on a range of matters, not least the abolition of PCCs. I look forward to debating this with noble Lords across the House. However, if the noble Baroness accepts that, difficult though they are to find, the regulations and the requirement are there, I hope she will be able to withdraw her amendment for the moment. I look forward to further discussion when the other matters come before the House at some future point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, these three amendments raise a difficult but important question: how should the law treat the use of lethal force by authorised firearms officers so as to protect both the public and those officers who act in good faith in dangerous situations?

Amendment 422 would make it clear in the Police (Conduct) Regulations that when an officer uses force based on a mistaken belief, that belief must be both honestly held and objectively reasonable. This reflects the Supreme Court’s decision in W80 and would give bereaved families, and communities that often feel over-policed, greater clarity and confidence in the system.

Amendment 423A would update Section 76 of the 2008 Act so that force used by an authorised firearms officer could never be treated as reasonable if it was grossly disproportionate to the situation as they saw it. That would set a clear upper limit on what can count as lawful force, drawing a boundary beyond which self-defence cannot reach, however real the threat appears.

From these Benches, we understand the intentions behind both amendments: the first writes the W80 test into disciplinary rules; the second provides clearer statutory guidance in firearms cases.

Amendment 423 goes further. It proposes that if an authorised firearms officer kills someone while acting under an honest but mistaken belief that the force used was necessary and reasonable, the conviction should be manslaughter rather than murder. We are concerned that this would, in effect, create a special route from murder to manslaughter for authorised firearms officers, one not available to others who also face life-and-death decisions.

When police use potentially unlawful lethal force, there must be full investigation, prosecution where appropriate, and robust disciplinary proceedings. The central question, then, is whether these amendments strike the right balance between public accountability and fair protection for officers who must make split-second decisions in life-threatening situations.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 422 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has had a detailed introduction, and I would like to abbreviate my remarks as a result.

The issue under consideration in that case was whether, in police disciplinary proceedings, a police officer could have a finding of misconduct against them if their use of force was found to be honest and mistaken but unreasonable. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that the appropriate test was the civil law test and that an honest but mistaken belief that the use of force is necessary is justification for that use of force only if the belief is objectively reasonable.

Amendment 422 would place that judgment into statute. Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the Supreme Court’s ruling on whether the criminal or civil test should be applicable, I am not convinced that it needs to be codified into statute, because there now exists relevant case law at the highest level which can be applied by the IOPC and the courts in the future. It is not clear to me what benefit there would be in placing this into the regulations.

I would like to concentrate my remarks on Amendment 423 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, because I want to express my strong support for it. I believe firmly that we must support our armed police officers who regularly put themselves in danger. This amendment presents an opportunity to do that. It would create a defence to a charge of murder for authorised firearms officers who used lethal force in the honest but mistaken belief that such force was necessary and reasonable and convert a conviction for murder into manslaughter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

The point I was making is that the prospect of a murder conviction may have an effect on an officer if they feared that an error that they made may result in a murder charge. On the noble Lord’s own amendment, as I said, I listened with sympathy to it, and I await the Government’s response on it and, indeed, all the amendments in this group.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard during this short but important debate, these amendments all relate to the same matter of principle—namely, the legal standard by which an authorised firearms officer should be judged on the thankfully rare occasions when they discharge a firearm.

The Government pay tribute to our armed officers. Theirs is a difficult, dangerous and stressful job. They do it to keep us all safe, and we have a great deal for which to thank them. Of course we recognise that they often find themselves in exceptionally difficult circumstances, having to make life and death decisions in an instant. That said, there is the matter of public confidence in the police. I do not think that any of your Lordships would disagree that confidence in the police is of equal importance. I would not be doing justice to this debate if I did not recognise and mark the fact that some of our citizens feel great anxiety about the accountability of firearms officers. In the past, when there have been high-profile fatal shootings by the police, this anxiety has boiled over into anger and social unrest.

The Government’s job is to balance these factors. We must ensure that the law offers protection to our brave police officers while at the same time providing reassurance to our fellow citizens that, if officers do fire their weapons, their conduct will be rigorously scrutinised. It is only right that the public should have confidence that any officer whose actions fall below the high standards we rightly expect will be held to account in the public interest.

