Starvation as a Weapon of War
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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Baroness Brown of Silvertown
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the use of starvation as a weapon of war globally, and what steps they are taking to ensure that international humanitarian law is upheld in this regard.
Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)
My Lords, I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to raise an important issue that affects millions of people around the world. Today is World Food Day, and this year’s theme calls for global collaboration to create a peaceful, sustainable, prosperous and food-secure future. Yet we live with the devastating reality where last year, over 295 million people faced acute hunger. In armed conflicts, both intranational and international, hunger is increasingly used as a deliberate strategy of warfare and control.
Conflict-related food insecurity affects over 140 million people. Humanitarian aid is restricted, aid workers and journalists are killed, cities are blockaded and starved, agricultural land is destroyed and vital food infrastructure, like bakeries, is bombed. Starvation and malnutrition do not only kill people; they destroy the very fabric of societies, making it so much harder to achieve peace, and lock countries and communities in a never-ending cycle of conflict and insecurity.
The use of starvation as a weapon of war in international conflicts is recognised as a war crime in the Rome statute, including starvation through wilfully impeding relief supplies. An amendment in 2019, which the UK has not yet recognised—it would be very good to know where the Government currently stand on this—extends this recognition to non-international conflicts. The UN Security Council has also unanimously adopted Resolutions 2417 and 2573, which condemn the starving of civilians and the deprivation of objects indispensable to survival as methods of warfare.
Yet this abhorrent tactic is increasing in prevalence throughout the world. It is often undertaken with impunity, and we are seeing it across nations such as South Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ethiopia and Syria. Children are most at risk of death, whether from starvation itself or from preventable diseases that turn deadly because of the way malnutrition weakens our bodies. To quote a doctor,
“Basically, the body just”
shuts
“down … it pulls energy from other organs just to keep the brain going”.
If a child does not die from the conflict or from an infection, eventually, the heart gives out.
“It is a very cruel, slow death”.
The generals’ war against the people of Sudan is a blight on humanity. These generals use their forces to enact a brutal campaign of terror, using mass executions, sexual violence and starvation as inhumane tools of war, with devastating consequences. Over half the country—more than 24 million people—is now in acute food insecurity. Famine was confirmed in 2024 in North Darfur’s Zamzam region and is now present in 10 regions of the country. Some 3.2 million children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition this year.
There are grave concerns about the RSF siege of El Fasher, where 260,000 civilians have been trapped for more than 500 days. There have been indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and a blockade on aid is being used as an attempt to starve the city into submission. Diseases like cholera are increasingly prevalent as critical infrastructure is targeted and vital supplies diminish. Both the SAF and the RSF use starvation as a deliberate strategy to break the civilian population through hunger, fear and exhaustion. A doctor based in El Fasher said:
“The children of El Fasher are dying on a daily basis due a lack of food, lack of medicine. Unfortunately, the international community is just not watching”.
We cannot afford to let this crisis unfold: there needs to be a greater international effort to stop this brutal war. The UK is the UN penholder for Sudan. Is the Minister confident that we are using all our influence on the international stage and within the UN to build a coalition of the willing against those generals, and to protect the people of Sudan?
I very much welcome the doubling of UK aid to Sudan, but within Sudan there are many local actors and organisations that could be used to save lives and distribute humanitarian aid. They have an undaunted spirit, and a hope that a Sudan free from the generals and their catastrophic war is achievable. The recent report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact has highlighted that the UK struggles to provide direct funding for these local organisations. Can the Minister assure me that the department can address this going forward?
Sudan is a hidden war in which the generals’ forces continue to act with impunity, but that has not been the case in Gaza. We have seen the conflict constantly play out on our TV screens and news feeds. We have followed the flotillas, and millions of us have marched throughout the country to campaign for an end to this war.
Aid has not been allowed into Gaza—except the pittance the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was permitted to distribute—with often disastrous consequences. More than 12,000 children are acutely malnourished, and more than 150 have died as a result of starvation. A mother in Gaza city wept: “We fast for days, just to leave something for the children. Sometimes, there is nothing—only water. At night they cry, saying, ‘Mama, we’re hungry’. I hold them and say, ‘You’ll eat in heaven’, and then I cry when they fall asleep.”
Given the peace deal, we must now ensure that this truce turns into lasting peace and that humanitarian aid can flow unrestricted into the area. Deliberate starvation of civilians not only kills people; it undermines the very fabric of society, normalises these crimes for future conflicts and weakens the international legal order.
I close with a call for action. We need a united and urgent response to ensure the upholding of international legal norms, and we need accountability for those who have deliberately starved populations as a method of war and control. I hope that by next year’s World Food Day, we will have seen an end to this abhorrent use of hunger—I am not holding my breath—but for this to begin to happen, we need action now.
Baroness Helic (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for securing this debate. In my own family’s memory lies Sarajevo and the siege, when starvation was wielded as a weapon and for more than 1,400 days, civilians were cut off from food, water, medicines and power. Some starved, surviving on nettles, grass and animal feed; others died as snipers and shells struck queues for bread and water. During that time, 11,500 civilians were killed, including more than 1,600 children.
The UN airlift later known as Operation Provide Promise flew 160,000 tonnes of aid into Sarajevo across more than 12,000 missions. It was far from perfect. Aid was often intercepted and spoiled by the besieging militias and forces, but it prevented famine and sent a message that the world would break the grip of siege designed to starve civilians into submission.
In Sarajevo today, you can see a monument shaped like a vast tin can and printed on it is the brand name ICAR, the canned food distributed to surviving civilians during the siege. It is a gritty reminder of indignity, but also of survival and international resolve. The monument stands not only for what was given but for what should never be withheld: the basic necessities of life. Sadly, the siege is not ancient history. The forced hunger and deprivation that we have seen in Syria, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Sudan and Gaza follow the same tactics. Civilians are reduced to begging for scraps or denied access to humanitarian relief convoys, even as they wait only a few hundred metres away—even as they can see them.
Sudan and Gaza are the most recent examples of this inhumanity. Gaza has been subject, on and off, to full or partial blockade since October 2023. Its civilians were starved, denied basic medical support and stripped of dignity and hope. A cruel collective punishment was inflicted on them, which resulted in a manmade famine. This lack of humanity spreads across countries and into our social media feeds. Only yesterday I was reading about Google’s recent facilitation of false advertising that starvation was taking place in Gaza. Today, it has said that it is not going to remove those posts from Instagram and so on. This week, the withdrawal of aid from Gaza was again used as a threat.
As has been mentioned, using hunger and starvation as tools of warfare is prohibited by international law: the Geneva conventions and additional protocols, the Rome statute and UN Security Council Resolutions 2047 and 2573. We have the legal framework. Yet, despite that legal framework and despite all the promises, outrage and condemnation, starvation is now used just as sexual violence is: not as a tragic by-product or a breakdown of discipline or an incident, but as a premeditated weapon designed to inflict pain and death. Blocked air corridors, denial of relief and seizure or destruction of supplies all contribute to catastrophic hunger and often amount to collective punishment, with consequences lasting generations. As we have heard, an often overlooked aspect is the dire impact that malnutrition has on the brains and bodies of young children. Those who survive never recover.
We do not lack legal means. What is missing is consistent enforcement, political courage and accountability. What we are missing is shame that this is happening on our watch. We in the United Kingdom should always be absolutely clear that there are no circumstances under which the withholding of food to a civilian population—no matter where they are, no matter the colour of their skin and no matter their religion—should ever be tolerated. It should never be allowed.
With this in mind, I ask the Minister to answer a few questions. First, how will His Majesty’s Government ensure that, wherever starvation is used as a method of war, it is systematically investigated and prosecuted? Secondly, with our foreign aid commitment set to fall to 0.3% by 2027—critically, programmes are already being closed in Sudan and elsewhere—will the Government consider ring-fencing resources for starvation prevention as a core humanitarian priority? Finally, what steps will the Government take to embed compliance with international humanitarian law not only in our Armed Forces’ training, but with partners trained here? Can the Minister confirm that proportional defence and military training is allocated under international humanitarian law compliance, so that the forces we train never become perpetrators of these crimes?
The legal tools and precedents exist; moral and political courage must follow. As the president of the ICRC has said:
“International humanitarian law is only as strong as leaders’ will to uphold it”.
I finish by reminding us all that our duty is not merely to condemn starvation as warfare; it is to ensure that starving civilians are protected, not as an afterthought, but as a legal, enforceable and moral imperative.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the chief executive of United Against Malnutrition and Hunger. It is a huge privilege to follow that very powerful speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, for securing this debate and for her eloquent words which laid bare the scale and devastating consequences of the increasing use of starvation as a weapon of war.
I will focus on two issues: first, how we ensure accountability and meaningful consequences for state and non-state actors that use starvation as a weapon of war; and, secondly, the role that malnutrition plays in destabilising societies and contributing to conflict.
Recent years have seen an explosion of conflict and of what the World Food Programme describes as the
“increasing ‘instrumentalisation’ of humanitarian aid”.
Humanitarian access is frequently denied. Humanitarian workers are targeted and often killed. Crops, livestock and food storage facilities are destroyed and, as the Mines Advisory Group notes, agricultural land is often rendered unusable as a result of mines or contamination with other ordnance. Action Against Hunger draws attention to how critical infrastructure, such as water systems, markets and transport routes, is frequently attacked, denying communities access to the resources that they require to survive.
Some years ago, I had the privilege to visit Sudan on several occasions, working with the civilian democratic parties before the outbreak of the war. I watched with horror as the fighting created one of the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophes. Famine is now ongoing in at least five areas, and there is a risk of famine in 17 additional areas. Warring parties have imposed sieges and attacked food infrastructure, leaving over half the population facing acute food insecurity.
In Gaza, there has also been a deliberate policy to deny access to food, fuel and water, contrary to international humanitarian and criminal law. Before the recent ceasefire, which we hope will allow food to get in and alleviate the situation, 95% of the population was in acute food insecurity, 1 million were in emergency levels of food insecurity and famine conditions existed for 500,000 people. In both cases, ostensible allies of the United Kingdom are either imposing such policies directly or supporting armed groups that are. Despite the obligation of third parties to take all measures necessary to ensure that parties to conflicts respect the provisions of international humanitarian law, we and our international partners have done far too little to impose real consequences for these actions and to enforce accountability.
As Action Against Hunger and others have argued, the UK needs to ratify the amendment to Article 8 of the Rome statute, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, so that non-international conflicts are covered. We need to put UN Security Council Resolutions 2417, 2573 and 2730 at the heart of our diplomatic efforts to prevent starvation being used as a weapon of war and to protect humanitarian workers. Where these resolutions are violated, we should be willing to impose meaningful economic and other sanctions.
We need also to look at how we can best support efforts to prevent conflict in the first place. There is a good understanding of how conflict drives malnutrition, but much less well understood is the role that malnutrition plays in destabilising societies and giving rise to conflict. A research study carried out in north-eastern Nigeria by experts from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, CGIAR and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture found strong links between malnutrition and conflict, and demonstrated that acute malnutrition is an early warning signal of social breakdown in fragile settings.
People who are not getting the food they need may increasingly be inclined to support, or be recruited by, armed groups to ensure food security, shelter and physical protection. This cycle will not be broken without tackling malnutrition, because nutrition is so foundational to individual, societal and economic development, and indeed to global prosperity. We need to look again at the false economy of the huge cuts that we have made to our development budget; there was a cut of more than 60% to the budget for combating malnutrition in 2020-21 alone.
The numbers impacted by deliberate policies to use food as a weapon of war in Afghanistan, DRC, Gaza, Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere are immense, but figures so large can numb us to the real meaning of these actions. That reality was brought home to me by a faded picture of a young boy that my colleague at United Against Malnutrition and Hunger, Roh Yacobi, carries with him always. It is of his younger brother, Mohammad. Roh says this:
“When I was a child, living under a brutal Taliban blockade, thousands starved to death, including my little brother Mohammad. I was the last person to see him alive. He was buried in a small grave in the village graveyard at dawn, and soon joined by more children”.
That is the brutal cost of what happens when parties to conflict use starvation as a weapon of war. Millions of people have been subject to similar blockades, with similar horrific consequences. Such actions will continue with increasing frequency and impunity unless we, with our international partners, are willing to impose meaningful consequences on perpetrators, whether they be our friends or our foes.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, for securing this timely and profoundly important debate. I also support wholeheartedly the contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and my noble friend Lord Oates, powerful as they were.
Today is World Food Day, when we commemorate the creation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945, born out of the ashes of the Second World War. It stands as a reminder that access to food is not a privilege but a fundamental human right, one that the international community vowed to protect when it said “never again” to the suffering and cruelty of total war. Yet across the world, right now, rights are being violated and weaponised. Food, water and even humanitarian aid are being turned into instruments of war and tools of political coercion.
In Sudan, as we heard earlier, more than 24 million people face acute food insecurity. We also heard earlier about Gaza, where the United Nations has warned of famine, declaring that almost every child under five is suffering from nutrition. In both places, civilians have been deliberately deprived of food, medicine and clean water, not by accident but by design. This is not a tragic consequence of conflict; it is a method of war, and it is expressly prohibited under the Geneva conventions, the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court, and UN Security Council Resolutions 2417 and 2573, yet impunity reigns. The law exists but the will to enforce it has withered.
Food is not the only weapon. We are witnessing the growing weaponisation of water through the destruction of infrastructure, the blocking of access or the manipulation of rivers that sustain entire nations. Water is life itself, yet it too is being politicised and withheld. The recent decision by India to suspend co-operation under the Indus Water Treaty and divert flows from the northern rivers that feed Pakistan should concern us all. For decades, that treaty has stood as a model of cross-border co-operation, even in times of tension. To undermine it for political leverage is to risk regional instability, deepen food insecurity and erode a vital humanitarian norm: that access to water must never be used as a weapon.
This is where the United Kingdom must rediscover its voice. After the horrors of the Second World War it was the UK, with its allies, that helped to forge the rules-based international order: the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva convention and the principle that the strong are bound by the same laws as the weak. These were not abstract ideas; they were the moral foundations of a world rebuilt from ruins. That legacy places upon us both a moral duty and a strategic obligation to defend those principles today, to uphold the rule of law when others abandon it and to lead by the strength of our example.
So, what should the Government do? First, the Government should ratify the 2019 amendment to the Rome statute, extending the prohibition of starvation as a weapon of war to all conflicts, whether international or internal. Secondly, the UK must deploy every diplomatic, legal and economic tool available to hold violators to account—whether state or non-state actors, allies or adversaries—including targeted sanctions, as we heard earlier, against those who obstruct humanitarian access or manipulate essential resources such as food and water.
Thirdly, as we heard earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Oates, we must restore our commitment to international development in nutrition, food security and climate resilience. The cuts to aid in recent years have not only cost lives but diminish our nation’s moral authority. Reinvestment in those programmes is not charity but a reaffirmation of who we are and what we stand for.
Finally, our voice must be consistent and principled. International law cannot be applied selectively. We cannot condemn war crimes in one region while turning a blind eye in another. Our credibility and our conscience demand that we speak with one standard, guided by law and humanity. Starvation and the denial of water are not tactics of war; they are crimes against humanity and an affront to the conscience of the world. The United Kingdom, as one of the architects of the post-war order, must not stand silent as these norms are eroded and these crimes repeated.
Let us, on this World Food Day, reaffirm that no person anywhere should ever be starved or denied water as a weapon of war. Let us stand for the principles our forebears fought to defend: for the rule of law, for human dignity, and for the belief that the measure of a nation is found not in its power but in its moral courage to uphold what is right.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, given the gravity of the events that are the subject of today’s proceedings, while it is not exactly a pleasure to contribute to this debate, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, and to thank him for his powerful contribution, and to have the opportunity to thank my noble friend Lady Brown of Silvertown for securing this debate and for a clear-eyed, informed, impressively analytical and forensic speech. I shall not repeat the appalling statistics and data that show the extent to which starvation as a weapon of war is deployed globally, but I will focus on a limited number of issues.
Like all noble Lords who are contributing to this debate, I received briefing notes from INGOs. They are, independently and collectively, both comprehensive and helpful. Helpfully, they include recommendations of questions to my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury, whom I am delighted to see speaking from the Front Bench on this issue. I hope that he and his office have had the opportunity to review the briefing notes we all received.
I have in the past suggested that your Lordships’ House should find a way of publishing with the Hansard record the briefing notes that we receive to complement the debate. I am convinced that, if they are moderated before publication, such briefing notes will show the degree to which, in its deliberations, your Lordships’ House is engaged with and connected to the outside world and values the knowledge and experience of those who have expertise in particular policy areas. However, and sadly, publication in this case would have detrimental repercussions on the very authors of these notes because they require humanitarian access, and it would only get worse if they are known to have been doing this. So I will not press the issue in this debate but will focus on three issues.
First, on the Rome statute amendment, the UK has long prided itself on being a global leader in upholding international humanitarian law, yet it remains one of the few countries not to have ratified the 2019 amendment to the Rome statute. This amendment criminalises the deliberate starvation of civilians in non-international armed conflicts, closing a critical loophole in international law. It puts the legal framework in place for the ICC to pursue investigations and prosecutions of starvation crimes when they occur. By ratifying it, the UK would send a clear signal that starvation—whether in Gaza, Sudan or elsewhere—can never be an acceptable tactic of war. Ratification would cost us nothing but would show that we mean what we say about accountability and the protection of civilians. It is time for the Government to take that simple but powerful step. Will the Government commit to ratifying the 2019 Rome statute amendment and ensure that the necessary co-operation and enforcement mechanisms are in place so that this vital legal reform has real effect?
On ODA spending and conflict prevention, we cannot separate famine prevention from conflict prevention. Yet, as my Government have reduced UK ODA to 0.3% of GNI, they have also drastically cut spending on peacebuilding and conflict resolution—the very areas that prevent conflict and humanitarian crises before they start.
If the UK wants to help to break the cycle of conflict-driven hunger, it must reinvest in its tools of diplomacy, mediation and early warning. Restoring ODA levels is part of that, but so too is ensuring that our remaining aid is directed towards reducing violence and protecting civilians, not simply responding after catastrophe strikes. Can my noble friend, whom I greatly admire and who has the ear of your Lordships’ House, confirm what proportion of UK ODA is currently allocated to conflict prevention and resolution, how this compares to previous years and what rationale underpinned those reductions?
Finally, on Israel and the use of starvation as a weapon of war, in Gaza today almost the entire population faces acute food insecurity and more than half a million people are in catastrophic conditions. It is a famine in all but name. Access to food, fuel and water is being systematically restricted in direct violation of international humanitarian law. The Government must be clear that the deliberate deprivation of food as a method of warfare is prohibited under international law. We must press Israel continuously to comply with those obligations and ensure that humanitarian access is immediately and unconditionally restored. The UK cannot champion international law abroad if it applies it selectively. What representations have the UK Government made to Israel regarding the use of starvation and the obstruction of humanitarian access and what response has been received from the Israeli authorities? In the words of Justa Hopma, research fellow at the University of Sheffield, writing in the Conversation:
“Famine doesn’t just ‘happen’ - and those who cause it must be held to account”.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silverton, for this debate and I am grateful for all the powerful speeches that have been made, all from perspectives of people who know, care and are involved in this issue. Each one of them has added a different aspect of the dimension, which we should all appreciate.
As people will know, I spent 10 years as chair of the International Development Committee watching what the UK could and did do in humanitarian aid and I am appalled that we are no longer able to do that. There is a really important point here. Not only did we do stuff, but we were witnesses to what was going on. The plea that has come from every speech about ensuring that consequences flow from imposing starvation as a weapon of war means something. If there is nobody there to see it happening, it is surely much harder to promote successful prosecutions, so the absence of aid workers is an issue. It is probably the reason why so many aid workers are killed by protagonists—325 last year, as the World Food Programme has identified.
Of course, it is odd to have rules for war. War is a terrible thing and terrible things happen, but we have created rules. Many players in the past have attempted to take account of them, but the actors who are playing now are not interested in the rules; they have total disregard for the rules. They are state and non-state players and they think that there is no accountability. That is the problem. The message from everybody seems to be, “What are we going to do about it?”
On Article 8, first, it should be ratified, but, secondly, we need to clarify what the intention is. Nearly all the speeches identified situations where it should not be difficult to prove the intention—that starvation and deprivation of water and food was a deliberate act to intimidate people, put them into a desperate situation and subjugate them. The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, is right that Sudan is the worst situation and is on an almost unprecedented scale. Hopefully, the situation in Gaza is about to become better, but let us not hold our breath. Other places, such as Mali and Haiti, are in pretty desperate straits. There is no doubt at all that hunger is increasing. Not all of it is caused by conflict, but more of it is conflict-related than anything else and more of it is being deliberately perpetrated rather than being just an incidental consequence of the conflict.
I want to make a suggestion that may not be appreciated by everyone. We have a very real concern in this country about migration—desperate migration—but what drives this migration is exactly this. If you are in a situation where you are trapped, then of course you cannot get out, but if you are in a situation where there is no food or water, your family are threatened and you are under attack, what are you going to do? You get as far away as possible if you have half a chance.
A point that many of us made about why the aid cuts were such a mistake is that one of the things that aid did was help to reduce and remove some of the pressures of migration for desperate people. I therefore make no apology for saying that in my view the Government got it badly wrong. They can do it differently, and that is fine. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, said the cuts brought the aid budget down to 0.3% but, when you take out the handling of refugees in the UK and the consequence of that, it is about 0.1%. In other words, it has gone—it hardly exists. I genuinely think that Ministers such as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, care about this and I regret that they have to perpetrate a government policy about which I am sure they are as appalled privately as I am. I hope that they will use their voices inside to make clear how strongly people feel about this and how it is connected to the domestic agenda.
One of the reasons why it was possible to rip up the aid budget was that the consensus broke down and opportunist politicians started to denigrate its achievement: “Oh, it was just charity. It was a waste of space. It wasn’t effective”. I know how effective it was because I saw it. Most of that was misrepresentation and untruth, but the consequence was that politicians took the view that, “These are faraway places of which we know little and the British public are much more concerned about domestic issues”— of course that is true—“and they’re concerned about migration”. We fail to point out to them that if we do not support these communities and these people in situ, that adds to our problems. It creates a situation in this country that we have to deal with.
I argue that, from a moral point of view, this timely debate is absolutely right. My final plea to the Minister—I know that I am knocking at an open door—is that he will use whatever means he can to ensure that the UK Government take genuine, consistent leadership to condemn this, but also to do everything they can at every opportunity to make it clear to those protagonists that there will be consequences. When people see that there are consequences, that will not stop it but it might reduce it. And please have a rethink about our aid policy, because it is not serving our national interest.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, this has been an excellent, albeit brief, debate. I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, for securing the debate and for her extremely powerful opening remarks. It is worth putting on record my party’s deep-felt relief that a ceasefire has now, hopefully, been reached in Gaza, that the remaining hostages have been released and that the war that has caused so much death and destruction over the past two years now appears to be over, although, while I join the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, in very much hoping that it is at an end, there is still an awful long way to go.
As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, observed, it is hardly a pleasure to contribute to this debate on such a tragic subject. It is a worry that reports of starvation being used as a weapon of war are still in abundance and, frankly, getting worse across the world. The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and others have drawn attention to the situation in Sudan. It remains a wonder to me that, while we have seen thousands marching on our streets regarding Gaza, we have seen virtually no one marching regarding the much worse situation in Sudan and it makes me wonder about the motivations of some of the protesters.
The reports that we have seen include, from Sudan, an estimate by the UN of 25 million people being deliberately starved; 4.5 million in Somalia; and accusations of a covert, and sometimes overt, starvation operation by Russian forces in Ukraine, among others. Sadly, none of those has yet led to any prosecutions, which speaks to the difficulty of verifying the use of starvation as a weapon of war in general, let alone in some of the active war zones. That point is driven home by the fact that there has never been an international prosecution of this as a war crime on its own. It is for that very reason that it is hard to verify cases of weaponised starvation. If they are, punishment must be executed in a timely fashion so that justice may be seen to be done. It is not something, as other speakers have observed, that can be solely delegated to judges in The Hague; the UK and our allies must continue to commission and support the gathering of evidence and press for those cases to be brought to court.
I sympathise with Ministers; Ministers in my Government also spent much time on this matter. But producing change of course requires more than paying it lip service; it means interacting with international partners, including those currently at war. We in the previous Government secured commitments from the Israeli Government, by working and collaborating with them, to open specific pathways for aid, such as the Erez crossing and the port of Ashdod. We extended aid hours and ensured that more aid trucks were promised entry.
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. We should all benefit from hearing from the Minister about the steps the Government are taking to ensure that starvation is not used as a weapon of war. We are proud signatories of the Rome statute, and we should be doing our utmost to take practical actions to uphold it.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)
My Lords, I start by expressing my gratitude to my noble friend for securing this debate. I am also grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. The simple fact is that millions of people today are dangerously malnourished because of conflict, and too often this malnourishment has devastating consequences, in particular for children. It has severe and often irreversible impacts on their physical growth, cognitive development and immune system, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and ill health, as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, highlighted.
It also impacts on the very thing we want to achieve: economic development. Growth, jobs and education are the key elements for changing this disastrous situation. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, is absolutely right about malnutrition: addressing nutrition is the foundation for real change. The Government of course acknowledge that the deliberate deprivation of food, water and other essentials for civilian survival is a growing and persistent threat.
Let me address the questions from my noble friend Lord Browne and other noble Lords on ODA and the current situation. The Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear that for us to achieve a safer and more prosperous world, we need to address aggression, particularly the prevention of conflict, which is a priority. Certainly, the difficult decisions we have made have been in response to the aggression committed by the Russian Federation. But I stress what noble Lords have heard me say before: ODA is not our only tool in ensuring peace, prevention and development. We need to use every tool in our toolkit to ensure that we can focus. A key element of that is supporting those conditions to ensure investment and increase trade. We are absolutely focused on that.
Promoting compliance with international humanitarian law is at the heart of our foreign policy. Our debate has underscored a sobering truth: as many as 70% of major food crises are directly linked to conflict and insecurity, according to the World Food Programme. We have seen patterns of sieges, blockades and denial of access in multiple contexts, so ably evidenced by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, whose personal experience is true evidence of this terrible situation. In too many cases, these patterns are not collateral consequences of war; they are being used deliberately to weaken, punish and displace civilian populations.
It was against this backdrop that, as the Minister covering Africa and human rights, I attended the launch event in May this year for the Government’s legal handbook on conflict, hunger and international humanitarian law. To reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, this handbook is not only a guide for our diplomats, lawyers and Armed Forces but a very important advocacy tool, setting out clearly what the law requires of all parties to conflict, including non-state armed groups. This is important because famines are significantly less likely to occur if all warring parties, including non-state armed groups, comply with international law.
The handbook also firmly backs UN Security Resolution 2417, as my noble friend set out, which helped the United Kingdom in 2018 when we joined the consensus on the amendment on the intentional use of starvation as a method of warfare in non-international armed conflicts—which was adopted, as she rightly pointed out, by the ICC Assembly of States Parties in 2019. Our position on ratification remains under review. The simple fact is that we need to ensure a very strong coalition for action, as she pointed out.
Many noble Lords also referred to Gaza, where we are witnessing a catastrophic man-made famine. As the Prime Minister said, the welcome ceasefire agreement must be implemented in full, without delay, accompanied by the lifting of all restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza. To respond to my noble friend Lord Browne, the Foreign Secretary delivered a very strong message at the UN Security Council on 23 September. We also led joint statements with over 30 partners, pressing Israel to allow food, medical supplies and fuel to reach those in most desperate need. The ceasefire is that opportunity to get desperately needed humanitarian aid in there, fast.
We are also funding a £74 million aid package this financial year for Palestine and Palestinians across the region. Alongside our diplomatic efforts to increase humanitarian access, this is contributing to providing food, shelter and support for over two million people. There is no doubt that this is saving lives.
Many noble Lords, but my noble friend Lady Brown in particular, along with the noble Lord, Lord, Oates, highlighted Sudan. We are deeply alarmed by the UN fact-finding mission’s findings that starvation has been deliberately used there as a method of warfare. No one could have failed to be moved by this morning’s BBC “Today” programme, which had first-hand evidence of the impact of that starvation on not only the civilian population in general but children in particular, and its absolutely horrific consequences. As my noble friend and other noble Lords have said, almost 25 million people are acutely food insecure, and almost 9 million are on the brink of starvation. This is absolutely abhorrent. I congratulate the BBC for reporting on that, but we are not getting sufficient focus on Sudan, and we need to do more.
As the third largest humanitarian donor in Sudan, we have already provided aid to over 2.5 million people since the conflict started. To reassure noble Lords, we are using our position at the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council to call out violations and demand rapid, unimpeded humanitarian access. At last year’s UNGA, I also led a meeting where we brought in first-hand evidence from the victims of sexual violence and from those who were suffering as a consequence of food deprivation. In October, we led efforts to renew the UN fact-finding mission’s mandate for a third year, securing the strongest council support and reinforcing the independent mechanism investigating human rights abuses across Sudan.
I will briefly mention Ukraine. We are fully committed to holding Russia to account for its illegal and barbaric actions, and we have welcomed the agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe to have a special tribunal for the crime of aggression. It is a good example of how we can hold people to account. We are absolutely strong supporters of the ICC, and we are determined to hold those responsible for serious violations of IHL to account. To address the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, we are also supporting Ukraine and the training of its troops in international humanitarian law. It is a good idea to see how that works in practice, and how we can spread that good practice.
It has been a great, important debate, focusing on issues that are often too silent. We must ensure that starvation must never be a weapon of war. We must never be silent when it is used as one, because protecting civilians is not optional; it is both a legal obligation and a moral imperative.
Music and Dance Schools: Affordable Access
Lord Blackwell
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they are committed to maintaining affordable access to specialist music and dance schools for talented children of all social backgrounds.
Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)
My Lords, just before the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, starts, I emphasise that the timings on this debate are very tight. Most speakers have two minutes, so can noble Lords please stick within that, so that everybody can be heard and the Minister can have adequate time to respond.
Lord Blackwell (Con)
My Lords, my purpose in raising this question is to highlight the vital role of MDS, the music and dance scheme, which provides means-tested support to enable exceptionally talented young children from all backgrounds to attend specialist music and dance schools. I should draw attention to my interest as governor of the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal Academy of Music, both of which have students who participate in this scheme.
There are a handful of specialist music and dance schools in the UK that take exceptionally talented and highly committed youngsters and provide them with the advanced tuition they need to achieve their potential. The children who attend are at the very top of their peer group, and most go on to make careers as acknowledged leaders in the music and dance professions. To fulfil their mission, these schools aim to take the highest-potential children regardless of their social background and financial means. The intense specialist education that these schools provide, mostly within a boarding environment, is expensive and beyond the means of all but a few parents. The boarding fees at the Menuhin school, for example, are almost £50,000 a year—and that does not cover the full cost. Musical talent is not restricted to wealthy families, and the music and dance scheme provides the financial support that is essential to enable talented children from any background to attend. Therefore, while these schools are classed as independent schools, they are not the preserve of rich, privileged kids.
At the Menuhin school, for example, only a handful—under 10%—pay the full fees, and they have to earn their place on ability just like every other pupil. The other 90% can benefit from this special environment only because of the financial support they receive from MDS, together with the bursaries funded by charitable donations. Without MDS funding, some of these schools would no longer be financially viable. Unlike many private schools, with such a limited number of full-fee payers, they cannot simply expand the number of pupils paying full fees and raise enough money to subsidise scholarships to those from poor families. Further, any lowering of standards to accept wealthy children who do not have the talent or commitment to reach the top of their profession would not be fair to those children, putting them in an environment where they were unlikely to succeed. Nor is it realistic to make up any shortfall through more charitable donations. Every one of these schools is already struggling to raise enough funds to fill the hole in their finances, and they do not have massive endowments.
After several years of zero or limited increases in the MDS funding, we are now approaching a crisis point. Over the past 10 years, the real value of fees funded by MDS has fallen by more than 15%. On top of general inflation, in the last year these schools have been hit with the additional costs from the loss of business rates relief, higher national insurance contributions and VAT on fees. Responding to an Oral Question in June, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, made clear her personal commitment to the long-running MDS scheme, and I welcome her success in securing this year’s MDS funding in last year’s settlement. However, whereas historically, schools received a three-year settlement, there has been no assurance that the funding will continue beyond this year. The absence of a firm commitment to future funding at a level that makes these schools financially viable is putting them, and the parents of their children, in an impossible position, with no certainty for some of them about whether they will be able to continue.
To lose these schools would be a tragedy not just for the exceptional youngsters from all backgrounds who benefit from their unique support, but for the artistic calibre of the country in the years ahead. The Government have declared that creative industries will be at the heart of their industrial strategy, and their sector plan set out a commitment to back the next generation of British talent. The Government’s support for music hubs to broaden access to music education is welcome, but it does not replace the role of the MDS. As with sports, we need to support excellence in every field of artistic endeavour not just for those individuals but for the leadership and aspiration that they transmit in raising standards across the board. The outreach programmes of these schools are also very important and complementary in delivering this.
I understand the constraints around budget decisions, particularly in the current environment. However, the cost of this vital support—some £36 million a year, including the cost of the advanced training centres—is small change in the budget ledgers. In responding to this debate, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, will put on record the Government’s commitment to maintain the MDS at a level of funding that will ensure the future of these small but precious schools, and that we see that reflected in next month’s Budget announcements. I thank other noble Lords for their interest in this debate and look forward to hearing the Government’s response.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, clarity on the future of the music and dance scheme to ensure access to specialist music and dance education for students, regardless of their background, is urgently needed. As a supporter of the National Youth Orchestra, I wholeheartedly support the points from the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, but I put in a plea to ensure that all our youngsters have a high-quality creative arts education in primary school and on through secondary school.
Music education is in a parlous state in many mainstream schools. Many commentators have pointed to the absence of the arts from the English baccalaureate as a key reason for the decline in these subjects in our schools. Secondary schools are measured on the number of pupils who take GCSEs in these core subjects. Another measure, Progress 8, introduced in 2016, adds further pressure to prioritise EBacc subjects. Neither the EBacc nor Progress 8 specifies music, dance or drama in their assessments. Since 2010—the year that the EBacc was introduced—there has been a 42% drop in overall arts subjects and GCSE entries in music in England have fallen 25%. Music A-level entries to England fell for the third consecutive year.
The EBacc has made art subjects an add-on with which schools can dispense, yet teachers tell me that music is often now the only subject where an entire classroom of 30 students work together as one, building collaborative skills and social confidence. Music develops creative intelligence; our creative industries start in the classroom.
Will the Minister assure us that creative subjects will be properly recognised in the anticipated curriculum and assessment review? The recent £88 million “Building Creative Futures” package is encouraging, but to ensure that every child has access to a high-quality music and arts education in school requires concrete action, not just good intentions. Will my noble friend the Minister start by putting the arts back into the EBacc?
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, I speak in this short debate as someone who owes her career to a predecessor of today’s music and dance scheme. I will focus my time on what it takes to achieve that success in the highly specialised field of dance. Without that understanding, it is easy to underestimate the importance of the MDS.
Elite performance—and I use that word as we do for athletes—is performance at the limits of human potential, characterised by extreme flexibility, accuracy and speed. It is achieved only through 10 years of intense daily practice under expert tuition in specialist facilities; those 10 years have to start before puberty sets in if a dancer is going to compete in a global market. It is not just about physical prowess; it is about training the brain to send precise movement commands and issue corrections faster than the human eye can see. When you watch an expert dancer, you are seeing the cerebellum at its most extraordinary.
This intensity of training is impossible to achieve within the state school system, which does not have the teachers, the spaces or the hours in the day. And it is expensive; without government support, it is beyond the reach of many talented children. Over 50 years, Governments have recognised this through the music and dance scheme, which allows specialist schools to trawl wide and offer places on talent alone, blind to financial or social circumstances.
The Prime Minister has often said, “Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not”. The MDS schools offer that opportunity but 12 years of funding freezes mean that it is a system under strain. I therefore ask the Minister to press the Treasury to deliver the £4 million the schools need and restore the three-year settlements so that the schools can plan efficiently and children can be confident of completing the training they begin.
Without this investment, the scheme is at risk. This risks not only the talent pipeline that underpins the UK’s global creative success but a return to a world in which only the most advantaged can access the opportunities their talent deserves. I feel sure that the Minister does not want this to be the legacy of her party’s years in power.
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)
I send my warmest congratulations to my noble friend Lord Blackwell and my appreciation of his dedicated service at the Yehudi Menuhin School. It is always a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, who was principal dancer at the Royal Opera House when I was Secretary of State in the mid-1990s. She is a wonderful advocate for dance; it is always so important to remember that dance matters quite as much as music.
It was a privilege to be Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, but I am aware that whereas on the sport side there was a real commitment to investing in creating international excellence and successful Olympiads, on the music, dance and arts side, much went into restoring our wonderful institutions, doing what Sir Ernest Hall called creating the “national treasure houses”. As he said, the National Lottery did for the arts and culture what the Medicis did for the cultural treasure houses in Florence. We did not focus on the pipeline, however, and that is the critical issue now.
Talent is everywhere; regrettably, opportunity is not. The 2024 Sutton Trust report on social mobility and the creative industries is a call to action. Privately educated students represent more than half the students at the most prestigious conservatoires. At Oxford, Cambridge, King’s College and Bath, more than half the creative students came from upper middle-class backgrounds. At Hull, where I had the joy of being chancellor for 17 years and which has a top 10 music school and a very impressive dance school, it was better but not good enough. Among under-35s, there are four times as many individuals from middle-class backgrounds in the creative industries. We have to do better to extend opportunity. The Sutton Trust calls for an arts premium to fund arts opportunities. I ask the Government: what is their practical action?
Malcolm Gladwell refers in Outliers: The Story of Success to the 10,000 hour rule: to become an expert, an elite performer requires 10,000 hours of practice. How can the Government help us to ensure that for the young people of the future?
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I have worked to ensure access to excellent education for talented children from all social backgrounds, and specialist music and dance schools are no different. As a society, we have a duty to break down barriers that prevent young people from underrepresented backgrounds—working-class kids—achieving their potential in the subjects in which they have exceptional talent. Education transforms lives, enables social mobility and is a great way of investing in our economy and future growth. My friend Natasha Kaplinsky, chair of the Royal Ballet School, brought this issue to my attention. The school is a shining example of excellence and accessibility. However, it has great financial challenges.
I particularly like the title of the MDS paper, Supporting Potential Before Privilege. It is clear that we have to do this both to ensure fulfilment and success for the students themselves, and to safeguard the domestic talent pipeline for the creative sector, which contributes such a vast amount of money to the Exchequer, as well as providing thousands of jobs.
To sustain the success of our creative industries, we must nurture talent and develop skills. The UK’s status as a global creative superpower, of which I am hugely proud, is only as good as the talent that underpins it. The education that students receive in the music and dance schools simply cannot be provided in mainstream schools, and it must be protected. Financial support is critical to ensure that talented children and young people from all backgrounds can become the stellar performers of the future. It is also vital to enhance the resilience of the schools. I therefore strongly support calls on the Treasury to provide an uplift of £4 million to the current MDS settlement, and I support restoring three-year MDS grant agreements from the DfE. It would be a tragedy if not only was access limited but schools themselves had to close.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, there were comments last week about Canterbury Cathedral posting graffiti in the great cathedral as part of an exhibition to attract young people. Many people saw as it as an act of great vandalism. I rather saw it as quite avant-garde, experimental and exciting, but that is an aside.
I hope that by securing the music and dance scheme, we ensure that we do not commit an act of vandalism against one of the great music traditions in this country, which is, of course, English choral music. I can use the opportunity of this very brief speech to praise the Church of England for its support of English music. We have more than 2,000 choristers and more than 207 cathedral choirs. When I was in the other place, I was lucky enough to represent a constituency that had chalk streams in it, a unique geographical feature of England and northern France, and we fought hard to preserve them. We must not inadvertently lose one of the most important music traditions in this country.
In many respects, this debate is a metaphor for all Governments’ approaches to the arts. Nobody is suggesting that the music and dance scheme is under fundamental threat. It is part of the Government’s national music plan. It is ably supported by £34 million of funding. The message that goes out today from this debate, as it should for the arts in general, is: please may we have long-term funding rather than just one-year grants, which are impossible to manage? Three-year grants are not too much of an ask. Please, can we stop nickel-and-diming the arts budget? It is a pinprick on the Government’s budget. The budget for the music and dance scheme is a pinprick on their budget but the rewards are almost limitless.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, at this moment in the Government’s lifetime it feels important to make, or at least re-emphasise, some basic points. The arts, as opposed to the wider creative industries, are themselves an engine of growth. The more financial support there is from the Government, the more jobs are created and the greater the financial rewards, many times over, for the Treasury. This is aside from the democratic necessity of both the arts and arts education, which are part of the same ecology. I say this now because of the very worrying signs that this message about the importance of the arts to the industrial strategy is simply not getting through.
The signs include the hugely disappointing cuts to DCMS funding, which, as has been said, are drops in the ocean in relation to overall Treasury funding; the decision to stop state funding of the international baccalaureate, which is so important for the arts and critical thinking; and the complete axing of ITT bursaries for all arts subjects, including music, which the Independent Society of Musicians described as a damaging decision just before the final report of the curriculum review. These savings are false savings; they save very little money but are potentially devastating for the arts. With the eight music and dance schools in England, we are talking about the achievement of excellence in the arts alongside an inherent commitment to social mobility, a double whammy in a good way, and a no-brainer, surely, for the £4 million funding required to enable these schools just to survive. This is yet another test case of how much this Government are willing to make that commitment to invest in the arts that the Prime Minister himself promised for both the arts and arts education 18 months ago.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, first, I must say how much we miss Lord Lipsey in this debate as he was totally committed to the cause that we are discussing today. I support those who have spoken eloquently in favour of the future of the music and dance scheme and scholarships. My wife was for several years managing director of the English National Ballet and then went on to serve on its board for many years, and I know Caroline believes very strongly in the case for specialist schools.
I have two points to make. First, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, about the importance of cathedrals, particularly in church music. My own cathedral, Carlisle Cathedral, set up the school that I went to some time in the seventh century, allegedly with St Cuthbert. It has a very long but fragile tradition, and it needs support. It needs a new partnership between the state and the church in this area of music education.
My second point is that, yes, we need more scholarships at specialist schools, but we also need a broader base of encouraging experts in the arts throughout our education system. This is where changes in the curriculum are so important. Before the election, the Prime Minister said:
“Seriously, in what world does learning to act, dance, sing or paint count less than learning a language from more than a thousand years ago?”
He went on to say:
“We’re going to update the Progress 8 performance measure and use it to help all kids study a creative arts subject or sport until they’re 16”.
Does the Minister believe that the Government are going to deliver on the pledge that Keir Starmer made?
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Royal College of Music, one of our leading conservatoires, ranked number one in the world QS rankings for performing arts. That we are able to be a global leader in this way, a huge source of soft power for UK plc, is because of the health of our music ecosystem. That ecosystem, the so-called pipeline, is in danger as never before. If it fails then the threat to the future of music in our country is, without exaggeration, existential. It is a delicate organism, depending on many interlocking actions, from primary school teaching right through to the conservatoires and universities where tomorrow’s musicians are trained.
Central to that fragile but vital system are the music and dance scheme schools, the seedbed from which so many of tomorrow’s talented music graduates grow. The future of our conservatoires, in turn, is absolutely predicated on their success. Last year 123 applications for the BMus course at the RSM came from the MDS schools, resulting in 73 offers being made. That is a significant proportion of those coming to study and providing the greatest talents. If the MDS schools failed, with their rigour and training, it would have enormous consequences for all conservatoires. For a tiny amount of money—a rounding error, frankly, for the Treasury—the return is incredible. It is difficult to think of a more important investment in the future of our creative industries, and one on which we should in fact double down.
The future of music in this country hangs in the balance as we wait for action from the Government on so many fronts—on copyright protection, the school curriculum, the future of the Arts Council and the future of the hubs, which exist from hand to mouth because they have no guarantees of funding. I understand that those are all complex issues that can take time, but here we have one that is really simple and which could immediately both help to secure the future of the ecosystem and, at the same time, signal the Government’s commitment to the music. The MDS is a huge success, it is integral to the ecosystem and it pays for itself many times over. Let us show our confidence in it by uplifting its current settlement and restoring three-year grant agreements.
Lord Hall of Birkenhead (CB)
I shall speak in favour of another part of the MDS scheme: the role played by the centres of advanced training, the CATs. These provide specialist training in music or dance for talented 10 to 18 year-olds, while allowing them to stay at home and attend their regular schools. When I chaired the Music and Dance Advisory Board in the noughties, a long time ago, this was a scheme that we all wanted to cherish. What could be better than finding talent wherever it might be, supporting it, nurturing it and giving financial support to those who otherwise would never conceive of having a life in music or dance? That is what these centres—the CATs—do.
However, for that to work, you need long-term commitment. It is difficult to run anything involving people’s lives as this does—young lives—when you are living from year to year not knowing where the money is going to come from. The support that they need to grow is measured over years, not the short-term cycles that we all work on. I also think that commitment should include—and indeed increase—going out there, working in schools and looking for talented children. I myself have seen the inspiration that can come from a dancer or a musician working up close with children in schools.
This morning I had an inspiring chat with an alumnus of a CAT about just that. Reece McMahon grew up in York in a single-parent household on a council estate with no car. For him, it was the Northern School of Contemporary Dance coming into the classroom in his secondary school that lit the spark. As he said to me:
“That visit genuinely opened up the rest of my life”
and
“It gave me confidence”.
That is why CATs cannot be passive, waiting for people to come to them. They have to create those transformative moments and be funded to do so. Reece, by the way, now runs Chisenhale Dance Space. I think he is the youngest dance leader in the UK. He is passionate about giving opportunities to others, opening up doors, however difficult the funding landscape is. As he and I were agreeing, it is not that we lack evidence—we know this works. Over more than two decades it has been finding and producing some really talented people. Let us keep on opening those doors.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I stand before you as an alumnus of Tring Park, one of the MDS schools. Dance is, I believe, the “Cinderella” of the arts. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, talked about the years of training but there is little chance of making money. The UK is blessed: we have world-class ballet companies and schools, but there is a danger that they are filled only with those who can pay and talented foreign dancers.
The Government recognise dancers as critical to economic growth, as they are included in the list of priority professions for visas, but without sustained public funding we will not have homegrown talent—no more Billy Elliots, no more Reese McMahons, no more like the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. Ninette de Valois recognised the need to nurture homegrown talent in 1926 when she created a school before she founded a company.
Professional dance training is expensive. There are audition fees, even for the associate programmes, requirements to travel—sometimes for many hours—around the country to access training hubs, and, even with MDS contributions, fees are more expensive now with VAT. MDS support does not cover exam fees, registration fees, music supplies, physio, insurance, uniform or shoes—and yes, ballet dancers get through a heck of a lot of shoes. This is all before we consider the impact on the rest of the family. You need either really dedicated parents to take you to all these classes, summer schools, intensives and exams, or to be able to afford to board. Neither option can be said to be truly affordable for many families.
Ballet is a global market. We have an incredible British heritage but if there is to be a future for British dancers within our great schools and companies, then truly affordable access to specialist training, through the MDS and CAT schemes, must be maintained for the longer term.
Baroness Keeley (Lab)
My Lords, the music and dance scheme or MDS is a vital gateway for talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds to access world-class training. It is a success story that we must protect to ensure the future pipeline of talented musicians and dancers in the UK.
