Lords Chamber

Tuesday 27th January 2026

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11:17
11:18
Lord Hogan-Howe Portrait Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench)
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Support and move Lord Bailey's amendment, which I have added my name to. In fact, all three name to. In fact, all three amendments in this group. The reason for the amendments is because the Police Federation of England and Wales are concerned, England and Wales are concerned, and the concern because they believe that they are not sure that the there is an increased rate of suicide amongst police officers and a similar concern around police staff, for those who do not know, but obviously about two thirds of the police work is done by police officers, about a third by employees who are police staff.

Now, there was so concerned because they intuitively thought that the numbers were rising. They sent out FOI requests to each of the 43 forces. In fact, there's another three. The three Non-home office forces, and they only got 34 replies, which has not helped them in determining whether there is a real problem. So they could be worried and no cause. But at the moment they're struggling to establish the facts. So the difficulty is they cannot get hold of the data. I really concerned about this because it seems to me it shouldn't be that difficult.

I suspect even if the numbers of suicides are increasing, they're probably going to be hundreds. Even amongst a workforce of quarter of a million. It's probably a relatively small number, probably tens rather than hundreds. So even for the biggest organisations, you would think that they would be able to find this data. And for the smallest forces, surely they can remember the individuals. Some of the smaller forces we heard in police reform yesterday, about 1000 people. So they're not going to be that many that small forces couldn't remember who this shocking thing had happened to, because police officers generally and police staff are generally relatively young people.

They don't tend to die when they're in service and when they die through suicide. It's a terrible shock for for everybody who's involved. There are complications in gathering this data because, as Lord Bailey amendment remarks, they would be helpful not only to get the data about those who have committed suicide, but all those also those who have attempted it, the establishing of whether something is a suicide or not relies on a coroner. That's the only absolute way in which we can say for definite there is a suicide.

And sometimes, to be fair, coroners are sympathetic. They realise that this can be fatal to the family, like a judgement, and often they will find any way that they can to, in law, find an alternative. So getting all the data can be difficult. And of course in terms of attempts, then who can say what an attempt is? There's no absolute proof of that. I suspect the occupational health units in each of the 43 forces does have some data, because that's medical data, which they cannot always share with the employer if it's relevant just for that person, it's not relevant to employment.

And it's a confidential issue that the individual wants to be kept quiet but not quiet, but kept secret confidential, then that's entirely up to them. And the occupational health units may not be able to share it. But of course it is vital we get this data for a couple of reasons. One, to establish patterns if there are patterns. So for example, is it cert rolls? We know already that certain officers and staff who view, for example, child abuse images as part of their general work, it's a pretty awful job.

And to have to sustain that over months and years, even all the welfare support they get, might be an area that we'd be worried if we saw that there was an increase in the number of suicides, firearms officers, dog handlers, it doesn't really matter. The roll. It may be male or female. We just need to understand what it is, obviously to try and prevent it. I think the final thing that I'd like to mention is something that I think what worries me about the fact we can't get hold of this data because I think it ought to be possible, at least to get some of it, is what it's saying about the relationship with the chief officers and the police Federation, the unions.

There is a statutory requirement for the chiefs personally to meet with the head of the federation every quarter, and also with the unions. I know that I'm sure my colleagues will also explain that. But beyond that formal requirement, we also meet informally with them, usually about once a month. We also meet Chiefs should be meeting their federation reps at things like bravery awards and various other internal mechanisms. It's hard to imagine if they're concerned they haven't mentioned it, and if they have mentioned it, why aren't they got a response? Why has it ended up with an FOI request which has been badly answered? I'm afraid in three three quarters.

In fact, some of those who didn't reply were the biggest force of all, because sometimes people take that 30 odd out of 40 odd is three quarters. It's three quarters of forces. But some of the forces are very big, some are very small. So we really haven't got any representative data. And my final point is for the Home Office is obviously there are broadly two amendments here. One is a very detailed one that Lord Bailey put forward about not only how the data is gathered, but also what's done with it afterwards.

My amendment is just that the Home Office might want to collect this data, but it does make me wonder has the Home Office asked for it? And have they also been refused it? And perhaps the Home Office could be interested as well? Because I think the two reasons it's really important. One, it matters whether people are committing suicide in their employment to establish is it their employment that's causing it, or is there something else that the employer has got absolutely nothing to do with, but might have been able to help had they had some sensitivity to the, the, the problems that their staff are facing.

And finally, in terms of policing, it's about care. And I think for those who served, then you have to look after each other. My test is always at 3:00 in the morning when everybody else has gone home. You can't call the police. If you're you've got a problem, you've got to ring. You've got to remind your colleagues. So it's vitally important for any employer to look after, care for their staff because they want better performance, and they want to make sure that they're able to do what they're paying the salary for.

But in policing and emergency services in particular, you've got to rely on each other and you've got to look after each other. And this is probably the worst example where if if that isn't done properly or there's anything that you could do to help a person and they take their own life and we could have noticed, surely we'd all want to do something about that. And so for many reasons, I think it matters. And that's why I support Lord Bailey amendment and make the one that I mentioned I put forward for myself.
11:25
Lord Bach Portrait Lord Bach (Labour)
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I assume the noble Lord would like to move his amendment. >> I would like to move my amendment, I do apologise. >> Amendment proposed after clause 166, insert the new clause as printed on the Marshalled List.

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My Lords, I put my name to

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My Lords, I put my name to amendment 435 and of course, support the noble Lord Lord support the noble Lord Lord Hogan-Howe amendment for 138 a in this group I remind the Committee this group I remind the Committee that I served as the elected Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland for five years between 2016 and 2021 and I welcome this initiative by the Police Federation of England and Wales and of, say, in passing.

I'm proud to say that its chairman is a. Leicestershire Police officer, Tiff Lynch. At the present time, who I'm can call a friend as police and crime commissioner, I was responsible for the well-being. This is true about all police and crime commissioners, and perhaps not widely known of only one person, and that was the Chief constable. However, of course, as any police and crime commissioner would be, I was obviously concerned in a broader sense with the wellbeing of all those who worked for Leicestershire Police, whether officers or staff, during my time.

One senior officer took his own life in obviously tragic circumstances and since I left, left office, there's been another suicide, this time by a very recently retired senior officer. I'm afraid to say that over the last 30 years there have been four senior officer suicides in that force. I don't have any information concerning police staff, but I can remember clearly and won't easily forget the deep and lasting distress caused to all at police headquarters and beyond and the community by the death of the officer who took his life.

In my time, I have to confess to not knowing at the time that all police forces were not compelled by law to pass on information about suicide or attempted suicide. I imagine I presumed that they were compelled to do so. It surely obvious, certainly to me, that there should be mandatory reporting, and I cannot for the life of me, understand why that hasn't been the position up until now. That's why shortly I support these amendments and urge my noble friend the Minister, with his great knowledge of policing matters as well, to express the government's acceptance of the principle behind these amendments.

It almost goes without saying that police staff who perform such a vital and necessary role can be subject to enormous pressures that sometimes we don't even know about, and, of course, are rightly included in the mandatory reporting. This is a reform, my Lords, which should not be delayed. This bill is perhaps a useful vehicle for bringing in what
11:29
Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington Portrait Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington (Crossbench)
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should have been there a long time ago. My Lords, I also rise in ago. My Lords, I also rise in support of this amendment and support of this amendment and follow on from my noble friend friends on what they have said. Now, policing is a difficult, dangerous policing is a difficult, dangerous and stressful task. I have for many years referred to police officers as the men and women who are dustbin collectors of society. They will go where other people do not want to go, and I would like to take my information source beyond what my two noble Lords have also mentioned.

My son did 32 years in the police service, just retired as a senior detective running one of the most difficult parts of the Metropolitan Police, now has a very senior role in government, and over the last 2 to 3 years, he and his friends have reported how people are either thinking about committing suicide, have attempted suicide or in his command over about 18 months to committed suicide. Now, it is a difficult question of whether and how you deal with a suicide.

It's sensitive information. People shy away from information. People shy away from it, understandably, but there is no doubt that we have a problem policing in terms of suicide. My own 30 years experience of Northern Ireland and taking people into the most difficult situation in policing that has ever been undertaken. More of that will be later, no doubt at a public inquiry. And what has been disclosed recently. Out of 28 people I went in all hand-picked into Northern Ireland on the so-called Stevens one.

Four of them never came back to policing. Two of them. I referred to the force medical officer who, thinking of committing suicide, those people never reached the statistics. And like the noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe, I was an inspector of constabulary for nearly two years, inspecting many forces across the country, from the largest to the smallest, and one of the most important roles of the inspector at that case, and we have discussed this, is that we went and looked at the sickness rates of that force.

If you found the sickness rates were very high, performance was low, morale was low, and you did dig deeper, but it was difficult to find out where suicide played a role or if it played a role at all. But we have a problem here. And this, I think, if I might say so, to the noble Minister, who's always very supportive, may well be a nudge in the right direction. Some of us, as old men, do, have dinner parties, meet up for a glass of now and again.

And the information I'm getting someone from my old colleagues and current colleagues who I have to keep in contact with because of the activities we are now about to be involved in, in terms of Northern Ireland, is that there is a problem here. Now, I can understand why some chiefs will shy away from that. And we have a police commissioner here who did a superb job. Not many of them do or did, but he did. And I have to say, if you listen to what he has to say and what Lord Hogan-Howe has to say and what my information is, we need to do something.

Now. Maybe this amendment is too long and complex for it actually to stand the test of examination, but there is an amendment further on which has been submitted by Lord Hogan-Howe, which is short, sharp and to the point, and holds the kernel of what we're dealing with. So for me, I support the amendments, I support the final amendment, whichever way Lord Hogan-Howe wants to go. But let's have a look at it. What is there to hide behind these figures? Why has this survey come back with very, very little information in it? As a chief constable, a commissioner and an HMRC, that is not good enough.

And I don't believe that the Home Office should be treated in such a way. Thank you. Well done.
11:34
11:35
Baroness Doocey Portrait Baroness Doocey (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, from these benches there's strong support for there's strong support for amendments 435 and four, three, eight A which would finally shine a light on one of the most sensitive light on one of the most sensitive and least discussed aspects of police welfare, suicide and attempted suicide among officers and staff. This is not about apportioning blame, but about creating conditions in which people can seek help early and leaders cannot look away. Nearly two years ago, I sought this very information and was assured that work was happening to collate it.

Yet no figures have emerged, leaving families, colleagues and policymakers in the dark still awaiting clarity and transparency. These amendments would ensure bereaved families do not feel their loss has been silently absorbed, while confronting the lingering stigma about mental ill health in policing. Policing demands a particular duty of care that transcends the ordinary employer employee relationship, as the state requires officers to face repeated trauma unparalleled in any other walk of life. We're now operating in what many describe as a crisis policing model, where officers spend most of their time dealing with the darkest parts of human experience, with far fewer opportunities to balance that with visible, neighbourhood based work.

In the past, time spent on community policing would lift them out of the dark place. Today, that relief is much, much weaker. Much of the informal support that once existed has disappeared. Officers used to have shared spaces where they could decompress together at the end of a shift, but those communal areas have largely gone from staff shining sorry, from staff sifting through distressing online material every day to frontline officers facing the increasing likelihood of physical assault, the psychological strain is relentless.

This feeds a siege mentality in a service that still struggles to recognise emotion and is not naturally open. Policing remains an environment where taking paternity leave can invite mockery, and where the burden can fall, especially heavily on women and minority officers. Amid unreported discrimination in too many forces, officers still fear that admitting vulnerability will derail their career progression. My Lords, if Parliament seeks people to shoulder that burden on our behalf, it must insist on collecting basic information, tracking suicides and attempted suicides would pinpoint hotspots and high risk groups, enabling proactive measures like resilient training, peer support and routine psychological screening.

I would urge the Minister to take these amendments back to the Home Office and consider bringing report.
11:38
Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative)
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My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Bailey of noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-howe, for bringing this matter to the attention of the matter to the attention of the Committee. The noble Lord Lord Hogan-Howe and the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, Wellington. And I know all too well the stresses and strains of policing, and it is vital that more is done to support our officers. So I approach these amendments from the fact that it is impossible to address what we do not measure.

And at this moment, policing has almost no reliable national mechanism for measuring accurately the total number of police suicides. Data from the Police Federation of England and Wales shows that more than 100 police officers and staff have died by suicide between 2022 and 2025, with at least 70 officer deaths and over 200 attempted suicides in that period. These figures are likely undercounts because there is no statutory requirement for forces to record such events. The federation has also revealed troubling trends in how these incidents are linked with organisational stresses, notably that 47 of 70 suicides and 173 of 236 attempted suicides identified by them between 2022 and 2025, involved officers under investigation for misconduct or criminal allegations.

Now, this is not simply a statistic. It is a human tragedy that echoes through families, colleagues and communities. As already been said, police forces are not required to record suicide or attempted suicide, meaning the true scale of the problem is hidden from view, and national suicide statistics do not treat policing as a risk occupation as they should, and without a statutory duty to record and report. We are asking police leaders to act in good faith alone, with widely inconsistent results to the largest police forces in England and Wales reportedly could not provide their own figures.

When the federation asked. These amendments would end this inconsistency by placing responsibility for data collection and publication on a statutory footing. This amendment is not a step taken in isolation from policing leadership. The National Police Chiefs Council and the College of Policing are already committed to suicide prevention across the service. They have jointly endorsed a national consensus statement on working together to prevent suicide in the police service in England and Wales, acknowledging the importance of reducing stigma and improving wellbeing.

The College of Policing also leads a national suicide prevention guidance and professional practice, emphasising the duty of forces to recognise inherent risk factors associated with police work and to promote and to promote supportive interventions. But guidance and consensus alone cannot ensure consistent national reporting or create the accountability that comes from an annual report laid before Parliament, one that analyses trends, contributory factors and the effectiveness of support mechanisms under the police covenant. Requiring chief constables to certify compliance and linking non-compliance to inspection through Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services ensures that this is not simply a bureaucratic exercise, but a real driver for change.

But without consistent mandatory data, these efforts lack the firm foundation needed to evaluate progress and target interventions where they are most needed. My Lords, we on these benches fully support these amendments.
11:42
Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint (Labour)
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My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord Hogan-howe for highlighting the amendments that he has put before the Committee today and also to the noble Lord Bailey of Paddington, although not in his place, as tabled the amendments. Also today, the importance of collecting accurate and consistent data for police officers and staff suicide is is certainly very relevant, and I am particularly noting that the noble Lord Stevens, noble Lord Hogan-howe, my noble friend Lord Bach, have a very significant senior level of experience in these areas.

I'm grateful also for the comments of the Right reverend noble Lord Sentamu for his support on this, and I've noted and recognised the strong support from the noble Lady Baroness Doocey and the noble Lord Davies of Gower, from the opposition benches for the proposals in the amendments. Every life lost to suicide is a tremendous tragedy. And when that person is part of our police workforce, that loss is even deeper, because those officers, as have been said, walk towards danger, see things that everyday citizens do not see.

And I think it's only fair that we do support them, but at the same care and commitment that they show to us. It may help the Committee to know that. I met with the Police Fed chair Tiff Lynch last year, where she raised these matters with me. I have to say that this is an issue and that we must do our utmost to protect and support police officers, and this government agrees that understanding the scale and nature of the problem is absolutely essential, and I think it's important that we do so for one of the reasons that the noble Lord Hogan-Howe said, I think it's really important that we understand whether any levels of suicide are linked specifically to a policing role or linked to factors outside of policing, which policing may or may not exacerbate, and also what measures can be taken, as in any walk of life, to help support and encourage individuals who have mental health challenges or experiences that drive them to suicide.

And that's why, again, as a government, we're actively considering the best options for achieving this, both in terms of legislation and also in legislative routes also, so that we can deliver meaningful and sustainable improvements without creating what I think are unnecessary burdens. But I was struck again that the survey that the Police Federation undertook didn't receive a significant response. It was a large response, but it wasn't a significant response given the nature of the issue that was raised.

Now, currently through the National Police Wellbeing Service and the Chief Medical Officer for policing, the government is already working to strengthen existing data collection and to improve the consistency, timeliness of information across forces, and we are now requesting more data than ever before. Now is that enough? I would say to the mover of the amendments today that I can inform him that the Policing Minister directly. Sarah Jones, MP, is currently now considering further options for mandating this data collection, including potentially strengthening the police covenant.

And and this is an important point for all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. The potential for legislation if this proves necessary. Now, my noble friends will understand that this is a matter for discussion. We need to consult the stakeholders. The police Chiefs Council need to be engaged. The police fed need to be engaged. And my right hon. Friend, the Minister, Sarah Jones MP, has just this very last week, now convened a round table of stakeholders to examine the best routes forward to achieve the objectives that both amendments sets have highlighted today.

So that Round Table will take place shortly. And again, I think it's it's fair to say that that's a discussion around how we improve data collection. But if necessary, do we need legislation to force that data collection. And I hope that is a considered approach to what is a vital issue that has been raised by noble Lords in the chamber and Committee today. I also say to the movers of the amendment that alongside this there are existing mechanisms, including the Police Covenant, Clinical Governance Group and the National Police Chiefs Council Suicide Prevention Steering Group, who are also currently providing robust oversight, expert guidance and continuous improvement in suicide prevention and mental health support in the police service.

But what is clear from the committee's debate today and from the amendments brought forward is the good data does matter, but I think all noble Lords will accept that data alone does not save lives. We need to look at how we can support the workforce, including mandatory training on trauma, mandatory training on suicide prevention and introducing an overarching mandatory wellbeing standards service for policing. And in the Reform White Paper, which we made in this House, get a chance to discuss later in this week, but which was published yesterday in the House of Commons.

Those issues are central to the Reform White Paper. As I've said, the government is committed to getting this right. We want to look at a range of options. We want to ensure that the change is genuinely strengthened. Existing frameworks. We want to ensure they don't develop too much bureaucracy, but the objectives of the amendments to get data from police forces, which can look at what the reasons are and how we can help prevent those potential suicides or risk of suicides are extremely important.

I hope, having heard what I've said, that the noble Lord can for today at least withdraw his amendment in committee, I will obviously keep the House updated as to the outcomes of the round table that has been organised, and the Round Table have emerged to say the committee's amendment is helpful. But the round table was an initiative that the government were doing prior to the Committee stage of this bill, and one that I know we want to see through. We want to get this right.

It's absolutely important. I'm grateful to noble Lords for raising it today, but I would ask them to, at this stage at least, anyway, withdraw the amendment. Given what I've said.
11:49
Lord Hogan-Howe Portrait Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench)
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Can I just thank the Minister for such a constructive response? And of course, thank everybody for their support. Lord Bach made a particular point that I want. I've not made in my speech, but I wanted to amplify, which is that in collecting the data to consider people on at least 12 months after retirement, because if there is a link to and he mentioned one particular case, but we can all perhaps imagine others that would be interesting to to look at. I hope we don't have to end up with legislation, because in a way it's an admission of failure.

I think. I think there's far better ways of achieving it. Without that, all the bureaucracy that Lord Sentamu mentioned. Thank you to Lord Stevens for his usual powerful support for this and that common sense. This needs sorting out. And I think there was no challenge on that from the Minister. And of course, Baroness Doocey and Lord Davis for their wholehearted support for this. I want to say finally, it just seems to me it's really important for a couple of things that come up in the debate.

One, as Lord Davis mentioned, the potential link to misconduct processes. Yeah, if that is an issue, then we need to understand why we had a an amendment from Lord Bailey on a previous committee B, which was about potential deadlines or timelines for how long these things are taking that can't be unconnected. But whatever it is, we need to understand what it's about. And there's a second very important HR issue, which is that obviously we're recruiting people who understand the nature of the job that they're about to embark on.

Are we actually sharing the nature of the challenges that we supported at the beginning? If they have things that they're not sure about, but it's really important for the reasons we've all talked about, to make sure that this happens. I'm really reassured about the round table. Be really helpful if my Report stage, we've got a definite way forward because I can see the various routes forward, but at that

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I, I just beg leave to withdraw my amendment and thank the government for its response. The Lord system, can I just

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The Lord system, can I just raise one point with him? It seems to me, and certainly reflecting on to me, and certainly reflecting on my police service, that one of the issues regarding suicide simply was issues regarding suicide simply was the fact that police managers were unable to identify the issues when unable to identify the issues when they arose. And I wonder whether he, as a former commissioner, indeed, and part of the inspectorate has a

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view on that. Yeah, I think it's I think Lord Bates makes a really good point, which is, are we training our managers and supervisors to recognise the signs? And I say the second issue might be, I think, for good reason. Occupational health units keep all this data together units keep all this data together privately. But if the risk is well, Steven mentioned it was a referral to the medical officer to see to the medical officer to see whether or not there was a problem.

I wonder how many referrals are coming back. The other way to let the manager know this person might have an issue, not necessarily to talk about suicide, but so there is a stress issue here and they may need some support. There is the issue. Has it become a one way valve in protecting privacy, have reduced their safety. So I think

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there are many facets to it which hopefully the roundtable might address. Is it your Lordships pleasure

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Is it your Lordships pleasure the amendment be withdrawn? The amendment is by leave withdrawn.

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amendment is by leave withdrawn. Amendment 436, the Baroness Neville-Rolfe. My Lords, I rise to move my

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My Lords, I rise to move my amendments 436 and 437. And I'd like to start by thanking my noble like to start by thanking my noble friend Lord Jackson for his support on the crucial issue of police force, publication of enforcement
11:52
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11:53
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative)
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equivalent. As I explained at Second Reading, I have discovered in my long career in business and in my long career in business and in government that enforcement of the law is as important as the rules and regulations themselves. This is as true for neighbourhood policing as it is for serious crime, and I think far too little is being done. I also believe in the power of comparative statistics as a driver of performance and success. As I agree with the noble Lord Lord Timpson during the sentencing Bill debate, good leadership and management.

So the manager of a store the prison governor is the best predictor in the police, although I would be interested to hear from the Minister at what level. That is true in the police structure. However, it is not possible to identify and promote the best without comparative data heads. My amendment takes five areas of public concern, which we have already debated, and which the great British public care about shoplifting offences involving a blade, phone theft, fare dodging on public transport and offences involving bicycles and e-scooters.

It would require police forces individually to publish annual data, so not a great burden on the investigation and collection of evidence in preparation for prosecution. It needs to be accessible to the public and parliamentarians can see it and hold police forces to account. They will also be able to see how others are doing and learn from that success. It will, I suspect, help to reveal the scale of wasted effort. All those cases of burglary, shoplifting and theft. Many are not pursued despite good evidence from the victim because of the bureaucracy and even indifference of the system and the poor.

IT integration between the CPS and courts, which we've discussed on other occasions. It will help to focus on the right things, away from prosecutions for tweets, and back to the peelite principle that police need to be part of the community they serve. My Lords, the sunlit of publicity would help to drive necessary change. And I would say to the Minister that data does help people to do the right thing and to take timely and sensible action. But I'd be interested in knowing from the Minister how much of such data of that proposed in my amendment is already collected, and how accurate it is, so that we can assess how difficult the change would be.

Amendment 437 seeks to tackle the huge bureaucracy that the police services have become, with energetic police, women and men weighed down by requirements. The effect is to drain resource from the front line and our pavements. This bill indeed just adds to such requirements rather than the reverse. Unfortunately, we can't solve the problem today, which is why I proposed a review of police paperwork. It needs to be led by an outsider with a passion for cutting red tape and looking to experience elsewhere, such as lean thinking in business, which we found very useful in the supermarkets.

Yeah, that's another huge employer of well-trained and decent people. The review could also look at the IT and AI systems, linking police to the courts, to the CPS and to other enforcement bodies. I believe that this huge scope to reduce and simplify paperwork and its online equivalent, the Minister may know that there is already a Police Federation campaign known, curiously as simplify DG six. It aims to tackle the bureaucracy around disclosure, which sees both uniformed and detective officers tied up for hours.

Police officers are required to redact files that go to the CPS in order for them to decide whether there is sufficient evidence to charge an offender. The Federation believe that a data bubble allows unredacted information to be exchanged between the police and the CPS, before a charging decision would free up thousands of policing hours every year. Redactions could then be completed by the police. If a person is to be charged. My Lords, I know from my own business experience that taking a proper look at such processes can yield huge productivity savings.

I hope the Minister will look at the proposals in our amendment seriously, and not just refer me to the police reform package announced yesterday. The Wild west of street crime is here today. But as the government has made clear, their reforms will take years to bring in. They will also increase and not decrease paperwork. My Lords are a bad apples in the police like everywhere. However, the idea of regularly requiring a licence to practise for every police constable is not necessary and will reduce efficiency, cost a fortune and lead to a mushrooming of accreditation and training paperwork or its online filing linked to the proposed wellbeing and development checks and career pathways.

I mean, licensed professions are generally for areas where there are specific and clear academic requirements, such as medical doctors or accountants. I don't believe it makes sense to under and could undermine one of the great police advantages. And I speak from experience of having a son in the met that it attracts intelligent and brave people to the dangerous task described so well by the noble Lord Lord Stevenson of Kirkwhelpington, who sadly is no longer in his place.

These do not necessarily. These policemen do not necessarily have, need or want the paperwork credentials of other important professions. You know, we need common sense, I think not credentialism that is the way ahead. Now, on the face of it, this approach feels mistaken, although I recognise that there will be extensive consultation on the changes in the white paper. But I think it is all the more reason for our proposed review of paperwork and bureaucracy. My Lords, I beg to move.
12:00
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Portrait Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative)
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The member proposed after clause 166 insert. The new clause is 166 insert. The new clause is printed on the Marshalled List. >> My Lords, it's a pleasure, as

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My Lords, it's a pleasure, as ever, to rise to support my noble friend in her amendments. 34, three, friend in her amendments. 34, three, five six and 43 seven. I know she's an expert in intellectual property, but perhaps she might want to copyright the term wild West of street crime, as we've got used to it. My Lords, this is an amendment which goes to the heart of a police accountability. And that's the wider issue here. And the amendment seeks to put on a statutory footing the imperative to provide timely data in respect of enforcement, enforcement and openness and transparency, not necessarily a this amendment is not about interfering in the operational effectiveness or decision making of police, but it is about openness and transparency and restoring the faith and trust that taxpayers should have in their local police.

And unfortunately, the noble Lord Bach is not in his place and I'm sure he discharged his duties commendably in Leicestershire. But frankly, policing the police and crime commissioners model has not worked. And I speak as someone who used my maiden speech in the other place. In June 2005 to call for elected police commissioners, but I'm afraid it's been a damp squib, and the relationship between those commissioners and the senior police officers for whom they should have had accountability to them, has not worked out in the way it should have done.

And I applaud the government for at least making a decision to discontinue that. We see, my Lords, very egregious examples of apparent two tier policing. And I have to say that Robert Peel will be turning in his grave now, probably is when he looks at the antics of the Chief constable of the West Midlands, who colluded with Islamist thugs and their representative, the Member of Parliament for Birmingham, Perry Barr, in in preventing Jewish fans from attending a game in our second city.

And he also lied twice to a parliamentary committee, seemingly with impunity. He's now left the service with a large taxpayer funded pension. The question is, do the police actually care about what elected politicians and Ministers think? And I'm not sure that is the case. And there were lots of cases, my Lords of alleged two tier policing, one only has to look more recently at the comparison between the policing of the Palestinian hate marchers from October 2023 and our capital, and, for instance, the banning of a walk with Jesus rally in east London and the heavy handed policy, sorry, policing of farmers protesting the government's tax policies at the end of last year.

This, my Lords, is not a political issue. It is an issue of the undermining of policing by consent. And that's bad news for all of us. My Lords, data is needed both for the justice system, particularly the police force, to work effectively and so that they can be scrutinised by lawmakers and the public. Public perception, perception of our police matters. We want our police to be perceived positively by the public based upon evidence that they are doing their jobs well.

Public perception of the police is currently low and crime rates appear to be high. Data on enforcement would both be a motivation for effective policing, and would help them to be held accountable and, more importantly, give an accurate public image. We currently have a crisis on our hands in respect of law enforcement in England and Wales. Knife crime in England and Wales rose by 78% between 2013 and 2023, even when the population growth was factored in, this was still a 68.3% rise, 31.5% of all robberies committed in London's Met Police area in 2024 involved stealing mobile phones, and noble Lords will know that the committee has considered my amendment ably put my my noble friend on the theft of mobile phones earlier this month.

This increase from 21.6 in 2021. In theft offences currently, according to police exchange, this is where an item is stolen from a person. But unlike a robbery, no force is used or threatened. The percentage of cases has risen and is between 68.5 and 72.6% of offences during the last four years, London has faced a dramatic surge in theft from the person. Offences a 170% increase in the three years up to 2024. Also, there were nearly 95,000 shoplifting offences, from two from June 20th 4 to 25.

Sorry in June 2425, a 38% increase in the previous year. My Lords, this amendment is about enforcement data. The police are not always effective in dealing with these crimes. For the year to March 25th, the met sold 5% of burglaries and robberies reported to them. They sold less than 1.5% of reported bike thefts and less than 8% of shoplifting offences. In 2024, only 0.6% of thefts from the person offences were solved. This decline from just 1.1% in 2021.

So public perception of the police is falling or becoming worse. In 2022, 50% of Londoners thought that their local police were doing a good job in 2025. That had dropped to 45%. My Lords, public police forces across England Wales should publish data annually and the enforcement of offences so that the public and lawmakers know how successfully crimes are being policed. The public also deserve to know this information. If the rates of crime are increasing, so then should the rate of enforcement, my Lords, we must support the peelite principle of policing by consent.

We need to collect, collate and analyse data to resort to restore public confidence. And that is why we need to support this amendment by my noble friend, which I have today, and I hope the Minister will give consideration to what is essentially a cross-party amendment.
12:07
Baroness Fox of Buckley Portrait Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)
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My Lords, I totally support the amendment 4036 on the collection of enforcement data and the noble Lady Baroness Neville-Rolfe and the noble Lord Lord Jackson of Peterborough have explained, well why I do, but I actually am rising to speak to amendment 43 seven in the name of Baroness Neville-Rolfe calling for a review of police paperwork, and I thought I'd just explain why. Now, this might sound contradictory, because I've actually put my name on a number of amendments that require more data collection, and that might sound a little bit contradictory, but actually, I do think we need more granular and accurate data, but that we should look at data and ensure that it's streamlined and necessary, rather than just collected for the sake of it.

And I think that in that sense, there is no contradiction. The review of paperwork is necessary to identify and cut out all the endlessly needless form filling that police officers are forced to do. Whenever you talk to rank and file police officers, one of the most voluble frustrations that they voiced is the ever growing regime of paperwork and bureaucracy, complaining that they didn't sign up to become pen pushers. That's hardly what they envisaged when they joined the force.

And we've just heard more seriously, a very moving group. On the mental health challenges faced by some police officers. And I don't want to be glib, but when you talk to police officers, they will often say that they're tearing their hair out and completely demoralised because of the amount of bureaucracy that they face. So it's worth bearing that in mind now. The impressive multiplication of the number of forms the police have to fill out could be interpreted or indicative of the scientification, or the professionalisation of police work, as the bureaucratic regime's apologists would have us believe.

But I think that if you look at the duplication of information, which is often banal, by the way, it indicates a stifling bureaucratisation of policing and a trend that's actually, as I've said, a trend that's reiterated by officers as impeding their ability to respond to crime or engage in proactive crime solving. I just wanted to use one example that I had myself some years ago. A few years ago, I was a victim of a very nasty, unpleasant mugging, and I reported it to the police and as one does, and they were hyper active in their response.

In as much as I've got a very nice letter as a victim reassuring me that they were there for me as a victim, I got a form asking me to fill in whether I'd had the right kind of support as a victim. I even had a follow up phone call to find out why I haven't filled out my form and to make sure I was OK. The problem was, was that at no point did anyone visit me in the sense of attempting to apprehend the person who had committed the mugging that never came up.

It was all about my feelings about being a victim of crime rather than solving the crime. And imagine how much paperwork went into that. I was bemused by that, but infuriated as well. I think we would like this review to ask how this paperwork has proliferated. Certain people argue that the process driven approach to policing is created by a risk aversion. In fact, the police covering their own backs. Potentially, it might be that it's an obsessive obsession with communication.

There's certainly a lot of press releasing done and tweets put out and so on. The main thing, I suppose, is that we have to get to the bottom of what's creating it. I do think, and there's a discussion later, another group on this, that a lot of the work generated is not got anything to do with policing. So when I've talked to police officers, I know they are engaging a wide range of activity related to equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives that actually are also bureaucratic in terms of the kind of things that they have to do.

We heard the other day in a previous group about Non-crime hate incidents, how many hours are spent investigating those? But there's also a great deal of paperwork being generated by that, and hopefully we've seen the back of them. And perhaps, in fact, this amendment is kicking an open door here, and I'm hoping for a positive response from the noble Lord, the Minister, because the Home Secretary, Shabana mahmood, has made similar points. And it does seem to me that cutting red tape is a part of what the Home Office is trying to do, so I am delighted about that.

Just a couple of reservations I've got. I'm slightly worried that the solution for cutting red tape that's been put forward is a greater use of AI. Now I'm all for sensible use of technology, but I just want to note that the West Midlands Police force recently took a shortcut and cut back on a lot of hours of paperwork that would have been wasted in a proper investigation in relation to the Maccabi Tel Aviv football game with Aston Villa. But the problem with that shortcut and paper saving exercise was as a consequence, they came up with a non-existent football match, which.

To justify the banning of the Israeli fans as we know. And in fact, recent research by businesses has shown that for every ten hours of time apparently saved by the use of AI, four hours are used. Checking errors and fact checking AI output. And they've had to bring in extra staff to do that particular type of work. So I agree. And finally, I agree with the noble Baroness Neville-rolfe on her reservations about the licensing of police officers. I'm afraid that does fill me with horror.

Credentialism is notorious for being more bureaucratisation, and if you want any evidence, just look at the university sector and what's happening in certain sectors on that.
12:14
Baroness Doocey Portrait Baroness Doocey (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, amendment 437 calls for a review of the volume of paperwork police officers must complete in the course of their duties. This is one of the most persistent frustrations voiced by frontline officers. But despite the introduction of a new digital case file system, the use of automatic reduction reduction tools and simplified disclosure guidance, the core problem remains a combination of the Pre-charge full file requirement and an onerous disclosure regime. We share the noble Lady's concerns, but we do not believe a review is the answer.

The evidence is already on the table, as are the solutions. While prosecutors must have what they need to make sound decisions, police leaders believe that a more proportionate approach would allow officers to submit skeletal pre-charge files containing only the essential evidence in straightforward cases. Additionally, to streamline disclosure, they have suggested a secure data bubble as outlined by the noble Lady Baroness Neville-Rolfe, allowing unredacted material to be shared confidentially between the police and the CPS for charging purposes. A modest, targeted change to the Data Protection Act, or UK GDPR, would make that possible.