Our conclusion is that we should not create a two-tier justice system where police officers who kill or injure in the course of their duties are judged by a more lenient standard than applies to the rest of the population. Our reason is this: we are confident that the criminal law which covers self-defence, defence of others and the use of force in the prevention of crime already provides sufficient protection for police officers. Because of the lateness of the hour, I am not going to go through the details of this, which I had intended to do, but will move straight to the amendments.

Amendment 423, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, would change the law so that an authorised firearms officer who acts with disproportionate—in other words, unreasonable—force would still be guilty of an offence, but it would be manslaughter, not murder.

I want to say a few words about what the law says about how a jury must consider whether the amount of force used by the officer was reasonable, sometimes described as proportionate. While this is an objective test, if the jury is told that what the officer did in the heat of the moment, when fine judgments are difficult, was no more than they genuinely believed was necessary, even if they were mistaken in that belief, that would be strong evidence that what they did was reasonable. If the jury also considers that the officer may have done no more than was reasonable in the light of what they believed to be happening, they are not guilty of anything. In other words, the law provides a full defence.

It is unclear whether Amendment 423 is intended to replace this full defence with a partial one, or whether, as I think is the case, it is intended to work alongside it in some way. If the noble Lord’s intention is to create a partial defence, then what he is saying is that officers who use unreasonable or excessive force should be held to a different standard from the rest of the population. We cannot accept this because the Government believe that to do so would fundamentally damage confidence in the police and in the justice system.

I turn to Amendment 423A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, which seeks to amend Section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. As your Lordships have heard, Section 76 deals with householder cases. The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to make authorised firearms officers subject to the same standard as the householder confronted by an intruder. The amendment attempts to raise the threshold for when force becomes unreasonable from disproportionate to grossly disproportionate for firearms officers. In effect, this means that firearms officers could rely on the defences of self-defence, preventing crime or making a lawful arrest if they used force that was disproportionate in the circumstances, provided it was not grossly disproportionate.

For the reasons I have already given, the Government are of the strong belief that it would be wrong in principle to authorise the police to use excessive force and that this would be extremely damaging to public confidence. In any event, we do not think there is a proper comparison to be made between householders facing an unexpected intruder and trained firearms officers. The threshold was raised in householder cases to recognise the exceptional nature of being unexpectedly confronted by an intruder in one’s home. The unique stress and shock of a home invasion justifies greater legal protection, allowing a higher level of force than in other self-defence contexts. The same logic does not apply to firearms officers, who are trained and equipped to use lethal force and are deployed only in the most high-risk situations. They are subject to strict command, control and training protocols to ensure that lethal force is used only when necessary and in accordance with the current legal framework.

I turn finally to Amendment 422, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. As the noble Baroness has explained during the debate, her amendment deals not with criminal trials but with police conduct hearings. The previous Home Secretary commissioned Timothy Godwin and Sir Adrian Fulford to carry out an independent police accountability rapid review because it was recognised that there was ongoing complexity and confusion, and that there were concerns that this was having an impact on recruitment and retention of these essential and much valued officers. Sir Adrian and Mr Godwin examined the matter thoroughly and heard evidence from a wide range of stakeholders. Their conclusions and recommendations, published in October 2025, were clear that the Government should change the legal test for use of force in police misconduct cases from the civil to the criminal law test.

The reviewers found that police officers need confidence and greater consistency in the disciplinary system and that this would improve fairness and public confidence. The Government have taken on board that recommendation and we are in the process of making the necessary changes to The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020. Our intention is that these changes will come into force in the spring. We accept that the amendment is well intended, but I hope that the noble Baroness will understand why the Government cannot support it and, for the reasons I have given, I invite her to withdraw her amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a short debate. I agree with many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. I find it almost extraordinary that misconduct investigations linger on for so long; it really is a disgrace for everybody involved. Police professional standards departments have for too long been seen as something of a Cinderella function within forces, chronically underprioritised, underfunded and understaffed, and now they are buckling under the surge in the volume of complaints. This is combined with a narrowing of the remit of the IOPC, which increasingly takes on only the most serious and high-profile cases, resulting in a growing backlog and indefinite drift.