Schools such as Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester—technically independent but primarily funded through MDS—are in financial distress. Rising costs and the introduction of VAT on fees have compounded issues which were caused because government grants have been frozen or increased below inflation since 2011. Chetham’s actually made efficiencies to manage within budget, and says it would be breaking even this year without the increase in national insurance and the teachers’ pay rise.
At the Hammond School in Chester, students come from Liverpool, Wigan and St Helens but every parent relies on financial support—whether from MDS, dance and drama awards, bursaries or charities. That school absorbed the VAT on fees, as it felt it could not pass it on to families. Now it is operating at a deficit and fears becoming financially unviable within two years. Chetham’s and the Hammond are vital to ensuring specialist training for children in the north of England. These are not typical fee-paying institutions. They are grant-funded centres of excellence in music and dance, serving children whose families cannot afford fees.
I had the privilege on Sunday of speaking to Carlos Acosta, at an event where he was honoured for his outstanding contribution to British theatre. He came from a poor family—as one of 11 children—and received dance training at a state-funded school in Cuba, training that was crucial to his development. Carlos’s vision for Birmingham Royal Ballet centres on the development of future talent. He was therefore disturbed to hear of the financial pressures facing our dance schools. The music and dance scheme is not just a funding mechanism; it is a lifeline. It is the difference between a child from a low-income household accessing world-class training and never discovering their potential at all.
Lord Lingfield (Con)
My Lords, I remind the Committee of my registered interest as chairman of the English Schools’ Orchestra. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Blackwell for his long-term championship of the music and dance scheme. The almost one thousand hugely talented students who are supported by the scheme are this country’s soloists, orchestral players and, of course, the corps de ballet of the future. They are among those at the apex of the UK’s cadre of young musicians and it is vital that their funding is not jeopardised. The students are chosen, of course, from a pool of the most musically accomplished children in the country, but, alas, that pool is growing smaller as musical opportunities in state schools diminish.
Many of your Lordships had the good fortune, as I did, to attend schools where music was very much part of daily life. School assemblies, celebration and open days, and parents’ evenings all had musical accompaniment, and of course there were many concerts and other musical entertainments. Alas, this is too often no longer so. There are too many schools where little or no classical music is heard by children, and, where music-making is available, instead of being part of school life it is often off-site at a music hub. Only about 15% of state schools have school orchestras, compared with about 85% of independent schools, so instrumental tuition and playing are too often a solitary activity for the young, with limited chances of taking part with other players in ensembles and orchestras. How wonderful, therefore, that we have the MDS schools, such as Wells Cathedral School and the others, with such high standards of music-making, to which other schools should aspire. It is imperative that they remain as a vital national resource.
Lord Freyberg (CB)
My Lords, Britain’s reputation as a global creative powerhouse rests on the strength of its education system, yet while other nations expand investment in creative learning, we appear to be retreating from it. The recent decision to remove bursaries for music and art teachers, at a time when recruitment for secondary music trainees meets barely 40% of the Government’s own target, illustrates starkly this contradiction.
The Department for Education claims that music teacher recruitment has risen by 53%, which is very welcome, but this represents recovery from an exceptionally low base and not success. Meanwhile, 42% of state schools had no students entered for GCSE music in 2022-23, up from 28% in 2016. Against this backdrop, the removal of support for training new teachers seems a puzzling way to rebuild capacity. As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said, the disconnect between rhetoric and reality undermines confidence. Ministers speak of restoring creative education, yet their departments steadily dismantle the infrastructure needed to deliver it. It is as though the ghost of former Minister Nick Gibb still haunts the department’s corridors, his philosophy lingering in policies that reward STEM while quietly trimming the arts.
I ask the Minister who in the department is driving these decisions. How do they align with the Government’s stated commitment to creative education? The music and dance scheme embodies what is at stake—eight specialist schools nurturing 940 gifted young people, many from low-income families—yet its funding has been frozen since 2011, losing a third of its value in real terms. A modest £4 million uplift and multiyear funding would secure these pathways and show that the Government’s cultural ambitions are more than words.
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
My Lords, according to research by the Sutton Trust, 43% of classical musicians went to private school, compared with 7% of the population as a whole. More than half of all students at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music did so. Since you are 10 times more likely to go to private school if your parents are in the top 10% of earners, rather than average earners, it is obvious that many young people are being denied the opportunity to shine in the creative industries simply because they were not born into a wealthy family. That is unfair to them and, of course, to all of us. How many amazing performances are audiences missing out on because stars in the making had to drop out through lack of funding?
Taxpayers lose out too. Some £11 billion a year is an already amazing economic contribution from music and the performing and visual arts, but just imagine how much more it could be if talented youngsters were not being turned away through lack of funds. The fact is that specialist music and dance training is expensive, which is why government help for those who would really benefit if they could only afford it is so important.
I should perhaps declare a maternal interest at this point: I have a daughter at the BRIT School, the first and leading state school for performing and creative arts in the UK, with Adele and Tom Holland among its alumni. The BRIT School is a model of diversity, with nearly half of students coming from lower-income families. To be clear, it is not part of the music and dance scheme, which is why I declared a maternal rather than a financial interest. The Committee will not be surprised to hear that, having had the opportunity to see for myself the power of top-quality specialist creative education, I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, secured this debate on the importance of affordable specialist music and dance schools.
I anticipate support across the Committee, not least given the welcome Labour manifesto commitment that
“the arts and music will no longer be the preserve of a privileged few”,
followed by the Government’s recently published plan to significantly increase direct funding for the creative industries sector. Confirming the future of the music and dance scheme would be an excellent contribution to this plan, providing the opportunity for more talented youngsters without wealthy parents to attend the very best specialist schools and colleges.
Lord Kirkham (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s clear manifesto commitment was that
“the arts and music will no longer be the preserve of a privileged few”.
Nothing is more crucial to the fulfilment of this pledge than ensuring continued access to our world-class specialist music and dance schools on the basis of talent, not parental wealth, yet here we are, starving these national treasures of resources and giving them no certainty on future funding.
The principal of the Purcell School, the oldest specialist music school, puts a precise number on the shortfall in the MDS scheme this year: £4 million. Coincidentally, that is the sum that the Government have added to MDS funding to compensate lower-income parents for the VAT added to their fees. How simple it would be to bring joy to our specialist music and dance schools, and to secure their futures, by allowing them to retain that money, rather than having it recycled back into the Treasury.
The other fundamental that our specialist schools need is certainty. The Government must revert to the historic norm of funding the MDS on a three-year basis, allowing schools to plan their budgets and resources. If they do not do this, the Purcell School believes that the majority of MDS schools will be forced to close down within the next two years.
If we want to ensure the future of our world-class orchestras, dance companies, theatres and rock bands, we must cherish the fantastic resources in our specialist schools, particularly if we wish to ensure the continued diversity of players and performers and provide a career path for the gifted, regardless of family financial status. Surely this must be exactly what the present Government desire. If they will the end, they must provide the means.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, from listening to this debate it is quite clear that one theme has come through: please give us certainty. With a one-year scheme, nobody would encourage a child to go into this. In dance, you are more certain to break your leg than you are in professional rugby—okay, maybe it is an even draw. You are asking a child to go into something risky, with no guarantees, so at least let them finish their training with a degree of certainty. I have to disagree: three years is not long enough. It should go on through their entire training. There has to be certainty.
If the Government do not like the MDS, they should change it and bring in something else that guarantees opportunity. That is something that is coming out here today. The economic case has been made—here and on many occasions—that you get a very good bang for your buck if you produce good artists.
I could not agree more with the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick. We need to make sure that we have an identification process for getting people into this, by encouraging the schools to at least have an introduction that might allow children to go on to this. You will cut out many people from the state school sector if you do not have some familiarisation package that means that they are ready for specialist training. The two go together, and there has to be an ongoing commitment to ensure that they are both working together.
If the Government do not like the MDS or the CAT scheme, they should come up with something new. If they do like them, they should guarantee them for as long as the Labour Party is in power. That is not too much to ask, and the economic benefits are clear.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Blackwell and all noble Lords for their valuable contributions, which are clearly united in their support. Access to high-level music and dance training should be an opportunity for every individual with shining talent. The music and dancing scheme exists to ensure that talent, wherever it is found, has a route to success. For over 2,000 students from low-income backgrounds, it has been exactly that—a lifeline, as was so well put by the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley.
That lifeline, however, is now under threat. There are serious and growing concerns about the future of the music and dance scheme. The Government have yet to confirm whether the scheme will continue beyond the current academic year, leaving students, parents and the schools themselves in a state of prolonged uncertainty.
In the spring, we were told that a decision on the scheme’s future would follow the conclusion of the spending review. That review has now passed but there is still no announcement on funding. No one likes uncertainty but the Government are helping to create uncertainty for families, schools and those very children with the talent and ability to achieve their dreams of performing at the highest levels. Surely, they deserve better than vague timelines and delayed decisions.
One had only to look at the front page of a major newspaper yesterday to see that the Government are spending £260 million on centres for deportation, which provide illegal migrants with “art classes”, including skills such as “sketching, crafts and … painting”. Can the Minister explain how, on the one hand, the Government seriously continue to provide arts funding of this nature but, on the other, will not commit to just £36 million per year for the music and dance scheme? The noble Lord, Lord Black, is entirely correct: it is a rounding error. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, is spot on: it is a pinprick in a Treasury spreadsheet. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition urge the Government to end this uncertainty and publicly commit to the continuation and stability of the music and dance scheme. Surely our future young musicians of the year and dancers are worth it.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, I start with an enormous thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, for bringing forward this important debate. The number of people taking part demonstrates the strength of feeling in this House and, clearly, beyond. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, who have considerable experience in this area. It is always an enormous privilege to hear them.
I mentioned before my personal interest from my role as the leader of Leeds City Council, when I took on its cultural portfolio. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, who talked about ballet shoes, and my noble friend Lady Ramsey, who spoke of her personal experience, I have personal experience from a granddaughter who is very involved in this area, and thank goodness—it is wonderful to see, as we have heard from all who contributed.
I make clear from the outset that access to specialist music and dance education must not be the preserve of the privileged few. This is the Government’s clear view. In emphasising the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, we have to stress this throughout, despite the difficult times through which we are living. As part of our opportunity mission, we want to widen access to the arts, so that young people can develop their creativity and find their expression and voice. This is important in its own right—subjects such as music and dance are a critical part of a rich education—but it also supports young people with the dedication to excel in the performing arts.
In closing this debate, I underline this Government’s commitment to maintaining affordable access to specialist music and dance education so that, regardless of their background, high-achieving young people can access specialist training. As we have heard through the debate, the Government continue to provide generous support to help students access specialist music and dance education and training. We committed £36.5 million to the music and dance scheme this academic year, as we have heard.
I will pick up on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the contribution that the sector makes to the richness of our economy. We know that growth is the Government’s number one mission and that the new industrial strategy is central to that. This is a sector in which the UK excels today and will propel us forward tomorrow.
The creative industries have been announced as one of the eight growth-driving sectors in the industrial strategy, which has been published following the multi-year spending review. The creative industries sector plan has been designed in collaboration with business and devolved Governments and the regions. It is critical that we provide a workforce with the right skills and capabilities, as we will go on to discuss. I am looking forward very much to the Government’s work on skills and where this sits within it.
I emphasise that the scheme provides income-assessed bursaries and grants to enable high-achieving children and young people in music and dance to benefit from world-class specialist training, regardless of their personal and financial circumstances. The scheme supports students to attend eight independent schools and 20 centres for advanced training, the latter providing places at weekends and evenings and in the school holidays. Bursaries support more than 2,000 pupils a year, with around 900 pupils attending schools. I emphasise that all families earning below the average relevant income of £45,000 per annum and making parental contributions will continue to receive additional financial support this academic year, so they will be unaffected financially by the VAT change in January 2025.
The music and dance scheme is a long-term commitment and the Government will continue to look at it. We know that there is enormous gratitude for the additional £4 million covering the issue of VAT. I want to give reassurance that due consideration will be given to the cost of providing specialist education, including consideration of the points made today by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, my noble friend Lady Royall, and the noble Lords, Lord Vaizey, Lord Black and Lord Hall. They all made important points about long-term funding, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, emphasised them.
I have to say, however, that we have been, in the main, in this space for more than two decades. This is not something new that has been brought in. The current scheme was established in, I think, 2002 under the previous Labour Government. We need to be clear about where we are going forward. We know that we have had to make tough decisions to get our finances back under control—the noble Lord, Lord Hall, referred to this—including some additional non-bursary funding and some music and dance scheme centres. The main bursary funding itself has, however, been protected. All eligible students from the last academic year have continued to receive MDS bursaries, and new eligible students will have commenced at the beginning of this term.
The Government will also ensure that high-quality arts education, including in music and dance, is available across all state-funded schools. To achieve this, additional support for our schools and teachers is needed. We acknowledge this. I want to pick up on the comments of my noble friend Lady Warwick on the impact of EBacc and recognising the need for pupils to be prepared and ready for training as the noble Lord, Lord Addington said. We want every child, regardless of background, to have a rich, broad, inclusive and innovative curriculum.
I am sure all noble Lords will be aware that we are still awaiting the launch of the independent review of curriculum assessment, chaired by Professor Becky Francis. She is looking at all subjects. She is looking at music and seeks to deliver a curriculum that readies young people for life and work, including in creative subjects and skills. It is being informed by evidence and data, and in close consultation with education professionals and other experts. Parents, children, young people and other stakeholders, such as employers, have been involved in that work.
The final report is very close to being published but I cannot pre-empt the outcome of that review, as I am sure noble Lords will be aware, despite requests for me to do so. We will of course consider associated implications for accountability measures, such as EBacc and Progress 8, alongside this. It is fundamental that we take this incredibly seriously. I hope noble Lords understand that the Government are emphasising these points, as my noble friend Lord Liddle highlighted.
On additional support, again, that is why we announced in March our intention to launch the new National Centre for Arts and Music Education as we go forward. We believe that the new centre will help us to meet our ambitions for improved and equitable arts education. The centre will support schools in teaching music and dance, as well as art and design and drama. It will also be the national delivery partner for the music hubs network, with the 43 hub partnerships central to supporting schools. Our intention is to appoint a delivery partner for the centre through an open, competitive procurement. We have been engaging with sector stakeholders, including the music hubs network, to refine the details of the centre. The invitation to tender is due to be issued soon.
Again, in recognising how important this is, the music hubs grant funding of £76 million has been secured for the full academic year of 2025-26 and to the end of August 2026. Following the outcome of the spending review, longer-term funding will be confirmed in due course. The Government continue to invest £25 million in capital funding to widen access to musical instruments and technology to the end of this year.
I am taking a bit of licence here in what I pick up, with the permission of the Whip, because we have until 3 pm.
Baroness Bull (CB)
Can the Minister help me to understand where dance will sit within the new centre that she describes? The centre is dedicated to music and the arts but, as we know, in schools dance sits within the PE curriculum. Is there going to be some sort of tension in how the centre can support dance within schools, when in fact it is not viewed as an art but as a physical education subject?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I have had the great pleasure of having this discussion with the noble Baroness on a number of occasions. I cannot go further than we have before on the curriculum review, but there is an acknowledgement of the position of dance and its relationship to PE. In all of the wider picture, that voice is very loud and it has been heard.
I want to emphasise the issue of teacher training, on which an important point has been raised. It is true that the £10,000 tax-free bursary for music will be removed in 2026-27 but this is due to improved teacher retention and higher ITT recruitment. That is the basis for that announcement on 11 October. I also emphasise the importance of choir schools, referred to by my noble friend Lord Liddle. As part of the scheme, the department provides a grant of £210,000 to the Choir Schools Association. This offers means-tested support to choristers attending CSA member schools, including cathedral and collegiate choir schools in England, to help those with exceptional talent who are unable to afford the fees.
This has been a rich debate and I am conscious that I have not been able to give all the points that have been made their due notice. I know that we will have more discussion across the House but we are at a critical point, as the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, mentioned, given the timing of the Budget that is coming up. I understand why so many noble Lords have brought these matters to the attention of the House through this important debate.
In closing, I underline this Government’s commitment to ensuring that all children can access and engage with high-quality music and dance education. Access to the arts is a vital part of a rich education and must not be the preserve of the privileged few.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
Before the Minister sits down, since we have a couple of minutes, I have a point of clarification. The figure of £4 million has been repeated a number of times in the debate. I would clarify for people watching that the £4 million the Government have given is to offset VAT, but the music and dance schools are asking for an entirely separate £4 million. I just wanted to put that on record.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
Thank you. I acknowledge that and we will obviously take away some of the more detailed comments made. I have just had a note to tell me that the new PE and sport partnerships will support dance as well as sport in schools, if that is helpful.
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the challenges presented to the international order by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation following the recent summit held in Tianjin.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)
My Lords, there are moments which stick in your mind because they tell you that “something has changed”. Sometimes it is obvious, such as when the Brandenburg Gate was opened and the Berlin Wall fell, but at other times it takes a bit longer before it becomes clear just what has happened. I had one of those “Is this history being made?” feelings when I watched the footage of the 2025 China Victory Day parade in the first week in September. It was not just the parade but the parade combined with the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, hosted by China in Tianjin between 31 August and 1 September, which made me reflect.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is an intergovernmental organisation which brings together 10 countries, including China, Russia and India. Its members represent 42% of the world’s population and account for 23% of global GDP, and the official languages are Russian and Chinese. A feature of this particular summit was the attendance of the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. This was his first visit to China in seven years. Two days later, on 3 September, in Tiananmen Square, the 2025 China Victory Day Parade in Beijing celebrated the 80th anniversary of the end of the second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War. Over 12,000 troops of the People’s Liberation Army participated in the parade. For anybody who saw this, it was absolutely awesome, strategic and precise. It almost made me think, “Is this real?” President Xi showcased China’s new weapons and demonstrated the modernisation of the PLA, with hypersonic missiles, stealth drones, underwater drones and long-range, nuclear-capable missiles. He was joined by 25 foreign Heads of State and Government. They came from Asia, Africa, Latin America and eastern Europe. Western nations were hardly represented.
However, there were two high-profile guests. President Xi was flanked by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and the leader of North Korea. Traditionally, there is little brotherly love lost between Russia, China and North Korea, and the three leaders had not appeared together in public before they did so in Beijing. Bilateral meetings between China and Korea and North Korea had not been uncommon. Similarly, Russia and China have regular contact. But Putin’s first foreign trip in his new presidential term was a state visit to Beijing, and they had met in the margins of the SCO at the 2024 summit in Astana in Kazakhstan. What made this different was that it was the first time that the three leaders had appeared together in public. In less than a week, China, Russia, North Korea and India had come together. Arguably this was the moment which demonstrated that Russia had accepted China’s dominance and a challenge to the hegemony of the United States of America. In Xi Jinping’s words, his country’s rise is “unstoppable”, or, to quote the Chinese Foreign Minister’s words after the summit,
“the monopoly of global governance by a few countries must not continue”.
We are used to talking about threats and how we will meet them, but I want to take a completely different stance and to reflect on how the world is changing, how western democracies have to respond, and how the multilateral institutions which we have created and developed since 1945 are out of step with what is happening around the globe. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989; in 1991, the Soviet Union formally dissolved; in 1992, Francis Fukuyama predicted the “end of history” and the “last man”. Going back to the deep European traditions of Hegel, he reasoned that history is linear and that, ultimately, it will culminate in a rational free society—if we only allow things to develop, everywhere will become a liberal democracy.
There was a period when it looked a bit like this. In 1997, the British Government set up DfID. We no longer used international or overseas aid as a national policy tool; it was for poverty relief. In 1999, Tony Blair’s speech to the Economic Club of Chicago talked about “the international community”. The Canadian Government published their report The Responsibility to Protect following the failure of the international community to intervene in Rwanda. There was an extraordinary period of idealism, and we were not alone in this. The German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, foresaw in 2007 that Russia would be so intertwined with the EU’s exceptional role model of international co-operation that it would inevitably get like us. It was Steinmeier who helped the Russians join the WTO in 2011. The German phrase was “Wandel durch Handel”. The world would change because we would trade with them and, because we would be so intertwined through trade, they would all become like us—liberal democracies. I know some noble Lords are starting to wonder where I am going with this little history lesson. Even centralised states such as China were beginning to think that only by becoming a liberal democracy could they be economically successful.
The global financial crisis of 2008 changed all that—then, even the capitalist liberal democracies were seen not to be in control of capital flows. The World Trade Organization is now in the position that virtually everyone is either a member or has observer status. I think the only three countries that are not are Eritrea, Kosovo and North Korea. Its institutions are completely dysfunctional and the dispute-resolution process is not working. Curiously, while Russia completely ignores the WTO, China takes a very different approach. It has a twin track of co-operating and being quite rule-compliant, in some ways.
I wanted this debate so that we would reflect on two things. First, the world around us is changing, whether we like it or not. If all we do is simply continue to identify what we think are threats, without defining what we think the world should look like, we will only ever be responsive to other people’s actions and, I suggest, will be losing. Secondly, given that it is close to Trafalgar Day—I declare my interest, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, on the other side, as an honorary captain in the Royal Navy—I will take the liberty of quoting Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, who said:
“I owe all my success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour before my time”.
In other words, you look ahead. That does not mean some strange blue-sky thinking, but looking a step ahead to see what is coming. I suggest that there is a big battle coming that will determine the most dominant global power. That battle will be between America and China.
It is no good talking about enemies. This is about democracies, and democracies have to stick together. Economically, quite frankly, we cannot live for six months without China, but China can quite happily live for six months without us. I urge the Minister to consider whether we should define what “good” looks like and start moving away from economic indicators and have coalitions of democracies that work together, fighting for what they stand for and making it much clearer why it is worth fighting for.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, we often talk about the way in which liberal democracy is in retreat in the part of the world that we have just been hearing about, particularly in Russia. I wonder whether we have not put that question back to front. The Russian state was founded in 882. If we look at the period between its foundation and the present, we see that it has been an autocracy for 1,120 years. There was a little moment of constitutional monarchy in 1905; there was the period between February and October 1917; and then, if we very generously count the early Putin as well as the Yeltsin years, we can come up with 23 years in which Russia has adhered to something that we would recognise as the rule of law and representative government. That is not a whole lot of democratic muscle memory to fall back on.
The point I want to make is that this is very normal. One way of explaining the rise of Putin is to look at what happened in all the other ex-Soviet states—what happened when the USSR suddenly broke apart and, in almost every case outside the Baltics, went into some kind of autocracy. What was it that all those strongmen had in common—the Karimovs and Aliyevs and so on? Was it charisma? Was it some demotic connection with their people? Was it intelligence? No. They just happened to be the Soviet officials who were in charge of the Uzbek SSR—or whatever it was—at the time when the break-up came. They suddenly found themselves in charge of sovereign states and they very quickly set about ensuring that their grip on power would be unchallenged and there would be a kind of one-party state.
That is the norm. That is the sobering thought. We in anglophone western democracies are the exception. It is not the Putins and the Karimovs who are extraordinary but the Washingtons—the people who do not try to set up hereditary dictatorial power. That should make us aware of the fragility of our model and of the constant need to defend it, by being ready not only to deploy arms proportionately in defence of freedom but to defend it intellectually and culturally at home. This is where the challenge of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation comes from. It is a fundamentally illiberal alternative model, and it is growing; it is popular. All these new countries are adhering to it because that autocratic way of government appeals to something very deep in the human psyche. It is how we administered ourselves for the 10,000 years between the discovery of agriculture and a couple of hundred years ago, at most—an eyeblink in evolutionary terms.
That is why this matters. It is not because of the strategic importance of the region—every region thinks it is strategically important, including central Asia. When I was a new MEP, my noble friend Lord Callanan and I were put on the central Asia delegation. As an MEP, if you were a goody-goody federalist they gave you the Caribbean or South Africa. We were critics of the single currency, so they gave us central Asia, and I am very glad they did. I got to know the region pretty well, and I loved it. I visit it still; I have friends there. But with the best will in the world, it is not of great strategic importance to us—not as a maritime country. Sir Halford Mackinder used to say that it was the inventor of geostrategy, the key region, the heartland:
“he who controls the heartland controls the world”.
Barely had he said that than the First World War came along and disproved him, as did the Second World War. It may have had some tangential strategic relevance to us at the height of the great game, when Stoddart and Conolly were murdered in Bukhara in 1842, but it is a stretch to say that it matters to us now, as an archipelago at the western tip of the Eurasian land mass.
This matters not for reasons of direct geostrategic interest but because there is this cultural challenge—this alternative way of running our affairs—which appeals to people, including in the west. The reason that India, Pakistan, Iran and all these places are adhering to organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation —the clue as to who runs it is in the name, by the way—is that they think that our system is in decline. One reason they think that is because we keep telling them. We have become so ready to dismiss and distance ourselves from our own past. We have this extraordinary lack of self-confidence. If our children get any history at all, we tend to present it as a hateful chronicle of racism and exploitation.
I would be prepared to defend the proposition —I cannot prove it—that almost any child in a primary school in this country would be much more familiar with the names of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King than those of Lilburne, Locke, Wycliffe, Wilkes, Milton or Millar; and that is just the Johns. We are not teaching them our own history of freedom and personal responsibility, of the elevation of the individual above the collective and of the importance of the rule of law. That, it seems to me, is our challenge as legislators. We need to emphasise that we are inheritors of this sublime tradition, that it is better than the alternative and that it raised the human race to a pinnacle of wealth and freedom. Keeping that heritage going means teaching the next generation about why it is special, why they are lucky to be the guardians of this sublime patrimony, why they will hold it—as we do—on a repairing lease and why they, too, will have a commensurate obligation to pass it on intact to those who come after.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, it is the turn of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
No worries. My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart of Edgbaston, for securing this important debate and for her clear introduction, which rightly highlighted Francis Fukuyama, who was always bizarrely hubristic with his end-of-history thesis and indeed now looks very far into the past.
My contribution will have two foci. The first is to urge that we consider the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the context of the behaviour of its second-most powerful member, Russia, and its allies in the continuing attack on Ukraine, and of other organisation members, including Iran and Belarus and, of course, China. My other focus will be somewhat in disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, on one aspect of what has been described as the “Shanghai spirit” and one particular part of it: the so-called respect for the diversity of civilisations.
To return to my first focus, I wish to report to the Committee a little of my experiences last week when I travelled with fellow parliamentarians—with financial support from British companies, which I will be appropriately declaring in due course—to Ukraine as part of a delegation from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons and their Impact. The focus was on the clearing of mines and unexploded ordnance, something that the Ukrainians have to deal with at a totally unprecedented scale, at least in the form of risk. Some 29% of their nation, or 174,000 square kilometres, is at risk of being affected by mines and unexploded ordnance. We visited the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and the Mines Advisory Group and Halo Trust projects.
We also saw the crucial efforts to treat those who have fallen victim to the mines at the charities Superhumans and Unbroken. We saw the human cost of the continuing Russian assault. We also saw close up the vicious, and sometimes internationally illegal, weapons that the Russians and their allies are using against civilian populations. Holding a submunition, a cluster bomb—obviously, once it had been rendered safe—and seeing a children’s storybook booby-trapped with explosives was an acute demonstration of the sheer difficulties that the Ukrainians face and the nature of the actions of the Russian-led alliance, many of whose members were in Tianjin.
Understandably, in the face of the horrors of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the desperate desire to get the Israeli hostages home, the media and even the political focus have not always been on Ukraine. However, I want to stress the importance of continuing to provide the Ukrainians with practical support and moral support, both directly and through projects such as that of BBC Media Action, which is assisting in the vital task of explosive ordnance risk education. Behind that must be a strong, determined delivery of the message from the international community—or as much of it as we can bring together—that there is a principle that larger countries cannot simply decide to take chunks out of their neighbours. Further, that there are rules of war and breaking these must not just be called out, but must have genuine, long-term, serious consequences for the regimes responsible. The human race has a long way to go. It was back in 697 that the law of innocence was promulgated by Gaelic and Pictish nobles at the Synod of Birr. It extended what had been protection for monks and religious male figures to women and other non-combatants. That is a very long time ago and we still have failed to deliver that, as I saw in Ukraine.
I come now to the to the second part of my contribution today, which is around the term “civilisations”, which, as I noted, is described as part of the Shanghai spirit. This language is increasingly penetrating many international settings, frequently from the influence of China. I note, for example, that on 7 June 2024 the UN General Assembly adopted 10 June as the international day for dialogue among civilisations. I agree with the words of the US representative during that debate that we should instead be talking about cultures. The US representative then urged vigilance over how words such as “civilisation” are used.
This is a term in the form of western civilisation that we are hearing increasingly in your Lordships’ House, and I would ask those who are increasingly using it to consider how they are playing into the hands of dangerous forces which are using it in places such Xinjiang. Making claims of exceptionalism, of the purity of one historical cultural formulation over another, is playing into the hands of the narrative that we are hearing from China and other countries that needs to be challenged, not accepted.
I am pleased to say that there a growing reaction against that, against the idea of discrete, distinct civilisations, an international shedding of civilizational thinking. I note that on display today in your Lordships’ Library is the cover of Josephine Quinn’s excellent book How the World Made the West which addresses this issue. She notes Polybius’s remark that the Romans were a multicultural melting pot willing to substitute their customs for better practices from elsewhere. There is no such thing as pure Roman civilisation or indeed western civilisation. This book explicitly takes aim at Samuel P Huntington’s influential 1996 clash of civilisations thesis, which is effectively being adopted in this debate. It is deeply dangerous and a framing for a great deal of Islamophobic and other xenophobic rhetoric and action. Challenging this claim is an urgent task.
Responding to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I point out that democracy and democratic elements have a very long history going back, of course, as is often cited, to ancient Greece, but much further than that to a millennia before in ancient Assyria.
Lord Skidelsky (CB)
My Lords, I do not want to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in her discourse on the Ukraine war. My position is known on that. As for the rest of it, I have more sympathy with the spirit of the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, than I have with that of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan.
I may have a closer connection with Tianjin than any Member of either House having gone to school there nearly 80 years ago. I hope this will not in itself cause me to be thought of as a security risk. I agree with the noble Baroness that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation poses challenges to the international order. I accept that, and I think we all do, but we need to be clear about the nature of the challenges and of the order being challenged.
The challenges referred to by the noble Baroness arise from the fact that power in the world is shifting. The clout of the NATO world is shrinking while that of the non-NATO world is growing, and accommodation of the international order to these shifts in the balance of power is absolutely inevitable. That has always happened throughout history, and the question is whether it will be peaceful or violent. The numbers are striking—the noble Baroness mentioned some of them.
In the late 1980s, the countries later to form the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation accounted for only about 5% of global output while western nations produced well over 50%. Today, the SCO’s member states generate 23% of global output while the western share has shrunk to 30%. To take demography, whereas in the late 1980s the west still represented close to a quarter of the world’s population, today the SCO countries account for 42% while the NATO world has shrunk to about 10%. If we take BRICS-plus, the scale of the shift is even more dramatic, with 56% of the world’s population, roughly 40% of the world’s global output, being controlled by this non-western grouping. So we should find nothing surprising about the Tianjin summits initiative. They are designed to insert a large group of countries into the structure of global governance, from which they felt they have been excluded. That is the essence of it.
Shifts in global power always hard to accommodate peacefully because we do not have a world Government —we cannot simply vote out one lot of people and vote in another lot. The reason why we in Britain find it so hard to accept the current shift is that we mix it up with morals. We claim to stand for a set of rules, institutions and power arrangements which are or should be morally binding on everyone. We therefore interpret any challenge to that order as, ipso facto, immoral and to be resisted, if possible by war.
The view from Tianjin is of course very different. President Xi calls the western rules-based international order a cloak for the “bullying behaviour” and “hegemonic ambitions” of the United States. China, we need to recall, had most of its coastline divided up between colonial powers. Tianjin, where I went to school in 1948, had just emerged from extraterritorial status. So, multipolarity is also a moral position, not just an assertion of power. It is also a moral, anti-imperial position. Properly interpreted, it means the quest for peace through agreement between powers with different value systems; that is the only way we will get a peaceful world. It means we in this country have to accept domestic policies we find abhorrent, accept the notion of spheres of influence, accept as legitimate the use of soft power by China and others to influence opinion in this country without becoming paranoid about it, as I think we tend to be.
It is our highly negative attitude to multipolarity which has caused it to spill over into economic warfare—I mean both economic sanctions and tariff wars. Can our rulers not see that it is the policy of economic sanctions which has led to the world dividing into economic blocs? That is not an inescapable tenancy of multipolarity but it comes out of the union of geopolitics and economics—economics used as an instrument of geopolitics. In addition, except for very small examples, sanctions have never deterred or stopped behaviour of which we disapprove. What they do achieve is to divert trade in money and goods away from their comparative advantage to protected areas, which therefore makes the world poorer, and that is what is happening today.
We must accept the reality of a multipolar world, and we must reform the institutions best fitted to govern it. The noble Baroness referred to one or two of them. The UN Security Council, the IMF and the WTO have to be reformed. China needs to be a partner in this process, and that means accepting China’s right to share in the governance of the world. We have not done that so far, and the importance of this debate is to draw attention to that fact.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, not least because I am in complete agreement with the last point that he made. It is a central one in this debate.
We face a new world order in which diplomacy is adapting, somewhat slowly, to the characteristics of populist government. A populist, social media-driven world is inherently less stable, less predictable and more dangerous. Against this background, the SCO and the western-led liberal orders offer very distinct frameworks for international co-operation and governance, which will need to adapt to these changes.
As highlighted by the 2025 Tianjin summit, the SCO emphasises collective security, counterterrorism and regional stability, valuing sovereignty and non-interference by the West. The western-led liberal order prioritises free market economics, democratic governance and human rights. The SCO, primarily centred on Eurasia, with key members such as China, as we have heard, Russia and India, fosters regional alliances. The western-led order is global in scope, with institutions such as the UN and the World Trade Organisation seeking to play central roles, while populist leaders in the West condemn their ineffectiveness and outdated irrelevance. How should the British Government respond?
First, I argue that we need to update our analysis of UK policy in the region to take account of fast-moving post-SCO meeting events. New objectives must be redefined through engagement opportunities. The UK could and should more vigorously engage with SCO countries to enhance trade ties and collaborate on security issues, particularly in combating terrorism and drug trafficking. With the western-led order, we should continue and strengthen participation which supports our economic interests and growth through bilateral and global trade, while reinforcing but not seeking to impose democratic values and human rights.
We must be more sensitive to the fact that change takes time, so the macropolitical message from Tianjin for us is to evaluate which partnerships align most with our long-term national interests. We must engage in dialogue and definitely not disengage with both SCO and western-led countries. We must explore mutual benefits and seek a balance between promoting democratic values and securing economic interests. We should forget calls for cultural imposition and the forceful use of unequal power dynamics: they lead years of work in building co-operation and respect down an abrupt cul-de-sac.
There is certainly a case for more active diplomacy and fewer public shouting matches, so we should be leveraging diplomatic, economic and cultural tools to influence and engage with SCO member states through bilateral dialogue, multilateral platforms and cultural, sporting and educational exchange programmes. We must rediscover the might of soft power. Above all, we should encourage UK businesses to adopt responsible trade practices that emphasise ethical standards, seeking through diplomacy and respect to influence human rights and to reach out for global action on global challenges such as climate change, where equitable co-operation is vital. It is such a platform that allows for the most effective advocacy for human rights and fair governance, with support for like-minded NGOs that we can fund and support in their work towards human rights and fair governance in SCO countries.
I will give one example of how we can put this approach into practice in countries of the SCO and, in particular, in Uzbekistan. The relationship between the UK Government and Uzbekistan is currently marked by a spirit of co-operation and growing engagement. With a growing economy, young population and active foreign policy, Uzbekistan serves as a key for transportation, logistics and cultural exchange in Eurasia. From a purely strategic point of view, Uzbekistan can be seen as a potential world-class provider of rare earth minerals. Keen to develop its significant and mostly untapped resources, Uzbek Government-led entities seek to form joint ventures, attract foreign investment and explore new projects, with a view to becoming major global suppliers for high-tech and green energy industries.
Uzbekistan and the UK have already signed an ambitious co-operation programme for 2025-26, covering politics, economics, education, energy and climate change. Frequent visits and meetings between senior Ministers support regular strategic dialogue and promote trust. The UK’s involvement in Uzbek higher education is a central pillar of this relationship, and the UK actively supports Uzbekistan in ensuring governance reform, economic development and human rights.
Collaboration on border security, training and climate resilience reflects a broadening agenda beyond trade. Uzbekistan is critical to security in the region and beyond, not least with its shared border with Afghanistan, and that is an important part of our national security. We should be more active on the front foot with Uzbekistan. For example, an invitation to the President is long overdue, in my view. At the very least, we should continue to build on the significant strengths of countries such as Uzbekistan, whose focus on pragmatic multivector diplomacy means that we should strengthen the relationship with the country as a valued partner, to act as a balance to the somewhat less advanced relationships with some other members of the SCO.
For all the concerns that have been expressed, the outcomes from the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tianjin are an opportunity for careful engagement, while always being aware of the potential risks and challenges. In the new world reality, we would be unwise not to identify and pursue these opportunities, fully respecting and understanding the differences that separate us.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, to comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on Tuesday I was at Oxford University, where the head of the presidential administration of Uzbekistan was presiding at the launch of the Uzbek language and cultural centre at the university. Indeed, this month, the University of Cardiff opened a campus in Kazakhstan, so we are active.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart of Edgbaston, on this debate, which is very sparsely populated. It needs to be taken to the Floor of the House, because it is crucial that we think through what is going on in the world and how we respond to it. However, I slightly resist one or two of the comments that implied that this change is inevitable and we just have to adapt to it; I do not accept that. We have to have a dynamic role to interact with it and possibly try to help it move in a slightly different direction from what they may intend. I do not mean that in a destructive sense, but we need to engage.
It is interesting that, at the moment, the Government do not seem to know what their relationship with China ought to be. So, today, the head of MI5 said that China is a threat, but the Government are saying that we do not want to upset them. We need to think it through. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about the presentation of the SCO. I say in passing that the photo at the end of it was of 15 men—they were all men—of which 14 were autocrats. There is no doubt at all that this is a different organisation from ours. It is in some way inimical to us, but it exists.
On the figures, it is worth pointing out that the strength of those numbers depends an awful lot on India—and, of course, China, but China is at the core of it. India is a democracy, the one country that is, so that, clearly, is a basis for us to engage, if ever there was one. That is not to say to India, “You shouldn’t be doing this”, but to say, “You are a democracy and they’re not”. It is really important that we have an open channel through and with India on that basis.
I also want to talk about the influence of Russia and China in Africa. China’s belt and road initiative across Asia and Africa is pouring massive resources and potential dependency into countries in Africa, reinforced by what was the Wagner regime, now the Africa Corps, from Russia, whose objectives are not benign. As the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said, we should expect the SCO to use its soft power, but it is a bit ironic that it is doing so just as we are dismantling ours. It seems to me that this is a good pause for us to think about how we use all our influences.
Earlier today, the Minister said, quite rightly, that this is not just about aid. I accept that; it is about all the resources that characterise what we stand for: trade, investment, culture, the British Council, the BBC and aid. It is about all those things, and we need to promote them much more vigorously.
We have to recognise that China is a major player. People sometimes express surprise that China has emerged in this category but, if you look at the history of the last 2,000 years, China was a major power for most of it. It is hardly surprising that it is now, and it has numbers, capacity and strength. Engagement is clear, but we have to decide what our interests are, what our security is and how we will deal with that. China needs to understand that, while we are willing to engage, trade and co-invest, we are not going to compromise our security any more than China would compromise its own. That is where we have not got it right, right now; we look a bit confused and unclear, and we need to sharpen that up.
The other problem is where the leadership is coming from. The current leadership of the West—the United States—is causing us a lot of difficulties. It does not seem committed to the values that we talk about. President Trump is very happy to talk about his friends in Hungary and Slovakia who are undermining most of our principles, but he is okay about it. He likes strong men—autocratic men, as far as I can see—and is less interested in the rule of law and human rights. He seems a bit cavalier about them, so we cannot rely on the United States to be the leading champions of this.
That puts a role on us to be clearer—if we are sure about our values—about how to assert them much more emphatically than we have done. The noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, was right at the beginning that we are at a pivotal point. It has been going on for a long time, but it is only just dawning on people how pivotal it is. We need to assess that.
Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me say that we need to improve our relationships with our own continent. We may have differences of view—unlike others, I believe that the exit from the European Union was both bad for us and bad for them; I would love to go back, but I am not pushing that point—but it is clear that we have to find common values. If we are to address this world order, we need to do it in common cause with like-minded parties and countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which share our values.
I congratulate the noble Baroness and plead for the Government to allow more time and space for these issues to be debated more widely, with inputs that may help the Government get a clearer handle on where we are. We cannot afford to walk away from China—I do not think we should—but we need to be sure, when dealing with China, that it knows where we are coming from and that we know where it is coming from. It needs to be much more open and clearer that we have a different set of values.
My final worry is that when there is a vote in the United Nations, all these countries in Africa, hardly surprisingly, tend to feel that the lead comes not from us but from elsewhere. If we do not do something soon, we will not win any votes in the United Nations.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart of Edgbaston, for securing this debate and to all the other fascinating contributions. There seems to have been a concentration, in this corner, from the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lord Hannan, of talk about Uzbekistan—somewhat surprisingly. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, reminded us, when we were MEPs, we had the opportunity to visit that country on two or three occasions. It was fascinating, and we suffered from what was referred to as “terrorist hospitality”: on a number of occasions, food and drink was literally forced on us and we were unable to refuse, whether we liked it or not. It did, of course, have an appalling human rights record, at the time, machine-gunning demonstrators and boiling opponents in oil. This was a number of years ago; I hope its record has got slightly better recently.
Given the domination of China-related news in recent days, I am sure noble Lords will have arrived at this debate with the topic at hand already at the forefront of their minds. This is an extremely topical debate—the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, must have had a vision of the future when she secured it. I hope that we can leave here after the contribution from the Minister feeling somewhat slightly less bemused by the Government’s approach to China. I also hope, however, that ongoing events have made them acutely aware the threat of the Chinese Communist Party’s growing global influence to international stability and order. As my noble friend Lord Hannan pointed out, the clue to who runs the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is indeed in the name, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, pointed out in her excellent introduction, the international order that has held since the end of the Cold War is fraying.
Out from under the threat of communism arose a liberal system that centred itself on the rule of law through robust yet unimposing international treaties and institutions—in no small part catalysed and maintained by this country—an order emerged that allowed states, both big and small to interact, to coexist freely and with their own sovereignty. Now, as growing economies begin to compete with the upholders of the prevailing peaceful order, new spheres of influence are cropping up to fracture the old and impose their authority on the new. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation—slightly misnamed in my view—and its component countries, has no small part to play in that.
The Russian Federation, nations that it engulfed under the Iron Curtain just half a century ago, India, Pakistan, Iran and China make up nearly half the global population and are using their strength and manpower to ally and to exert their influence in an aggressive and partisan manner. The last of those countries, China, has managed to influence and manoeuvre some of the most developed nations in the world—and we here are indeed a case in point. Imagine the free rein that they have with the more underdeveloped nations in search of a route to supposed prosperity. It may seem an attractive notion: rich and poor partnerships aimed at guiding countries to the promised land but the empirical evidence suggests otherwise. The belt and road initiative, coated as a benevolent partnership, has led to many countries in Africa and elsewhere becoming shackled to the Chinese by a collar of unshakeable debt, allowing their guarantor to exercise control and coercion with no repercussions whatever.
The SCO is the other side of that same coin but, rather than one nation, it is, as I said, a near majority of the globe acting to impress themselves into the international order. It is a danger under the guise of a developer. Let me just cover a few of the demonstrations that we saw from the organisation’s summit last month, when it announced, with no hint of irony, its global governance initiative. It pledged to promote democracy when leading members are explicit authoritarians. The interesting sole exception to that is of course India, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, pointed out. I struggle to see why it would want to be part of such an organisation. The SCO pledged to abide by the international rule of law, “equally and uniformly”, it says in its declaration, all of course while one of its members is waging an illegal war on Ukraine. It preaches multilateralism when decisions are made unilaterally and with force on smaller surrounding countries.
The SCO represents a clear worry to the peaceful system that has governed our relations for the past three and a half decades. The current Government, I say with sadness but not surprise, have not so far stepped up to this threat. The only place that I can begin is with a brief overview of what has unfolded with regard to China in the past few weeks. A prosecution accusing two men of spying on behalf of China was dropped on 15 September due to a lack of evidence, a decision followed by proclamations of astonishment and surprise from Ministers. The Minister of State for Security told the Commons that the decision had been entirely independent, before the DPP revealed that he had spent months asking the Government to release evidence before the case was dropped. The Education Secretary was then wheeled out at the weekend to do the media rounds, in which she changed the Government’s tune, claiming that the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser was not involved in “the substance” of the case, whatever that means, amid speculation as to whether or not he attended a meeting on whether a conviction would have negative economic and diplomatic effects. Then, on Monday, the Minister of State for Security once again took to attempting to convince the House that the National Security Adviser does not actually advise on matters of national security.
At PMQs yesterday, in the most explicit and unequivocal of terms, the Prime Minister affirmed that neither the National Security Adviser, the Home Secretary nor anyone at No. 10 made decisions about this case. The case is developing as we speak—there are more news releases all the time—but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, representing the Government today, can clarify how these two diametrically opposed courses of action can be modified.
In light of the SCO summit and its overt aims at securing more global influence at our expense, and this Government’s mishandling of our national security interests, it would be helpful for several steps to be laid out in the Minister’s response. What practical steps are being taken to compete with the economic opportunities that are offered to developing countries by China, thereby bringing more countries into our rules-based liberal system? Secondly, what is being done to counter the aggression of the Chinese Government towards Tibet and other nations surrounding the South China Sea? Thirdly, when will all the facts be released about the Government’s role in the failed prosecution? Lastly, given the information that has already come to light, will the Government now oppose a Chinese super-embassy in London in the interests of national security—although I just saw on my phone as I was standing up that a news release has just come out that the Government have now delayed yet again, for the second time, a decision on that embassy. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)
Apparently, I have nine minutes to deal with the whole of the global security situation.
I thank all noble Lords and Ladies who participated in this debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, for what has turned out to be a very timely debate—I am sure she knew that when she called for it. Ministers like me are told to say it is an honour, and the speeches have all been brilliant. On this occasion it is an honour, and the speeches have all been terrific, so I am deeply grateful for that. I hope I can deal with the specific points that noble Lords have made as we go through, but if I run out of time, I will check Hansard and respond.
As noble Lords will know, the UK is not a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, but we respect each country’s right to choose its own path and its own partners, including which international groupings it associates with. The SCO serves as a platform for China and other member states to promote their interests and project leadership on the international stage—I will say a bit more about that in a moment. Our view is that all countries have the right to initiate new formats for multilateral co-operation.
Following the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin, China hosted its Victory Day parade in Beijing, marking the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, noted. While noting the military dimension of the parade, it is important to clarify that this event was separate to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, and indeed, Prime Minister Modi did not attend. The UK recognises the significance of this anniversary for China and its people and respects their right to commemorate this occasion in their own history.
We will continue to exercise our own agency, including as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We remain strongly committed to the international rules-based system, which has supported peace, prosperity and co-operation for decades, and we will continue to encourage and call for China and other responsible members of the SCO to do the same.