What's now required is not yet another review, but the political will to better align the police and CPS, freeing officers to focus on fighting crime rather than filling in forms. On amendment 436, we agree that while the public are acutely aware of the prevalence of these offences, too often they've no sense of whether such offences are investigated, still less prosecuted in their local area. Better information on enforcement of everyday offences would support accountability and make it much harder for forces to hide behind national averages, but in doing so, we must be careful to avoid imposing yet more rigid reporting duties on already overstretched officers.
12:16
Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative)
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My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Lord Woolf for bringing friend Lady Lord Woolf for bringing her two amendments to committee, and I begin with amendment 436, co-signed by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough. My Lords, I strongly support my noble friends efforts to ensure that release statistics are rigorous, as rigorous and useful as possible. These releases are pivotal to both the police and public. The police are that they are aware of the types of crimes they are likely to encounter, and the public, so that they can judge the performance of police forces for themselves.

As it stands, there is not a standard, reliable measurement of crime rates and statistics. The current accredited accredited metric used by the office for National Statistics is the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which is helpful in giving an indication of certain crime rates, but it cannot be described as a foolproof operational tool. It uses an interviewer administered face to face survey, which immediately makes the recounting of crime a choice on behalf of the victim, who may, for whatever reason, decide not to disclose a crime.

It only reports crimes committed against over 16 and excludes crimes against the general public, the state, tourists and residents of institutions. My Lords, I understand that this is done so that the survey is unaffected by police reporting or recording changes, but it also creates a crime reporting system deeply affected by human discretion, that can similarly not serve as a trustworthy basis. The least we can do is ask that the police are required to record data on the enforcement of offences simultaneously to the Crime Survey of England and Wales releases.

It would provide a metric to judge police performance, as it would demonstrate the estimated number of crimes committed compared to those investigated by police forces. My Lords, this leads me on to my noble friend Second Amendment, also signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. Investigations into committed crimes must lead to prosecutions, or else there is little point in maintaining a justice system. Between 2020 and 2024, over 30,000 prosecutions collapsed. A large proportion of these came from the mishandling or loss of evidence by police.

The storage and retention of evidence is an area which is in desperate need of modernising. It has been described as overwhelming by serving officers and as too often resulted in injustice for victims. The first step in solving this issue is a thorough review of the system as it currently exists. Before setting out a blueprint of reform, the amendment would provide for this, so I wholly support it, and I hope the noble Lord, the Minister, does too. And again, I Minister, does too.

And again, I look forward to his reply.
12:19
Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint (Labour)
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I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-rolfe, for her continued Neville-rolfe, for her continued interest in improving transparency and accountability in policing. She'll know that I'm outcome focussed myself, and I try to ensure that we do get outcomes. And I note the support from the noble Baroness Fox of Buckley and the noble Lord Jackson of Peterborough for the amendments for 36, and indeed from the noble Lord Davies of Gower. The government has taken significant steps to improve visibility of police performance, and I just draw the noble Lady's attention to the newly established Police Performance Framework, which, supported by the Home Office Police Performance Unit, does provide a robust mechanism for monitoring enforcement activities across all current 43 police forces in England and Wales, and this does include the priority offences that she mentioned, such as shoplifting, knife crime and theft.

Now, she did mention the white paper and I will respond by trailing some of the issues that were in the White paper yesterday. And one of the key ones was that the Home Office will introduce an initial sector facing police performance dashboard this year, which will enable chief constables and local policing bodies to analyse the transparent, high quality and operationally significant data that I believe all three speakers from the backbenches sought to have. This will empower forces to deliver improvements through strengthening their understanding of where they're performing well and where they can learn from practice and other forces to improve.

The framework has been designed to be flexible, and there's going to be a midpoint review in middle of 2728, allowing for the inclusion of any new priorities that might be brought forward. Now, the government believes this is an appropriate mechanism for considering additional offence categories rather than again, with due respect to the noble Baroness mandating them in primary legislation. And I took the noble Lady Ducie's point to heart that essentially requiring police forces to publish enforcement data on a fixed list of offences might well add burdens, might well add administrative duplication, and might well ensure that those offences already captured through a range of other mechanisms, and would contradict the later amendments of reducing police bureaucracy.

I think that that's an important factor to bear in mind when we consider this proposal. Furthermore, the police and the CPS are required to comply with the Director of Public Prosecutions guidance on charging, which applies to all offences where a criminal offence and charge may be instituted. This guidance ensures that investigations meet evidential and public interest tests before prosecution. Compliance for that is monitored through an internal assessment framework between the police and CPS, which is crime agnostic but which is used for management purposes only, and again, the statutory duty to publish enforcement data for selected offences could duplicate these arrangements and divert resources from frontline policing.

So I would say in relation to amendment 46, in summary, that yes, we do need to improve, but we have put in place some mechanisms and we will monitor those mechanisms and hopefully return to them in due course without the legislative requirement proposed by the noble Lady. Her amendment 47 does go to the heart of the core issue of productive use of police time. And I note again the support of the noble Lady Baroness Fox of Buckley particularly for this, the 2023 Police Activity Survey provided by the Home Office gave us significant insights into how police time is used, and we are planning to repeat that survey this year, which I hope will help us understand a bit more about the policing landscape.

The 23 Productivity Review, sponsored by the centre for Police Productivity in the College of Policing, prioritised the roll out of productivity enhancing capabilities such as the use of AI, such as robotic process automation, to reduce the time spent on administration. Now, again, I know I've heard today in committee concerns about AI, but I would suggest that properly used, it can reduce that bureaucracy. And in autumn 2024, we launched the Police Efficiency and Collaboration programme to support how we could improve productivity and efficiency in savings.

Now again yesterday and I have a copy to hand for ease of reference, the government did produce the Policing White Paper, a new model for policing, and in that white paper there are a comprehensive package of reforms addressing the very issues in the noble Ladies Amendment. Could I refer her initially to paragraph 91 on page 29 of the Home Office document, which says, and I quote, another area of extensive paperwork in policing comes from the requirements of the criminal justice system.

In the months ahead, we will work with the MoJ and Crown Prosecution Service alongside the Attorney General's office, to examine changes that could reduce the burden on policing. And it goes on further to say, as part of this work, we will look at a number of areas, including the disclosure regime and reduction, the out-of-court resolutions, charging and joint police prosecution performance metrics. And we will do that in conjunction with new and emerging evidence, such as the implications of the Independent Review of Disclosure and Sir Brian Leveson's recommendations for criminal court review.

We've recognised that in paragraph 91, which I've just put on the record again, that that is an important issue. And I refer also, if I may, to paragraph 293 of the document which says, and I just quote the first line of this, it is expected that in its first year, police AI will focus on some of the biggest administrative burdens facing policing, including disclosure, analysis of CCTV footage, production of case files, crime recording, classification and translating and transcribing documents.

And this will free up 6 million policing hours each year. So the government is focussed on those issues. I'm not convinced we need a legislative solution to deal with those. Self-evidently. Having put this in the white paper, it's a brand new document. Members will want to have a chance to reflect upon it, but the direction of travel is there, and I hope the noble Lady will understand that, that that review that she's calling for is the core issue is now addressed in the document that I've just referred the committee to.



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And I'm old enough to remember the last time that we looked at regional police forces under his erstwhile colleague, the Right Honourable Charles Clarke, which I Honourable Charles Clarke, which I think was 2008 and 2009. I think actually there is some merit in the argument to amalgamate large forces. argument to amalgamate large forces. But will he confirm that AI is also important in in being used to important in in being used to support very local, hyper local community policing? There's a burglary taking place in the area every 11 minutes.

Very tragically, there's a rape taking place every 54 minutes. But there are big discrepancies between, say, Bexley, Richmond, Kingston and central London. Will will he ensure that Ministers have cognisant of the need to use AI to reinforce community policing, as well as the mergers of very large level across

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police forces? I'm grateful to the noble member

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I'm grateful to the noble member for that, noble Lord for that don't wish to upset the chair of the committee. In our discussions today, I'll refer him to page 83, I'll refer him to page 83, paragraph 281, the first line in relation to the policing White Paper there says in policing, Paper there says in policing, getting the right information into the right hands at the right time can mean the difference between life and death. And that is absolutely right.

And the point that he's made is absolutely right. And I would suggest that AI, and particularly how it develops over the next few years, will be critical in distilling information that can be used by police to both investigate, capture and understand crime performance in any particular area. Now, we have some significant expertise in the Home Office that is looking at those issues, and the direction of travel has been set in the white paper to do that. And in addition to, dare I say, the the forces of good using AI criminals themselves are looking how they can use AI better to defraud and fraud people.

So we need to be ahead of the game on that as well. And in the white paper, we're looking at AI in both challenges, how it's used by bad actors and how we can reduce inflammation, collect information, analyse information and dissect trends in a much more speedy way, and to take out physical paperwork that we're looking at. And the noble Lord makes a very valid point about how that can be used in a local level, as well as on a national trend basis.

So I would say to the noble Lady Baroness Wolf that I hope that she understands that the the point she's making are very valid police paperwork. When I was last police Minister in 2009, ten, a long time ago, but when I was last doing this job, we had a review. We had the Police Federation urging us to do that. We've tried to reduce paperwork. It is absolutely critical what police officers should be doing is using technology to amass information about how we can prevent crime, how we can bring prosecutions to the CPS, and how we can understand trends in local areas.

As the noble Lord Jackson has said, that's the direction of travel in the White Paper. And I hope with those assurances, the noble Lady can withdraw her amendments.
12:30
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative)
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I think this has been a constructive discussion with a good tone, and I thank the Minister for his comments, including the the new dashboard and the plan to review that again in 2728 and other mechanisms like the, you know, policy activity review and of course, the various references that he rightly made to things that have been proposed in the white paper. And I'll look at all of that before report before deciding how we come back to this important subject.

I think I would warn against relying too much on AI. I'm a huge fan of using AI to improve improve justice systems, but it's it's also important to look at the underlying process themselves before turning them into AI or into tech processes. You need to look at the lean thinking that I mentioned, which obviously I have experience from, from the private sector, because that helps you to do things much better. Having said that, I'm very, very grateful for the wide support for the for this area.

I'd like to particularly thank my noble friend Lord Jackson for reminding us of some of the numbers, you know, especially in London. And then we heard about, you know, the collapse of cases and, you know, other difficulties which we need together to tackle. We heard about the importance of public, of improving public perception of police activity. And I believe that streamlined, good, clear data could help drive a better perception of what the police are doing and what they're trying to do.

And so improve public confidence on paperwork. The noble noble Lady, Lady Fox is right to question some of the things that police, the police are required to do and to record. And I feel that a review going slightly beyond what's in the white paper could actually help us with that. And, you know, I think that would help our very energetic home Secretary to do the right things to try and reduce bureaucracy, which I know is the government's intention.

Now, although we agreed on several things, as Lady Ducey and I tend to do, including the need for the data bubble between the police and the CPS, I think a review might help to make things happen. Now. When I was a Minister, I used to resist reviews. Again and again, but then occasionally I had to agree to them and I actually found where I managed to stay as Minister for a period, a reasonable period, that the reviews were incredibly useful in driving the department to be more effective and proactive.

I mean, I think the truth is we do need the right sort of data, and we do need to reduce paperwork to release resources for front line policing. Luckily, in this debate, we've all got the same objective. I beg to move to withdraw my amendment. Is it your Lordships pleasure that the amendment be withdrawn? The amendment is by me withdrawn. Amendment 437 not moved. Amendment 438 has already been debated, so presumably not moved. Amendment 438A not moved. So we now come to group 3438B Baroness Cash.
12:34
Baroness Cash Portrait Baroness Cash (Conservative)
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My Lords, I rise to move.

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Amendment 438B which the correct wording for which has now been is wording for which has now been is intended to be replaced by intended to be replaced by amendment 438E I'm very grateful, first of all, to the noble Lady first of all, to the noble Lady Baroness Fox of Buckley and to the noble Lord Jackson of Peterborough for supporting this amendment. And I'm also very grateful to the noble Minister he has. Was there a moment ago for reminding us about the general direction of travel taken by the government in this area.

The general expressed views by the Home Secretary and others over the last six months about improving data collection. And again in the White Paper, the objectives being to make data collection more consistent nationally. All of that is extremely welcome, welcomed by me. Sex is a foundational principle in crime. And by that I mean it's the sex of a an individual is a primary determinant of both offending patterns and victimisation risks. So it is an absolutely crucial piece of information in terms of the overall justice system at every point, for example, 98% of recorded rape offenders are male and roughly 9 in 10 suspects in serious violent offences are male, and those proportions have remained significantly consistent over time.

This information underpins offender profiling, a multi-agency public protection arrangements, domestic abuse risk models, custody practice and the government's own crime strategies. As we've just been hearing, if sex were not a material variable, none of those systems would function as they do. But despite this, at the moment there is no consistent national standard for what sex means in police recording systems. In some forces, it means biological sex, in others, it may reflect self-declared gender, in others, the two are conflated or left ambiguous.

In some systems, records can be altered without clear audit. The same offender committing the same offence can therefore be recorded differently, depending on the force or the system that produces incoherent national data sets undermines comparability between forces and also degrades the talking about AI and information collection. It degrades trend analysis. This is a massive problem because police data is the entry point for the entire criminal justice system. It feeds directly into that risk assessment. Offender management, safeguarding decisions, prison allocation, probation supervision and the national crime statistics.

If the data is unstable at the point of entry, everything downstream is compromised. And it's not just my view. This concern has been reinforced by repeated warnings from His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services and the office for National Statistics, which have consistently found that police recorded crime data is highly sensitive to inconsistent recording practices. Where the system is already struggling with data quality, it's incredibly important that the core variables are clear, standardised and grounded in the facts.

It's not a hypothetical situation, and we know that Scotland has already tested the alternative and made the necessary changes for several years. Police Scotland, like England and Wales, was recording sex in the basis at times of self-declared gender, including for suspects in sexual offences. The result was that biological males charged with rape could be recorded as female, rendering national statistics unreliable and damaging overall public confidence in the system. After sustained scrutiny, they announced in October 25th that biological sex would be recorded for crime and policing purposes, with any transgender status recorded separately where relevant.

Operational reality forced that correction, which has been welcomed by the public. The independent experts have also supported that measure. The government commissioned review, led by Alice Sullivan, found that public bodies, including justice agencies, have allowed sex to be redefined or replaced, which degrades the data quality. The conclusion is very clear in her review in all areas, including crime, that sex should mean biological sex, and where gender identity is recorded, it should be recorded separately, not substituted. Their analysis also showed that once Murray Blackburn McKenzie's analysis showed that once sex recording drifts from biological reality, crime statistics become unreliable, contested and incapable of supporting sound policy or public trust.

And when you think about the very small numbers of women in this numbers, I've just related in respect of violent offences, for example, one can see that wrong data could massively skew those. The same issue arises in offender risk, an official Ministry of Justice analysis shows that men who identify as women have offending profiles aligned with the male offender population. So it's the whether trans, trans women and men have the same offending profile, including for violent and sexual offences.

Now, to be absolutely clear, this does not mean I'm not suggesting that trans women are in any way more inclined than the average man to commit offences, but as the population profiles, the same rate of offences is perpetuated within that population. Male pattern violence does not change through identity declaration. When men are recorded as female in police data, male violence is understated, female offending is overstated and risk analysis is distorted. This really matters for repeat offender analysis, escalation risk and most importantly, for safeguarding.

And we've already seen the consequences of ignoring biological sex in custodial settings. In England, we've had assaults occurring by the placement of men in the female prison estate. The government responded to this by tightening allocation rules, explicitly re-anchoring decisions in biological sex and risk assessment, and that policy itself recognises the basic truth that biological sex is a material safeguarding factor in criminal justice. That is a well established principle among criminologists. Police data is the upstream source for those decisions, and this also matters massively for the government's Violence against women and girls strategy.

That strategy relies on police recorded crime data to measure the prevalence, trends and progress. It rests on two empirical facts women and girls are disproportionately the victims of certain crimes, and I hope there will be no one in this House who would dispute that. And those crimes are overwhelmingly perpetrated by men. If police data cannot reliably identify male offenders because sex has been replaced by gender identity, progress can't be measured and accountability collapses, there's nothing in this amendment that alters how the police should interact with transgender people, or prevent would prevent gender identity being recorded separately.

Where operationally relevant, it does not change or seeks to change how individuals are treated. It simply seeks to ensure that biological sex is not lost or overwritten, because all of the evidence shows that it matters. A criminal justice system that can't accurately record the sex of offenders simply cannot accurately analyse male violence or protect women effectively. And that is why I seek to move amendment.
12:42
Baroness Fox of Buckley Portrait Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)
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Amendment proposed after clause 166 insert. The new clause is

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printed on the Marshalled List. I have enthusiastically added my name to this amendment for three name to this amendment for three ASB or 438F on recording of ASB or 438F on recording of biological sex in police data to prevent reliance in in terms of prevent reliance in in terms of administrative records on self-identification and so on. I think the noble Lady Baroness Cash has laid out the arguments with has laid out the arguments with great clarity and precision, and I appreciate that in the past, I've tabled similar amendments to previous bills.

Unfortunately, my attempts were far less elegantly argued than noble Lady Baroness Cash, but they were also rebuffed, as though I was motivated by some ideological attempt at undermining inclusion policies. But actually, nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, is that I want ideology out of data and data collection. And I think that the, the, the there is a slightly different atmosphere. Now, I hope that we can have this discussion because since then, the Supreme Court's clarity in relation to equality, the equality law and the distinct category of biological sex in relation to single sex provision gives us an important marker.

But we've also had the Sullivan Review, commissioned in 2024 by the Secretary of State for science, Innovation and Technology under Rishi Sunaks government, but also, I think, broadly welcomed by the present government in terms of its themes, which is to identify obstacles to accurate data, data collection and research on sex and gender, and in public bodies and in the research system. And to set out good practice. I would like to just state this point that I think we owe a huge thanks to Professor Alice Sullivan for her 226 page review.

I think it was a real work of public service, and it found that the recording of sex and gender across the justice system and police forces is highly inconsistent and in a muddle, and therefore is not reliable. And I think that this really matters, because anything that erases biological sex or even confuses biological sex from official data in relation to crime is really problematic. Many of the policies in this bill, if they are to be effective, rely on evidence and that evidence must be based on therefore reliable data.

I got interested in this issue some time ago, talking to academics in criminology and in research, because it's important for their research that official crime data, such as recorded crime and the is accurate, accurate data is what policymakers also need, as well as researchers to analyse patterns of offending, to allow interventions to be developed and resources to be targeted effectively. Importantly, criminal justice data needs to be credible and consistent. However, the conflation of sex and gender compromise, official trustworthiness, quality, and the value of data for policy and for researchers in academia, but also for a public understanding of the facts in relation to crime.

And this point is increasingly key, as trust in criminal justice is no longer to be taken for granted, but that the data is anything but consistent as we present as we know, because police forces differ from area to area, recording crime statistics variously some by biological sex, others by concept based on the ever fluid and subjective ideas around gender identity, and that has led to confusion and a conflation of sex and gender. The details of how police forces in England and Wales have recorded subjects suspect sex in sex, in crime and reporting was revealed a few years ago by a Freedom of Information Act requests put forward by women's rights campaigning organisations at the time, and they showed that many police forces record suspects gender identity rather than sex registered at birth, frequently on the basis of self-identification, and that has led to the muddle.

Some forces even stated that they record the sex of a suspect who identifies as non-binary, with the term indeterminate or unspecified, so this is not accurate. Data collection. Of the 26 forces that allowed that answered freedom of information questions, only one police force stated that they recorded biological sex. Clearly, 22 forces recorded gender identity, 20 on the basis of self ID and 17 forces answered the specific question on how rape suspects sex was recorded 14 recorded via gender identity, with over 50% doing so on the basis of self-identification.

So these data recording decisions made by individual police forces affect the criminal justice system in a wide range of ways, not just in terms of data, but that is because data collected by police forces are transferred over onto other data management systems, including the police National computer. One of the main sources of information of disclosure and barring DBS checks, and also the annual data requirement provided to the Home Office for research and statistical purposes, and magistrates and Crown Courts case management systems all use this data, but it's unreliable, so I do think that accurate statistics are vital for evidence based criminal justice policy, or there can be serious consequences in terms of unintended outcomes.

Professor Sullivan, in fact, found that is quite possible that if somebody who has been arrested and has legally changed their gender and not informed the police, they could be released or otherwise dealt with before any link to their previous offending history is unknown. That is a confusion and outcome that nobody wants, but is because we are not collecting data accurately as we've heard. But let me stress these there are different offending patterns between males and females, and I think the noble Lady Baroness Cash explained that really usefully for us, males commit the large majority of offences per se, and some offence categories are only very rarely committed by females, such as sexual offences or violent crime in particular.

That means that even if only a small number of natal males who identify as female are recorded as women, this cuz the female sex offending statistics in a misleading way. I don't know if my noble Lords will remember in 2021 when there was a file on forum BBC radio four investigation, they had used freedom of information requests to police forces and they had declared, as a consequence of the information they received back, that there'd been a huge spike in female perpetrated child sexual abuse.

There was hysterical headlines. Women who abused. That was all sorts of academic discussions on female paedophilia and the rise of it. But actually it all went a bit quiet when everybody realised that this was based on statistics that actually conflated sex and gender, and suddenly everybody realised that maybe this new crime epidemic wasn't quite as it seemed. But the main thing is it could be. But we don't know because the statistics are not reliable. And so I think that is a real problem.

So and really has done the hard work for government. In her review, setting out good practice guidance, such as the default target of any sex question should be sex, i.e. biological sex, that sex and gender identity are distinct concepts and questions which combine sex and gender in one question should not be asked, and that the word gender should be avoided in question wording, as it has multiple distinct meanings from a traditional but now from the traditional but now corrupted synonym for sex.

Because of gender identity as an ideology, I think that we all will agree that we need reliable data. And by the way, that should include and can include data on gender reassignment as a separate protected characteristic, even on self ID, in terms of keeping that information. But it should not be the basis on which we collect the the sorry, the collect crime data in relation to sex based sorry in relation to the different sexes. But it is important, of course, to acknowledge that it's possible that transgender people, or people who identify as transgender might well be the victims of crime more regularly, or indeed they may be perpetrators of crime.

And I am happy to know that information as well, but not through the conflation of sex and gender in the bottom line. Collection of of the in the bottom line collecting of crime statistics.
12:52
Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti (Labour)
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Well, I just looked about my. >> Well, I just looked about my. Person at my identification documents and, and what I found was my House of Lords pass, which which, at least at this point, doesn't record my birth sex. I suppose Baroness might arguably do the trick or not, I don't know, but I suspect it wouldn't be enough for the proposers of of this. Of these two amendments, I also looked in my handbag and I have two banking cards.

They certainly don't record anything approximating my biological sex, and in an earlier group I heard noble Lords opposite speak, you know, very compellingly about the police and what they're up against and the bureaucracy and tearing their hair out. And last week I had to say I was, you know, I was in real agreement with the noble Lady Baroness Fox in particular, and other noble Lords opposite when they spoke to an amendment that would ensure that were there to be digital ID, it would not be something that the police could demand on request in the street.

And a number of noble Lords opposite made very, very strong and passionate speeches about that. So I really wonder about the workability and the wider consequences of this amendment if it were to be added to primary legislation. It's very broad in scope. It's about anybody and any offence, arrest as well as charge and caution and places this this firm obligation on the police to record this birth, this birth sex and any discrepancy between that and what the person is, is identifying as or any documents that they present.

How on earth, my Lords, is this going to work without, I suspect, a far more intrusive searching than is necessary for every offence from a minor public order protest offence to shoplifting, to insider trading. In each of these scenarios, the police are required to make a determination of the biological sex of that person. So that requires a fairly intrusive, a fairly intrusive examination by the police and challenging and questioning potentially quite a quite a traumatic and degrading experience for, for any, for anyone really.

And in a way that's disproportionate to the actual offence that's being investigated. Because I'm not sure I quite agree. I mean, I do agree that crime can be highly gendered, and we know that because of all that we've learned about violence against women and girls. But I fail to see that this kind of determination is necessary at the point of arrest for insider dealing or even or even a protest offence. And by the way, if we're talking about headaches for the police, I can I can imagine in large protests, every arrestee being briefed by their comrades and their colleagues deliberately to identify in a mischievous way, just to give the police a headache.

I really, I really ask noble Lords to to think again about the contradictions in positions that they are taking in this committee on this very long bill and workability, proportionality and whether this this kind of an intrusion into, into the, the lives not just of, of people who happen to have changed sex or to have been transsexual in their lives, but of anybody who is, who is subject to arrest and charge, and in particular, somebody who may, I don't know, a woman with short hair.

I'm reading about all sorts of stories at the moment women, women who've had mastectomies for breast cancer, being challenged in the in the changing rooms of the gym because they don't initially look in a way. That is, I'll just finish the sentence because, because, because, because I really just ask noble Lords to think about the wider consequences and the

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proportionality of what they're proposing. To the noble Lady before she

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To the noble Lady before she sits down. But I think all of us who care about the safety and security and integrity and autonomy security and integrity and autonomy of women are also concerned about, for instance, a a so-called trans for instance, a a so-called trans inclusive strip search policy, which allows, for instance, a six foot four inch man who self-identifies as a woman to search at a police station, a very vulnerable young woman. That is an issue which is of great concern.

And were we to adopt this particular amendment, that issue

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may be ameliorated. To the noble Lord Farmer for his

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To the noble Lord Farmer for his intervention. But that is a separate issue. That is an issue about who is allocated to which about who is allocated to which duty at the police station. And and it's perfectly reasonable there for it's perfectly reasonable there for the police themselves to organise who is conducting a strip search and who is conducting a strip search on who. But that's not what this amendment is about, not the first or second version of this amendment.

This is about an obligation on the police to make a determination of the biological sex of anybody that they're arresting or charging or cautioning. And this comes from noble Lords who, as I understand it, oppose compulsory digital ID that I suppose, conceivably could require some determination at the point of the registering the ID. And I heard those compelling speeches from noble Lords, which I applauded last week, saying this is too much of an intrusion on the citizen who is innocent until proved guilty at the point of arrest or the point of encounter with the police to have to.

And I just ask about what how the police are. How are the police going to do this?

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I grateful to the noble Lady for giving way. First of all, I have never spoken in this chamber on digital ID, and I just want to make that clear for the record, because that clear for the record, because the use plural but all present. But the use plural but all present. But I also want to come back on the very emotional intervention and very grateful to her for something very grateful to her for something she clearly feels very passionate about.

But I do believe that most of us have more confidence in the police than the noble Lady may be demonstrating at the moment, because a lot of this is common sense, and the public at large understand that this is common sense, and that 50% of the population are women and girls, and they deserve to be protected. And the the number of people we are referring to is a very small number of people. But among that number of people, there are some really bad actors, and it is a foundational principle of our criminal justice system.

So how do you square the emotional circle where you are saying, this is not possible without infringing rights?

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Lord Brooke to the noble Lady. As a as a woman, I've often been As a as a woman, I've often been called emotional in debates, but but that's the that's the nature of but that's the that's the nature of the patriarchy, isn't it? I didn't mean I didn't mean to be emotional. mean I didn't mean to be emotional. I I'm really just trying to ask about the practicality of this about the practicality of this proposed obligation on the police to be the determiners of the biological sex of a person they arrest not for sex offences, but for any offences.

Now, I heard in some of the remarks that the noble Lady Baroness Cash made, for example, about the importance of knowing as much about a prisoner as possible. I can see an argument for making a clear determination in a, in a, in a prison setting, because one needs to determine who should be imprisoned with who. I understand that I can can certainly envisage arrests and investigation for for sex offences where this may be highly, highly proportionate and relevant.

But that's not the breadth of the of the proposal here. This is any arrest, any charge, any caution, any suspect. And that seems to me to be overbroad and just a complete administrative and practical nightmare for police

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officers themselves. Maybe she can clarify a couple

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Maybe she can clarify a couple of things. Does she recognise any problems at all with the data as it's presently collected in different forms by different police forces, but that then is used as forces, but that then is used as national crime data, as though it's reliable and consistent. As she any reliable and consistent. As she any qualms at all? I I'm I'm sure that the noble Lady Baroness Cash would be happy to work with the noble Lady Baroness Chakrabarti great legal minds can work together, emotionally or not emotionally on better wording.

I can understand that. But in terms of the import of this, it's on data. That's the first question. Secondly, she rightly points out that many of us are committed to campaigning against violence against women and girls. How can we reliably know how many women and girls are the victims of such violence? How can we reliably know who the perpetrators of that violence against women and girls is? We can't just assert it unless we've got reliable statistical data. And that's the point of the Sullivan review, which I hope the noble Lady Baroness Chakrabarti show some respect to, even if she's not quite clear that she supports this particular amendment.



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So, to be clear, a perpetrator is someone who's convicted, not anyone who's who's arrested. And I anyone who's who's arrested. And I think it'd be it's much easier to to look at the details and to justify, as I tried to suggest in justify, as I tried to suggest in my response to the comments about incarceration, it's much easier to incarceration, it's much easier to justify greater intrusion at the point of conviction, particularly if someone's going to prison. But if someone's going to prison.

But the idea I just don't I don't think this is about drafting. I think this is about the the practical policy that's being proposed in these amendments, not the drafting of them. How on earth is it viable to put this obligation to be the determiner, to be the decision maker over somebody's biological sex? Is it reasonable to put that on every constable? I look forward to hearing? The noble Lord on the opposite front bench because he served as police officer for, for, for many years.

I know with some distinction he may know better than I do about whether this is going to be welcome for for police officers in their everyday duties, for every

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arrest, for every offence. My Lords, I rise to speak to the

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My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendment that I have attached my name to, and may I begin my name to, and may I begin my thanking. First of all, the noble Lady Baroness Fox of Buckley, who has been very courageous in raising these issues over many years. Before it was fashionable around Before it was fashionable around the issue of gender identity and sex through the prism of wishing to
13:05
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Portrait Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative)
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protect the safety and security, particularly of women. And I particularly of women. And I applaud her for that. And I also thank my noble friend Baroness Cash, who speaks with great professional expertise and experience. My Lords, it's surely the case, it's surely the case, notwithstanding the the passionate case put by the noble Lady Chakrabarti. That policy, particularly when we're dealing with sensitive issues such as crime data and for instance, violence against women and girls, which quite rightly is a government priority.

The policy should be formulated and delivered on the basis of robust, peer reviewed empirical evidence. Who can logically argue against that? And I think that's what this amendment is principally about. We've heard about the Sullivan Standard and essentially the context within which we are working in terms of putting this amendment to the bill is that sex is a protected characteristic. And the Equality Act 2010 has been clarified by the Supreme Court. And indeed, it's it's extremely disappointing that the equalities Minister, Bridget Phillipson, continues to obfuscate and delay proper, timely guidance being issued by a number of bodies in respect of access, for instance, to single sex spaces.

It's and and the Supreme Court stated plainly that sex under the Equality Act refers to the material reality of being female or male. It determines how single sex space functions in a mixed sex society, from women's changing rooms to prison, and it justifies excluding men where doing so is necessary and proportionate. And that remains the case. And that's why I think this amendment is very, very important because it's within that context that it would hopefully be incorporated in the in the legislation.

As we know, my Lords, Sullivan's review was commissioned in February 2020 for the aims of the review were to identify obstacles to accurate data collection and research on sex and gender identity in public bodies and in the research system, and to set out good practice guidance for how to collect data on sex and gender identity data on sex, as she, as Sullivan recommended, should be collected by default in all research and data collection commissioned by government and quasi governmental organisations.

The default target of any sex question should be sex. In other words, by biological sex. Natal sex. Sex at birth questions which combine sex with gender identity, including gender identity as recognised by GRC, have a mixed target. The Home Secretary Sullivan recommended should issue a mandatory annual data requirement, ADR, requiring the 43 territorial police forces of England and Wales and the British Transport Police to record data on sex in all relevant administrative systems. Relatedly, police forces should cease the practice of allowing changes to be made to individual sex markers on the police national computer.

And this is about public trust, which is why my noble friend is quite right to make reference to the Scottish situation. Police Scotland in November 2025, they moved officially to record biological sex of all their suspects. The Chief Constable stated, quote, by recording accurately biological sex, we ensure that our crime data is accurate, unquote. The Scottish experience proves that it is possible to maintain a respect based approach in person, using preferred pronouns in custody, while ensuring the the official record reflects the material facts needed.

Quote. For statistical rigour, the Deputy Chief Constable, Alan Speirs of Police Scotland, confirmed that recent legal rulings provide the necessary clarity that sex in law refers to biology. This gives police the mandate to record it as such without infringing upon the Human Rights Act or the Equality Act, and if police forces do the wrong thing on this, it can result in calamitous situations and I declare my interest as a member, at least for the next month, of the British Transport Police Authority, because the British Transport Police, without any proper guidance from the National Police, chiefs, Council or Ministers, decided unilaterally in the autumn of of 2024 to launch a transitioning and non-binary search guidance policy, which meant that even individuals without a GRC were permitted to search anyone providing that that person doing the searching, for instance, said they were a woman even though were a biological man, were allowed to search a woman, and that advice was quickly rescinded.

I argued, as a member of the authority, that that was a disastrous mistake. It's actually cost many, many thousands of tax pounds in terms of legal fees, that the authority that the forces had to pay as a result of that, because the organisation Sex Matters launched a possible judicial review against that decision, and it took the focus away from policing and frontline activities and operational efforts in order to engage in virtue signalling on the basis of the preferences of the Chief Constable and the senior officers at the British Transport Police.

And that didn't do anything about the 11% clear up rate for offences in respect of violence and women against women and girls that is prevalent, unfortunately, and remains prevalent on the transport network in this country. So, my Lords, I can't understand how any noble Lord can realistically argue from the basis of the objective of tackling crime and the objective of having the data available to allocate resources properly can argue against this amendment, because this amendment has a background of the of the Sullivan.

Sullivan review a background of the acceptance by Ministers of the Supreme Court ruling in 2024. Sorry, 2025. And on that basis, I think Ministers should should look benignly on the amendment because it isn't onerous and draconian. It is realistic and fact based and research empirical research base, and therefore it should be adopted because I think if anything else, it would greatly improve the efficacy of this largely, largely important bill that we on this side support.

It would mean that police officers were addressing the issues properly with the facts behind them, rather than the ideological absolutism. That, unfortunately, has marked out much of the debate and the hostility to collecting data in in the criminal justice system on the basis of gender identity. Well, and the sex it's a good amendment and I hope Ministers will be able to support it.
13:13
Baroness Donaghy Portrait Baroness Donaghy (Labour)
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I'm not a great legal mind. I'm afraid. I'm not even a legal mind. Many people would argue. I'm not a Many people would argue. I'm not a great mind either. So mine are great mind either. So mine are questions rather than what I can't remember. Dictatorial philosophy, but I. I thought the contrast between the original amendment and the one before it was quite revealing. That the word biological was taken out of the title. And yet the noble Lady Baroness Cash said she thought biological biological sex was a material fact.

