Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I do not want to prolong this, but the purpose of this amendment is not to regulate the speed of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, on his field. The concern is e-bike riders on pavements, and I suggest that the answer is to ensure that people cannot ride more than a specified speed on the pavements, if at all. Of course, they are not allowed to ride on the pavement at all, so they should not be doing so. The point, surely, is that if there is a specified speed limit, it is already a criminal offence to conspire to provide a battery for the specific purpose of enabling e-bike riders to break the speed limit.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, we have heard some jolly clever speeches. It seems to me that the general point of this group of amendments, and indeed the previous one, is to bring this matter of great public concern to the attention of the Government during this debate. We are not now, this afternoon, looking for statutory perfection; we are looking for the Government to pay attention, and every one of us, be it my noble friend Lord Goschen walking here, or my noble friend Lord Hailsham riding at a reasonable speed from King’s Cross to this place, has our own experiences and anecdotal stories to inform the House and this debate.

I really do not think we need to get stuck in the weeds; we just need to get the Government to be a little braver. Yes, they should read out the departmental notes they have in front of them, but they should also realise that this is a matter of real and pressing public concern. The use of e-cycles by drug dealers and others, who wear the stolen uniforms of respectable companies to deliver drugs here, there and everywhere, with no lights on their bikes, wearing balaclavas and dark clothing, at night, placing themselves and other road users in danger, is a matter of deep concern. That is what we need to get across to the Government, and I hope they will take the general point on board, even if they disapprove of the niceties of the amendments tabled by my noble friends Lord Shinkwin and Lord Blencathra.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, as we discussed earlier, we have seen a huge rise in fast food and other deliveries by e-bikes and e-scooters across our cities, and of course internationally too. The whole model for these deliveries is based on time— carrying out as many deliveries as possible in as short a time as possible. This constant pressure can lead to riders taking risks that endanger not only themselves but other road users and pedestrians. These risks include installing bigger batteries.

This group of amendments is timely and of the moment, given the rise in these bikes and scooters. However, kits are increasingly being bought online that are used to adapt regular cycles into e-cycles. These are causing not only serious safety issues on our streets but fire safety issues, as we have already heard. Therefore, the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, look to tackle both the fire and road safety issues associated with non-compliant lithium-ion batteries. It does feel like there is a loophole in the law whereby unsafe batteries are being sold in the UK and are having a devastating effect. These are important issues, and I hope we hear some clear progress in this area from the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

In all the time that I have been arguing for this kind of abuse by psychotherapists or counsellors to be a criminal offence, no one has ever argued that it should not be so, nor that the offence should not be modelled on the Section 76 offence. The time has come to legislate. This kind of abuse by people in a position of trust who cynically set out to ruin the lives of those who trust them, by using falsehood in the guise of therapy to abuse that trust for their own gain, should now be held accountable for what must be seen for what it is: criminal behaviour. I beg to move.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, the wording and effect of Amendment 347, which I co-signed, are self-explanatory, but, if the amendment needed any further elaboration, the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, has just provided it. I cannot improve on what he said, but now is the moment when Parliament must, after several earlier attempts by the noble Lord and me to legislate, outlaw the quack counsellors who predate on vulnerable people through controlling or coercive behaviour in order to provide some sort of protection to their victims or intended victims.

I have been concerned about these quacks and tried without success to get previous Governments to legislate for some years. More than 10 years ago, I started work with Sir Oliver Letwin, then the Cabinet Office Minister in the Government of our noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, and Tom Sackville, a former Home Office Minister, as well as parliamentary counsel and Ministry of Justice officials, with the support and encouragement of my noble friend Lord Cameron, the then Prime Minister, who had a constituency interest in the matter. I spoke about those quacks on Report on the Modern Slavery Bill in November 2014 and the Serious Crime Bill in February 2015 in the other place, in your Lordships’ House on 2 March 2020 in the debate on the unregulated treatment of mental health, and then again on 2 February 2021, with the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, on the Domestic Abuse Bill. Now, thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, we have another opportunity to make real progress rather than having a general discussion without resolution.

We have laws to protect children and those under a mental incapacity through intellectual impairment, disability or the effects of old age. We can prosecute those who dishonestly take old and frail people’s money, but we leave unprotected adults who may succumb to pressure exerted on them by others with malevolent intent, because their exploitative activities currently do not come within the criminal law.

For over a decade, I have had in mind the young adult women whose experiences were brought to my attention by their parents and families. In essence, they had been brainwashed or suborned by quack counsellors. They persuaded these young people to break off all contact with their families, infected them with false memories and got them to pay fees for the so-called counselling. Some of those young women were well off and suggestible, but all of them, for no apparent reason, broke off all contact with their families.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I successfully acted in a libel action for Associated Newspapers, the publishers of the Daily Mail, who had exposed the activities of the Unification Church, commonly known as the Moonies, in brainwashing young adults and breaking up families for nefarious financial, political and bogus religious reasons. What the quacks I have in mind are doing is hideously reminiscent of the Moonies’ activities exposed by the Daily Mail over 45 years ago.