The China audit has informed the UK’s consistent, long-term and strategic approach to China. As stated in the Statement made by the former Foreign Secretary, we will never compromise
“on our national security, recognising the complexity of the world as it is, engaging confidently, carefully and pragmatically, and delivering secure growth”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/6/25; col. 991.]
I know that noble Lords have asked for a very clear statement on our approach to China, but it is true to say that all speakers in this debate have acknowledged that we cannot have a simple or one-dimensional approach to the relationship with China.
I confirm we will continue to co-operate where our interests align, such as on climate change and global health, but we are prepared to challenge China where its actions undermine our values. Sometimes we will also compete with China for global growth opportunities, and we will continue to be vigilant against the full range of cyberspace and other threats from state and non-state actors, including those that emanate from China.
On the parliamentary espionage case, which the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, raised, the Prime Minister said at PMQs yesterday that he had sought legal advice, and he has published the witness statements. The view of the Government remains that we are disappointed that the case did not reach full trial and that that was the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions. As the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, acknowledged, this clearly has some way to go. There will be an Urgent Question on it, I think on Monday, but certainly next week, and noble Lords will have an opportunity on the Floor of the House to continue the discussion on that case.
On the question of China’s embassy application, as I think all noble Lords know, planning is quasi-judicial in nature. The case is before Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers for decision, and I do not think I should comment further.
The recent SCO summit was striking in its failure to mention Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, drew our attention to some of the tragic consequences there. Instead, the gathering was another example of China using its diplomatic engagement with Russia to reduce Putin’s isolation on the world stage. We consistently challenge China’s and other countries’ political and military support for Russia, which prolongs the war and is not in China’s interest. China remains the essential state in helping Russia continue the war against Ukraine. That is the Government’s view. The UK continues to call on China to use its influence to support peace and stability. That includes urging President Putin to end the war, withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine and respect international law. With regard to the observation by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, the Government work closely with not only European but G7 partners to make common cause on that.
On the multilateral system, strengthening multilateral institutions, which a number of noble Lords mentioned, to uphold the global consensus against aggression and realise a just and lasting peace in Ukraine with full respect for the UN charter is critical. These groupings, such as the SCO—I think I am coming to the heart of the intentions of the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, in raising this debate—provide China with a platform to promote alternative norms, often prioritising state sovereignty and non-interference over universal human rights and democratic governance. The noble Lords, Lord Callanan, Lord Skidelsky and Lord Moynihan, referred to that. The UK’s response to these initiatives—this is really the heart of my comments—is to defend and strengthen the institutions that matter and that represent the international consensus, including the institutions that many noble Lords have mentioned, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, and to help reform and revitalise them so that they are more inclusive, effective and resilient in responding to global challenges. That was the challenge from the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, and I think it is important. We welcome China’s support for those institutions in which it is also an active partner. We are actively engaged in efforts to reform and revitalise key institutions through initiatives to reform the United Nations and our work with the multilateral development banks to ensure they are more representative, responsive and effective in addressing today’s global challenges.
I recognise the starting point of the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, that this is a changed world. China seeks to expand its global influence through the SCO and attempts to reshape the multilateral system to suit its own interests. Our response is clear. We stand firmly behind Ukraine, we defend the multilateral institutions that underpin global stability, and we are renewing bilateral partnerships of the sort that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, talked about across the global South. We will continue to engage China in a principled and measured way, as many noble Lords have encouraged us to do. We will continue to support the values and institutions that have helped deliver peace and prosperity around the world, and we will do so with confidence and in the spirit of genuine partnership.
Fracture Liaison Services
Lord Black of Brentwood
To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards establishing fracture liaison services across England, and what plans they have to meet their commitment to provide universal coverage by 2030.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, at the start of September the Prime Minister made it clear that his Government are now entering the delivery phase. I take him at this word and would like our debate today to focus on helping him to do just that, by setting out how they can deliver on three goals: reducing waiting lists and saving lives; boosting economic growth; and protecting the most vulnerable in our society, particularly the elderly. There is one simple way to deliver speedily on all three: publish the long-awaited bone plan before Christmas.
During the election, the Health and Social Care Secretary said, to his great credit, that developing the rollout plan for fracture liaison services would be one of his first acts in Government. Unfortunately, we are still waiting. In recent years we have had numerous debates on osteoporosis, resulting in clear commitments to move forward, but the truth is that, while their expansion has happened at pace in Wales, we have seen no progress at all in England.
The case for doing so is as strong as ever. Half of women aged over 50 and one-fifth of men will suffer disabling and potentially fatal fractures because of osteoporosis. There are effective medications that prevent fractures and preserve people’s independence, but, shockingly, two-thirds of osteoporosis patients are missing out on that treatment because this Government—and indeed the last one, I readily admit—have so far failed to match words with deeds. The end result of untreated osteoporosis is a broken hip, which results in a three-week hospital stay and kills one-quarter of people within a year. The majority of those who survive face a life infinitely smaller and consumed with pain. I know because I saw it with my own mum, whose latter years were dominated by agony and disability because her osteoporosis was not treated properly.
Campaigns run by two newspapers, the Sunday Express and the Mail on Sunday, have brought this injustice out of the shadows and achieved a consensus on the way forward. This is not a partisan issue; I suspect that we all agree on both the ends and the means. We just need to get on with it.
To turn back to delivery, during the election the Health Secretary made two commitments to people living with osteoporosis. The first was to increase the number of DEXA scans. I thank him and the Government for the £2 million for new scanners released to fulfil that first promise. That is a good start, but fracture prevention relies on more than just a scan. If heart disease patients got only ECGs but then no treatment, there would be outrage. If you want to prevent secondary heart attacks, you do not stop at a cholesterol test.
That is why the second commitment made by the Health Secretary is much more consequential. He promised to expand fracture liaison service clinics to all areas by 2030 so that we can prevent 74,000 fractures by that date, including 31,000 life-threatening hip fractures. Ministers have repeatedly given that commitment to Parliament and, thankfully, the policy is enshrined in the 10-year plan. Again, that is a good start but, despite those commitments, we have heard nothing about how or when it is to be implemented, hence this debate today. The time between now and Christmas is critical if we are to meet the Government’s promise. This afternoon, I ask the Minister to consider three reasons why publishing the bone plan is now extremely urgent.
First, the stakeholder community that will make implementation possible is ready and raring to go. It simply needs the starting gun to be fired. The Royal Osteoporosis Society has been in the vanguard, and I pay immense tribute to its tireless campaigning, but it is much more than one organisation. There is now a community of interest around fracture prevention, composed of 60 organisations with various stakes in women’s health, healthy aging, easing burdens on the NHS and keeping older employees in the workforce. On the medical side, that includes seven royal medical colleges along with the representative bodies for physiotherapists, radiographers, social workers and paramedics.
Leading business voices and the trade unions have called for nationwide FLS because economic growth is being stunted by older workers stopping or reducing work due to fractures. Last year, a dozen eminent societies formed a shadow implementation group to help Ministers deliver the FLS policy. An exemplar rollout plan and high-level recommended approach was submitted, but there has been no response from the Government. The current information vacuum is undermining confidence among these organisations. Unless the bone plan emerges by the end of the year, it will be impossible to maintain belief across the sector that FLS will ever become a reality.
Secondly, every year that we delay we see a cascade of preventable fractures, and that costs money, which we all know is in short supply. If we had rolled out FLS in summer 2024, by now we would have saved £60 million, two-thirds of the money needed to pump-prime every FLS across England up to break-even point. I sympathise with the Health Secretary’s comments, reported in the press last week, about “invest to save” initiatives such as FLS needing investment before savings accrue, but achieving the shift that he rightly wants to make from treatment to prevention must start somewhere. You will not find many other treatment models that break even within just 24 months and deliver £1.88 for every £1 invested. This is about replacing badly-spent money with sensible investment in prevention.
It is not just about the money that is being wasted. Every year that we delay the FLS rollout, another 2,500 people die following broken hips, which FLS clinics could have prevented. That’s 2,500 mums and dads, grandmas and grandpas.
Thirdly, the vacuum of information around FLS is in fact causing perverse outcomes which undermine the prevention of fractures. For the last 16 months, government spokespeople have consistently told newspapers that a national rollout of FLS is imminent. Ministers have given the same commitments repeatedly to both Houses of Parliament. That is great but it should therefore not surprise the Government that commissioners who would have acted on FLS independently have, as a result, paused their plans awaiting a national rollout plan and that, since the election, no new FLSs have opened. That is why I make this appeal to the noble Baroness and her colleagues: please publish the bone plan. You may otherwise be unintentionally harming the important cause of fracture prevention rather than advancing it.
A huge amount of energy and impetus have built up around this issue over recent years. Numerous organisations want to help Ministers, in good faith, to turn it into an example of NHS reform under this Government—serving all three of the strategic shifts that the Health Secretary wants to drive. But uncertainty is eroding that energy and good will, when it could so easily be harnessed for the public good.
I am sure that in her response, to which I much look forward, the noble Baroness will repeat the reassurances given repeatedly to Parliament that FLSs will be implemented by 2030. But I beg her to ask her colleagues, please, to fire the starting gun now by publishing the implementation plan by year-end. Everyone here today—I thank noble Lords so much for taking part, which shows how important this debate is—wants simply to get on with it. Let us make it happen by Christmas. For thousands of families and vulnerable individuals, it would be the best possible present they could ever receive.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, the timer seems to have stopped. We will take a short break while it is being fixed.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, the Grand Committee has been suspended as a result of technical issues. We will now resume and finish at 5.16 pm. Will noble Lords please bear that in mind and maybe knock a minute or two off their speeches?
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, for his contribution, which was so stunning that it put the lights out. I will cut my speech short to allow others to get in, in the time available.
As people who know about the subject know, the fracture liaison service was pioneered in Glasgow in 1999. Other countries have picked up this model very successfully to the extent that we, in England at least, are in danger of falling well behind. More than a decade ago in New Zealand, for example, the Government set out to make fracture liaison services available to everyone, backed by targeted central investment. Today, 99% of New Zealanders have access to a fracture liaison service. It is a striking example of how clarity from central government, supported by a plan, can deliver universal coverage in a short time.
Japan offers another lesson. Faced with the oldest population in the world and a growing number of hip fractures, the Japanese Government introduced a simple FLS incentive scheme in 2022. In just three years, the number of services has more than doubled, and every region now has at least one FLS. It is a reminder that, when Governments set clear expectations, progress follows.
In the meantime, progress in England has stalled. Just over half of NHS trusts have an FLS, meaning that thousands of people are treated for a fracture each year but never investigated for underlying causes. The Government’s commitment is welcome and, more importantly, achievable, but commitments alone will not deliver the service. As the noble Lord, Lord Black, said, a delivery plan is now urgently needed to show how that goal will be achieved. That should be this year, preferably by Christmas; otherwise, we will be halfway through this Parliament.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as an ambassador for the Royal Osteoporosis Society, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, on securing this important debate. Since the campaign for universal access to fracture liaison services was launched, I have seen osteoporosis evolve from an issue oft overlooked in public policy to one that now enjoys cross-party support, with the noble Lord a doughty and persistent champion. Every party endorses the importance of universal fracture liaison services: they are in Labour’s 10-year plan for health, the Conservative manifesto, the Liberal Democrat manifesto and even in the policies of the Reform Party.
However, despite this almost unique level of consensus meaning this should have been an open goal, yet somehow the ball has been lost in kerfuffle and confusion. The confusion is not about intent or even value. Everyone agrees that universal fracture liaison services will save lives and money, but communication between different parts of the system has broken down. The Royal Osteoporosis Society, Ministers, NHS England and local commissioners and indeed the extensive list of networks and organisations that we heard about earlier are all working towards the same goal, yet they seem to be doing so on different pitches. The proposal, for instance, to include fracture liaison services in neighbourhood health centres could one day prove valuable but, as an idea, it was poorly communicated and has just led to greater uncertainty. Commissioners are now unsure whether they should act locally or wait for a national steer and, as a result, progress has stalled.
We know that Ministers face multiple pressures and competing priorities, but a clear commitment was made, and those who fought for it need to see that it still stands. What we need now is to convert confusion into clarity so that we can harness the current consensus to drive change. Commissioners, clinicians and patient groups all need to understand what is expected of them and when. A straightforward statement from the Government that sets out responsibilities, timelines and how the FLS rollout fits within the 10-year plan and neighbourhood health centre programme would resolve much of the current uncertainty.
There is no shortage of evidence to support the case for universal FLS and no shortage of the will and expertise necessary to make it happen. The obstacle is obfuscation. A clear statement from government, followed up by collective action to get everyone on the same page would translate the current confusion into clarity. As we have heard, if the Minister can make that happen before Christmas, we could turn the broad agreement into real delivery.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Black for securing this debate. We all share the same goal: all noble Lords speaking today and health leaders across the country want to see more fracture liaison services available to more people. Those who suffer from osteoporosis, with its distressing, painful and debilitating consequences, were given hope before the last election by the Government, who made a clear and welcome commitment to ensure that every part of England will have access to fracture liaison services by 2030, and it now forms part of the 10-year health plan for England.
However, I am fearful that we are not moving forward. No new fracture liaison services have opened, and 2030 is only just over four years away, as the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, mentioned in her speech. Of course, resources are tight, the NHS faces extraordinary pressures and new funding is difficult to find. If resources are holding things up, I ask the Minister to work with the Royal Osteoporosis Society, which has done so much to support and champion fracture liaison services over many years and again stands ready to help, working closely with the department, to develop a practical, phased rollout plan.
I welcome the media coverage a fortnight ago when the Health Secretary said that he wanted to develop a plan for delivery with the Royal Osteoporosis Society. Such a plan need not be perfect. I have been involved with the Royal Osteoporosis Society for many years, and I know that it is pragmatic and aware of the constraints and challenges faced by the Government. We are all hoping that a practical landing zone will be found for a policy that we are all championing.
I share the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Black that a plan needs to emerge by Christmas. Given that a commitment was given to the media that this would be an early priority of the Government and that there is a need to maintain trust and confidence across the network and among partner organisations that this change will happen, let us get on with it and make it happen.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Black is, thankfully, a persistent person. The subject we are discussing today is one that he has brought before your Lordships with some frequency, through debates and Oral Questions. Those who suffer the pain and distress that osteoporosis brings have no more determined parliamentary champion than him. Evidence continues to accumulate in support of the action for which he has long called and which he has reiterated so powerfully today: the urgent need to establish fracture liaison services throughout our country.
For some years the Royal College of Physicians has charted a steady rise in the number of hip fractures. Its latest annual report, published last month, records yet another increase. It also shows, once again, how unevenly the services that could reverse this trend are spread across our country. Indeed, there could be no clearer example of that much-reviled phenomenon: the postcode lottery.
Curiously, there seems to be no figure for the total number of hip fractures in the United Kingdom. Scotland appears disinclined to share information. In the other three parts of the country the total now stands at some 70,000. Without the action for which my noble friend Lord Black is calling, the number will go on mounting remorselessly. Experts believe that it will double by 2060, bringing the total to 140,000. The bill will be crippling. Today each hip fracture costs the health and care services around £28,000. Total expenditure, which now stands at some £2 billion, is likely to reach £3.8 billion by 2060—virtually doubling the huge burden borne by our overstretched NHS.
The burden can and must be reduced. The key to this is to ensure that those who incur smaller, less severe fractures are correctly diagnosed as suffering from osteoporosis and are treated accordingly. That would cut the number of hip fractures dramatically, but it will not happen without the major change for which my noble friend Lord Black and others have long been pressing. At the moment, around half of those who break a hip have experienced an earlier, less severe fracture without being correctly diagnosed and treated. That means that tens of thousands of people are being discharged from hospital at severe risk of hip fracture and, in due course, some of them will suffer one. More than one in four of those who have a hip fracture will die within a year.
No one, I think, disputes that the most effective way this state of affairs can be remedied is through the provision of fracture liaison services which identify and treat people after their first fracture, helping to prevent a second. Yet, as we have heard, only around half of NHS trusts provide such a service. Like everyone —I think—taking part in this debate, I hope the Government, who have shown that they understand the need for urgent action, will publish before Christmas their plan to extend fracture liaison services throughout the country.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, and to speak again in a debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Black. When the Government confirmed last year that they would deliver FLS across England by 2030, it was a real mark of genuine progress and warmly welcomed by all of us—not least, of course, by the noble Lord, Lord Black, himself, who has been asking for this for so long. But despite this, I share the concern of many about the slow rate of progress.
The Government have said that fracture liaison services
“are commissioned by integrated care boards, which are well-placed to make decisions according to local need”.
Now that should be the case, but it unfortunately always tends to be the neglected health conditions, such as osteoporosis, that are overlooked without national co-ordination and insistence—and, surprise, surprise, it is usually women’s issues that are overlooked most.
I was delighted to hear this week a lot on the radio about prostate cancer. However, where is the similar attention to those living with osteoporosis, two-thirds of whom will miss out on treatment? That silence is inexcusable. Luckily, we are in general living longer, but hospitals will not be able to cope with the spiralling numbers of hip and spinal fractures if we do not have that FLS to prevent these breaks. Over just the past two weeks, two of my friends have fallen and broken their hips. I do not know whether they had a particular predisposition but the pain that they are suffering, and the cost to the health service of patching them up, would probably pay for half of a local FLS in their area.
The Health Secretary recognised all of this when he committed to a national rollout of FLS by 2030. Indeed, before the election, Labour’s election platform singled out a small number of health conditions for targeted action and osteoporosis was one of them. We all cheered. I know and understand that a national plan tends to jar with the move towards greater localisation but, given that commitment to implement FLSs by 2030 —only five years off now—surely we can make an exception for that national initiative here. Rather like the pledge to end new HIV transmissions by 2030, which the 10-year plan says will be set out in a delivery plan, we need this for FLS. Let us have the same in this area.
Achieving these two targets on HIV and FLS would be a major boost in preventing ill health. We can help provide a better service for older people, particularly the half of women who are vulnerable. If they could all get a bone plan under their Christmas tree, I think we would all be very happy.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood for his indefatigable championing of this crucial issue. I will not repeat the strong arguments that he and others have already made, but I pay tribute to his dogged determination to persuade the Government, as others have said, to turn the “What?” into the eagerly anticipated “How?” and “When?” Like him, I also pay tribute to the Royal Osteoporosis Society for its tireless campaigning on this issue. The rollout of fracture liaison services would strengthen the NHS. I also take this opportunity to thank the Secretary of State for Health for the action he has already taken on an issue that is currently waiting for the NHS.
Whenever we discuss the care of people with a bone condition such as mine, I am inevitably reminded of my childhood orthopaedic surgeon, to whom I owe so much. He came to this country as a teenage refugee from racism—abhorrent, toxic, genocidal racism—the sort of racism spouted by Dr Rahmeh Aladwan. How sad that in the 60th anniversary year of Labour’s Race Relations Act, we are seeing the repugnant resurgence of a racism that claimed the lives of all my surgeon’s relatives who came to wave him off as he left Nazi-occupied Prague, so I would be grateful to the Minister if she could convey my thanks to the Secretary of State for his commitment to reform the system governing the regulation of the UK medical register, and, to quote a departmental source, “to make it easier to kick racists out of the NHS”.
No one has an interest in allowing our NHS to be weakened by racism, and I am sure that my Jewish surgeon would have applauded the Secretary of State’s principled stand, but I am also confident that he would have urged him to detail the how and when of the rollout of fracture liaison services. He was dedicated to me, his patients and the NHS. The rollout of fracture liaison services would build on my surgeon’s life-enhancing legacy. It would change so many people’s lives for the better, as we have already heard, and it would strengthen our NHS. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, my thanks also go to the noble Lord, Lord Black, for this important debate, but most importantly for his persistence, which I believe has been instrumental in securing the Government’s commitment to deliver universal fracture liaison services by 2030—and I love his insistence on delivery.
It is essential that the FLS plan is delivered this year. I gently suggest to my noble friend the Minister that the forthcoming update to the women’s health strategy might offer the ideal opportunity to make progress. I understand, of course, that osteoporosis affects men as well, but it is one of the most common long-term conditions affecting women. Half of women aged over 50 will experience a fracture caused by osteoporosis. I, like many others, speak from a personal perspective. My mother had chronic osteoporosis, so I joined the Royal Osteoporosis Society, which has helped me enormously. I too pay tribute to it for its campaigning, for the information and support it provides for sufferers and for the support it provides for researchers. I am glad that the Government wish to work with it.
As we know, more than 2.5 million women in England are living with the condition, and most do not know until they break a bone. The last women’s health strategy focused on reproductive and gynaecological health, but the update offers an opportunity to address conditions that threaten women’s independence in later life. Including a rollout plan for fracture liaison services within that update would show that the Government mean what they say about taking action over words. I hope the Minister will relay that message to her department as it prepares the updated women’s health strategy.
We know these services work, yet the postcode lottery remains stark. A part of the country I know well, Gloucestershire, still has no fracture liaison service at all. A woman who slips and breaks her wrist in my area, the Forest of Dean, or in Cheltenham will be patched up in A&E and sent home, her osteoporosis undiagnosed and untreated. Yet just 40 miles away in Oxfordshire, where the noble Earl lives, the local FLS identified and treated more than 2,500 people last year. The contrast between these neighbouring areas shows why a national rollout plan cannot wait. Commissioning takes time. From approval to maturity, an FLS can take five years to establish, so the decisions made this year will determine whether the 2030 target can be met.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Black, I welcome the Government’s commitment in their plan on reforming elective care for patients to boosting the number of bone density—DEXA—scanners by investing in up to 13 DEXA scanners, six of which will replace existing machines. This would be brilliant as it would enable an extra 29,000 bone scans a year. However, it also requires radiographers to enable the scans to take place, so I ask my noble friend the Minister for her assurance that there will be an adequate number of them.
I would be grateful if the Minister could also tell me what consideration, if any, her department is giving to treating osteoporosis with MBST. This uses magnetic resonance therapy to stimulate bone regeneration and increase bone density. I understand that a neighbourhood health hub at the University of East London is providing MBST therapy—that experience could provide invaluable information.
Recognising osteoporosis as central to women’s health would fire the starting gun on delivery and give millions of women confidence that progress is finally being made.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, I too welcome the persistent, skilful and incredibly determined approach of the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, to achieve what is clearly needed—that is, the expansion of the use of fracture liaison services to 100% coverage by 2030. This commitment, contained in the 10-year health plan, is the right goal.
When we consider the issues around osteoporosis, we are discussing a public health crisis. Osteoporosis is a condition that is asymptomatic until fragility fractures strike. These fractures are painful. They can lead to social isolation and a significant loss of mobility and independence, and too often to mental health conditions such as depression. Osteoporosis-related fractures claim as many lives as lung cancer or diabetes. They rank as the second highest cause of bed occupancy within the NHS. We all know how expensive the occupancy of hospital beds is and we are aware of the dangers to many patients of being in hospital. These include the risk of infections, sometimes as serious as sepsis.
We need to try to act further to avoid fractures and the resulting stays in hospital. Fracture liaison services proactively identify patients aged 50 and over with a fracture, assessing their bone health and their falls risk to try to prevent what may be a devastating subsequent fracture. We have heard for many years about the laudable ambition of achieving 100% FLS coverage in England by 2030, but we may fail to achieve that target if we fail to heed the lessons from Wales, where they have achieved that goal.
The Government’s current commitment to action is not as rapid as that which has already been achieved in Wales. In February 2023, the then Welsh Health Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, issued a decisive national mandate. She instructed all health boards to establish fracture liaison services within 18 months, backed by pump-priming investment. By September 2024, the target was met and every acute health board in Wales had a functioning service.
The Welsh Government then committed to achieving international quality standards by 2030. That will mean ensuring that these services are resourced to serve at least 80% of the over-50s. The Welsh Government faced the same hurdles that England faces—the same financial pressures, the same workforce challenges and the same competing priorities—but the difference was urgency and focus. In England, without national co-ordination, commissioners are recognising the value of FLS, but they appear to be waiting for direction before committing scarce resources. The result, as we have heard, is that England now runs the risk of falling behind the rest of the UK in osteoporosis care. We must not let that happen.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Black and other noble Lords for their valuable contributions, which appear unanimous. This is clearly an important issue, which speaks to one of the fundamental objectives of any Government, regardless of political persuasion, when it comes to health—namely that prevention is better than cure. Every £1 spent on prevention saves an estimated £5 in downstream NHS costs. This is money well spent and guarantees multiple returns on investment, which are the kind of words that every Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to hear.
In government, we committed to the goal of 100% FLS coverage and we welcome that the current Administration have taken on the baton to complete that by 2030. We know that there is already 100% coverage across Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it is crucial that we follow in their footsteps. Indeed, without successful intervention, research indicates that one in two patients will potentially have another fracture within two years. This is a serious problem: it creates an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer of at least £650 million over five years but, more importantly, it leads to a loss of independence within a year, which then leads to anxiety, isolation, depression and worse. This has further profound societal and economic consequences, which no one wants to see—as was so well highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.
The challenge is to identify, to assess, to intervene and to follow up. That is a tried and tested road map that works and that should be provided by a well-oiled FLS. We might ask whether the Government have made an assessment of integrating fracture risk assessments into routine GP health checks for patients over a certain age. Is there an opportunity to improve sex and region aggregated data, so that we can better understand the scale and nature of the problem and the resulting strategies?
I focus briefly on prevention. Strong muscles lead to strong bones, and strong bones help to minimise the risk of fracture. It has been suggested by many research pieces that strength training can even build bone so, if the Government wish to succeed with their goals, when and how will they ensure that everyone understands the huge benefits of daily exercise and strength training, which would solve so many of the issues that we currently face, not just fractures?
His Majesty’s loyal Opposition welcome action on this, via any specific measures that will address the situation. We ask the Government whether they will take guidance from Scotland and Northern Ireland on how they achieved 100% FLS coverage. A precedent has been set but, as many noble Lords have suggested, actions speak louder than words.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Black, on securing this important debate and thank all noble Lords for their significant contributions. I pay tribute to his personal background; it has brought such depth and strength of feeling to the subject, and I am sure many noble Lords have similar experiences. His persistence in carrying on with this is noted and welcomed. He is right to highlight the importance of reducing waiting lists, driving economic growth and safeguarding the most vulnerable members of our society.
We know that patients, including those with osteoporosis fragility fractures, are waiting too long for care and treatment, which needs to change, as I think all noble Lords have mentioned. This is why, between July 2024 and August 2025, the NHS provided more than 682,000 DEXA scans to patients across the country. As announced earlier this year, we are investing in 13 DEXA scanners to support improvements in early diagnosis and bone health and provide an estimated 29,000 extra scans a year once operational. I completely understand the points in the noble Lord’s speech about the need for follow-up action once the scans have been implemented.
I shall pick up the comments made by my noble friends Lady Royall and Lady Hayter. I think there is an enormous recognition of the need to focus on women’s health; that is an accepted aspect of all the work that we are doing. More generally, we want every person, including those with osteoporosis, to receive the highest quality compassionate care. In the past three years, two new drugs have been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for the treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women, for example. Going back to women’s health, through our 10-year health plan and the women’s health strategy update, we are delivering our manifesto commitment that never again will women’s health be neglected.
The three shifts that I will go on to talk about—hospital to community, analogue to digital and treatment to prevention—are key aspects of the work that we need to do. Following from that, the 10-year workforce plan will ensure that the NHS will have the right people in the right places with the right skills to care for patients when they need it. That is a critical aspect. I will write to my noble friend Lady Royall with the more specific detail, if that is okay.
As the noble Lord, Lord Black, illustrated so powerfully, fracture liaison services can play a vital role in reducing the risk of refracture, improving the quality of life and increasing the years lived in good health. This Government and NHS England support the clinical case for services that help to prevent fragility fractures and support patients who sustain them. As we have heard, we are committed to rolling out fracture liaison services to every part of the country by 2030. As my noble friend Lady Hayter said, this is a genuine commitment. One of the early priorities of the 10-year plan will be a modern service framework for fragility and dementia. This is the first time that this has been introduced.
Going back to the 10-year plan, it is absolutely critical that we provide better care for people with osteoporosis, fragility fractures and other MSK conditions. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, mentioned the problems with public health that we all know—as a former local government leader I know them only too well. Supporting the shift to prevention, the health system is working to prevent fractures occurring in the first place. Advice from NICE for clinicians includes information and advice on lifestyle changes a person can make to reduce their risk of fragility fracture, which the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, mentioned. These include increasing vitamin D intake, eating a balanced diet, drinking alcohol in moderation, stopping smoking if applicable and participating in a combination of exercise types. These are all absolutely fundamental in working towards the prevention agenda.
We are working to deliver the Getting It Right First Time MSK community delivery programme. The specific teams in this area are working with integrated care board leaders to reduce community waiting times and improve data, metrics and referral pathways to wider support services. Under the 10-year health plan, patients with MSK conditions will soon be able to bypass their GPs and directly access community services, including physiotherapy, pain management and orthopaedics, via the NHS app.
Our vision for a neighbourhood health service is also core to achieving the three shifts. The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England are working closely together to progress our commitment to shift to a neighbourhood health service. The 10-year plan includes fracture liaison services as a specific example of the services that neighbourhood health centres could host.
As we have heard, fracture liaison services are commissioned by integrated care boards, which we believe are well placed to make decisions according to local need. This Government are committed to giving integrated care boards the freedom and autonomy they need to focus on the job of meeting patients’ needs and improving the communities they serve. I am pleased to say that 41 out of the 42 ICBs have a women’s hub. We need to make sure that they are delivering in this space.
Officials in the Department of Health and Social Care are working closely with NHS England to consider a range of options to ensure the improved quality of and access to these important preventive services. We need to be honest about the scale of the action needed, the challenges faced across the health and care system and the fact that change will not be possible overnight.
I recognise that many are dedicated to campaigning for fracture liaison service expansion. I thank the noble Lord, other contributors to this debate and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Osteoporosis and Bone Health for its work. It is absolutely critical that we raise awareness of this vital issue and try not to wait until it is too late and a fracture has occurred. This is a very important aspect of the work that everyone is pulling together. I thank the clinicians and commissioning bodies that play such a vital role in delivering fracture liaison services.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, on this point, we talk about politicians, but over the past year, officials, including senior civil servants, have engaged on various occasions with the Royal Osteoporosis Society on fracture liaison services, and they will continue to do so.
I do not have time to respond to all the comments, but I will pass on the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, to the Secretary of State. I thank him for his very clear exposition of his experience. I also undertake to pass on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall.
I close by simply restating the Government’s commitment to ensuring access to care where and when it is needed. Once again, I thank noble Lords for today’s discussion on such an important topic.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure we all thank the speakers for their brevity in reaction to the technical issues.
Lord Speaker’s Statement
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, before Oral Questions, I have a short Statement to make.
I have served as Lord Speaker since the House was kind enough to place its trust in me in 2021. As you may be aware, the election for my successor to the post was due to take place in July next year. However, for reasons I will explain, I wish to announce to you today that I will step down from my post a few months earlier than that. Some years ago, my wife Joan was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Since that time, I have combined my parliamentary work with my responsibilities at home. During this period, and indeed throughout my career, the support of my wife has been essential to my service in Parliament. It was Joan who encouraged me to return to education and to become a teacher after I left school with no formal qualifications. She selflessly supported me in my work as MP for our home town of Dumbarton as well as in this House, so I have now taken the decision that I must in future spend the majority of my time at home supporting my wife.
I have informed the Leader of the House that my final day in this post will be 1 February 2026. House officials will make the necessary preparations for an election to select my successor in time for an orderly handover.
It has been the honour and privilege of my life to serve this House as its fourth Lord Speaker, and in the remaining months of my tenure I will continue to do my utmost to fulfil my duties diligently. My work has been made easier and more satisfying by the friendship and support I have enjoyed from so many of you across the whole House. I have been ably supported by the excellent and dedicated team of Deputy Speakers, and I have benefited each and every day from the superb work of the staff of the House, in particular the exceptional team in my own office, so I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all noble Lords and to the staff of the House for the unstinting support that I have received.
Stablecoin Ownership
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Ranger of Northwood
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of proposals for limiting stablecoin ownership.
Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)
My Lords, in light of the Lord Speaker’s Statement, let me be the first to thank him for his outstanding service. I look forward to the following months of working with him. I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and I refer to my registered interests as a NED for the ALICE Group and co-chair of the Digital Markets and Digital Money APPG.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)
My Lords, stablecoins stand to play an important role in driving innovation in digital assets. It is important for the UK to position itself as a competitive global destination for digital assets, including stablecoins, while also addressing relevant consumer protection and financial stability risks. The Bank of England is engaging closely with the digital assets sector on its proposals for the regulation of systemic retail stablecoin.
Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)
I thank the Minister for that response, but I want to press him a little. Stablecoins and their usage are growing across the world. At the beginning of this year, $200 billion-worth had been issued—by September this year, it was $280 billion—pushed by the emergence of the GENIUS Act in the US and MiCA in Europe. These regulatory frameworks have enabled corporates to take advantage of being able to move money with agility and confidence, and real-time liquidity. How are we looking to keep up with the pace of the rest of the world as the use of stablecoins looks to reach $1.9 trillion by 2030, providing a distinct competitive advantage to businesses and industry in other geographies?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. Before I answer him directly, perhaps I may also pay tribute to the Lord Speaker. He has been a friend to me since I first joined this House when he was an MP. I pay tribute to his outstanding service as Speaker of this House.
The noble Lord is correct to say that stablecoins have huge potential to play a significant role in both retail and wholesale payments. We are already seeing the benefits that stablecoin can provide in cross-border payments; for example, by reducing costs and improving efficiencies. He is absolutely right that it is important for the UK to harness these opportunities for the ongoing competitiveness of the UK financial services sector.
However, I do not think it is fair to say that the US is going any faster than the UK. Reading media coverage, we may conclude that, but the reality is that the US passed legislation for the regulation of stablecoin in the summer. US regulators will publish their regulatory rules in mid-2026, with a backstop date of January 2027 for the US regime to go live. In the UK, the Government published draft legislation in April, with final legislation due before the end of the year. Alongside this, the FCA is at an advanced stage in its consultation on the details of its regime, with a view to finalising its detailed rules and requirements in 2026. This will allow firms to be authorised and running in the UK regime by 2027.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, let me join in paying tribute to the Lord Speaker. I do not know whether to congratulate him, or say it is with great regret that he is in a situation in which he needs to stand down. We have all appreciated his service so much. A great deal more will be said on future occasions.
Stablecoin is not just an issue of digital payments and the efficiency of the pipeline, although you might think that from listening to the conversation. The move towards a global rollout of dollar and renminbi stablecoins has huge implications for monetary sovereignty. A sterling stablecoin has implications for the gilt markets and, hence, the public finances. Does the Minister begin to understand my concern that neither the Government nor the regulators have a grip on this and are considering the issues only narrowly—frankly, at a snail’s pace; I am astonished at the comments that he made just now—which means that we risk acting too late to protect our own national interest?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I do not accept what the noble Baroness says. There are, of course, financial stability and other considerations associated with stablecoin, but these need to be balanced against supporting innovation and ensuring the UK positions itself as a competitive global destination for digital assets. As I set out in my Answer to the original Question, I do not accept that the UK is in any way moving too slowly. The Government will bring forward final legislation to create a financial services regulatory regime for crypto assets this year, which will include issuing qualifying stablecoin in the UK. This will provide crypto asset firms the regulatory certainty needed to invest and help drive innovation in our financial services sector, and at the same time ensure that customers are protected from the worst harms when they make use of crypto asset services.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, digital assets cover a multitude of products and being the first mover is not always the advantage that some claim. UK politicians and regulators seem to speak with very different levels of enthusiasm about digital assets as a whole, including stablecoins. Who is going to prevail?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The UK Government recognise that facilitating stablecoin innovation is important for UK competitiveness. The Bank of England is the independent regulator for systemic stablecoin and can design its regime as necessary to manage the associated risks. However, it is a matter for the Government to decide whether to recognise firms as systemic and then bring them into the Bank’s regulation. The Treasury and Bank of England maintain a close and ongoing dialogue on the legal and regulatory treatment of stablecoins, in support of the Government’s objective to make the UK a global destination for digital assets.
Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)
My Lords, in the interests of pushing back the frontiers of ignorance, can the Minister explain, in simple words for the benefit of the House, what stablecoin actually is and whether I can receive my old age pension in it—which I am due to start getting from today?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I wish my noble friend a very happy birthday— his question allows me to give him a good present. It is fair to say that, right now, he cannot receive his state pension in stablecoin, but the fact that there is potential for that to evolve highlights the importance of the issues raised in this Question and of having exactly the right regulatory regime going forward.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I also want to thank the Lord Speaker for all he has done for this House.
Although popular with some young people and tech entrepreneurs, most of us have little idea of what cryptocurrencies entail, their benefits or disadvantages—despite this week’s speech by Sarah Breeden, the Bank of England Deputy Governor. To return to my recent theme of financial education, will the Government take steps—perhaps by issuing a discussion paper—to ensure that all of us, from schoolchildren to pensioners such as the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, are better informed about them?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
There is definitely something worth considering in that. I have learnt a lot in preparation for this Question. I know very little about the subject, but much more than I did when I started. The noble Baroness raises an important question, in terms not only of financial education—obviously we should look at what she proposes—but of keeping consumers safe. The FCA financial promotion rules require promotions to be clear, fair and not misleading, with risk warnings displayed prominently, especially for high-risk investments. Firms must ensure promotions accurately reflect benefits and risks and consider the target audience, to help consumers make well-informed decisions. The FCA has also been cracking down on unlawful financial promotions by influencers as part of the regulatory regime being developed. The Treasury is working closely with the FCA to set conduct standards for firms.
Lord Livingston of Parkhead (Non-Afl)
My Lords, first, I thank the Lord Speaker for all his service—a good fellow Scotsman and football fan. I also ask the House to note my interest as chairman of S&P Global. Does the Minister agree that stablecoin is like most other financial instruments: it depends on what is backing it and what is behind it? The important thing is not pace but the right regulation that creates the right environment for the UK to succeed and that ensures that people are protected by making sure that the assets that back stablecoin are there, available, and understood by consumers and businesses that use it.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I agree with every word that the noble Lord said. Absolutely, getting the regulatory regime right for this is important. As I said, we will bring forward that legislation by the end of the year.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Crypto and Digital Assets. Does not the Bank of England’s announcement that it plans to regulate how much stablecoin an individual can hold—I say for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, that a stablecoin is simply a digital currency linked to a fiat currency—send a terrible signal to people who want to base their crypto businesses in the UK? Will he ask the Bank of England to publish its modelling? Its reasoning is based on the idea that unlimited holdings of stablecoins might lead to a run on bank deposits.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I am sure that, as chair of that group, he could help educate very many of us in this House. As I have said, the Government recognise that facilitating stablecoin innovation is important for UK competitiveness, but it is a matter for the Bank of England, as the independent regulator for systemic stablecoin, to design the regime it sees as necessary to manage the associated risks. As I understand it, in November 2023, the Bank published a discussion paper on its proposed regulatory regime for systemic payment systems using stablecoin, seeking industry feedback. Following further informal engagement, the Bank will formally consult on its systemic stablecoin regime in the coming months.
Telegraph Media Group: Ownership
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Twycross on 16 September (HL10228) and following media reports in August of Redbird Capital Partners’ formal notification to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to acquire Telegraph Media Group, when they will update Parliament on action they are taking to resolve the Telegraph’s ownership and ensure compliance with Chapter 3A of the Enterprise Act 2002.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
Noble Lords may have seen press reports that the department has received a formal request from RedBird IMI to progress the sale of the call option to own the Telegraph. Thorough due diligence will be conducted on the proposed transaction, and should the Secretary of State have reasonable grounds to suspect either public interest or foreign state influence concerns, she will intervene. The Telegraph Media Group remains protected under pre-emptive action order. The Secretary of State will inform Parliament when regulatory decisions are made, as is consistent with standard practice.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s confirmation that the formal bid has been received and that during this phase of scrutiny the existing protections for the Telegraph remain in place. I very much hope that the Secretary of State will soon be able to say that she is minded to involve the CMA and Ofcom in the scrutiny of this bid. That will be important, should she decide to give it the go-ahead, for our future confidence in the Telegraph’s editorial independence. Meanwhile, can the Minister please confirm that the regulations to prevent multiple 15% equity stakes from state investment funds will be laid before the end of this month and applied to this case? Will she also make clear—and confirm, I hope—that the 15% is an absolute cap, and that any financial arrangements such as debt or earnout on top of a state investment fund’s proposed 15% stake would go against the intention of those regulations?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her engagement, not least with me, with the Secretary of State and with officials, which has enabled us to get to what I hope everyone agrees is a better place than where we were previously. I would like to reassure her that we still intend to lay the regulations preventing multiple foreign state-owned investors owning an aggregate of more than 15% of UK newspapers by the end of this month. This cap will apply to any live merger at the time it comes into effect. The cap means that state-owned investors can own up to a maximum of 15% of the total shares or voting rights in a UK newspaper, provided that their investment is passive. We are absolutely clear that the overall intention of the policy is that a foreign state should not have any control or influence. This is what the Secretary of State considers carefully when she looks at the details of each case.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I associate myself with all the comments about the Lord Speaker—or, at least, with all those that we have heard so far.
As we know, a fund with Abu Dhabi money, and probably Chinese money, is acquiring what in global terms is a small media player. It is relatively small, but the Telegraph is significant in the UK, and the best explanation of their motives that I can come up with is that they are buying influence. With that in mind, will the Minister commit that her department will investigate any prima facie breaches of the orders protecting the Telegraph from influence by RedBird—breaches that may already have occurred? Will she commit to publishing the investigation’s findings?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
It would be inappropriate for me to comment on any live merger case, as I am sure the noble Lord will be aware. Under the Enterprise Act this is a quasi-judicial process, and it is for the DCMS Secretary of State alone to exercise her statutory powers, based on the evidence and following the established regulatory process. As for publication, I will write to the noble Lord to clarify the points he raises.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, do we not need to review the whole issue of ownership of newspapers in the UK? Bearing in mind that papers such as the Express and the Mail are nothing more than propaganda, do we not need some balance in a democracy, to make sure that people who are rich do not influence our politics too much?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My noble friend raises an interesting point. The ownership of our media is an interesting area. The tradition of having a broad church of opinions expressed through our media is important, and is one of the cornerstones of our democracy.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, may I ask the Minister for some clarification? She talked about a 15% limit for a foreign state having an interest, but what if a number of foreign states got together and each bought up to a maximum of 15%? Is that also being considered by the Government?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The noble Lord’s point is exactly the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, has been raising with the Government. It will be addressed by the statutory instrument that is intended to be laid by the end of the month.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, will the Secretary of State, as part of her consideration, keep open the possibility of invoking the National Security and Investment Act in this case, given the indirect involvement of China in the consortium bidding for the Telegraph?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The Secretary of State’s consideration is for her alone. However, noble Lords will be aware that it is possible to have cases of this nature considered under the National Security and Investment Act if the transaction is deemed to raise national security concerns.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, we know from the witness statements released overnight that the Deputy National Security Adviser considers that China
“presents the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security”,
but also that the present Government are
“committed to pursuing a positive economic relationship”
with it. Given that, and not in relation to the case under consideration but in general terms, can the Minister tell us what sort of percentage stake in a British newspaper the Government would be comfortable with a Chinese state investor obtaining?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I will not go into hypothetical examples. All the instances raised would be examined on a case-by-case basis. The noble Lord will be aware that we are deeply disappointed that the case he referenced has not gone to trial; we really did want to see prosecutions.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
I will ask the Minister a more general question. Are the Government considering whether 15% may be too high?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
We have settled on 15% as the cumulative amount, and this House had the opportunity to debate it at some length in July. Whether that is one FSI, one state-owned investor or a number of state-owned investors, it will not exceed 15%. The Competition and Markets Authority has been clear that it does not consider that a material influence would be likely to occur below 25%, so 15% is well within that limit.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, on the topic of media ownership, can the Government please clarify why the Senedd is not having a say on the appointment of the chair of S4C?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I will need to write to the noble Baroness on that matter, as it did not come up in the preparation for this Question and I do not want to give an incorrect answer.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
Further to my noble friend Lord Newby’s question on whether China is part of the consortium, and given what the Deputy National Security Adviser said about China being a threat, why would this not automatically trigger a referral through the provisions under the National Security and Investment Act?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
There are no specific rules relating to the media merger regime on hostile states, but the bar for intervention within the regime is low. I would like to reassure the noble Lord that any sale of the Telegraph will be subject to the regime. As I stated earlier, it could be considered under the National Security and Investment Act if the Secretary of State deems, in her considerations, that the transaction would raise national security concerns. As I said earlier, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on a live merger case; this is a quasi-judicial process, and it is for the Secretary of State to determine the matter.
Youth Unemployment
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce youth unemployment.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, too many young people are at risk of being left behind without the right skills, opportunities and support to thrive. This Government are committed to changing that, which is why the Chancellor has announced a job guarantee scheme for young people on universal credit who have been unemployed for over 18 months. This is a key part of the Government’s youth guarantee, and further details will be set out in the upcoming Budget.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for her Answer, and I hope it all works. However, earlier this week, the ONS published the latest jobs data, which the Daily Telegraph reported by stating:
“Young workers are taking a particular beating in the jobs market, with a slump in graduate vacancies, and drops in hiring particularly in the retail and hospitality industries which often offer workers their first roles”.
Given this appalling backdrop, can the Minister explain why the Government, who say they are committed to this, have rejected my amendment to the Employment Rights Bill, which is universally supported by employers, and which would mitigate the effect of day-one unfair dismissal rights? That policy, if enacted, will obviously reduce employers’ willingness to take risks in hiring young people.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am always pleased to hear the views of the Daily Telegraph on issues around young people’s employment. I hope that the Telegraph, as well as the noble Lords opposite, will get behind this Government’s efforts on the youth guarantee and on cutting the unacceptably large number of young people who are currently neither earning nor learning. On the Employment Rights Bill, the Government aim to protect employees from arbitrary dismissal, including those early in their careers. A statutory probation period will be introduced with light-touch standards for fair dismissal based on performance and stability, and that approach appropriately balances worker protections with the need for employers to assess new hires confidently.
Baroness Bousted (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that a major factor in the persistence of youth unemployment is that 32% of 16 year-olds failed to achieve a grade 4 in English and Maths at GCSE in 2024? Does she also agree that the ongoing curriculum and assessment review, led by Professor Becky Francis, must reunite knowledge and skills in the school curriculum—they are two sides of the same coin—and provide routes for pupils to remain in education or training as a foundation for their future working lives?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right that the opportunities that young people have throughout their lives are dependent on the standards, quality and success that they experience in schools. That is why we have already taken action to ensure that new routes are available for young people post-16—for example, through foundation apprenticeships—and why we have increased the support available to young people in colleges to get the qualifications in English and maths that are so important for them later in life. It is also why, through both Becky Francis’s curriculum and assessment review and the Government’s post-16 skills and education White Paper, we will have more to say about how we ensure that there are clear, successful routes for all our young people post-16.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I am disappointed to hear the Minister, in discussing youth unemployment, mention universal credit and other such things. I ask the Minister to consider whether—as I would have thought—one of the basic ways of reducing youth unemployment is to encourage and introduce more apprentices. If only we had people who were encouraged financially by the Government in plumbing, electrical work and all the trades that people need; instead, we are using people from overseas because we are not training anyone. Are the Government giving financial incentives to the plumbers, electricians and so on to train the tradespeople for the future?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I reassure the noble Lord that we are indeed doing that. He is right that the fact that there has been a 40% reduction in young people starting apprenticeships over recent years is a shocking indictment of the previous Government’s approach to skills and the training of young people. That is why one of the measures we have introduced—just this August—is new foundation apprenticeships to support young people into employment in a range of different areas important both for them and the economy. Incidentally, they include a £2,000 incentive for the employer to take on those young people for training. We will have more to say about that and the opportunities for young people when we publish our post-16 White Paper.