So my question is, why was it taken out of the heading? There was a very interesting reference to the gender recognition certificates, which I took a little bit of comfort from. And then this one before us. That reference has been deleted. So my second question is, is the reference to official documents being proffered regarded as the substitute for that clarification? I would be very grateful for what and perhaps the noble Lord on the front bench could answer this in his summing up.

What assurances can we have that anyone? Accused is not forced out, even if the particular allegation is not related to sex and sexuality? How can we avoid people having to come out against their will? I'm still not sure why it's regarded as so vitally important. I'm sorry, but this seems to me a lack of proportionality about this whole debate in the massive challenges that our police forces have today. Is it really that vital? I'm not.

I'm not terribly convinced about that. So mine are more questions than anything, but I just feel that there's some disproportionality going on on this whole subject. My

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for. My roads.

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I'm grateful for all the contributions to this. As as usual, heated debate about recording data, and I'm going to focus mainly on data in my response from these data in my response from these benches. And I want to to thank Baroness Cash for starting by Baroness Cash for starting by quoting some data sources. But neither she nor the amendment urges the existing police guidance about capturing demographic data. The annual data requirement 153 all work already being done by the National Police Chiefs Council to review these policies during the April 2025 Supreme Court judgement and their desire to develop a national standard for recording protected characteristics.

In November of last year, an Equality Impact Assessment for the Law Enforcement Data Service noted there is no legal obligation on any person with a Gender Recognition certificate to inform the police that they have changed their name or gender, end quote. It's absolutely vital that data collection by public bodies has a clearly defined purpose and scope, and that staff have the right
13:17
Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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training and guidance to deliver services that support and services that support and accommodate all service users. In addition, there's data produced by the Home Office and the annual data the Home Office and the annual data requirement, which sets out requests and requirements for data. Police forces should collect and report to the Home Office. Some are mandatory, some are voluntary. Requirement 153, which I referred Requirement 153, which I referred to earlier, is voluntary and details on how forces should capture demographic data in a consistent way by aligning it with the ONS census 2021.

And this sets out that data about sex should be recorded in line with information on birth certificate or gender recognition certificate. It's not clear at the moment how widely this has been adopted since 1974, the Police National Computer has been the main database of criminal records, and is used by front line officers from all police forces in the UK to understand who they are interacting with. In 2016, the Home Office established the National Law Enforcement Data Programme to replace the PNC and PND with the Law Enforcement Data Services.

Sorry, another acronym LEDs, LEDs and that will replace existing PNC capability across all police forces this coming March. The Equality Impact Assessment for LEDs was published in November 25th, and considered how the programme would impact on those with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, and the EIA states there is no legal obligation on any person with a Gender Recognition Certificate to inform the police that they have changed their name or their gender. Where a person does wish this to be acknowledged, then the LEDs user can add an information marker.

The EIA notes that NPCC is an undertaking. A policy review following the 25th April 2025 Supreme Court judgement, which aims to strike a balance that is both lawful and respectful of all individuals involved. That is a quote from the judgement, and that LEDs is being built to configure new policies as they take effect. The EIA also notes that a working Group on National Protected Characteristics Data Recording Standards was established by the diversity, Equality and Inclusion Coordination Committee and NPCC Diversity and Equality and Inclusion Lead, and it's important to note, as has been mentioned by others, that the Supreme Court judgement in the case for women for Scotland and versus the Scottish Ministers, only considered the definition of woman for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010.

My Lords, in addition to that, I've found an FOI dated May 2025 on the ONS. In response to a question about the collection of data. And they say in their somewhat detailed response to I think about ten different questions about how many people who've undertaken gender reassignment have been convicted of the following offences or groups of offences, and says collection of data for gender identity different from sex registered at birth category. They say we have to be robust enough to provide reliable estimates.

They cannot provide reliable estimates. Why? Because the numbers are so low and that unfortunately, as I'm sure the noble Lady Kash knows because she's been quoting data quite a bit, is that if you cannot rely on the data because it's low compared to the millions of women across the country, then it becomes a problem to be able to include it. Why? Because the data won't show. Or if it's pulled out separately. Individuals become identifiable to the public, and that is the fundamental problem.

So I hope that the noble Lady will withdraw her amendment. The National Police Chiefs Council are already undertaking work to review policies in light of the Supreme Court judgement. The Supreme Court judgement was limited in considering the meaning of sex for the purposes of the Equality Act, not wider legislation or policy. Frankly, it's unclear how this amendment will be practically workable. Front line police forces will be asked to challenge information provided about an individual's sex, and it's also unclear about how the amendment is consistent with data protection legislation, the Gender Recognition Act and indeed article eight rights to a private life.



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My Lords, just very briefly to

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My Lords, just very briefly to speak. I'm sorry, I thought you had

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finished. I. The frontbench. It's frontbench speeches.

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It's frontbench speeches. To sit down, I didn't understand. I thought that he was still waiting I thought that he was still waiting to speak. Clarity. I you have the right to speak in committee. Of course, the noble Lord has the
13:22
Lord Moynihan of Chelsea Portrait Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Conservative)
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right to speak. Committee calls. Conventionally, we tend to not hear from the backbenches after frontbenchers started winding. But frontbenchers started winding. But of course. Yes, Lord Case three very brief points. The first is very brief points. The first is that the Supreme Court judgement had a logic behind it, and it is had a logic behind it, and it is very difficult to see, my Lords, how that logic does not roll out how that logic does not roll out across a whole bunch of issues such as this one.

So therefore this amendment does relate very strongly to the Supreme Court judgement. The second point is that the three noble Baroness Cass talking against the amendment, we're trying to say, well, well, what point would it have? And yet the noble Baroness Fox stated that there had been reports that the amount of crime committed by females and violent crime had increased, and that this caused some kind of minor moral panic in society. Now we know, my Lords, that women have far lower rates of offending than than men, where biological women, whether whether non-violent or violent.

Our understanding of the role of women in society is very much driven by that understanding of the civilising impact of womanhood on society. It's fundamental to our ideas of how society works. If we are persuaded by false data that that role of women is changing, that women are becoming more violent, that women are becoming more criminal. If we're falsely persuaded on that, then our view of society is very different. And and that's unfortunate if it's false.

Finally, my Lords, the objections made by the noble Baroness to this amendment fundamentally didn't really argue too much except for those of the noble Baroness Brinton didn't much argue the premises, merely argued the practicability, as did indeed some of the noble Baroness Brinton remarks. So if were to talk about practicability, first of all, we have the evidence that Scotland has already implemented this. So arguments against practicability fall away. But secondly, if we take the noble Baroness Chakrabarti point that you're putting an onus on a policeman to respond to somebody claiming a particular sex or gender, when when in fact that may not be correct, was was given the lie by her own statement, which is there are lots of people who are happy to come to a police station and confuse things up by deliberately giving the wrong information.

So basically she is saying there's a policeman confronted by a six foot bloke who says he's a woman and she's saying, well, it's difficult to confront that person versus the very correct concern she had of, of, of a woman with short hair or whatever who looks a bit manlike, as you know, many do. Being challenged on saying that she was a woman. Now, if they can sort that out in Scotland, they can sort that out in the UK.

But in the meantime, which would you prefer? The data is falsified and moral panics emerge, or that police have a slightly bigger onus to try to ascertain what the true biological sex of that individual was?

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My Lords, I'm grateful to noble Lords who have spoken and grateful to my noble friend Baroness Cash to my noble friend Baroness Cash for bringing forward this amendment, and for the clarity in which he has set out the problem it seeks to set out the problem it seeks to address. And I speak in support of the amendment. It is fundamental to our safety and justice system that our safety and justice system that police data is accurate and fit for purpose. And I'm grateful to the purpose.

And I'm grateful to the kind words that warm words that Baroness Chakrabarti made of me. But I hope I'm not going to disappointed too much when I say, my Lords, that sex is not an incidental characteristic in policing or criminal justice. It is a foundational variable. Patterns
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Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative)
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of offending, particularly in relation to serious violence, sexual offences, domestic abuse and sexual offences, domestic abuse and repeat high harm crime are profoundly sex disaggregated. And I profoundly sex disaggregated. And I would say to the noble Baroness Donaghy police forces depend on this data to analyse trends, assess risk, deploy safeguarding interventions and evaluate whether strategies, including those strategies, including those endorsed by your Lordships' House are actually working. And if police records cannot reliably distinguish males from females, then risk assessment collapses.

Trend analysis becomes unreliable, and the very legislation that we passed to make public safer is frustrated. My Lords, we have already seen what happens when biological sex is replaced with self-declared gender identity. And as has already been mentioned in Scotland, Police Scotland permitted suspect sex to be recorded on the basis of self-identification, including in serious sexual offences, and the consequences were predictable and serious. Incoherent statistics, loss of public confidence and inability to analyse male violence accurately enough to sustain scrutiny.

Police Scotland reversed that policy in October 2025 and confirmed that biological sex would be recorded with transgender status noted separately where relevant, and that reversal was driven by operational reality, not ideology, and it offers a clear lesson for England and Wales. An independent expert evidence reinforces this point. The the government commissioned review, led by Professor Alice Sullivan, was unequivocal sex should mean biological sex, and where gender identity is relevant, it should be recorded separately, not substituted. Similar conclusions have been reached by independent analysis examining the consequences of degraded data across public bodies.

Once sex data is compromised, statistics become contested, safeguarding weakens, and public trust is eroded. There are also real world safeguarding implications. Ministry of justice analysis shows that trans identified male male offenders exhibit offending patterns aligned with male population, including for violent and sexual crimes, recording such individuals as female underestimates. Male violence, artificially inflates female offending, and distorts the risk analysis. We have already seen the downstream consequences and the prisoner state, where serious safeguarding failures led the government to tighten allocation rules.

My Lords, biological sex is a material risk factor. Police data is upstream of all this, of all of this, and if it is wrong at the point of arrest or charge, the entire system is compromised. There is a theme running through many of our debates today. Good policing is inextricably linked to good data. The government have acknowledged this recording. Biological sex is just one of the data variables that must be recorded for accurate precinct. So I wholeheartedly support my amendment, and I hope the Minister will to.
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None Portrait Government Spokes. Lord Katz (Labour)
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My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, for her amendment 43 ASB and indeed the subsequent amendment 40 38E which seeks to mandate the collection of sex data and perpetrators of crime. I'd also like to thank, at this point everybody who spoke with some force and passion in a debate that certainly wasn't dry and simply about data, particularly the views that we heard from my noble friend Baroness Chakrabarti, the noble Lady Baroness Fox of Buckley, and the noble Lord Lord Lord Jackson of Peterborough, as well as from the the opposition front, from benches.

And before I go any further, as and as it's been referred to by a number of of noble Lords, particularly noble Lady Baroness Cash, you know, we are absolutely realistic in our resolute rather in our goal and expressed with the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy, which was published before Christmas, to half the half violence against women and girls over the course of the decade, we recognise that it takes a whole government, indeed a whole society approach, but we're absolutely resolute in doing that.

And of course, the issues that we're discussing in this group are indeed germane to that effort. It is the case, however, that there are already some powers available to the Home Secretary to obtain data from police forces. The question is whether these are adequate. Section 44 of the Police Act, 1996 gives the Home Secretary powers to obtain relevant data from chief constables, and this powers and noble Lords have mentioned it in through the course of debate on this group. This power is exercised through an annual data requirement, which sets out what data should be recorded and provided to the Home Office.

Such data is routinely published as official statistics to provide a window on the work of government and the police service. The content of the annual data requirement is reviewed annually, and where new requirements are made out, it allows collections to be added or existing ones amended. However, we accept that these powers fall short of what is required and not to presage the next group to heavily. The noble Lady will indeed Baroness Cash will be aware that the Home Secretary announced in December last year that we will legislate to mandate the recording of suspect ethnicity data.

This will happen at the earliest opportunity as part of our wider legislative proposals on police reform, which were announced on the White Paper on police reform that was published yesterday. And indeed, as announced in that White paper, we are introducing key proposals to address fragmentation of data across both across police forces and recording formats. And in the white paper, I, I commend your Lordships' House to to take to take a look at it. We will we said we'll work with police to introduce a number of measures around data, for instance, requiring developing new technology to integrate data nationally, mandating national standards on data to create consistency in recording data across police forces, and improving data quality of data sets.

In introducing a single national decision maker with authority over key national data sets and removing unnecessary barriers to data sharing across police forces and agencies. This, my Lords, will provide the necessary statutory powers to ensure the recommendation for of Baroness Casey national audit into group based child sexual exploitation and abuse, as well as improving the integrity of the data of of the data the police use, collect and analyse. Furthermore, I do agree that there needs to be consistent and accurate data recorded on sex and we are carefully considering the implications of the Supreme Court court ruling which clarified the definition of sex within the Equality Act.

Reply directly to my noble friend Baroness Donaghy and the question she asked about, you know, thinking about it from the individual's perspective and what they want, not not want to happen in terms of their, their, their, their gender or identification. I think it's fair to say still that data will be collected, data collected will be anonymised, and it will be treated as per current GDPR and other data protection terms. This is about collecting data for wider analysis, rather than thinking about how that what might happen to that, that that individual in terms of the way that data is collected.

So I hope I've been able to reassure the noble Lady Baroness Cash of the work going on in this area. In light of this and our commitment in the White Paper to bring forward legislation in the context of our wider reforms to policing, I would ask that she withdraws her amendment.

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Lord sits down. Could I just. Just clarify one question, which is when is the government or or if is when is the government or or if the government, if you could explain the government's attitude to the Sullivan Review, when are to the Sullivan Review, when are you going to act on it? Because it's very comprehensive. It as I understood it, the government was perfectly positive about it, particularly the Home Secretary. But like too many reviews, it sits But like too many reviews, it sits there.

All that hard work, all that data collected, all that intellectual energy, and it's not being acted upon. And if it was, then these amendments would not be necessary. So maybe the noble Lord could give us a timeline and clarify that.

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Well, certainly, as she as the noble Lady Baroness Fox said, there noble Lady Baroness Fox said, there was a lot there was a lot of work done. I believe it was actually it was actually commissioned by the previous government. So it overlaps previous government. So it overlaps from, from, from, from the previous administration to us. I'll, I'm not sure I can at the Dispatch Box, I can provide a kind of very concrete timeline. So I'm happy to to write to the, the, the noble Lady with

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those details. My Lords, I'm really sincerely grateful to everyone who has spoken and to the windings speakers today. It's such an important question, and it's such a pleasure to be able to have a debate like this and to engage with former colleagues and noble peers to discuss something which is often an emotional or passionate issue. And to the noble Lady Baroness Chakrabarti, we've known each other for such a very long time, but not everyone knows that, and I believe I may have referred to the noble Lady with a pronoun during my speech.

And so I'm very sorry if I did that. I think a lapse of knowing each other. So I just wanted to put that on the record. But I'm very grateful to her for speaking with her typical
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Baroness Cash Portrait Baroness Cash (Conservative)
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compassion and empathy for everyone, a testament to her time at the Head a testament to her time at the Head of Liberty principles, which she's lived by ever since. And I think lived by ever since. And I think this I say the same to Baroness Brinton, and I'm very grateful to you for engaging in this debate and you for engaging in this debate and being present at Baroness Donaghy. being present at Baroness Donaghy. I apologise and to Baroness Brinton for citing the data to my noble.

Peers who supported the amendments from behind. I'm very grateful to everyone. Lord Moynihan of Chelsea referenced Scotland, and that's the thought on which I'd like to end the. There is, of course, a direction of travel by the government, which we welcome and support. But in the response by the noble Lord Lord Katz Minister, there was no addressing of what data is going to be collected in relation to sex. And I were coming on to ethnicity, I know, and I do.

I do say to the noble Minister that this is an opportunity to grapple with this issue and to do something by accepting this amendment, which would really support the violence against women and girls strategy. And the noble Lord Lord Moynihan also made some very sensible points about the common sense approach of the police, and we do have confidence in them to be able to act in a sensible way. And for the record, there's no suggestion in this amendment that anyone would be embarrassed or outed.

It is about the police recording the data, not publishing the data. And as as we know that data, when the statistics are processed off it, it is anonymized. And so I'm very

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grateful to all. Of course. I'm very grateful for that last point. I think the point that I point. I think the point that I raised was that the data is so raised was that the data is so small that if only two people had committed a certain offence in a year, they would be identifiable. year, they would be identifiable. And that was the point the ONS were making in their response to somebody else's FOI. I don't know somebody else's FOI.

I don't know who laid it because of that identification and then breaching of data for the individual

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concerned. Yes, that that hasn't been something that has concerned His Majesty's Inspectorate or the Ministry of Justice or indeed Professor Sullivan. In fact, they Professor Sullivan. In fact, they make the opposite point, which is make the opposite point, which is that the small numbers of trans identifying individuals. Can just ask the.

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ask the. Lady if she's prepared to push this to the board or withdraw without the debate. There's no need

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to rehash the argument that we've already had. With enormous apologies, I was

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With enormous apologies, I was responding to the noble Lady responding to the noble Lady Baroness Brinton question. Sorry.

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Thank thank you, thank you. It is a subject I'd like to

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It is a subject I'd like to return to at report. With. Subject to that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Minister. Your Lordships pleasure that the amendment be withdrawn. The amendment is by leave withdrawn after clause 166. Amendment 438C

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Baroness Cash. My Lords, I'm sorry. Me again. I

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My Lords, I'm sorry. Me again. I rise to move. Amendment 438C And I'm very grateful to the noble Minister Lord Katz for indicating already that the white paper, which I have skim read. I'll admit I I have skim read. I'll admit I haven't read it closely, but I have skim red and welcome again its skim red and welcome again its contents and direction of travel on this. But the reason I pursue this amendment is that the white Paper doesn't go so far as making a statutory requirement around the reporting of data.

And it's it's my position that this is an opportunity for the government to do that and to, with one simple amendment, make this requirement and enforce this consistency across all of the reporting of the amendments. Sorry, I just. amendments. Sorry, I just.
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None Portrait Amendment:438C Baroness Cash (Conservative)
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Move Mr Speaker.

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Sorry. I'm sorry. This is this

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Sorry. I'm sorry. This is this is not a new proposal. It's the 18 category standard proposal of ethnicity, which is a framework used in the UK census, first used in the UK census, first introduced nationally in 2001 and expanded in 2011 and 21. It expanded in 2011 and 21. It includes. That includes five broad ethnic groups white, mixed, multiple, Asian, Asian, British, black, African, Caribbean, black, British and other, each with broad subcategories. The College of Policing, the Home Office, Her Majesty's His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services all recommend that self-defined ethnicity, not officer led definitions or visual categories be used in operational and statistical recording.

In policing, that's known as this as SD or the self defined ethnicity standard. But crucially, there is no statutory obligation to use this system. No uniformity across police forces and no enforcement if it is bypassed. That's the gap that this amendment seeks to close. The current reality is a patchwork of practices. Police officers are instructed to ask for self-defined ethnicity at various stages, but they the compliance with that is highly variable. In many cases, they substitute visual shorthand, which are crude, unreliable, and not comparable to either the census or the official data.

Even where self-defined ethnicity is collected, the categories used are not always aligned with the full 18 standard set, so we have a patchwork at the moment. Forces using different ways of defining ethnicity and not uniformly communicating or building a database. The result has been quantifiable gaps in current reporting. We've got victims ethnicity often missing, undermining us understanding of harm in 2023, His Majesty's Inspectorate found that in 61% of all cases where a victim was identified, ethnicity was not recorded at all.

That's not a technicality. It's just a collapse of visibility over who is being harmed and how. Stop and search data is similarly increasingly incomplete. Home office statistics show that in stop and search records, self-defined ethnicity is missing in 20% of cases. That's 1 in 5 encounters without proper identification. And that sources the Office of Statistics regulation prevent referrals are particularly shocking and show chronic under-recording. Between 2015 and 2023, police failed to record the ethnicity of more than 33,000.

Prevent referrals, and I cannot imagine an area of policing and of national security where the ethnicity of an individual referred might be more important operational consequences for victims, offenders and public oversight also manifest from these absences. Victims go unseen. If ethnicity is unrecorded, they can't have services tailored to them. Hate crime prevention is, is, or violent. Crime prevention can't be prioritised. We don't understand whether different communities are under-reporting crime or indeed overreporting in homicide data or murder data.

For the year ending March 2022, only 671 victims had their ethnicity recorded. The rest were either missing or excluded. And that's the Home Office own data reports. Without the full self-defined ethnicity data at each stage of police contact, we just can't fulfil our own obligations under the Equality Act. So the 18 category self-defined ethnicity is the gold standard. It's been highly commended by multiple public bodies, and when the police rely on visual codes or simplified lists of their own, they often misclassify individuals.

They lose comparability with the census or with NHS and education data. So there isn't cross reporting across our own public bodies. And they also create a vacuum, a very dangerous vacuum, I would say, where speculation and grievance thrive. And we've seen that in media reporting of issues in the last few years, where tensions in communities build and demands are made for greater transparency. The vacuum has happened in child sexual exploitation cases. The Casey review in June 25th, it was Baroness Casey reported that ethnicity data was missing in two thirds of the cases.

And public debate we've seen become polarised about grooming gangs since, with both denial and exaggeration filling the vacuum where the actual facts and data should have been in prevent referrals where ethnicity was unrecorded. In the 33,000 cases I've just mentioned, communities have accused the state of Islamophobic bias, others that prevent is too soft, and there's again no data to resolve the dispute or have an informed debate even. And then in high profile arrests, where ethnicity is omitted. And we've had the Home Secretary herself speak about this, social media becomes saturated with speculation, particularly from extremist or far right actors, and force the police into reactive disclosures.

The former met officer, Daal Babu said there will be an expectation for police to release information on every single occasion, because there is such intense speculation from the far right on social media. These vacuums of information and vacuums of data are really dangerous. Not my appeal to the government is that a statutory duty to record full, self-defined ethnicity at every point of contact solves these problems and gives a standardised, comparable data to analyse and act upon.

My Lords, the costs would be minimal, but the status quo is very expensive. What if we do nothing and we don't require this accurate reporting we are having? We have operational blind spots, we have cross system breakdowns, reputational damage to the police and litigation risk. It's also extremely difficult retrospectively to rebuild community engagement or repair crisis when the damage has been done and trust has collapsed. Police leadership supports better recording September 23rd Steve Hartshorn, chair of the Police Federation Senior officers must be held accountable for failing to record victims ethnicity.

It isn't just a data issue, it's about accountability and fairness. August 25th the new College of Policing guidance supported proactive release of ethnicity and nationality data, where it strengthens trust and clarifies public understanding. December 25th senior police officials, including Gareth Edwards of the NPCC Vulnerability, Knowledge and Practice Programme, and I could go on. Some of them you are already familiar with from press reporting on this very issue of transparency and trust. It begins with visibility. It begins with a consistent system and a mandatory requirement to record the data.

And this is an opportunity. I know the government's sentiments and intentions are already in this direction of travel. This I put to the House is an opportunity to make

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it happen. I beg to move. Amendment proposed after clause 166. Insert the new clause as

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166. Insert the new clause as printed on the Marshalled List. My Lords, I move that the debate

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My Lords, I move that the debate on amendment 438 be adjourned.

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This the debate on amendment 438 be adjourned. As many as of that opinion will say content contrary,

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opinion will say content contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, I beg to be resumed.

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The House be now resumed. As many as of that opinion will say. Content contrary. Not content. The contents have it.

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contents have it. In order for the House to be ready for oral questions. I therefore beg to move that the House do adjourn during pleasure until 230.

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until 230. Question is that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 230. As many as of that opinion will say content the contrary, not
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Baroness Blake of Leeds Portrait Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)
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My My Lords, My Lords, I My Lords, I regret My Lords, I regret to My Lords, I regret to inform My Lords, I regret to inform the house of the death of the noble Lord Lord Flight on 24th January 2026. And on behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to noble

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Lords, family and friends. First Oral Question Baroness Jones of Whitchurch. I beg leave to ask the question.

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I beg leave to ask the question. Standing in my name on the Order Paper. My Lords, we now know without doubt that Surestart worked. It delivered twice as much in benefits as it cost, with positive impacts as it cost, with positive impacts on health and identification and educational outcomes. That is why this government is investing over this government is investing over £500 million to rebuild crucial family services. Best Start Family Hubs will provide that essential support from conception through through the early years to parents

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across the whole of England. My Lords, the evidence on the

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My Lords, the evidence on the impact of early years investment is compelling. As my noble friend the Minister has outlined, it matters Minister has outlined, it matters for health, for growth, for skills, for employment. Almost every outcome we can imagine are improved outcome we can imagine are improved by early intervention. So can I ask my noble friend, the Minister, what steps are being taken to ensure steps are being taken to ensure that child development and family support are given the priority they deserve, not just in the very welcome best start hubs, but right across government? Yeah.

Good question.

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As my noble friend mentions earlier, this is a real priority for this government, starting with for this government, starting with our own plan for change and a national target to increase the proportion of children achieving a proportion of children achieving a good level of development by 2028 when starting school. We have when starting school. We have followed this up with statutory targets for every local authority, targets for every local authority, with each one tasked with producing ambitious local plans to deliver.

Best Start Family Hubs are one vital element of the best start in life strategy. But as my noble friend mentions, this will have impacts right across government.
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Lord Watts Portrait Lord Watts (Labour)
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My Lords. >> My Lords. >> If I could just build on the noble Baroness question, could the noble Baroness question, could the Minister advise if this government is still committed to Best Start is still committed to Best Start Family Hubs supporting families with children who are older than five? It should go 0 to 19 or 0 to 25 per special. Send children, as the emphasis on their publications has been on what you might call the Sure Start age range, which is 0 to 5.

And what will they expect family hubs to provide in the areas of reducing parental conflict and providing support for separating

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and separated parents? I acknowledge the fact that the

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I acknowledge the fact that the noble Lord had a great involvement in the setting up of the Family Hub programme under the previous government. And can I reassure him that Best Start Family Hubs will be that Best Start Family Hubs will be open to all families with children aged 0 to 19 and at the age of 25? aged 0 to 19 and at the age of 25? For young people with Send, they will be welcoming spaces where every family feels valued and confident to ask for help.

They will be open for to older children and they can become part of the local youth offer, including young future hubs where that makes sense locally. These programmes will be locally driven with reference to the further work. We are working with other government departments to determine what additional services will be included in Best Start Family Hubs. This will be reflected in further guidance, which we will publish in spring 2026.

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My Lords, my Lords, can I ask the government, in terms of Best Start Family Hubs, how they will Start Family Hubs, how they will actually reduce rather than deepen regional inequalities, particularly in areas with the highest child

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in areas with the highest child poverty rates, where often pressure on local services is the greatest? Yeah, yes. But the commitment is to open a

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But the commitment is to open a make sure every local authority area has a family hub. And area has a family hub. And obviously deprivation is one of the key factors in the whole programme. And we want to make sure that all children benefit from the services on offer and is down to local authorities to determine where their priorities are and how they can best help and give the support that families need. Across My Lords, pilot schemes, under which parents are trained, particularly by charities, to help other parents with the skills necessary in bringing up children, are shown to have a high rate of success.

So can the government say what its doing to encourage local authorities in schools to help such groups build up? The The noble Lady references the I think the value of the voluntary community and faith sector. And just to reassure that we are investing £2.25 million into five organisations to help with exactly the areas that she suggesting around breaking down barriers and enabling people to access services. And we know from the Sure Start model that bringing parents families together from a range of different backgrounds is invaluable in helping them to get the support they need, and that is the model we are hoping to build on.
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Baroness Blake of Leeds Portrait Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)
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My Lords. very particular needs which are often overlooked. Could my noble friend expand a little on what services are being made available to those parent carers?

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My my noble friend, as always, raises a very a very important raises a very a very important point and in the best start in life strategy we have committed to strategy we have committed to having in each of the family hubs, a children and family services a children and family services practitioner, to support children and families with additional needs. We recognise just how significant We recognise just how significant the demand is in this year and particularly in early years, and we look forward to the Reform White Paper, which will be coming out soon, which will help progress this further.



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My Lords. The Minister, acknowledge the work of my noble friend Lord Farmer, work of my noble friend Lord Farmer, who has offered huge leadership in this area and obviously on these this area and obviously on these benches. We're very pleased to see the expansion of family hubs and the expansion of family hubs and even choosing a name that was used in the conservative paper on the in the conservative paper on the subject from 2021. So imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I think, but I wasn't sure that the noble Lady addressed all of my noble friend's question, particularly in relation to families experiencing domestic abuse, parental conflict, and separated parents.

The idea that we need to consult across government to work out what additional services with guidance in spring 2026 doesn't feel as clear as I

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think the noble Lady can give us as an answer. EA. Well, the noble is such an important point. We need to build important point. We need to build on the good things from the Surestart model, build on the good things that came out of the family things that came out of the family home model, bring them together and really analyse the way forward in really analyse the way forward in terms of working with adults and terms of working with adults and parents of children, that the model has proved that parents coming in will often get confidence in other parents in the hub to help them support, and then working with the professional support within the hub.

They can be signposted to special services to give them the support that they need. I can't be more precise than that because the things will develop in different ways in different areas, but there is a real determination to take advantage of all the cross-cutting themes that can come out of this. And obviously parental

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relationships is one of those those areas. My Lords, the House will have

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My Lords, the House will have been surprised at recent reports about the number of children who about the number of children who start at school, who are not fully toilet trained and who have very toilet trained and who have very poor command of language. Doesn't that illustrate how we must invest that illustrate how we must invest more in parenting parental skills, in helping people who are not natural parents to learn how to be a good parent, and to provide this essential development at that stage

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in the child's early life. Yeah. I completely agree with the noble Lord, and we did have a whole noble Lord, and we did have a whole question devoted to the issue of toilet training and preparedness toilet training and preparedness for life in school and talking to reception teachers. Some of the examples that they give are really, examples that they give are really, really disturbing. We know we've been through a very difficult time with Covid, but actually bringing families together and sharing experience is a very good substitute where in areas particularly where the natural community support, support from extended family might not exist anymore.

And that, I think, is one

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of the reasons why these this development is so important. Lord Hanson Minister, notice how

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Lord Hanson Minister, notice how much time this government is spending dealing with austerity and privatisation, and we're only privatisation, and we're only having to deal with this problem because the last government, actually Tory government closed all

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these centres of engineering. Yeah. I am actually I believe that the,

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I am actually I believe that the, the opposition do recognise now that it was an enormous mistake reducing the funding that went into Surestart and in two family support, and we are reaping the benefit of that decline in support. And as one of the people on the front line in local authorities, I can tell you it was some of the most difficult piece of work that we had to do, reducing services that we knew delivered so well for families.

I am delighted we're in a position now to start rebuilding those services for for the best outcomes for our young children coming through the system.
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None Portrait Business of the House
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Built environment Committee and 28 other appointment motions. The Senior Deputy Speaker. Lords, I beg to move the 29 motion standing my name on the Order Paper en bloc. These 29 motions give effect to the rotation rule, which is applied each January following the recent meeting of the Committee of Selection to secure a regular turnover of select committee membership. They also appoint an established the membership of the 2026 Special Inquiry Committees.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank noble Lords, who are rotating off committees for their commitment and dedication, and welcome those noble Lords who will be joining the hard working

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committees of the House. I beg to move. The question is that the 29. Motions.

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In the name of the Senior Deputy Speaker be agreed to en bloc as many as are that opinion will say many as are that opinion will say content the contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, we now come to an instrument now come to an instrument previously debated in Grand Committee, police and Criminal evidence. Northern Ireland Order evidence. Northern Ireland Order 1989. Application to immigration officers and designated customs officials in Northern Ireland and Consequential Amendments Regulations 2026.

The Lord Hanson

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of Flint few. I beg to move the motion standing my name on the Order Paper.

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standing my name on the Order Paper. The question is on this motion be agreed to as many as are that opinion will say content the opinion will say content the contrary not content. The contents have it house to be again in Committee on the Crime and Policing

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Committee on the Crime and Policing Bill, the Lord Hanson of Flint. I beg to move that the House do now resume again in committee on the bill.

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the bill. The question is that the House do now again resolve itself into a committee upon the bill. As many as are of that opinion will say content, the contrary, not content.
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None Portrait AMDT: 438C Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)
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>> My Lords, I've. >> Added my name to Baroness Cash

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Added my name to Baroness Cash 438 C on the recording of ethnicity 438 C on the recording of ethnicity in police data. One chance to move, and I don't profess to have the and I don't profess to have the noble Ladies expertise in this area in terms of her work at the Equalities and Human Rights Commission or as a distinguished lawyer, but I think her aspiration to have clear, consistent and transparent data is important, and it is increasingly important for politics and with the public, which is why I wanted to speak.

Following on from the Casey review, the Home Secretary then announced that collecting ethnicity and nationality data in cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation cases would become a mandatory requirement. This recommendation to collect targeted information was made after the review had found that there was a paucity of data nationally concerning the ethnicity of perpetrators of the rape who were part of the rape grooming gangs. The noble Lady, Lady Baroness Casey had found that, as we've already heard, that only three local policing areas, Greater Manchester West and South Yorkshire, had such data, and the noble Lady Baroness Casey concluded that whilst this was sufficient evidence to show that there were disproportionate numbers of men from Asian, specifically Pakistani heritage amongst the suspects as well as those convicted, that that conclusion had been avoided for too long, and she criticised official obfuscation that led that misled the public.

Yvette Cooper concluded what much more robust, while much more robust, data is needed, we cannot and must not shy away from these findings. I think that sums up a very positive development, which is that recognition that we need to collect more data on ethnicity. We're not going to get ourselves into either a political scandal, which is what the grooming gangs question was, but also a way that had been really obscuring both for local residents, for members of the public, and, of course, for the victims, who felt very frustrated that these things were not allowed to come out.

So I think with much more acceptance of the positive role of acknowledging ethnicity and data in the in the wind, I think we should look at expanding that. This much more open approach now needs to be, I think, to crime statistics more generally. And in fact, in this new atmosphere, the issue has also affected policing in the wake of the Southport murders. Of those three little girls, the police slowness in releasing the details of the suspected perpetrator, Axel Rudi Cabana, when he was arrested was something which caused, as we know, immense political tensions.

The almost wilfully misleading description of the suspect as a 17 year old from Lancashire, who was originally from Cardiff and led to and itself a sort of pseudo form of misinformation, created an information vacuum that led to false rumours and actual misinformation started online that the killer was a muslim asylum seeker, completely incorrect and so therefore accurate data, accurate descriptions actually play a valuable role. And that led to the Met Police Chief, sir Mark Rowley, declaring that it was right to release the ethnicity of suspects, pointing out the importance of being, quote, more transparent in terms of the data that the police release.

I think what this amendment is trying to do is to make sure that the data that's collected is also accurate, and not just a debate about being released. And, you know, the the incidents around Southport led to guidance being developed by the National Police Chiefs Council and the College of Policing in recognition of public concerns to ensure that police processes are fit for purpose in an age of rapid information spread. But I don't think that this response should just be about combating misinformation, and that shouldn't be just the main driver.