Amendment 422A confronts this head on. Such independent legal oversight could act as a checkpoint, strengthening individual case oversights and extracting timely lessons from failures. Criminal investigations would stay exempt, protecting the pursuit of serious crime.

There are risks in setting time targets for investigations—there is no question about that—not least the incentive for officers to delay co-operation if the clock is ticking. We have concerns that a rigid cap could risk corner-cutting on complex investigations. At the very least, stronger guidance on the expected length of inquiries is now required, as well as real scrutiny when these expectations are missed.

There also needs to be a much sharper focus on leadership and case management. Complainants should not face long waits, especially knowing time will diminish the strength of their evidence; neither should innocent officers endure years in limbo, with their careers stalled and well-being eroded. Taxpayers should not bear the rising cost of suspensions while losing front-line capacity at the same time.

Amendment 422A would restore some balance by prioritising fairness to officers, closure for victims and credibility for policing. We are happy to support it, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington for tabling his Amendment 422A and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for ably stepping into the breach to allow it to be debated. It is a very important matter and I am glad we have had a chance to debate it.

I am very sympathetic to the amendment’s goals. It aims to set a 12-month time limit for misconduct and gross misconduct investigations within police forces. As others have said, timely legal restitution is the only way that justice is effectively served. That applies both to those in the police who are under investigation and, obviously, to victims who are let down by delays that are needlessly, but often, the result of administrative workload. Applying a strict deadline for remedies, excepted under only extraordinary circumstances, is an easy way by which institutions can be encouraged to proceed with investigations in a timely fashion.

That said, I am a little wary of fully endorsing a blanket time limit on police forces for investigations. Although in some cases, perhaps even most, misconduct investigations can and should be sped up, it would be heedless to assume that all forces are simply being inefficient in the time that investigations take. There is a vast disparity between forces’ capacity to deal with their primary function of investigating crime, let alone with administrative internal matters, such as misconduct matters. Certain forces’ ability to spare the resources to source, for instance, legally qualified adjudicators should not, therefore, be assumed. Officer numbers are down, crime is up, and we should be careful about placing additional requirements on police forces that expedited conduct investigations might entail.

Of course, we support the aim of increasing efficiency and ensuring justice is delivered. I thank my noble friend for his amendment and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

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

I am grateful to the Committee, and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for moving the amendment. To be fair to the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, he stayed here very late—until the end—on the previous day on this. I am sorry that he is not able to be in his place today. He was here to move the amendment when we pulled stumps on Tuesday night at gone 11 pm.

Having said that, the noble Lord’s amendment seeks to introduce a new system of independent legal adjudicators with powers to close down investigations. I think I can agree with the noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that delays in investigations are in nobody’s interests—of police officers who subsequently are proved innocent, of victims, or of speedy justice for those who have strayed and committed potential offences. Lengthy delays risk impacting the confidence of complainants and the welfare of the police officers involved.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for tabling these amendments and I thank her and many others in the Committee who have given cogent and compelling arguments for their inclusion in the Bill.

It does indeed feel like the dial is starting to shift with regard to the protection of our children from online harms. I am very pleased, for instance, that your Lordships’ House supported my noble friend Lord Nash’s amendment last week in voting to ban under-16s from social media. The amendments before us today are in many ways an extension of that argument—that social media is not appropriate for children, it is causing irreparable harm and, in the most severe cases, as we have heard today, is leading to death. As the father of teenage children who, like so many other children, face a world of online temptation, pressure and influence, these issues are very personal. There is a lot to be said for creating further duties when there is the death of a child.

As has been said, the issue was in live consideration in the previous Government’s legislation, which included a clause that created a data preservation process. I am aware that the text of Amendment 474 is different, but the fundamental issue is the same: at their heart, these amendments contain the simple objective to ensure that coroners can access the social media data or the wider online activity of a deceased child where the death is suspected to be linked to that activity. In that scenario, it is plainly sensible to ensure that that data is not destroyed, so that coroners can access it for the purposes of investigations.

I have nothing further to add, given what has already been said. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will all agree that we have a great deal for which to be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and her work in relation to the online space and its regulation when it comes to our most vulnerable citizens. It is so obvious that all child deaths are harrowing and deeply distressing for bereaved families that to say so seems almost trite. However that may be, I start my remarks by acknowledging this to make the point that the Government have this both front and centre. Anything I say this afternoon should be seen in that context.