Lord Geddes (Con)
My Lords, by way of illustration, I cite the example of my 23 year-old granddaughter, who has a first-class degree from the University of Birmingham in physics. She applied to over 200 potential employers and did not even get a reply from any of them. Can the Minister encourage such potential employers at least to have the courtesy of replying to the young?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an important point about how employers should recognise the efforts that young people put into applying for those roles. We recognise that some graduates face challenges in getting jobs. However, it is still the case—and I hope the noble Lord’s granddaughter will be reassured by this—that UK graduates continue to have strong and above-average employment rates. If she or other graduates need additional help as well as comprehensive jobseeker support, graduates under 24 benefit from all of the tailored jobcentre offer available to all young people on universal credit.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister has been doing brilliant work on this agenda for decades, so it is great to see her in her place. Following on from the brilliant question from the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, a moment ago, will the Minister tell us how many apprenticeships are provided in each government department? Will the Government set a commitment to increase that number, because I know that it is not high enough? Will the Government also place a duty on local councils to increase the number of apprenticeships that they provide? Will the Government consider requiring organisations and companies in receipt of public funds, such as housing associations or charities, to provide apprenticeships in return for receiving that support?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that. I do not have at my fingertips the numbers of apprentices employed in each of the government departments. He makes an important point about the role of the public sector, procurement and ensuring that we are linking government spending with the development of skills. That is certainly something that we are doing across government. The Prime Minister could not have been clearer about the significance of enabling young people to gain higher-level skills alongside the excellent opportunities provided by our universities, in setting, as he has done, a clear ambition for the Government to deliver for two-thirds of young people the opportunity of higher-level apprenticeships or higher technical qualifications or degrees. The Government will now get behind that ambition.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, the curriculum review has been mentioned. Would not the Minister agree that it is really important that the curriculum is reset to reflect a well-rounded education? The arts have been diminished in schools in recent years, and the creative industries will be hugely important for our young people in terms of employment in the future.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Earl is right that, as part of the curriculum and assessment review, Becky Francis is considering the large amount of evidence that has been provided, and she has been clear in the challenge that the Government have set her, and that she has set herself, that maintaining a strong knowledge base within our curriculum is fundamentally important but so is providing the space for teachers and others to enable young people to develop their creativity in the very widest sense. I am sure we will hear more about that when the curriculum and assessment review is published.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, building on the answer that the Minister gave to my noble friend Lady Bousted, can she confirm that schools value all the various ways in which young people can move from education into further and higher education and into employment, and do not unnecessarily downgrade the virtue of, for example, BTECs and other forms of vocational qualifications, which I think historically has been the case?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I think there have been improvements in careers education in recent years, something that this Government are determined to build on. One of the key points, as my noble friend says, is how we provide young people with information, advice and guidance on the whole range of opportunities available to them, both in academic routes through A-levels and in technical routes through T-levels and apprenticeships, which we are determined to support for younger people. We will have more to say about all that in our post-16 White Paper soon.
Police: Vetting, Training and Discipline
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti
To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the BBC Panorama documentary Undercover in the Police, what plans they have to change law or practice regarding police vetting, training or discipline.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
The scenes in the documentary were simply unacceptable and deeply concerning. The Home Office supports the commissioner’s drive to root out those unfit to serve the public. The Government must improve standards nationally. That is why, earlier this year, the Government made changes to discipline and vetting, and we are intending to introduce further measures later this year to strengthen suspension arrangements and to put police vetting standards on a more robust legislative footing.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful, as always, to my noble friend the Minister. I gave him advance notice of a case of a 68 year-old man convicted in Guildford Crown Court just last week of a string of pretty horrific paedophile offences. During the trial, it emerged that he had served as a police CHIS spy for many years in the environmental movement. Of course, we subsequently legislated under the last Government to give advance criminal immunities to such people. Is it time to look again at whether the system is robust enough to protect in that necessarily shadowy area of police practice?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing attention to the conviction last week. Quite simply, it is unacceptable that individuals are involved in that type of behaviour while serving as police officers, undercover or not. She will be aware that there is a long-standing undercover policing inquiry, which is examining issues and will report to the Government as soon as practicable. I am expecting to be able to respond to those recommendations once they are produced.
In the meantime, and this is the important point for the House as a whole, the Government have improved vetting and are committed to strengthening police vetting. The measures that we have brought forward this year and also in the Crime and Policing Bill, which coincidentally is before the House today, are ones which will strengthen to ensure that we root out individuals who are not suitable to hold the badge of honour of a police officer in the United Kingdom.
Lord Bird (CB)
My Lords, is it not possible to accept that what we have got is a situation, which nobody seems to want to address, where we have a class divide in the police force? We have a situation where people from the working classes join the police force and, unless we move around and start bringing in more middle-class people, we are always going to be running into problems caused by the class division of the police force. I have noticed this over many years.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
As somebody from proud working-class stock, I do not accept that individuals who are from working-class stock are more substantially susceptible to committing offences and not being good police officers. I do not know whether that was what the noble Lord intended in his comments, but I will robustly defend police recruiting from all sides of the community, and social mobility, so that people who join the force as working-class officers can one day end up as chief constable. We will ensure that we have proper vetting in place to ensure that people are tested and supported. Ultimately, we have to have a police force that reflects the whole community. That means one that holds proper standards and I commit that to the House.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, while vetting and training are clearly important, perhaps more important is the authority and supervision of those who are in control and authority over a station, unit or wider area.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Viscount is absolutely right. It is very important that we have training and professionalism of those who are in a position of influence and power in smaller units within the police force. Obviously, the particular case in front of us related to one particular police station in central London, and the undercover reporter revisited that police station to find that there was not an improvement in behaviour. Ten officers have been referred to the IOPC. Their behaviour is on camera but, self-evidently, local leadership should have spotted those issues in the first instance. That is something that the Metropolitan Police itself will be reviewing in its review once the IOPC has determined what action should be taken against the officers in question.
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)
My Lords, what we saw on our TV some weeks ago just goes to show that, since the Macpherson report came out, talking about institutional racism, nothing much has changed. We have talked about it over the past 30 years, but we are still talking about the same thing now. When are we going to find that police officers begin to respect the community that they are policing, and the community has respect for them? Unless we do something within government, nothing is going to change. What has the Minister to say about that?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend, and she knows more than anybody else in this House how important it is that the police have the confidence of the community and that the community has confidence in policing. It is essential for public confidence that strict standards are upheld. I reassure my noble friend that we have taken action in the past 12 months to include new vetting standards, but, if she looks at the proposals for legislation in the next 12 months, she will see that that will put in place a range of measures to ensure that incidents to do with misogyny, racial hatred, sexual orientation and other transgressions by officers are dealt with speedily and effectively by the police. It goes back to a range of issues, but I hope that, this time next year, I will be able to give my noble friend greater confidence that the police have competence to deal with these issues.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, the “Panorama” exposé and the 17 deaths in or following police custody last year cast serious doubt on the independent custody visitor scheme. Evidence shows that it neither influences police nor ensures robust oversight. Does the Minister agree that the scheme requires urgent reform, needs to be totally independent and should not remain the responsibility of police and crime commissioners?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
If the noble Baroness will allow me, I will look at the points that she has raised. It is an important issue. I happen to think that it is important that there is an inspection regime of police custody. She has raised some particular concerns today. I will reflect on those and discuss them with my colleague the police Minister and respond to her in due course.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I was about to say that I share the sentiments being expressed here today. The issue, I feel, is one not of legal adequacy but of management oversight, training methods, accountability and, indeed, discipline. Speaking as somebody who spent over 30 years in a once very disciplined organisation, I ask the Minister whether he shares my disappointment that there is little evidence of progress being made in recent years in these areas, particularly within the Metropolitan Police? What further action is the Home Office taking to ensure that senior officers, from the very top down, are effectively holding their officers to account, and to improve public confidence in the police?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a very important point. Going back to the question from the noble Viscount, leadership—understanding performance and showing leadership—is extremely critical. The Home Office is this year funding the College of Policing to look at ongoing support for police leadership, and we have given £2.6 million this year to do that. We have also set, and are examining still with the College of Policing and with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, national leadership standards. We will continue to work with the college to ensure that we improve standards of police training. That goes from chief constables down and I certainly endorse the comments that the noble Lord made.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, first, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made an interesting point and, although I support the Minister’s response about class, to get more people from different classes to aspire to be police leaders would be helpful, because that is not often the answer we receive from children and other people in the working-class group. Some appalling behaviour was seen. In the review that has been suggested, one of the important things is, obviously, to get rid of these people as quickly as possible, which the commissioner has said that he wants to do. Would the review please take seriously the option of changing from a constable status to that of an employee? Police employment regulations, which are secondary legislation, frankly delay everything and put lawyers into the system, which slows it down, and then they still have an opportunity to access an employment tribunal, should they be able to allege improper prejudice. Will the Minister please take seriously the option of having employee status, as they do in New Zealand?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
That is an interesting suggestion from the noble Lord, who has great experience in this field, given his previous role as Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I can assure him that the 10 officers involved in this incident are having an expedited hearing. I think the evidence is very strong. I cannot determine the outcome: that is for the IOPC. Ultimately, I will examine his suggestion again. I think the key thing is that, if incidents such as this occur, they are expedited as quickly as possible and lessons are learned, but also that strong messages are sent that the type of behaviour in the “Panorama” exposé is simply not acceptable in the 21st century from any police officer.
Middle East
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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Lord True (Con)
My Lords, when the Lord Speaker told me last night of his decision to retire early, I was overwhelmed by the sense of his love for his wife of 56 years that led to the decision. There will be another time for tributes, but I would like the Lord Speaker to know how much he himself is loved in this House, and he and Joan will be in our thoughts and prayers in the time ahead.
Everyone in this House will welcome the wide acceptance of the US-led plan, and I congratulate all those regional and world leaders who played a decisive role in helping the stage 1 ceasefire become a reality. It represents a significant breakthrough, on which we all hope a sustainable end to the conflict in Gaza and a better, peaceful future can be built.
Let us be clear: the unique personality and drive of President Trump have moved the dial in a way that very few, until a very few days ago, ever believed possible. He deserves the highest praise for that. Frankly, how foolish those such as Sir Edward Davey, who boasted of boycotting the President’s state visit, must now feel.
But having moved the dial, we now have to move mountains. Ending permanently a crisis of long decades, comprising hatreds intensified in war and death, will be a monumental challenge. Yet it can and must succeed. The release of the hostages, who should never have been taken, taunted, tortured and abused, brings to their families and all the people of Israel a joy and relief that we all share. But now, Hamas must end its sick games with the families of the hostages it murdered in those hundreds of miles of dark tunnels on which it squandered international aid. None of us can ever comprehend how the families of those lost people must be feeling. All the bodies of the deceased hostages must be returned for proper burial, as the Prime Minister has emphasised. Does the noble Baroness have any further information on this?
When we hear some of the comments prophesying failure of the international initiative when it has barely started, and see continuing antisemitic demonstrations on our streets, even on 7 October, many of us must ask ourselves whether some people actually want the prize of peace. The noble Baroness must be absolutely assured of our support for the Government in all they have done and can do in the future in helping to carry forward the international plan.
It is true that we believe that the Government’s action in recognising a Palestinian state while Hamas was still in control of Gaza was a serious error. Secretary of State Rubio had said it was unhelpful to finding a sustainable end to the conflict, and we agree. We support a two-state solution that guarantees security and stability for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people; but will the noble Baroness assure us that the UK Government, on this and other matters, will now proceed in lockstep with the Sharm el-Sheikh plan? Does she agree that if the Palestinian Authority is to have an expanded role, it needs to implement the most significant reforms in its history, including to its welfare and education policies—and, of course, it must demonstrate democratic progress? Can the noble Baroness tell the House how the British Government will be assisting in that? Can she also update the House on the latest position in respect of our role in getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza, whose people have suffered so long and so much? Can she say how we will ensure that aid does not go into the hands of the murderous thugs of Hamas?
The barbaric sight of Hamas lining up and filming bound Muslims being shot publicly in the back of the neck is something that even Stalin thought best hidden in the cellars of the Lubyanka. It was a micro-image of the terror that Hamas has inflicted on its own people, in addition to its never-to-be-forgotten atrocities of October 7 against the State of Israel and people who had committed no crime except to be born Jews. Hamas has no regard for human life or human dignity. Do the Government agree that Hamas must be erased absolutely from the political map of Gaza for ever, its terrorist infrastructure completely dismantled, and the poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism confronted everywhere across the world and here in our own homeland? Has the noble Baroness any update for the House on the formation of an international force to provide security in Gaza, as the international plan envisages?
Finally, I welcome the tone of the Prime Minister’s Statement and also that of the Home Secretary on the evil of antisemitism and the mania of libel against Jews. We condemn any assault or threat to anyone on the basis of their faith and beliefs. The outrage at Peacehaven has no place in Britain. The Home Secretary was refreshing in her frankness—not always heard from within her party in recent years, as some in this House can very well testify—that Islamist terrorism and its twisted ideology are our greatest domestic threat, and that antisemitism is on the march across communities, in our schools, universities and even the NHS, and threatening Members of your Lordships’ House as they try to come and go to and from this place. The Government will have our fullest support for decisive action in those areas, as the Home Secretary has promised.
Can the noble Baroness say whether any of the measures foreshadowed by the Home Secretary can be included in the crime Bill, which is before us today? It is good that protection for Jewish institutions is being stepped up, but we need to return to a society where no Jewish person feels that they have to be protected. We must aspire to a world where all the children of the Middle East are educated not in hate but in harmony, and where that great region—the cradle of so much that is good in the history of humanity—spends its inestimable material and human resources not on guns but on growth; and where all their ways are gentleness and all their paths are peace.
Yes, it will be a giant task to bring the international plan to fruition, but we must all put our shoulder to the wheel, and every step that our Prime Minister takes to help make it happen will have our strongest support.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, I too thank the Lord Speaker for his work in this House, his decades of public service and the very personal nature of his statement, which highlighted the sacrifice that many of our loved ones and family members make when we carry out our public duties. We look forward to hearing tributes to him and his role.
I preface my remarks, as I did in my first comment as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in this House, by calling for a Statement from the Government on Sudan and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and I repeat that to the Leader.
I wish to start my remarks on the Middle East by condemning the horrific incidents of antisemitism that we have seen in our communities. Alas, the most recent has not been isolated, and we must redouble our efforts to ensure that our Jewish community is not only safe but feels safe in our country. In too many situations, it is and has not. Also, too many young Muslims are fearful of Islamophobia, and even if we see the sustaining of the ceasefire and the eventual peace that we all hope for, we must be aware that one of the likely legacies of this war will be seen in our communities for years to come. We must be prepared for that.
The excruciating and sometimes performative press events that we have seen in the last few days, while children without shelter continue to suffer, mean that healing is going to be important. These too frequent political stunts, when there is a humanitarian crisis continuing, should be very sobering for us. The hostage returns are extremely welcome and an enormous relief for the families—it was a reprehensible war crime for Hamas to have held them in the way that it did—and the return of the bodies of those who, sadly, lost their lives may mean some healing for those who have suffered.
The scale of the recovery is going to be enormous, in both physical and mental terms. Eighty years on, in this country, we collectively recall the Blitz and the damage and trauma it inflicted on London. During the Second World War, 20,000 bombs were dropped on London—a terrifying figure. In Gaza, geographically a quarter of the size of London, 70,000 tonnes of bombs have been dropped in two years. The level of destruction inflicted on London then resulted in over 2.7 million tonnes of rubble needing to be cleared, which literally took well over a decade to complete. In Gaza—remember, a quarter of the footprint of London—the scale of the bombardment has resulted in 60 million tonnes of rubble, more than 20 times that of the Blitz on London.
My first question to the Leader is: what role will the UK play in the enormous task of the scale of the recovery that will be necessary, including rubble clearance and the commencement of reconstruction? We will have to operate at scale, and therefore I appeal to the Government again to move towards restoring our commitment on international development assistance. The reduction to 0.3% by the current Government, with the Opposition now stating that it will reduce it to next to zero, is not right. We need to step up our humanitarian support for the reconstruction of Gaza, not leave the room.
The impact on civilians is well reported: the starvation, the denial of anaesthesia for operations on children, and the creation of conditions that have seen Hamas gangsterism continue. Yet the underreported but grim task—with the likely thousands of corpses that will need to be identified under the rubble—is only now commencing.
When I visited the Gaza border last year, I was struck by the constant nature of the explosions, fire, jet aircraft howls and the dull but persistent sound and sight of drones. Imagine our children not having a single night when this has not been ever present for two years. The psychological and mental scars are deep: an entire generation of children are traumatised. Also, we know that Israeli youngsters, who did not want war or had any role in the policy of having a war, have had their national service and served their nation, but they have gone through hell in the process. Two sets of communities are deeply scarred. So when we talk about peace, we need to understand fully what it will mean, because the trauma will be present—and it is deep.
Therefore, I close with a specific appeal to the Leader, which I have raised previously, on what role the UK can play. We need clarity from the Government on what level of support they will provide to the Palestinian Authority, which is likely to be the transitional authority, and what practical measures the UK will be providing. The UK has excellent experience of post-conflict reconstruction, and we have professionalism and good relations—how are we going to exploit that?
What relationship will the UK have with the emerging stabilisation force? As I saw in the work I carried out in north Iraq after Daesh had occupied Mosul, the UK can play a very important role in restoring education and child trauma support, especially the psychosocial support that is needed. Recovery from the horror must be immediate, intensive and accessible, and the UK can play a direct role in having immediate pop-up education and child trauma centres constructed immediately. This should not be an add-on to the process. There is no mention of education and child support in the 20-point plan from the United States. I hope the Leader may be willing to meet me and some colleagues with regard to ensuring that, if we talk about peace, it is for the long term, not just an immediate ceasefire.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
I am grateful to both noble Lords for their comments. I will briefly make a comment about the Lord Speaker. He is a personal friend, and I first met him in about 1984, because we were both candidates in the 1987 election for the first time. The reasons why he is standing down go to the heart of the integrity of the man. We will miss him, but we will enjoy working with him as he finishes his term before he stands down.
I thank both noble Lords for the comments they made and their tone, and particularly the support to the Government for the work we are undertaking. This is not a party-political issue: across the world, parties have come together and countries are coming together to take part in the process of the ceasefire and what comes next. We all know from experience that, when you have a plan to move forward, there are times when the next step forward is imperfect, sometimes inadequate and difficult, but that step-by-step approach takes us to a place where people can be safe.
We have seen over the past two years, when the hostages were first taken, that there are things that cannot be undone. We cannot unsee the images we saw on our TVs when we saw those hostages being taken, or when we saw children starving in Gaza and houses bombed, but neither can we unsee the joy and the relief of the families who have seen their loved ones returned after the horrors they went through. The noble Lord is right to talk about releasing all the hostages. It is a tragedy that some are now being returned as bodies to be buried, but, for their families to be able to grieve, they must see all the hostages returned. I hope that international efforts can be brought to bear on that.
The noble Lord said he felt the recognition of the Palestinian state was the wrong thing to do. I would challenge that. I think all these things are process, and the only way forward for genuine peace—with a secure, stable and confident Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state—is to have that two-state solution. The recognition of Palestine, along with other countries, as we saw, was very important in that. It is interesting that, after the other countries and the UK recognised Palestine, we saw the Arab countries also condemn Hamas, which we had not seen before. I say to the noble Lord that the path to peace is often an imperfect one, but it has to be taken to ensure the safety of people.
Both noble Lords asked about next steps. The path to peace is going to be difficult, which is why the Wilton Park conference on reconstruction, identifying the ways forward and the role different countries can play will be so important. More detail on that will become available as the conference progresses. I also say that the role of Sir Michael Barber as the UK envoy for Palestinian Authority governance will be crucial in all of this. The noble Lord, Lord True, for the Opposition, asked about issues such as education and the health service in reconstructing Gaza. There is not a viable state there, in the sense that it does not have the public service infrastructure. Dealing with that, and the point he made about the support needed for young people, particularly in the trauma centres, is all going to be part of having a viable state: you have to have a viable public sector that can deliver the services that people need. The work that he will be undertaking, which is also part of a reform agenda, to strengthen the capacity for delivery and improve the service provision, will be essential for the Palestinian Authority to be able to build an effective State of Palestine and take on the full responsibilities there. We need to empower and help form that Palestinian Authority.
On the other point, about how you ensure this, there will now be more agencies on the ground, and it will be important that we see journalists now having access, so that there can be reports back and public awareness. I can easily restate that there is no role for Hamas in the Government of Palestine. I think the Prime Minister has been very clear on that. It is absolutely crucial that Hamas decommissions its weapons, and that is a precursor to seeing a genuine, sustainable and lasting peace as well.
Both noble Lords made comments on the rise in antisemitism in the country, which alarms us all, but one of the things that alarms me most is the blatant voicing of that—people seem to have a new confidence in expressing antisemitism. I think that goes alongside the rise, but it is equally important to address it. There can be no acceptance of antisemitism or Islamophobia in this country. When our Jewish community does not feel safe, that damages us all. The Government have provided about £80 million funding for CST, and that will continue, but I think all of us have to call out antisemitism, even in its most minor forms, as and when we hear it. It can never be tolerated and it is never acceptable, and we will be failing in our duty to our Jewish community if we do not call it out at each and every opportunity we are called to do so.
Baroness Blackstone (Lab)
My Lords, perhaps inevitably, there is rather little detail in the Statement. However, it does say—I think that this was endorsed by my noble friend the Leader of the House just now—that
“a viable Palestinian state is the only way to secure, lasting peace for the Middle East”.
Can my noble friend say what discussions the Government are currently having with President Trump and his senior colleagues on how to prevent further illegal settlements on the West Bank, which will surely prevent a viable Palestinian state?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right on that, and it is important that there is a viable Palestinian state across the West Bank as well. She will be aware, as I mentioned in my answer, of the reconstruction conference taking place at Wilton Park, which will bring all countries together, including the US and the UK. At the heart of that discussion are how we bring a lasting peace to the region and what reconstruction, support and action are needed. There is also the 20-point plan—it is called a peace plan, but it is a route to a plan in many ways. Those are very much items that are key to the agenda of the summit.
Lord Pickles (Con)
My Lords, there should not be any doubt that the Palestinian Authority is riddled with corruption from the top to the bottom. It uses formal and informal security forces to intimidate opposition and has been involved in the murder of opposition individuals. It uses its system to promote death against Jews through its education system—the latest books are outrageous. It gives pensions to people who kill Jews. What reforms are the Government going to press upon the Palestinian Authority, which is despised by most Palestinians, to ensure that it can participate in the peace process?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
Across the region, it has been clear, including from President Abbas, that there needs to be change in the Palestinian Authority. One of the roles of Michael Barber is to shore up the Palestinian Authority and ensure that, where there is corruption, it is rooted out. We have to have a reformed state. Unless we have security in Palestine and security in Israel, there will not be a lasting peace. That does not mean that anybody is saying that things are working well or could work well easily; it means there are several challenges, and he has outlined some of those. Unless we make some progress and get some capacity into that state, working across the world—I come back to the Wilton Park conference, in which I think that is absolutely crucial—we are not going to see the progress. There has to be a viable state and the credibility and confidence of the people of Palestine as well.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, disarming Hamas will be extraordinarily difficult, but the task will be much harder if, in the meantime, Iran is surreptitiously seeking to rearm it. I would not expect the noble Baroness the Leader to go into detail, but can she reassure the House that sufficient attention will be paid to the potential for further malign Iranian influence in the tragedy of Gaza?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
The noble and gallant Lord makes a valid point. We are talking about quite a wide issue and other players in this have made it more difficult to resolve the problem. He can be assured that that is very much on the agenda and is taken note of in all the discussions taking place.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel and make a plea for the people of Gaza. We have talked about all the things that can happen in the long and even medium term but at the moment, with the removal of the IDF from areas of Gaza, people are taking rampant action to terrorise the people of Gaza, with the continual help of Hamas. What are our Government and Governments in the region doing to produce a force which will police Gaza and protect the people of Gaza from anybody trying to destroy the reconstruction of the area? It needs to be done sooner rather than put on the back burner.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I hope the noble Lord is not suggesting that anything is being put on the back burner. The conference and the discussions that have taken place show how much at the front of the agenda this is, with not just the UK and American Governments but all those countries taking part. He talked about the urgency of the issues. We had the conference last week and discussions are going on at Wilton Park. It is about how quickly we can get the support and the protections in. I can assure him there is no suggestion whatever that any of these issues will be on the back burner. I am sure he did not mean to suggest that. The priority is very much getting aid and support in, and dealing with those who do not want peace. The priority has to be a sustainable peace, with reconstruction that brings lasting peace but with a kind of normality. We need to have the health service, the education system, and all these public services up and running for the people in Gaza. It is on the front burner, definitely not the back.
Lord Turnberg (Lab)
My Lords, the release of the hostages and the peace in Gaza were greeted with enormous joy in Israel and Gaza. It was a remarkable event. We know it is the first step, but what surprised, and angers and frustrates, me is that there were men and women marching on the streets of the UK, wishing that the peace had not happened. They were supporting Hamas. They wanted Hamas to continue to kill Israelis. What can the Government do to prevent the spread of such malign messaging? It is not simply support for the Palestinians and the two-state solution—which, incidentally, I am fully in favour of. We must stop this malign messaging. What can we do?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
The noble Lord hits on something particularly tricky. I can only utterly condemn those who did not support the process and did not share in the joy of the ceasefire. Marching on the streets of this country in support of Hamas is completely and utterly wrong, and should never happen or be tolerated. He will have heard the words of the Home Secretary on these issues. Let us be clear: the only way forward is to have tolerance, understanding and a demand for peace. Those who try to thwart that are wrong, and we will have to look at how it can be dealt with. There is no place at all for support for Hamas and no role at all for Hamas.
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield
My Lords, from these Benches, I join others in expressing deep appreciation and thanks to the Lord Speaker for his service to this House and assure him of our continued support in the coming months. Noble Lords may be aware that efforts are under way to rebuild the Al-Ahli hospital, managed by the Anglican diocese of Jerusalem. It remains the only hospital in operation in the north of Gaza, but most of its buildings are in ruins following multiple airstrikes earlier this year. Hospital staff have remained in place throughout the conflict. They are now in urgent need of medical supplies to continue to deliver life-saving treatment. I ask the Minister to bring her influence urgently to bear to ensure that financial support and medical supplies reach the hospital so that it can continue to serve the people of north Gaza.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for his comments on that and about the Lord Speaker. He is absolutely right that healthcare, particularly in hospitals, is an acute issue. Some of the support that the UK has already announced is specifically for healthcare and given to UK-Med as well. Healthcare and education are those building blocks of life, without which Gazans cannot flourish or even start to lead a normal life that leads towards a long and lasting peace. I can assure him it is at the forefront of the discussions that are taking place.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, what steps are the Government taking to recognise those Hamas officials and operatives acting within the Palestinian state so they do not try to rebadge themselves as Palestinian Ministers?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
That is a valid point. We have made it clear there is no role for Hamas in a future Palestinian state or in the governance of Palestine. Part of the work at Wilton Park will be to say how we identify that and how we manage this. We have seen it happen in other areas as well. We have to ensure that there is full decommissioning and a state that has the confidence of the people of Palestine and the region, because the region as a whole has to be secure. Israel has to feel safe and secure, as does Palestine.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent)
My Lords, there is time for both noble Lords to speak, so we will go to the Liberal Democrats and then to our colleague from the Cross Benches.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, I am president of Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine. I absolutely accept what the Leader of the House just said about Hamas. It is coming up a lot that Hamas has no place in any future governance of a free and independent Palestine. I think everyone agrees on that. The tributes to the Arab and Muslim countries, which have been vital and instrumental in bringing this about, have been very well placed. I am particularly pleased that Turkey’s President Erdoğan has played such a key role, as was emphasised by President Trump, to put pressure on Hamas to agree to this deal and to all the conditions on it to disarm.
We are now in a very fragile moment between phase 1 and phase 2. Phase 1 is clear now: the urgent need is for aid to come in. The Rafah crossing is still closed.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
I am being heckled, and I am going to continue. I am not going to be bullied by Conservatives. There is an urgent need for aid and there has not been enough emphasis on that. The Rafah crossing is still closed, aid is not getting through and people are still suffering. Medical aid has not got through. There are 20,000 orphan children, at least. What special emphasis will be placed in the discussions on all those children who have nobody, who are orphaned and need special protection? I ask the Minister, as my noble friend did, about the protection for children, particularly in Palestine.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
There were a number of items in there, particularly on the aid being delivered—the noble Baroness asked about the Rafah crossing. It was opened briefly, then closed again; my understanding is that preparations are now being made to reopen it. Though airdrops are clearly a useful way of getting aid in, it has to get in through lorries. I saw either yesterday or this morning that Tom Fletcher was out there working on that as well.
The noble Baroness makes a particular point about the children of Gaza, and she is absolutely right to do so. The traumas many of those children are going to feel from what they have been through will be enormous. Looking at the reconstruction conference taking place at Wilton Park, and the work that Michael Barber is doing as the UK envoy in Palestine, one of the issues has to be looking at the services that are available and how they could be provided at pace, and ongoing. You need recognition that life is not going to be normal; it is not a ceasefire followed by life as normal the next day. The infrastructure of the country is in a dire state. We have heard from the right reverend Prelate about hospitals and schools being destroyed. There is so much work to be done, but the efforts should be in ensuring that those young people growing up now will be part of the future of their country. They can do that only if the right support is in place now and the traumas they have been through, and the tragedies they have suffered, are also dealt with in a way that allows them to play a full part in being the future of their state.
Lord Walney (CB)
My Lords, there will be a different assessment of the role of the United Nations through this conflict. Some will point to the way in which the organisations strive to get aid in; others will point to the many mistakes and failings. But do the Government recognise that the UN has fundamentally lost the confidence of key agents in the Middle East, not least the United States, and Israel itself, and therefore will they commit to working to restore that confidence, including by extensive reform of the institution in key areas?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, it is important that there is confidence in those institutions, and I think changes have already been made, particularly to UNRWA. But it is agencies on the ground that have experience and infrastructure that will be the ones that will be the best at getting that aid in. So we will take that support to get aid in from those agencies with experience. But, yes, there has to be a building of confidence across the whole region, in all the institutions. I come back to the point that we have not seen journalists in Gaza, and I think part of having that public reporting will also be very important going forward.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Lord to speak.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]
My Lords, with a coalition of oil states having agreed to contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction—and it is inconceivable they will do so if Hamas threatens their potential investment—is it not possible that a population tired of conflict will now want to organise for that reconstruction by seeking to exclude the men of violence? To help that process, can we all support the fostering of a new civil and military authority that promotes that agenda, while at the same time avoiding action that accelerates the movement into the West Bank of those identified as committed to violence, where, if we fail to secure movement on an independent Palestinian state, they are likely to regroup in furtherance of their campaign? And can I personally pay tribute to the Lord Speaker, on his retirement notice, for the service he has given Parliament over the 40 years I have known him? Thank you.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments, and his comments about the Lord Speaker. I am not sure I fully understand his question, but it is quite clear that those who have been involved in violence, including Hamas, cannot be part of the future going forward. I think that is absolutely clear and should remain the position. There will be no change to that. There will be a temporary, transitional Government—a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee—and that is the way to go forward.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, does the Leader of the House accept that rabid antisemitism is being taught in Palestinian schools, which is reminiscent of the narrative of the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler, and that this is actually in part financed by the British taxpayer?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, any promotion of antisemitism, wherever it takes place, is always wrong. The key thing in the education systems of both Palestine and Israel is that they should promote dialogue between the two countries and also promote peace and collaboration between them.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
The noble Baroness made a couple of references to the importance of the press. Could she update the House on exactly where negotiations are about letting in companies such as the BBC, the Times and the New York Times?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I have not got any more specific information for the noble Baroness. We have made it clear that journalists should be allowed back in, because it is reporting: it is the disinfectant of sunlight, in a sense, is it not? Information is the best disinfectant and more information would be very helpful. We are committed to that and we are pressing for it at all times.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
It is worth remembering that there are five refugee camps in Gaza alone. Those refugee camps have been there for five generations. Around 90% of people in them have never had a job in their life. The hatred in those refugee camps is immense. It is going to take 50, 60 or 70 years, at least, before we enable normal relationships between Israelis and those living locally. Can the Minister do something about it?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
All of us will do our best. The noble Lord makes an important point, which is that the path to peace is a process. It is never a moment; it is something that is ongoing. Members of the House will recall the process of bringing peace to Northern Ireland: it was not easy. At times, the steps that are taken forward are imperfect, inadequate and unsatisfactory. But they are steps forward. At each stage, we have to recognise where the goal is. The prize of peace, for people in that region, has to be the greatest prize ever for the children, the young people and the old people. Just think about it: people going about their lives saw their loved ones snatched and taken as hostages, and people trying to live their lives in Gaza saw their homes, their hospitals and their schools destroyed. So the path will be difficult and rocky. I do not know whether I recognise the timescale the noble Lord offered, but each day forward when people are not being killed is progress, and that is what we aim for.
Crime and Policing Bill
Thursday 16th October 2025
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
Lords ChamberCrime and Policing Bill 2024-26 View all Crime and Policing Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 18 June 2025 - (18 Jun 2025)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)
My Lords, I do not want to disappoint anybody, but I am not my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint; it would not be a very convincing impersonation, not least because he is sitting next to me. Noble Lords will all have the pleasure of hearing from him later on.
This Bill reflects not only our manifesto commitments but demonstrates the careful stocktake we have made of the important parts of our criminal justice system and our determination to improve the law where needed. It aims to keep citizens safer and more confident in the daily lives of all of us and I am proud of our proposals. They are fair, proportionate and add to the law where needed.
As part of the Bill’s driving force, which is to make people and communities safer, it will build on what we have done already in the past year to rebuild neighbourhood policing. We are restoring public trust in the criminal justice system through the delivery of our safer streets mission and aim to halve—yes, halve—knife crime and violence against women and girls in a decade.
For too long, neighbourhood policing has been neglected and downgraded. That has ended. We are already delivering on our commitments, with 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of the Parliament, backed by £200 million in new funding this year. Alongside this investment, the Bill brings in new respect orders to tackle persistent offenders who engage in the anti-social behaviour that blights our town centres. There are also enhanced powers to tackle the anti-social use of cars and off-road bikes. The police will now be able to seize these without first having to give a warning.
Everyone should feel safe when they are at work. This Bill delivers stronger action to protect shop workers. Assaulting a shop worker will be a bespoke criminal offence with a presumption that the courts will, on conviction, impose a criminal behaviour order on offenders. We are also repealing the provision that treats low-value shop theft as a minor offence. Shoplifting is not minor, and we are sending a clear message that all shop theft should be taken seriously. I know both these measures will be particularly welcomed by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
Part 2 of the Bill brings in Ronan’s law. We are clamping down on dangerous knives and weapons on our streets by introducing a duty on retailers to report bulk sales of knives and offensive weapons, increasing the maximum penalty for offences relating to the sale of knives to children and strengthening the age-verification requirements for the online sale and delivery of bladed products and crossbows. We are also delivering on our manifesto commitment to hold senior managers of online platforms personally liable for failure to take action to remove illegal content relating to knives and offensive weapons.
I turn now to violence against women and children. The prevalence of violence and abuse against women and children defiles our society. We need more effective enforcement action against perpetrators and better protection for victims. To this end, the Bill strengthens stalking protection orders and the management of registered sex offenders, including preventing them changing their names on official identity documents where they pose a risk of sexual harm.
The Bill also creates a new offence of administering a harmful substance, including by spiking, to make it absolutely clear that such behaviour is illegal and encourage victims to report such incidents.
Recognising how dangerous online material is in perpetuating the growing epidemic of violence against women and girls, we will bring forward amendments in your Lordships’ House to criminalise pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, for her tireless work culminating in the pornography review which recommended that action be taken in this area.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation are among the most despicable crimes imaginable. It is estimated that half a million children every year experience some form of child sexual abuse. Alongside the new national inquiry recommended by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, we are pleased to be pressing ahead with the implementation of some of the key recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
As a result, the Bill creates a new duty to report child sexual abuse, backed up by strong criminal sanctions for those who seek to cover up such abuse by preventing or deterring a person from carrying out the duty. It makes grooming a statutory aggravating factor when sentencing and removes the three-year time limit for civil personal injury claims brought by victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
Part 5 of the Bill also helps to tackle the rising levels of online child sexual abuse. In particular, the Bill provides for new criminal offences to stop—and we mean stop—AI-facilitated child sexual abuse and hold accountable those who commit or enable these vile crimes. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for her earlier advocacy of the new child sexual abuse image-generator offence.
The Bill also provides enhanced protections for children and vulnerable adults against their exploitation for criminal purposes. First, it provides for a new offence of child criminal exploitation, where an adult intentionally uses a child to commit criminal activity. To complement this new offence, the Bill also provides for child criminal exploitation prevention orders to help prevent the criminal exploitation of children occurring. Secondly, the Bill introduces a new offence to tackle the practice of cuckooing, where criminals take over the home of a vulnerable person for the purpose of illegal activity, such as drug dealing. Thirdly, the Bill creates a new offence to combat coerced internal concealment, or plugging, where children or vulnerable adults are coerced into concealing drugs or other items in their body for criminal purposes, typically as part of a county lines operation.
We also recognise how dangerous online material is in perpetuating the growing epidemic of violence against women and girls. We committed in the other place to criminalising pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation in this Bill, and we will shortly bring forward an amendment to that effect.
I turn now to children who are victims of child sexual abuse. As noble Lords will be aware, 10 years ago the Street Offences Act 1959 was amended so that the offences of persistent loitering or soliciting in a public place for the purposes of prostitution no longer applied to children. Parliament was right to do that because it recognised that children, because they are children, involved in such conduct are not criminals but the victims of sexual exploitation. I am pleased to say that we will bring forward amendments in this House to introduce a new disregards and pardons scheme for anyone convicted or cautioned as a child for these offences.
I now turn to policing. We will address the need to rebuild trust in policing. In some serious and worrying cases, public confidence has been undermined by atrocious criminality and misconduct by a very small minority of officers. Deterrence and punishment of such misconduct is a priority for this Government, as it is for the police. A key strand of the Government’s safer streets mission is to increase public confidence in policing and the wider criminal justice system.
Since 2017, the College of Policing has operated a police barred list—an advisory list which ensure that those officers who are dismissed by a police force in England and Wales are prevented from just joining another force. Such individuals have no place in policing. The Bill extends this approach, ensuring that officers dismissed at disciplinary proceedings from the National Crime Agency and other specialist police forces cannot be re-employed by another force.
It is vital that the system of police accountability commands the confidence of both the public and the police. As a society we rely on the professionalism and bravery of firearms officers who put their own lives at risk to keep us all safe. Thankfully, the occasions where the police have to use lethal force in this country are few and far between. When they do so, it is entirely right that officers are accountable for their actions. But those accountability arrangements must be proportionate, timely and fair to all concerned. Regrettably, this is not currently the case. Measures proposed in the Bill will improve the timeliness and appropriateness of investigations by the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the rights of victims. That said, if firearms officers are charged with offences relating to and committed during their duties, the Bill will protect them from violent reprisals by establishing a presumption of anonymity in criminal proceedings up to the point of sentence.
The public rightly want to see crimes solved and offenders brought to justice. To do this, the police must have the necessary tools to do their job. If someone has their mobile phone stolen and the victim can trace its whereabouts, the Bill ensures that the police have the powers to enter premises quickly and, if necessary, without a warrant, to recover electronically tracked stolen goods.
It is also vital that police powers keep in step with the march of technology in other respects. Evidence of criminality is no longer routinely stored on a computer hard drive; it is instead held remotely in the cloud. The Bill clarifies the circumstances in which law enforcement agencies can access such information, subject to strong safeguards, as they investigate offences ranging from child sexual abuse to fraud and terrorism, thereby protecting the public and our borders.
The Bill also ensures that law enforcement agencies have the necessary powers to combat other forms of technology-enabled crime. We are banning the possession and supply of SIM farms, save where there are legitimate uses such as in broadcasting. We are giving the police and others the power to suspend IP addresses and domain names used to commit fraud or other serious crimes, such as the so-called pimping websites involved in commercial sexual exploitation.
I turn to protests. The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our vibrant democracy, but in facilitating peaceful protest, the police also have a duty to uphold the rights of others not to be harassed or intimidated and to go about their daily lives without serious disruption. The Bill ensures that the police have the powers they need to protect places of worship from intimidatory protests and protects specified war and other memorials, including the Cenotaph and the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, that have been the target of protest action. A new targeted offence of concealing identity at designated protests will strengthen police powers to require the removal of face coverings at protests where violence or other criminality either has occurred or is likely to occur.
The precious right to engage in peaceful protest and the equally precious entitlement to freedom of speech do not extend to threatening or abusing others, all the more so where those threatened or abused are emergency workers. The law already recognises that racially or religiously motivated threats and abuse should attract tougher penalties, but these currently do not apply where the behaviour takes place in a person’s private home. When the police, firefighters and ambulance staff attend someone’s home— for example, in response to a 999 call—they have no choice but to remain and to act. The Bill closes the loophole in the law so that anyone who threatens or abuses an emergency worker because of their race or religion within a private dwelling will be liable for the higher maximum penalties such hate crimes would attract where the conduct took place in a public place.
I now turn to counterterrorism. We must also make sure that counterterrorism powers reflect evolving threats, ensuring that operational partners have the tools they need to keep the public safe. Part 14 of the Bill delivers on several recommendations made by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC. He has identified the need for a new diversion order in response to the increasing number of young people who are the subject of counterterrorism investigations. The youth diversion order provided for in Part 14 will be a new civil order that will enable the police to intervene earlier to prevent young people engaging in terrorism and divert them from the criminal justice system.
Finally, in addition to the three new measures that the Government will seek to add to the Bill to which I have already referred, we will table amendments to apply various further provisions in the Bill to Scotland and/or Northern Ireland. These amendments are being brought forward at the request of the Scottish Government and the relevant Northern Ireland departments.
This Government were elected to deliver change: change that will reverse the decline in neighbourhood policing; change that will tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls and the epidemic of knife crime. The Bill will help deliver that change by cracking down on anti-social behaviour, making our town centres safer, building trust in the police, clearing our streets of knives, protecting our children from sexual abuse, criminal exploitation and online harms, and safeguarding women and girls from stalkers and sexual predators. These are the purposes behind this Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Official Opposition. It will come as no surprise to noble Lords on the Government Front Bench that we on these Benches broadly support the Bill, because large parts of it are a copy-and-paste job from the previous Conservative Government’s Criminal Justice Bill. From the provisions on anti-social behaviour to the new offence of cuckooing, the duty to report child sexual abuse and the new protest and public order offences, this Government are continuing the work we were doing to strengthen the criminal justice system. This is, of course, very welcome, but it does not mean that all is plain sailing.
The feeling among the British public is that crime has been increasing, even though overall rates of crime have fallen since 2010. The Crime Survey for England and Wales for the year ending March 2025 shows that there were 9.4 million incidents of headline crime. Although this represents a 7% rise from the previous year, the ONS states that this is due entirely to a 31% increase in fraud.
Undoubtedly, a significant factor in this overall feeling of pessimism is the increase in more visible crimes that impact people’s daily lives. Shoplifting, phone theft, graffiti, vandalism, fare evasion and drug use are highly visible crimes that leave people feeling unsafe in their daily lives. Shoplifting, for example, has risen by 20% in the year from 2024 to 2025.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council has pointed to an estimated £1.2 billion shortfall in police funding. The chair of the NPCC has said that the funding settlement in the spending review will “cover little more” than police pay rises. Chief Constable Paul Sanford has warned that the Government will find it “incredibly difficult” to meet their neighbourhood policing pledge with the funding settlement. The Metropolitan Police has already announced that it will have to cut 1,700 staff, scrap its dedicated anti-social behaviour officers and close down half of the front desks in stations across London.
This strikes at the heart of a wider principle. Is this Crime and Policing Bill, which runs to over 200 clauses and over 20 schedules, actually going to reduce crime on the streets of this country? In some ways, it might, but in many others, unless coupled with serious improvements in enforcement and police action, it may very well not.
To turn to the Bill, the Government have committed three crimes of commission and two crimes of omission. I will start with the crimes of omission. The Government’s 2024 election manifesto promised to introduce new respect orders with the aim to
“stamp out issues such as public drinking and drug use”.
The Government come armed with a noble cause, but all it takes is to scratch just below the surface to see that these respect orders are little more than smoke and mirrors.
The Bill inserts a new part before Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, creating respect orders. It then converts what are currently anti-social behaviour injunctions into youth injunctions. Rather than giving the police, local authorities and the courts tough new powers to tackle anti-social behaviour, as the Government claim, they are instead simply renaming the currently existing injunctions and creating new orders that are the same in all but the name.
The anti-social behaviour injunctions were introduced as part of my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead’s efforts to streamline the powers available to authorities to deal with criminal and challenging behaviour. As she noted at that Bill’s Second Reading, under the previous Labour Government, over nine anti-social behaviour laws were passed, creating 19 separate powers. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 consolidated those into six powers. That had a purpose. I cannot see what this Government’s new respect orders will add to this arsenal.
Secondly, on the repeal of Section 22A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, this provision states that shoplifting of goods with a value of less than £200 is to be tried only summarily in a magistrates’ court. There has been much misinformation about this provision, which was brought forward by the last Conservative Government. The Labour manifesto called this an “effective immunity” for some shoplifting—a line that has been parroted by Labour Ministers ever since. However, the Government’s policy paper on the Bill, published on GOV.UK, calls it “perceived immunity”, and I think that sums up the bizarre nature of the criticism.
I want to be absolutely clear: anyone claiming that trying low-value shoplifting in a magistrates’ court is granting criminals immunity is wrong and misleading the public. There is absolutely no reason why theft under £200 cannot be tried summarily. I need not remind the House, full of eminent lawyers as it is, that a person can still be sentenced to up to six months’ imprisonment and issued with a fine if found guilty in a summary trial. Six months’ imprisonment is clearly not immunity.
What this does is clear the already clogged-up Crown Court and let the police prosecute more serious cases. That does not mean that thefts under £200 from shops do not impact on shopkeepers, or that they should not be investigated, but there is nothing wrong with having a bit more summary justice in this country. It permits cases to be tried and discharged more quickly and efficiently, rather risking long and drawn-out Crown Court cases that last for months if not years. If the police are not investigating such offences, that is an issue with the operation of policing, not the law.
Clauses 107 and 108 were inserted into the Bill on Report in the other place and, as such, have not had as much scrutiny, perhaps, as they ought to. The 11th report of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House has drawn attention to these clauses for the uncertain scope of the new offences and the use of highly subjective terminology.
Clause 107 creates the new offence of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards an emergency worker that are racially or religiously hostile. Clause 108 creates the offence of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour that are likely to cause an emergency worker harassment, alarm or distress. These offences are very similar to the existing offences under Section 4A and 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The key difference is that these new offences can be committed in a private dwelling, whereas those in the Public Order Act cannot. It is understandable why the Government might wish to press ahead with these new offences—we all wish to see our emergency workers protected—but it is far from certain that creating two new speech-related offences will offer emergency workers any greater protection in reality.