I do think that in order for us to have accurate the importance of having accurate information, the main driver should be that the public have a right to know and understand offender and victim profiles accurately, and the police very specifically need to understand the data to aid in the prevention and detection of crimes. It's arguable if decisions to release information should be left up to police forces. That's not what we're concerned with here. But certainly data collection needs to be mandated, and a failure to act on this can lead to tensions.

Just one thing I did want to counter in some of this debate. Campaigners have tried to suggest that such data collection may only encourage focusing on racial backgrounds and fuel, quote, right wing conspiracy theories or, quote, pander to racism. I don't think that's fair. Not a week goes by without people asking questions from the public about incidents that have happened, and it's because they're concerned for the safety of their communities. And sometimes that involves ethnicity. But I think that the noble Lady Baroness Cash made it clear that this is much broader than the issues that I've raised.

This is also about the ethnicity of victims. It's also about ensuring that people from ethnic, different ethnic backgrounds are not discriminated against or unfairly treated by the police. And so I think we've got to be much more open to ensuring that this kind of debt not shy away from or be frightened of this kind of data, I think, is essential for good policing and for reassuring the public that we are not trying to hide behind, not revealing or collecting ethnicity data for political ideological ends, as we did with the grooming gangs.
15:24
Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti (Labour)
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As the noble Lady Baroness Fox said, this amendment is focuses on the recording of ethnicity in police data. So not this sensitive, balanced issue of when to publish. And I think I rather agree with what I understood her remarks to be about that, which is it's probably best left in police, in operational police hands because there are sensitivities about it. But in terms of the recording of ethnicity, again, this this has been a controversial subject in different jurisdictions over the years.

Parts of continental Europe, Germany, for example, take a very different view to recording ethnic data for obvious historical reasons. But for my part, I do think there is value in in having some recording of ethnicity in police data, not least as a means of attempting to grapple with race discrimination. For example, in Stop and Search, my question really is about is about subsection two. Of of 48 C, which. And again, it's this issue of police observation rather than self-identification.

Now the amendment focuses on the 18 categories in the in the census. And I think we're all familiar with with that census and often filling out questionnaires that look at those 18 subcategories. But that's one thing. When you are self-identifying, it's very, very easy for me, for example, to use the census categories, because I know my story, I know my history. But I have to say, I do challenge even noble Lords and noble friends in this committee without the benefit of Wikipedia or smartphones.

Even now, to just determine which of those 18 categories I would best fit into without the benefit of a or Wikipedia, or me being somebody that there is stuff written about in terms of my history. So I just worry about the how this would work if if an officer must record the police observed ethnicity of the individual using the 18 category classification employed in the most recent census for England and Wales. 18 you know, including determining whether somebody is British, Asian, British, Pakistani mixed race, etcetera, etcetera.

Thank you for giving way. As this is Committee

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stage. I really welcome. Her comments on this. And the. 18 category is the gold standard

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18 category is the gold standard of identification in practice. The police officer may be having a police officer may be having a conversation with a suspect or, you know, the reality does again need know, the reality does again need to be injected with a bit of common sense. And if an individual doesn't know how to self-identify, a conversation of helping them to locate their particular geography or identity may be facilitated by that common sense with the officer concerned.

So but I do welcome it. And I've Committee stage, you know, obviously if there is an alternative because I hear the noble Lady is in agreement on the principle and the general direction,

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what therefore would be a good the. Noble Lady Baroness Cash.

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Noble Lady Baroness Cash. So I think it at, at that level, at the level of arrest at the police level, it has to be some police level, it has to be some version of self-identification. But but the police, you know, need to but the police, you know, need to ask and if necessary, have the conversation. But I don't think it can be that the police have to can be that the police have to observe and decide and adjudicate, because I just don't think I just don't think that's viable.

I think this is going to happen. Noble Lady may disagree with me, but I think in relation to to race and ethnicity in particular, this is probably going to have to be self-identification, because, as I say, I think anything else at the level of arrest or charge, it is really just not practical. OK.
15:29
Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords. >> I. >> Declare my interest that. >> My son is a senior lecturer at Swansea University, specialising in Swansea University, specialising in online radicalisation, and he advises a number of governments and parliaments, including our own and other public bodies, including on prevent. In the previous group, we noted that the police are in the middle of changing the databases that they use for recording data and moving to the new law enforcement data service, and the details are due to be published very shortly, we hope, in March this year.

It is important that proper data is collected on ethnicity, and I am very grateful to Lady Fox quoting Lady Casey's review, because those points are extremely important. And the police, as with many other public bodies, should be collecting that data. But it must be driven by officers asking for self-declaration by the individual concerned. And frankly, most of us are used to this. Certainly. I went to a new clinic at a hospital the other day, and I was asked to to do it.

So I'm quite used to doing it. And I think I'm not alone in that. As with Lady Chakrabarti, my concern with amendment 438 C is Subclause two, where it talks about police observed ethnicity of an individual. Lady Kash talked about using common sense and I am all for common sense, but unfortunately we have to balance that with what we know about racism in our police forces. We know from the very good London Race Action Plan, published by the Metropolitan Police last summer, that the Met Police still have some way to go before becoming a truly anti-racist organisation.

The action plan covers 30 patterns of harm identified with a diagnosis of these issues, and a structural companion guide on how to change practice and, importantly, culture to reduce and remove those harms. I'm afraid I fear that they are not the only police force to still have some racist behaviour by officers, whether the officers are aware of it or not. So that's why I query Subclause two today at my local rail station, the young staff member who assisted me onto the train told me everyone gets my ethnicity wrong.

They think I'm Hispanic, but I am not, I am Asian. She also spoke of the problem of people passing a term that originated in the USA, when someone classified as one race could be accepted as another, and therefore travel in the front of a bus or use a certain drinking fountain. She said that these days, passing can cause real difficulties in families and communities where race is judged by others because it's not the individual's self-identifying. So can I ask the noble Lady Kash how she thinks this would work in practice if police officers were able to make judgements at exactly the same time that our police forces are trying to stop ethnic stereotyping through changing processes and culture, evident in plans like the London Race Action Plan.

I add one other point. At the moment, there is a terrifying example of what happens with law enforcement when it asks its officers to make an assessment of a person's ethnicity. Every day we are seeing Ice agents arresting people without warrants from their cars, their streets, even from their elementary schools and a pre-school because of the way they look. Not one of my American friends predicted a year ago that this would happen. So from these benches, we look forward to the new law enforcement data services when they are, when it's introduced, and that the police, like other public bodies, ensure that the data they collect comes from the individuals self-identifying themselves.
15:33
Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative)
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I thank my noble friend, Lady Cash for tabling this important amendment allowing for a debate on this matter. The link between ethnicity and crime has for far too long been a taboo subject, but the fact that it is, always has, and remains to be a significant factor in explaining certain trends. When ethnicity is ignored and underreported, observers are reduced to relying on conjecture. But conjecture based upon unverified connections. And it does no. It does an injustice to the victims of crime that go either unresolved or underreported, because their causal factors are refused to be acknowledged, so when the facts are obscured, it opens the door for accusations from both sides.

In bad faith, people are derided as racist, and uninvolved communities are implicated. The result, again, is that the focus is redirected away from the victims. My Lords, I know that grooming gangs have been the case study most often referred referenced when discussing this topic, and I apologise for repeating the same argument, but we do so because they offer the best example. On the consequences of ignoring this link. For decades, tens of thousands of white working class girls were systematically groomed, trafficked and raped by gangs of predominantly Pakistani men.

This is a fact that has only recently been accepted by mainstream politicians and media. Despite years of campaigning and research conducted outside of Westminster, we should not have arrived at this point where, after over 30 years, Westminster has only just waking up to the scale of the tragedy. We should not have had to wait for the noble Baroness. Lady cases review only commissioned after the government faced significant pressure both in Parliament and online, for politicians to act on an overtly racialised crime.

I understand that the failings surrounding the inability to bring these gangs to justice have been many, but a consistent factor is that authorities have overlooked the crimes for fear of being racist. And in turn, the police have done nothing to allay their fears by providing accurate ethnicity figures. So I think the words of the former MP for grooming hotspot Rochdale, Denis MacShane, aptly demonstrate this by his own words. In 2014 he avoided the industrial scale rape of working class girls in his constituency out of fear of rocking the multicultural boat and offending his own sensibilities as a true Guardian reader and liberal lefty, unquote.

My Lords, bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than good men should look on and do nothing good men in the narrow sense that they were not the ones committing evil crimes, were permitted to adopt tennis machines acquiescent attitude for decades, because there was no official empirical pushback for campaigners to draw from, and because if ethnicity data had been collected and released, as we know from the fragmented picture that we now possess, the fact that these crimes were disproportionately committed by the Pakistani community would have been transformed from a racist trope derided as an inconvenience, to a proven fact to be used by police forces for action.

We must learn from our failings. It is not enough to simply commission a review into grooming gangs, and hope that acknowledging past crimes will put a stop to future crimes being committed, because there are crimes that are still happening and they are still happening along ethnic lines. Mandating the recording of ethnicity is a necessity for any government claiming to want to reduce violence against women and girls. Perhaps the past, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey's recommendation and past grooming gangs.

There is a great practical reason to now introduce a requirement to record ethnicity. Crime trends differ from community to community, and identifying exactly what these are will help the police direct resources more effectively. This data would even, and I hope that many noble Lords opposite will support me here. Reduce officers unconscious biases as decisions would be based upon empirical evidence and not assumptions drawn from shaky data. While Lords, the administrative burden that comes with this change is negligible. It is an extra tick in the box in an arrest report.

The benefits, as explained, are numerous. If we are serious about organising a victim orientated system that is empirically based, then this is an absolute, absolutely necessary amendment and I hope the noble Lord, the Minister, will agree and I look very much. I look very much forward to hearing from him.
15:37
Lord Katz Portrait Lord Katz (Labour)
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Again. I thank the noble Lady Baroness Cash for her amendment, which seeks to mandate the collection of ethnicity data of perpetrators of crime. And I also thank all those who contributed in the debate. My noble friend Baroness Chakrabarti, the noble Lady Baroness Fox of Buckley and the noble Lady for the opposition, the noble Lady Baroness Brinton and noble Lord, Lord Davis of Gower. I won't repeat the points a bit further away than I thought they're going to be, but I won't repeat the points I made in the last group.

But I will stress that the content of the annual data requirement is reviewed annually. There's the annual data requirement on policing on police is reviewed annually, and that we have announced plans in the police white paper, which we already have discussed, and the previous group to bring forward legislation when parliamentary time allows mandating the collection of suspect ethnicity data. And there's there's been a lot of discussion and debate on, on this this group of amendments, this this amendment rather but around Baroness Casey recent audit into the group based child sexual exploitation and abuse.

And just obviously, for the avoidance of any doubt, I want to be absolutely clear. These abhorrent crimes must be pursued wherever it is found, without cultural or political sensitivities getting in the way. And I'll just pause now, just purely, I think, in aid of kind of correcting the record. Whilst I'm not at all defending his comments, I believe I'm right saying. Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham, referring to what the noble Lord Lord Davies of Gower, an MP for Rotherham, rather than Rochdale, which is obviously where the where one of these those gangs operated, particularly the Baroness Casey, looked into.

But I just wanted to put that out there. That doesn't undermine, as I said, these are crimes and they must be pursued irrespective of any cultural or political sensitivities getting in the way. My Lords, the previous Home Secretary wrote to all chief constables to make it clear that we expect that ethnicity data will be collected from all suspects in child sexual abuse and criminal exploitation cases, as previously set out by the Home Secretary. We will be legislating to mandate the collection of ethnicity data in such cases.

And to be very clear and again, I will I will pray in aid indeed kind of quote directly from the Policing White Paper which was published yesterday. We will work with policing to create a framework for mandating clear national data standards in a timely way to improve how data is collected, recorded and used across England and Wales, and make sure these standards are applied across all forces and the systems they use, which will further support existing legal and ethical frameworks. Ensuring data is managed responsibly and proportionately, whilst maintaining services and maintaining public confidence.

The noble Lady Baroness Cash particularly and referred to the importance of self self-defined ethnicity and this of course, is the recommended way that the ONS suggests ethnicity should be recorded in line with the census, which does ultimately provide the benchmark versus which public all public service data should be should be collected. In light of this and our commitment to bring forward legislation in the context of our wider reforms to policing, I'd ask that the noble Lady Baroness Cash withdraw her amendment.
15:40
Baroness Cash Portrait Baroness Cash (Conservative)
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Grateful, my. >> Lords. >> The mandatory recording. Of ethnicity data was a recommendation of the Macpherson inquiry that long ago. And it just hasn't happened. It hasn't been put on a statutory footing. And so the variability in collection of data up and down the country. We've already heard about today, it's for that reason and the many other social and sociological criminological difficulties that we now have with data, assessing the trends that I wanted to bring forward this amendment and invite the government to use this moment with this Crime and Policing bill going through, to actually set this on a statutory footing.

I don't feel attached particularly to what categories we use, provided it isn't a summary of five that on the on the the old visual groups, because they are very cursory and they don't provide the granularity of detail needed. I'm really grateful to those who've spoken in support Baroness and to Baroness Chakrabarti. I would welcome a very grateful also to the winding speeches, but I would really welcome a further conversation, because the direction of travel of the government, the comments of the noble Lady Baroness Chakrabarti and the noble Lady Baroness Fox, I feel that there's common ground.

And if there is a moment now, the noble Baroness, noble Lady Baroness Brinton referenced ice. We must not let that happen. In our country, people often say we are just a bit behind the curve of the US, and that is not what we want to happen, but we have an opportunity to take steps that prevent the lack of transparency and dictatorial, authoritarian behaviours that we've seen recently in the US. And it's it's my view that this is an opportunity.

I believe the government are sincere about driving towards this. To put it on a statutory footing, would emphasise that and give the public the reassurance that they seek. I.

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On that note, I beg to withdraw my amendment. Is it your Lordships pleasure the amendment be withdrawn? The the amendment be withdrawn? The amendment is by leave withdrawn. amendment is by leave withdrawn. Amendment 438 d the Lord Davies of Gower.

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Gower. My Lords, I beg to move. Amendment 43 a2 my name and that of my noble friend, Lord Cameron of my noble friend, Lord Cameron of Lochiel. This amendment seeks to exempt the police from the public sector equality duty in section 149 of the Equality Act, 2010, when they are exercising core policing
15:43
15:44
None Portrait Amendment:438D Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative)
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Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Regulations, ethics, ethics codes, common law, and detailed operational safeguards. Yet despite this, operational decisions of this, operational decisions of police officers are being second guessed, not through the lens of legality or effectiveness, but through compliance with equality impact assessments, diversity metrics and institutional diversity, equality and inclusion priorities that were never designed for split second operational judgements. There is also a practical application here. The police are often hampered in their ability to stop and search people because of their duties under the Equality Act, for example, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act Code of Practice A, which governs the operation of police powers to stop and search, states that when police officers are carrying out their functions, they also have a duty to have due regard to the need of the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

To advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not share it, and to take steps to foster good relations between those persons. So I think it would be quite widely accepted by the public that it is not the police's role to advance equality of opportunity. They are not activists. Noble Lords will be aware of the government's White paper on police reform published yesterday, and in that paper it says it is vital that the police are able to focus on the public's priorities reducing crime, tackling anti-social behaviour and apprehending those who break the law.

Too often, the police find themselves fighting crime with one hand tied behind their backs, dealing with excessive bureaucracy, obsolete technology and outdated legislation. And I agree with that statement. The police do often have their hands tied behind their backs, hampering their abilities to fight crime effectively. The public sector equality duty is just that excessive bureaucracy. So communities across the country want visible policing, proactive crime prevention and confident officers on the streets. They do not want a police service distracted by box ticking exercises or ideological compliance regimes that undermine morale and operational clarity.

I will also beg to move.
15:46
Baroness Fox of Buckley Portrait Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)
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Amendment proposed after clause 166. Insert the new clause as printed on the Marshalled List.

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printed on the Marshalled List. I have my Lords. This amendment for three d exempts the police and for three d exempts the police and the Public Sector Equality Act 2010 is justified so that the police are solely committed to effectively carrying out their policing functions. And when I read that, I just thought, I wish that we could apply this exemption across the board, because I really do wish that more public bodies would, in fact, commit themselves to effectively carrying out their functions and not get distracted by the public sector equality duty.

I wish that this would. The police, I'm afraid, have become far too embroiled in politicised equality initiatives. The dying of the police as it's become known. So just very briefly, I just wanted to raise what I do. Why I do think this amendment is worth thinking about quite, and why it's quite important. There is currently legal action being taken against the UK civil service over aspects of EDI practices. Specifically noted is the official participation in pride events.

The argument is that taxpayer funded civil service involvement in, for example, LGBTQ+ pride marches, including civil servants marching in branded civil service pride t shirts using rainbow lanyards at work, and so on that this is in breach of the Civil Service Code of being objective and impartial. And how this relates to the police is that there was this recent this this new current legal action follows a successful legal challenge of Northumbria Police in 2025, where the High Court ruled that uniformed police officers marching in pride are.

Sorry, in pride marches actually marching as police officers breached police impartiality. And I think that the public do find the idea of this politicised police force fuels the argument that the police may be unfair or discriminatory in who they target. For example, for non-crime hate incidents, even even though we're seeing the back of those, they were the blight of many a person's life destroyed many citizens lives. So I do think that we need a reassurance that the public sector equality duty has not been used to both distract the police, but also to politicise policing, because I think all the evidence would imply that it has been.

And that's something that the government should be concerned about.

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My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved in the name of my noble friend on the front bench noble friend on the front bench when section 149 of the Equality when section 149 of the Equality Act came into effect, it was seen Act came into effect, it was seen largely as a benign part of the act in that it very reasonably imposed in that it very reasonably imposed an obligation on public sector organisations to treat people with fairness and equality, and to ensure that there was a quality of opportunity, both within that organisation and in terms of the interface that those bodies had with the wider public, whether it was local government, the NHS or other bodies.

But it has unfortunately been the subject of Parkinson's law, where the work expands to fill the category and therefore often instead of a focus on the managerial targets, on the action plans, on the strategy documents, which would deliver demonstrable improvements in policing performance across a wide number of of areas and criminal activity. Instead of that, there has been overfocus, regrettably, on the public sector equality duty. My view is as someone who by background is a human resources manager and practitioner, every decent leadership in every organisation should in any case have a set of policies which deliver fairness and equality within the organisation.

It shouldn't be incumbent upon the government to compel organisations to do something that they should already be doing, and many of the leading organisations in the public and private sector do so anyway, because it actually delivers better performance. If you treat people with fairness and decency and give them opportunities. My experience from and I hasten to apologise to the Committee for my experience on the British Transport Police Authority. Again, at the end of October 2023, I was invited to attend a workshop on diversity, equality and inclusion that cost the taxpayer £29,000 for essentially two days of a workshop.

Some handouts and some supplementary materials, £29,000, and that contained contested, contested theories around critical race theory, white privilege, microaggressions. I declined to to attend the first day. The second day was much more productive because it was focussed on objectives for the senior management objectives of the British Transport Police. My point being, my Lords, that this expansion of the public sector equality duty has been inimicable to the main objectives of policing, which is to tackle crime and protect the safety and security of our citizens in in the case of BTP on the railways, but in the wider country.

And so I would say to the Minister and the Committee that in my opinion, there is a special case to be made that policing is
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15:55
Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Well done. >> My Lords. >> I want to thank Lady Thornton

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I want to thank Lady Thornton for just outlining the core essential use for the public sector essential use for the public sector equality duty. And I note that the government's website says that the PSD requires public authorities to have due regard when exercising their functions, like making decisions. End quote goes on to say it's intended to help decisions, including government Ministers, by with the duty. It doesn't talk about marches, pride marches. It doesn't talk about the detail of training.

In fact, it goes on the actual section one for nine from the Equality Act says that it must a public authority must eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under this act. I don't think the police could argue with anything there. It must advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant, protected characteristic and with persons who do not share it. I think that also speaks to the point that Lady Thornton was raising about some of the very poor racist behaviour we've seen with a few individuals.

It must also foster good relations between persons who do share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it. And finally, a person who is not a public authority, but to exercise public functions must, in the exercise of those functions, have due regard to the matters mentioned in subsection above, one above. And my Lords, I've quoted that very short clause because actually the description from some of the previous speakers in this short debate have made it sound like something completely different, and I would be very worried if the police no longer had to follow the public sector equality duty as set out in the Equality Act.

We can all argue about whether we like or don't like going on training days can argue about a certain amount of money being well spent or not spent. But actually, I think we really want to see discrimination eliminated. And that's particularly important in the police. Lady Kash said in the last group that we all need common sense and practicality. The PSD is the tool that actually does that, and I'm grateful to Lord Davies of Gower for outlining the detail. And he's right the police should follow the law.

The point is that the PSD and the impact assessments also fit within that. So getting rid of the PSD means that unlawful discrimination may well be missed and that would be dreadful. He said also that it's not down to the police to deliver equality. Well, I think the Equality Act differs and I think that actually the work that the police do would be pretty horrified if they suddenly said they didn't have to deliver equality either. My Lords, I think one of the ways that racism can be eliminated from the police is by ensuring compliance with the PSD.

It's not the PSD itself that is at fault, it's what's going on inside police authorities. And that's why I think for the third group today, we talk about the importance of the white paper of policing that's just been published, which will change the culture and ensure that that stops. But, my Lords, from these benches, we believe that the PCSC is a vital

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tool for the police to deliver that. I think.

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I think. Both the noble Lady Brinton and the noble Lady Thornton can't both be right. The noble Lady Brinton is be right. The noble Lady Brinton is making the case that the public sector equality duty is a tool to tackle racism. And yet, as Lady tackle racism. And yet, as Lady Thornton made clear, the appalling racist events at Charing Cross took racist events at Charing Cross took place a year ago, 14 years after the PSD came into being. Surely the point being that it has not worked and that in fact a whole a cultural change has to happen from within the organisation and as well as complementary legislation to be imposed on this occasion, it

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doesn't seem to have worked in that part of the Metropolitan Police. We mention that because that's

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We mention that because that's exactly why I mentioned the Metropolitan Police Action Plan for Metropolitan Police Action Plan for race for London earlier on, because it hasn't worked, but it is underpinned. That action plan is underpinned by the PSD and the responsibilities without the police.

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responsibilities without the police. Get rid of that and it might never happen. Does the noble Lady acknowledge the problems of mission creep? The original aims may well have been worthy, but when we, for example, talk about training days, I think that the problem is, or at least my concern is that the content of those training days can breach impartiality rules. And in fact, there's been and I won't go through it now, well documented instances of, for example, the fight against racism being turned into the campaign for Black Lives Matters, which are two very different things.

So is there any concern at all about any politicisation or dangers? And the question second is one of the things that we discussed in the Employment Rights Bill was attending to the equality to this particular duty has been a huge increase in HR. It's really the fastest growing industry in the UK, sadly, and largely that's been to try and interpret this equality duty. And it's led to a wide range

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of activities maybe never envisaged by the Equality Act originally. I'm grateful for Lady Fox. Just just mentioning those

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Just just mentioning those things. I'm not quite sure what the questions are, but I think I can say quite clearly that I don't see say quite clearly that I don't see a direct line between the public sector equality duty and Black Lives Matter. What I see with Black Lives Matter. What I see with Black Lives Matter was black people being treated very poorly and some killed because it wasn't working properly. because it wasn't working properly. It wasn't working properly just because it existed.

It wasn't working properly because the police were not operating, avoiding discrimination and fighting discrimination. The point about the increase in HR, I mean, you know, I think those of us who are perhaps behind on our fire safety assessments might, might get concerned about about that. But actually each organisation must assess what it needs to do for all its members of staff. And one of the things that I do keep saying to the Minister is, please don't just train specialist staff in things like violence against women and girls.

It has to be throughout. Why does it have to be throughout? Because of the equality issues and all the points that were raised by the noble Lords who have spoken and indeed Lady Kash earlier on about women being much more likely to be victims of serious crime. So that's why we need it, because it is absolutely underpinning everything that the police do.
16:03
Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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I'm grateful for the opportunity to support the public sector to support the public sector equality duty in legislation and to say to the noble Lord Davies of Gower and to the noble Lord Jackson of Peterborough, that there are times when, you know, before anybody's even spoken, that you're not going to agree with the premise of the argument. This is one of those occasions, and I'm not going to agree with the premise of the argument. I'm not going to agree with the premise of the argument without repeating what Baroness Brinton has said, but in part repeating what Baroness Brinton has said by referring to what the section 109 of the Public sector equality duty is, and what it says is a public authority must, in the exercise of its function, have due regard to the need to a limit, eliminate discrimination, or should the police not be looking at making sure they eliminate discrimination in their dealings? Harassment? Should the police not be ensuring they're not involved in harassment in their dealings? Victimisation should the police not be involved in victimisation, ensuring they don't victimise in their dealings or any other conduct that is prohibited by this act? And it says in this section that the noble Lord wishes to remove from legislation that the police on anybody else, any public authority, should see, foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share that relevant characteristic.

Now, again, under section 1495, having due regard to the need to foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share, it involves having due regard, in particular to the need to tackle prejudice, promote understanding. Well, does the noble Lord think that the police shouldn't have a role in tackling prejudice and promoting understanding? Because that's what he's saying should happen in relation to removal of this piece of legislation. Relevant protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex.

Sexual orientation. Does the noble Lord well, he obviously does because he's tabled this amendment, believe that those protected characteristics should not be ones that the police seek to take into account when dealing with these matters. Now, it's a perfectly fair argument the noble Lords putting, but it doesn't take me to listen to it in detail. To know, as I say to the noble Lord Jackson, that it's not on my core value list. It's not on my core approach to how we deal with policing.

And it's not in the way in which the police equality duties are designed. They're designed to embed day to day work in all of our public authorities. As the noble Baroness Brinton said, it leads to better outcome for individuals. It leads to better outcomes for communities. It means for policing. The duty is vital to maintain public trust and legitimacy, and to go to the noble Lord Hanson, the noble Baroness Fox and the noble Lord Davies of Gower. Peelian principles mean the police. Police with the consent of the community, and if they're not taking into account the ability not to discriminate, not to victimise, not to harass.

I'm sorry, but that is not a police service that is going to be securing the support of the community in its policing. Compliance with this duty is not a bureaucratic exercise. It is a practical tool, but one with moral underpinning to make better decision making and to have accountability. And removing this duty risks undermining confidence in policing, particularly among those communities that are in the protected characteristic list. In the section one, four nine of the Equality Act. So I just say to the noble Lord, I'm, you know, there are times here when we can have a debate and have an argument and potentially listen to areas where we will have some potential movement from either the opposition or the government.

This, my Lords, is not one of them. I hope that he will draw the amendment now, but if he brings it back at report, I'll take great pleasure in asking every member of this House to vote it down. Of course I will.

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I'll allow him to dismount from his high horse. And on this, the fact of the matter is, he knows fact of the matter is, he knows very well that between the election of the Labour government in 1997 and 2010, when the when the and 2010, when the when the Equality Act came in, there was still a concern based on a moral underpinning by the then Labour underpinning by the then Labour government to improve equality in the workplace and elsewhere. My party brought forward, for instance, party brought forward, for instance, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which tackled discrimination.

His party, the noble Lord, the Minister's party, put forward very rightly the Race Relations Act 1975. It's not a moral imperative just solely for the Labour Party in this particular government. There is, however, an argument to be made about bureaucracy and whether the focus is too much on EDI and and that prevents senior management and officers at the operational level concentrating on keeping people safe and tackling crime. That's the point we're making. Not on this side that we don't care about people being treated fairly and equally in the workplace and elsewhere.



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Well, from the high position of my horse, can I just say to the my horse, can I just say to the noble Lord that we'll take a different view on that? I think different view on that? I think from the position of a very high horse, that the noble Lord Davis's horse, that the noble Lord Davis's amendment would be damaging to community relations, to community cohesion, to the ability of the cohesion, to the ability of the police, to police effectively, and would actually give carte blanche to the type of events that have happened in certain police stations in London in the last few weeks, but would also, dare I say it, remove the the floor from that policing principle that we don't tolerate those things.

Now, he says that certain things haven't happened. And, you know, he mentioned in response to the noble Lady Baroness Brinton that, you know, some standards have been raised in the time of the Equality Act. Well, I just remind him that there's somebody speeding outside today. There's somebody stealing from a shop today. There might even be a murder today. It doesn't mean that because we don't have legislation, the people break that legislation. The key point is we're trying to set with the Equality Act, a public duty, that public authorities act with fairness, irrespective of the protected characteristics that are listed in that act.

I think the police would want to never mind should do be held to that level of account. And
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16:10
Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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Yeah. judgement that actually said that police impartiality was in fact compromised in the example that I gave in relation to Northumberland police? Because that directly speaks to this? Would the noble Lord as well reflect or comment on whether he feels that fairness has been guaranteed by the public sector? Equality, duty, fairness to all anti-discrimination. When you consider the events that happened around Sarah Everard, the protest around Sarah Everard, the frankly inexplicable one sided policing in many instances of demonstrations around Palestine at the expense of Jewish people, Jewish citizens in this country.

In other words, the argument is whether the public sector equality duty is a bureaucratic exercise. That box ticks your way to suggesting that everything is fine in the world, whereas some of us are rather more concerned that the status quo is not adequate. Good enough in the fight against racism, the fight for women's rights, or the fight for

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equality? Well, again, if if the noble

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Well, again, if if the noble Lady looks at aspects of both this bill before the committee today, elsewhere in the committee, and if elsewhere in the committee, and if she looks at what we said in the policing White Paper yesterday, she will know that this government will know that this government doesn't accept the sorry, it doesn't accept that standards don't need to be raised. We want to see need to be raised. We want to see raise standards. We want to see better vetting of police officers.

We want to see better performance. We want to see CPD dismissal. If police officers have done wrong, we want to improve those standards. But the Equality Act is about basic principles of underpinning how public services interact with people who are in our community and in the police's sense. I would argue to her, as I have done a moment ago, that those Equality Act provisions underpin what the police want to do, which is police with the consent of the community.

And I can't agree with her on that. That's an honest disagreement between us. And I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
16:13
Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative)
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My Lords, I'm grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It's been short but stimulating, and particularly thank the noble Lord Johnson of Peterborough and noble Lady Baroness Fox of Buckley for their support. When considering this matter, there is a question I would like all noble Lords to keep in mind. That question is what do we want the police to prioritise this? The answers surely, is public safety, crime prevention and the fair and firm enforcement of the law.

And as I've said, and as the legal framework makes clear, policing is already tightly regulated. Police and Criminal Evidence Act codes of practice, judicial review, the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the courts themselves all ensure the police powers are exercised lawfully and proportionately. None of those protections are removed by this amendment. And I say to the honourable Lords Minister, the entire purpose of this amendment is to remove a layer of bureaucratic obligation that is ill suited to operational policing and increasingly counterproductive, and it allows officers to make decisions based on intelligence, behaviour and risk, rather than the fear of breaching abstract equality issues.

But perhaps I'm guilty of looking at it from an operational perspective. And if we want the police to be active in our streets rather than passive observers, if we want them to intervene early rather than apologise later. And if we want public confidence rebuilt through effectiveness rather than process, then we must give them the clarity and confidence to do their job. We must recognise that effective policing is itself a public good, and that the most equal outcome of all is a society in which the law is enforced without fear or favour.

But with that, for now, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
16:14
None Portrait AMDT: 438E Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Conservative)
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Is it your Lordships. withdrawn? It is by leave withdrawn. Amendment 40 38E Lord Goodman of Wycombe.

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I rise to move my amendments 4384 038E which the noble Lady 4384 038E which the noble Lady Baroness Fox of Buckley. Has been kind enough to support for three f, 454A and 454B about non-violent extremism. Right at the start, the term non-violent extremism requires a bit of definition are the noble Lords may ask themselves the social practices of, say, the Christian exclusive brethren extreme. Could the same be said of a Jewish sect, an anarchist commune, or a quietist Salafi group in Islam, in my view, is that while these groups and others can be problematic for cohesion and integration, they are not so in relation to the extremism that my amendments seek to address.

For none of my Lords are intrinsically connected to harassment, public order offences, acts of terrorism and other such breaches of the rule of law. There are many extremist movements and ideologies that are of which the three most prominent are the far left, the far right and, for want of a better term, the Islamists. All three aim to negate or destroy the fundamental freedom of others, undermine, overturn or replace our liberal democracy and democratic rights, and intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve these ends.

I quote from the last government's definition of extremism. I'm told that it's also this government's and would be grateful if the Minister, when he replies to the debate, could confirm whether or not this is so. Of these three forms of extremism far left, far right and Islamist, the last is most preoccupied public policy. Since the London Tube bombings of July 7th, 2005, 71% of terrorist incidents in Britain since that date have been executed by Islamists. 75% of the caseload of contest.

The government's counter-terror strategy is concerned with Islamist threats. And only last October, of course, came the first murder of Jews simply for being Jews in England since medieval times. In the terror attack on Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester, the questioners vaunted public policy including, of course, crime and policing policy since seven over seven, is whether it should seek to address acts of law breaking alone, or also the ideologies that help to drive them. To use the classic figure of speech, should policy seek simply to shoot the crocodiles or also to drain the swamp.

Now, the thrust of policy under governments of all three main parties, as evidenced by contest which a Labour government created, or by the Munich speech of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton in 2011, during the coalition years, or by Sir William Shawcross. Prevent review three years ago has been to seek to drain the swamp, but progress has been fitful. There has never been an overarching policy that seeks to counter Islamist and other extremism in our institutions and civil society, and civil ones, such as charities and out-of-school settings, through to institutional ones such as the NHS, universities and schools.

There is also the matter of sermons and talks in mosques. This is extremely topical, I'm afraid, that incite hatred and violence. The account Habib regularly draws attention to these and I will send the Minister a file drawn on them. After this debate, however, he will already have available to him details of how the preachers in mosques have been prosecuted for such offences since, say, October 7th, 2023 and I would be grateful if he would share these with the House when he replies, or if he doesn't have the figures available to him, if he would write to me now, my Lords, my amendments couldn't possibly cover all this ground, nor do they fall into the trap of assuming that all extremism is terror related, nor that all extremism, whether terror related or not, is Islamist, nor that Islam, an ancient and venerable faith, is to be conflated with Islamism, a modern and politicised ideology.

Indeed, only one of my five amendments is religion specific. And it is not, I should add, Islam specific. But my amendments do seek to cover the ground I've been describing, and I'm grateful, in the course of setting them out for the emerging work of two all party groups. The first is the all party Group for Defending Democracy, chaired by the noble Lord Lord Walney. The second is the all party parliamentary group on Counter-extremism, chaired by Damian Egan, MP for Bristol North East, whose visit to a local school was recently cancelled.

He is a vice chair of Labour Friends of Israel. It later emerged that Diversity and inclusion leader of the Academy Trust, of which the school is a part, had supported the Hamas terrorists of October the 7th. As and I quote heroes, the all party group has produced a report, Time to Act, which points out first that the last government effectively scrapped its own counter-extremism strategy in 2021. Second, this government's post-general election rapid analytical review of extremism has never, to the best of my knowledge, been published.