As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has just reminded us, France, Belgium and Luxembourg have laws to criminalise the behaviour of predatory charlatans who exploit others in a state of emotional or psychological weakness for financial or other gain. As he also reminded us, other countries require genuine counsellors to be registered as counsellors. It must be assumed that their laws do not conflict with the articles of the ECHR that protect the right to private life and family life, the right to freedom of expression and association and the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

To take the French example, in that jurisdiction it is an offence punishable by imprisonment and heavy fines to abuse the ignorance or state of weakness of a minor or of a person whose particular vulnerability due to age, sickness or infirmity due to a psychological or physical disability or to pregnancy is apparent or known to the offender. It is also an offence to abuse a person in a state of physical or psychological dependency resulting from serious or repeated pressure, or from techniques used to affect his judgment in order to induce the minor or other person to act, or to abstain from acting, in a way seriously harmful to him—for “him”, also read “her”.

This amendment is clearly different but just as useful. One way of considering whether the proposed offence and defence in Amendment 347 would work is to ask oneself the following questions. Would the offence be prosecutable in theory and in practice? Could each of the elements of the offence be proved in a real-life example? Would the measure deal with the mischief that was identified, and would it catch no one else? I suggest that the answer to those questions is yes. How would it affect partners, husbands, wives, teachers, gurus, salesmen, priests and employers, all of whom are likely to have power and influence? It need not do so. Would it allow the mentally capable who want to give away their fortunes and leave their families to do so? Of course it would. Would it make sufficiently clear what was criminal behaviour and what was not? Would it comply with the European Convention on Human Rights? Yes, I suggest it would. What effect would it have on religious freedom or freedom of expression or association? In my view, it would have none. Is the proposed defence just and workable? Yes, it is. It would place the burden of disproving the defence on the prosecution.

The victims of these bogus therapists have been waiting far too long for Parliament to help them. The amendment, I suggest, is humane and practical and has nothing whatever to do with party politics or, as I have recently been asked, anything to do with youngsters or their parents caught in the maelstrom of the current transsexual controversies. If the laws of France, Belgium and Luxembourg can protect the people this amendment seeks to protect, the law of England can and ought to do so as well. We have, if I may say so, had enough of sophistry and feeble opposition based on a lack of courage, decency and drafting niceties. Too often we have heard it is the wrong day, it is the wrong Bill, this is the wrong way to approach this particular problem. Amendment 347 or something like it should be added to the Bill and I urge the Government to do that. If the Government will not do that, we must return to this on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, as well as to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, that the Government would be happy to consider evidence following today’s debate. I would certainly put that forward to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health, as part of that examination of regulation. That is a productive way forward, without many of the pitfalls I have tried to describe that might occur if the legislative route was accepted in the amendments proposed today.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I do not wish to criticise the Minister’s intentions and motives, but what he has just said is reminiscent of what I have heard on previous occasions from Ministers of my party and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, probably heard from Ministers in the Tony Blair Government back in 2001. We need to ratchet up the urgency here. Having further reviews is really a delightful departmental way of saying, “Not today, thanks, and possibly not even tomorrow”. We need to grip this. Calls for evidence are fine, so long as they are not calls for further delay or a “can’t be bothered” attitude. I know from my own knowledge of the Minister that he does not belong to the “can’t be bothered” department. If my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and others who agree with him on this amendment are to be persuaded that we are not just being brushed off then we need to see some real action. That could mean the Minister, or a Health Minister, agreeing to meet with us, with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who has some views about the drafting, and with other Members of this House to have a very serious round-table discussion early in the new year. Otherwise, this will dribble away as it did under the previous Government, and I know that the Minister does not want that to happen.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a case to be made that if, on several occasions, members of the Conservative Party have used the same argument in government, my noble friends in the Labour Party have used the same argument in previous Governments, and I myself use the same argument, then maybe that same argument has some validity. I put that to the noble and learned Lord.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

That is a logical fallacy.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hear what the noble and learned Lord says. I have tried to tell the Committee that the Department of Health and Social Care is taking forward a programme of reform to professional regulation and legislative frameworks for healthcare professionals. Responsibility for that lies with the Department of Health. On this Bill, I speak in response to the amendments on behalf of the Home Office. I am arguing, and I have done so previously, that legislation would not be the appropriate route forward. There may be a common thread with previous Ministers there, but that is the argument that I am putting to the Committee.

I am happy to reflect with colleague as to whether I can ask my colleague Ministers to examine the issues that the noble and learned Lord has put to the Committee, but it is ultimately for them to consider the evidence provided. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, thinks that that is a brush-off. I hope it is not, but he can judge that in reflecting on what I have said today. If he wishes to then there is the opportunity to raise this issue on Report; the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has already shown his tenacity in doing so on several occasions.

I am happy to try to facilitate for a Minister of Health to examine the issues put before the Committee, and I think it is reasonable that I draw this debate to the attention of the appropriate Minister for Health, including the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, which test the assumptions of the proposed new clause as well. Ultimately, however, I am standing here on behalf of the Government and the Home Office, and speaking for all these matters now. The legislative route is not one that we consider appropriate. I have said what I have said, and I would be very happy, if the noble Lord wishes to withdraw his amendment, to draw the attention of the appropriate Health Minister to this debate, including the noble Lord’s comments and those of other Members. I have heard the request for a meeting from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and I will draw that request to the attention of the appropriate Health Minister. If Members remain unhappy after that process then there are a number of options open to them; they are experienced parliamentarians and no doubt they will exercise them.