Clause 107 involves the criminalisation of insults and Clause 108 uses the term “distress”. Both are highly subjective, thereby leaving people open to prosecution on undefined terms. We already know that this an acute problem in this country. There exists a litany of cases where people have been arrested and prosecuted for speech offences. The continual misuse of non-crime hate incidents, and the probably irresponsible policing of tweets and online comments, have had a chilling effect on free speech. If anything, we should be reviewing and removing barriers to freedom of expression and speech, not expanding those limitations. I therefore echo the comments of the Constitution Committee in relation to Clauses 107 and 108 and call on the Government to heed its advice that these clauses should be drawn far more narrowly.
I am sure much of the debate on the Bill will comprise what noble Lords deem to be omissions and missed opportunities. I have time to mention only a few of those, but I give notice to the Minister that in Committee I will be raising many more. Given that this Bill, in many ways, mirrors the previous Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, it was surprising to see there has been no inclusion—bar two clauses—of the measures to end and replace the Vagancy Act. The previous Government planned to repeal the Act and replace it with a new framework around nuisance begging and rough sleeping. If the Government are to commence the repeal of the Vagrancy Act, but not institute further powers to replace it, there may be a gap in the law. I would appreciate it if the Minister could perhaps comment on why the Government have not included these measures in the Bill.
Furthermore, the Bill does not include the previous Government’s plans to impose tougher penalties on those convicted of shoplifting offences on more than three occasions. Those provisions would require the court to impose a community order, including a curfew, exclusion or electronic whereabouts monitoring condition, or a combination of such conditions. Given the Government’s tough talk on bearing down on retail crime, it is more than a little confusing why they have not included such measures in the Bill.
I will end where I began: criminal justice is not simply about laws this Parliament passes. We can continually create new criminal offences and we can pass as many new laws as we like, but until we get to grips with the enforcement of those laws, we will never tackle the scourge of criminality. The Government have been talking tough on crime, but this must now be met with corresponding action.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction and I am grateful to the many organisations that have provided briefings. In too many areas of crime and policing, we are failing the people who most need protection: children and vulnerable adults exposed to predators, shopkeepers bearing the cost of unchecked theft, farmers shouldering the consequences of criminals stealing expensive farm equipment to order, and traumatised women who hesitate to report assaults, fearing that the justice system will only compound their suffering.
Much of this comes down to resources. Although the Minister often states that Labour is investing an extra £1.2 billion in policing this year, the reality is that little of this will reach front-line services. The National Police Chiefs’ Council notes that a quarter of this sum will be returned to the Treasury through increased employer national insurance, with the rest already committed to fund pay awards and service debt. A decade of underfunding has forced police to borrow just to maintain their dilapidated buildings and antiquated IT. Already, gaps in children’s services, mental health and social care force police into roles they are ill-equipped to fill.
In scrutinising this Bill, we have to ensure that we do not set the police up to fail. Take drug testing: the Bill expands the range of triggers for police to be able to test someone for drugs but makes no provision at all for more drug testing centres or forensic resource. That must change because drugs are deeply intertwined with serious violence and linked to more than half of all homicides. Drug-related deaths have doubled since 2012, and about 70% of thefts and cases of domestic violence are driven by addiction. Yet more than 27,000 suspected drug suppliers remain on bail or under investigation, largely because we lack enough trained forensic specialists. If these delays, and the patchy availability of treatment programmes, are not addressed, the measures in the Bill will become irrelevant.
In a similar vein, there are a number of provisions in the Bill that are welcome in principle but need careful scrutiny in practice. Among those are new offences—such as assaulting retail workers and the proposed respect orders—which, while well-intentioned, risk duplicating existing laws and further straining a justice system already operating way beyond capacity.
Liberal Democrats have long argued that neighbourhood policing is the most effective way to address these problems before they take root. The role of local beat officers is crucial: they know where the domestic abusers live, where kids are left home alone, and where the drug dens operate. Effective neighbourhood policing depends on familiarity, consistency and trust—qualities that can only be built over time. We cannot keep parachuting in new officers and expect these relationships to flourish. That is why we have proposed legal minimum resourcing to ensure that neighbourhood policing teams are maintained at the level necessary to sustain long relationships and a sense of safety among communities.
That sense of safety is especially important for young people. At the moment, one in three young people reports that they do not feel safe in their communities. The dangerous and often tragic result is that they carry weapons. We therefore back proposals to tighten the rules around the online sale and delivery of weapons and we will bring forward amendments to give legislative life to even more of the Clayman review’s recommendations.
Turning to police and criminal justice reform, very few people realise that 90%—yes, 90%—of crime is now digitally enabled. That means that chief constables must be given the flexibility to decide the right mix of traditional police officers and specialist staff needed in their forces, because digital skill is very often now more highly valued than physical prowess, and recruitment should reflect that.
Meanwhile, training has to move with the times. One-third of all police officers now have under five years’ experience, but inspection after inspection exposes serious flaws in the training provided. Poor professional development, combined with infrequent updates on new laws and procedures, means that many front-line officers have outdated skills, leading to uneven standards and a workforce that lacks confidence to use its powers. With 94% of reported offences unresolved, new laws mean little if officers are not equipped to enforce them, so we will push for the first national review of police training since 2018.
However, reforming policing alone is like fixing a lock on a door that is completely rotten. It simply beggars belief that at the end of March 2025 there were 310,000 cases outstanding in magistrates’ courts; that serious offences such as rape are taking more than two years to come to trial, with offenders back out on the streets on bail, tormenting their victims; and that perpetrators who are convicted of crimes often pass through prisons without any kind of rehabilitation.
I shall highlight some serious concerns on civil liberties. In Clause 138, the move to give police automatic access to driving licence data for any law enforcement purpose, not just driving offences, marks a major expansion from current practice. The Home Secretary need only consult police, with no full parliamentary oversight, when drafting these regulations. While the Bill does not mention facial recognition, and Ministers say that there are no plans to use DVLA data this way, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, in a written submission to the Home Affairs Committee, stated that police chiefs are seeking access to the DVLA database for facial recognition searches, and proposals by the previous Government would have enabled this. To do this would put more than 50 million innocent people in a perpetual digital line-up, which poses profound risk, particularly for people of colour and minority groups. Big Brother Watch found that in the UK in 2023 89% of police facial recognition alerts wrongly identified members of the public as people of interest. We shall vigorously press the Government to ensure that DVLA access is necessary, proportionate and set out clearly in primary legislation, restricted to tackling serious crime or public safety threats.
It is about not just facial recognition but a whole range of biometrics, some of which are only now in development. I am particularly concerned about the need to future-proof the Bill against tomorrow’s technologies. New digital tools such as remote data extraction, advanced surveillance systems, predictive analytics and wearable sensor technology will soon reach the UK market. The Bill must be capable of evolving this technology, ensuring that protections for citizens remain robust as new digital tools appear.
In conclusion, public confidence in policing is at an all-time low. This may not be fair—I do not think it is—but it is the reality. New duties imposed by Parliament must therefore be matched by new investment. We must deliver policing that keeps people safe without edging towards a surveillance state. The Bill gives us a great opportunity to strike that balance, but more power without resources or safeguards risks serious consequences. Let us ensure that the Bill empowers the police, protects freedom and prepares the service for a fast-moving technological world, because only then will it truly deliver safer communities.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, I broadly support the Bill, as there is an awful lot in it to be commended. I would not agree with everything that the Liberal Democrats have said about access to more data, certainly not facial recognition, but I think that there are some steps in the right direction. Of course, the nature of a Second Reading is to highlight the things that you would have preferred to be in the Bill rather than things that are in it.
My first point is about what I feel is a missed opportunity to set out a strategic direction, partly for the criminal justice system and certainly for the police. We have not embedded anything about prevention as a strategic direction in the way that fire brigades have. We have not said much about police professionalism and how that might be developed. Finally, there is the use of technology, and how we set a strategic framework in which that will develop. That is a genuine missed opportunity.
Of the four areas that I want to highlight and which I shall push in Committee for recognition, the first concerns firearms officers. First, I acknowledge that the development around the anonymity of officers is welcome, although I confess that on occasion I have thought that actually they should be named, because accountability is very important. But this development is a good one, and I support it. This group of brave men and women, 3,500 of them, who protect 69 million of us, who are the only ones who can go forward on our behalf and deal with the people they have to deal with, are, I am afraid, not receiving a good deal at the moment.
This week, the officer who shot and killed Jermaine Baker in 2015 was told that he had no case to answer in a misconduct process—after 10 years. He was never at risk of a criminal charge, but 10 years later—that cannot be right. So there is something about timeliness there, but the law also ought to offer more generosity and sympathy to the officer in the first place. We do that for householders who protect themselves and kill someone in their home; they are in a unique group—so why does this unique group not have any similar protection? It is about having a higher bar before prosecution is considered, not immunity. No one is arguing for that—accountability is essential. But something must happen in that area, and as yet it has not.
My second area is cycling. I have tried to get some amendments into this Bill, because it is time that cyclists have more accountability too. Insurance would not be a bad idea, along with the opportunity to have points on their licence, if they have a driving licence, should they commit offences, and registration marks to identify them—and even licences for the people who ride bikes. The Public Bill Office tells me that it is out of scope, but I cannot understand that, because obviously there are measures on dangerous cycling that the Government have brought forward, which I support. But it will be no use having them if you cannot identify the person who did it—so I suggest that there is a possibility to consider future developments in this Bill.
My third point is around the suicide of police officers. The Police Federation is concerned that the number of police officers and staff committing suicide over the years is increasing, but it is having real difficulty getting hold of the data, either about those who have committed suicide or those who have attempted it. It recently had a survey in which only 41 forces replied; two of the biggest forces in the country, including the biggest, did not reply, so the federation is struggling to get hold of the data. It would like to see a legal duty to ensure that the data is collected, first, and then if there is a problem how big it is and where the themes are that might enable more prevention to take place.
My final point is about the indirect consequences in terms of historical offensive weapons. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has done some work on this, but there is more to do to make sure that those who have historical weapons are not captured under the offensive weapon debate. The couriers who carry these things are now withdrawing from the market, meaning that very few people are carrying weapons or things such as scissors—and that means that we will have a real problem soon if we do not consider that indirect impact.
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, I commend this Government’s mission to achieve safer streets and applaud particularly the aim of halving both knife crime and violence against women and girls in a decade. The Bill touches on a wide range of complex and important issues, and I will raise just a few.
Reporting of child sexual abuse and the decriminalisation of abortion are of particular interest to my colleagues on these Benches. Indeed, noble Lords may have seen the Church’s statement in response to the debate in the other place on the decriminalisation of women seeking abortion.
Fundamental reform to this country’s abortion laws ought to merit its own parliamentary process, we would say, and we on these Benches are keen to continue engaging with government to ensure that care-filled, careful consideration is given to support all those facing such a painful decision.
I declare my interest as chair of the board of trustees at the Children’s Society, and I am proud of its unwavering commitment to protect children from harm—including child sexual abuse—and to enable them to flourish. I am pleased that the Bill includes a stand-alone offence of child criminal exploitation, or CCE. I welcome the Government’s commitment to define CCE for police, but also support calls to bring forward a statutory definition of CCE on the face of the Bill that is directed at all organisations supporting children, to be supported by a robust, comprehensive implementation package with adequate funding and training.
I note that the Bill before us risks criminalising children forced or coerced into criminal activity. I think we need to take care that children are exempted in the work of the Bill from any offence of “cuckooing” or coerced internal concealment, recognising here, as elsewhere, children as victims, not perpetrators. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester is also following this Bill and is unable to be here today. With her, I will make the case for recognising so-called honour-based abuse as an aggregating factor in sentencing; introducing a new offence where victims die of suicide following sustained patterns of coercive control and abuse; introducing statutory defences for victims and survivors of domestic abuse who are accused of offending; and removing the parental rights of individuals convicted of child sexual offences.
We have been reminded today that recent terrible events mean that many are fearful when approaching a place of worship—indeed, going about their everyday lives. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who cannot be in his place today, wishes to engage with elements of this Bill offering practical guidance for police to enable expressions of public protest while also preventing intimidation and harassment. He also looks forward to working with noble Lords to ensure that this Bill offers stronger safeguards against the discriminatory treatment of Romani, Gypsy, Roma and Irish Travellers.
Noble Lords will be aware that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield has recently been nominated to chair the Orgreave inquiry into the events of 18 June 1984. My colleagues on these Benches and I will continue to engage with the Government on public order policing measures.
Finally, I welcome the principle of youth diversion orders for those under 22. This Bill will need to strike a delicate balance. Overzealous restrictions on movement and social contacts under such orders may lead to yet more disenfranchisement and distrust.
This is a challenging time and the obstacles are real. I therefore commit myself and those on these Benches to work with noble Lords to think creatively, compassionately and constructively in our collective scrutiny of this Bill.
Lord Garnier (Con)
My Lords, yet again we are being asked to digest a lengthy criminal justice Bill which covers far too many diverse areas of conduct. Churchill might have said that this Bill has no theme. Before the Bill began its progress through the other place, the Government proclaimed that it contained 35 headline measures. Andy Slaughter, the chairman of the Justice Select Committee, said the Bill introduced 27 new criminal offences. I think he was congratulating the Government.
Had I been discussing the Criminal Justice Bill—that is to say, the Bill that my noble friend Lord Davies referred to, which fell at the last election—I would have said of that what I now say of this Bill. It covers too many subjects. It makes criminal activities that are already criminal. It has 430 pages, 203 clauses and 21 schedules. Just look at it: it is like a telephone book. It is a catalogue, in my view, of Early Day Motions rather than a practical answer to the problems it seeks to identify. It reminds me of the Criminal Justice Act 2009, which included provisions for, among other things, the appointment of senior police officers, prostitution and lap dancing, the supply of alcohol to children, gang-related violence, aviation security, border controls and extradition, and more besides.
I am sure that many of the measures in this Bill are, on their face, worthy, and, assuming they are not already criminal offences, no doubt good measures are taken from the Criminal Justice Bill. But passing laws is not of itself a solution to an actual or perceived problem. Movement is not productivity. Too often, Governments of all political persuasions think that sounding vigorous is a substitute for action.
Between 1815 and 1914, remarkably few laws—about 15 or 20 statutes—were passed that affected the criminal law. Several of them are still in force, in whole or in part. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister, between 1997 and 2007, more than 50 criminal law statutes were enacted. The Criminal Justice Act 2003—another doorstop of a Bill—even repealed earlier sections of earlier Acts of Parliament passed after 1997 that had not even been implemented. I tabled Written Questions in the other place, asking how many criminal law provisions had been implemented, how many had been repealed before implementation, and how many had been brought into force. The answer I used to get was roughly one-third had been implemented, one-third had not been implemented and one-third had been repealed before implementation or soon afterwards. I am not making a politically antagonistic point: I am simply pointing out that the early 21st century legislative equivalent of Dreadnought building is ineffective unless the Government—any Government—do more than pass laws and pat themselves on the back.
The court system is under strain. The police are under strain. Our prisons are under strain. Yet we blithely pile more and often repetitive legislation on them for political effect, without calculating whether the new provisions already exist or can be managed within the present creaking criminal justice system. The Lord Chancellor recently promised 1,250 new Crown Court sitting days. With the Crown Court trial backlog leading to serious criminal trials now being scheduled for 2028 or 2029, and with literally hundreds of courtrooms unused, 1,250 additional days is insignificant. A senior Crown Court judge recently told me that he could use those days in just his own court centre.
The Home Secretary’s Second Reading speech in the other place in March amounted to empty jargon interrupted by loyal Back-Benchers reading out interventions drafted by her spads or by Government Whips, and by the Opposition complaining that she was ignoring the previous Government’s achievements or claiming that they were her own. This is not a satisfactory way to amend the law, still less to create new law.
Of course, this Bill will—either in this version or some other version of it—pass into law, and the Government will proclaim its enactment as one of their great achievements at the next election. In the meanwhile, the IPP scandal continues, despite the heroic efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, and other noble Lords from across the House to release the ghastly grip of its talons around the lives and hopes of those hundreds of prisoners still in prison well beyond their tariff. Governments and Ministers say a lot. The voters watch carefully and remember what they actually do.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister has so clearly set out, there is much to welcome in this Bill to improve the law where needed and to make us safer. I look forward to following it closely. To the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, I say that I also look forward to following the implementation when it is an Act. It will have a profound impact on the lives of many, including the most vulnerable. I particularly support the clauses relating to countering violence against children, women and girls.
Following the report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the IICSA, I welcome the abolition of time limitations in historical cases of child sexual abuse with Clause 82. The importance of this clause was brought home to me by a very courageous survivor, who, following years of sexual abuse by his priest, has lived a life with incapacitating mental illness, of which the origin was that trauma. The last Government refused to act on this specific issue, so I am proud that this Government have conceded the fundamental legal principle. However, as drafted, it has limited benefit to those who have fought for the change and whose sufferings make it necessary to fight. I ask the Minister to discuss this with me further, together with survivors.
The IICSA recommendations should be adopted without change or qualification. However, the clause adds a new “substantial prejudice”, especially for historical cases, which creates uncertainty, delays and an extra hurdle for survivors. As I understand it, the IICSA’s final report did not include any changes regarding the introduction of “substantial prejudice”. Its inclusion in the Bill could be interpreted as reintroducing the status quo. The impact of narrowing the court’s focus to a fair trial, with the burden on defendants, should make out-of-time CSA claims easier overall, but ambiguity remains around what count as “claims arising”.
New Section 11ZB(3)(b) and (c), introduced by Clause 82, introduce the novel legal idea of “substantial prejudice”, adopted from Scottish legislation, but they are unjustified, as there is no provision for relitigation in these cases in England and Wales. I suggest that if cases fail in civil courts then the legislation has failed in its aims, and these new paragraphs should be removed.
The testimony of witnesses to the IICSA shows institutional discouragement and the extended, often ineradicable psychological harm of abuse, underscoring the need for these reforms to remove barriers. One witness said to me, “Attending the IICSA was the second most dramatic thing in my life and the trauma of it has lasted seven years so far. If subsection (3)(b) and subsection (3)(c) remain, then preparing for a court case which could be dismissed on these grounds would be as traumatic as that, and with little personal benefit”. While survivors are relieved that, through this legislation, time limitations in historical cases of child sexual abuse will be abolished, the “substantial prejudice” clauses need to be deleted for better access to justice.
The clauses on the management of sex offenders are hugely important for the victims of violence against women and girls, and I am delighted, with my long-term interest in countering stalking, that the Government are seeking both to implement their manifesto commitments and to respond to the invaluable super-complaint made by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. Following discussions with those most concerned, I will wish to probe Part 6. I also know from campaigning on doorsteps that the new offence of cuckooing will be of great benefit, especially to those living in social housing.
Finally, I wholeheartedly support Clause 191 on the removal of women from the criminal law related to abortion. I pay tribute to my colleague, Tonia Antoniazzi.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I will focus on disorder in public places and spaces, which is having such a detrimental effect on our lives. In doing so, I will concentrate on Clauses 37 and 38, which create a new stand-alone offence of assault against a retail worker and build on the aggravated offence contained in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. I support the two new measures in the Bill: I want to see violence against someone doing their job dealt with seriously. No one should be subject to random attacks while at work, and I should declare that, as a vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Customer Service, I do not want people who care deeply about giving great customer service to leave their jobs, or to deter anyone from taking up this kind of employment, which is essential and valuable to us in so many ways. I will say more about how in a moment.
First, however, the Institute of Customer Service tracking survey shows that violent abuse against all front-line service workers continues to rise. That means public transport workers, those who work in the hospitality trade, people who work in post offices and banks, delivery drivers and even utility engineers working on the streets. That is why the aggravated offence in the 2022 Act covers anyone, not just retail staff, providing a public-facing service or doing a public-facing job. I ask the Minister to say, when he comes to wind up, why the Bill’s stronger measures cover retail workers only.
All the people who do these public-facing jobs matter, not just because we need the services they provide but because, more often than not, they are the responsible person in charge of public spaces and places, so they need not just protection but our support to uphold our common standards, which are so important to maintaining good order and a civil society. That means that we must show respect for the authority of their roles in public settings, whether their authority in such situations is formal or informal. We need to give the people who do these jobs the recognition they deserve so they discharge their responsibilities well.
If we are to prevent violent criminal behaviour in public spaces becoming normalised, we must work together to tackle the low-level disorder and disrespect that we see on our streets, on public transport, in shops and elsewhere, which cause us to feel so despondent: litter dropping; feet on seats; watching videos or listening to music on our phones without headphones; queue-jumping; fare dodging; graffiti. Police presence on our streets is important. Rapid response from the police to actual crimes is vital, but we cannot keep creating new criminal offences and expect the police to deal with everything that has gone wrong in society. We as leaders, whether political, religious, business, public service or union, must use our authority to set, promote and honour the standards we know are vital for a healthy society, yet too often now treat as unimportant.
I would support expanding Clauses 37 and 38 to more than just retail workers for the reasons I have given, but I ask all the businesses, unions and trade bodies, which understandably want more legal protection for their workers, to think about what I have said. Likewise, we as legislators must do more than the easy bit of making new laws, as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier said. Tackling crime and disorder through better policing and stronger sentencing is important, but on its own it is not enough. We need to share and promote what the good citizens of this country want and expect from each other in our shared spaces. That is how we will create the right conditions for people to support each other and together make it harder for people to behave badly and do wrong.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, this Bill has the potential to transform how we protect children from the devastating crime of child sexual abuse. I welcome mandatory reporting. It will be a historic step, made possible thanks to the survivors who bravely shared their testimony with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Too many children have been failed because adults in positions of trust and institutions that employed them protected themselves over children who needed them. But I fear that mandatory reporting will not be enough to create the culture of safeguarding this country so desperately needs.
All those who work with children—teachers, healthcare professionals and social workers—have a responsibility to keep children safe from harm, but they must feel confident and have the skills to do so. In 2020, the national review into child sexual abuse within the family environment highlighted that many practitioners lacked the knowledge, skill and confidence to talk about sexual abuse with children. That is why Barnardo’s, in which I declare an interest as vice-president, and many other children’s charities are calling for the introduction of clear guidance and training to accompany this essential new duty. Mandated reporters must be confident in their responsibilities and clear on what they should do if they suspect abuse, so training will support professionals to identify and act on the signs and symptoms of abuse, as well as to respond effectively in cases where children do disclose. Otherwise, we risk more children falling through the cracks and abuse going unrecognised.
There must also be accountability for both professional and civil mandated reporters who fail to report, as well as criminal convictions for any individual or institution that deliberately conceals abuse. The Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, which was hosted by Barnardo’s, has highlighted how such cover-ups have served only to increase a survivor’s sense of betrayal. Never again should institutions be allowed to put their reputation ahead of the safety of the child. They must be held accountable for failures to protect children, whether due to concealment, poor safeguarding or a lack of proper recruitment and training. This duty must be backed by a strong inspection regime so that children are never again left unprotected by systemic failure.
Protecting children is now more vital than ever, both offline and online. This means ensuring that the messages and images that shape young people’s understanding of relationships and content are not harmful. The BBFC found that one in three users of pornography had seen violent and abusive content online on numerous occasions. A poll by the Children’s Commissioner found that 44% of young people had viewed material online which portrayed sexual violence as normal. Content involving strangulation, incest and, worryingly, adults dressed as children, as well as content involving trafficking and torture, is rightly illegal offline, yet these images and videos are widely accessible online. This inconsistency is harmful, especially to children, and many find themselves victims.
In 2023, during the passage of the Online Safety Bill, I raised the extremely concerning issue that the laws on pornography are regulated differently offline from what is permitted online. The independent review by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, Creating a Safer World - the Challenge of Regulating Online Pornography, which I strongly support, is now also calling for online pornography to be regulated in line with offline pornography. If we do not act, we risk legitimising a culture where children continue to be sexualised and young people grow up with a distorted understanding of healthy relationships. No child should grow up in a world where abuse is normalised or their safety is undermined for profit, so let us ensure that every child’s lifetime is free from abuse, fear and silence, because childhood lasts a lifetime.
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
My Lords, it is almost absurdly challenging to try to speak on a Bill of 427 pages, 203 clauses and 21 schedules in four minutes. The Bill is extremely wide. It ranges across multiple offences, creating multiple new criminal offences, and we will need to determine inter alia whether they have sufficient clarity, whether they disproportionately limit our fundamental freedoms and whether they may lead to unintended consequences. Clause 185(3) is a case in point. And we will need to consider the very real resource implications of what we propose.
I want to concentrate on Clause 191, though there are many others I would want to talk to. This clause was passed after only 46 minutes of Back-Bench debate in the other place. It was not a manifesto commitment. It constitutes a very significant change to our law on abortion. It carries with it enormous risks to women who might consequently think that aborting a baby up to birth will be safe in these circumstances, doing so without medical help.
Dr Caroline Johnson MP explained in the other place that she works as an NHS consultant paediatrician and has cared for and held babies in her hands from 21 weeks and six days gestation right through to term. She said:
“I am very aware that babies from, say, 30 weeks upwards have a more than 98% chance of survival”.
She went on to explain how an abortion is achieved in the later stages of pregnancy, saying that taking abortion pills intended for early pregnancy is not a suitable or safe medical intervention in later pregnancy. She said:
“If one has a termination later in pregnancy, it is done by foeticide. Essentially, an injection of potassium chloride is administered to kill the baby, and then the baby is born in the usual way, but deceased. That is why it is important to know what the gestation is—because the termination offered under the law is done by a different route, to make sure that it is done safely. We know that the later in pregnancy a termination happens, the more a woman is at risk of medical complications”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/25; col. 309.]
That is the essence of the challenge we face here. We must scrutinise a clause that, under current law, would enable a woman who has secured medication to end a pregnancy under the pills by post scheme—which is supposed to be used only up to 10 weeks—to take this medication right up to birth in a non-clinical setting where she would have no professional medical support, despite the fact that, as Johnson said, she is at greater risk of complications. The clause does not give her any protection other than that against prosecution—but prosecution is the least important issue. What is profoundly important is the woman’s safety.
Even at earlier stages of gestation, there may be need for surgical intervention to remove a dead baby. How might a woman achieve an abortion in the later stages of pregnancy? Essentially, as I understand it, it will be by taking abortifacient medication which is neither suitable nor safe, or by acquiring potassium chloride by some means. But how could the potassium chloride be administered? It has to be injected into the baby’s heart, using ultrasound guidance, to cause cardiac arrest and death to the baby. That is not the end of the process; the baby must be delivered. During childbirth, specific drugs are administered and offered for pain management and the prevention of things such as haemorrhage and other complications. None of these would be available to this mother.
Most women who have experienced miscarriage or childbirth will probably agree that, if proper medical help is not available, it is terrifying. Things can go so terribly wrong: for example, babies can get stuck in the birth canal, which will eventually lead to the need for an intervention, whether by caesarean section, forceps or vacuum extraction. There is a serious risk that a mother whose baby gets stuck may die if the baby is not removed. At the very least, she may suffer terrible pain or multiple serious consequences to her own health and her future childbearing capacity.
We are left, then, with a situation in which your Lordships are being asked to legislate for abortion to birth without medical help, because any medical practitioner who helped would be subject to prosecution. If this provision is passed, women will think that aborting their own babies will be a safe thing to do, simply because it is lawful. This clause is redolent with danger to women. Can the Minister tell us exactly how the Government think women might seek to end a full-term pregnancy, and how they might be protected against the potentially catastrophic consequences of aborting and delivering a baby without medical help? This clause is too dangerous to women to remain in the Bill.
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)
My Lords, the policing Bill stands as an important framework for how we, as a society, respond to acts that cause harm and undermine our shared values. Among its many provisions, one issue demands our urgent attention: the failure to treat racist comments and abuse as crimes when they go unreported or unchallenged.
When racist comments are dismissed as “harmless” or “just words”, their impact is underestimated. In truth, silence allows prejudice to grow. Communities subjected to racism feel unsafe, unheard and excluded. This erodes trust between not only neighbours but the public and the institutions meant to protect them.
If racist acts are not reported and addressed, they normalise intolerance, creating an environment where discrimination can escalate into more serious violence, such as the racist murder of my son, Stephen. I do not want to see this repeated in years to come, with families forced to go through what my family has in the past 30-plus years. There has been an increase in knife crime since Stephen’s death. This needs to be addressed urgently to stop parents like me suffering the trauma of losing a child.
When racist behaviour is recognised, reported and challenged, it sends a powerful message: everyone—regardless of their background—belongs and deserves protection under the law. Within a school environment, racist name-calling must never be ignored, as it can escalate into more serious forms of harm and violence. If such behaviour is not addressed early and documented properly, it risks developing into more dangerous attitudes and actions as individuals grow older.
The Bill must therefore ensure robust measures that empower individuals to report racism, support victims and hold perpetrators accountable. Only then can we strengthen community cohesion and safeguard the dignity and equality that are the foundations of our society. For these reasons, I firmly believe that the abolition of the recording of non-crime hate incidents should not proceed, as doing so would risk silencing victims, undermining trust in law enforcement and weakening our collective ability to confront and prevent hate in all its forms. I thank the Government for their commitment to addressing crime on our streets.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, this is a very large Bill—as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier said, it is too large—but for present purposes, I am going to focus exclusively on Clause 191, the clause that allows a mother to abort an unborn child right up to the moment of birth. This clause is wrong in principle and should be removed from the Bill. Your Lordships will note that this provision was incorporated into the Bill late during the parliamentary process, on Report. The debate lasted for some two hours. So far as I am aware, there was no pre-statutory consultation.
I have always taken a very libertarian view on abortion. I am a strong supporter of the 1967 Act. I agree that abortion raises serious issues of morals and faith, but I have always taken the view that that is a matter for the mother and, on the whole, not for Parliament. However, Clause 191 goes far too far. I find it very difficult to distinguish in principle between a child who has just been born and a child who is about to be born. If the child were killed immediately after birth, its killing would be an act of homicide; so, I suggest, is the killing of an unborn child immediately before its birth. There is very little distinction in principle.
Of course the law and common sense have always recognised that some acts of homicide are lawful. For example, reasonable defence is lawful; so, for example, is abortion when the health of the mother is at risk, long after the 24 or 26 weeks. But such is not the case here. The arguments advanced have relied very largely on the distress of vulnerable mothers—mothers who, incidentally, could have had an earlier abortion under the provisions of the 1967 Act.
I accept, of course, that there may be very distressing cases, and I hope that the prosecution authorities would consider carefully in any individual case whether the public interest required prosecution—very often not. I also hope that if a prosecution occurs and leads to a conviction, the sentencing judge will give serious consideration to the mitigating factors and impose as lenient a sentence as possible. But these considerations are not the same as decriminalising an act of homicide. Society as a whole, and Parliament as an institution, have a duty of care to an unborn child capable of being born alive. It is an obligation which reflects the value that we place on human life. This clause, if passed, would flout that obligation, and I do not think we should allow that to happen.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to take part in this Second Reading debate. I am particularly pleased to welcome my noble friend the Minister to her place and her first Bill—the first of many, I hope. My two noble friends on the Front Bench know that they have my support for the Bill.
Following the remarks from my noble friend Lady Lawrence, I was struck by the Government’s commitment in the Commons to introduce an amendment to make hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation, transgender identity and disability aggravated offences. I look forward to its introduction in due course and offer my support to my noble friends the Ministers on it. As a Labour and Co-operative Peer and a former USDAW member, I also welcome that the Bill addresses retail crime.
In this debate, I intend to address Clause 191. I profoundly disagree with the two speakers who have spoken before me on this. On 5 June, MPs voted to insert the clause into the Crime and Policing Bill by 379 to 137 on a free vote. The clause would disapply the existing criminal law on abortion from women acting in relation to their own pregnancies, bringing the law for women in England and Wales into line with the changes that Westminster already made to abortion law in Northern Ireland in 2019, which works well and was debated at some length and agreed in this House.
The proposal to repeal the provision was led by my honourable friend Tonia Antoniazzi MP. In recent times, contrary to the words of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, we have seen a substantial increase in the number of investigations into and prosecutions of women in England and Wales under abortion law dating back to 1861. That has included women who were victims of domestic abuse, suspected victims of human trafficking and exploitation, and girls under the age of 18. Clause 191 is a simple, principled stance that reflects the strong position of cross-party MPs, and I strongly support it as it is.
Notwithstanding the words of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Viscount—as well as the hysteria from those outside our gates this morning—the Abortion Act 1967 will not be changed by this clause. However, a number of technical issues remain, which I and others believe it is our job in this House to consider as the legislation proceeds. They concern the lifelong impacts of investigation into, and convictions for, relevant offences. The change in the law under Clause 191 applies only to offences committed after the Bill receives Royal Assent. There are a number of women whose pre-existing cases remain under investigation where decisions have not been made, so the House needs to consider an amendment to halt ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions for repealed offences, to pardon women with criminal records and to expunge the records of those investigations.
If a woman is convicted of these offences, it precludes her from certain employment opportunities for life due to the DBS check. It also includes women who have not had a commitment, because that also stays on their record as part of a DBS check. In line with the Turing pardon for the criminalisation of same-sex activity and similarly outdated laws, an amendment that pardoned women with a criminal record for a repealed offence and expunged those records would be relevant.
Finally, notwithstanding the introduction of Clause 191, I note that a number of offences have been brought against women under the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. It is therefore important that we ensure that the law is in step on this matter if we want to decriminalise abortion in these circumstances.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Government have pledged to halve serious violent crime, rebuild public confidence in policing and strengthen our criminal justice system. In my judgment, the Crime and Policing Bill represents a significant step toward these vital goals.
Reflecting on the Bill, I am reminded of my early years as a young beat constable in Jarrow during the 1960s. At the age of 20, fresh from training, I patrolled a town area. There were no radios or mobile phones, only public telephone boxes to contact the police station. I still remember, all those years ago, a warm summer’s night, when at 2 am, at the back of the Jarrow shopping centre, I saw a chink of light. It was two men carrying a till from the back of a shop. The shops were surrounded by a large wall with an opening for delivery vehicles. Fortunately, on seeing me, the men separated—otherwise, I believe I would have been sunk.
I tackled the one with the till, who dropped it. We both fell to the ground, and I lost my helmet and torch after a struggle. He broke away and, fortunately, he ran into a builders’ compound, which was a cul-de-sac. He was trapped, because it had barbed wire at the top. He turned and threw a four-foot-long piece of cast-iron guttering at my head. Had I not ducked, I would not be here today. I even remember thinking, “They didn’t tell me about this at the training school”.
I tackled him again and, with the liberal use of my truncheon, he was arrested. I remember being splattered by his blood. That moment illustrates how risky, demanding and dangerous lone night patrol could be, yet it helps develop resourcefulness and resilience—qualities that are essential in policing. As the service has evolved, today’s officers face even greater complexity and risk. They do so with dedication and courage, and they deserve our respect and support.
The Bill commits to recruiting 13,000 additional neighbourhood police and support officers, focusing especially on town centres. Their visibility is key to reducing anti-social behaviour and the alarming rise in violent shop thefts.
Another issue the Bill tackles is the lack of police visibility. People frequently say that they never see a uniformed police officer any more. This is not just about appearances: visibility fosters trust, provides community reassurance and helps to gather local intelligence, preventing and detecting crime.
The devastating decision to cut 20,000 officers during austerity must never be repeated. That mistake drained the service of experience, especially sergeants and inspectors, with those officers being so vital for mentoring and guiding young officers. These are the supervisors who might have spotted the red flags, such as Sarah Everard’s killer, PC Wayne Couzens, and serial rapist PC David Carrick. The Bill rightly empowers forces to raise standards, sack miscreants very early and restore trust. I include in this the disgusting recent behaviour of the Charing Cross 11.
In the UK, we police by consent. That principle is foundational to our system and must never be taken for granted. To uphold it, we must recruit the most honest, capable and resilient individuals and support them through strong leadership and accountability.
I firmly believe in the broken windows theory: early action on minor anti-social behaviour prevents escalation. This demands visible and engaged officers and intelligence-led, proportionate stop and search, used judiciously, with public support. If these are used wisely, we can enhance policing, public safety and community confidence. I include in this modern facial recognition cameras. To those who object, I ask a simple question: what is the difference between a member of the public telling me that Man A looks like a rape suspect published on “Crimewatch” and an image produced from a technical camera telling me the same thing? The reality is that, in both cases, it simply points the police in the right direction and cannot be used simply to convict.
Finally, I wholeheartedly support the Bill. Let us stand firmly behind the men and women who risk their lives daily to protect us all and give them all the training, leadership and support that they need, and let us all work together to restore public confidence in the idea that the maintenance of law and order is the bedrock of a just, civilised and democratic society.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, there is a lot in the Bill that I welcome, although I have some sympathy with my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier about how we keep creating law upon law. One answer to that is that, when Governments lose rulings in the courts, often the only way to try to tackle what Governments perhaps thought was in place is to introduce new primary legislation, to make sure that the will of Parliament can be put in place in how we govern our country. To that end, there are a number of issues where I am concerned that, on some elements, that this Bill is now going too far, or indeed, on others, may not be going far enough.
It was Richard Graham, former MP for Gloucester, who first raised the issue of spiking in the Commons several years ago, and it has been taken up by Joe Robertson, the Member of Parliament for Isle of Wight East. Where he is in difficulty or dispute with the Government is in his concern that the threshold for prosecution is concerningly low. We have discussed already this week when you prosecute on spying: when you prosecute on spiking is what my honourable friend wishes to address. In particular, he wants to talk about—and I will continue to do this with others in this House—reckless behaviour that could, instead of just being intended to annoy, actually be prank spiking, which can have serious consequences.
We report fraud through either recorded crimes or surveys. The crime that people fear the most and experience the most in this country is fraud, yet Part 8 is quite light, although perhaps this is a case of how we need to try to make sure we get more resources in the police focused on the crime that is considered to affect most people in this country, rather than more statutory duties. Nevertheless, this is something that needs tackling right across the country, and not just by online reporting to somewhere in the City of London Police, perhaps never to be seen again. At the moment, of course, the banks will pick up the bill by refunding victims of fraud, but that cost goes across all of us who have bank accounts, and that is something to be considered.
Quite rightly, there is a lot of debate about reporting. We talk about children under the age of 16 having sex, getting treatments or getting the morning-after pill. It is a long time since parents were basically blocked from learning about this activity, even though it is their child who is involved in underage sex. I would be interested to explore during debate on the Bill the fine line about what is right for the child but also where the parent has the primary responsibility for looking after their child.
I think of Luke 17:2. I appreciate that the Bishops are not present in the debate at this moment, but I am concerned about Clauses 72 and 79 when it comes to the confessional, and I would be interested to discuss this further with the Minister, perhaps outside the Chamber.
In terms of reporting, the BBC has asked me to raise a particular issue regarding Schedule 8(2)(d). It is very keen to ensure that undercover journalism is seen as a reasonable excuse, rather than having their journalists inadvertently criminalised.
In terms of the other aspects of this Bill, it has been well trailed already that Clause 191 is probably the most controversial, brought in at the other end. A lot of the prosecutions that have been referenced already are due to “pills by post”, which ultimately was passed in the House of Commons by 27 votes a few years ago. It is very difficult—in fact, it is impossible at the moment—to get any statistics. We do not record how many pills by post are issued. We have not yet been able to get the abortion statistics, primarily because the ONS is not able to capture them at the moment—the whole use of HSA forms and similar. However, I think we need to consider this further and in much more detail, including what further changes the Government intend to make to the law to cover those who provide abortion services illegally.
I am sorry to go on about the 1861 Act, but I am afraid that it is the basis of lots of charges brought in this country—murder, use of chloroform, lots of different things. To try to say that it is an out-of-date Act is irrelevant to the reality of how we use our laws today. For this, I am looking forward not just to further comments from the Minister today but to debate during Committee.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
I very much appreciated the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, although I see more value in this this Bill than the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, was prepared to admit. I agree with what they each said about hard topics that this Bill might usefully have tackled but did not.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has produced another of its helpful and focused reports. I agree with the committee that the difficult issue of concealing identity at protests may need to be better calibrated. I agree with it also on the issue of universal jurisdiction, which was debated in the Moses Room on 9 September. To bring our law into line with our neighbours and allow perpetrators of the gravest international crimes to be prosecuted here would involve nothing more complicated than removing the requirement of citizenship or residency in the International Criminal Court Act 2001. I look forward to supporting proposed amendments along those lines.
The Constitution Committee raised two issues in addition to that referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower: the widening by Clause 4 of the categories of people who can issue on-the-spot fixed penalty notices—now of up to £500—and the need for parliamentary scrutiny of statutory guidance to the police on the child sex offender disclosure scheme, Sarah’s law. Like many constitutional issues, they may seem mundane, but I hope they will not escape our attention.
Turning to national security, I support the youth diversion orders, which will be used to disrupt, at an early stage, young people who are believed to be involved in low-level terrorist offending, such as the possession and dissemination of material, often online. The idea is to divert them from the criminal justice system for their benefit and for ours. As noted in my recent report, Lessons for Prevent, their availability might also help to increase the rate of consent to Channel interventions, which is currently running at about 75%.
Polygraph testing is to be extended: I should like to know more about how rigorously the use of this technology has been assessed, and with what result, since it was rolled out for sex offenders in 2014 and terrorist offenders in 2021.
Finally, Clauses 130 to 137 of the Bill extend police powers following the seizure of electronic devices to access information accessible from such devices but stored on the cloud. The logic of that extension is not hard to understand, but its sheer scale requires us to think about safeguards. That is so particularly in relation to Clause 135, which concerns the no-suspicion powers to search and to question that are exercised by counterterrorism police in ports and airports under the Terrorism Act 2000 and the National Security Act 2023. The utility of those powers has not been doubted by any of those who have been tasked with the close examination of their use, but the latest of them, Jonathan Hall KC, was moved to ask this week what will prevent excessive data from being extracted and copied, how journalistic and legally privileged material on an online account will be protected, and—given the quantity of personal data that members of the public hold on the cloud—whether merely travelling through a port or border should be considered a sufficient reason to surrender so much private data. Senior courts have expressed a degree of disquiet about the existing power, and a further case is under way. Nobody wants a regime of pointless box-ticking, but we need to rise to the independent reviewers’ challenge and satisfy ourselves that, if this strong and intrusive power is to be further extended, it is accompanied by the right safeguards.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, crime and disorder have reached such levels in this country that we certainly need more effective and meaningful policing, but it has to be done in a way that retains confidence, does not damage fundamental freedoms and keeps the criminal law clear and easily understood—or, rather, stops the law becoming ever more complex and harder to understand. I will not dwell on that point, as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier has made it eloquently, but I am sorry that the Bill continues down the road that the previous Government took of creating specific offences for things that are already crimes—for example, the offence of assault on a shop worker. Speaking as somebody who has been very critical of the way the pandemic and the lockdowns were handled, I cannot help seeing some irony in the fact that, four years ago, it was an offence to attend a demonstration without a face mask, and soon it will be an offence to attend one with one. Nevertheless, I am generally supportive, and in the time available I want to register two concerns briefly.
First, I note the Government’s intention, which we have heard about and which the Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention expressed in the Commons, to expand the scope of so-called hate crime offences by making all existing strands of hate crime aggravated offences. Given the way so-called hate crimes have recently, in practice, been used to chill freedom of expression and freedom of speech, I have quite a lot of concern about this; it seems to be going in quite the wrong direction. Rather, as a society, we ought to be going in a different direction, which is to begin to remove the concept of hate crimes from the statute book, and particularly to abolish the entirely illegitimate category, in my view, of non-crime hate incidents. An amendment to that effect was put forward in the Commons and did not succeed, but I hope and expect that it will be tabled again; indeed, I may propose my own amendment on that subject.
Secondly, as others have done, I register the deepest concerns about Clause 191. If this becomes law, it would be the biggest change to abortion legislation since the Act was introduced in 1967. As has been said, the permanent extension of the pills by post scheme, with no requirement for an in-person consultation, has made it possible to try to end a pregnancy at any point beyond 24 weeks. At the moment, that is still a criminal offence, and this clause would mean that it no longer was, provided that only the mother was involved. It is foreseeable that, in practice, this will make abortions up to birth more common, endanger more women because of the medical risks of termination after 24 weeks, and create pressure for a similar decriminalisation for medical practitioners themselves. People will argue, “How can it be illegal for a doctor to help with something that is not in itself illegal?” or they will say that doctors need to be able to perform late-term abortions to avoid the risks of terminations at home. It is the beginning of a slippery slope.
There is no demand for this. Polling shows that more than half the public favour keeping abortion after 24 weeks a criminal offence and only 1% of women support introducing abortion up to birth—and, in passing, 70% of women support a reduction in the time limit from 24 to 20 weeks.
The clause would remove one of the few remaining legal protections for the unborn. In our country, if children are born prematurely after 24 weeks, the medical system will do everything it can to save them, and it is often successful. Yet this clause will make it possible to try to end the life of a baby after 24 weeks without criminal consequences. It is simply inconsistent, not just with current abortion law but with current law around maternal and child health more broadly. This clause had a wholly inadequate couple of hours’ debate in the Commons. Its proponents really should be embarrassed to legislate on life and death in this fashion. I hope it will get a lot more debate here, and I hope noble Lords will reject it.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, in introducing a Bill described as challengingly broad. It is not easy, however, to identify an overarching theme, so I shall speak rather generally about children who are the subject—or, if you like, object—of much of the Bill.
I declare an interest as a trustee of Safer London. We—not me; I pay tribute to the professionals in the organisation—work with young Londoners and families caught in cycles of violence, exploitation and trauma. We help them escape harm, heal, rebuild and believe in brighter futures. That may sound naive and flowery, but it is hard-headed and hard work.
An effective response is often rooted in safeguarding, not the imposition of punishment. Young people caught up in child criminal exploitation, for instance, are frequently significantly affected by trauma—seriously adverse childhood experiences—before this happens. Alongside this, Safer London is finding that about a third of its clients are neurodiverse or have special educational needs. Allowing for those undiagnosed, this may actually mean about 50%.
So many are so vulnerable. Grooming often involves quite small gifts—so called—followed by, “Now you owe me, and if you do not do as I say, you will see what is coming to your sister”; a sort of debt bondage. It takes skill to work alongside, advocate for and help a young person effect change, to see beyond behaviour to what leads them to where they end up or are in danger of ending up. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me mention resources. When support services have lost funding, anti-social behaviour has increased. The first inquiry of the House’s Justice and Home Affairs Committee three years ago looked at alternatives to short custodial sentences and heard a lot about the need for more investment in treatment as the response to crime. This applies to children as well as adults. It is hard for a child with a criminal record to find employment when they need an economic future outside criminality. On top of this, I am told there is a racial element as black children do not get diversionary sentencing to the same degree as others.
Of course, this skates the surface and I share the frustration of other noble Lords this afternoon. I may express through amendments concerns about polygraphs and whether there are gaps in the mandatory reporting provisions. Those are just for instances. On a different, broad point, how much new law are we loading on the police, who have to prioritise and get their heads around the detail of new offences, when, as other noble Lords have said, an activity has been covered by an old law? But I recognise that sometimes we do need to update, as with cuckooing, which I welcome specifically, and with the late addition of halting the criminalisation of women in England and Wales under abortion law dating back to 1861 to bring us into line with changes that noble Lords across the House—and I have been reminded I was among them—voted into Northern Ireland law in 2019.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, Clause 191 proposes an extremely radical change to abortion law. It was added on Report in the other place without due consideration and with only 46 minutes of Back-Bench debate. It is unnecessary, badly drafted and will harm women. We already have one of the most permissive abortion laws in the world. Even David Steel said he never intended the Abortion Act 1967 to enable termination to be treated like a form of contraception. The presumption in the Act is that deliberately ending the life of a child in the womb is a criminal offence unless it is signed off by two doctors who decide in good faith that one or more of the specified grounds are met.