Though the think tank Policy Exchange obtained a draft third, that it is unclear whether the Commission for Countering Extremism, set up by the last government will continue. The commissioner, Robin Simcox, is not being replaced, and the Minister asked by me recently whether he would be, has now very kindly and promptly replied to say, and I quote. We are reviewing the roles and remits of various bodies to ensure our resources are best placed to meet current challenges, which, if I may say so, does not cast a great deal more light on the matter.

So then to the amendments themselves, my amendment 454 would require the publication of the Rapid Analytical Sprint. If the Minister won't accept the amendment, will he please tell the House when the sprint will be published? My amendment 454 would require the appointment of a Counter Extremism Commissioner to replace Mr. Simcox. Again, if the Minister won't accept the amendment, can you tell the House what his plans are for the commission, or if he can't yet, when he will? My amendment 430 would require each police force to require to publish its strategy for reducing non-violent extremism.

Again, if the Minister won't accept the amendment, will he tell the House what plans the government has for police forces in this regard, and on what timetable? Finally, my amendment 438 EA comes in the wake of the horrifying developments in Birmingham referred to earlier today by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough, in which West Midlands Police bowed to an extremist mob over a football game, conjured up evidence that does not exist to justify their decision. And then, in the words of Nick, Timothy MP lied and lied again about their actions, including to Parliament.

Three of the eight mosques the West Midlands Police consulted over its decision had hosted preachers who promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories or called for the death of Jews. Now, my Lords, I expect police forces to liaise with mosques and I expect them to liaise with other religious institutions. And it's important to point out that groups and organisations other than mosques were involved with lobbying the West Midlands Police over the game in question. But the public surely has a right to know which police forces meet, with which mosques and other religious institutions of other faiths, and then to draw their own conclusions.

My amendment 48 EA would require them to do so. My Lords, these are probing amendments, but we cannot have a void where policy should be when the future of our liberal democracy is at stake. I look forward to the Minister's response.
16:23
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Portrait Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (Liberal Democrat)
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Amendment proposed after clause 16166. Insert the following new 16166. Insert the following new clause and the words as printed on the Marshalled List. Thank you.

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the Marshalled List. Thank you. My Lords. As the noble Lord Lord Godson has explained, this group is Godson has explained, this group is largely about a concentration on efforts to combat non-violent extremism, about transparency, about efforts by the government and police forces to counteract such extremism. And he also calls for the appointment of a counter Counter-extremism commissioner. And in his speech, he particularly, and I would suggest, rightly recognises and is concerned with the importance of developing and fostering dialogue between police forces and religious communities, and a much wider understanding of the real concern and fear of religious communities in the face of extremism not amounting to terrorism.

That has become so much worse in recent years, and particularly since the 7th of October. This group, I suggest, gives us the opportunity to invite the government to bring greater clarity and focus to their efforts in this area and to to to make it clear what it is that they plan. When Yvette Cooper, then the Home Secretary, directed the establishment of the Rapid Analytical Sprint on Extremism, she said that it was intended to map and monitor extremist trends, to understand the evidence about what works, to disrupt and divert people away from extremist views, and to identify any gaps in existing policy which need to be addressed, to crack down on those pushing harmful and hateful beliefs and violence.

Now, it's certainly right that Lord Goodman's speech was directed to those ends, really to to consider hateful and harmful beliefs and violence not necessarily amounting to extremism, so that the rapid analytical sprint was intended to be directed widely. And since then publicity has been given to the concentration also on misogyny, as well as on racism, anti-Semitism and general community hostilities. It was commissioned last August so that perhaps the use of the word rapid, if we don't know when it's going to be produced, is not completely apposite.

The group was also is also concerned with the concept of youth diversion orders, and we're going to be debating youth diversion orders in a later group. But youth diversion orders are directed by the terms of clause one, six, seven as it is drafted to terrorism and terrorism related offences. It's certainly right that clause 1672B talks about the purpose of protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism or other serious harm, but serious harm in the context of other serious harm as defined and would direct our attention is directed to section two, clause 168, which talks about harm from conduct that involves serious violence against a person, endangers a person's life other than that of the person engaging in the conduct, or creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public, or a section of the public, or the threat of such conduct.

Now, serious harm in that context is really effectively the threat of violence. And as I understood Lord Goodman's speech and Lord Goodman's amendments as a whole, there are also directed to the points that Yvette Cooper mentioned when the rabbit analytical sprint was established, and they go much wider and and concern non-violent extremism, which is what this group really is about. He talked about confronting ideologies and draining the swamp, and we would be grateful if the Minister, when he responds, would clarify what the government's target is in tackling non-violent extremism.

How far is the government's strategy for both government and police action, aimed at producing an overarching strategy to tackle non-violent extremism as well as terrorism? And we appreciate that it is difficult, perhaps more difficult in conceptual terms, to develop such a strategy aimed at non-violence than it is to develop a strategy aimed at terrorism, which, while appalling, is relatively straightforward to define. The concept of non-violent extremism is altogether more difficult and we are at the moment left a little in the dark about what the government proposes.
16:29
Baroness Fox of Buckley Portrait Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)
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My Lords, in this interesting group of amendments, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wickham, he draws our attention to non-violent extremism and I think raises hugely important issues. I'm not entirely happy with that broad definition of non-violent extremism, but I think the noble Lord has given us plenty to mull over in his in his very interesting speech, very thought provoking speech, very hard hitting speech. And I certainly am.

I'm worried about the kind of ideologies that we face at the present time. It's just that I think that the reluctance at confronting those ideologies is more likely to be a failure of moral leadership rather than law. And so I'm trying to work my way around that. And I'm also concerned about the policing of range of views dubbed extremists. We have to at least be very careful, because that can be used to close down legitimate speech and used to demonise dissident views as extremist and beyond the pale that you won't engage with.

So I have to work my way around that. But I've rising to speak because I've added my name to amendment 438 EA on police meetings with faith communities, religious leaders, representatives of faith communities, and so on. As we've heard, I think this is an interesting and conundrum for us in the contemporary period. And the police do actually have quite a lot of community engagement with different faith groups Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu. And they and they're positive very much as collaborative partnerships.

It sounds fairly benign. There also used to as an important part of building social cohesion and also of prevent work and, and and in a way low level anti-terrorism intelligence gathering. But I do I do get I have become increasingly concerned at how routine this has become, aping the category descriptors of identity politics that have got into a situation where our the, the understanding of multiculturalism as a policy agenda means that there's a kind of demand that the police treat each and every cultural manifestation in the form of religion, with respect, in and in a way treat community leaders, religious leaders as though they represent the community, whereas they're not elected.

And I think that that can get very confusing, and I think actually can be quite divisive and lead to a kind of kind of sectarianism, potentially as an outcome that I, I'm, I'm not very happy with. Obviously, we've already heard about where it got the West Midlands Police when they sought guidance from local mosques and on the basis that they were consulting the local communities. And we've heard about those three Birmingham, those three Birmingham mosques. I think it's worth spelling out what what one of the things that happened here, you know, they met with representatives and the Al-habib mosque who who were approached by officers.

And that mosque had previously hosted a preacher who urged worshippers to read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated anti-Semite Semitic text about Jewish plans for global domination. I am so embarrassed to be even saying this on the anniversary of the Holocaust Memorial Day. And yet it's absolutely appropriate, I should say, on the Holocaust Memorial Day, because here we have police officers wandering in, having a chat with the kind of people who invited someone who gave a title, a talk entitled Knowing the Facts, delivered shortly after October the 7th, and the Hamas pogrom, where the preacher asserted that the Jews intended to become sole rulers of the world.

Or you have the Jameh Mosque, another consulted organisation in which a preacher delivered an Arabic prayer calling for the killing of Jewish people. Allah, count them all, kill them one by one. Don't let any one of them get away. These are contemporary Holocaust ideology. The kind of ideology that would lead to the Holocaust. And so in that sense, I am sympathetic to dealing with non-violent ideology and extremism. I just don't know how to do it in the law.

But I do actually want to know who the police are talking to, which mosques, which churches. We don't want to be sectarian. Well, let's have them all. But and we need to know in public. I also know that the Met's counter-terrorism command engages broadly with communities apart from anything else, seeking out advice on ideologies and religious ideologies, but perhaps with some grotesque results. Who can forget in October 2023, when the Metropolitan Police posted a social media posting about the true meaning of jihad in the middle of a demonstration by Hizb ut-Tahrir, which again was referencing liberating Palestine, reference Muslim armies on the streets of London and the Met Police got.



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Just a genuine question. Her? Yeah, the very disturbing examples which she quoted. Why could not which she quoted. Why could not they and should not they have been already prosecuted under current

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legislation on hate law. Well. That might well be true, but it does indicate that there might be a does indicate that there might be a problem of the police not necessarily being impartial because necessarily being impartial because they are so busy forming community relationships with the mosques that they're not necessarily listening to the kind of things that are going on in the mosques or whatever other institutions. I would agree with you, but this is the point I'm making.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, streets of London shouting about Muslim armies and jihad and the Metropolitan Police under the advice, you know, no doubt getting some theological Islamic theological advice from their religious advisers put up a post saying that jihad has a number of meanings and shouldn't be just seen in and so on, and talked about personal struggle and so on and so forth. And then I just want to finish with the example of what good community relations are and where we might be, you know, made the South poor murder related riots, those horrible, that horrible period of, of disruption and violence on the streets.

There was an extraordinary film posted on TikTok of a police officer who was filmed telling counter-protesters to stash the weapons in the mosque, and we won't have to arrest anyone. The liaison officer, wearing a blue police vest, was addressing a group of men gathered outside the door of mosque in Hanley, near Stoke on Trent, and was appearing to give the young group of young men a weapons amnesty. He spoke to the crowd. If there are any weapons or anything like that, then what I would do is discard them at the mosque.

Now the reason I'm saying that is because I just think that we should not be naive. That's the most important thing when we talk about the police liaising with religious organisations in a period of identity politics, and in a period such as the one that we're living through in 2026, we should at least pause and not assume it's all going well. And therefore I welcome the attempt at saying, let's know who they're talking to. And that's very important reason why I supported this amendment.
16:37
Baroness Butler-Sloss Portrait Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)
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My Lords. >> My Lords. >> The noble Lord, the Minister, and indeed the Home Office might be and indeed the Home Office might be forgiven for wondering why amendment 438 EA was necessary. One might have taken it for granted that on the whole, if any important event was happening, those likely to be involved in it in the community would be consulted. But I fear the Home Office needs to think again, because we've heard already about Birmingham.

Birmingham, one of the largest police forces in the country, speaks exclusively to the mosques. And when the Macabbi fans were considering whether they'd come to Birmingham, they did not talk to the churches. But rather more important, they didn't talk to the synagogues. I mean, if one stops to think about it, it's quite extraordinary. And that all that I have read and heard in this House, as well as reading in the newspapers, leads one to suppose that those who were considering whether or not these Jewish fans should or shouldn't be allowed to come, were looking exclusively from the Muslim point of view.

So it does seem to me that the Home Office ought to be considering very carefully, perhaps with the College of Policing, as to whether police forces should be reminded that when events of some significance and possibly controversial or very controversial as the Maccabi one is likely to be, they should in fact tell police forces they must find what all the local people who might be interested should in fact, be thinking about it and take some advice. I mean, I'm horrified by what happened, and I entirely understand why the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, should have put this amendment down.

And I think the government needs to consider it with extreme care.
16:39
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Portrait Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-affiliated)
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I rise just briefly as one of the vice chairs of the APPG on extremism to support Lord Goodman in these amendments, he's already referenced the Time to Act publication, which was published late last year. And in that publication, it does deal with a number of statistics, which are quite startling, and I think it deserves to go on the record this afternoon, because it was found that 1 in 5 voters, 21% actually said that political violence in the United Kingdom is acceptable in some conditions, and 18% would consider participating in violent protests.

As the state of Britain declines. That's a very concerning thing to read. And of course, we know that there has been a nearly 600% rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the UK following the 7th of October 2023. We also know that anti-Muslim hate has doubled over the last decade. So those are statistics that cannot be ignored. And I feel that extremism is. And the noble Lady Baroness Fox has outlined why she finds some difficulty with these amendments.

However, there is a recognition that extremism, as the report says, is one of the primary domestic security and indeed societal threats facing the United Kingdom. And when the noble are asked the question about why weren't people prosecuted when the noble Lady was detailing some examples of extremism? Well, I would argue that the noble Lord will recognise that I have an amendment later in the day saying that the glorification of terrorism needs to be much more clearer defined in law, and we will come to that later on in the amendments.

But, you know, defeating terrorism is not just about dealing with it from a military point of view, but it's also about dealing with the narrative around those terrorist organisations. Draining the swamp of Lord Goodman would put it. And we are allowing glorification to continue on the streets of our country and then not realising, recognising that actually extremism will grow as a result of that. So I do hope when we come to debate that issue, that there will be a good airing of the issues around the glorification of terrorism, because the first thing that we need to do in this area is to recognise that there is a problem, to define the problem, and then move on to understand the problem and to deal with it.

And I very much welcome these amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman.
16:42
Lord Pannick Portrait Lord Pannick (Crossbench)
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Lord Sewell I share the concerns >> Lord Sewell I share the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and indeed by the noble and learned Lady Baroness and learned Lady Baroness Butler-sloss. But I'm very doubtful that further legislation is required. There is, as previous speakers have said, a very worrying degree of anti-Semitic extremist speech, particularly, I'm sorry to say, in the Muslim community, and not just by speeches in mosques, opposition to the policies of the Israeli government, opposition, which is shared, in fact, by many Jews, cannot begin to justify such speech.

The sort of people who murdered Jews in Heaton Park synagogue come from a community. They've been to school in this country. They are members of mosques. And the real question is how all the whole community, not not only the Muslim community, but the whole community, is going to address this problem. And I know and the Minister will no doubt confirm, that the government does a great deal to ensure that there is education as to civic values, as to the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust that are taught in schools.

But I fear that much more needs to be done. And there really is a responsibility on the leaders of the Muslim community to take further steps to ensure that these lessons are understood. It is, as Baroness Fox said, particularly poignant that this issue is raised on Holocaust Memorial Day, and it's sad that these matters need to be readdressed. But it is a problem in our society. It needs to be dealt with. But as I say, I'm very doubtful that legislation is the answer.
16:44
Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative)
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The Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Goodman for Wickham, for his reasoned group of amendments. Extremism. Excuse me, extremism in its worst form, of course, becomes terrorism. But this is often, if not always, the product of idle inaction or at worst, encouragement from surrounding communities and influences. The propounding of extremist views, even if not necessarily violent, has slowly seated itself in public discourse and is gaining influence in local communities throughout the country. And it is clearly something that needs to be addressed.

And so I welcome the chance to hear from the government, my Lords, amendment 4380 seems to me to be sensible. Creating feedback mechanisms is a key method that can improve current practices, and a report on the strategies used and their impact on crime provides this. I would, however, question whether there is a way to incorporate this into existing reporting duties. Whilst this specific type of crime is important, I'm unsure whether it merits an additional bureaucratic process where it could perhaps be incorporated elsewhere.

Perhaps the noble Lord, the Minister, could advise me on this point, and I also believe that some form of guidance or requirements along the lines of my noble friend's amendment 43 eight would be of use. Transparency is the key to trustworthiness, and that begins with forces being forthcoming with whom they have gathered information and advice from, and how much time, effort, and public resource could we have saved had we originally known that the evidence of threat that formed the West Midlands Police decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from Birmingham was not based on real life information, but on discussions with local Muslim leaders and then justified with AI.

This is a time to build back trust. Government action along the lines proposed would begin to do so. On the note of transparency, I support my noble friends call to lay the rapid Analytical Sprint on Extremism report before Parliament. Concerns over its contents have been raised, which allegedly called for the kerbing of free speech and the inclusion of the spreading of misinformation to extremism. Definitions. These are obviously more nuanced issues than I can go into now, but that is all the more reason why Parliament should have the chance to see and debate the findings of the government's report.

Now, I am supportive of the intention behind amendment 454B to encourage the liaison between forces in order to prevent extremism. As has been outlined, extremism exists and is growing in all parts of the country. It is not an issue that can simply be addressed locally that is sufficient, coordinated, centralised directive that addresses the flow of people, ideas and resources between local forces lines. That being said, I'm perhaps a little hesitant to fully endorse my noble friend's amendment. Whilst the government must do more, I do not think creating a new Counter Extremism Commissioner is the best use of resources, nor am I of the opinion that government should be concerning itself with the practices of integration or cohesion.

However, my Lords, I do support the general aim of my noble Friends group, and that is to take a more proactive approach to tackling non-violent extremism that is so often the ferment of violence. So I very much look forward to the government's response.
16:48
Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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And, my Lords, I'm grateful to >> And, my Lords, I'm grateful to the noble Lord Goodman of Wickham for his amendments, which have generated some interesting discussion, some interesting points, and I will try and respond to those in some detail. I think it's accepted across the committee. The counter extremism is deeply challenging. It's a complex area, and that the government has a duty to protect its citizens from harm of extremism, violence and hatred. And that, if I may say to the committee, the approach that we're trying to take to counter terrorism is something that the Home Secretary and myself and the Security Minister take extremely seriously.

It is not appropriate that any citizen should be made fearful for their safety, or should be excluded from public or political life on the basis of hateful prejudice. And there are already legislation on the statute book to deal with these matters. Our society also rightly rejects those who preach, promote or espouse hatred, and as such, everyone has both a right and a responsibility to challenge extremist narratives and to, I hope, agree with what the noble Lord Pannick has said the government will continue to uphold and promote those values across the board.

If I look at the amendments in detail, let me start with amendment 4380 and that, in the noble Lords words, seeks to require every police force to publish a report on strategies to tackle non-violent extremism within three months of this act passing. Now, I understand the intention behind the amendment and of the need to tackle non-violent extremism. I would just say to the noble Lord, however, and this again, I think actually echoes a point that the noble Lord Davies of Gower has said that police forces already work within national frameworks and report through existing channels.

And I just say to the noble Lord that imposing a statutory deadline risks diverting resources from frontline activity and may lead to incomplete or inconsistent reporting, and the measure potentially duplicates existing accountability mechanisms and could, as the noble Lord Davis himself said, add bureaucracy rather than improving security outcomes. The amendment 4380 seeks to impose an annual reporting duty on the 43 forces to report meetings of religious leaders and faith communities. And I just say to the noble and learned Lady Baroness Butler-Sloss that and others indeed, who mentioned I think Baroness Fox and Baroness Foster have already talked around these issues, the impact of what happened in Birmingham did result in the Chief Constable of the West Midlands losing their post.

It had, and will result in an examination of the practices around that. But I think if we take the amendment in the name of the noble Lord Goodman at face value, then I'm not convinced that such a requirement would improve policing outcomes or community safety because publishing who met whom, when, how could potentially deter some of the candid dialogue that I think is needed behind the scenes, sometimes to ensure that community cohesion is taken? And also, I don't wish to expose sensitive protective security or safeguarding interactions with places of worship.

And indeed, I might just say that there may even be some faith communities who don't wish to be seen in their community to be engaging with the police. It's possible, but I want to still encourage the fact that the police and those faith community leaders do have meetings and if that engagement is catalogued, is publicised, that could undermine some of the problem solving partnerships that I know the noble Lord wishes to foster. His amendment. 40 38F also proposes including non-violent extremism in scope of the youth diversion order that we're going to come on to in due course in clause 167167 reflects the intended scope of that order, which is seeking to implement a recommendation of the Independent Reviewer of terrorism legislation.

And that was a very specific recommendation. Again, I just say to the noble Lord it was to introduce a new diversionary civil order to better manage terrorist risk from young people. And if I include non-violent extremism in the scope of that potential order, then that goes beyond the original design and intent that was suggested to the government. And during policy development, officials have engaged with operational partners and indeed the independent reviewer themselves, and in essence, the Youth Diversion Order is not a counter extremism tool for young people who hold divisive, extremist or hateful views, but who do not pose a risk.

That is the key. It would not be proportionate to impose a counter-terrorism risk management tool on a young person who was simply assessed as holding extremist views. Now there are ways in which we can deal with that. There is the prevent mechanism. Generally, there is a range of educational mechanisms that, again, the noble Lord Marks referred to in terms of ensuring that we tackle these long term issues in a much more productive way. But I would say to the noble Lord that the youth diversion order would not be the specific tool for the type of activity that he seeks to discuss today with his amendments in committee.

In addition, I would also say to the committee, there is no statutory definition of or consensus on what would include extremism. This would represent a level of interference and intrusion with the rights of young people that is not yet even available in adult cases, and in practice, the amendment would increase the scope of the order and would overlap with the remit of prevent, which is designed to deal with that establishment. When we know individuals are moving into extremist views but have not yet reached that terrorist threshold.

The Home Office is also undertaking extensive counter-extremism work in collaboration with departments of local Government, the Commission for Countering Extremism. And indeed, I know from my devolved responsibilities in the. Department and taking again the points that the noble Baroness Foster has made, we're dealing with and discussing with devolved administrations those very issues as well. If I look at amendment four, five, four a, I agree transparency is important. The noble Lord Marks has pushed for this transparency and supported the amendment.

But I would just say again, I say this, I hope helpfully to the committee that the type of document that we had, the rapid analytical sprint on Counter-extremism, if put in the public domain, could, for example, undermine both policy development. If it was put in the public domain, it might also also impact upon the integrity of how policy is developed, because we would know that was going to be put into the public domain. It would prevent disclosures which would undermine this.

And unless robust and well considered or effective policies may well be the result. Now, that's not to say this is the important point for the noble Lord and his amendment. The government, the Home Office is accountable to Parliament on a range of mechanisms, on its counter-terrorism policies and indeed on the rapid analytical sprint. Members can debate as we are now. They can table questions as they do. They can table written questions as they do. I can appear before select committees, as I have done only last week with the noble Lord Ricketts and the European Select Committee.

I can be answerable for statements. I can be answerable in debates. I can in private, potentially. Ministers in the Home Office can appear before the Intelligence and Security Committee, where a private discussion with members of this House and members of the Commons and government Ministers about the conclusions can be done in a way that doesn't compromise some of the security information. That is absolutely right. We are held to account for, but equally is absolutely right. On some occasions is done behind a shielded door where that privacy can help better policy development.

And naturally, again, we have just submitted written evidence to an inquiry from the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on Combating New Forms of Extremism that's currently ongoing. We've given written evidence to the inquiry. My colleague Dan Jarvis, the security Minister, gave oral evidence to that committee only last week. So there are ways in which that parliamentary accountability is definitely held. But I would say that just by the agreement of for five four, by publishing an all documents, then what goes into those documents would necessarily mean there's probably a further wall behind that, because we couldn't put in those documents the things that we wanted to to do.

Amendment four, five, four B from the noble Lord again also seeks to mandate that within three months of Royal assent, the Secretary of State must appoint a dedicated Counter Extremism Commissioner. I was grateful for his question the other week. That aspect of policy is not my direct policy responsibility in the Home Office. I answer for it here, but it wasn't my direct responsibility, so I wasn't aware of the status of the Counter Extremism Commissioner. At that time, I thought my letter had helped clarify the matter.

Apparently it hasn't, but for the benefit of the doubt. So I can try and clarify that matter. The position is at the moment that the current and the Commissioner has left. Robin Simcox in July of last year, and we are currently, as I've said in the letter of the 9th of January, to the noble Lord. We're currently reviewing the roles and remits of various bodies to ensure our resources are best placed to meet the current challenges, and that means on a number of arms length bodies of which I am overall responsible for.

We're looking at whether we need those arms length bodies, whether we can rationalise those arms length bodies, whether we can make savings in cost in those arms length bodies. And at the moment, the Commissioner that he mentions, the counter extremism Commissioner, is subject to that review. Now, again, we've been asked to do that as the Home Office by the Cabinet Office as part of a Cabinet Office led arm's length review, body review. And we are looking at the roles and remits of various bodies.

And I don't think I've spent a single year in my now 30 years in either house where somebody hasn't said, why aren't we reducing the number of quangos that are operational in departments? And that's what the Cabinet Office are trying to do, to look at the arm's length bodies that we've got. And that's a general demand. Now, that's not to say I know yet what the outcome of that review is going to be, but the amendment 404 B from the noble Lord Goodman of Wickham would mean, if it were passed, that we'd have to appoint the dedicated Counter Extremism Commissioner.

Now, we may well do that. We may well not. But at the moment these issues are under review. And I welcome the work that Robin Simcox has done. But at the moment, I can't accept that for the fact that we are still working through the outcome of that review. Now, I've tried to answer. I hope each of the amendments in turn. I'm sorry that in a sense, in my answering them, I can't accept any of them, but I hope I've given legitimate answers as to why we are where we are, and I hope that the noble Lord can reflect on those and in due course, withdraw his

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amendments. This has been an. Appropriately sombre debate,

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Appropriately sombre debate, given the scale and sweep of the challenges described, and I'm very grateful to the noble Lady, grateful to the noble Lady, Baroness Foster and Baroness Fox, and for the noble and learned Lords Lord Pannick and Noble and learned, Lord Pannick and Noble and learned, Lady Baroness Butler-Sloss, as well as the two speakers from the front as the two speakers from the front benches, and the Minister for replying to the debate, as I say, has been necessarily sombre, and the Minister very helpfully for a number of technical reasons, explained why he wants to reject all of the amendments that I put forward.

But the sun of what he said he dealt with in his usual very charming and emollient manner, was as follows. He didn't confirm that there is a definition of counter extremism, so he's not confirmed that the government has
17:01
Lord Goodman of Wycombe Portrait Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Conservative)
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maintained the last government's position. He's not confirmed whether or not a commissioner will whether or not a commissioner will or will not be appointed. And as for the analytical sprint, I couldn't really follow the logic of his argument, which was that it's impossible for some reason to to publish it because it would cause difficulties in doing so. In short, difficulties in doing so. In short, really, the last person the Minister reminds me of is any of the Beatles. But I do feel his policy was taking us on a bit of a magical mystery tour, because we don't know where the policy on non-violent extremism is going, and we don't really know when we will know now.

I thought, finally, that the noble Leonard Lady Baroness Butler-Sloss did catch the mood of the moment. She's a certain impatience that actually having a vacuum in government policy really simply isn't good enough. And although I agree with the noble and learned of Lord Lord Pannick that these matters are not best addressed by amendments and legislation, and there was a certain element of probing about the amendments I put forward. Nonetheless, I don't think these matters have been entirely cleared up by the magical mystery tour that the Minister has taken us upon, and I reserve the right to come back to them at report.

But for the moment

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I beg leave to withdraw my amendments. Is it your Lordship's pleasure

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Is it your Lordship's pleasure that the amendment be withdrawn? Amendment by leave withdrawn. Amendment 438E.

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Amendment 438E. moved. We now.

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We now. Come to amendment 438EB Baroness Doocey.
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None Portrait AMDT: 438EB Baroness Doocey (Liberal Democrat)
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Doocey. >> My Lords, amendment 438EB is. Inspired by the nine nine, nine injured and forgotten campaign led by Tom Curry, a detective forced to retire after suffering a life changing injury on duty weeks before reaching 22 years of service. In 1923, Tom launched a petition calling for a new medal for police injured on duty and discharged from the service, and it's since expanded to include all public servants. My Lords, every day, emergency responders put their lives on the line to protect the public.

Tragically, within policing alone, more than 16,000 officers have suffered catastrophic injuries in the course of their service and have had to give up their careers as a result. Yet there is currently no formal means of recognising their sacrifice. Like Tom, many injured officers miss out on long service and Good Conduct medals, which now requires 20 years sustained service. Gallantry awards also allude most assault victims, who are typically ambushed from behind, depriving them of the opportunity to show valour.

The Elizabeth emblem was created in 2024 to rightly honour public services. Public servants killed in the line of duty on these benches. We believe it's wrong that those whose lives have been changed irrevocably through injury are overlooked. My Lords, this is a modest amendment. It simply asks the government to consider the merits of such an award and to lay a report on this before Parliament. While the scope of the bill does not allow me to include all those we believe should be eligible, this would be an important step towards formal recognition of injured survivors and to honour the brave work of our emergency services.

I after.
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Lord Katz Portrait Lord Katz (Labour)
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My Lords, I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ducey, that we do indeed owe emergency service workers a massive debt of thanks for the work they do to keep us safe, and for always ensuring the call when we when we need help. My Lords, when dedicated public servants suffer serious injuries in the course of their duties. It is, of course, incumbent on us as a state and as a society, so to speak, to wrap our arms around them and ensure they are given all the support they need.

And I'm sure we would all agree that the list of public servants who risk and suffer injuries during the course of their duties is not just limited to police officers, and this was, I think, reflected in the noble Lady's comments, but also other emergency services such as such as our brave firefighters, ambulance workers and other emergency services. Also, workers of emergency service workers also face great risk of injury on duty. Any consideration would have to include them and please staff, I think the whole house would be agree.

Agree on that though. I note the actual. The text of the amendment refers to police officers alone. Other and I hope the noble Lady takes that in the spirit in which it's in intended. My noble Lords, noble Lords will be aware that the police are already eligible for a number of medals. These include, for long or exemplary service for specific celebrations such as a coronation or jubilee, and for gallantry. Individuals who suffer injury as a result of their efforts to prevent loss of life, can and have been successfully put forward for formal gallantry awards, and this includes Sergeant Timothy Ansell of Greater Manchester Police, who was injured coming to the aid of a colleague and received a King's Commendation for Bravery in October.

Though I recognise the threshold for these awards is high and rightly so, there are a number. There are many incidents which can and should be put forward which warrant need for currently full before the rate below the radar, and the Home Office has been driving work to increase the number of gallantry nominations for the police. And I would encourage any noble Lords who cases to put forward to do so via the Cabinet Office website. My Lords work to identify if a medal is the best method of recognising emergency service workers who are injured as a result of their duties, and whether it is viable is ongoing.

However, I should point out that in this country, all medals are a gift from the government on behalf of the monarch. They are instituted by Royal warrant and firmly under royal prerogative powers. It would therefore be inappropriate to legislate for such a medal, potentially cutting across the powers that rightly rest with His Majesty the King, on the understanding that this is a matter that is actively under consideration, I do hope the noble Lady, Baroness Doocey will be content to withdraw her amendment.
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None Portrait AMDT: 438ED Baroness Kidron (Crossbench)
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Kidron. >> My Lords, I rise to move the amendments in this group. And I thank the noble Lady Baron, Lady thank the noble Lady Baron, Lady Morgan and the noble Lord Clement-Jones for their support. My Lords, it is heartbreaking to be here again. I first raised this issue over four years ago after witnessing Senior Coroner Walker's difficulties in obtaining data from US tech firms during his investigation into the death of Molly Russell. Coroner Walker, Ian Russell, Molly's father and the family's lawyers fought for years to secure data that revealed the role that played by Pinterest and Meta, and this evidence was central to the coroner's finding that both services, I quote, contributed to her death in more than a minimal way.

My Lords data is crucial. The original amendments were also recommended in the Pre-legislative Joint Committee report on the draft of the Online Safety Bill. We debated them at length during the online Safety bill. We got agreement to put them into the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill that fell when the election was called. We tried to push them through and wash up. And finally, after years of campaigning by bereaved families, they were included in the data, Uses and Access Bill last year.

My Lords, I say all this because when the noble Lady I think the Minister replies, I want her to carefully weigh up her words, knowing that the bereaved families who have worked so hard to pass these provisions for so many years, some of whom are in the gallery today, are still waiting. Yesterday I met several bereaved parents. I met several bereaved parents, bereaved families, sorry, including Mia Jennings father Murray, who held a photograph of his daughter as he described a recent meeting with the Secretary of State, Liz Kendall.

He said I thought it was a good meeting until I realised it was the same meeting that we'd had with Peter Kyle a year ago, except this year we needed a bigger room because there are more bereaved parents and more dead children. I also heard yesterday of a newly bereaved parent who tried to get the police to access her daughter's data, only to be told by Gloucestershire Police Occupational Health Department to talk to Ellen Room. She knows more about how the law than the entire police force.

And I spoke to Ellen, who was with us in the gallery, and she told me that the police downloaded her son Jules Data in 2022, but are only now beginning to examine it. My Lords, we have a law, but it's not working. And I want to set out three reasons why. First, while coroners can ask Ofcom to issue a data preservation notice that require online services to retain data in advance of issuing a schedule, a schedule five notice, they are not routinely doing so.

And while section 101 enables Ofcom to use its information gathering powers when it receives a schedule five notice from a coroner, they are not routinely doing that either. My Lords, I have eight separate letters from the government saying who has been written to and outlining what guidance has been sent to whom, but still bereaved parents are coming to my door. For some, the loss of their child is still raw and they're blindly trying to work out the system.

Others are heartbroken that the opportunity to preserve data is long gone because they found out about the law too late. Sometimes the coroner does not know the measure exists or does not understand that data disappears and wants to wait for the police investigation before even considering such a request. All of these different reasons undermine the fundamental purpose of the law, and I want to be absolutely clear. I have no criticism of the coroners themselves. They are not experts in digital systems.

They cannot reasonably be expected to know that even a brief engagement, such as hovering over a link or pausing on a piece of content, can influence how an algorithm responds. Nor are they expected to know that platforms routinely infer and group children into behavioural cohorts, for example, relating to low mood, late night use, social isolation or identity exploration, or seeming? Or are they supposed to know that seemingly fleetingly, online interactions can actually leave persistent data traces? My Lords, the measure was specifically designed for Ofcom to take that burden from the coroners, but that has not happened.

Amendment 474 makes issuing the. That makes the issuing of a data preservation notice automatic issued to relevant services within five working days of becoming aware of a child's death. It requires Ofcom to prevent provide a template that ensures a consistent baseline of data is obtained, and it also allows the coroner to add any information they additionally wish to request. It does not undermine the coronial system. It makes it sure footed. Amendment 475 is consequential in that it requires the Secretary of State to write to relevant stakeholders to raise awareness.

My Lords, the Chief Coroner issued guidance at the end of September when these powers came into force. But it's clear from the testimony of bereaved parents it has not been fully absorbed. My Lords, the only argument I have heard from government against this approach is the administrative burden. Should it apply to children who die as babies or of childhood illness. But an exemption could surely be made. Meanwhile, making the preservation automatic, offering a template of what information should be preserved and publicising the fact is, the minimum we can do for parents whose children have been murdered, manipulated into extreme challenges, or who commit suicide as a result of online anxiety.

My second issue is that during the passage of the Online Safety Bill, we were promised that the then government would make arrangements to ensure that the tech companies, largely based in the US, would comply with requests from UK, from Ofcom in the UK to supply data, knowing that there were conflicting legal requirements. The noble Lord Parkinson, who is in his place and I hope he will confirm his own words from June 22nd, 2023, said then we will engage our American counterparts to understand any potential unintended barriers created by the US Stored Communications Act.