I pay tribute to every brave family who fought to understand the circumstances that led to the death of their own child. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for telling me that some of the families are in the Gallery; I have not had an opportunity to meet them yet, but I extend the invitation to do so now. I also understand that for most, if not all, of them, this is not just about the circumstances of their own child’s death but about trying to ensure that this does not happen to other families.

We know that the data preservation provisions in Section 101 of the Online Safety Act continue to be a focus, both for bereaved families and parliamentarians who do not think that the process is quick enough to stop services deleting relevant data as part of their normal business practices. We agree that it is a proper and urgent objective to make sure that Ofcom has the powers to require, retain and provide information.

Section 101 was originally introduced following the campaign and amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, during the Bill’s passage through Parliament. In order to support both coroners and services, in September, both the Chief Coroner and Ofcom published guidance on this new provision. Ofcom consulted on the draft guidance in parallel and published its finalised guidance in December 2025. The Chief Coroner’s guidance encourages coroners to consider requesting a data preservation notice early in the investigation if the relevance of social media or another in-scope service cannot be ruled out. This should safeguard against automatic deletion of the data by service providers due to routine processes.

The Government brought forward the commencement of data preservation notices, which came into force on 30 September 2025. Since then, Ofcom has issued at least 12 data preservation notices. On 15 December 2025, the guidance for Ofcom was updated in relation to information-gathering powers, including new guidance on data preservation notices themselves. The Government are therefore working closely with Ofcom and the Office of the Chief Coroner to understand how effectively these are working in practice, but we have heard the concerns about the speed and efficiency of this process.

Against this background, I begin with Amendments 438ED and 438EE. The police themselves accept that there should be better guidance for the application of powers to preserve and access digital evidence in investigations of child deaths in order to ensure consistency across forces. Forgive me, I have a bad cough.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the explanation given of the Government’s amendments.

We recognise the principle that underpins Amendments 440 and 445 tabled by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. Youth diversion orders are intended not simply to punish but to steer young people away from future offending and towards constructive participation in society. The idea that citizen education might play a role in that process is an interesting one. However, we feel that a number of practical and conceptual questions arise from those amendments.

First is the issue of delivery. Citizenship education of the kind envisaged here would require properly trained providers, appropriate materials, sufficient time, et cetera, to have any meaningful impact, and we should be cautious about placing new statutory requirements on the Secretary of State without a clear sense of how they would work on the ground or whether they would be consistently available across different areas.

Secondly, the amendment sets out a detailed definition of British values—or, as the amendment would have it, “values of British citizenship”—built around five specified pillars further defined within the amendment. The noble and right reverend Lord mentioned the Prevent strategy of 2011, which set out four basic values, as a matter of government policy rather than in legislation. I think we all recognise the importance of democracy, the rule of law, freedom and equal respect, but it is fair to ask whether we should enshrine those in legislation and, further, whether this is the right place to attempt such a definition, particularly in the context of youth diversion. Plainly, there may be disagreements about what might be included, as we have heard, how these concepts should be framed and whether a fixed statutory list risks being either too narrow or too prescriptive.

More broadly, we should also consider whether youth diversion orders are the most appropriate vehicle for this kind of civic education or whether those objectives are better pursued through schools, families or community-based interventions that can engage young people in a more sustained and holistic way. But I thank the noble and right reverend Lord for the arguments he made, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reflections on the amendments.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, with his Amendments 440 and 445 has commenced a wider debate on the provisions of youth diversion orders. Through the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we have had a wider discussion about the purpose of these orders, a point also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey.

The requirements that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has tried to seek for the Committee to add would require, as part of the youth diversion order, the Secretary of State to design a package of citizenship education that can be imposed on a mandatory basis. I recognise that there is a positive intention in that, and I do not mean to argue against that positive intention, but I point the Committee to Clause 169(1)(a) and (b). There is no exhaustive list of requirements and restrictions that can be imposed through the youth diversion order. Clause 169(1)(b) says a youth diversion order may

“require the respondent to do anything described in the order”.