The change in the law is not because there are women who cannot get abortions or because it is too difficult to get a doctor to sign off, but because of an ideological commitment to presenting abortion as a form of healthcare, like the removal of a tumour. The humanity of the baby in the womb is ignored. A wanted child is a baby and should be protected; an unwanted child is a foetus—an othering word, if ever there was one—and can be removed and disposed of. I simply do not believe the degree to which a mother wants or does not want her baby changes the moral status of the child and think we need to have a national conversation about this.
I may be in a minority in this House when I speak on this issue, but I suspect that the removal of abortion from the ambit of the criminal law for the mother is something that makes many people uncomfortable because abortion is important. I think we all instinctively know we are dealing with the termination of a human life. We cannot just allow a free for all; there must be limits. Even though prosecution of mothers for unlawful abortions is incredibly rare, the existence of a criminal law framework for abortion sends a vital message that ending the life of an unborn person is a serious matter. This is reflected in the way the law is framed, and that is what the majority of the public appear to want.
A poll of over 2,000 adults found that more than six in 10 respondents agreed that abortion should continue to remain illegal after 24 weeks; just 17% disagreed. Clause 191 disapplies the law from a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy. No matter how she ends the life of her unborn baby, no matter how late in the pregnancy, no matter how painful for the child, no matter how distressing for whoever finds the remains, she would be beyond the reach of the law; whereas any doctor or nurse who is complicit would be committing a criminal offence. The Member for Gower gave an interview to Times Radio. She was asked whether she was comfortable with any woman ending a pregnancy at any time; she said she was. That is what Clause 191 will enable.
Janice Turner of the Times, a supporter of abortion, wrote that she was “aghast” at this “glib, careless and amoral” clause. In her words,
“it cannot be that killing a full-term baby in the birth canal is legal, but smothering it outside the womb is infanticide”.
The Times editorial also raised the issue of pills by post, which was passed in the dead of night in 2022 without proper debate, or an impact assessment, and indeed the amendment was a disorderly one which had to be amended by the department.
There can be severe complications with abortion pills, especially when they are taken late in pregnancy. These include haemorrhaging and excruciating pain. The traumatic situations in which these women have ended up is as a result of pills by post. It enables women to have dangerous, late-term abortions at home alone without any medical supervision. Yet activists are now using the failings of pills by post to push for even more extreme laws.
In conclusion, Clause 191 will only make the situation worse, increasing the number of late-term abortions, and putting more women in danger. If we really care for women, we need to reinstate in-person appointments: proper, sensitive, skilled medical assessments where experts can assess how far along a woman is, whether there are any complicating factors that put her in danger, or whether she is being coerced. We already have unfettered access to abortion: Clause 191 is an embarrassment to supporters of abortion and a stain on our reputation as a country that claims to care for pregnant women and their unborn children.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, Tony Blair had a pronounced interest in reducing crime. Two decades ago, as his strategy advisor, I spent two and a half years working with gifted teams of officials, looking at patterns of crime and offending, and how the many organisations within the criminal justice system were responding. Two decades on, however, the crime picture has changed fundamentally. On the plus side, a combination of forensic science, the extraordinary ubiquity of street cameras, including in doorbells, and the data obtainable from suspects’ mobile phones has seen highly professional police clinically solve the worst crimes, particularly murder.
We are, however, failing miserably to organise effectively in countering other types of offences, which each of us now experiences either directly or through friends and family, all the time and to an unprecedented extent, and which mostly go unrecorded. Staff at my local supermarket tell me they witness shoplifting with impunity at least once every hour. Watch thieves stalk the streets of Soho. A visitor to a fifth-floor flat in my apartment block had his £5,000 bike stolen, all captured clearly on CCTV and shared with the police. Two days later he saw his bike for sale on eBay, but they refused to help him reclaim it.
The BBC’s “Scam Interceptors” programme scams the scammers: listening in, catching them in the act, chiefly frightening older people unversed in technology into parting with some or all of their life savings. The scammers operate with impunity on an industrial scale out of identified buildings in India. The BBC recently tracked down a scammer facility in Nigeria which tricks naive British teenagers into selling sex pics, then blackmails them. In one instance, tragically, this triggered a suicide.
We should be ashamed—sitting here in the nation’s Parliament, in the Borough of Westminster—that we are cited as the street crime capital of the UK, with mobile and other theft rampant. Yes, the police have finally mounted an ambitious operation, but each of us will know someone who has had their mobile snatched, who has immediately located it at a specific house in Hackney or elsewhere using the “find my phone” facility, only to be told by police that no action will be taken.
In our city centres, warrior e-bikers bomb along, some at souped-up speeds, sometimes at night without lights, ignoring red lights and zebra crossings and going the wrong way up one-way streets—all with impunity, confident that they will never be stopped. I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, tellingly identified other forms of wholly unwelcome and ever-increasing anti-social behaviour on our streets.
Knife crime has doubled in a decade with over 50,000 annual offences and 200-plus deaths; it is now the most common method of murder. The current inquiry into the horrific Southport massacre by a 17 year-old has produced chilling evidence of just how easy it was for him to purchase outrageous weaponry online—in his case, a black panther kukri machete with a 16.5 inch blade.
I do not dispute the value of most measures in this Bill, but I suggest that nothing in it addresses the need for the police and other agencies massively to raise their game and to attack every kind of crime that has a material impact on our everyday lives, whether on the internet or on the streets. I conclude by asking the Minister if the Government will step back and frame a bold and transformative strategy to tackle head on the plague of everyday crime that we are living with today.
Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interest declared in the register as chair of the College of Policing.
For our police service, founded on the principle of consent, to be effective, the trust and confidence of the communities they serve is essential. But the proportion of the public who believe the police are doing a good job has fallen precipitously in the last few years. There are multiple causes, but I believe this Bill and the Government’s focus on rebuilding neighbourhood policing will be a very important step towards improving confidence.
We place immense demands on the police service. In recent years, there has been a shift of priorities and resources towards dealing with crimes of harm and important issues such as violence against women and girls—issues which simply were not on the agenda before. Combined with funding and other pressures, we have seen in some forces a failure to attend to the basic standards of service which the public expect, such as action following shoplifting, burglaries or mobile phone theft. It is, I believe, the failure to attend to these basics which exacerbates criticism of the police for overreach, for getting involved in things we do not want them to be doing and in particular in relation to police action which it is felt intrudes upon free speech.
Non-crime hate incidents have become a kind of lightning rod for criticism of the service, and a number of high-profile cases of ill-judged police intervention have undoubtedly damaged confidence. NCHIs were born out of the landmark Stephen Lawrence inquiry as a means to support police to monitor incidents linked to hate or hostility, with the purpose of preventing future crimes, supporting investigations and protecting the most vulnerable in our communities. Recent events, such as the horrific attacks on the Manchester synagogue and the Peacehaven mosque, should remind us that dealing with hate crime remains as vital in 2025 as it did over a quarter a century ago.
It is essential that policing continues to have the ability to monitor hate and hostility within our communities. What could not have been envisaged at the time of the Lawrence inquiry was the growth of the internet, the advent of smartphones and social media, and how these have transformed how people interact with each other. The rapid expansion of the online space, coupled with increasingly polarised public discourse, has resulted in forces grappling with the challenge of balancing free speech with monitoring community tension in both physical and online spaces to prevent crime and protect people from harm.
Not all perceived hate reported to police requires a police response or police incident record. The requirement to record should be shaped by necessity, proportionality and legality. There have been high-profile instances where policing has struggled with all three. That is why I called in this Chamber for a rebalancing of the system. At my instigation, the college, together with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and with the support of the Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Government, set up a review of the entire system of non-crime hate incidents. The review has found that the current approach and use of non-crime hate incidents is not fit for purpose, and there is a need for broad reform to ensure that policing can focus on genuine harm and risk within communities. The recording of hurt feelings and differing views should not continue. A report has just been sent to Ministers, and I am sure that they will respond in due course.
But while I believe change is vital to restore public confidence and ensure that free speech is protected, I would counsel against laying all the problems of policing at the door of non-crime hate incidents. The police are not spending all their time policing tweets. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has pointed out that non-crime hate incidents account for 0.05% of the calls they respond to. A number of the high-profile and controversial cases about the policing of social media comment relate to hate crimes—offences that Parliament created for good reason. If we want to revisit those criminal offences, then that is a debate that we should have here, but in the meantime the police have a duty to uphold the law.
We can and should expect that the police will act proportionately, without fear or favour, and use common sense and professional judgment in the investigation of crimes. That judgment was obviously lacking in some recent cases. Therefore, a second key initiative that I and the college’s chief executive, Sir Andy Marsh, have instigated will be new guidance on the exercise of that discretion, so that we can ensure that common-sense decisions are taken and that confidence in the police service is not undermined.
Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
My Lords, I very much welcome the Bill, especially measures to tackle anti-social behaviour and shoplifting. I thank my noble friend Lord Hanson for visiting Brixton just before the summer, where he met with local shop workers and local businesses. We were very grateful for his time.
I strongly support Clause 191, which seeks to decriminalise women who have to have an abortion. It was introduced by our colleague, Tonia Antoniazzi, who is with us in the Chamber today. It is not in the public interest for any woman to be prosecuted and given a criminal record in relation to her own body and her own abortion. In this day and age, we should not be vilifying and hounding pregnant women who often find themselves in deeply traumatic circumstances. I do not believe that any woman takes an abortion lightly, particularly at a very late stage. They need support, medical care and compassion, not the threat of prison. I will tell you what I find embarrassing: it is this conversation and the tone of this conversation; it feels like we are back in Victorian times. It is absurd and wrong that in 2025 we are arguing whether a woman should have the right or the agency to choose what she knows is best for her body and her health.
I also welcome the Government’s commitment to ending time limits on child abuse. At the moment, it is very difficult to bring a case if you are over the age of 21. This makes no sense and is a denial of justice, as it often takes many years before people who were abused as a child can speak about their abuse. However, the Government are proposing that this apply only to sexual abuse. I would ask Ministers to consider widening this to include physical and emotional abuse and neglect, which often accompany sexual abuse. This is the approach taken in Scotland, and I think it is right.
I hope that Ministers will also consult with victims of child sex abuse about how to make it easier to seek justice. We know from the grooming rape gang scandal how hard it is for young people to speak out and be believed, and of the devastating consequences of abuse. I very much agree with lots of the points raised by my noble friend Lady Royall. I also welcome what we heard from the Minister, who announced a pardon and disregard scheme for those girls caught up in the grooming-gang scandal. I know that is something that they have been pressing for, and they will very much hope that it will happen.
Finally, we know that much of the troubling increase in sexual violence and misogyny against women and girls is rooted in people, particularly young people, having unfettered access to extreme pornography. Some 90% of online porn involves acts of torture and barbarism against women. Some 44% of our children have watched rape scenes online. This is poisoning minds and leading to violence in real life.
So I very much support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, to better protect children from online pornography. I also appreciate the Government’s efforts to ban the depiction of strangulation. It is not right or normal to teach our children that sex means inflicting pain on a woman. That is what is happening, and we are allowing it to happen online, on screens that our kids have in their hands every single day. I hope Ministers can make some progress on these three issues through the passage of this Bill.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, there is much in this Bill that can be supported. Many of its measures were, as we have heard, part of the Conservative Criminal Justice Bill that fell at the time of the last election, so on many levels there should be consensus. But this is a very large Bill, with many specific headings, many of which would merit a stand-alone Bill in their own right. Our scrutiny will require time, as we have seen—when considered by the other place it required 15 Committee days—and we have been promised further amendments from the Government. I hope the Minister will encourage his Front Bench to allow sufficient time for the level of scrutiny of which we in this House are proud. These are all important subjects.
The Government have said that the Bill will deliver their safer streets mission. The early parts of the Bill address, inter alia, offensive weapons, stalking, retail crime and anti-social behaviour. Anti-social behaviour is complex and we often use it as an umbrella term—that is not good enough. As far as this Bill is concerned, the public and in particular the police need clarity in this area, where if anti-social behaviour is not dealt with at a low level then it can turn into much more serious criminal activity, and that becomes the norm. We have only to look at the more recent change in retail theft. It is not a new crime but one that has developed in a way that now requires us to afford stronger protection for retail workers with this Bill, in Clause 37 to 39. I hope we are able to deliver that.
Serious crime, knife crime and the sexual abuse of children need stronger enforcement. As we progress with this legislation, I hope we will hear more about how enforcement is to be delivered. It is a fact that, as criminality evolves, we legislators often find ourselves playing catch-up and somewhat behind the curve to keep up with the criminals. I have been here well over 30 years—not in this House, but in the whole building—and enormous Home Office Bills seem to be required in almost every Session. It is understandable why: we cannot afford to stay still. The criminals do not stay still and technology very often aids and abets them.
Like many others, I too am concerned about Clause 191. The noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, just mentioned that a woman in this position would need many things, including medical assistance. From what I have heard today, I am not clear in my mind that, if this were enacted, medical assistance would be lawful. I hope we will give sufficient time to this clause, and that the Minister will make sure that we have the information we need when debating this to ensure that existing legislation already on the statute book is weighed against what is being proposed in this clause.
I support this Bill. I am sure there will be one or two bits and pieces on which I have issues, but this former Home Office Minister none the less wishes it good speed.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I will talk about one specific issue in the Bill, which has been referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hazarika and Lady Royall, which is the limitation period for child sexual abuse claims. Child sexual abuse is abhorrent, and unfortunately it has been shown, over the past 20 or 30 years, to be much more widespread than was once believed to be the case.
It has always been possible for the victim of child abuse to sue the perpetrator or, more commonly, the institution where the perpetrator worked or to which they were closely connected, the limitation period being three years. However, there are exceptions, the most important and relevant of which is that time does not start to run until the claimant reaches the age of 18. Even after three years, there are various ways in which to extend the limitation period. The first is when a claimant did not have the necessary knowledge or awareness of the abuse, which is quite often relied on. But the most important extension was provided by Section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980, which gave the court complete discretion to disapply the limitation period. The section sets out in detail all sorts of sensible factors that guide the exercise of the discretion, but the discretion is in fact unfettered, so that other factors not listed can be taken into account. Although it is for the claimant to persuade the court, the courts generally disapply the limitation period as it happens, unless there are particular circumstances where it would be unfair for the case to go on.
Noble Lords might think that it would never be unfair for the victim of child sexual abuse to be able to bring a claim, and I have some sympathy for that, but the reality is that the claims are not against the perpetrators—they are against institutions, educational or religious, and those run by local authorities or government, where the abuse has taken place. The law on vicarious liability was changed by the courts so that an institution could not argue that the abuse was outside the scope of employment, with the result that compensation often had to be paid, sometimes even by the taxpayer or insurers, without any fault on their part.
I should make it entirely clear that I have a relevant interest to declare. Over the years, as a barrister, I have acted for institutions that have been sued for what is known as historic child abuse. I have also acted for victims and been involved in a number of cases that have reached the higher courts on the questions of limitation.
My query to the Government is essentially this: what was wrong with the existing law in practice, and how do the relevant provisions change it? My current view is that, if these provisions become law, there is a risk of satellite litigation just at a time when the law seemed relatively settled. There are some cases where it is simply impossible for there to be any meaningful trial. For example, the claimant’s own recollection may be very hazy; the perpetrators, or alleged perpetrators, of the abuse may be dead; there may be no records of any sort; and the relevant institution may have closed and any insurance may be untraceable. The intention presumably—and the way it is framed in the Bill is something of a compromise—is to make it very difficult for the defendant to defeat a claim on grounds of limitation, but what sort of cases would now be in time that would not be under the current law?
Some other features need to be raised in Committee, some already referred to: what is the proper definition of sexual abuse, and what about other forms of abuse that may properly be described as sexual? What if there are mixed abuse claims? There will also be uncertainty as to what constitutes “settled by agreement”. Does that include prelitigation settlements? What about claims that have been discontinued or settled informally?
My current view is that the law is fair to both parties. These changes will breed uncertainty and litigation—good for lawyers, but not a beneficial advance in the law. The proposed changes are not the result of a Law Commission report, nor of a large piece of legislation such as the Limitation Act. Rather, they seem to be the result of a general recommendation from the IICSA inquiry and a rather modest consultation. That is not a good way in which to make law; it will result in uncertainty and much litigation. In a wholly natural desire to help the victims of abuse, we should be careful not to make bad law.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the introduction of her Bill, which has much to commend it. Earlier this year, I indicated that I would retire in the spring. However, I am a politician, and I did not say which spring. I really do want to retire, but I have one last parliamentary task to deal with.
When I arrived at your Lordships’ House in 1992, one of my areas of expertise was in road haulage operation, including abnormal load movements. In the late 1990s, the late and much missed Lord Mason of Barnsley worked tirelessly on seeking to replace the police with the private escorting—or rather, self-escorting—of abnormal loads. This was because it was not a good use of police time, and in some cases the police were not very good at it—although forces such as the Met were, and still are, excellent.
A large part of the problem was police priorities causing abnormal loads to have to wait a long time for a police escort, which was expensive for industry. At this point I should declare an interest, as I operate a tank transporter for the REME Museum. I have given the Minister full details of this interest. We succeeded in about 2002, when the then Minister of State for policing, John Denham, changed UK policy, and thenceforth the police would not routinely escort abnormal loads unless they were particularly large, or traffic rules would have to be contravened. By and large, this policy change worked well and I am proud of it.
About three years ago, however, some police forces decided to take a very close interest in heavy haulage operations. It is not clear why, because my understanding, based on discussion at retired senior traffic commissioner level, is that operators who conduct heavy haulage work are generally regarded as responsible, compliant hauliers who want to do it right, despite the many challenges they face. There will, of course, be a small proportion of heavy hauliers identified who do not comply, just as there are always hauliers in all sectors who will not comply, but these are the exception and not the rule. With regard to the few forces involved, the most appropriate term would be “persecution and harassment”, even of the largest and most professional operators in the land. I have emailed a report to many of your Lordships about my investigations and I urge your Lordships just to read page 3.
Noble Lords often ask me what is driving this behaviour. The short answer is money. Often, the police officers who decide whether the load needs a police escort are the same ones who will pick up the overtime payments. Furthermore, over the last five years, the income for West Midlands Police, for instance, has increased somewhat: year one, £15,000; year two, £39,000; year three, £36,000. Are your Lordships sitting down comfortably? Year four, £855,000; and year five, projected using the 2023-24 figures, £1.1 million. So we have gone from £15,000 to £1.1 million. The income profile of many other police forces has remained steady, so, for other comparative police forces, you are looking at about £30,000 a year. Some police forces, such as Thames Valley, do not make any charges at all.
We have regulations about how much the police can charge for issuing a firearms certificate—and basically, we screw down the amount the police can charge, so they cannot do a proper job—but none about charges for escorting an abnormal load. There is NPCC guidance, but it is predicated on policing events such as football matches. The police forces involved are charging for a minimum six-hour shift but using the same team to escort several loads within that shift. This cannot be right. It should be noted that a lot of the money eventually comes from government-funded projects such as HS2. I will be tabling amendments about this, and quite a few others about abnormal loads, because relevant STGO legislation is no longer fit for purpose.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her kind words about the new offence with respect to child sexual abuse image generators and I take the opportunity to recognise the work of the specialist police unit that has worked alongside me on these and other issues. Working at the front line of child sexual abuse detection and enforcement is to come up against some of the most sordid and horrendous scenarios that can make you lose faith in humanity, so I want to put on record our huge debt to those in the unit for their courage and commitment.
I was also pleased to hear the Minister’s commitment to criminalise pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation. This is one of a number of concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, will speak to shortly, and I shall be supporting her on all her amendments. During the Recess, I chaired a meeting of extremely senior health professionals and the prevalence of young people presenting in clinical settings suffering from violence and abuse during sex was simply horrific, with outcomes ranging from fear and trauma to death itself. There is an epidemic of sexual violence, normalised and driven by pornography, and I very much hope that the noble Baroness will have the support of the whole House on this matter.
I have four further areas of concern and I am going to touch on each very briefly. First, this House successfully introduced amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Act to empower coroners to require technology companies to preserve data when a child has died. At the time, we proposed that preservation notices should be automatic and that statutory guidance should be developed, but this was refused. We now have the law, but bereaved families are still unable to benefit from its provisions, because preservation notices are not being used quickly enough, and nor are the powers fully understood. It is simply heartbreaking to see a parent who has just lost a child become a victim of a system that does not understand or use its own powers. I will be tabling amendments to make the new law work as was promised and as Parliament intended.
Secondly, we have all seen media reports of chatbots suggesting illegal content or activity to children. I remain unclear about the Government’s appetite to strengthen Ofcom’s codes or to resolve the differences of opinion between Parliament and the regulator about the scope of the Online Safety Act. Nevertheless, I will be seeking to ensure that AI chatbots that suggest or facilitate illegal activity are addressed in the Crime and Policing Bill.
Thirdly, as I have indicated, I welcome the CSAM generator offence in the Bill, but a gap remains and I will be tabling amendments to place clear, legally binding duties on developers of generative AI systems to conduct risk assessments, identifying whether and how their systems could be misused for this narrow but devastating purpose.
Finally, I am curious about youth diversion orders. I am by no means against them, but I would like to understand whether they are to be backed up by other support, such as autism screening and therapeutic support. Many at the front line of this issue say that there is a serious lack of resource, and I would be interested to hear from Ministers how young people are to be supported once diverted, and whether the Government have plans to look further at the responsibility of tech companies that deliberately design for constant engagement, even if extreme content is being used simply as bait. It is no longer possible to consider the online world as separate from any other environment and, if we do not impose the legal order we require elsewhere, we will continue to create a place of lawlessness and abuse.
Baroness Bertin (Con)
My Lords, hers is never an easy act to follow but I want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, so much for her work. I say to her: “Back at you”, as I will be supporting her work in this Bill as well. I also welcome the Minister to this House—what an asset she will be to it and the Government. I graciously thank her and this Government for the announcement around the criminalisation of depictions of strangulation. However, the law has to be well drafted, because the industry will find every loophole it possibly can. It is like water dripping through the cracks. It will already be thinking about it, because it is a very popular and profitable genre, so I would appreciate some back and forth on that to make sure we absolutely get it right. This is a big Bill, so we do not want to spend time arguing over things that we basically agree on.
Pornography has long existed, and it is not going anywhere anytime soon, but its scale, nature and impact have changed dramatically. As many noble Lords have already said, today, free and easily accessible content is increasingly violent, degrading and misogynistic. This is not a niche issue. Over a quarter of the UK population regularly accesses online pornography, a third of men say they watch it weekly, and the average age of first exposure is just 13. Technology such as nudification apps designed to sexually humiliate are still legal and very prolific.
This is not confined to pornography sites. Violent sexual content is now present on social media, X being the worst offender, and mainstream platforms. Homepages of major porn sites display material with titles including words like “attack”, “kidnap”, “force” and “violate”. Mainstream search engines very quickly get you to thousands of videos with harmful titles such as: “He overdid it and now she is dead” and “Lawyer strangled, bound and gagged in a van”—these are just the ones I can read out. I am pleased the little ones have gone from the Chamber. Content involving themes of incest and child abuse are also disturbingly prevalent. The free-to-view porn business model has driven this extremity. This is rewiring how young people think about sex, gender and relationships. We know that toxic masculinity is rising, and experts warn of links between viewing extreme pornography and committing sexual violence. Indeed, online porn has been described by one expert as
“the largest unregulated social experiment in human history”.
We discovered this during the review. The impact is far-reaching. Choking has now become a sexual norm. That is why the law needs to be changed, but it will take a while to reverse this. Some 38% of women under 40 say they have been strangled during sex. Nurses reported to us that they deal with sexually inflicted injuries on a very regular basis. Teachers reported pupils’ confusion over what constitutes sexual assault. Increasingly, there are reports of sexual dysfunction among men who find real-life intimacy less stimulating than online extremes, leading to many relationship breakdowns. When I met with Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter last month, she was adamant that online pornography played a role in her father’s crimes, and Dame Angiolini, in her inquiry, highlighted that Sarah Everard’s murderer had a history of viewing violent pornography.
Yet, despite the harm and the pace at which extreme online content has proliferated, legislation has lagged far behind. There is no external moderation nor proactive monitoring. There is no one government department with overall accountability or responsibility. Laws are patchy and rarely enforced. I am delighted that one recommendation out of 32 has been taken forward, but there is a lot more to do. In stark contrast, the world of offline pornography, such as DVDs, is regulated by the British Board of Film Classification, which my noble friend Lady Benjamin spoke about.
These amendments will absolutely do just that and will seek to reduce this imbalance in the law. It cannot be right that offline law refuses to classify material that promotes or depicts child sexual abuse, incest, trafficking, torture and harmful sexual acts. This has to change. These recommendations and amendments would ensure that not only the act of incest but also its depiction is banned along with material that encourages an interest in child sexual abuse. They would bring parity between material prohibited online and offline. They would also compel sites and platforms to verify the age and consent of anyone appearing on them.
This is not about ending pornography; it is about putting proportionate and necessary guard-rails back in place. I do not stand here naively and think that these amendments will solve everything overnight, but I believe these changes could bring good, workable and enforceable law that, at long last, is in step with technological developments and growing national sentiment.
To our daughters, it would say there is no industry or subculture that condones or excuses violence against them. To the porn industry and the ecosystem it supports, it would say that they can no longer avoid accountability or scrutiny. To our sons—who are also damaged in all this—regulating online pornography says to them that what they see on their screens is not normal, it is not acceptable and it is not inevitable. When we come to later stages, I urge noble Lords and the Government to support these amendments. I apologise for overrunning.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, should be congratulated for her extraordinary achievement in summarising more than 400 densely packed pages of legislation in 15 minutes. By my mathematics, that works out at summarising around 25 pages per minute, so she has set the bar pretty high and I know that her friends on the Government Front Bench will be looking very closely to see if they can follow that.
I follow my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and the noble Lord, Lord Birt, down the perhaps unpopular opinion in this House of legislation that the answer does not always lie in the statute book. Much of the anti-social behaviour-type issues that we have been talking about in the early part of this very substantial Bill are already illegal activities—they are crimes. The focus of my remarks will be much more on execution, delivery, performance and co-ordination than on the generation of new criminal offences—which are quite often activities that are already illegal.
I hope the Minister will accept that nothing I say today should be taken as a party-political point or a criticism of a Government of one flavour or another. My remarks are intended to address the performance of government as a whole, under various Administrations, and all the agencies involved, including the police. I certainly pay tribute to the police officers who protect us all. We are extremely lucky to have such a high-quality police force and, when there are failings—such as those we have heard about, including from the noble Baroness—they are even more extraordinary because the overall standard is so high.
Despite that, public confidence in local policing has continued to decline. One of the principal factors is that the public see overt offending not being properly prioritised or dealt with. The cumulative effect of the de facto tolerance of street crime means that the public feel powerless and disenfranchised, while lawbreakers are allowed to carry on without fear or sanction. We have heard about, for example, the extraordinary prevalence of bicycle crime. I understand that the clear-up rate is 1%; so, for 99% of the time, criminals are getting away with it. That is normalisation and tolerance of crime, and we cannot allow that to be the case.
We all listen carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, on so many issues and I find myself very much aligned with his view: if we see people riding obviously illegally powerful e-bikes, how does that affect those who take the proper route of purchasing registered vehicles with number plates, insuring and taxing them, getting MOTs, and being prepared to take the sanctions should they break the law? I walk a couple of miles a day around the streets of central London and I have never once seen a policeman stop one of these vehicles.
There has been a lack of co-ordination, and accountability has fallen through the cracks between central and local government. As a final note, there are about 45 police forces; is that really a sensible number in our small group of islands in a modern digital age?
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I add my welcome and thanks to the Minister for her introduction to the Bill. I also thank my noble friend Lady Doocey for setting out the Liberal Democrat stall so cogently both on policing more generally and on this Bill. On these Benches, we recognise the imperative to make our streets safer and to equip the police with the tools necessary to address modern crime. We support the elements of the Bill that tackle knife crime, combat online child exploitation and pursue criminal proceeds.
However, the foundation of our approach to public safety is our demand that new laws should be not just tough but fair and proportionate. We reject measures that risk the erosion of civil liberties or the criminalisation of the vulnerable. A core priority for me and my party is ensuring that our legal framework is modernised and future-proofed against evolving digital and online threats, as my noble friend emphasised. We support the new measures concerning the online supply chain of offensive weapons. We welcome the introduction of civil penalties aimed at strengthening accountability for businesses and online platforms involved in the advertising or selling of unlawful weapons. To enhance police intervention capability, we will, however, propose an amendment mandating a proactive real-time system for reporting under the new duty to report to the police bulk or suspicious sales of bladed articles.
The current cybersecurity landscape is badly hampered by outdated legislation. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is now 34 years old, stemming from a time before widespread internet access. It inadvertently criminalises legitimate cybersecurity activities such as vulnerability research, which are essential for national security. We call for the introduction of a statutory public interest defence within that Act to decriminalise the vital work of cybersecurity professionals and provide clearer legal protections.
Furthermore, to combat organised crime and address widespread online fraud, we want to see the creation of a specific criminal offence for digital identity theft. This new offence must target the unauthorised obtaining of personal or sensitive information, such as passwords or biometric data, with the clear intent to impersonate an individual for unauthorised activities.
We support new online child protection offences targeting AI-generated child sexual abuse material and enhanced Border Force powers to compel device unlocking for CSAM searches. On extreme pornography, we will strongly support amendments to be tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, following her review, extending the online definition to explicitly cover incest, pornography, and material depicting adults acting as or depicting children.
We want robust safeguards against the inappropriate use of intrusive technology. We oppose police use of live facial recognition—surveillance in public spaces without a statutory framework—given concerns regarding privacy and algorithmic bias. Deployment of LFR should be explicitly authorised by a judicial warrant and governed by a statutory code of practice, complete with an independent oversight body.
For antisocial behaviour measures, accountability and fairness are crucial. New respect orders must be subject to rigorous democratic scrutiny. Applications need to undergo full public consultation and should be approved by the relevant full council or its executive or cabinet before implementation.
We oppose the punitive increase in fixed penalty notices for breaches of public spaces protection orders and community protection notices from £100 to £500. This sharp increase risks intensifying abuses and arbitrary enforcement against the most vulnerable individuals. We will continue to protect the fundamental right to peaceful protest.
On these Benches, we will seek to amend the Bill to ensure that it is rooted, online and offline, in accountability, proportionality and the protection of civil liberties. We must ensure that this legislation is fair, effective and fit for the future.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I also support much of this Bill. The Home Secretary introduced the Bill to drive her Government’s safer streets mission and to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, so I welcome the tightening of the law in Clauses 84 and 85 around voyeurism and criminalising exposure intended for sexual gratification or humiliation. Despite the Supreme Court disallowing biological males from using women’s changing rooms and spaces, this still happens in many contexts. Not all are motivated by voyeurism—which is already a crime—or because someone wishes to expose themselves for sexual gratification or humiliation, but we should not turn a blind eye to these possible motivations; consideration should be given to them. Can the Minister confirm that the new law will protect women and girls while everyone catches up with the Supreme Court ruling?
Clause 147, which seeks to extend polygraph testing to more offenders, including those posing a risk of committing certain sexual offences, should shore up protection against predation on women and girls. If technology helps us manage sex offenders more smartly, let us use it.
However, as we have heard much today, Clause 191 cuts across the Bill’s protections against predation. Despite risks to women, this clause, intended to transform our societal approach to abortion, was appended in a rushed, emotive way in the other House. There is a pattern here. Safe access zones around all abortion clinics were also hurriedly appended to the Public Order Act in the Commons. That was despite testimonies from women now with grown-up children whom they were very glad they decided not to terminate after talking to caring and compassionate people outside clinics. Once such measures appear in legislation, they acquire unassailability on the grounds of care and compassion for women seeking abortions.
Clause 191 repeats the same pseudo-virtuous stitch up: a short discussion in the other House on Report of a Bill that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion, with the assumption that all fair-minded people should agree to it. Those who do not can just be dismissed as reactionaries, because abortion is treated as an unlimited good in our topsy-turvy moral universe. Whatever we individually think about abortion, the laws of this land and a wide range of other considerations are being ignored or twisted out of shape to meet the insatiability of extreme bodily autonomy. Safe access zones sacrificed freedom of speech on that altar.
Clause 191 shreds a woman’s criminal responsibility and, with it, a vital protection for her against a partner or family member coercing or predating on her to have a late-term abortion. Bringing about her own late-stage termination of a baby that has been kicking, hiccupping and otherwise moving in utero will leave a long tail of effects on her life. Decriminalisation is only caring and compassionate in a very narrow and short-term way. This House will discuss ramifications of allowing terminations up to birth, but the only fit place for Clause 191 is the cutting room floor.
I apologise on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, for not being here today. She will table amendments against trafficking for sexual exploitation, to outlaw lucrative UK-based pimping websites which enable traffickers to advertise their victims easily and ply this vile trade.
Lord Walney (CB)
My Lords, having nodded along to those who complained about the length and diverse nature of the Bill, I am going to propose five modest additions to it, which in their entirety would take up less than an extra page to add to the 400 that the Bill already contains. These measures are related to the review I carried out in my capacity as the Government’s former independent adviser on political violence and disruption. The review had such a profound impact on the last Government that the Prime Minister called a general election 24 hours after my having published it, so this is the first legislative opportunity to enact some of these measures.
This is a timely moment. The Prime Minister rightly stood up after the Heaton Park synagogue murders and said that he would do whatever it takes to keep the Jewish community safe. There are a number of measures in the Bill that will help protect vulnerable communities and individuals, such as Jewish people, in this increasingly dangerous and intimidating environment and better balance the right to protest, which is indeed fundamental, with the wider rights of communities and individuals to live their lives free from disruption.
But it must go further in a number of key ways: first, on cumulative impact, where the focus of the Prime Minister and Home Secretary is welcome, looking at the harm that has been done to Jewish communities in particular from the repeated, weekly marches that have taken place, which have made many areas seem unsafe for Jewish people. The commitment made so far, which is to add cumulative impact into Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act, already exists—unless the Minister can explain to me how it will be extended. The important thing is to add cumulative impact into Section 13 of the Act, which enables the police to recommend to the Home Secretary that a procession should not go ahead on particular days. Simply amending the precise route or the timing is not going to be sufficient. I do not want to go over my time, so let me race through the other measures.
Secondly, on protecting police resources, the Government should consider adding into Sections 12, 13 and 14 the difficulty of police being able to resource repeat marches and the effect that this is having on other key areas.
Thirdly, on protecting our democracy, places that are central to the functioning of our democracy, such as council offices and MPs’ offices, should have their protection strengthened, alongside the very welcome strengthening of the protection of places of worship.
Fourthly, there should be enhanced powers to tackle extreme protest activity. However anyone comes down on the recent issue of Palestine Action, it was a nonsense that it took five years of it being able to carry out crimes and advertise them for it to reach the terrorism threshold. I hope the Government will consider my proposal of an extreme protest activity order.
Finally, there should be clearer statutory measures to prohibit public funding going to bodies such as Kneecap, which received a public grant that could not be taken back by the Government, despite its promotion of criminal activity and its undermining of democratic governance.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, I will use my time to focus on the protection of women and girls. The first issue I wish to raise is honour-based abuse—a crime motivated by the perpetrator’s perception that an individual has somehow shamed or may shame a family or community. These crimes, which include devastating honour-motivated killings, female genital mutilation and forced marriage, have happened in the shadows for too long. It has been pointed out that there is a lot in the Bill, but honour-based abuse is not currently mentioned. I am not suggesting a new offence, but I want to ask the Minister whether he will incorporate a statutory definition of honour-based abuse in the Bill, with language strongly supported and agreed by survivors and the groups and charities that work with them, alongside issuing formal guidance to ensure understanding and consistency across agencies.
Offences related to honour-based abuse continue to have the lowest conviction of all flagged crimes, and it remains hidden, misunderstood and underprosecuted. Far too often, cases are misidentified or inaccurately recorded, which obscures the true scale of the problem and limits the protection available to victims. Collective and family involvement is not consistently recognised in investigations, and courts are left without a clear framework to identify and address honour as a motive. A survivor-led and sector-backed definition has already been developed, which recognises the role of collective perpetration, honour-based motivations and the powerful silencing effect of shame. This definition would provide a consistent basis for identification, recording and intervention, and effective protection for those at risk.
I also intend to raise whether the Government will consider adding honour as an aggravating factor in sentencing, which would ensure that honour-based motives are formally recognised by the courts and better reflect the gravity and broader societal impacts of these crimes. The announcement in August that the Government intend to introduce a definition and accompanying guidance was hugely welcome, and this change has been campaigned for for many years by many people, including Yasmin Javed, whose daughter Fawziyah was so tragically murdered in the name of honour. The Bill provides the earliest legislative opportunity to act on that commitment, so I hope that the Minister will be positive in his response.
On other issues relating to women and girls, I fully support my noble friend Lady Bertin’s work on regulating online pornographic content and hope that the Government will take the opportunity to deliver many of her recommendations in her powerful report, Creating a Safer World. I also support my noble friend Lady Owen in her ongoing work on image-based sexual abuse.
Finally, I turn to Clause 191 on the decriminalisation of women in relation to abortion. Noble Lords will have received much correspondence on the subject, and I want to use this time to clarify what Clause 191 does and does not do. Clause 191 removes women from the criminal justice system, meaning that they will no longer be investigated or prosecuted for having an abortion. What the clause does not do is make abortion legal up to birth. There is no change to the 24-week limit. There is no change to the 10-week limit on telemedicine. Abortions would still require two doctors’ signatures to be legally provided, women would still have to meet one of the grounds laid out in the Abortion Act 1967 and, importantly, non-consensual abortion would remain a crime at any gestation. Abortion outside these limits remains illegal, and anybody, including a medical professional, who assisted a woman in obtaining an abortion outside this law would be liable for prosecution.
The reason this clause has been introduced is because more than 100 women, many of them vulnerable and abused, have been investigated by police in recent years, and these investigations have taken many years. Those investigations themselves can prevent women getting the healthcare, mental health support and referral to appropriate support services that they need. I appreciate that noble Lords will want to discuss this clause in more detail in Committee, and I very much welcome that. It is supported by leading medical organisations, and I encourage interested noble Lords to read what they have to say.
I also highlight that decriminalising women in relation to abortion is not unusual. It would bring England and Wales in line with Northern Ireland and 50 countries worldwide, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and over 31 European jurisdictions—and, indeed, the United States, where women can never be prosecuted for having an abortion. Those countries have laws that criminalise those who provide an abortion, and that will remain the case here.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg. First, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint on securing the considerable legal services of my noble friend Lady Levitt. The Government are very lucky to have them both steering this supertanker. There is much to commend: its focus on several vulnerable groups, including exploited children, victims of stalking, cuckooing and so on. I hope to speak to these parts in Committee. There is further scope to innovate in other areas genuinely to improve criminal justice.
I still have some concerns about an arms race begun over 30 years ago and escalated by some parts of this measure. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994—some noble Lords are too young to remember—began raising public expectations that Governments could legislate their way to a harmonious society. Politicians purported to do this even in times of austerity, amid real-time cuts to living standards, in the justice system, and to youth, mental health and addiction services. Continued rhetorical attacks on the judiciary and fiscal attacks on legal aid have left swathes of ordinary people thinking that the law is not for them. It will arrest and prosecute them for a growing array of crimes and misdemeanours but rarely protect them from abusive employers, landlords or unaccountable corporations. That is why I welcome the imminent Hillsborough law.
The disillusionment can be disastrous. Knee-jerk politics fights the alligators but never drains the swamp. I fear that we have been breeding alligators in a swamp in which only populist far-right politics thrives. We see this long shadow in compromises to due process rights, the unregulated deployment of technology at the cost of personal privacy, and always more police powers; every year, yet more powers—broad, vague and never mirrored by measures improving police vetting, training and discipline.
In 1994, it was the end of the right to silence, suspicionless stop and search, and restrictions on gatherings featuring music with a repetitive beat. Now, and for years, the target has been non-violent protest. I share the Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner’s concerns about our existing public order statute book; and now we have the measures proposed in this Bill, and those trailed as likely new government amendments to come in Committee, to restrict cumulative protest. Protests against asylum hotels make me very anxious. But I would no more ban them than those against job losses, benefit cuts, environmental degradation, war crimes, or racism and antisemitism. What would blanket bans on face coverings at protests mean for dissidents outside the embassy of an authoritarian foreign power? With all its churches, restrictions on protesting “in the vicinity of” places of worship could render our capital an extremely un-British protest-free zone.
Recently Ministers have warned, rightly, of the existential dangers of a far-right Administration. We must never write, let alone legislate for, a blank cheque for potential future anti-democratic abuse. While today is one for broad brushes and four-minute speeches, I hope noble Lords will come prepared for line-by-line forensic scrutiny of Bill and amendment text in the vital weeks to come. The other place may invoke the will of the people, but here we read the small print.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the clerks, the Whips and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, for allowing me to change my place in the running order. I declare my interest as the UK chair of Common Sense Media, a US not-for-profit that campaigns for children’s safety on the internet. I had to step out of the debate briefly because I wanted to take part in a debate on music education in the Moses Room, which allows me to continue a tradition that I have set up for myself to always shoehorn the arts into any debate that we have here.
I echo to a certain extent the excellent sentiment behind the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. There is an interesting theme developing in this debate—an undercurrent coming from many noble Lords: do we need endless pieces of criminal legislation? Do we narrowly focus on the specifics that happen to exercise the public mind—or the political mind, perhaps—today and miss the big picture? I have long campaigned on the importance of the arts in the criminal justice system and, of course, the importance of the arts in our society in helping people to find interests and ways of expressing themselves that contribute to a harmonious society. I completely agree with the noble Baroness that this is impossible to legislate for. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, does so much incredible work as Prisons Minister and, in a previous life, in promoting the use of the arts in this way.
I was very struck by the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, which set this tone about constant recourse to legislation. I was reminded that, when I first became the Arts Minister, I inherited the Digital Economy Act and the new legislation to prosecute people who downloaded illegal music. I thought then that going after teenagers in their bedrooms was a fool’s errand; there would be a technology solution. The music industry found a solution by using existing legislation; it used the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to prosecute the big websites that were ripping off music makers, and in that way we started to get things more on an even keel.
It has long been a slightly bizarre obsession of mine as to why we do not have a criminal code in this country—one piece of paper, as it were, that lists the criminal offences—which would allow the Government of the day to do exactly what my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier was speaking about: cross-reference whether the offences that they are now bringing into law already exist or whether there are existing offences that could cover the current passion. For example, I bow to no one in wanting to defend retail workers from attacks by increasingly aggressive shoplifters, but I want to prevent everyone being attacked in this way. Do we need a specific offence for retail workers, or does this merely clog up the system? Indeed, to a certain extent, legislation such as this misses the big picture. The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, referred to the merger of police forces, which is long overdue, and we have referred in this debate to clogged cases.
Having said all that, of course, let me now do a complete reverse ferret—channel my inner noble Lord, Lord Walney, if you like—and say that I also wanted to speak in this debate to offer my unequivocal support to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. She and many other noble Baronesses and noble Lords have done incredible work in bringing the criminal statute book up to date in terms of the way that technology has fundamentally changed how pornography is used and has fundamentally impacted the lives of young people. I will support anything that can make that more coherent and allow us to have greater powers to crack down on this great technological scourge.
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Con)
My Lords, there are a great many aspects of the Bill with which I agree, and my understanding of it has been greatly enhanced by today’s debate. However, I am uncomfortable with Clause 191. Decriminalising abortion up to birth for women clearly marks a significant shift in the law on abortion in the UK. Over the coming months, we will hear many arguments about Clause 191, drawing on the diverse expertise of this House, but I wish to focus on three points: parliamentary procedure, unanswered questions, and the Salisbury convention.
On the first point, it should be noted that Clause 191 has received precious little parliamentary scrutiny. By way of comparison, consider the level of scrutiny that both Houses have given the assisted dying Bill. That Bill had more than 100 hours of debate in the other place; in contrast, Clause 191 had just a few hours. That Bill has an impact assessment of over 150 pages; in contrast, Clause 191 is not covered in the Crime and Policing Bill’s impact assessment, and up-to-date information is not published on how many abortions take place through the pills by post scheme. If the assisted dying Bill has not been sufficiently scrutinised, as many have suggested, clearly the scrutiny of Clause 191 is insufficient.
Secondly, decriminalising abortion raises a plethora of unanswered questions, and when questions have been asked of the Government, they have often received weak replies. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee—who is not in her place, sadly—tabled the following, pertinent Written Question on 6 October, which is worth quoting in full:
“To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential risks to vulnerable women, including those who may be subject to coercion or abuse, if abortion were to be decriminalised; and what safeguarding measures they plan to put in place to protect them”.
That is a very sensible question. Sadly, the Government’s response on 10 October did not inspire much confidence. It began simply:
“No assessment has been made”.
I question how we are meant to vote on or, indeed, debate Clause 191 when no assessment has been made of the consequences. It clearly needs much more scrutiny than it has received thus far.
Finally, it is worth noting that the Salisbury convention does not apply to Clause 191, because this proposal was not included in the Government’s manifesto last year. This omission is perhaps unsurprising, because it does not command the support of the public. Polling from Ipsos earlier this year indicated that 63% of people support the status quo of 24 weeks, and polling from Whitestone Insight in May showed that 62% of voters agree that having an illegal abortion should continue to be a criminal offence.
In this House, we rightly pride ourselves on our commitment to scrutinising legislation clearly and effectively and providing the necessary time to challenge how it will be implemented. I know that noble Lords will be tabling amendments to Clause 191 in Committee; I will be looking closely at them to ensure that the clause receives the level of scrutiny it merits for the profound impact it would have on society.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, economic crime, in particular fraud, is now the leading form of UK crime and, together with money laundering and bribery, costs the UK billions of pounds each year. It also undermines public trust, public confidence and economic growth. The good news is that enforcement against these economic crimes and associated confiscation of assets, while complex, generates substantial receipts—some £566 million per year currently. Yet, while we entrust the police and other law agencies with more and more tasks, mostly both difficult and vital, the very agencies responsible for securing these funds from criminals face acute resource challenges, particularly in recruiting and retaining specialist staff, updating skills and modernising ageing IT systems and capabilities, as a number of other speakers across the House have referred to so powerfully today.
I suggest to the House—and not for the first time—that those enforcing the laws we so carefully create and pass here must be properly resourced. An obvious means of doing this would be to use the confiscated criminal assets via a ring-fenced fund to resource the agencies concerned. There are two existing schemes in this area. The economic crime levy is an annual charge on UK businesses regulated under the money-laundering regulations. This private sector contribution could logically be matched by greater reinvestment of enforcement receipts. The current asset recovery incentivisation scheme, ARIS, is subject to the curiously named “annularity rules”. This means that money not used by the year end, which is sometimes just weeks away from when the money is obtained, is lost. A ring-fenced fund would enable stronger agencies, which would then deliver greater asset recovery and confiscation which, reinvested into the fight against economic crime, would establish a virtuous circle of self-financing investment and effectiveness.