I can reassure the noble Lords that these matters are in our mind on that basis and on the basis of detailed private conversations with government and officials. We understood the government was making an arrangement with the US government about any conflicts of our respective data law. But, my Lords, I had a recent meeting with Minister Narayan and he in the meeting, he did admit that no such arrangement has been made with the US since then. I called former Secretary of State Michelle Donelan, who confirmed that she had reached out to her counterparts, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, in the previous US administration.

But that conversation was not completed before the general election. So, my Lords, it seems that the intention to secure the legal basis upon which both the data preservation notice and the and the coroner information notice could be served has been forgotten. In October last year, in his Prevention of Future Deaths report on Leo Barber's inquest, coroner Edmund Grett wrote I issued a scheduled five notice to Ofcom to exercise its power under section 101 Online Safety Act 2023, to obtain evidence from Google relating to Leo's online activity before his death.

No material was provided by Google under this procedure. I understand that Google's position is that the service provider holding such data, Google LLC, is not within the jurisdiction of England and Wales, but is within the US jurisdiction and subject to the laws of the USA, which prohibit compliance with my schedule five notice under the section 101 process. He goes on to say that if this continues, it will risk all future investigations. Meanwhile, in a particularly confusing episode two months later in December, in response to a Freedom of Information request, Ofcom said.

To date, there have been no section 101 coroner information notices or data preservation notices, which are service has failed to respond, nor to which a service has failed to provide relevant information requested. My Lords, both cannot be true. This is a pattern of failure to properly implement the Online Safety Act as a whole, and in spite of several attempts to meet with Ministers, after speaking to both Ofcom and the former Secretary of State, I ranked two of the relevant companies in the US and both suggested a practical path forward that would allow our law to be fully enacted.

So I really hope when responding, the Minister will fully update the House if a deal has not been done and agree to meeting with all relevant Ministers as a matter of urgency to discuss the proposals I received, which I have tried to tell the Minister and not been granted a meeting. Finally, my Lords, the the amendments 43 and 43, which are new because there is a gap amendment four H 48 three requires the Secretary of State to amend the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act, 1996.

So the Code of Practice governing Police investigations is updated to make online harm a primary line of inquiry. It would require the early seizure and examination of relevant digital devices, the prompt capture a digital and account data, and the proper documentation of a child's activity. Unknown online services. It would also require police to report any evidence of breaches to the online of the Online Safety Act. Ofcom amendment 483 E is consequential. It requires Secretary of State to raise awareness of these powers and of good practice in digital investigation by writing to relevant stakeholders, my Lords, digital and online activity is often essential to understanding how and why a child has died.

There is no statutory guidance on how police should investigate and know the Minister explaining he's written to colleagues and to the chair of the National Police Chiefs Council, who is working now on guidance on the collection of digital forensic data. But, my Lords, I also have a letter in my position, possession from the previous Minister to Elon Room, who last June said exactly the same thing. We do not yet have guidance, only the promise of it, and I am now as concerned about its content and our opportunity to contribute to it as I am about its timing.

Ahead of this debate, I heard from Stuart Stephenson, who Stevens, whose son Ollie was murdered in 2012, in the immediate aftermath of his death, the police told the family to go home and screenshot as much of his phone as they could for the first three hours after his death. In shock and grief, they did exactly that. My Lords, it is not right. Stuart recently told me that he was mortified. He said in our case, the lack of data meant the difference between murder and manslaughter and the female that instigated my son's murder is out an off licence free to pick up her life where she left off, leaving us with a life sentence.

My Lords, the amendments in this group have his support, the support of many current and former police investigators of Ellen Room, of the wider community of bereaved families. And I pay tribute to that community that does so much vital work. But no one wants to be a member of my Lords. If the Minister has technical concerns about these amendments as drafted, I will work with them to improve them. But I have been here four times now and I no longer accept no for an answer.

So if rejected, they will be back at report. And let me say, finally, the government awarded Ellen Room an MBA recently, and I believe and I haven't asked her, but I believe a more fitting recognition would be to give her what she has long fought for Joule's law by accepting these amendments so that data collection is automatic. They are practical. They are necessary. They are long overdue. I beg to move.
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Baroness Barran Portrait Baroness Barran (Conservative)
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Yes. >> Amendment proposed after clause 166. Insert the new clause as printed on the Marshalled List. >> My Lords.

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My Lords. It is with a mixture of sadness and pleasure that I rise to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and have added my name to the amendments in this group. Much of this bill impacts in small ways the lives of many citizens in this country. But these amendments, which I hope very much the government will accept, would have a huge impact on the lives of a small group of families whose children have died and who are seeking to understand what led to their death.

And as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron said, it's a club which none of those members wished to be part of. In particular, like Baroness Kidron, I'd like to pay tribute to Ellen Room, mother of Jules, who died inexplicably aged 14, and who has found herself at the front of a national call for change in relation to children's access to social media in general, and to these specific issues which have impacted her family and other families so cruelly.

My noble friend Baroness Morgan of Cotes, who cannot be with us today, told me how moved she was in particular when we met with Ellen recently, and I can only agree as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron set out, these amendments would achieve three things. Firstly, they would explicitly bring attention the attention of the investigating officer to the digital and online aspects of a child's life. The Code of practice for officers feels like it was written in another age, maybe 2020, which I think is the latest version was another age.

And again, we've heard that we owe thanks to Stuart and Amanda Stevens, who have highlighted this gap following the murder of their son, Ollie. There's not a single reference to digital evidence in the code, just one reference to the fact that physical evidence can be captured digitally. But given how much of a child's life is now lived online, it's vital that it's investigated properly and at the earliest opportunity. And our amendment 438 Ed would bring this early investigative focus and would give the police the opportunity to alert Ofcom if they believe that a platform is not complying with the Online Safety Act.

The second thing that these amendments would achieve is that vital digital evidence would be systematically requested by coroners in the case of the death of a child aged between 5 and 17, and the draft template would ensure that all relevant information is provided in a completely consistent manner, as well as giving the option to include any other relevant information for a particular case, and currently, as the noble Lady Kidron said, despite recent improvements in legislation, there is too much left to the discretion of coroners, many of whom may be unaware of their new powers that they hold both in relation to coroner information notices and data preservation notices.

And without this, recently bereaved families are expected to request information themselves from a platform through the horribly titled Deceased User Duties. So I looked at the help section of the Facebook website which says and I quote. Now imagine, my Lords, that you're a recently bereaved family. You've just logged in. This is what you hear. In rare cases, we consider requests for additional account information or content. You will be required to provide proof that you're an authorised representative, e.g.

family member and a court order. Please bear in mind that sending a request or filing the required documentation doesn't guarantee that we'll be able to provide you with the content of the deceased person's account. In addition, we'll memorialise the deceased person's account once we receive your request. If you'd like to send us a request, please contact us. Well, I will leave your Lordships to judge the tone of that. Ofcom has a live consultation on their draft guidance. In this they recommend the following that platforms should be clear that they will acknowledge a request.

Who will communicate with parents what the next steps are. If the information provided by parents is incomplete or unclear, what internal steps they will take, what the timeline will be for providing a response, what other evidence might be acceptable if the parent doesn't have an official ID document and detail on what information they will never disclose. Explain whether special software will be needed to access any disclosed information and whether they provide that software, and how any information would be delivered.

It won't surprise your Lordships that not a single one of these things was clear on the Facebook site. When I went to look, I didn't have time to check any others, so to be clear, these amendments would achieve a third very important thing. They would give clarity and confidence to parents that they will get answers to their questions about the death of their child, that relate to their social media usage. It's a disgrace that we still have a gap in legislation that potentially puts parents through more pain as they open a page where the first line says in rare cases, the government can simplify this system immediately by accepting these amendments.

I hope the noble Baroness, the Minister, will say yes when she comes to respond.
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Lord Clement-Jones Portrait Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
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Thank you. >> My Lords.

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I rise to speak and. Support express the support of these benches to amendments four, seven, 4475438 and 438E which all stand in the name of the noble Baroness, lady children, and to which I am pleased and privileged to have added my name alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Coates, and the noble Baroness. Lady Baron and my Lords, I pay tribute to the relentless campaigning on behalf of bereaved families by the noble Baroness Kidron, and to her utterly moving and convincing introduction today.

And I also pay tribute to all those bereaved families who have fought for these provisions. My Lords and I associate myself with everything that she said about the the implementation and the intent in behind the Online Safety Act. My Lords, which has not achieved what we all set out for it to do. Together, these amendments address a singular tragic failure in our current justice system. The loss of vital digital evidence following the death of a child. There's been powerful testimony regarding what's called the suspension gap, and this occurs when a coroner investigating the death of a child feels unable to issue a data preservation notice because a police investigation is technically active.

Yet the police may not have prioritised the security. The securing of digital evidence during this period of hesitation, data held by social media companies is deleted, and the opportunity to understand the child's final interactions is lost forever. Currently, many coroners remain unaware that they can request data preservation notices in the early stages of an investigation, and we've heard heartbreaking reports from bereaved parents that coroners feel unable to act while police investigations are active because inquests are routinely suspended during these investigations, the data is often deleted due to account inactivity or routine system operations.

Before the coroner can issue an information notice, the Molly Rose Foundation and the Five Rights Foundation have been clear. Automatic preservation is essential because data is the key to joining the dots in these tragic cases, and we cannot allow another child's digital history and the truth about their death to vanish because of bureaucratic delay. As Ofcom has recently clarified, service providers are not required to retain the data they do not already hold. They simply need to notify the regulator if information is missing.

During recent consultations, major providers like Meta and Microsoft did not object to preserving data from further back, provided it was still within their systems. My Lords, too often police seize a physical device but fail to notify Ofcom of potential 48 48 and 48 and 48 e ensures and protocols to collect that evidence. Together, they ensure that potential online harm is treated with the same priority as a physical weapon. In every investigation into a child's death. My Lords, these amendments are about ensuring that our coroners system is fit for a digital age.

They provide the speed and technical certainty required to support bereaved families in their pursuit of justice. We cannot continue to allow a lack of process to obscure the truth of why a child has died, and we cannot allow the deletion of evidence to become the enemy of justice. So I do urge the Minister, as have the noble Baroness Nye, to accept these amendments as a necessary modernisation of our investigatory framework.
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Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Portrait Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative)
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Yes. this group, and I'm glad that my friends, Lady Baron and Lady Morgan of Cotes, have signed them on behalf of these ventures, I pay behalf of these ventures, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron and of course, to all of the bereaved parents and family members bereaved parents and family members who are campaigning still to tighten the law and enforce the law in this important area based on their terrible experiences. We know there are some gaps in the law and the noble Ladies Amendment addresses.

Firstly, the the easier one, which is it is one of implementation making sure that coroners are aware of the powers that the Online Safety Act has given them. Very sensibly, her amendments are about spreading knowledge and awareness so that coroners are able, on behalf of the families of young people who've lost their lives in these terrible ways, to find out the truth and to hold that to account. And I think that that is the the easier problem to solve in some ways.

And there is, of course, going to be both as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron said, the coroner's not technical experts. There's always a generational gap. The, the, the apps, the social media that are second nature to the young people that are using them can be mystifying to the parents, the coroners, the police that have to look into them in the most terrible circumstances. And we need to make sure that everybody is aware of, of of how the apps work and how the Online Safety Act works to the noble Baroness.

And her remarks pointed out a trickier problem, which is the extraterritorial effect, particularly with relation to the law in the United States of America. And she's right that the previous government spoke to the previous US administration to talk about things like the Stored Communications Act, which the noble Lord Lord Allan of Hallam of Alan Allan of Hallam raised during our debates in the the then Bill. And it was a problem that we were aware of. As she has noted, there's been a change of government on both sides of the Atlantic, and I don't know if the noble Baroness, the Minister now, when she comes to respond or perhaps later in writing, can say a bit more about the changing dynamics and the the discussions that are being had with the president, the present US administration, which clearly is having an effect in the cases.

And as we heard from Baroness, Lady Kidron, sadly mentioning the inquest into the death of Leo Barber, where the schedule five notice was unable to be brought into effect. So I'd be keen to hear from the noble Baroness, the Minister, either today or later, about the more recent discussions that the His Majesty's Government is having with the US

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administration on this important aspect. My Lords.

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I fully. Support these. Amendments and congratulate

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Amendments and congratulate Baroness Kidron on her fight to highlight these issues over many, many years. And on her opening remarks, I also pay respect to the
17:41
Baroness Benjamin Portrait Baroness Benjamin (Liberal Democrat)
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bereaved parents who have been campaigning tirelessly and look to us to achieve change. My Lords, it is common sense for coroners and law enforcement agencies to have access to social media accounts of deceased children who are believed to have died as a result of social media activity. My Lords, if it was your child or your grandchild, wouldn't you want that to happen? This action needs to take place automatically before accounts are deleted. Accounts should be preserved, and it should be a criminal offence to delete or edit them before they are viewed by investigators.

My Lords, I strongly believe, like so many grieving parents across the country, that social media companies should not be allowed to withhold or destroy often crucial evidence which could be vital to investigations and lead to criminal convictions. My Lords, after hearing on BBC Breakfast News this morning, some of the heartbreaking stories from the bereaved parents who were campaigning on this issue and urging government to take more robust action, I was convinced that tragic cases like these clearly highlight the need for social media companies to be compelled to protect our children and safeguard them from harm.

This is yet another plea before more harm is done, because, my Lords, right at this very moment, there is a child viewing harmful content that could lead to tragedy. So I hope the government and Ofcom are you listening? Ofcom? I want you to listen to these bereaved parents and take further action. And I urge the government to accept these much needed amendments and act now.
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17:45
Lord Cameron of Lochiel Portrait Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Conservative)
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Thank you. for moving these amendments and thank her and many others of your Lordships' House who have given a cogent and compelling argument for their inclusion in the Bill. It does indeed feel like the dial is starting to shift with regard to the protection of our children from online harms. I'm very pleased, for instance, that your Lordships' House supported Lord Nash amendment whenever Lord Nash amendment last week in voting to ban under 16 seconds from social media.

The amendments before us today are in many ways an extension of the argument made last week, namely that social social media is not appropriate for children. It is causing irreparable harm and in the most severe cases, as we've heard today, it is leading to death. As the father of teenage children who, like so many other children, face a world of online temptation of pressure and influence. These issues are very personal, and there is a lot, a lot to be said for creating further duties when there is the death of a child, the issue was of live consideration, I think has been said in the previous government's legislation, which included a clause that created a data preservation process.

And I'm aware that amendment 44 is different in its text. But the fundamental issue is the same at its heart. These amendments are at their heart. These amendments contain a simple objective, and that is to ensure that coroners can access the social media data of deceased child or their wider online activity, where the death is suspected to be linked to that activity, and it is plainly sensible to ensure in that scenario that data is not destroyed so that the coroners can access it for the purposes of investigations.

I have nothing further to add, given what has already been said, and I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness, the Minister's reply.
17:47
Baroness Levitt Portrait Baroness Levitt (Labour)
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My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will all agree with me that we have a great deal for which to be grateful to Baroness Kidron for her work in relation to the online space and its regulation when it comes to our most vulnerable citizens. My Lords, it is so obvious that all child deaths are harrowing and deeply distressing for bereaved families that to say so seems almost trite. But however that may be, I want to start my remarks by acknowledging this in order to make the point that the government has this both front and centre, and anything I say this afternoon should be seen in that context.

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

We know that the data preservation provisions in section 101 continue to be a focus, both for bereaved families and for parliamentarians who do not think the process is quick enough to stop services deleting relevant data as part of their normal business practices. And we agree that it is a proper and urgent objective to make sure that Ofcom has the powers to require, retain and provide information. Section 101 of the Online Safety Act was, of course, a provision originally introduced following the noble Lady Baroness Kidron campaign and amendment.

During the bill's passage through Parliament, and in order to support both coroners and services. In September, both the Chief Coroner and Ofcom published guidance on this new provision. Ofcom consulted on the draft guidance in parallel and published its finalised guidance in December of 2025. The chief coroner's guidance encourages coroners to consider requesting a data preservation notice early in the investigation. If the relevance of social media or another in-scope service cannot be ruled out. So this should safeguard against automatic deletion of the data by service providers.

Due to routine processes, the government brought forward the commencement of data preservation notices, which came into force on 30th September 2025, and since then Ofcom has issued at least 12 data preservation notices and on 15th December 2025, the guidance for Ofcom was updated in relation to information gathering powers, including new guidance on data preservation notices themselves. So the government is working closely with Ofcom and the Chief Coroners Office to understand how effectively these are working in practice. But we have heard concerns about the speed and efficiency of the process.

So against this background, I begin with amendments 43 eight and 43 eight. My Lords, the police themselves accept that there should be better guidance for the application of powers to preserve and access digital evidence in investigations of child deaths in order to ensure consistency across forces. The Home Office and the Department for science, Innovation Department for science, Innovation and Technology. Forgive me. Already. Can you reverse this for me for a moment and I'll take over.
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17:51
Baroness Levitt Portrait Baroness Levitt (Labour)
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And I'm. >> Very grateful to my noble friend for taking over. We can see why the noble Lady's idea of updating noble Lady's idea of updating statutory guidance is attractive. And I say now that I would welcome a conversation with her as she and I have discussed. When we met briefly the other day, we do. The government does have concerns that being too prescriptive in legislation may create more problems than it solves, because the legislation would need to be amended every time there were changes in technology or in operational practices.

Your Lordships will be well aware, given our many late nights spent scrutinising primary legislation, at the moment of which tonight may be another how clunky, cumbersome and time consuming it can be to keep amending primary legislation. So for this reason, it's the government's view that it is that our shared objective can be achieved using non-statutory guidance. Police forces are well used to applying and following guidance in a range of areas, from missing people to information sharing. But having said that, I do make the point that I would welcome a conversation with the noble Lady Baroness to see if we can find a way through this by working together in order to do so.

Turning now to amendments 47 four and 47 five. Again, this is an issue that the government takes very seriously. And I want to reassure your Lordships that we are carefully considering the issues that these amendments raise, and are grateful for the continued engagement of the noble Lady Baroness Kidron and the bereaved families. Taken together, these amendments would require coroners to identify to notify Ofcom within five days of a child's death, triggering a standard form to request data preservation. And once again, we can see the appeal of such a requirement.

The problem is that it would apply to all cases of deaths in the over fives, regardless of whether social media may be relevant to their death. So, for example, where a child died as a result of a road traffic collision or of cancer, it's unlikely in most cases that social media retention would be would be of use to the police or coroner. So whilst the government is sympathetic to the aims of these amendments, it is our view that we need carefully to consider any

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possible unintended consequences. Noble Lady sits down just on that point. Does she have a number that point. Does she have a number of children over five who die in other ways, just so that the House can understand how much of a burden

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can understand how much of a burden that might be? I can't give the noble Lady the answer now, but I can write to her answer now, but I can write to her with that data. So the our view that we need carefully to consider any possible unintended consequences, the need not to place a disproportionate burden on those investigating and how such a provision might be drafted so as not to capture deaths, which are outwith the scope of this this amendment.

So to conclude, we are not saying no. What I am saying is that I understand the noble Lady's concern that the existing statutory provision for preservation of a deceased child, social media data, should operate as effectively as possible, and we will consider carefully what further steps could be taken. As I have just mentioned, the noble Lady Baroness Kidron and I briefly spoke and agreed to meet, and I'm happy to extend that to an offer to meet both with Ministers from the Home Office and the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology as well.

I look forward to updating the House at Report stage on this important topic. I cannot update the House in relation to the issues with the United States now, but I will write to the noble Lady in relation to that. And in the meantime, I hope she'll be content to withdraw her amendments.

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May I start by accepting all the various offers to meet with the noble Lady, and for her tone in her response, and indeed for expanding it to the other departments. it to the other departments. Necessary. But but I want to, before I do, withdraw the amendment, I do want to make a couple of things very clear. First of all, this sits in the broader issue of this sits in the broader issue of failure to make the Online Safety Act implemented properly.

It sits in the broader issue of why children are dying at all. And I think I have to say, both on my own behalf. And I will say on behalf of the the parents are very grateful
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17:57
None Portrait Amendment: 439 Lord Hanson of Flint (Labour)
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three nine and 446 in my name, and I hope I can deal briefly with those government amendments, which those government amendments, which are technical in nature, and provide changes to the provisions concerning the Youth Diversion concerning the Youth Diversion Orders. Government amendment 439 relates to the definition of ancillary offences in subsection ancillary offences in subsection three of clause 167. Clause 1671 provides that the court may make a youth diversion order if satisfied, among other things, that the respondent has committed a terrorism offence.

The definition of a terrorism offence includes ancillary offences such as aiding or abetting the commission of an offence. This technical amendment ensures that the definition of ancillary offence operates as it should in the context, and I know the noble Lord will appreciate this of the Scottish legal system, and also aligns that the drafting of the legislation with that in schedule 11 to the bill is consistent. Government amendment 446 relates to subsection two of clause 182. This applies the six month time limit for a complaint to a magistrates court in England and Wales, so that an application for a Youth diversion Order may be made at a later date where necessary.

This amendment similarly applies the six month time limit in Northern Ireland. Now, I know also that the noble Lord Harries of Pentregarth has two amendments in this group. If he'll allow me, I beg to move the amendments on behalf of the government, and I will respond to the noble Lord on

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hearing his representations. Amendment proposed clause 167,

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Amendment proposed clause 167, page 205, line 27. Leave out paragraph B and insert the words as

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printed on the Marshalled List. My Lords, I rise to speak to the

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My Lords, I rise to speak to the two amendments in my name. 440 and
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth Portrait Lord Harries of Pentregarth (Crossbench)
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two amendments in my name. 440 and 445. 440 says requires the respondent to receive citizens education to British values, and 445 sets out what those values are. The noble Lord Lord Blunkett has also added his name to these amendments, very much regrets that he's unable to speak this evening due to a commitment chairing a police commission, that he is not able to change. First of all, my Lords, I'd like to make two preliminary points to avoid misunderstandings. One is that these amendments are not about personal values lifestyles, if you like.

They are about the fundamental political values, the ones on which our whole society is founded. And secondly, these values are not kind of innovation in our law. They already have to be taught in our schools. Now, the reason, my Lord, for including them here in the Crime and Policing Bill is that they were originally introduced as part of the prevent program by the then conservative government under noble Lord, Lord Cameron. Cameron, my Lords, Youth Diversion Orders are designed to help people away to to draw them away from different kinds of crime, including terrorism.

And education will be part of that strategy. I believe it would be helpful as part of that strategy, that they're taught to understand the fundamental values on which our life together is founded. Fundamental British values as present defined are democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. There are, I would suggest, two problems with this particular formulation. First of all, the fact that it is focussed on respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs, which is very worthwhile in itself, of course, leaves out other values, some of which are absolutely fundamental to our society, the most important one of which is equal respect.

That is due to every single person. So my amendment at 1D includes just that equal respect for every person in this country. My Lords, we are all equal before the law. We all have one vote, not more or less. And the 2010 Equality Act makes it quite clear that we are to be treated equally, not only by government, in the fields of education, in the provision of public goods and services. And indeed we of course, we have an Equality and Human Rights Commission, thank goodness.

It is extraordinary that the list of fundamental British values that we have at the moment should have been drawn up without something which is so basic to our life. My Lords, the other problem with the present formulation of British values is that it doesn't make clear what is meant by democracy, a word which, as we know, can be claimed by even the most totalitarian of states. Nor indeed does it say what is meant by individual liberty or freedom. Now this amendment is spelled in four, four, five spells out very clearly and succinctly what these words mean.

And and for the sake of time, I'm not going to go through them because they are all set out very clearly on that page. And there's just one final point to make, very briefly, my Lords, and that, as we all know, there are very severe strains in our society at the moment which are making for division what should unite us, whatever our ethnicity, colour or religion are the values we share as British citizens. And I would like to see Her Majesty's Government make much more of them than they do at the moment.

And I believe that if they accepted my amendment, one place at least where these values could and should be taught would be to young people who were trying to divert away from crime, especially those at the risk of being drawn into terrorism. So I very much hope that the government will take seriously this attempt to make sure that these fundamental British political values are built into the whole psyche of our national life, and with young people, and particularly with young people who are at risk of being drawn into crime and terrorism.
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Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, from these benches, we share the government's. Oh, I'm sorry, I've just declare my interest again. My son is an interest again. My son is an academic who specialises in online radicalisation and prevent and advises governments, parliaments and public bodies, including our own parliament and government. My Lords, from these benches we share the government's concern about the rising number of young people investigated for terrorism offences and we welcome in principle earlier intervention and diversion away from the criminal courts. However, we also share many of the misgivings already expressed, particularly about using a low balance of probabilities civil threshold to impose what are, in effect, terrorism labelled controls on children as drafted.

The bar for imposing a youth diversion order is worryingly low for a measure that can place wide ranging restrictions on children as young as ten, breach of which may result in custody despite no criminal conviction. Can the Minister explain why the court need only find an order necessary, rather than applying the more familiar, necessary and proportionate test for such intrusive measures? My Lords, the scope of these orders is also troubling. A YDO may be made if the court finds it is more likely than not that a child has committed a terrorism related offence, behaved in a way likely to facilitate one, or, as clarified by government amendment 439, attempted, encouraged, aided, abetted, counselled or procured a listed terrorism offence.

On top of that, My Lords, I question the inclusion of serious harm, given that the justification for the serious nature of these orders is terrorism prevention, which needlessly risks widening the type of behaviour captured. My Lords, I am very grateful for the briefing provided by justice, whose work highlights that orders of this kind will fall more harshly on young people than they would on adults, especially those with intellectual disabilities or who are neurodivergent. There is also a real risk of disproportionate use against minority communities, particularly Muslim children, given existing disproportionately in terrorism, policing action for Race Equality reports that between 2021 and 2024, 31% of under 21 arrested for terrorism related offences were Asian, despite making up only 9% of the population.

Justice and the other organisations argue that if youth diversion orders proceed, the bill must be significantly strengthened and from these benches we support that direction of travel. They call for piloting before full commencement, a requirement for police to give reasons if they depart from youth offending team advice, with those views placed before the court. Proper risk assessment before an order is imposed, as with respect orders and for statutory guidance from the Secretary of State to be mandatory, not optional.

Amendment 445, which would require those receiving Youth Youth Diversion orders to be given citizenship. Education in British values and from these benches we recognise the good intent. It seeks to equip young people with a positive understanding of civic life, reinforcing shared values through education that is a worthy aim and merit some consideration, particularly for those at risk of radicalisation. We do have questions, however, around implementation and especially resourcing, and if this might dilute the order's core diversionary purpose.

In short, my Lords, we do not oppose early diversion in principle, but require stronger safeguards in practice. In the case of the measures in this bill, this chiefly means a higher and more appropriate test, tighter scope and better protection for
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Baroness Fox of Buckley Portrait Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)
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vulnerable children. I apologise vulnerable children. I apologise that I missed the moment I thought somebody else was going to speak so very, very quickly. In the last very, very quickly. In the last couple of weeks, the United Arab Emirates have curbed state funding Emirates have curbed state funding for its citizens seeking to enrol at UK universities over concerns they will be radicalised by Islamists. That is an extraordinary piece of information, but also indicates that we do have a real problem and I am perfectly commend the government for trying to find new ways of dealing with young people who are being radicalised.

I understand that that is a real problem. I was slightly worried that in the same week we heard about a regional game being used by some councils for prevent, which actually identified one of the signs of terrorism or extremism as those who support cultural nationalism, which seems to me to be muddling up again the terms of what is an extremist, what isn't what, and so on and so forth. So I don't know that it's entirely clear. I actually happen to share the reservations that the noble Lady Baroness Brinton raised in terms of civil liberties, in terms of these particular youth diversion orders, because I am concerned always that whereas I think we, as I've previously said, lack moral courage in taking on radicalisation in public, there's always procedures and process and in fact, legislation that's used as a substitute for that.

In that context, I do commend the noble Lord Lord Harries of Pentregarth for trying, at least to, as he's done many times, raise the issue of can't we just teach British values? Ironically, it's become quite controversial to say we should absolutely shout from the rooftops British values. You're not encouraged to do so. That itself can be seen as exclusionary, not inclusive enough, and so on. And he's explained in detail why he wants that, and not necessarily a fan of all of the things in that list or the whole notion of citizenship education.

But I think it's the right approach, at least. I do. However, note with some irony that part of what our British values in that list are the importance of freedom of thought and conscience and freedom of expression, of assembly and association. This is in a bill which actually could curtail many of those very things, in fact. And when we try to raise them, when those of us who tried to raise them, we've kind of been dismissed, as you know, those things have not threat.

Don't worry about it. We need to do this. I also think it's interesting that in that list we have regular elections. I agree I wouldn't be cancelling them myself. And in and in relation to the rule of law, I think that jury trials are a key part of British values and democracy and ensuring that we have a democratic representation for ordinary people and that and that justice is done in the criminal justice system and so on. And we know that they are in jeopardy.

So I want us to absolutely push British values more. I think they would be that would be far more a far more important and effective than youth diversion orders. We're going to have youth diversion orders. Let's have some British values in there. But if we're going to mention British values, let's actually stick to them ourselves rather than just having them as a list that we can nod through.

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To come in very briefly on the

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To come in very briefly on the remarks of the noble Lord Lord Harries of Pentregarth in support Harries of Pentregarth in support of in his support of amendment 445. I have a great deal of sympathy, and I've spoken in other debates in and I've spoken in other debates in the past that he's had about these matters, and I'm completely convinced that he's absolutely convinced that he's absolutely right in his exhortation to us as a country to define some fundamental values that all of us should subscribe to.

My only reservation about this amendment, my Lords, is that I think listing lists prior to
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Baroness Falkner of Margravine Portrait Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Crossbench)
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a national conversation and resolution and some premeditated thought about what a list of British values should contain. And British values should contain. And certainly to be very clear that we're not rubbing up against other we're not rubbing up against other parts of legislation covered elsewhere. So I would in general, I elsewhere. So I would in general, I can see the attractiveness of this kind of list, but I think it would worry me a great deal. And the example I would give in here is subsection one respect for the environment.

And I see I see what the attempted definition of the environment is. But I would respectfully, respectfully say to the House that I think that would apply to any country, and it's not necessarily British in terms of its values, as is the case with several of the other items on the list. I would just advocate perhaps a report if it could come back with more generalised language, rather than being so specific, or perhaps to leave this for another piece of legislation which is more directly concerned with it.



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My Lords, I fully endorse the comments made by my noble friend comments made by my noble friend Lady Brinton, and I just want to raise a couple of other issues. I'm particularly disappointed to see no particularly disappointed to see no reference in part 14 to safeguarding risk assessments or multi-agency consultation beyond youth offending teams. My Lords, this fails to heed the lessons of this fails to heed the lessons of the Southport Inquiry, which highlighted serious failures in information sharing, in part because the perpetrator was under 18, alongside failures to conduct forensic risk or mental health assessments without mandatory input from local organisations such as schools, social services and mental health teams.

There's a real risk that youth detention orders will repeat Southport's tragic oversights and just one point about amendment 445, which would require those subject to a youth diversion order to receive citizenship education in British values. We understand the intent and have no problem with the intent. Helping young people develop a positive sense of civic life and shared values is, of course, a very worthwhile aim. But we believe that if such education is to be offered, it should sit within mainstream or voluntary youth provision as support, not as a condition of a terrorism labelled civic order.

Linking values education to a coercive measure risks blurring the line between welfare and enforcement, and could undermine both the legitimacy of the order and the educational goal itself. My and the educational goal itself. My Lords, while we support early diversion, we need stronger safeguards to protect both the safeguards to protect both the wider public and vulnerable children. children.
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Lord Cameron of Lochiel Portrait Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Conservative)
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citizen education might play a role in that process is is an interesting one. However, we feel interesting one. However, we feel there are a number of practical and conceptual questions that do arise from those amendments. Firstly, the from those amendments. Firstly, the issue of delivery, citizenship, education of the kind of visage education of the kind of visage here would require properly trained providers, appropriate materials, providers, appropriate materials, sufficient time, etc. to have any meaningful impact. And we should be cautious about placing new statutory requirements on the Secretary of State without a clear sense of how they would work on the ground, or whether they would be consistently available across different areas.

Secondly, the amendment set out a detailed definition of British values, whereas the amendment would have it values of British citizenship built around five specified pillars further defined within the amendment. And the noble Lord, I think, mentioned the prevent strategy of 2011, which set out four very basic values as a matter of government policy rather than a in legislation. And whilst I think many, many of course would recognise, I think we all recognise the importance of democracy, the rule of law, freedom and equal respect.

It is, I think, fair to ask whether we should enshrine those in legislation and further, whether this is the right place in legislation to attempt such a definition, particularly in the context of of youth diversion. Plainly, there may be disagreements about what might be included, as we've heard, how these concepts should be framed and whether a fixed statutory list risk being either too narrow or too prescriptive. So, more broadly, I think we should also consider whether youth diversion orders are the most appropriate vehicle for this kind of civic education, or whether those objectives are better pursued through schools, families or community based interventions that can engage young people in a more sustained and holistic way.

But I thank the noble Lord for for the arguments he made. And I welcome, and I look forward to hearing the noble Lord, the Minister's reflections on the

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amendments as well. Are the noble Lord Harris, with his amendments 44 zero and 445, has commenced a wider debate on the provisions of youth diversion provisions of youth diversion orders. And we did sort of through the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, have a wider discussion as well about the purpose of these orders. And that's the points. Again, the And that's the points. Again, the noble Baroness Doocey has mentioned as well the requirements that the noble Lord Harris has tried to seek for the Committee to add would impose as part of the Youth Diversion Order, the Secretary of State to design a package of citizenship education that can be imposed on a mandatory basis.

Now, again, I recognise that the there is a positive intention in that, and it's not meant to argue against that positive intention. But I point the committee to clause one six nine and in 1169, one A and one B, there is no exhaustive list of requirements and restrictions that can be imposed through the Youth Diversion Order clause 1691B says, and I quote from the bill itself requires the respondent to do anything described in the order. So the order can include a range of measures.

And whilst there is later on in 169 under 1693, a list of potential activities. It's also intended that the order is flexible so the court can impose any requirement or restriction that is considered necessary for mitigating a risk of terrorism or serious harm, so there is no restriction on imposing any type of educational requirements on respondent, provided that they are necessary and proportionate for mitigating the risk. And I come back to the purpose of the order, which is to look at individuals who are not yet at a significantly high threshold, to look at how we can put in place with police and youth justice services, youth Justice Services, to offer interventions on a voluntary basis, rather than a potentially also as a mandatory requirement.

I do understand the intention of these amendments, but again, I do take what the noble Baroness Falkner has mentioned that
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Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint (Labour)
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there is no definition of that element that the noble Lord Harris is trying to bring into play. And I is trying to bring into play. And I would simply argue that the youth Diversion order is an order which Diversion order is an order which seeks to reduce terrorist risk, which actively diverts respondents which actively diverts respondents away from further contact with the criminal justice system, but which is not as specific or as is not as specific or as restrictive as the noble Lord would seek to do in adding his amendment.