So the order can include a range of measures. Although later on there is a list of potential activities under Clause 169(3), it is also intended that the order is flexible so that the court can impose any requirement or restriction that is considered necessary for mitigating a risk of terrorism or serious harm. There is no restriction on imposing any type of educational requirements on a respondent, provided that they are necessary and proportionate for mitigating the risk.

I come back to the purpose of the order, which is to look at individuals who are not yet at a significantly high threshold to look at how, with police and youth justice services, we can offer interventions on a voluntary basis rather than potentially also as a mandatory requirement. I understand the intention of the amendments, but, again, I take what the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, has mentioned: there is no definition of the element that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, is trying to bring into play.

I argue that a youth diversion order seeks to reduce terrorist risk and actively diverts respondents away from further contact with the criminal justice system but is not as specific or restrictive as the noble and right reverend Lord seeks in his amendment. Police and youth justice services may seek to provide supportive interventions on a voluntary basis, and that could include education. It may well include some wider education about the importance of Britishness or personal development programmes. However, as I have said, supportive interventions may also be imposed on a mandatory basis if the court agrees that is necessary for the purposes of protecting the public. That could be, for example, mandating to attend appointments such as those offered through Prevent, including ideological or practical mentoring. The point that I come back to with the noble and right reverend Lord’s amendments is that they would add a level of prescription that I would not wish to see in relation to the potential court’s activity.

A number of noble Lords asked whether the Government intend to pilot youth diversion orders. The answer is no, not at this moment. If the Bill receives Royal Assent, we will look at having it as an order that is available to the courts and would have the sole purpose, under Clause 169, of prohibiting the respondent from doing anything described in the order or requiring them to do anything described in the order. That could include the very points that the noble and right reverend Lord has brought forward, but I do not wish to restrict the process by being too prescriptive in Clause 169.

With those comments, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name. I ask the noble and right reverend Lord to reflect on the points that I have made and, I hope, not move his amendment.

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[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for her intervention. That would, or could, remove my concern about the amendment about the glorification of past terrorist acts that may subsequently be seen as justified. I will certainly look at any modified amendment that the noble Baroness brings forward. Because I so strongly support everything that she and others have said in support of the spirit of Amendment 450, I would wish to support an amendment that dealt with those possibilities.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a vigorous and wide-ranging debate, dealing with very difficult questions. I thank my noble friend Lord Hailsham for his amendments. Regretfully and unfortunately, I have to disappoint him by stating that I cannot support them because I believe they would significantly weaken the effectiveness of our counterterrorism legislative framework at a time when the threat we face is persistent and evolving. In the words of my noble friend Lord Goodman, there is a darkening context.

The amendments would insert an intent requirement, where Parliament has deliberately chosen not to do so. Sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 created offences that were crafted to disrupt terrorism at an early stage to prevent radicalisation and normalisation, and to give practical assistance long before violence is carried out. That preventive purpose would be undermined if the prosecution were required, in every case, to prove a specific intent to encourage or to enable a terrorist act.

It is also important to be clear that the current law already contains safeguards, especially in the court process. Prosecutorial discretion, a public interest test and judicial oversight all ensure that these offences are not applied casually or indiscriminately. I entirely accept the point from the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, that these must be applied consistently. The suggestion that individuals are routinely prosecuted and tried without regard to context or fairness is not borne out.

On a different note, I support Amendment 450 from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. The glorification of terrorism, in all cases, is abhorrent. We have seen such glorification, from certain quarters, of the IRA and Hamas, which serves only to normalise such atrocities. I simply cannot add to the power of the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, and indeed by other noble Lords who spoke in favour of her amendment, which I simply cannot add more to, except to say that I support it and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, beginning with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

Proscription is one of the most powerful counterterrorism tools that we have. The UK’s proscription regime was established through the Terrorism Act 2000, which noble Lords are aware of, and there is a statutory process for it. Under that Act, the Home Secretary may proscribe an organisation if she believes it is concerned with terrorism. An organisation may be concerned with terrorism if it commits or participates in acts of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism, or is otherwise concerned in terrorism. Decisions to proscribe an organisation are not taken on a whim; they are taken on advice from the security services and significant intervention from Home Office officials to examine the case. They are not taken lightly. They are ideologically neutral. They judge an organisation on its actions and the actions it is willing to deploy in pursuit of its cause.