Beyond the obvious capacity and effectiveness benefits from such targeted resources, a ring-fenced fund would demonstrate to working people that the Government are exploring all avenues to crack down on economic crime. There is a certain fiscal poetry here—not a phrase one hears very often, I believe—in that this would all be achieved without adding to anyone’s tax burden, but by making the criminals pay: a form of “polluter pays”, if you will.
In the House of Commons, an amendment to the Bill was put down to require the Government simply to investigate the viability of such a ring-fenced economic crime fighting fund using a proportion of the assets I have referred to. This cross-party proposal secured broad parliamentary support. It was signed by 28 MPs from Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green parties on Report. Unfortunately, there was insufficient time to debate the amendment, but there were productive conversations with the relevant Ministers.
To underline again, the amendment did not suggest, and I do not suggest, that the Bill is used to establish such a fund, simply that its viability is investigated. I have already shared these ideas and, indeed, a draft of the amendment with the Minister. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on this subject when he winds up this debate and would also welcome a meeting to discuss it with him.
Baroness Shawcross-Wolfson (Con)
My Lords, we live in an age where pretty much all of us carry in our pocket the means to access pornographic content so extreme that it would be illegal for any shop to sell it to any adult, anywhere in the country and, until very recently, children have had ready access to this extreme content. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, said—it bears repeating—44% of children see depictions of rape in pornography before they turn 18. I think everyone in this House would accept that, since the early 2000s, there has been a huge change in who sees pornography and what pornography they are seeing. However, by and large, the regulatory framework has not changed. It is not designed for the digital age or the smartphone age, and it is certainly not designed for the age of AI, where anyone can generate a pornographic image in seconds.
Our legislation must catch up. The provisions in the Online Safety Act and the Data Act are an important first step, but more is needed. While running the No. 10 Policy Unit for Rishi Sunak, I pushed for an independent review to look at the problems associated with online pornography and to advise the Government on what could be done. That review was established in 2023 and my noble friend Lady Bertin was appointed lead reviewer.
I am extremely glad that the current Government shared our concerns and continued to support the work of the independent review, which, as we have heard, published a comprehensive and shocking report earlier this year. It is thanks to my noble friend Lady Bertin and her team that we now have a much clearer understanding of what is happening online and the impact it is having in the real world. As she set out in her speech, our failure to regulate online pornography has facilitated an industry that is
“increasingly violent, degrading and misogynistic”.
It is an industry that directs users towards ever more extreme content, and in doing so it is changing attitudes and fuelling violence towards women and girls. Indeed, almost every month seems to bring fresh evidence of the damage being done to children, to women and to those viewing this harmful content—content that goes unchecked because we have failed to apply our existing, settled laws and regulations to the online world.
In the pre-internet age, we had a broadly effective mechanism for regulating pornography through classification. We balanced the rights of consenting adults with the need to protect society. For over 40 years, legislation has ensured that pornographic videos are regulated by the British Board of Film Classification. Depictions of illegal activity such as rape, and harmful activity such as violent sexual activity, are banned. However, this regulation has never been extended to cover online pornography. There is nothing rational about a system that says content is illegal and harmful when watched on a DVD, but legal and permissible when watched on the internet. If we still believe that it is wrong and harmful for adults to watch depictions of incest on video, Blu-ray or DVD, how can we believe that that content should be readily available online?
In this Bill, the Government have a chance to act decisively, and I am extremely grateful for the commitment to bring forward an amendment to ban depictions of strangulation and suffocation in pornography. That is an important start but, during the passage of the Bill, I hope the House will agree to go further. My starting point is that we should apply the same standards to films that are distributed online as we already do to those that are distributed offline. It raises legitimate questions of enforcement and regulatory capacity. Those are valid concerns and I hope that we will debate them in Committee. However, I do not believe it should raise concerns about freedom of expression: after all, I am simply proposing that we apply and enforce our existing standards consistently—unless, of course, some would like to argue that our current laws for offline pornography have been stifling our freedom for decades and should now be relaxed, in which case I look forward to debating that, too.
I know that regulation in the digital age is not straightforward. Having spent many years in government, I have every sympathy for the current Government, who may well think that this is simply too hard to do. It is hard to do. But I would say to them that it is too important not to do, which is why I will be supporting the amendments in this space, including those from my noble friends Lady Owen and Lady Bertin.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, I wish to address three issues. The first is the long-awaited duty of mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse. This is a key recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, but with a strengthened and more encompassing base, and a key issue supported by the NSPCC.
This mandatory provision is born of tragedy: it reflects too many cases where children found the courage to speak but nothing was done. But, while the principle is right, the drafting is too narrow, too timid and risks being ineffective in practice. The duty to report is triggered only when a disclosure is made or abuse is witnessed. Yet most abuse is not disclosed, and rarely is it seen first-hand. Professionals in health, education and faith settings often encounter warning signs, not confessions. The duty must extend to situations where there are reasonable grounds to suspect abuse.
Secondly, the Bill currently imposes no real sanction for failure to report, and a law without consequence is not a law that can change culture. There should be a clear offence of deliberate failure to act when a child’s disclosure is known.
Thirdly, there is a risk that the present wording could sweep in minor consensual activity between young people or undermine trust in health services. That must be corrected because the duty should target exploitation and coercion, not teenage relationships or confidential medical advice.
Fourthly, implementation matters, and we will need proper training and triage mechanisms to prevent overreporting and resources for local authorities and police to respond swiftly and sensitively.
The second issue is that we need to introduce a penalty for the intention to conceal. All too often, the orthodoxy is for individuals to feel a pressure to protect the organisation they serve—too big to fail. Individuals are too scared to report. Individuals who are protecting their institution must risk penalty.
My third issue is that when I served in the Home Office I had the privilege of introducing and funding the “ugly mugs” scheme. The principle behind it was not controversial. When a sex worker experiences violence or a threat, it enables them to report it anonymously so that others are warned. That information is their only line of defence, and since it was introduced it has saved lives, prevented repeated attacks and encouraged people who would never otherwise go near the police to start trusting them again.
New Clause 1, as tabled in the Commons, directly implicates online platforms and intermediaries that currently help sex workers publish adverts or manage listings. That is one of the main ways that the ugly mugs scheme engages—through alerts, listing of known bad actors and facilitating reporting. It has been truly successful in helping protect sex workers from dangerous clients. Whatever one’s view of prostitution, no one should be assaulted, raped or murdered for the work they do.
Ugly mugs was never about endorsing prostitution; it was about reducing harm and preventing homicide. The evidence is clear: where harm-reduction schemes exist, sex workers are better able to report violence, share intelligence and access justice. Where they are removed, people go underground. It is a dangerous illusion to think that, by abolishing the tools that keep people safe, we abolish the reality of prostitution. We do not; we simply make it more dangerous.
The duty of any Government, whatever their moral stance, is to protect life and prevent violence. Ugly mugs does precisely that, quietly and effectively, at very modest cost. Closing it would not advance women’s safety; it would imperil it.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, there are necessary provisions in the Bill but there is also window dressing. While we all deplore assaults on shop workers, we do not need this new measure. There are good laws of theft, robbery and assault. What we lack are the resources to arrest and prosecute. Last night, the Metropolitan Police announced that London will be left with just two police stations with front counters operating 24 hours a day—10 more are set to close under cost-cutting measures. That is not good enough.
Today’s Times reports that family drug and alcohol courts face closure, yet each such court case saves local authorities £58,000 in care costs and £15,000 in legal costs. Instead of chasing headlines, the Government should be funding the police, the CPS, those on legal aid and the courts properly. The Ministry of Justice has been starved of money by the previous Government—I accept that—and it is not being helped by the current one.
Clause 39 is well intentioned. It will show shoplifters who regularly steal low-value goods that this may be treated as a serious offence, triable in the Crown Court. But it is really important that only the prosecutor and not the defendant can go on to elect a Crown Court trial. If not, our Crown Courts will be overwhelmed. Backlogs are already years long.
I welcome the measures in Part 8, which are directed at electronic devices to steal cars. These are necessary and overdue. The measures to address so-called SIM farms are also to be welcomed.
I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said about the changes proposed under Clause 82 to the law of limitation. These are unnecessary and will be unhelpful.
Finally, I turn to Clause 191—the decriminalisation of abortion. I make it plain that I am not in principle opposed to abortion, but there was no prior scrutiny of, or public consultation on, this. The intention, which I accept is benign, of not criminalising a woman who aborts her own child risks new evils. Without the safeguards of the current law, women may be harassed into abortion, and a woman will be permitted, without medical advice, to abort a baby right up to due birth date. Just think about that; on any measure, it is a human being at that stage. What if the baby survives but is damaged? Will they sue the mother?
I agree with what my noble friend Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell has had to say about this provision. We must look at it very carefully. Such an important change to the law regarding human life should be based on proper inquiry and evidence, and then, if necessary and appropriate, made through measured change in measured circumstances to the Abortion Act 1967.
To wind up, 240 seconds to debate 400 pages is not very much. We must be allocated proper time in Committee. It is likely that more baubles will be added to the Christmas tree.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
I welcome the Minister to her role. She introduced this large Bill with admirable clarity.
The need to address the mandatory reporting of abuse of children is urgent, but the Bill should go wider than sexual abuse, because the criminal exploitation of children is associated with all types of abuse. As physical abuse occurs, the abuser initially tends to use the loophole to claim it is “reasonable chastisement” and avoid action being taken, yet this is linked to increasing violence, sexual abuse and emotional exploitation.
Such abuse and the driving of children to crime can happen within the home. The perpetrator grooming and using and abusing a child is not always from outside the home. The child, deeply disturbed, is pushed into criminal activity that escalates with frightening speed from relatively minor offences to very serious crime. There is an urgent need to ensure that children are protected from ongoing exploitation.
These children are subject to significant threats, such as them or their family being killed. Some have acid or heat burns and some are scolded or stabbed—all as ways of intimidating. Some 90% of these children do not disclose who is abusing them. The child is terrified; they cannot protect themselves.
Many struggle with the idea that the child is both a victim and a perpetrator at the same time. When it comes to the use, earlier on, of this loophole of claiming “reasonable chastisement”, it is important to remember that bruises do not show on skin of colour. Children need equal protection from assault and battery, just as adults have. That loophole needs to be closed.
The prevention of the exploitation of children with the criminal exploitation of children protection orders is long overdue. These will provide protection of the child, allowing services to intervene earlier and disrupt the business model of criminal gangs that control these children, at times even operating from inside prison. The perpetrator’s defence of reasonably assuming that the young person is over 18 leaves the door open to victimising teenagers without protection. We must not think that we will be adequately protecting children by only requiring the mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.
On a completely different subject, if we are to protect all on our streets, we must lower the drink drive limit to 20 milligrams per hundred millilitres of blood. To leave it as high as it is leaves lives endangered every day.
Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest (Con)
My Lords, I am deeply concerned about the process—or lack of it—around Clause 191, which was tacked to the end of an unrelated Bill via a Back-Bench amendment in the Commons, with just 46 minutes of Back-Bench debate. Many MPs wanting to speak were unable to; this is not a responsible way to make law.
As many other noble Lords have said, I fear there would be an increase in the number of late-term abortions with no medical supervision whatever, particularly as women continue to be able to obtain pills through the post without an in-person consultation. That came in during the special circumstances of the pandemic, but it has not been rescinded as it should be, even though we are no longer in such a health emergency.
Recent figures show that 54,000 women were admitted to NHS hospitals in England for the treatment of complications arising from the use of such abortion pills—a 50% rise from the figures before the pandemic. Analysis of accredited official statistics published by NHS England and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that one in 17 women self-managing their abortion at home were subsequently admitted for hospital treatment. This clause will scarcely improve that.
I fear two things: first, that we are creating a modern-day equivalent of back-street abortion and, secondly, that it will assist the coercion of women into late terminations by coercive and abusive partners. They could just argue that this is legal now.
The clause would also remove the vital protection for unborn babies mature enough to survive outside the womb. There is no popular demand or pressure for this form of infanticide. If the public were made fully aware of this, I am sure the great majority would regard this clause not as progressive but as barbaric. I am profoundly worried about this clause and will seek to address it in Committee.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, this Bill presents a unique opportunity to close long-standing accountability gaps in the UK’s universal jurisdiction laws and will ensure, if the amendments are received, that perpetrators of the world’s most serious crimes can be brought to justice on British soil. The House has heard me on a number of occasions advocate for a review of the universal jurisdiction laws as they operate in this country.
Many noble Lords may ask what universal jurisdiction is all about. UK courts can prosecute certain international crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction, a legal framework that allows states to pursue justice for the most serious offences committed abroad, even when the case has no direct connection to the UK. These crimes include genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and torture. Universal jurisdiction reflects the global consensus that such crimes are so grave that they demand accountability, wherever they occur.
However, there is a certain problem here in the United Kingdom, in that our organisations that are involved in human rights have seen, over and again, ways in which prosecution fails to take place because we require residency and nationality, so that a person who is present in the UK—sometimes coming to speak at a conference or to find a university for one of their children—cannot be prosecuted because they are not a British national and do not perhaps have residency in this country.
At a time when the number of such crimes—grievous crimes—is rising globally, reform is necessary. It would uphold the rule of law, enhance national security and help build safer communities both at home and abroad. We are renowned worldwide for our commitment to the rule of law—Britain probably leads the world—yet there is this serious gap. At present, the UK’s ability to prosecute grave international crimes under universal jurisdiction is severely limited, as I have just said.
The International Criminal Court Act declared that prosecutions could be brought for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity only where the suspect is a UK national or resident. It means that individuals accused of serious international crimes enter this country and do not face justice—and we can give you examples of that having happened. It is illogical, because we can prosecute internationally renowned torturers under the torture convention and the law that we used to introduce that as a domestic crime, but we cannot prosecute those others for the crimes that I have listed—war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and sexual crimes that have been weaponised as weapons of war.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I sit, led by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, published two reports this year, one relating to this Bill and another to Daesh/ISIL and people who have returned from criminal activities abroad. Both those reports recommended that there should be a review of the universal jurisdiction laws in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, pointed out that it was illogical that we can prosecute for torture but we cannot prosecute for all these other grievous crimes. The example that I wanted to give briefly was that of a Rwandan general, James Kaberebe, who has been known to have committed many crimes and come to this country yet not been in any way detained or prosecuted.
I strongly recommend that the House considers this issue in the fullness of time, along with the many valuable recommendations made in other speeches.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a president of the Local Government Association and chair of the Duke of Edinburgh awards.
While I broadly welcome this Bill, I have a number of reservations—but I strongly support the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, on tackling pornography. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe is not in his place at the moment, because I support the fervour with which he wishes to improve cycling safety.
I shall concentrate my comments on the mandatory reporting of child sex abuse—I have a Private Member’s Bill on this topic; I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, for responding to me on that at Second Reading. Tom Perry, who previously worked with Mandate Now, has said:
“Among the 82% of countries in the rest of the world that mandate prescribed personnel to report child sexual abuse, none employ such a dilute approach”.
The impact assessment for this Bill says that there will be an increase of only around eight extra reports per annum per police force—hardly ground-breaking.
In April 2025, the Home Office published a progress update on tackling child sex abuse and found that the scale of child sexual abuse was “truly staggering”. Children are 20% of the population but are the victims in 40% of all sexual offences. The Local Government Association estimates that only one in three children who are sexually abused by an adult tell someone. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies estimates that 85% of child sexual abuse goes undetected and unreported.
While the Home Office update states that the Government are committed to tackling child sex abuse and will respond to the report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, a system that requires abuse to be disclosed by the child, witnessed by the reporter or confessed by the perpetrator before a report is mandated is far too weak. What His Majesty’s Government propose falls short of the recommendations made in IICSA; the recommendation from IICSA is for anyone in a position of trust, whereas the scope of the proposed Bill is much reduced. This Bill excludes leadership and supervisory roles from the duty to report. Furthermore, only disclosed and witnessed abuse is covered. No criminal penalties are proposed for a failure to report, meaning that suspected child sexual abuse may continue to go unreported with no repercussions.
Lastly, the confidentiality duties for religious and medical sectors remain open to interpretation or to possible future exemption. The IICSA report shows that international evidence supports the view that England and Wales ought to introduce mandatory reporting laws to enable the police and local authorities better to identify children in need of protection. We must learn from other areas where mandatory reporting has been implemented, such as female genital mutilation, and endeavour to ensure that we have a clear, comprehensive and effective law. Our children deserve better.
Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to her new role, and I very much look forward to working with her. I further welcome the clarification that this Bill brings to the law on spiking and the new offence of taking non-consensual intimate images. I very much look forward to supporting my noble friend Lady Sugg on her amendments on honour-based abuse and my noble friend Lady Bertin on her amendments on online pornography. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my noble friend Lady Bertin on her brilliant review and thank her for her tireless efforts pushing for comprehensive law on online pornography.
I turn now to the new taking offence. I greatly welcome the implementation of the Law Commission recommendation to update the pre-existing voyeurism and upskirting offences and implement a single taking offence. I am very pleased to see that it is vitally a consent-based offence, removing the unnecessary burden of having to prove the motivation of the perpetrator, which has featured in previous iterations of image-based abuse offences. However, it is vital that we further strengthen this offence, by increasing the time limits prosecutors have to bring forward charges, so that victims are not inadvertently timed out by the six-month time limit of a summary offence.
In February, the Government gave me an undertaking to extend the time limits for the non-consensual creation offence in the data Bill after it was highlighted by the campaign group #NotYourPorn. The extension of the time limit here means that, for the creation offence, victims have three years from when the offence is committed or alternatively from when the CPS has enough evidence to prosecute. Given that we have already achieved a legal precedent for extending the time limits on image-based sexual abuse, I would be grateful if the Minister, in his summing up, could commit to extending the time limits available in both the new taking offence and the pre-existing sharing offence, to ensure that all image-based abuse offences have parity within the law.
I was pleased to see the updating of the Sentencing Code to reflect the new taking offence and to clarify that photograph or film to which the offence relates, and anything containing it, is to be regarded as used for the purpose of committing the offence. However, I am keen that we look into further ways to ensure that this content is not kept by perpetrators and remains offline in perpetuity. Further, I will continue my work with survivors of this abuse and charities to explore ways in which this content can be removed from the internet as rapidly as possible.
Additionally, I was concerned that there does not seem to be a sufficient definition of what it is to “take” an image or video in the offence, and I would therefore also be grateful if the Minister could confirm that the definition of taking will include screenshotting. In the 2022 Law Commission report on intimate-image abuse, the example was given where a person may consent to being in an intimate state on a video call but not consent to the person screenshotting them. The Law Commission concluded that taking a screenshot of a video call should fall under the definition of taking, because this conduct creates a still image that does not otherwise exist.
I turn now to the issue of spiking, which my colleague in the other place, Joe Robertson MP, has highlighted, alongside the campaigners Colin and Mandy Mackie, whose son Greg tragically died after a spiking incident at university. While the clarification of spiking in this new offence is very welcome, I echo the point made by my noble friend Lady Coffey that there is concern that the intention element might be too narrow and that it might not allow for cases where a person has been spiked that do not fall into the categories of injure, aggrieve or annoy. This Bill is a positive step, and I look forward to working with the Government and noble Lords to strengthen it.
Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, and I congratulate her on the campaigning work that she has done on some of the issues that we are addressing in this Bill. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, on opening the Second Reading of this juggernaut of a Bill—she is a welcome addition to the Front Bench.
As other noble Lords have said, there is much to welcome in the Bill, but we must also recognise that there are deep concerns too. Non-governmental organisations that I hold in high regard, and across a wide spectrum, have expressed deep reservations. Therefore, it is vital that the Government get the equation right and ensure that there is a balancing of rights and protections. The opportunity, as other noble Lords have said, to widely address concerns and omissions will be in detailed Committee work. I eagerly await amendments that will be introduced by the Government to make all existing strands of hate crime an aggravated offence. I will also address omissions in relation to the needs of the Traveller, Gypsy and Roma communities.
Hate crime continues to rise and therefore government action is to be welcomed. Those who encourage and promote hate crime, whether online, in print or on the streets, empower the thugs who ultimately take violent action. The litmus test of any civilised country is that we all enjoy the equal protection of the law and the universal freedoms and obligations that are basic human rights. Yet online hate crime increases and is, sadly, often defended by those who should know better, Elon Musk among them. People are routinely grossly misrepresented, defamed and victimised because of their religion, their belief, their disability, the fact that they are transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual or gender non-conforming, because of their race or more. To attack and denigrate such people and portray them as a threat to others is, in my opinion, to debase the very society in which we live. Freedom of expression is not the freedom to incite violence. Whoever incites hate or violence, or carries it out, should be held accountable and the law must be applied equally; therefore, I have no hesitation in encouraging the Government in their attempts through the Bill to create a better and more equal society.
Like other noble Lords, I have concerns, not least in relation to the Bill’s public order provisions, and I share reservations expressed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights as well as the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House. The right to protest is an essential freedom. Protests often offend and often discomfort, and that is a price, I believe, worth paying in a democracy. And to counterprotest is not un-British; it is how protests are undertaken and conducted that matters. I am one of 16 Members of your Lordships’ House who voted against the proscription of Palestine Action because the case was not and has not been made. All restrictive actions by the state must be open and transparent and the evidence for such decisions clear for all to see.
In conclusion, if the Bill helps to make our country safer and stronger, then it is to be welcomed, but it must strike the right balance in protecting the essential freedoms that underpin democracy, otherwise it will do more harm and create further division. I associate myself completely with the intervention by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. We need to return to being a country where we are more comfortable with one another, where we respect difference and celebrate somebody else’s right to disagree with us. No one has anything to fear from equality, the equal protection of the law and the equal obligation to abide by the same laws. That is the litmus test of any decent, civilised society. It is not defined by draping oneself in a flag, the proclamation of patriotism, the defining of Britishness by the claim of some right or another, or how and when we make our voices heard. The essence of a civilised society is defined in its treatment of the most defamed, the most disfavoured, those shunned and misrepresented. Britishness is when we return to being a better, fairer, more generous country. If the Bill can help us move in that direction, it is to be welcomed.
Lord Hannett of Everton (Lab)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Minister, particularly on her skill in introducing such a wide-ranging Bill. My interest is parochial in the sense that, while there are many subjects here that require appropriate attention and scrutiny, as a previous general secretary of a retail union and somebody who has been involved in the issue of retail crime for many years, I want, in the short time available, to bring the impact on retail workers into this Chamber.
Some months ago, I introduced a debate in this Chamber on retail crime and there were many speakers—in fact, there was universal support; why would there not be?—on the subject of the abuse of workers. There are nearly 3 million workers in retail. In 2003, I had the responsibility and the pleasure to introduce the Freedom From Fear campaign in retail in my union. It sounds dramatic but it was born out of necessity, when there was such systematic verbal and physical abuse. One of the criticisms of many retail workers was that politicians were not listening. Of course, politicians cannot resolve the ills of society with one clause, but the message Ministers have sent out by this stand-alone clause is significant. The attention it has received in my union says that politicians not only make speeches but conclude actions. For me, it is a conclusion of hard work.
I could give many examples to bring to life the effect of verbal and physical abuse, but time does not allow, so I shall quote just a couple. Before I do, I want to say that verbal abuse might seem a victimless crime and just something that people do when they can or when they do not get their way in a store, but it is demeaning. We have heard of it in many other contexts in this Chamber. The right to go to work and be safe is fundamental in the workplace. This has never been an adversarial campaign. Retailers have supported it. The British Retail Consortium and many of the big retail companies were with us on this. In fact, when it started, all the recording was about the theft in the stores, not the reality of the impact on the employees. That day is gone. This decision by this Government sends the right message that abuse will never be tolerated.
Of course, one stand-alone clause does not in itself solve everything and we will monitor its impact in due course. There will be calls for an extension of it to other front-line workers, but we must not let that negate its importance. One of the best recruitment opportunities I had as a leader of a trade union was when we introduced this campaign and people who had never have wanted to join a union in the past liked the idea that they had somebody speaking up for them who was prepared to discuss with the companies, the stakeholders and politicians. So, whatever reservations there may be about specific clauses, the Government should be congratulated on this one. This is extremely important.
I will give two examples. A store manager, who had been assaulted three times, gave his job up. He could not face returning to the workplace. A young woman who had two children and was the only earner could not face coming back to the workplace. I know that is trying to draw a degree of emotion into this, but these are real people. Some 70% are receiving verbal abuse, and behind that statistic are individuals. So I applaud the Government for the Bill and I look forward to watching it work its way through and to contributing.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the inclusion of the cuckooing offence in this Bill. Unfortunately, across the country as a whole, vulnerable people are being exploited, threatened and manipulated in their own homes by criminals who take control of their property for their own purposes. Communities are also suffering terribly from this anti-social behaviour as a consequence. We call it cuckooing, which sounds a bit odd, but it is because of the similarity to the behaviour of the cuckoo bird, which imposes itself into another bird’s nest, expelling the rightful offspring and manipulating the adult birds into caring for it. It was 2021 when I first proposed the criminalisation of cuckooing. This was prompted by expert research by Justice and Care and the Centre for Social Justice. I was concerned that the existing laws were inadequate to address the exploitative nature of this predatory behaviour.
I congratulate the Minister and his colleagues on bringing forward this offence. I also thank him for his response to my correspondence regarding the victims who are too afraid to verbalise their lack of consent and young people who may be compelled to engage in cuckooing by others who are exploiting them. I hope these issues will be addressed on the record during later stages of the Bill. The cuckooing offence treats this activity with the seriousness it deserves and will give the police the tools they need. I look forward to seeing it brought into force.
Lord Strasburger (LD) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Big Brother Watch. I welcome the earlier comment by the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, that the non-crime hate incident regime is not fit for purpose. This Bill has much to recommend it, but four minutes is nowhere near enough to do it justice, so I will focus on just two concerning aspects.
Until recently, our country was an exemplar of how government and other institutions could be held to account by citizens through peaceful protest. However, in 2022, the previous Government gave us the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which handed senior police officers and Ministers powers to impose extensive constraints on protests. Then, in 2023, the Public Order Act further enhanced police powers to restrict and criminalise protest activity. As a result, in just two years, 712 protests in England and Wales were subject to police conditions, 95% of them in London.
Now it seems the Government want even more powers to restrict protests. Clause 124 will enable police to ban protests in the vicinity of a place of worship. Whatever “in the vicinity of” means, it will certainly include Parliament Square and most urban centres. Clause 118 will have a chilling effect on some people’s willingness to engage in protest. Furthermore, the Government are promising additional clauses to enable the police to ban repeating protests—which is, of course, most protests.
Protecting the right to protest is vital to maintaining a healthy, vibrant democracy where power is questioned and balanced by the collective will of citizens. The cumulative effect of more and more restrictions on protest is one of the reasons why our country is sliding down the world’s free speech league, and this trend needs to be reversed.
I turn to an astonishing omission from the Bill. The collection of DNA, how it is retained, examined and used as evidence, and its eventual destruction, are quite rightly controlled by several Acts of Parliament and detailed regulations, all overseen by a statutory regulator. However, when it comes to the relatively new facial recognition technology, none of these protections and none of this oversight exists—nothing at all. Facial recognition is far more intrusive than DNA; it is as if citizens are walking around the streets with a barcode on their foreheads that police can read from a distance to identify them. It drives a coach and horses through our time-honoured right—with limited exceptions—to withhold our identity from the police. When this technology is incorporated into this country’s vast network of CCTV cameras, as it surely will be, it will be possible to track us wherever we are, going about our lawful business. Since the technology was first used in south Wales in 2017, police forces have reluctantly had to cobble together their own rules and mark their own homework, falling foul of the courts in the process.
So we would assume that the new Government would seize the opportunity of a major Bill on policing to introduce the long-overdue statutory regulation of facial recognition technology. But if you thought that, you would be wrong. The Bill does nothing to urgently fill the black hole where the essential regulation should be—the black hole that is crushing our privacy. Instead, the Government are presenting a Bill that says nothing about facial recognition, other than in Clause 138, which seeks to make the technology even more intrusive by linking it to the DVLA database. This extraordinary regulatory vacuum must be filled by amendments during the passage of the Bill.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I know that many on the Labour Benches do not want to hear this, but this Government are actually more authoritarian than the previous one. Not only have the Labour Government accepted all the draconian laws of the Conservative Government, but they continue to add to them. I have been here for only 12 years, but how many times in the past 14 years have the Labour Benches spoken against laws clamping down on protest? But now they are supporting them, defending them and even adding to them. The values of liberty and democracy and a passionate defence of the right to protest—it all sounded great in opposition, so why did Labour drop them when it came to power?
The desire to quash effective protest is the aim of this legislation. Of course Governments do not mind if protest changes nothing. The bulk of laws in recent years have been aimed at the kind of non-violent direct action protests that stop big corporations from, for example, setting up damaging fracking wells in our countryside, or support people trying to stop an ancient woodland being cut down to build a destructive new road.
A lot of those protests were successful and led to policy changes, either locally or nationally—like the direct action protests a few years ago that led to the passing of the climate emergency Act. The oil and gas industry does not like countries switching to renewables, insulation or net zero. So it paid a think tank to come up with laws clamping down on effective protest, which the last Government passed and this Government have kept. That is why we need to enshrine a legal right to protest, and I intend to bring an amendment to that effect.
I have spent 12 years in this House warning about this country being on the path towards a Big Brother state. A combination of laws against effective protest while using digital ID will enable a future Government to carry out repression with a biometric link. The police are already using facial recognition without any proper regulation or legal restraints. With the proposed rules against face covering and the rollout of digital ID, just being seen on a protest against a future Government could see you losing promotion, or your job, or state benefits. It has already happened to dissenters in Hong Kong and other repressive countries.
The Government can blacklist people, just as the UK building industry did to trade unionists, in conjunction with the police. We have to allow people to disrupt, make a noise and get noticed. That is democracy. The police should, of course, be able to arrest for serious infringements, and people should still face legal consequences—but not the very severe punishments of recent years that labelled protesters as terrorists. The proscription of Palestine Action was another nail in the coffin of democracy and dissent. The new powers for the police to ban repeated protests are the state trying to shut down the people who are putting a spotlight on the Government’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza. After all, when you are supplying military intelligence to Israel and exporting arms to a country that wants to ethnically cleanse people from a land that it wants to settle, those are actions which could land you in an international court.
My noble friend Lady Bennett, who cannot be here today, will engage on the issue of Travellers’ rights and abortion law at a later stage. So I just have a few questions for the Minister to answer. I will cram in as many as I can. Does he suspect that the proscription of Palestine Action has discredited the use of anti-terror laws? Will the Government look instead at the case for proscribing members of the Israel Defense Forces living in or visiting this country? These are people who have taken part in potential war crimes, and who have murdered and terrorised thousands of women and children in Gaza. Finally, does the Minister really feel it is a priority for the police and security services to waste their time enforcing this unpopular and largely pointless proscription when they have real terrorists to track down?
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a teacher in a state secondary school in Hackney—a place that my noble friend Lord Birt was rather unfair about earlier.
This is an extensive and wide-ranging Bill—you know you are in trouble when they have to treasury tag it rather than bind it—but there are many good things about it, including Clause 191. As Professor Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said:
“Abortion is an essential form of healthcare and should be subject to regulatory and professional standards like other medical procedures, not criminal sanctions”.
Clause 78 is also good, as it seeks to preserve the right of child confidentiality in some circumstances. Barnardo’s and the NSPCC, among others, stress its importance for services such as Childline. Many noble Lords have talked about making illegal the AI image generators used to produce child abuse material.
But there are issues. The Children’s Society feels that the offence of child criminal exploitation does not go far enough. Any child can be at risk of exploitation. Indeed, perpetrators are now looking for so-called “clean skins”: children who are not known to the police or involved with the local authorities, so the exploitation can go undetected. Many of these young people are from affluent backgrounds. The Children’s Commissioner has concerns about parts of Clause 40. She states clearly:
“When an adult exploits any child”
to engage in criminal activity,
“that should always be a mandatory criminal offence, regardless of the child’s perceived age”.
I welcome the Government’s mission to halve knife crime and get knives off our streets, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon, so movingly spoke about. The Ben Kinsella Trust reports an 81% increase in police-recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument in the 10 years to March 2025. Our school lost a child, who was killed in a knife attack last year. Do we need zombie hunting knives and other overly aggressive styles of knives? Surely some are just too dangerous.
According to the Youth Endowment Fund, in 2024, 50% of murders that were carried out with a blade used a pointed kitchen knife. The organisation calls for a ban on pointed knives altogether. The catering fraternity might object, although studies have shown that there is no culinary effect of a knife having a point. Would the Minister support such a ban?
We also get to equal protection. Does it go in this Bill or should we try to get it in the children’s well-being Bill? With over 65 countries, including Wales and Scotland, already having legislated to protect children from physical punishment, how much longer can England justify standing still? The NSPCC does not describe this as a “smacking ban” but talks about “equal protection”. This is not a call for the creation of a new offence, just for the removal of a legal defence in order to make equal the law of assault for both children and adults. This is about giving children the best possible start in life, not criminalising parents. Deliberately causing pain to a child, for whatever reason, has to belong to the last century. There are much better and safer ways to respond to a child’s behaviour than the use of physical force, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on that.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, to the Front Bench to supplement the efforts of the indefatigable Home Office team on the Front Bench in the Lords.
I wish to speak about Clause 191, which decriminalises abortions for women ending their pregnancy at any stage to birth. The clause does not change the existing time limit of 24 weeks, after which an abortion will be a criminal offence, except under special circumstances, for medical professionals and for those who provide an abortion or assist a woman to procure one for herself. What will change is that the woman herself, who takes the steps to end her pregnancy at any stage up to birth, will not face criminal charges.
I am against such a change on three grounds—one procedural and two substantive. First, a private Member’s conscience amendment has been used to amend a government Bill, bringing the weight of the Executive to a matter of conscience. Moreover, by this procedure, a matter of great significance may be allowed to slip through, tagged on to the Crime and Policing Bill, avoiding the full national and parliamentary scrutiny that such major changes in a law require.
Secondly, it is selective in the application of the law in a way that goes against the very principle of law. It is bad in principle and practice to count some action as a crime for some people but not for others. In Clause 191, it is accepted that aborting a baby over 24 weeks old is normally a crime and that those involved should be punished, except for one—the pregnant woman who is the instigator of the action. Part of the very principle of what it is to be a law is that it is applied universally. There can be special factors, such as coercion, which relieve someone of criminal responsibility in particular circumstances, but not a blanket exception.
Moreover, there could be no greater denigration of pregnant women, and indeed all women, than to deny them the most basic right of all: to be judged morally and, when they have committed a crime, judged criminally. Abortion over 28 weeks is accepted as a crime by all. To say that pregnant women can commit it so long as they do so against their own children or own child—but nevertheless they are not criminals—is to treat them as less than fully human adults.
Baroness Mattinson (Lab)
My Lords, I want to start, as lots of people have done today, by echoing the comments about this excellent Bill. I know very well the impact that its many measures will have in many communities around the country. I also want to echo the congratulations to my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, on her hugely impressive debut in introducing a very complex Bill.
I will talk in favour of Clause 191 because I believe very strongly that women, often very vulnerable women, should not be criminalised for ending their own pregnancy outside the law, which often results in years of investigation and a custodial sentence. Earlier, the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, talked very eloquently about what is and is not contained in Clause 191, so I am not going to go through that again, but there are a couple of points I want to make.
The other place voted to repeal this antiquated law, bringing us in line with many other democracies around the world. It also brings us in line with public opinion. Some 52% overall oppose criminalising women in these circumstances, while only 21% support it. That is men and women—fair-minded people, if you like. Unsurprisingly, women feel this most strongly: just 16% of women support criminalising women in this way. When we look at women under the age of 40—namely, the women who are most likely to be directly affected by the law—that drops down to just 13%. So the data is very clear.
For me, the most powerful and persuasive argument comes directly from some of the women who have been treated barbarically by this law. Take Sammy, who went into premature labour at home and, as she attempted to resuscitate her own baby, seven police officers were searching her bins for evidence, even before the paramedics had arrived. She was then interviewed under caution for suspected illegal abortion and had her phone and her computer seized. She was not allowed home for a week, as it was sealed off as a crime scene, and she was left just in the clothes that she had attended hospital in. She was also not allowed to contact her partner. Despite providing forensic samples that did not show the presence of abortion drugs, she remained under police investigation for a year and was allowed only limited supervised contact with her baby, who had survived the traumatic birth—probably because of her intervention. Sammy is now a very active campaigner against this law, a law that was passed before women even had the vote. We have a chance now to end the suffering it causes, and we must do so.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, there is a great deal of interest in this Bill, so I shall confine myself to talking about something that is not in it but should be. The research we have done over the last five years shows that, of the 42 million vehicles on UK roads, 10 million of them are non-compliant: uninsured, unregistered, untaxed or without MOT. That is an astonishing figure, but it should not surprise us. If you do not enforce a law, you get an upsurge in people breaking the law. As this Bill deals with shoplifting—I am delighted that it does—so it should deal with vehicle non-compliance.
With non-compliant vehicles, there is something that we can do without cost to the Treasury, because we are dealing with people who are easier to locate, who owe money anyway and who are in possession of a substantial asset. That produces a set of circumstances where we can devise a system of enforcement that does not cost the Treasury anything. If any other noble Lords are interested in this problem, please correspond with me. In the Commons, it has been most actively pursued by Sarah Coombes MP, who has now been brought within the Government and therefore cannot campaign for it actively. This is very much a cross-party issue—a national issue, not a party one.
I intend to propose amendments to this Bill to allow a pilot to help us reach a self-funding solution to the problem. My amendments will enable local authorities and other enforcement bodies to identify high-risk vehicles and intervene, starting with things such as warning notices and text messages, targeting the worst persistent evaders, those using cloned number plates, foreign registered vehicles and those without DVLA keeper details. There are a lot of them. The pilot can be delivered at zero cost to police or government. It will end up supporting overstretched police forces, denying criminals the use of our roads and reducing vehicle-related antisocial behaviour. The pilot proposals have been developed in consultation with those representing the interests of roads, policing, local government and trade associations. This is very well thought through—I take no credit for it; I am just a spokesman—but none of this can happen without government support and legislative change. This Bill seems to me to be the place for that.
Rather than embarking on something wholesale, which would raise all sorts of questions about people needing to be consulted, a pilot is much more limited. If it falls over, we will all have learned something without the Government having to pay for the lesson. If it succeeds—and I am most optimistic—it will drive lasting reform and make UK roads safer for us all. I very much hope that the Minister will be agreeable to a meeting with him and relevant officials to present this initiative in more detail, alongside industry experts who have helped to shape its development.
Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green (CB)
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the Minister on an exceptionally comprehensive introduction to what is, by any measure, a wide-ranging and ambitious Bill. In the time available, I will confine my remarks to three aspects of the Bill: the Government’s manifesto commitment to extend aggravated offences to all strands of hate crime; the continuing discussions around the recording of non-crime hate incidents; and, in common with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, as a London cyclist, I am very interested in the new provisions around cycling.
First, I welcome the Minister’s commitment, made on Report in the other place, to introduce a government amendment at Committee in this House to make all existing strands of hate crime aggravated offences. The framework for race and religion has made a real difference: it has given prosecutors the tools to reflect the gravity of hate-motivated crime, ensured higher sentences where hostility is proven and given victims confidence that the law recognises when they have experienced such an offence. These offences send a clear message about who we are as a society and what we are prepared to confront. For disabled people, the same clarity has never existed; hostility is too often treated as an afterthought, with incidents instead recorded as ordinary assault or public order without recognition of the prejudice behind them. Extending aggravated offences to disability would bring long overdue parity and show that hate in any form will be met with equal seriousness. For LGBT people, too, the gap in protection remains; while cases can be charged as hate-motivated, they still fall outside the aggravated framework. I hope that the Government’s amendment will close that gap once and for all. I look forward to working with Ministers on this.
I note the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, on the recommendations to stop non-crime hate incidents. I believe that seeing a spike in incidents can help police forces and, crucially, communities take action. For example, an increase in antisemitic incidents in an area can signal growing tensions. I accept the recommendations of the National College of Policing, but I am interested in how police forces and communities can still consider signals and measures of community cohesion and take proportionate and measurable action to prevent escalation.
Finally—perhaps the most controversial thing I will ever talk about in this Chamber—I welcome the provisions on cycling now included in the Bill. I cycle in London and I do something that sometimes feels rare: I stop at red lights, I indicate when turning and I wear a helmet. Anything that deters dangerous or careless cycling is to be welcomed, and it is time our laws reflected how we travel in our cities today. I must confess, however, that I enjoy an e-bike. Although I have no financial interest in Lime, it certainly has a financial interest in me. Reducing the maximum speed of hired e-bikes would be a simple way to make them safer. They simply go too fast, and they evoke an adolescent abandonment of safety and conscience in a way that I am totally ashamed of. Riders must behave responsibly, but providers also have a part—an easy part—to play in protecting everyone.
This Bill covers a great deal of ground, and the issues I have touched on all point to the same principle: the law must be fair, proportionate and responsive to the world as it really is, not how we wish it was. I look forward to working with the Minister and noble Lords across the House as the Bill progresses.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, a lot of today’s speeches have been on abortion, which is weird in a Bill boasting that its aim is to make our streets safer. I support Clause 191’s aim of disapplying the criminal law for women acting in relation to their own pregnancies, but I do not think this Bill was the right vehicle for such an important law change. I have some sympathy with the public backlash about a lack of debate on the issue. You can see how it happened: the Bill is so disparate and unfocused that even the Government keep adding to it. Ministers introduced 90 amendments, 66 new clauses and four new schedules at Committee and on Report in the other place, and apparently there is more to come here. But where does all this chopping and changing leave us? Recent tensions over our scrutinising role have led to accusations of filibuster and time-wasting, but how can we keep on top of what the Government intend when it is so scattergun and expansive? As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, explained so well, the Bill exemplifies the trend of excessive lawmaking as a substitute for enforcing laws that we already have.
We have heard a lot today about the Bill creating a specific offence of assaulting retail workers. Well, call me old-fashioned, but I have always been opposed to assaulting retail workers—as far as I knew, it was against the law. Now we are creating a new law which avoids crucial questions: why has there been a shocking increase in attacks on shop workers, often accompanied by mass shoplifting, and why has this not been dealt with by the police? Inevitably, other workers say, “What about us?” For example, in an unlikely outbreak of consensus, the RMT, National Rail and the Rail Delivery Group are united in demanding that there should be a specific offence of assaulting or abusing transport workers. To counter lots more special pleading, perhaps the Government should use their energy in ensuring that assault laws lead to prosecutions.
Another worry is that the public’s civil liberties and free speech are being carelessly jeopardised by this trend of criminalising ever more aspects of everyday life. For example, in relation to Clause 118, the Joint Committee on Human Rights warns that criminalising all forms of identity concealment could unjustifiably interfere in the right to protest. Yet again, the police already have powers to require individuals to remove such face coverings. Maybe the Government should investigate why the police do not use that power when, for example, dealing with pro-Palestinian marchers chanting Jew hatred behind their keffiyehs and balaclavas. No, it is far easier to ban all face coverings instead. As Big Brother Watch notes, there are many law-abiding individuals who might want to conceal their identities on demos. Topically, why do we think Hong Kong dissidents cover their faces on protests? Here is a hint: their own authoritarian government agents are watching. These proposals are made against a backdrop of other attacks on privacy, from facial recognition technology to digital ID.
Then there is Clause 4, which many civil libertarians are concerned about. First are those much-vaunted respect orders. It seems the epitome of technocratic governance to imagine you can tackle the breakdown of social respect, so well described by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, by creating a new civil order called a respect order. These are almost a duplicate of the overused, discredited and ineffective anti-social behaviour injunctions, which will continue, but respect orders will have criminal sanctions of up to two years in prison but only use the lower civil standard of proof, and recipients will not even be told when they are put on an order. Meanwhile, the proposed increases in penalties for breaching the misnamed public spaces protection orders and CPNs from £100 to £500 is pettily punitive but, outrageously, they are predominantly issued by private enforcement agencies which are paid by the state per fine.
I am afraid too much of the Bill will continue this trend of eroding our everyday liberties. I will be working with groups such as Manifesto Club and Justice to ensure that we focus on keeping our streets safe, but what are not safe with this Bill are our civil liberties and our free speech.
Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, and I welcome the noble Baroness the Minister to her first Second Reading. I welcome elements of this new portmanteau Bill and the Minister’s assurances at the beginning of this debate of the focus being on fighting basic crime.
The Bill addresses legislation seen as obsolete, incomplete or needing amendments or improvement; I see a further golden opportunity in the Bill to remove hate crime law, which was first put on the books in 1965, addressing race hatred. Since then, hate crime law has proliferated—indeed, metastasised. It has proliferated in which protected characteristics it covers—now up to five in the UK, seven in Scotland; in the triviality that can now incur the police’s attention; in political agendas being pursued, with some hateful beliefs allowed to flourish but less politically modish views cracked down on; by uncoupling hate crime from actual crime, with police intimidating and harassing individuals for the absurd and near-oxymoronic concept of non-crime hate incidents; and in the many new organisations claiming to unearth hate crime and hate speech, funding false narratives of hate crime, dividing the nation further but with no reduction in hate crime. Hate crime has crystallised as the useful tool of left identitarians, dividing and conquering by inciting grievance within the identity groups whose votes they seek to capture.
Set against this is free speech. In this country, we traditionally do not believe in thought crime. Our first Queen Elizabeth famously said she had no desire to look into men’s souls, but now we have policemen saying, “I need to check your thinking”. Free speech advocates see the need to tolerate it when people say disgusting things we do not like. Only ordinary criminal law, not hate crime law, should be deployed in such circumstances, and only then if there is intent to incite imminent violence.
Criminalising hate speech did not prevent the hateful marches that occurred immediately after 7 October, before Israel could even react. Nor did it stop the continuation of those marches after the ceasefire had been achieved. In my view, those marches quickly, over the months, rose to the standard of criminal incitement after 7 October, yet nothing was done about that month after month. Is there any evidence that the invention of hate crime has reduced the number of attacks on minorities? Try asking Jews in Manchester that question, or Muslims in Bethnal Green.
Meanwhile, hate crime law has led to the police being confused, overstretched, badly led and distracted from fighting actual crime. Not one burglary was solved in 48% of English and Welsh neighbourhoods in the past three years. The police’s soft target now is to pursue the unthreatening middle-class tweeter rather than shoplifters, phone muggers, burglars or drug dealers. To redirect the police, we need to get hate crime off the statute book while ensuring that we have adequate provision within the criminal code for the punishment of any crime driven by the intent to intimidate, persecute or marginalise any group of citizens of whatever identity. Police could then focus on the numerous actual crimes that are committed daily so that our police forces can return, as they say, to policing our streets and not our tweets.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, while I broadly welcome this Bill, I do not welcome how large it is. Its scale and complexity were referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and even the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, with whom I find myself agreeing. It is in, a sense, a testament to how many of our public bodies live in silos and have inconsistent, changing leadership, and how much they have a selective interpretation and enactment of regulation or guidance. In some senses, this Bill is well intended, but it is also a manifestation of a systemic malaise and testament to our continuous failure, under Governments of whatever colour, to enact and/or enforce existing law or regulation and guidance.