Today, police and Youth justice Services may seek to provide supportive interventions on a voluntary basis, and that could include education. It may well include some wider education about the importance of Britishness. It might include personal development programmes. However, supportive interventions, as I've said, may also be imposed on a mandatory basis if the court agrees is necessary for the purposes of protecting the public. That could be, for example, mandated to attend appointments like those offered through prevent, including ideological or practical mentoring.

But the point I just come back to with the noble Lord Harris's amendments are that that adds a level of prescription that I wouldn't wish to see in relation to the potential court activity. I also should just say, because it was noted, it's been raised by a number of noble Lords about whether or not the government intends to pilot the Youth Diversion Order. And the answer to that question is no, not at this moment in time. We will, if the Bill receives royal assent, look at having that as a as an order which is available to the courts and which would again have the sole purpose, as under clause 169, of prohibiting the respondent from doing anything described in the order, or requiring the respondent to do anything described in the order, and that could include the very points that the noble Lord Harris has brought forward.

But I do not wish to restrict the process by being too prescriptive in clause 169. So I would, with those comments, beg to move the amendment standing again in my name, and ask the noble Lord to reflect on the points I've made and hopefully withdraw his amendment.

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The question is that amendment four three, nine stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion say. bill, as many of that opinion say. Content the contrary not content. The contents have it. The question The contents have it. The question is that clauses 167 and 168 en bloc stand part of the bill, as many of stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion say. Content the contrary not content, the contents have it. Amendment 440 Lord Harris,

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have it. Amendment 440 Lord Harris, not move. If I may. If I'm allowed to just respond very briefly and thank the noble Baroness Morris Faulkner Margravine for her qualified support for the noble Baroness Bi Baroness Cox for her qualified, and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for their qualified support. I would just like to point out that there is no need for a national consensus about what our fundamental consultation about a fundamental British values are, because they are already there.

They were brought into effect by the conservative government under Lord Lord Cameron. My point is, at the moment the formulation is not adequate. I understand what the Minister says about not wanting to be too prescriptive. I can understand that, but I do very much hope that they will the government, as they will take much more seriously this whole question of fundamental British values, and see whether there can be greater awareness and greater support for it in a whole range of legislation.



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And with that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in my name. Not moved. Just a word of

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Not moved. Just a word of warning to Lord Harris. If at this stage you start making a speech, we normally would have to call to call normally would have to call to call the voices on it. But let's just keep going. Amendments 441 to 444 already debated Lord Hanson. More formally, the question is that formally, the question is that amendment 441 to 444 stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion say content the contrary not content. The contents have it.

The question is that clause 169 stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion say content the contrary not content. The contents have it. Amendment 445 Lord Harris not moved. The question is that clauses one seven 9 to 1 eight one en bloc stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion say. Content the contrary not content to the contents. Habit. Amendment 446. Lord Harris of Flint moved. The question is that amendment 446 stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion say.

Content the contrary not content. The contents have it. The question is that clause 182, as amended, stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion say. Content the contrary not content. The contents have it. The question is that clauses 183 to 185 En bloc stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion say. Content the contrary not content. The contents have it. Clause 44, amendment 446 after clause 185 Viscount Hailsham 447447 I'm sorry. Amendment 447.
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Viscount Hailsham Portrait Viscount Hailsham (Conservative)
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My Lords, I rise to move. >> My Lords, I rise to move. Amendment 447 and also to speak to amendment 448 and in respect of 447, amendment 448 and in respect of 447, I'm very glad to have the support of the noble Baroness, Baroness Jones, who is, I'm happy to say, in her pleasure. The purpose of these two amendments, my Lords, is to ensure that individuals can only be prosecuted under section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for the offence of supporting an act of terrorism.

If the acts alleged are in substance, acts which support terrorism in the sense that ordinary citizens support that concept. Amendment 447 makes explicit the intent required, namely that the act alleged was done with the intent of encouraging, inciting, facilitating or enabling another to commit an act of terrorism. Amendment 448 provides for a defence where no such defence, no such intent exists. The amendments are quite clearly in the alternative. I prefer amendment 447, but I would understand if the Lordships preferred 448.

What I think and what I suggest is profoundly unsatisfactory unjust to is the present law. Consider, my Lords, the demonstrations that we see in the streets of London, squares of London, hundreds of citizens holding placards which read I support Palestine action. Consider my Lords, that these individuals are often elderly and retired folk, mostly self-evidently respectable and usually without much knowledge of the secret workings of Palestine action. Now they may be self-indulgent. Some indeed may accuse them of being naive, but are they really guilty of supporting terrorism in the sense that most of us understand that concept? What I suggest that they are doing is to use a form of
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None Portrait AMDT: 447 Viscount Hailsham (Conservative)
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shorthand to demonstrate their opposition to the policies of Israel in Gaza and the West Bank, if they stood outside the Israeli embassy and shouted down, down with Netanyahu or words to that effect, they will be doing no more than they will be doing no more than they are entitled to do. And I do not think that the use of the not think that the use of the shorthand I support Palestine action, however ill advised the use of that phrase may be, makes them guilty of an act of terrorism, and there are at least three serious objections to the law, as now it is framed.

First, it is a serious restriction on free speech. I don't refer to the European Convention, though that may be engaged in this instance. I refer rather to the long established rights of citizens to demonstrate and express their views. That is a right only to be restricted in the most compelling of cases. And second, my Lord, to use the law in circumstances that offends a common sense of the ordinary citizen, brings the whole body of criminal law into serious disrepute.

The spectacle of the elderly advocate being arrested in the circumstances that we have all witnessed for allegedly terrorist acts, clearly has such an effect, and then consider the consequences by Lord John the individual concerned. If convicted of an offence under section 12, the penalties are as follows. On indictment to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 14 years, or a fine, or both. On summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or both.

But leaving aside the nature of the penalties, consider the impact of a conviction wholly disproportionate. I suggest to the nature of the offence, a person convicted of an offence under terrorist legislation would have the greatest difficulty in travelling to America, especially at the moment. They might even be arrested by Ice. They might even regard it as lucky. If that is all that happened at the hands of Ice, and their employment prospects too, would be gravely prejudiced.

A conviction for an offence under terrorist legislation could also have the gravest social outcomes. My Lords, I suggest that these consequences should not follow an act of sitting in Parliament to express a view which I happen to share, namely, that Mr. Netanyahu and his government are guilty of war crimes. The amendments that I have taken, both are intended to address this injustice, and I commend them to your Lordships

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Committee. Amendment proposed after clause 185, insert the following new 185, insert the following new clause the words as printed on the

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martial list. I'm really thrilled to be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Hailsham, because obviously he is Hailsham, because obviously he is so sure of everything he says that I must be doing the right thing, and I would like to deal with these and I would like to deal with these two amendments for four seven and 448 slightly differently, because they they do, they are different. So I support 447 because it directly responds to how the law is currently being interpreted by the courts.

The Supreme Court has made it clear that someone can be convicted without any requirement to show that they intended to support terrorism at all. The
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Portrait Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party)
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offence is about the suspicion of others, not the intention of the person charged. Now that might person charged. Now that might explain the law as it stands, but it also exposes the problem. Under this interpretation, people are this interpretation, people are criminalised not for what they mean to do, but for how their actions might be perceived or how they might be perceived or how they might be used symbolically by other people. The court accepted that this interferes with freedom of this interferes with freedom of expression, but concluded that the interference was justified because Parliament chose to prioritise disruption and prevention.

The. This amendment asks Parliament to look again at that choice. Criminal law normally punishes intention or recklessness. Here, however, we're dealing with offences that can be triggered by clothing, by images or symbols, with no need to show encouragement, promotion or support in any real sense. Now that's a very, very wide net and one that risks catching protest journalism, art research or sheer provocation. The Supreme Court has told us plainly that if this is to change, it must be done by Parliament.

That is exactly what this amendment does. It ensures terrorism laws target people who genuinely seek to assist terrorism, not those whose conduct just creates an appearance or a reaction. I really feel very sensitive about this being a serial protestor. Now on 408, the Terrorism Act gives the state some of its strongest powers, and rightly so. But with powers that strong, we should be very careful about who gets caught up in them. Amendment 408 follows directly from the same Supreme Court judgement and addresses its practical consequences.

The court accepted that section 13 interferes with freedom of expression, but held that the interference was justified because the law was clear and because Parliament had chosen that it's all our fault. That leaves people who are prosecuted under these provisions with very little room to explain themselves. If you carried or displayed something and it falls within the scope of the offence, your purpose largely does not matter. This amendment introduces a basic safeguard, a defence for those who can show that they did not mean to encourage, incite or enable terrorism.

The Supreme Court emphasised foreseeability that people should be able to control their conduct if the law is clear, but foreseeability alone is not the same as fairness. A system that criminalises without regard to intent places an enormous burden on lawful expression and legitimate activity. By putting a defence on the face of the statute. Parliament makes clear that these offences are aimed at genuine support for terrorism, not incidental, critical or contextual engagement with proscribed organisations.
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Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Portrait Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-affiliated)
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My Lords. >> I rise to put forward amendment for 50, which seeks to amend the current section one of the Terrorism Act 2006. I declare that Terrorism Act 2006. I declare that I am an office holder in the APPG for Counter-extremism, a member of the APPG for Terrorism and Security and probably most importantly, a victim of terrorism. So for 20 years this year, we've had a criminal offence of glorification of terrorism. However, under the current section one, there's a very high bar to meet as the person making a statement of glorification has to intend that a person hearing the statement would be encouraged to emulate the terrorism being glorified and glorification of terrorists or their organisations is certainly not confined to my part of the United Kingdom, but rather is a threat to the security of the nation as a whole.

And recently, on the streets of some of our major cities, we have seen proscribed organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah being lauded, and that has had its consequences, will continue to have its consequences, particularly around radicalisation of our young people. As someone who has lived with and through terrorism, I'm always alert to anything which would encourage it and bring back those dark days of intimidation, murder and mayhem. Now, unfortunately, over the years since the cessation of IRA violence, there's been a strategy from Sinn Fein to Lionise and put terrorists and their actions on a pedestal.

There are many, many examples of Sinn Fein politicians, many of them senior figures, attending commemorations and celebrations for the lives of those who sought to murder their neighbours. And in the interest of time, I'll not bring you any examples of that, because I have in the past in this chamber. But suffice to say that apart from the pain which it causes to their innocent victims, it also seeks to normalise terrorism as a legitimate way to bring about political change.

Now, the retraumatisation of victims is unforgivable and needs to be called out on every occasion it happens. But public acts of commemoration also send a very clear message to young Republicans that what these young men and they were usually young men, in some cases 16 year olds sent out to murder. What they did was in some way honourable, and it glamorises what they did. And to young, impressionable people who have little knowledge, indeed, of the life experience of the brutality of the IRA, it makes them sound like heroes, which they patently weren't.

They often chanted ooh, up! The RA is a symptom of the continuing glorification of dead terrorists. It is, to some, a cultural chant, but nothing could be further from the truth. And if we allow people, including those in positions of authority, to glorify terrorism in the way which, for example, the current First Minister of Northern Ireland does, then it normalises and sanitises terrorism and in a cynical way, a cyclical way, sorry, will lead to young people being radicalised again.

Witness those young people on our streets supporting the actions of Hamas, for instance. Many of those young people doing so know little about the Middle East, but think it's very hip and trendy to support Hamas because they hate Israel. My Lords, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. And if all you know about the IRA is that they took on the Brits and the First Minister says they were a great bunch of lads, then you can be forgiven for thinking that, ooh, up the ra is a grand, we chant.

These young people know little of the devastation, murder, intimidation and barbarity of the IRA because it's not something that's talked about by their First Minister. As regards the current provisions, there have been no prosecutions under this section, to my knowledge, in Northern Ireland. And when I asked the noble Lord, the Minister, a written question on this issue concerning England and Wales, he indicated on the 2nd of December that there had been 52 prosecutions in England and Wales since 2011.

In 2023, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, as he then was, looked at this part of the legislation and decided that section one did not need updating. And with respect to the noble case, I would argue that it needs change so that glorification of terrorism, in other words, glorifying the acts of a current proscribed terrorist organisation in and of itself should be a criminal offence. Now, Mr. Hall looked at this legislation in 2023, before the onslaught of support on our streets for Hamas, and perhaps in this context, he may need to look at this legislation again, and perhaps also the noble and learned Lord, Lord MacDonald, in his current review on public order and hate crime legislation, could also look at this issue.

But in the meantime, I submit change is needed for the following reasons. Firstly, defeating terrorism is not just about militarily defeating the organisation, but also not allowing the narrative of those terrorists to be justified. Unfortunately, with the continued glorification of the IRA by senior politicians and others, there is a deliberate attempt to rewrite what happened in Northern Ireland. It was an unjustified, bloody, murderous terrorist campaign. Nothing more, nothing less. And those of us who grew up with the threats and attempted murder of members of our family will not allow that to happen.

But we need society as a whole to recognise it as well. And I would urge noble Lords, please not to utter the phrase yes, but it's Northern Ireland and that's all very difficult. It's really not difficult. Whether you were a loyalist terrorist or a Republican terrorist, you were a terrorist and someone who went out with the sole purpose of murder. The same is, of course, true of other shades of terrorists today. Secondly, as I've already pointed out, there have been no prosecutions in Northern Ireland under the current section one.

And why is that the case? Policing across the UK should, of course, be without fear or favour and certainly should not allow political bias or fear to enter into decision making. Unfortunately, there have been recent examples of political decision making by police chiefs in the West Midlands and indeed in Northern Ireland as well. Last week, two former chief constables of the PSNI give evidence to the Northern Ireland Select Committee. In the other place, Sir Hugh Orde and Sir George Hamilton were chief constables who took independent operational decisions and despite placing it in a very political environment made as far as I and many others consider, decisions which were made on policing considerations now, they weren't always popular with all of the politicians, but that should never be the primary focus of a chief constable.

The two chiefs recounted instances last week when they had taken political decisions or taking policing decisions, and rejected attempted political interference. For Sir George, it was around the murder of Kevin McGuigan in 2015, and for Sir Hugh it was the northern Bank robbery in 2004. On both occasions, the political classes in London and disgracefully, Dublin interfering in policing of Northern Ireland, were trying to pressurise the two chief constables from calling out the involvement of the IRA. They both resisted and I'm very glad that they did.

It didn't make politics in Northern Ireland any easier at that time. I remember it very well, but it was the truth. How sad, then, that their successors, Simon Byrne, decided to give in to political pressure when it was applied to him. Now, unfortunately, some police chiefs don't feel strongly enough about implementing laws that may be seen as picking aside. My Lords, I regret to say that some police chiefs and indeed prosecutors, may be too timid and not want to rock the boat in taking a prosecution that may fail or may upset politicians or communities in inverted commas.

Instead of applying the law without fear or favour. And the question is, how do you test whether all the elements of an offence are present? If you're not willing to take it before the court? This amendment, I hope, deals with those issues as it removes the emulation part from the offence and therefore makes it easier to prosecute. Thirdly, I indicate that the start of my speech that I'm an office holder in the APPG on Counter-extremism, and if we do not amend the law on this, as this amendment seeks to do, then I really do fear that the continued glorifying of terrorism will radicalise and lead more of our young people into extremism.

At present, there is a lack of legislation to capture extremism. But if we allow glorification of terrorism to continue unabated, it will continue to grow along with all of the problems that causes in our society. Fourthly, and finally, you'll be glad to hear what sort of society do we want to live in? Do we want to allow the continued glorification of terrorism and all of the inherent problems that will bring? Or do we want to send a signal from Parliament that terrorism is, was, and always will be wrong? My Lords, we need to stop the harmful normalisation of terrorism.

I hope that this amendment goes some way in doing that, because terrorism wants to put a wedge between those of us from different backgrounds. It wants to bring fear to ordinary citizens, and it's all in all its forms. It must be defeated. And I hope, my Lords, that there will be support around the House for this

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amendment, sir. I rise to support the amendment

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I rise to support the amendment in the name of a noble Lady. in the name of a noble Lady. Baroness Hayter like the noble Lady and many others in this chamber, the legacy of terrorism is not the legacy of terrorism is not merely an abstract term. It's not a sentence on a piece of paper. It is sentence on a piece of paper. It is a real legacy that still affects
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Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Portrait Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party)
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people to this very day and is remembered in empty chairs at dinner table and empty pews in dinner table and empty pews in churches. Physical and psychological scars, and in communities still working hard to communities still working hard to build trust after decades of fear. build trust after decades of fear. In that context, the glorification of terrorism is not simply of terrorism is not simply offensive, but it is harmful. It reopens wounds, undermines reconciliation, sends a message that the suffering of victims is somehow secondary to a warped narrative of heroism and or resistance.

The noble Ladies Amendment addresses a serious gap in our legal system at present. The offence of encouraging terrorism includes the glorification of terrorists acts only where it can be shown that such Lord Filkin encourages others to emulate that conduct. In other words, the prosecution must demonstrate not only that terrorism was praised, but that the praise was likely to inspire imitation. Now, of course, I fully support that extent of the existing legislation, but the threshold should be raised to further in accounting for the rampant glorification of terrorism.

We know that radicalisation and normalisation does not operate only through direct instructions. People are rarely told to explicitly, in explicit terms, to copy and attack, and stabbed. Extremist messaging often works by celebrating past acts portraying perpetrators as martyrs or or heroes, and representing violence as justified or necessary. That justification, of course, that there was no other way than terrorist acts was from the lips of a First Minister, Michelle O'Neill. Now, over time, that steady diet of praise and romanticisation of of violence can shift perceptions, especially among the young, making the step towards active support for violence feel less extreme and simply a culmination of calculated indoctrination in Northern Ireland.

My Lord, we have witnessed first hand how cultural and political narratives can remake paramilitary violence into something that is laudable and disgustingly admired. References to paramilitaries appear in murals, slogans, music, online spaces, endlessly everywhere we look across Belfast and our schools, universities and shops and street corners. There are daunting inscriptions of a claim about the array. We even have an entire political party who are yet to find it within themselves, to admit that our terrorism was wrong.

It is precisely why this amendment is so important, because we have to think of the future and of our younger generation, who now chant up the carelessly believing it is to be an act of rebellion and resistance as they look to the political leaders who tolerate this, indeed encouraging the plot of. But let's pause for a moment and think about that. They may not be glorifying terrorism with a view to directly inciting others, but they are normalising it so radically that it would make it acceptable for someone to engage in terrorism, believing it is to be morally right.

After years of repeated misinformation and miseducation. Yet for victims and their families, these are reminded of the bombings, the shootings, intimidation, not symbol of pride. My Lord, this is a very personal touching amendment because like the noble Lady myself, my loved ones were victims of terrorism too. For a moment I take you to two young people. Young girl, 21. Her brother 16. That day she was engaged to be married. She went to get her engagement ring and of course was excited to show her engagement ring to her aunt and to her loved ones.

This was wonderful. The future was an oyster. The future was wonderful. They left to show that engagement ring. Some family members joined them in the car. As it went down that road. They were stopped because they were told by another person there was a car over the hedge. They went to help, but when they went to help, they did notice the car had his nose into the field, but there was no one in the car. And then somebody said, just watch.

There could be a bomb. And as they walked from that scene, that car blew up. Those two young people, 16 and 21, were blown to bits. You say, how do I know? Because I was the one who was sent to the morgue to identify them. That's why that girl was a beauty queen. But as I said before, there was nothing beautiful that day. Why so all. And for that 16 year old lad, he didn't even get on to the slab.

His few bits were lying on the floor and I was not allowed to look. But then they did pull it back, just to show just a few bones that was left of a lad. The only boy of 16. My Lords, this was reality. This is reality. That mother died of a broken heart shortly after that. I understand why, but who really cares? Who really cares except those who carry the burden day after day. And then they hear what they are up.

There are as a chant of young people and are encouraged by their political leaders that that's acceptable, but that's normal. That's why we have broken hearts. So when I say to noble Lords that this amendment is necessary for the safeguarding of our younger people and the safety of our future to prevent the further glorification of terrorism, know that I say it with a full emotion of remembering everything. The terrorism took my life, and the many people who would be here today if it were not for that King Abraham.

When there is no explicit call to take up arms from individuals who glorify, the effect can still be to sanitise a campaign that caused immense suffering to all of us. If a statement stops short of urging others to replicate violence, it may fall outside the offence that that creates a loophole where the celebration of terrorism can circulate freely, so long as it's carefully worded. This amendment would remove the requirement to prove encouragement of emulation and recognises a simple truth.

Glorification itself can be dangerous. The same principle applies to contemporary terrorist organisation across the world. Groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and who these are are associated with serious violence against civilians and are prescribed under UK law. Yet we continue to see instances where their actions or symbols are publicly praised or celebrated without an explicit call for others to follow their example. This amendment does not criminalise discussion or analysis or criticism of past events. It does not prevent historians, journalists, or communities from examining the cause and the consequences of conflict.

This distinction is between explaining or debating terrorism and praising it, leaving this loophole in place resending the wrong signal so long as no one says do it again. The public celebration of terrorist violence is acceptable is for that reason. I support this amendment. My Lords, it is always an honour to follow both the noble Lady, Baroness Foster and Lord McCrea, and their personal experience is not one that
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Lord Weir of Ballyholme Portrait Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party)
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is directly affected. My family are actually a salutary reminder to this House that the choices that we make on this issue are not some sort of academic, debating society sort of academic, debating society type issues. They are choices that have implications, very real have implications, very real implications in the real world. The amendments in this group, I think amendments in this group, I think we face a fork in the road. Two of the amendments, I would say with respect to those that have that have moved them, while they may well be very well intended, take us down, I think a dangerous and a wrong road.

And the third in the name of Baroness Foster and others, strengthen the position in our opposition towards terrorism, terrorists and terrorist organisations, whether they are in a Northern Ireland context, republican or loyalist, whether they are in other contexts, islamicists, far right extremists or a whole range of other bodies. Because it is right that we do not judge terrorism on the basis of its ideology, but on the basis of its actions. And that has been the position that this House and others have taken when deciding on the issue of prescription for terrorists and terrorist organisations.

They do not appear simply out of the aether. No one becomes convinced of a particular issue. And that night goes out, picks up a gun or a bomb, and goes out and carries out a terrorist act. It is a long process. It is a situation in which people get converted to a position of extreme ideology and extreme action. Out of that, it is a position in which the message is that the particular terrorist actions that have that are being carried out are normalised.

They are indeed presented as the only alternative way to sort out that problem. And a lot of that is based upon the surrounding language that is there. Lord Hailsham, whenever he was introducing this bit, said he didn't really see a distinction between somebody saying, I oppose the Netanyahu government and I support Palestinian action. With respect, I think there is a distinction. One is expressing a political opinion, one is supporting a proscribed organisation in a Northern Ireland context. It is the distinction between very legitimately someone saying, I am an advocate for a united Ireland and somebody saying I support the IRA, there is a clear cut distinction and we should draw that distinction.

If amendments four, 47 and 44, it were to go through, we create a, I think, an absurd situation which we can have platforms where people get up and urge people to support ISIS or Hamas or the real IRA or other organisations. None of those things are supporting an individual act of terrorism, but they are clearly drawing people in. They are, if you like, the gateway drug into terrorism. And as such, I think we create a very dangerous situation where we facilitate, particularly young people from different backgrounds, in becoming radicalised and bit by bit, being drawn into that terrorist world.

On amendment 450, I think it is critical both for the past, the present and the future, that this amendment is put forward on the issue of the past. We know and we've heard from the last two speakers of the real impact and the real hurt on victims of terrorism from whatever source they come. And when someone gets up and eulogises the terrorists of the past, they create great hurt for those families. Whether it is in the situation as indicated by Lord McCrea, or if someone, for instance, on a platform was to praise Hamas on October the 7th or.

Refer to those who were involved in the attacks in nine over 11 or Bondi Beach as some sort of martyrs for the cause. All those things are deeply hurtful to the families and the victims of that. But there's an even stronger case for the proposal that has been put forward by Baroness Foster, which is the implication for the future, because we have young people from, again, a whole range of communities who do not remember, who have not had that lived experience of what terrorism means in practice.

So whether it is the nine over 11 bombings or the period of the Troubles for 25 years, these young people will not know what what happened within these. But whenever particularly mainstream politicians get up and praise those in the past, they open the door to those who want to continue on terrorism. Now, if we take within the Irish republican example, if essentially someone is saying that that actually what happened in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s was justified, well, then someone recruiting for a republican organisation or a loyalist paramilitary group will say, well, actually, on the one hand, our aim was was in the 70s was Brits out.

That was supposedly the only alternative. Our aim remains that that today. So come and join us and be involved with us. It is something which I think is all pervasive. And this is not simply something which is theoretical. Two years ago, there was the horrendous shooting of John Caldwell, who was a police officer in the Mid Ulster area. This was someone who was attacked when he was helping to coach young people playing football by dissident republicans. He was very fortunate to survive.

He had life changing injuries, was very fortunate to survive with his life. But whenever the police went into an area to arrest or at least to detain two of the suspects, there were cheers from the young people surrounding not because of the arrests, but in support of those who were who were doing that. So I think we do have to close this, this loophole. I think we do have to face up to the situation, as Baroness Foster said, that actually support for terrorism should be something which is wrong and a timeless basis.

Terrorism was wrong. Terrorism is wrong. Terrorism remains wrong into the future. And I think it's about time that the law caught up with that and implemented that to ensure that we have the most robust systems to ensure that we can counterterrorism through the law.
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Baroness Butler-Sloss Portrait Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)
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Are these three amendments? Four, >> Are these three amendments? Four, four seven, 448 and 450 couldn't be more different. But they do seem to more different. But they do seem to me to show two sides of the same coin. If I might deal first with amendment 450, I entirely agree with what the noble Lady Baroness Foster has said. I mean, it's absolutely appalling that people should glorify terrorism in any way at all. We listen to some painful stories of what had happened during the Troubles.

But this is not a Northern Ireland issue and haven't listened to three people from Northern Ireland. I think it's important. As an Englishwoman, formerly married, now deceased man from County Down to point out that this happens in the rest of the United Kingdom. There are people in this country who support ISIS. There are people who support Hamas. There are other groups not so well known who may well be supported, and the glorification of any of them, whether it be the appalling acts of the IRA, the equally appalling acts of Hamas, whether or not the genocide is or isn't in Israel, doesn't seem to me to be what is relevant at the moment.

What is relevant is there should not be glorification, and I hope that the government will listen to this because although it's promoted largely by those from Northern Ireland, as I've said already, it is equally applicable to the other parts of the United Kingdom. Well, looking at the other side of the coin, I also support and disagree respectfully with the noble Lord Lord Weir, because the sort of people who are going out on the streets, particularly in London, supporting Palestine action, could not be more removed from the terrorists and the people glorifying terrorism then you could possibly imagine.

And a lot of very decent, naive as the noble Lord, the Viscount Hailsham called them, and foolish in many ways. People are going out because they don't like what happens in Gaza. We get a great deal of coverage, rightly, about what is happening in Gaza, and it creates a situation in which decent and very often elderly people are going along and behaving very stupidly, but they absolutely are not terrorists. I do rather wonder whether the government was all that wise, in fact, to create as a terrorist organisation, Palestine Action.

I think it's abhorrent as an organisation. I really don't think it is within the ambit of terrorism as we normally understand it, but we are stuck with it because it's now the law. But it doesn't mean that everybody who is foolish and naive and stupid enough to go out on the streets very often in bad weather to yell out rather stupid slogans are themselves terrorists. I'm not sure it does. The country, and particularly the government, any praise for the huge numbers of these people who are being arrested? And what on earth is going to happen to them? I think we look rather foolish with this, and I would hope the government might look with a good considerable degree of sympathy, particularly to amendment 447, which is the one that I would support.



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Before the noble Lady. And to her very fair presentation of the her very fair presentation of the two sides of that argument. But we cannot know what those people that you that you referred to who are leaving an event, a protest or whatever, we cannot know because we
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Baroness Fox of Buckley Portrait Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)
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As the noble Lady Baroness Butler-Sloss. Rational logic has Butler-Sloss. Rational logic has been very helpful in untangling this issue, and she sums up some of my concerns or and things that I'm not sure about. The noble Lady Baroness Foster has brilliantly articulated her worries about the glorification of terrorism and how it normalises terrorism into everyday life, and I think that's valid. She notes that this is based on little knowledge, and little knowledge can be very dangerous.

Now, whatever one thinks about Northern Ireland, and I can assure you at this end we don't all agree it was a bloody conflict. And it is not to be treated lightly. And those who simply reduce it to slogans in the way that was described do not know what they're talking about. But in support of the noble Lord, Lord Hailsham and the noble Lady Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb. My concern is that when we get prescription legislation wrong, we also wrong the notion of terrorism, of its power to shock of its content.

And the danger is that we relativise it and trivialise it. I actually think that there's been a huge amount of damage done by putting Palestine action into the same category as Hamas or ISIS, even though Palestine action, as has already been described or obnoxious or objectionable organisation, and they should be held to account under the law when they use criminal damage. I do not think that they are terrorism, terrorist organisation, putting those self-indulgent OAPA protesters or students into the same camp as, for example, Hizb ut-Tahrir for calling for jihad or those hate preachers I quoted it earlier also seems misplaced.

It turns those what I consider to be particularly numpty protesters into some sort of heroes in their own mind. But it's captured the imagination. And if you go to universities, you now find that people think that anyone who supports Palestine action is a free speech warrior, that we should all get up and support. And they don't understand why I'm not supporting them as a free speech. But the problem is, is that they now all think that terrorism is going and sitting on a road and saying, I support Palestine action.

Well, if only they knew. I mean, if only terrorism were sitting on a road shouting I support Palestine action or wearing a badge that is not the content of terrorism. And it's precisely the lack of knowledge about what terrorism is, that if people think, oh well, it's just like those people, then actually we we sell young generation short by them not understanding what what we're up against, what we're what the problems are. So I think prescribing organisations, which is a very important weapon to use in a particular way, is one thing.

Treating those then who simply are vocal in their support of that organisation, as is what's happened with Palestine. Action can just mean that we conflate slogans and words with actions, terrorist actions or violent actions or whatever and MPs of any horror. Now, of course, I'm torn. This is the difficulty. I'm torn. You know, when I hear Bob Dylan or Kneecap or those student groups shouting Internationalise the Intifada, or strutting their stuff and cosplaying their support for barbarism, it's sickening.

And I want something to be done. And when I listen to the moving speech by the noble Lord Lord McCrea, you know, you, you, you can see that that's what you might want to tackle. It's just that I don't think prescribing Palestine action did that. And I actually think we're now paying the cost for having inappropriately used prescription of an organisation to devalue what it is we mean by terrorism. If we have no longer young people who have lived experience, maybe in this country, sadly, you know, if they're young and Iranian, that's not true, is it? I mean, so let's just not be entirely concentrating on ourselves.

But nonetheless, for many young people, they think as as bad as it gets is going on a demo outside a prison, fighting for the the hunger strikers inside. They don't get it. But I don't think we've helped them get it either. Which is why I'm nervous about saying that glorification of terrorism in that context should be against the law, because I think we have to be very careful about what it is we are making illegal.
19:14
Lord Goodman of Wycombe Portrait Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Conservative)
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Very briefly, to speak in support of Baroness Foster's amendment, which I signed. I do so, paradoxically, as someone who's written in the Daily Telegraph of all places, against the proscription of Palestine action, my argument was there is a difference, just to address the point that I think was raised by the noble and learned Baroness Falkner. The point was not the intent of the protestors. It's the nature of the organisation that there must be some common sense way of differentiating between a violent organisation like Palestine Action and Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Al Qaeda and so on.

And in fact, a way has been proposed because the noble Lord Lord Walney produced a whole report for the last government suggesting that organisations like Palestine Action be subject to certain sorts of orders which would separate them out from ISIS and Hezbollah and Hamas and so on. But that raises the question. Well, what about Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, the IRA, and so on? And I think I would put the issue like this. Suppose someone gets up in a mosque and says, and it happens.

Victory to the martyrs. Globalise the intifada, to an audience that does not always differentiate between Jews and Israelis. Now, such a person is, I suspect, wide of the wording in my noble friend Viscount Hailsham Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb amendment. They're not actually encouraging, inciting, facilitating or enabling another to commit an act of terrorism. Unless I have misread the amendment and I have to confess to not being a lawyer, but they are doing something. They are creating a kind of miasma that can end with what we saw at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester.

These are very difficult issues. On the one hand, there's a genuine free speech issue, and I understand, I think, where my noble friend and Baroness Jenkin are coming from. On the other hand, we have to think more and more about a darkening context, which those who are in this chamber from Northern Ireland have experienced in Northern Ireland. And many of us are fearful of seeing here. We're now in very difficult territory, which is why I signed Baroness Foster's amendment.
19:16
Lord Dodds of Duncairn Portrait Lord Dodds of Duncairn (Democratic Unionist Party)
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I just want to contribute very, very briefly because we've had some very briefly because we've had some very powerful speeches and very important contributions. And wherever you stand on the issue of Palestine action and the arguments around that, one thing that we are all agreed on, as we have heard in this debate, is that the glorification of terrorism is wrong and should be outlawed. And because it retraumatize victims, it legitimises violence in the eyes of young people today and so on and so forth.

But the the thing that concerns me is that whatever law we have in place, and Baroness Foster has done a great service in raising this issue and tabling this amendment, and particularly focussed on Northern Ireland, although, as Baroness Butler-Sloss said, it's it's it's absolutely an issue across the United Kingdom. But one of the things that concerned me and as Baroness Foster referenced, has been the inconsistency in approach by the prosecuting authorities and by the police in Northern Ireland, but not just in awe, but across the United Kingdom in relation to this whole area.

And my concern is that whatever law we may pass, or whatever amendment we may put in place to strengthen the prohibition on the glorification of terrorism, what what effect does it actually have in reality when it comes to the victims, seeing people who are carrying out these acts of glorification and speaking in terms of glorification, will we actually see a difference in terms of prosecutions and effective action against those who perpetrate these crimes? And therefore, I mean, I when I speak to to victims, they they of course, remember the events that have particularly affected them.

We've heard the very powerful speech by my noble friend Lord McCrea and the noble Baroness Foster, and all of us in this, in this house from Northern Ireland, have either personally or know people who have experienced acts of terrorism against them. But they want that remembered. They want justice, of course, but they want not to be forgotten, but they want a consistency when it comes to those who glorify these terrible atrocities and these acts of violence, they want action to be taken as appropriate.

And when they see things being said and done and and nothing happens as a result of it, they lose faith in government. They lose faith in politics, they lose faith in democratic processes. And that's why you have people turning to other means, which they think will get something done about such actions. So I think it's very, very important that we all do have proper and appropriate laws in place against the glorification of violence, against the glorification of terrorism right across the United Kingdom.

But what I would ask for is a consistency and, and and a seriousness on the part of the prosecuting authorities and the police to take this matter more seriously than they do, and to have a common approach throughout the United Kingdom.
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19:21
Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard Portrait Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party)
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My Lord, just very briefly. And >> My Lord, just very briefly. And I know it will sound as if this is a Northern Ireland debate, which is not, and I totally respect Baroness Butler-Sloss by saying, you know, a this is an England and Wales and a broader issue, and I totally accept that. But I think one thing is that we have experience of it and maybe more experience than others or or we may think we may think we have. And I'm someone who who stands here having served in the Home Service security forces in Northern Ireland for 18 years.