I say neutrally that Palestine Action was deemed to be over the threshold of the 2000 Act and, on advice to the Home Secretary, to be an organisation concerned with terrorism. Once an organisation is proscribed—this House and the House of Commons overwhelmingly supported that proscription—it is an offence to be a member of it, to invite support for it, to make supportive statements, to encourage others to join or support it, to arrange or address meetings to support it in furthering its activities, and to display, carry or wear articles in a way that would arouse suspicion that one is a member or supporter of it.

Amendments 447 and 448 from the noble Viscount would apply to the offences concerning support and the display of articles under Sections 12 and 13. For the same reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, has given, these amendments would ultimately limit these important offences in such a way that they would become largely unusable in practice. I do not believe that that is his intention, but that would be the practical outcome. In relation to the offence of inviting support, it is already established that the offence requires a knowing, deliberate invitation to support. The changes proposed in the amendment would mean an additional burden for the prosecution to overcome.

I have heard comments, including from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that belief in or support for Palestine Action should not cross that threshold. Amendment 447 would import a further mental element, requiring intention. That goes to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that it is at odds with the requirement to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a person intended to encourage, incite, facilitate or otherwise an act of terrorism. To provide a defence similar to the effect for the prosecution to disprove would again undermine the core element of the offence.

Section 13 is currently a strict liability offence, meaning that there is no requirement to evidence the intent behind the conduct, again as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, mentioned. It is important that we say to the Committee that free speech is important. The right to criticise the State of Israel and to support Palestine is important. It is also quite right that, if people wish to say that they do not wish to see Palestine Action proscribed, that is also within the legal framework. It is a matter for the police, who are operationally independent, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts to decide whether a crime has been committed. In particular, the CPS will want to consider, in charging an individual as opposed to arresting them, whether the prosecution is in line with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which is a vital safeguard that prevents prosecutions from going ahead which are not in the public interest.

I have previously defended in this House the proscription of Palestine Action. The decision was not taken lightly. The police and the CPS have independent action, but I suggest that the noble Viscount’s amendment would, for the reasons mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, undermine the purpose of that. I say to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, that those actions have been taken for a purpose. The threshold has been crossed and I suspect that, for those concerned with Palestine Action, more information will come to light as potential future prosecutions continue, which I think will show why those decisions were taken. We have a court case ongoing at the moment. I put that to one side, but that is my defence in relation to the noble Viscount’s proposals.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, used the phrase “getting proscription right”. He is absolutely right. I support both amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, was correct in saying that we have to have in respect of Amendment 449 more independent parliamentary scrutiny, and that goes for Amendment 454 as well. The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, was right to say that we are looking for checks and balances. These amendments are concerned with democracy, with Parliament having a say and the opportunity to consider government proposals.

Amendment 449, which was economically and persuasively moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is plainly sensible. Involving the ISC and for the Government to give reasons to the ISC before proscribing an organisation would increase the confidence of Parliament—all sides of both Houses—in the Government’s decision. As everyone has said, proscribing is a serious and important decision on a matter of great significance for the rights of the individual, the rights of groups and the public at large. I suggest that it would not just increase the confidence of Parliament to have ISC involvement; it would also increase the confidence of the public in these decisions.

The ISC is, of course, independent, parliamentary—it involves Members of both Houses—and cross-party. That seems to me, and I suggest is, an important reason in favour of ISC being involved. It is entirely consonant with the Minister’s assurance on the last group that the Government act on the advice of the security services in making decisions on proscription. That is as it should be—we would expect them to act on advice—but to involve the confidential parliamentary committee in that process can only improve the procedure.