I was at a dinner last Monday for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Armed Forces and a very impressive gentleman, who is in charge of all of our cybersecurity, talked about the appointment of Mr Rupert Pearce as the National Armaments Director to try to sort out once and for all our rather lamentable track record in major defence procurement. If I ruled the world—which unfortunately is not a hereditary role—I would be tempted to appoint the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, as the national joined-up government director, as his wonderful father, Sir John Timpson, created the concept of upside-down management. So many areas of our governance would benefit from focusing on the people at the bottom, who are the subject of all sorts of things happening to them, and working upwards to find out how to remove the blockages which continuously fail to remedy what repeated laws and new regulations fail to do.
At the beginning of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, that I would be all over the first part of the Bill like a rash. I make the same promise to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for this Bill, because there are many areas of interest. I will work closely with the office of the Victims’ Commissioner—the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, regrets that she is unable to be here today—on a variety of amendments to try to make more sense of the attempts to deal with anti-social behaviour. I shall continue work with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and others on stalking. I will work with the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, and others on trying to deal with the difficult issue of exploitation of children, because there is a difficulty that we have in differentiating between the individual as a victim and the individual as a perpetrator. If you are a child, you can be one and the same thing, and it is very complicated to try to deal with that.
I shall deal with mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, again to try to make that more forensic and efficient, and with AI-generated child sexual material. I shall, of course, support the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, on all her amendments around pornography. It is a tribute to the women in this Chamber—how often it is women—who speak up about these issues. I am afraid that not enough men do. I thought it was very interesting that a large number of men have commented on the rights of women and what they do with their own bodies during the course of this debate, and rather fewer women. With that, I will sit down.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, much that is valuable and important has been said by many in this Chamber this afternoon, particularly about the risks of criminal law creeping too far into the conduct of everyday life—the law should not be a code of conduct—and the problems of unenforceability when law becomes overcomplex. The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, made an important suggestion, which I hope is debated in Committee.
I will speak to Clause 191, which has profound implications for the lives of some children. Those in favour in the Commons spoke of a recent increase in investigations and prosecution. They spoke of women abused and pressured into abortions, and of unreasonable behaviour by the police and the CPS. They used harrowing cases to make their arguments. A number argued that abortion should be considered only as a healthcare matter. But it is not hard to unpick these arguments, and to see on what shaky foundations this decision was taken.
It is blindingly clear that abortion is a profoundly difficult issue, because the rights attaching to two different lives conflict: this is why it figures in criminal law. I do not stand with those who argue for absolute priorities in either direction, but I have worked for years in areas where adults and children’s rights unavoidably conflict. I know how easy it is for campaigners to be blinded by such conflict of rights by their perceptions of their own rightness. This is how some can see giving women an unqualified right to kill their own children—even the day before birth—as merely a progressive modernisation of the law.
For abortion, there is an uncomfortable asymmetry: unlike their mothers, unborn children are helpless and voiceless. We should therefore reject the argument that abortion should be considered purely as a healthcare matter. Of course women’s healthcare matters, but to make healthcare the only consideration is to deny a vast and important ethical debate. Both lives in question matter very much. Clinicians and support services naturally want to be kind to the woman in front of them, to whom they owe responsibilities, and of course it is easier for professionals if the law removes any possibility of repercussions for them from a self-induced late abortion.
Furthermore, decriminalisation, even in the interests of kindness, is not always a social good. To give one example, Oregon has had to reverse its disastrous policy of decriminalising low-level drug possession and usage.
Next, if there are cases of police or CPS overreach or malpractice, primary legislation is not the right way to correct that. It is shocking when someone proves to have been wrongly convicted, but do a few cases of wrongful conviction justify decriminalising rape, for example, lest any man ever be unfairly accused and investigated?
Finally, Parliament should not succumb to emotional blackmail. The old saying is that hard cases make bad law. Domestic violence charities see dreadful cases, and abused women deserve kindness and consideration, but not all women are angels without agency. There are women who are not abused, but who neglect and maltreat their own children—ask any social worker. There is clear moral hazard here. For example, a woman who forms a new relationship mid-pregnancy may be tempted to eliminate the baby that she thinks could be an impediment to that relationship. As far as I know, despite the red flag of increased investigations in recent years, no systematic review has looked at whether telemedicine for abortion is having an undesirable consequence of enabling greater numbers of women to conceal their stage of pregnancy so as to attempt late abortions.
For all these reasons, I believe that noble Lords should be concerned about this clause, the fact that it was inserted without any national consultation showing a clear balance of public opinion in support, and that it was not informed by a full review of the impact of permitting abortions by telemedicine. I will therefore be proposing amendments to delay its implementation until such a review and consultation have taken place.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, this comprehensive Bill, so well introduced by my noble friend, brings our treatment of crime up to date to fit new kinds of offences and some hitherto unrecognised. In the time available, as my experience in dealing with crime is limited to my time as a magistrate in the past and my current membership of the Sussex Police diversity advisory board, I will focus on two areas I am particularly concerned with: the new provisions on county lines, and the surprising omission of dealing with the High Court decision that Part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 breached human rights.
I declare interests as president of the Advisory Council for the Education of Romany and other Travellers and of Friends, Families and Travellers, to which I am grateful, as ever, for expert briefing, together with that of the Traveller Movement. The new offence of coerced internal concealment and associated provisions will enable those forgotten children or vulnerable adults who have been excluded from education or who have slipped through the net in other ways to be found, rescued and protected.
The abhorrent practice by organised criminal gangs of recruiting these young people by force or deception into carrying drugs, illicit money and SIM cards away from the centres where they were stolen or dealt with has mushroomed in recent years. It exploits many who have been virtually abandoned by society and its institutions, instilling fear which estranges them from their family and community networks. The reinforcement of the civil prevention order is helpful and further support from the £42 million county lines programme is a sensible broadening of the approach to include positive elements of safeguarding and rehabilitation. I warmly welcome this set of measures.
My other concern is that our Government have missed an obvious opportunity to end discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers created by the Conservative Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. That small minority of Gypsies and Travellers who live in their traditional way in caravans on sites and have to make do with unauthorised ones can be imprisoned and their vehicles, which are their homes, impounded even if there are no authorised sites for them to go to—under circumstances found by the judge to be discrimination. The case followed formal recommendations by our Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and UN treaty bodies to repeal these measures.
They were not welcomed by our police either. The majority of police forces and police and crime commissioners responding to the initial Home Office consultation on criminalising staying on unauthorised encampments, rather than the previous definition of trespass, opposed it. Some 93% of police bodies called for better site provision as the solution to unauthorised encampments. Of course, it is the paucity of these that is the real problem, as the judge commented, not the desperate search to find somewhere to put the caravan home.
Meanwhile, the Government are under a solemn obligation to remedy the incompatibility with our human rights law. That is, they must restore to these fellow citizens who do not live in bricks and mortar that small measure of security they had to be able to live and send their children to school without fear of being driven out unreasonably, having their mobile home impounded or being sent to prison. I trust that my noble friend the Minister will not default on this obligation. Surely this Bill is a suitable vehicle.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as director of the Free Speech Union.
I intend to table an amendment to the Bill scrapping non-crime hate incidents. A non-crime hate incident—NCHI—is an incident or alleged incident that involves or is alleged to involve an act that is perceived by the intended victim to be motivated wholly or partly by hostility or prejudice towards one or more of their protected characteristics. This definition is hopelessly subjective, relying as it does on the perception of the complainant.
NCHIs have been recorded against a woman who said she thought her cat was a Methodist, a man who whistled the theme tune to “Bob the Builder” and former MP Amber Rudd, who had an NCHI logged against her against after a speech at the 2016 Conservative Party conference in which she called for British jobs for British workers. She was Home Secretary at the time.
The reason the police are logging these incidents is because in 2014 the College of Policing instructed them to record all hate crime reports that, on investigation, turned out not to be crimes, as NCHIs. That explains why, according to the most conservative estimate, 130,000 NCHIs have been recorded in the last 11 years.
The police should not be put in the invidious position of having to record what are often vexatious, politically motivated complaints. As the High Court judge said in 2020 when he found for Harry Miller, an ex-policeman who challenged an NCHI that had been recorded against him:
“In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi”.
Noble Lords may ask why it matters if an NCHI is recorded against someone’s name. It matters because they can show up in an enhanced DBS check and stop someone getting a job as a teacher or a carer. Why should the fact that someone has committed a non-crime prevent them from getting a job?
NCHIs are a breach of a sacrosanct principle of English common law: unless something is explicitly prohibited, it is permitted. The behaviour recorded in NCHIs is, by definition, not prohibited by law; it is non-criminal, so why are people being punished for it?
Recording NCHIs is also a colossal waste of police time. In a report published last year, Policy Exchange estimated that recording NCHIs takes up 60,000 hours of police time every year.
It is not just free speech lobbyists such as me who think that NCHIs have to go. His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Andy Cooke, has called for their abolition. Earlier this year he said:
“We need, at times, to allow people to speak openly without the fear that their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law … I’m a firm believer … that … non-crime hate incidents are no longer required”.
Sir Andy is not alone among senior and ex-senior police officers in his opinion of NCHIs. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, will be co-sponsoring my amendment.
The Minister said she hoped that the Bill will restore public confidence in the criminal justice system. Scrapping NCHIs, which risk turning the police into objects of ridicule, is a vital first step.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
Your Lordships’ House has, over the years, taken a very serious role in defending our free speech, freedom of assembly and right to peaceful protest. Just this afternoon, we have heard powerful speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Jones, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—probably the first time I have ever agreed with her—and from the noble Lords, Lord Cashman and Lord Clement-Jones.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed out something I have noted too. Out of power, political parties defend those rights very vociferously, but once they are in power as the Government, they are very tempted—as we see in this Bill—to introduce legislation to restrict protest more and more. In the 25 years I have been following this, I have noticed that successive Governments have increased not only legislation about protest but also the severity of the penalties for those protesting or organising protests. What especially concerns me is the cumulative effect of all those Acts.
I can accept that sometimes legislation is a proportionate response to emerging social issues, and I am sure that is something we will explore in Committee, but too often it has been the easy way for successive Governments to limit dissent against their policies. As we look at this Bill, with more curbs on protest, it is shocking to think—and this is something I especially want noble Lords to bear in mind as we go through the Bill—that international bodies have found that the UK has moved from being a champion of free speech and assembly to a nation where protest is a risk.
For example, the UN rapporteur for human rights and the environment, David Boyd, warned of the chilling impact of recent legislation on democratic rights. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the Public Order Act 2023 was “deeply troubling” and incompatible with international law. Michael Forst, the UN rapporteur for environmental defenders, condemned the harsh sentencing of climate protesters as
“not acceptable in a democracy”.
We have to take those as very serious criticisms.
On that last point, some of the sentences handed down to protesters are truly shocking. Even a short sentence can disrupt your life a lot. It can affect the jobs you can apply for. It can disbar you, for example, from going to the United States. In my case, that would be a very severe penalty as so many of my family live there. That is a massive disincentive to stand in protest, so there is a real chilling effect. I am fortunately quite old, so I think I have had my fill of protests—that is not to say that I would not feel like protesting some more, but I at least have a voice here now.
The reason I am speaking today is that I have heard the anger and frustration of the young. They need to make their voices heard on the issues that will critically affect their future. In this case, I am particularly thinking of environmental issues and climate change. Our job in this House is to enable those voices, not to crush them, not to frighten them into submission and not to chill them until they are frozen out.
Baroness Cash (Con)
My Lords, I believe—well, I hope—that there is one thing that all Members of this noble House agree upon: that none of us wish to see the rise of the far right or of any political movement that feeds upon public fear and the failures of our institutions. Yet that is precisely what is happening in the UK today.
I have come here today to address what is not in this Bill, which I believe is a missed opportunity to address some of those most significant and pressing issues of our time. The public have lost faith in the even-handedness of policing and the moral courage of those in authority. When people see double standards—or two-tier standards—resentment grows, and trust dies. This Bill is a chance to restore that trust, to ensure that the criminal justice system in Britain is not captive to ideology and not paralysed by fear any more.
I commend much in the Bill, but so far it fails to address the underlying causes of what is known by the public and by our media as two-tier policing. We are failing to confront too many uncomfortable truths, and we have seen where that fear leads. In Rotherham and Telford, thousands of children—and we are still counting, by the way—were abused while officials looked away. The Jay and Casey reviews both record that professionals were nervous about
“identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist”.
One police officer put it more bluntly—that it was “safer to do nothing”. Let me repeat that: it was safer to do nothing. That single sentence should haunt us, and I hope that that sentence will hang over this House while we scrutinise and look to close the gaps in this Bill.
What a time to have a debate about introducing a definition of “Islamophobia”. I remind noble Lords that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for her efforts, was voted “Islamophobe of the year”. It is not right that those who have the courage to address these issues are attacked and accused of being racist for that. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, will take these issues seriously, and I hope that we can work together to address them.
The same paralysis has cost lives in honour-based abuse. The murders of Banaz Mahmod and Shafilea Ahmed are just two examples. Both young women sought help and both were dismissed as family disputes—and both were killed. The Government have promised to define honour-based law, and that is welcome, but definition without duty is not protection. We will need clearly spelled-out statutory obligations to act, report, share intelligence and intervene—likewise with grooming.
I am running out of time. Even as the police have shrunk from appalling crimes, they have continued to prosecute non-crime hate incidents—I support everything that has been said on that. It is part of the same issue, and we need to show the courage that this country needs so that we do not end up driving voters into the arms of something less savoury. Why, in the current climate, would anyone do what the Casey or Jay reports urge? The very definition of two-tier policing is that fear has dictated who is protected and who is silenced.
The Earl of Lytton (CB)
My Lords, I very much welcome the opportunity to discuss the matters in this Bill and welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, to the Front Bench. She is obviously used to dealing with gargantuan matters, such as those to do with my profession and the RICS, in her previous capacity, and I wish her well in her endeavours in chewing through this 400-page Bill.
My first point relates to anti-social behaviour. In my experience of inter-neighbour matters, the distinction between perpetrator and victim is seldom absolute—a point made by my noble friend Lord Russell of Liverpool. When I encounter instances of an ASB order made in such terms that normal life is actually impeded—and then the so-called victim proceeds to indulge in exactly the same sort of behaviour that has been prevented for his neighbour—I know that something is not right. There needs to be a better balance and there need to be order-making powers, and enforcement ought to be subject to better rules, competence and oversight.
My second point relates to Clauses 72, 79 and 80, principally regarding the duty to report suspected sex abuse of children. I fully support that duty, particularly in so far as it is applied to the persons listed as being under the duty to report. It should have consequences for those who culpably fail to report or who obstruct that duty.
This follows the prima facie principle that victims should be heard and believed and that a report of a matter involving a commission of a crime, as defined by law, should be so recorded unless there is credible evidence to the contrary, particularly in the context of young people. Once on a record in the system, the matter then demands attention and conscious process, including, one hopes, some support to the victim. That is until such time as additional verifiable information dictates otherwise. Outside that recording system, there is nothing—no practical form of subsidiary watch-list or anything like that—so spotting a trend, pattern or commonality in the data, outside a formal record, seems to me to depend on chance recognition by an official.
So far so good, but then Clause 80 proceeds to start unravelling things by effectively deferring to the balance-of-probabilities, evidence-based approach inherent in police procedures and Home Office counting rules. I believe this is incompatible with the intent and aim of Clauses 72 and 79. Suspicions, which is what we are talking about reporting, almost inevitably lack hard evidence. If, say, the recording officer of police does not happen to be satisfied as to the evidence, and therefore does not believe it can be reliably stated to be a crime that has been committed on his or her balance of probabilities test—as suggested in guidance or as directed by the senior officer—it may not get recorded. Not only does this court perversity, because recorded crime is related to police performance, but it risks repetition of precisely the outcomes of the Bradford child sexual exploitation case, when vulnerable young people were not believed and criminal enterprise went unchecked. In my view, Clause 80 requires a rethink or simply deleting. I note that this may have wider implications for the way in which crime is recorded and acted upon.
My final point relates to Part 9. Other noble Lords have made impassioned comments, so I am not alone in sensing that there is a degree of tendency to administrative overreach—even a politically thin-skinned reaction at times—in the cumulative measures eroding the right to demonstrate. I very much relate to the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Lady Cash, and I hope that, between us, we can get a better balance of what we actually mean by allowing people the necessary freedom and opportunity to vent their emotions and campaign and demonstrate safely.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, on her excellent presentation. When you are speaker number 65, it is probably best to adapt your speech a little, so I will save a bit of time by saying that I agreed with every word that the noble Baronesses, Lady Bertin, Lady Owen and Lady Sugg, said—end of. I have been a supporter of Liberty and its predecessor, the NCCL, for 50 years. I also had the privilege of leading Sir Chris Bryant’s Private Member’s Bill in this House on increased protection for emergency service workers. It became the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018. You could therefore argue that I have had a foot in both camps.
I want to make a brief point about police employment issues—not strictly speaking part of the Bill—but then move on to the issue of aggravated offences. I appreciate that the employment issue is not a direct part of the Bill. However, as a former chair of ACAS and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, I want to make a point about the importance of retaining skills and experience in the police force. When you cut back a police force by 20,000, it has a devastating effect: you lose literally hundreds of years of experience. It might mean you lose some bad habits, but you also lose the institutional memory and there is a reduction in on-the-job training capacity.
If you reduce a service to the bone, as the last Government did, you have a demoralised workforce and a stampede for the door when the opportunity for a retirement package arrives. Those with a grievance are the ones forced to stay. Practicality says that the police will then prioritise their work and leave other things undone. Dealing with attacks on lesbian, gay and trans people is a long way down the list, and it might explain why retail theft and attacks on retail workers are so serious as we speak. It is this kind of short-termism that makes the issues of powers and responsibilities of the police rather secondary. My plea to the Minister is for adequate resources and for active management planning, which allows the police to do their job.
Nevertheless, I support fully the attempt by Rachel Taylor MP to extend aggravated offences to include attacks on gay, lesbian, trans and disabled people, and I congratulate the Government on their commitment to include this in the Bill. Can the Minister say a little more about the likely content of that amendment? The Law Commission report on hate crime laws in 2021 recommended
“that aggravated offences be extended to cover all existing characteristics in hate crime laws: race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity”.
As has already been said, it was also in the Labour Party manifesto of 2024. One can only wonder why this has not been on the statute book for years in this day and age, but I look forward to our consideration in Committee.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, while I agree with so much that has been said so eloquently today, I want to focus on three areas close to my heart: the inadequacies of enforcement of the criminal law; how to deal with the Wild West of e-scooters and cycling; and the best way to reduce shoplifting. Although this is not declarable as an interest, my son is a detective in the Met, and I think he would agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, has just said about the need to retain skills and experience in the police.
In a long career in and outside government, at the top and on the front line, I have discovered that enforcement of the law is as important as the rules and regulations themselves. As Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, said, the laws of the country must be enforced. There is no substitute for law enforcement, and that is why, in March 2024, we the Conservatives ensured that police numbers were at their highest ever. For this Bill to be effective, they need to rise further, and the resource needs to be focused on the right things: away from the obsession with online harm, prosecutions for tweets and non-hate crime, and into neighbourhood policing.
The truth is that we have moved away from the founding Peelite principle that police need to be part of the community they serve. They are increasingly a wholly separate organism, usually absent from our streets and town centres, and sometimes appearing to want to control our thoughts. Part of the problem has been the huge increase in bureaucracy, with energetic police men and women weighed down by paperwork requirements and the inefficiency of the police, CPS and court interaction and its supporting and less than compatible IT systems. My noble friend Lady Coffey has drawn attention to the burden of yet more reporting requirements in the Bill. To my mind there is an enforcement crisis, and I ask the Minister what he is planning to do about it.
I am very pleased to see Clause 106, introduced in the other place, which creates new offences of causing death or serious injury by dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling. I also like Clause 8, which makes it easier to seize an e-scooter being driven anti-socially—I note that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, actually wants to go further. As noble Lords know, I have been horrified by this Wild West of scooters and cyclists, especially speedy electronic versions, dashing through lights, driving routinely on pavements and spreading terrors among mothers with pushchairs, the disabled, the infirm and sometimes me. I have been knocked over myself. The truth is that this lawlessness in London has got worse; the results can be seen in A&E admissions.
However, there is no need to wait for the new Act, as cycling on pavements is illegal. Current laws must be enforced. I ask the Minister to consider a hotspot policy, perhaps by the Transport Police, to crack down on bad behaviour by cyclists and e-scooterists. We know that this sort of enforcement works. When I worked at Downing Street in the 1990s, the Met got burglary down with Operation Bumblebee and, more recently, we have seen the successful crackdown on mobile phone thieves at Oxford Circus.
My final plea for better enforcement relates to shoplifting, which has also exploded recently. I know from my time at Tesco how this ruins honest endeavour and allows free-riders free rein. It is so difficult for the staff and there is a wider impact. I remember women putting large jars of Nescafé and beef fillet down their trousers to sell and fund their drug habit and I remember the drudgery and cost of adding security tags to every valuable item. The Bill rightly responds to USDAW’s long-standing campaign and creates a new offence of assaulting a retail worker. Clause 39 seeks to tackle the ridiculous situation whereby so-called “low-value theft”—under £200—tends to go unprosecuted. However, I note that the Opposition have concerns about how this is achieved. We would also like to see tougher sentences on shoplifting where there have been more than three occasions of theft.
In conclusion, I return to Sir Robert Peel. He not only founded the Met but gave officers clear guidelines on expected behaviour, so establishing a highly visible and positive relationship with the British people. In this respect, it is time for us to revisit our roots.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, in seeking to intervene in the gap, my intention is to bring about the minimum of delay as we reach the most important stage of Second Reading, namely the winding-up speeches. I unhesitatingly begin by entirely endorsing the words of my new noble friend Lady Levitt—to whom much welcome—when opening this debate. Yes, neighbourhood policing has been neglected. Yes, we need to pay much more attention, for example, to the awful offence of child sexual abuse. But, in the steps of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, although in rather stronger language, I have to say that this Bill is a monster.
Indeed, I am holding it in my hand and I have to put it down because it is going to crash any moment and it is causing all my notes to go in a mess. In its 422 pages it seeks, if my arithmetic is correct, to amend no less than 44 previous statutes going back to the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the Limitation Act 1980. In some cases, the amendments are extensive. For example, for the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, if you look at Schedule 16 to the Bill and pages 316 to 323, you will see no less than seven pages of amendments. We cannot change this in this Bill, but we should be aware of what we are doing. Not only are we imposing on ourselves in Committee, doing our job properly, the task of putting in front of ourselves all 44 of these statutes while seeking to amend them, but what about this Bill becoming law? How are the police and everybody else involved in enforcement going to cope? When in Committee, we must do our duty, however long it takes. Fortunately, we have in my noble friend Lord Hanson the nicest of Ministers who has ever-enduring patience—but he is going to be tried out.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, although this Bill is extremely wide-ranging, as has been pointed out, and plainly lacks focus, we have had an interesting and diffuse debate and we can discern something now of the Government’s central aims: first, to help halve violence against women and girls; secondly, to protect children from criminal exploitation and abuse, on which my noble friends Lady Benjamin, Lady Hamwee and Lady Featherstone, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Cash, and others spoke so compellingly; and then to cut street violence, particularly knife crime, to reduce anti-social behaviour and to increase neighbourhood policing and public confidence in the police. On these Benches, we support all these aims. However, as it stands, the Bill risks many unforeseen and undesirable consequences.
Broadly, we will seek to ensure that the Bill does not unjustifiably reduce citizens’ rights and liberties; that it should not unnecessarily create new or duplicatory offences; that it will keep the law up to date with new technology, as my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones explained; that it will enhance police effectiveness and community confidence, and will not increase pressure on the police or local authorities; and, generally, that it will not make managing the criminal justice system more difficult, either by increasing court backlogs or making it harder for courts to handle their workload effectively and justly, or by increasing the prison population when our aim is to reduce reoffending, reverse sentence inflation and rehabilitate more offenders in the community.
I can make only a few points. The detail we will leave to 11 days in Committee, and we may need even more for proper consideration of the many expected amendments, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, predicted.
I turn first to the protection of citizens’ rights, particularly the right to peaceful protest. Whatever our differing views on the horrors in the Middle East, many have been frankly shocked that the Terrorism Act was deployed in the proscription of Palestine Action, whether or not that was sanctioned by the legislation. Many hundreds of protesters face prosecution for offences labelled as “terrorist” for taking part in protests in an entirely non-violent way. Such prosecutions may prevent them finding employment or travelling to the States, as my noble friend Lady Miller pointed out, or indeed the EU when the European travel authorisation scheme is launched next year. These are not groundless scare stories; they are points made by the Government and senior officers to deter attendance at these protests. We will be seeking stronger statutory protection for the right to peaceful protest and a review of the threshold for so-called “terrorist offences”.
I am concerned that the generally very clear and helpful opening by the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt—for which I thank her—revealed on these issues a lack of balance in government. The speeches by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and my noble friends Lord Strasburger and Lady Miller, and numbers of others, provided a welcome counterweight.
We also worry about the indiscriminate use of live facial recognition, as my noble friend Lord Strasburger explained. While it may have uses—for example, in connection with retail theft, car break-ins, bag snatches and other street crime—I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, and others that its use needs careful review and control. Unsafeguarded access to DVLA information, or electronic information on which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, spoke, presents similar risks. So, while agreeing with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said, we do not always go along with his approach to police access to personal information. However, I suggest that the concept of stewarded public interest data trusts—introduced, for example, in Canada, Australia and Belgium—offers balance on these privacy issues and deserves serious consideration. We must not slide inadvertently, carelessly or by stealth towards being a surveillance state.
The respect order proposals are not risk-free. Although making these orders will be for the courts, applications for them will be largely for our underresourced police and local authorities. How confident can the Government be of their usefulness? Will not the financial and administrative burden of securing these orders, organising their supervision and then policing and punishing their breach, outweigh their effectiveness in reducing crime and anti-social behaviour? Are the procedures robust in respecting citizens’ liberties? Before respect orders are made, there must be wide consultation on the guidance and an independent review of existing powers.
The Bill will create many new offences. I started in preparation to count them but ran out of steam. A number of them duplicate existing offences and will make the criminal law more complicated. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, pointed out, and as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, so graphically described, supported by the noble Lords, Lord Vaizey, Lord Russell of Liverpool and others, other provisions increase existing penalties.
This mixture is generally not helpful. More prosecutions for complex new offences will tend to clog up the courts and exacerbate the appalling backlogs we so desperately need to clear. More and longer prison sentences will do nothing to reduce reoffending or its massive cost to society. We already imprison more people and for longer than other countries in western Europe. Our prisons are still overcrowded, understaffed and in many cases dilapidated, often serving more as academies of crime than as centres of reform. We should be reversing sentence inflation, relying on more and better community sentencing and focusing on rehabilitation and training. The Sentencing Bill will cover these issues, but this Bill betrays a lack of co-ordination across criminal justice issues
While opposing unnecessary new offences, I will relay the amendment I proposed to the Domestic Abuse Bill, to criminalise psychotherapists who exercise controlling or coercive behaviour over their patients, often vulnerable young adults. When I moved this amendment in 2021 with all-party support, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, who is now in a stronger position to influence these matters, argued that we had made a powerful case for change and said that he hoped the Government would, as he put it,
“set out a pathway to remedy this undeniably serious problem”.—[Official Report, 10/3/21; col. 1776.]
I hope to hold this Government to his word.
Finally, on police effectiveness and public confidence, and on pressure on the police and local authorities, my noble friend Lady Doocey rightly said that pressure on the police largely comes down to resources—for example, on drug testing and law enforcement. This Government, like the last, persistently understate both the shortage of resources for policing and the pressures on the police, which diminish both police effectiveness and public confidence. Public confidence means community confidence, which requires a genuine commitment to neighbourhood policing, which was addressed by my noble friend, and to ending racism and hate crime, on which the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and others spoke. We will seek progress on these issues.
I add one final point on policing and police resources. The prevalent minimum, or zero, response to so-called minor crime undermines public confidence. It is said that minimal response is acceptable for crimes that are low-level and low-value. But, just as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, described, crimes such as bike theft, car break-ins, shop theft and mobile phone, watch and bag snatches are committed on an industrial scale. Such offences may often be low-value in isolation, but these are not isolated incidents; they are largely the work of multiple repeat offenders and professional gangs. Concerted efforts to ensure they are policed more effectively would do much to restore public confidence in our policing.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, I first extend my thanks to all noble Lords for their contributions to this Second Reading debate but in particular to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, for the clarity of her opening, for which I am sure we are all grateful.
My noble and learned friend Lord Garnier opined, correctly, that passing laws is not a solution. That reflected an observation made by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, about the plague of everyday crime that already exists. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, also made the point about the need for neighbourhood policing. It might be observed that, in the period from 2010 to 2023, neighbourhood crime in England and Wales fell very substantially. That progress was hard won through local policing, prevention and firm sentencing, rather than the creation of new laws.
Of course, many of the measures in the Bill will not be effective if police funding, police numbers and police priorities cannot keep pace. The National Police Chiefs’ Council recently observed that the Lord Chancellor’s plan for police funding will result in a shortfall in England and Wales of £1.2 billion. Police forces have had to rely on borrowing to achieve the necessary delivery of services. Rather worryingly, it has been estimated that the cost of debt servicing in respect of these liabilities is projected to rise by 50% in the next three years, so we are creating a snowball of underfunding. No additional funding is available to manage the potential increase in the number of offenders coming on to our streets as the result of early release or the reduction in spending on in-prison education, all of which is liable to impact and increase recidivism.
All that said, we welcome and support many of the provisions in the Bill. This Bill follows the Criminal Justice Bill, which was introduced by the previous Government and fell after the last election. Indeed, about one-third of the clauses in the current Bill are essentially the same as those in the previous Bill. Unfortunately, this Government have left out much and introduced a watering down of much of the previous Bill’s intent, and that is what I will address.
I will begin with those provisions that should have been added back to the Bill and were the subject of proposed amendments in the other place. The Government claim to be tough on crime but have consistently resisted amendments in the other place that sought to bolster the Bill’s provisions. They are reluctant to put into statute more robust sentence guidance and have rather ducked responsibility by referring repeatedly to their proposals for a review. In particular, the Government are unwilling to introduce tougher sentencing in respect of persistent retail crime offenders; a number of noble Lords addressed that in the context of it being a social blight in many areas today. In the other place, amendments were proposed to introduce mandatory sentencing for courts dealing with repeat retail crime offenders and to introduce the requirement for the electronic tagging of repeat offenders. The response from the Government in the other place was that
“sentencing in individual cases is a matter for our independent judiciary”.—[Official Report, Commons, Crime and Policing Bill Committee, 3/4/25; col. 211.]
With the greatest of respect, I believe that that response is as empty as it is true.
Further, the Government will not commit to introducing appropriate penalties to protect farmers and tradespeople, a point that was touched on by some noble Lords. In the other place, we moved an amendment to the equipment theft Act, to ensure that fines made under the Act reflected the cost of replacing equipment stolen from farmers and tradespeople. We also proposed an amendment to the Sentencing Act 2020 to make the theft of tools from tradespeople an aggravating factor. Why should it be aggravating? That is because of the double loss. The tradesman not only loses his tools; he loses the means to carry on his trade. Can the Minister explain why such provisions will not be the subject of this Bill? It indicates an unwillingness by the Government to address these issues head on, while they instead talk of a review.
Furthermore, the Government in the other place would not commit on the maximum penalty for possession of an offensive weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence, despite their manifesto promise to reduce knife crime substantially. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, particularly in the wake of the Southport attack, argued that the proposed sentence of four years was far too low, and yet, in the other place, the Government have resisted a proposal to raise the maximum penalty for such heinous crimes from four years to 14 years. The Minister said in the other place that they will “conduct a review”.
Further, the Government have resisted an amendment to make child murder a stand-alone aggravating factor in sentencing guidelines. They have once again ceded responsibility to a separate body, rather than taking any action. In this instance, they suggest that there should be a review by the Law Commission. Perhaps the Government will then review the reviews. Normally, we expect to find that a review is a message that something is going to be placed in the long grass. It appears that, so far, the long grass is becoming unduly crowded.
I move on to some of the more pragmatic options that were recommended in the other place in order to address the issue of crime. It had been proposed that there should be an expansion of police powers of stop and search, but again that was resisted by the Government in the other place. I find this difficult to reconcile with their manifesto promise to crack down on the knife crime epidemic. The proposed amendment to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was to lower the threshold required for stop and search, albeit it would still require a perception with regard to violence. I ask the Minister to explain the logic of not embracing that simple step in order to attempt to address the knife crime epidemic.
Furthermore, in the other place, the Government were presented with two pragmatic amendments to crack down on the issue of tipping offences. That would have involved, first, making a third party responsible, where there is vicarious liability, imposing statutory guidance that the cost of removing the fly-tipping should be reflected in the penalty and that, in some instances, it should be possible to impose driving points on those who engaged in the fly-tipping. The Government’s response was to say that they would consult with Defra—I thought Defra was a part of the Government. It does not seem to me that in this instance the Government are really willing to face up to the hard need for appropriate penalties in respect to these crimes. I invite the Minister to explain why the matter should be deferred in that way.
I turn to the need for police action. In the other place, an amendment would have required that there should be regular reporting on police presence, on stop and search, and on live facial recognition in areas with the highest levels of serious crime. I regret that the Government should have resisted that, because if the public are meant to have faith in these proposals, they are surely going to be interested in knowing whether they are actually working. I invite consideration of that matter by the Government as we go on to Committee.
Some of the issues around sexual crimes and sexual abuse were touched upon by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. It was proposed that, with regard to the offence of spiking, which is so obviously related to sexual offences, there should be a test of recklessness rather than intent. When you consider the nature of the crime, it seems perfectly sensible that recklessness should be the appropriate test. The Government have argued that adding recklessness to the relevant statutory test would create confusion. I would welcome the Minister’s explanation as to what confusion he anticipates that simple amendment to the test would create. Those are the matters that we must immediately consider for amendment going forward, if we are to introduce proper teeth to these proposals.
Finally, I will address a further matter that should be removed by virtue of this Bill. It has been touched on already by the noble Lord, Lord Young: non-crime hate incidents. They have a chilling effect on free speech. They divert precious police time away from tackling very real crimes. Indeed, it is reported that over 13,000 of these non-crime hate incidents are now being logged each year, consuming an estimated 60,000 hours of police time. It is time, in my respectful submission, for that to be properly addressed, not by a review but by a proper consideration of the policy that lies behind this. We find ourselves in line with the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Young, that this should be addressed in the Bill.
This Bill is intended to be a step forward in addressing crime and policing. Unfortunately, it also risks being two steps back. The Government should not persistently avoid hard and necessary decisions by deferring to wide, non-specific powers of sentencing or the wish for review after review. We can act now to significantly improve our means to tackle crime and to determine specific policies on punishment, as the original Conservative Bill intended. I hope that we can raise the present Bill to that necessary standard. The Bill has much to commend it, but it has much more to improve.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
I am grateful to the almost 70 speakers in today’s debate. I start by declaring an interest on my own behalf. I am a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and have been for 46 years. That will obviously have an impact on my view of the measures on shop theft and assaults on shop workers.
I am pleased tonight to have the broad support of HM Opposition and, indeed, the broad support of the Liberal Democrat Benches—with some caveats from both. I look forward to the noble and learned Lord’s amendments in Committee. I cannot give him a response tonight on those details, but we will have plenty of time to discuss that. In saying that, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, the noble Baronesses, Lady Browning and Lady Fox of Buckley, and others mentioned the length of time for debate and the size of the Bill. Indeed, so did my noble friend Lord Hacking. We will have time for that, and it will be discussed through the usual channels. I look forward to a full and frank debate on this matter in due course.
The Bill deals with a number of key issues, and Members have talked about a theme in it. There are several themes in this Bill: making our communities safe, strengthening child sexual abuse prevention, tackling anti-social behaviour and knife crime and, dare I say it, supporting free speech—while at the same time ensuring that we have some measures on protests. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Lords, Lord Frost and Lord Vaizey, and indeed my noble friend Lord Hacking said that there is a mixture in this Bill, that it does not have a theme and that it is very large. It is a government programme, much of it based on a manifesto commitment. As my noble friend Lady Levitt mentioned in her excellent maiden speech from this Front Bench on a Second Reading debate, it is a manifesto commitment from the Government to do most of the things in this Bill, and therefore we are going to do most of the things in it, with the support of this House and the House of Commons.
A lot of issues in the debate have been about legislative proposals, certainly, but we have touched on neighbourhood policing, courts, speeding, police presence, speeding up justice, police numbers, et cetera. My noble friend Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate mentioned that. The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, talked about delivery, which is extremely important. Those things are not in the Bill, but they are extremely important matters that are before us today.
I shall concentrate, if I may, on what is actually in the Bill and the points that have been debated by noble Lords today. Let me start with respect orders and youth diversion orders, which were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. Respect orders are a substantial new power that gives police and authorities effective levers to deal with anti-social behaviour. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, made some criticism of them and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, challenges them as well. We believe them to be an effective tool, and we will have a chance to debate that in due course in Committee.
Youth diversion orders are an important measure. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, that we will come back to them, but they are designed to help prevent terrorism and prevent people drifting into terrorism.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey, Lady Stowell, Lady Hazarika and Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lords, Lord Herbert, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Davies of Gower, all raised the issue of shop theft. Shop theft is extremely important, and something we should not tolerate. That is why we are removing the £200 threshold, are putting a focus on it with policing and have encouraged police forces to tackle it. The measures that we are removing will send a signal. It is still for judicial discretion, but it will send a very strong signal—as will, on the issue of mobile phone theft, giving tracking powers for officers to be able to visit a premise straightaway. I look forward to debating them, but it is important to take action.
The issue closest to my heart in this Bill is that of retail workers and attacks on retail workers. The noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell, Lady Doocey, Lady Thornton, Lady Browning and Lady Fox, and my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton contributed to this debate. This is a long-standing campaign, which is why I declare my membership of USDAW. When in the House of Commons I moved amendments on this issue over many years, and I appreciate very much the support of my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton and the members of USDAW, along with the businesses—the Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and others—that have raised this issue. The new offence will put in place an obligation to ensure that those who uphold the law—which is what colleagues do in shops on solvent abuse, cigarette sales and alcohol—are also protected by the law. I hope that will have good support.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
Before the Minister moves on, will he respond to my question? Why have the Government decided to legislate only for that group of workers?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The argument I will put to the noble Baroness now is that shop workers are upholding the law on solvent abuse, alcohol, cigarette sales and other things. There will be representations on other areas, and we will examine those representations, but I really want to get this over the line after a long campaign. I hope that the noble Baroness will support those measures, whatever amendments she may bring forward.
There has been considerable debate around civil liberties from the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, Lady Chakrabarti, Lady Doocey and Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, my noble friend Lord Cashman and others. We are making some changes, and we will bring some further changes forward, but the principle of this is that we are trying to ensure that we have freedom of speech and the right to protest, but that we also have the right to ensure that protest is managed in an effective way. There are responsibilities in protest as well as the right to protest.
We have looked at the question of the Vagrancy Act; the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned that in particular. The Government have been clear that no one should be criminalised, which is why we are repealing the outdated 1824 Act. We are committed to a repeal of the Vagrancy Act once a replacement can be determined. I hope that clarifies that for him.
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, among many other issues that I will come back to in a moment, raised the issue of policing and suicide. We are working closely with the National Police Wellbeing Service to examine that.
There has been a major debate from noble Lords and noble Baronesses on the question of child exploitation, child sexual abuse and the IICSA implementation. The noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Hamwee, Lady Royall, Lady Benjamin, Lady Kidron, Lady Cash and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Faulks, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and others all raised and discussed that issue. We are going to have a big debate on this. We are trying to meet the IICSA recommendations. The Private Member’s Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, stretches us a bit further. We will have a discussion around that. I hope that this Bill, at the end of its process in this House, will have achieved an improvement in child protection services as a whole.
We have also had a discussion around the big issue of abortion, raised by many Members: the noble Baronesses, Lady Spielman, Lady O’Loan, Lady Coffey, Lady Mattinson, Lady Hazarika, Lady Thornton, Lady Lawlor and Lady Monckton, the noble Lords, Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, Lord Jackson, Lord Frost, Lord Farmer and Lord Hampton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. There are different pressures on that: some want that provision taken out and some want it maintained. The Government will remain neutral on this matter and facilitate whatever Parliament agrees and settles on in the end. We will look at those issues, and the Government will have a free vote on that matter as a whole.
The issue of police misconduct and police vetting was raised very strongly by my noble friend Lady Lawrence, the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, and others, particularly in the light of the “Panorama” investigation we touched on in Question Time today. There are a number of measures in the Bill to support strengthening police vetting, and I very much welcome those and hope they will be looked at positively in the future.
Knife crime was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Hampton, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Birt, and my noble friend Lady Lawrence. Again, the measures in the Bill are designed to regulate the supply of knives by people who wish to use those knives in a way that is not conducive to good behaviour and that causes death, misery and injury. We have to take those actions, and I think it is important that we do so.
There has been a lot of discussion around the issue of hate crime. First of all, I want to touch on the issue raised by my noble friends Lady Donaghy and Lord Cashman and the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green: the aggravated offence. It was a Labour manifesto commitment at the general election. We are carefully considering now how best to amend the law to ensure the protected characteristics have that fairness. We will set out our conclusions later, during the passage of the Bill, but that commitment has been given and we will examine that in due course.
That leads me on to the question, a live issue for noble Lords, of non-crime hate incidents. The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, indicated very strongly what has happened in relation to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and I am grateful to him for his support in giving the review on this matter. We have recently had discussions from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and others in the House, including the noble Lord, Lord Young, about this matter, and we are going to have a debate about it, but I am hoping that the review that the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, has instigated will help colour whatever amendments are brought forward. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned it as well. It is important that we have that debate and discussion, but I want it to be influenced by the review from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, if noble Lords think that is appropriate.
A number of noble Lords mentioned the pornography review, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, in particular for the work she has done on that. The noble Baronesses, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, Lady Kidron and Lady Sugg, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and my noble friend Lady Donaghy all made contributions today on the pornography review. We are committed to taking any necessary action following consideration of the noble Baroness’s recommendations. We have committed to criminalising pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation in this Bill, and we will bring forward an amendment to that effect. Where we can, in relation to the recommendations of the noble Baroness’s report, we will take early action to undertake that as a whole.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned honour-based abuse, and I am grateful to her—I was looking for her, and she was there when we started but has now moved over there. She called for a statutory definition of so-called honour-based abuse, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. We will work closely with the honour-based abuse sector to develop that statutory definition. We have given that commitment. I agree that it is vital that all professionals with safeguarding responsibilities have the right framework to identify victims and perpetrators, and I will be looking at that during the passage of this Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, mentioned spiking. It is an important measure and, again, I will reflect on the points she made in this discussion.
I was pleased by the welcome from the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, for the measures on cuckolding—
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Cuckooing, not cuckolding. Sorry, it has been a long day in the Chamber today—apart from a very quick 20-second call of nature, I have been in for the whole day. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support for that measure as a whole.
We have also had a range of new ideas for the Bill, and I look forward—honestly—to developing and arguing and having a discussion around the amendments during the passage of the Bill.
I am happy to meet any Members, if I can, who are going to raise those issues. I have firearms and cycling from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. Historical weapons were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, takes an interest in that. I have had measures on child abuse from the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. I have transport issues from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, deceased children from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the chatbot issues. I have new proposals on cyber-digital from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, The noble Lord, Lord Walney, raised a number of issues to do with the terrorism review.
I have universal jurisdiction from my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. I have the cumulative impact issues from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. I have facial recognition from the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. I have vehicle non-compliance from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I have fraud from the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Birt, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Coffey. On all those things, I am happy to meet and discuss. Let us look at what is tabled, let us look at what is put down, and the Government will reflect on it. We may disagree at the end, but let us have that discussion as a whole.
On the fraud issue, from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, in particular, I am the Government’s first Fraud Minister—Anti-Fraud Minister, really, but is called Fraud Minister for the purposes of the discussion here today. I have a challenge from the Government to produce a new fraud strategy. We are in the process of working on that. By January or February of next year, there will be a three-year fraud strategy, which will cover some of the points that the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Birt, and others mentioned.
I know that facial recognition issues are important to the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, and I want to ensure that we examine those.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, and others made representations about the stalking measures in the Bill. I hope they will welcome those, but we will have a debate around that in due course.
My noble friend Lady Whitaker argued for the repeal of the provisions on encampments in Part 4 of the Police Act. We are aware of the High Court ruling and of the points made there. We will consider how best to respond in due course and will do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, again mentioned the recording of offences of intimate images. I am not sure we are going to agree on some of these issues, but at least I look forward to the amendments in due course if they are brought forward.
I also note the points from the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, which I will reflect on and look at in due course.
This is indeed a very large Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act and the implementation of that for farmers. We are looking now at when we can implement that and trying to bring the necessary regulations later this year—so I can give him the answer and support on that.
Although it is very rushed, I think I have covered every point raised by every Member who has spoken in the debate today. I may not have satisfied every Member, but I hope I have recognised that—
Lord Cromwell (CB)
Can I make the briefest of interruptions? That is a terrific to-do list and I congratulate the Minister on a spectacular summation. The one thing that has not really been touched on, which I think almost all of us spoke about, is resources. How are we going to pay for it?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Again, the Bill covers a range of legislative options on a range of matters. In parallel to that, there are two other aspects of work. We will produce a policing White Paper very shortly, which will look at some of the issues in policing and how we can improve efficiencies. With the National Police Chiefs’ Council and colleagues and police and crime commissioners, we will look at how we can get better value and better focus on the key policing issues that Members have talked about today.
The very point that the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and others have mentioned—about delivery, about use of resources, about focus and about asking what the police do on particular issues—is extremely important. It is absolutely vital that we focus the police on government priorities. Aside from the police White Paper, we have issues with police funding and budgets. We have given £1.2 billion extra this year to policing. There is a challenging settlement, but our job is to get better value out of that. But I think there is commonality between all of us in the Chamber today that the issues that matter to people are anti-social behaviour, shop theft, violence against women and girls and child sexual abuse. Although there are many policing priorities, those are things that this legislation is dealing with. Therefore, we are hoping that the resources and focus will follow the legislation. The work we have done already—putting an extra 3,000 neighbourhood police on the ground and focusing on neighbourhood policing—means that over the next two to three years we try to increase the number of forward-facing neighbourhood police officers on the ground.
Nobody expects that there will be no challenge in all this, but the purpose of this Bill is to give legislative framework to government manifesto commitments. I think it meets a number of important objectives. There will be debate between Members; there will be differences; there will be votes; there may not be a meeting of minds on certain issues. But I am hopeful that, when this process is over, this Bill will pass, that it will be put into effect and that Members of this House and the House of Commons will hold the Home Office to account for making sure that we reduce crime, increase confidence in policing and make sure that there are fewer victims in the future. I commend the Bill to the House.
Lord Hanson of Flint
That the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 5, Schedule 2, Clause 6, Schedule 3, Clauses 7 to 18, Schedule 4, Clauses 19 to 55, Schedule 5, Clause 56, Schedule 6, Clauses 57 to 65, Schedule 7, Clauses 66 to 72, Schedule 8, Clauses 73 to 84, Schedule 9, Clauses 85 to 96, Schedule 10, Clauses 97 to 117, Schedule 11, Clauses 118 to 122, Schedule 12, Clauses 123 to 127, Schedule 13, Clauses 128 to 136, Schedule 14, Clauses 137 to 139, Schedule 15, Clauses 140 to 145, Schedules 16 to 18, Clauses 146 to 164, Schedule 19, Clauses 165 to 186, Schedule 20, Clause 187, Schedule 21, Clauses 188 to 203, Title.