I refer to another point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. We should always be aware of the dangers of an overmighty Executive not being as reasonable with their opponents and with others as we are used to expect. Things may change. Looking across the water at the United States, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, did, shows us that respect for democratic independence and procedures is fairly shallow and has to be protected. We should not be complacent about the possible dangers, and I suggest that this is a way of showing that lack of complacency. For the reasons of an added layer of democracy and added independence, the involvement of the ISC would add to our national security and not detract from it.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, when she said that there could be no reasonable opposition to Amendment 454. The idea that orders should be able to relate not to a single organisation but to multiple organisations is simply absurd. Palestine Action was proscribed alongside two other organisations. One was the Maniacs Murder Cult, a “white supremacist, neo-Nazi organisation”—I am using the Government’s description. It had claimed a number of violent attacks globally; it supplied, and supplies, instructional materials explaining to followers, mostly online, how to conduct terrorist attacks.

The other organisation was Russian Imperial Movement, another white supremacist organisation, described by the Government as “ethno-nationalist”, with the aim of creating a new Russian imperial state. That may sound eccentric, but it runs a paramilitary organisation called Partizan, which increases its adherents’ capacity for terrorist attacks. Indeed, two Swedish nationals attended Partizan in 2016 before committing a series of bombings in Gothenburg, Sweden, with devastating results.

The idea that Parliament—this House and, more importantly, the other place—should be given no choice but to approve or to deny proscription of all is, frankly, an insult to Parliament. MPs and Peers were given no choice but to approve or deny proscription of all. I know that MPs on the Liberal Democrat Benches were deeply offended by that denial of choice. It is illogical, undemocratic and unfair. It demeans Parliament not to allow individual MPs to exercise a fair choice over whether to proscribe a particular organisation. These decisions need to be taken individually and on their own merits, having regard to the arguments for and against proscription of each organisation concerned as it arises. The procedure for that would be simple, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, explained. It should not be a job lot put before Parliament as an executive decision, with no choice given to Parliament except the choice to endorse the job lot or not.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a short but very interesting debate. Amendments 449 and 454 concern the important and sensitive process by which organisations are proscribed under the 2000 Act.

Amendment 449 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hailsham raises a legitimate question about parliamentary involvement and scrutiny in the proscription process. As we have heard, the ISC has deep expertise, access to classified material and a well-established role in scrutinising national security matters. There is therefore an understandable attraction in ensuring that it has sight of and can report on the reasons for a proposed proscription before an order is made, except in cases of genuine urgency.

It may be, though, that the ISC would be receiving the same advice on issues of proscription from the same organisations, be they the police or the security services, as the Government, so there might be an issue of duplication. It is also important to recognise that proscription decisions often need to be taken swiftly in response to fast-moving threats. The Executive have to retain the operational flexibility to act decisively to protect public safety. I accept that the amendment recognises this through its “urgency” exception, but we need to consider very carefully where the balance should lie between enhanced parliamentary scrutiny and the need for speed and discretion in matters of national security. I genuinely look forward to hearing the Minister’s view on whether the existing framework already strikes the right balance. If there is scope for a greater formal role for the ISC, that cannot impede operational effectiveness.

Amendment 454, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, addresses another important aspect of the proscription regime. As we have heard, it would require each proscription order to relate to a single organisation only. It seeks to strengthen parliamentary scrutiny and accountability. I can understand the argument presented, as usual, so eloquently by the noble Baroness, but I also recognise that these are ultimately matters for the Executive and not the legislature. I await with anticipation the views of the Minister on both amendments.

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

I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, for tabling Amendment 449 and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti for tabling Amendment 454. I will try to answer the points raised on both those amendments.

The amendment from the noble Viscount would require engagement with the Intelligence and Security Committee in advance of proscription orders being made. As somebody who served on the Intelligence and Security Committee for five years, I know that it is a trustworthy vehicle which does not leak, and which deals with security service issues from both Houses in a responsible manner. In the light of that, the noble Viscount will be aware that my right honourable friend the Security Minister, following the Palestine Action discussion we had, has written to the Intelligence and Security Committee and expressed his intention to write to the committee ahead of future proscription orders being laid in Parliament and, if the committee wishes it, to give a privileged briefing on the reasons why the proscription is being laid so that the committee can, in confidence, have that detailed information before it. I think that meets the objectives of the noble Viscount’s amendment.

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[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment. It offers a small change to an historic Act of Parliament, but it relates to the very lifeblood of modern society: the data on which we all depend. The UK is a crucial junction box, with 64 submarine cables; 75% of transatlantic capacity goes through just two cables, landing in Cornwall.

Clearly, this Act was designed for a very different time, and the penalties are not a deterrent and have not been fully updated, despite the Act having been updated in other ways. We have no hesitation in recognising the seriousness of undersea cable sabotage, as has been spoken to already. These incidents are increasing in the grey zone conflicts, and they can have serious consequences for our everyday ways of life.

The deterrents are not in place; this Act needs to be updated. This amendment addresses a real problem. The maximum term for wilfully damaging undersea cables would be up to 15 years, coupled with “to a fine at level 5”. That would send a stronger signal. It would align more clearly with legislation that is in place to govern other critical infrastructure—national infrastructure—including undersea energy and other critical things that we depend on.

We see this amendment as serving two purposes. The first is as a sensible tidying-up measure—an interim step, I guess—to remove an obvious anachronism from a still-operating statute. Secondly, it would serve notice that we await the more comprehensive regime that is also clearly required. We see this as an interim measure and an encouragement to the Government to bring forward a more comprehensive framework to deal with this problem.

I have more of my speech but, considering the time, I will leave it at that. We feel that this is just and proportionate. There are some issues about extraterritoriality and scope, but I will leave those for another time. Generally, the Government should accept this and view it as a stepping stone towards clarifying this area of law and making sure that we have the proper penalties and security for our vital infrastructure.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for tabling this amendment and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I also express my thanks for the diligent work of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. Its report into the vulnerabilities of our undersea cables is a brilliant piece of work and makes for sobering reading.

As the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said, these are perilous times and there never has been a more important time to consider the measure proposed, given that cables are the invisible backbone of much of our economy, security and everyday life. As we have heard, they carry the vast majority of international data traffic, underpin financial transactions, connect critical services and link the UK to our international partners.

The committee’s report underlined that while the UK has plenty of cable routes and good repair processes for what it phrased as “business-as-usual breakages”, there are distinct vulnerabilities particularly where multiple cables cluster, or connect to key landing stations, and in the links servicing our outlying islands. I represented the Highlands and Islands region in the Scottish Parliament for eight years or so, and that last point is very real to me on a personal level because these are not abstract concerns. They are very real. Damage to a cable connecting the Shetland Islands in 2022 disrupted mobile, landline and payment services for days.

As we have heard, despite these vulnerabilities, the legal framework has not kept pace with the security environment. The principal instrument remains the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885. The deterrent effect of criminal sanctions matters. As the committee observed, the UK cannot simply assume that hostile actors would refrain from targeting these cables in a future crisis, and the Government have to be prepared for the reality that hostile states or proxy actors may exploit these vulnerabilities deliberately.

In conclusion, I add that increasing penalties is certainly not the only measure the Government should be taking. The threats we face are far more wide ranging than simple criminality. There is a need for a whole of government approach to protecting critical infrastructure such as submarine telecommunications—that would involve the MoD, DBT, DESNZ and the Home Office. But this amendment is a start, and I hope that the Minister will listen and take action.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government take the security of our subsea cables extremely seriously. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for raising this issue. It is crucially important and right that it is debated and achieves the attention it deserves.

As the noble Baroness said, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy recently conducted a public inquiry into the security of the UK’s subsea cables, and it shone a spotlight on this issue. Following that inquiry, in November 2025 the Government formally committed to increasing penalties for those who damage subsea cables where the activity cannot be linked to a hostile state. As the noble Baroness rightly says, where it can be linked to a hostile state, a life sentence is available through the National Security Act.

I hope that the noble Baroness, for whom I have a great deal of respect, will understand why the Government are not able to support her amendment today. I am sure she will readily agree that penalties are not the only issue here. It is essential that any strengthening of the law is done carefully and not piecemeal, with full consideration for our fishing and wider maritime sectors. Any potential changes would need to be proportionate and workable for those sectors, and that requires proper consultation.

One further aspect about the non-criminal elements of this that may reassure your Lordships’ Committee is that cable breaks happen regularly in UK waters, given the busy nature of our shallow seas. But the UK’s international connectivity is highly resilient, and we have a well-developed system of civil litigation that ensures that cable owners are reimbursed when a break occurs. I hope that, for all these reasons, the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.