I had colleagues murdered, I had friends murdered. I carried their coffin. But what's more is I seen the devastation on some of those families in the aftermath of that, where some people lauded and, and a those terrorist acts. And it's whenever you see a the difficulties of rewriting of history and glorification of that terrorism and they taunt the families, that is the glorification of terrorism. And just to prove that it is a much wider issue than Northern Ireland, back in 2014, two people were jailed for the glorification of the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby.

So it is a much wider issue than Northern Ireland. Totally accept that. But I do want want you all my Lords, to understand the experience of Baroness Fall and Lord McCrea and others have of the Northern Ireland situation and what we have seen. And I had a a friend murdered back And I had a a friend murdered back in 2 in 1985. On that evening, gone past their house, people were stopping and jeering at that house and applauding that murder.

Is that not glorification of terrorism? And I don't care whether it's glorification of a terrorist or terrorists or terrorism. To me, it's all the same thing. If you're glorifying terrorism that is wrong and should not be allowed. That is a rewriting of history. And even now we have the taunting of young people because their grandparents, their uncles or their family members were murdered. That is wrong and that cannot be allowed to continue. And that is why I support continue.

And that is why I support

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Lords. I rise to speak briefly.

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I rise to speak briefly. In support of amendments 4447 and 448. I also support the spirit of amendment 450. I have one reservation, which I will explain, which may be the noble Lord the
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19:24
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Portrait Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (Liberal Democrat)
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several debates about the scope of the Terrorism Act and the way in which the 2000 act works, in particular because of the breadth particular because of the breadth under section 12 of the offence of support for a terrorist organisation and the offence under organisation and the offence under section 13 of wearing an article of, or uniform and publication of images as arousing suspicion of support for a proscribed organisation, and I spoke from the point of view of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, about the unnecessarily broad scope of those sections as they stand and in support of our amendment, seeking a statement about the right of peaceable protest on the face of this bill, my immediate concern arises as it arose them out of the arrest of some 2700 people at peaceable protests against the prescription of the Palestine Action Group.

I take the point entirely that the noble Lady Baroness Falkner made that we cannot dig into the minds of those protesters and work out what their motivation was, and then create some kind of thought crime that covers their position. But what we can do is consider what is the right of peaceable protest and what price we pay for it. It is quite clear that this is not about the rights or wrongs of the proscription of the Palestine Action Group.

I am in supporting these amendments, as was the noble Viscount Viscount Hailsham, solely concerned with the right to protest and the consequences of the way that the Terrorist Act 1000 works to brand peaceable protests as an offence against that act, and to brand as terrorists protesters who've done nothing more than carry banners or publicly expressed the view that the proscription is wrong. And I quite agree with the noble and learned Lady Baroness Butler-Sloss, that there is a massive distinction between the exercise of that right, however foolish those protesters, or some of them may be, however much we may disagree with them, branding them as terrorists and comparing them with the with those who are actually carrying out terrorism is, I suggest, not justified.

And it's not, of course, confined to protests in connection with the Palestine Action Group. But the point that the noble Lord Viscount Hailsham made was also that the consequences for those that have been arrested by the elderly, retired people, be they students on the threshold of their career, are and he used the words wholly disproportionate. And those are words with which I entirely agree. Those arrested, some of them have been charged. The charging process is nowhere near complete, and as I understand it, the charging will go ahead so long as the prescription and the prescriptions.

Of course, the subject of of charge. But if those if those arrests proceed inexorably to conviction, and those people convicted are branded as terrorists, then whatever the sickening nature of the slogans, they may shout globalise the intifada to make them mean only one thing. It's about killing Jews as Jews for being Jews. And I speak as a Jew. The phrase from the river to the sea is wholly unpleasant. It's only got one meaning.

But for students to sit down and listen to and then repeat those slogans at a peaceful protest doesn't mean that they support acts of terrorism. It means, as the noble Lord said, that they're opposing and opposing with force some of the actions of the Israeli government and the Israeli soldiers in Gaza, which have been, as the British government has said, as most Western governments said, absolutely appalling of themselves. It doesn't mean that they're terrorists. And Baroness Falkner, as I say, you can't go into their minds to see what their motivation is, but you then have to tailor the criminal to actions combined with a mental.

I would suggest to this committee that amendments 447 and 448, insofar as it covers a section 13 of the 2000 act, are simple and elegant ways of redefining the offences under sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorist Act, so as to provide defences for those whose conduct was not directed to, encouraging, inciting, facilitating or enabling another to commit an act of terrorism. And actually that's a an answer to Baroness Watkins point, because if the if the defence stands, then it's a defence to the it's a defence to the charges under section 12 or section 13.

If the defence doesn't stand and they were direct, their action was directed to encouraging, inciting, facilitating or enabling another to commit an act of terrorism. Then they have committed the offence and they won't have the defence. That's why I say that the noble Viscount Goschen amendments are simple and elegant, because they allow a court to determine what was the purpose of any individual act. My Lords, amendment 450 has been spoken to incredibly movingly by the noble Lady Baroness Foster, by Lord McCrea Lord Weir and others, and it's been moving, eloquent and persuasive about the dangers of what Baroness Foster called lionising acts of terrorism.

And Baroness Butler-sloss was right to say that glorification of terrorism is always wrong, and those who have spoken, particularly those from Northern Ireland, have spoken with knowledge, understanding and experience of the evils of terrorism in Northern Ireland. But it's not just that we have to take this as an all UK issue, it's also that we have to look at it in in the context of terrorism directed against abhorrent regimes elsewhere. And the position at the moment is that the 2006 act provides that statements are only criminalised as.

Glorifying the commission of terrorism offences. If the conduct that the that is charged was a glorifying conduct that should be emulated by them in the existing circumstances. So that's called generally the the emulation exception. And the only concern that I have about this is that that limiting provision, were it removed, then glorifying past acts of terrorism, which may have been a very long time ago, because it's not limited, it's not defined, would be a very broad offence.

When legislating. We need to be very watchful to ensure that we do not draw the net too wide and criminalise acts that do not justify being criminalised. The acts of members of the ANC or supporters of the ANC, directed at upholders of the apartheid regime, even in this country, might have been said to have been glorifying terrorism. Another context contemporary. There are many Iranians in the United Kingdom. There may be Iranian members of the regime glorifying acts directed in favour of the those who are protesting against and reacting to the brutality of the frankly murderous Iranian regime.

Glorification of them may be wrong, but nevertheless, should speaking in support of them be criminalised and criminalised for an indefinite period in the future, when they may in the future be regarded as freedom fighters. So I completely agree with those that have spoken in favour of amendment 450. That amendment is needed, but I'm not sure that simply removing the emulation provision is the way to amend the laws it stands to produce the result that is sought by those who've spoken in favour of this amendment, however far we may, and I do support the motivation behind

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it. I just urge a note of caution. Before the noble Lord said, would it help the noble Lord if I would it help the noble Lord if I were to indicate that if and when I bring this back on report, I intend bring this back on report, I intend to make it clearer that it's in respect of prescribed organisations, current prescribed organisations. So, in other words, those organisations that are terrorists. organisations that are terrorists. Now, I totally accept the point he's making in terms of historical context.

I think that's an important point and one that I've reflected on during the debate. But I do think if it's brought back at Report stage, we could narrow the grounds in terms of prescribed organisations, in other words,

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glorifying the act of current proscribed organisations. So I'm extremely grateful to the

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So I'm extremely grateful to the noble Lady for that intervention. It obviously removes or could It obviously removes or could potentially remove one of my concerns. Well, my concern about concerns. Well, my concern about the amendment as it's moved because that was concerned with past glorification of past terrorist glorification of past terrorist acts that may subsequently be seen as justified. And of course, I'll certainly look at any amendment that she brings forward or modified amendment that she brings forward.

And because I so strongly support everything that she and others have said in support of amendment four five about its spirit, I would wish to support an amendment if it dealt with those possibilities.
19:36
Lord Cameron of Lochiel Portrait Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Conservative)
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My Lords, this has been a vigorous and wide ranging debate dealing with very difficult dealing with very difficult questions, and I thank my noble friend Viscount Hailsham for for friend Viscount Hailsham for for moving his amendments. Regretfully and unfortunately, I have to and unfortunately, I have to disappoint him by stating that I cannot support them. And that is because I believe they would significantly weaken the effectiveness of our counter-terrorism legislative framework at a time when the threat that we face is both persistent and evolving.

In my friend Lord Giddens phrase, the sort of darkening context I think was what he said. These amendments would insert an intent requirement where Parliament has deliberately chosen not to do so. Sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 created offences that were crafted to disrupt terrorism at an early stage in order to prevent radicalisation, to prevent normalisation and practical assistance long before violence is carried out, and that preventative purpose would be undermined if the prosecution were required in every case to to prove a specific intent to encourage or to enable a terrorist act.

My Lords, it's also important to be clear that the current law already contains safeguards, especially in the court process. Prosecutor prosecutorial discretion, the public interest test and judicial oversight all ensure that these offences are not applied casually or indiscriminately. And taking noble Lord, Lord DOJ's point that has to be applied consistently, and I entirely accept that. But the suggestion that individuals are routinely prosecuted and tried without regard to context or fairness is not borne out. On a different note, I do support amendment 450 from the noble Baroness.

Lady foster. The glorification of terrorism in all cases is abhorrent. We have seen such glorification from certain quarters of the IRA and Hamas, which only serves to normalise such atrocities. And I simply cannot add to the power of the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, in his speech, and indeed other noble Lords who have spoken in favour of her amendment, which I simply cannot add more to except to say that I am supportive of it, and I look forward to hearing the government's response.
19:39
Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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And I'm grateful to all noble Lords who've spoken in this debate, and particularly beginning the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, supported by the noble Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb. I should just start by saying the prescription is one of the most powerful counter-terrorism tools that we have, and the UK's prescription regime is established through the Terrorism Act 2000, which members are aware of. There is a statutory process for that. In the Terrorism Act 2000. The Home Secretary may prescribe an organisation if she believes it's concerned with terrorism, and an organisation may be concerned in terrorism if it commits or participates in acts of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism, or is otherwise concerned in terrorism, and those decisions are not taken on a whim.

They're taken on advice from the security services and from significant intervention from Home Office officials to examine the case for the prescription of an organisation. It is not taken lightly, and I have to say again to noble Lords, it's ideologically neutral. It judges an organisation on its actions and the actions it is willing to deploy in pursuit of its cause and Palestine action. Again, I say this in a in a neutral way for members of the committee was deemed to be over the threshold of the 2000 act and was deemed on advice to the Home Secretary to be an organisation that was concerned with terrorism and once an organisation was proscribed, and this House and the House of Commons supported that prescription.

Overwhelmingly it is an offence for a member of an organisation to invite support for it, to make supportive statements, to encourage others to join or support it, to arrange or address meetings, to support the organisation in furthering its activities, and to display carry away articles in a way that would arouse suspicion that one is a member or supporter of that organisation. Now, I simply say to the noble Viscount that his amendments for 47 and for 48 would apply to the offences concerning support and display of articles at sections 12 and 13, and for the same reasons the noble Lord Cameron of Lochiel has given.

These amendments would ultimately limit the important offences in the way that they would become largely unusable in practice. Now, I don't believe that's his intention, but that would be the practical outcome. And in relation to the offence of inviting support, it is already established that the offence requires a knowing, deliberate invitation to support and the changes proposed in the amendment would mean an additional burden for the prosecution to overcome. Now, again, yeah, I have heard comments on that particular aspect of the discussion and the noble Lord Marks has mentioned it also, that belief for that organisation is support for the organisation should not cross that threshold in relation to Palestine action.

Now again, amendment 447 in particular would import a further mental element requiring or intention. And that goes again to the point that noble Lady Baroness Falkner has mentioned that it is in odds with the requirement to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that a person intended to encourage, incite, facilitate, or otherwise an act of terrorism. So to provide a defence similar to the effect of for the prosecution to disprove again undermines the core element of the offence under section 13 is currently a strict liability offence, meaning there is no requirement to evidence the intent behind the conduct.

Again, the point that the noble Lady Baroness Falkner mentioned. Now again, I think it's important that we say to the to the committee that. Free speech is important, the right to criticise the Israeli state to support Palestine is important. And it's also, if I put on record for the committee quite right that if people wish to say that they don't wish to see Palestine action proscribed, that is also within the legal framework and it is also a matter for the police, operationally independent, and the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts to decide if a crime has been committed, and in particular, the CPS will want to consider whether in charging an individual as opposed to arresting an individual, whether the individual prosecution is in line with the code of Crown prosecutors, which is also a vital safeguard which prevents prosecutions from going ahead, which are not in the public interest.

So I've made a defence previously in this House about the prescription of Palestine action. It's not a decision taken lightly. The police have independent action, as do the CPS. But I would suggest to the noble Viscount that his amendment would, for the reasons the noble Lord Cameron of Lochiel has mentioned, undermine the purpose of that. And again, I say to both the noble and learned butler, Lady Butler-sloss, and the noble Lord Goodman of Wickham, that those actions have been taken for a purpose, and the threshold has been crossed.

And I suspect for those concerned, that with Palestine action, there will be more information coming to light as potential future prosecutions continue, which I think will show the reasons why those decisions were taken. We do have a court case ongoing at the moment. Let's put that to one side. But that is my defence in relation to the noble Viscount Astor proposals. Now, amendment 450 and can I just say that I know the noble Lady, Baroness foster has herself been a victim of terrorism.

I was very moved again to hear the comments from the noble Lord McCrea of Macro and Cookstown, the noble Lord Weir, the noble Lord Booth, noble Lord Dodds. So I know again is very close to this issue, have all expressed their view about glorification of terrorism and I don't get away from that. You know, some noble Lords will know I have sat in rooms with police widows in Northern Ireland, looked them in the face, talked to them about the issues that they have faced with their loved ones being murdered.

I have been to places like Alaska and and met with victims of the bomb at Enniskillen. I have met people who have not found the their loved ones relatives. Still even at this date who have disappeared. I have met people who've been seen from all aspects of loyalist and IRA violence, have seen their loved ones murdered, and I know not to the extent that the noble Baroness does or the noble Lord McCrea does, but I know the impact of that and had to deal with that in my time in Northern Ireland as a Minister at that stage.

So I know that the driving factor that is behind the amendment that the noble Lady has brought forward today, let me clarify. First of all, the purpose of the encouragement offence at section one of the Terrorism Act was introduced after the seven over seven attacks and is designed to act as a precursor offence and reduce the risk of future terrorist offences. The offence applies equally to statements made online or offline, and also applies to where an individual is reckless about the impact of their statement.

And again, the noble Lord Eliot talked of his experiences. I understand that I cannot imagine carrying the coffin of a workmate who has been murdered, and I understand what is driving colleagues today, but I just say to them that the glorification element has been examined, not just at the time of the original legislation being proposed, but as the noble Lady herself has said in her comments following the 7th of October attacks, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism legislation examined very clearly independently of government whether a standalone glorification offence was needed, and that was following the 7th of October attack.

It wasn't just in in 2023, it was following the attack, and he concluded in his recommendations to government that there was no legislative gap, and warned as well that such an amendment would cause serious concern for freedom of expression and risk of infringing on fundamental rights. And again, I note the concerns of the noble Lord Marks who mentioned how do we celebrate or commemorate or note historic events like the, you know, the actions of Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for what was determined at the time to be a terrorist offence.

The amendment in its current form, I hear what the noble Lady has said, but in its current form would make historical commentary, such as discussion around the King David Hotel bombing, you know, the formation of the State of Israel, or indeed the assassination of Indira Gandhi, or the comments on Nelson Mandela, potentially an offence. So I hear what she says about report, and I hear what she says about reflecting upon that. But I put at this moment in time that we have a wide range of terrorism offences beyond encouragement, offence which may be relevant in addressing the noble Ladies concerns.

It is, for example, an offence to invite support for a proscribed organisation to disseminate terrorist publications, which themselves encourage others to commit acts of terrorism to possess any which contain information that's likely to be useful for the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism. There are also non terrorism offences that might be engaged, such as, as we know, inciting or assisting or encouraging someone to commit crime, as well as public order offences. And ultimately again, and the noble Lady did make comments on this in her comments.

It is possible for discretion by the police and or the prosecution service to take action on those issues. Now, I know from her demeanour now, and I know from her comments in the debate that she doesn't feel that meets the mark and that's why she's bringing this forward. But I simply say to her that those organisations independent of government and finally, if there are charges, a court would make a decision about which offences are engaged. So I'm there's a lot of passion in this and there's a lot of real hurt and there's a lot of history and I know that.

And, you know, everybody from the noble Lord Dodds, from the noble Baroness Foster, all the colleagues here from Northern Ireland, have, you know, given their lived experience to today's committee debate. And I understand and know that I simply say to them that we have to be, I think, respectful of the situation we're in now. Everyone has the right to celebrate their culture, but they must do so in a respectful, lawful and incisive manner. The investigation and prosecution of alleged criminal offences, including those which glorify terrorism, are operational matters for the police but set out clearly in law.

And I would say to the noble Lady that I would hope that she would not push her amendments. Now I would say to the noble Viscount that both houses have spoken to date, and I share the view of the opposition frontbench, that that is where we are on this. I've heard what the noble Lady has said about potential revisions of the proposals, that report that will be a matter for the committee to consider, but I would respectfully suggest that I'm grateful for this debate today.

It again surfaces the great pain and hurt that terrorism causes. But I would ask the noble Viscount who's the lead amendment to not pushes amendment today.
19:51
Viscount Hailsham Portrait Viscount Hailsham (Conservative)
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This has been a very interesting >> This has been a very interesting debate, not least because I seem to have had the effect of uniting the two frontbenches of the common two frontbenches of the common position so far as my two amendments are concerned. There is a huge difference between the glorification of terrorism, which is deeply offensive, and I think those who demonstrate their hostility to the policies of Israel by holding up a placard. I do not believe they are the same.

And I think in time we really must come to restrict the application of section 12 of the Terrorism Act. But that said, my Lords, I think we've discussed it sufficiently for this evening, and I hope I'll be

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forgiven if I withdraw for. Is it your Lordships pleasure that the amendment be withdrawn? that the amendment be withdrawn? Amendment by leave withdrawn.

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Amendment 44 eight. Not moved. My Lords, I beg to move the House. Be resumed. We'll then move House. Be resumed. We'll then move to dinner, break business, and therefore not return to the bill

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before 2052. The question is that the House be resumed. As many as of that opinion will say content. Content.

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Content, content, the contents have it. Questions. have it. Questions. On have it. Questions. On a have it. Questions. On a statement made in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the 21st of January,
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19:54
Lord Moynihan Portrait Lord Moynihan (Conservative)
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Lord, the Minister, for repeating the statement taken in another place. My Lords, I very another place. My Lords, I very much appreciate that this plan has taken longer to finalise than taken longer to finalise than expected with a year's delay. But I think I have to say that we would join with those who support a measured and incremental move towards low carbon home heating systems, and if that is the objective, there are many measures in the plan today that are worthy of support, not least, for example, a greater role for home batteries.

And while our concerns lie is with the test against which any transition must be judged, namely its impact on the capital and operating costs of families, in other words, on household bills. Having read the statement and the impact assessment, our view is that should the what should be a welcome and important initiative to save consumers money looks more likely to have the opposite effect. With rising energy bills and taxpayer funded initiatives, not least through the recently locked in energy costs, well above market rates and in the impact assessment, there was no reference to the impact on tenants as a result of the requirements placed on landlords, and I very much hope the noble Lord, the Minister, can address whether these costs can, or in his view, will be passed on to tenants.

Regarding heating systems, 50% of the British public are unlikely to install low carbon systems such as heat pumps, due to high installation costs. And even if the Warm Homes plan takes the proclaimed £200 off bills for the 5 million projected homes over the next four years, which is unlikely given current energy and projected costs. That will still leave 25 million homes without respite. Worrying about the installation costs of the new heating systems. And how does the noble Lord, the Minister, intend to reach the other 80% of the country struggling with higher bills? Does the Minister agree that the central and more enduring problem is the ongoing operational costs of low carbon heating? Two thirds of people with heat pumps now find it more expensive to heat their homes than they did with their previous system.

And and frankly, that is no surprise. The price of electricity per unit currently sits at a multiple of that of gas. And yet the Secretary of State's plan offers no redress for the long term costs of this policy. And perhaps the noble Lord, the Minister, can now lay out whether the department has future plans to address the issue of the high operating costs of heat pumps. My Lords, the Secretary of State has also announced the founding of a new quango, the Warm Homes Agency.

The government claims to be offsetting this with the abolition of Salix. But I am sure your Lordships are aware that this is not a like for like trade off. And can the noble Lord, the Minister, now confirm what his colleague in the other place could not, and give an estimate of the cost of both the new arm's length body and the net cost of this quango reorganisation? Another key element of the plan is the move to introduce widespread solar panels into the UK, set out in the Warm home plan as unleashing the rooftop revolution on page 33.

This is timely given the Prime Minister's visit to China. The reason why this is so important is that well over 80% of PV modules used in the UK have significant Chinese content, and the true figure is very likely to be above 90% when you include panels made by Chinese headquartered manufacturers. Because of so many non-Chinese brands still rely on Chinese wafers and cells. A panel can be assembled in, say, Vietnam, Malaysia or the EU and still be heavily Chinese in content.

That's why estimates based only on the brand's country of assembly understate the real proportion, including these brands. Most energy analysts treat around 90% of UK PV panels of Chinese content in their supply chain. China's share of global supply polysilicon is some 80 to 85%, and the Shenzhen Uygur Autonomous Region share of China's solar polysilicon has been variously estimated at between 35 and 45% of its peak, all of which implies something like 25 to 35% of global solar.

Polysilicon has plausibly been sourced from jiangjin based plants. So can the Minister inform the House how great British energy can meet its legal obligation to track which exact polysilicon plant was used for any UK import, whether that plant is in Xinjiang or elsewhere, and whether specific batches are verified as free of Uyghur labour. The noble Lord Lord Alton has spoken in this house and discussed with me this morning his concern that forced labour has been widely documented in the region, and there is a need to shut the door on forced labour components found in Chinese supplies of polysilicon.

My Lords, my question, therefore, to the Minister is would he agree that independent and auditors and NGOs still argue that full traceability is patchy due to multi-site different factories, different time periods, continuously shifting new contracts, new plants coming online and lack of full transparency at the level of polysilicon origin. My Lords, as I've said, the intentions behind the Warm Homes plan are commendable and the help with capital costs is welcome. But this must be accompanied by plans for lowering operational costs, coupled with wider reforms to bring down the cost of electricity.

Otherwise, this well-intentioned warm homes plan will become a passport to higher domestic electricity bills. I look forward to the noble Lord. The Minister's response.
20:00
Earl Russell Portrait Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, I welcome the statement promised nearly two years ago as a flagship response to ago as a flagship response to soaring energy bills and poor home efficiency. It has taken some time. efficiency. It has taken some time. Delays have consequences, particularly for the millions of homes, families living in homes that are cold and they are paying the price. That said, this plan does bring forward welcome innovation and greater policy coherence, particularly through its focus on climate adaptation and mitigation.

It marks a significant milestone amid a national affordability crisis and an accelerating climate emergency. But if warm homes are one side of the equation, cheap clean energy and market reforms are indeed the other. We do need both to succeed. The commitment to 15 billion of public investment is ambitious and right. Ministers. Ministers forecast upgrades for 5 million homes and relief from fuel poverty for 1 million families by 2030. These are the benchmarks by which this plan will be judged.

Too many families still live in cold and damp homes, causing ill health and rising health costs. Labour is right to call out the lost decade under the Conservatives when investment collapsed and home upgrades fell by 90%. Greater vulnerability followed Russia's invasion. 85% of our homes were still dependent on fossil fuels, and 40 billion in emergency support was required. This was the cost of the Conservatives delay. Against this backdrop, the plan's innovative pathway is welcome. Partnerships with British climate tech firms could, if implemented well, build a world class retrofit industry.

But SMEs need support, predictable regulation and open markets to bring products from design to real homes quickly. The proposed Retrofit innovation panel and approval models are positive if they deliver. I am concerned about the six month cliff edge gap between previous schemes winding down and new schemes starting. I ask the Minister for gout excuse me? I ask the Minister for greater clarity, particularly in relation to the use of the £1.5 billion reserve to help fill this gap. I welcome the focus on climate adaption.

Increasing heat will be a slow motion killer, so homes must be built for cooling as well as warmth, including air to air heat pumps and supporting communal ground source systems is vital. Passive measures are also needed. The plan's emphasis on consumer led energy flexibility is encouraging, with an ambition to triple solar by 2030. Integrating solar batteries, EV and smart metres can turn homes into virtual power grid participants, cutting bills and easing pressures on the grid. But this rooftop revolution will falter without faster grid connections, planning reform and more resources for local authorities, the transition must create good jobs and uphold ethical standards.

I supported Lord Alton's amendment to the GB energy Bill on forced labour. Our clean energy revolution must rest, must not rest on exploitation. So I ask the Minister, what measures are we undertaking with our EU partners and others to build our solar manufacturing capacity? Despite the promising direction and other areas of overlap, this plan stands in isolation from Great British energy and our community energy plans, and I think this is a missed opportunity. We welcome the support for the UK heat pump industry, but question if 19 million will be enough? The dilution of deployment ambition is of deployment.

Ambition is troubling. Well below the 600,000 a year target by 2028, even with the £7,500 grants, typical households still face a £5,000 shortfall, which will be too costly for many. I reiterate the Liberal Democrats call for free heat pumps, insulation for low income families. We welcome the innovation financing models but ask for greater details. Can the Minister assure the House that these that these will be properly regulated, transparent and not put people's homes at risk? New rented sector standards, benefiting some 3 million over the next four years are also welcome.

But how will this effectiveness be measured? We welcome the Warm Homes Agency as a single point of leadership, and I ask the Minister what more can be done to make sure that people aren't the victim of energy scams? Can the Minister explain how the plan will be monitored and reviewed, and confirm some level of flexibility? Too often in the past, insulation was missing or just simply done badly. Government must work to restore confidence. It is essential that we do insulation and we do it well.

Without insulation, the best technology cannot prevent heat loss. Finally, I agree with the opposition. We need energy market reform and clean energy needs to be affordable. Electricity costs are too high and while they are that high households won't change from fossil fuels, so we must balance levies and take them off bills. So in to conclude, my Lords, we welcome the ambition and the funding, but ambition must now be met with urgency, coherence and fairness. Ministers must close the funding gap for insulation back at the heart, reform markets to make clean energy affordable and back British workers and innovators.

If Ministers rise to this challenge, this plan can deliver not just warmer homes but a fairer, cleaner and more secure future for Britain.
20:05
Lord Whitehead Portrait Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)
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I thank the. >> Noble Lords, noble Earl for their contributions on this statement, and I think I can say that both of them were pretty supportive, to be honest, which is a which is a nice thing for something as large as this. And I therefore, as it were, bank that support and will address myself to the very pertinent questions that the noble Lords did put forward in their contributions. But I think just in banking, the support, it's it's worth just reflecting on the the real scale and the extent to which there are winners all round in this particular.

Proposal. That is before the House tonight. So it is as noble Earl, Earl Russell has said, £15 billion altogether, which I might add in terms of the total commitment by this government is over to about two and a half times what the total commitment, all things considered, of the previous administration was in terms of overall energy efficient measures and. Noble Earl is also right to point out the collapsing in measures over the period that took place under the previous government.

So this scheme overall is determined to get it right this time and not only get it right this time, but it get it, get it right for all sections of society. And the the noble Lord Lord Moynihan did point out what is going to happen to the 80% he thought weren't going to be particularly affected by this. Well, actually, when you look at the the breadth of the proposals that there are in the Warm Homes plan, there is indeed something for everybody in it, though low cost loans and and interest free loans for the private sector, for the private rented sector, the quite dramatic commitment to make sure that landlords spend £10,000 uprating their properties to what will provisionally be band C of EPCs by 2030.

And by the way, there is no real evidence that landlords have put rents up in terms of the their commitments to the previous level of increase to band £3,500. It was the case. So that's for the private rented sector for the for the social housing sector and grants and. Particular investments in that form. And of course for those in fuel poverty, substantial investment in seeking out those in fuel poverty and bringing treatments forward for their homes that will substantially uprate their warmth and decrease their bills, it really will decrease their bills, sometimes quite dramatically.

And make sure, of course, that those are permanent changes and not changes that just go forward with the volatility of the energy market. Now, the the noble Earl asked about the whole question of. Forced labour and solar panels. Well. I do appreciate his point. And I do appreciate also points that of course, we are in a world where it is very difficult to accurately assess who is doing what as far as forced labour is concerned.

But we do already in the Modern Slavery Act, have the wherewithal that if we can identify those circumstances, we can take action. And certainly this government would want to do that. And of course, we are collaborating at the moment with the Solar Stewardship Initiative, which is seeking to try and get more accurate spotlight on that forced labour issue. So it is something we are very well aware of. But I think the the noble Earl will recognise and understand that this is actually a difficult area to get absolutely right straight away, and it is work that is that is undergoing the.

The noble Lord Lord Moynihan mentioned the question of the ambition for heat pumps in where we going forward now? I have quite a memory from another time in another place about what happened with the ambition for heat pumps previously, which is that the previous administration declared a three year program of a total of 90,000 heat pumps, underwriting 30,000 a year for three years up to 2025. I think it was then there was a gap of three years when nothing would have happened.

And then suddenly in 19 2829, there would be 600,000 heat pumps installed per year. A real piece of sort of Graham de Toro magical realism, if ever there was. And. That's what we're seeking to avoid on this occasion, that we want to have real targets, which we really can meet. And that's very important, by the way, in terms of investment in UK heat pump manufacture, for example, that we need to know that there's a steady market for those heat pumps when they're increasingly manufactured in Britain.

Boiler manufacturers turning to heat pump manufacture that we we've got that real target in place. We really can reach it. And with the measures in the warm homes plan, with the 7500 underwriting for heat pumps that there is at the moment, for new underwriting, for air source, to air source, air to air heat pumps, and the ability of heat pumps to be put into areas, area schemes and for low carbon loans and grants. Then there is every prospect that we really can get to that 450,000 target in an organised and effective way.

I'm conscious that I haven't been able to reply to every single point. The the the noble Lords made in response to the statement, but I will if I have missed anything out. Be happy to write to both the noble Lords to make sure we have a full series of answers to to their questions. Today I look Lord Campbell-Savours.

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Is taking part remotely. Campbell-Savours. To speak.

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To speak. My Lords, can I welcome the government's emphasis on solar? Is government's emphasis on solar? Is my noble friend. Following developments in the use of perovskites, a material which potentially greatly increases solar panel efficiency by as much as 30%
20:14
20:14
Lord Whitehead Portrait Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)
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I thank the the noble Lord for his his question today, and it might be helpful if I just go into a very brief disquisition about perovskite and its qualities, to inform the House as to the noble Lords question, perovskite is quite simply a a wonder product in terms of solar development. It is a mineral, but largely made synthetically, and it manages to trap a much wider spectrum of the sun's rays than traditional silica does.

So if you have tandem, so-called tandem panels, which have silica panel underneath and a perovskite film on top, you can increase the efficiency of the panel by 20 to 30%, which is a fantastic addition you can imagine to any solar array. If you've got solar on a on a field basis, you can get far, far more power out of that at much smaller series of arrays and get the same power out, or a much larger amount out of out of arrays.

And obviously, as far as home solar is concerned, you can get an enormous boost, perhaps half your power used from the roof by the same amount of solar panels that you would have previously put on. So it's a it's a very exciting development. Oxford PV is the company spin out from Oxford University that is engaging in the development and the commercialisation of those tandem panels, and there indeed is a pilot production line in Germany underway. The government has been very supportive of Oxford PV in its in its journey.

There was an original grant of £668,000. I think in 2014, and there have been grants from and there have been grants from Ukri subsequently for Oxford PV. So. Indeed Oxford PV is presently, I think, in some discussions with the Department of Trade, Business and Trade. So it is it is something that we very much look forward to hoping, hoping to help develop for the great advantage of this solar world generally. And I can assure the noble Lord that the government is active in this pursuit with the prizes that it can bring.
20:17
20:18
Lord Whitehead Portrait Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)
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Thank the noble Baroness for >> Thank the noble Baroness for that contribution. The the question of heat pumps and insulation is, is a very clear one. Clearly heat a very clear one. Clearly heat pumps don't work as well as they should do if a property is poorly insulated. So to to go with increasing insulation hand in hand with heat pump installation is a very wise thing to do. But. What the Warm Homes Plan does, among other things, is it tries to take a measured view of where fabric improvements are perhaps necessary and needed, and where other forms of enhanced energy considerations could take their place.

So there are properties that are very, very difficult to insulate to the right standards, but actually with solar and batteries and heat pumps and various things such as that, they can actually come up to the sort of standard you would require. So this Warm Homes plan is a little more careful. I think, about the combination between those various factors and the. Elements of the plan, which involve fabric, will be about probably 700,000 homes or so, will continue to get fabric uprating, but there will be other factors coming into being.

I will be very happy to write to the noble Baroness about future Homes plan, and how that's going to work out. That is under way at the moment and of course, will, among other things, ensure that new homes, when built, will be of a sufficient standard that they will not need fabric uprating for the future because it will be there in the definition of those new homes that is going to be produced shortly. And I will certainly inform the honourable Baroness, the noble Baroness, about its progress as soon as I can.
20:20
Lord Grantchester Portrait Lord Grantchester (Labour)
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This is great news, my Lords, and it would be good to be and it would be good to be reassured that the Warm Homes Agency will act as a one stop shop to provide advice to consumers and help them navigate through the best options for their homes. The Fuel Poverty Strategy rightly recognises the importance of using and sharing data to support more effective targeting and delivery of fuel poverty interventions, such as energy efficiency upgrades and installations of low carbon technologies.

Can my noble friend, the Minister, outline how the government intends to use anonymized and aggregated smart metre data to enable those interventions to reach those

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households in greatest need. Well, there are a very large

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Well, there are a very large number of applications of an anonymized and aggregated data from smart metres. Assuming you've smart metres. Assuming you've actually got enough smart metres installed in any one place to make that data meaningful, and we still that data meaningful, and we still have some problems with that in terms of the smart metre rollout. terms of the smart metre rollout. But in general it can be used for a variety of applications, particularly, for example, as far as the Warm Homes programme is concerned, which is looking to develop area based applications wherever possible, then having the data as to actually where those people in fuel poverty actually are and what areas have a concentration of people, particularly in fuel poverty, gives you a very good chance of actually making sure that you have related what it is you're putting in as far as your investment is concerned, with actually making a difference as far as pure poverty is concerned.

And that has been one of the problems of schemes. Previously, you just didn't know where those people were, and quite often the schemes were operated in a scattergun approach, which actually didn't really hit the target, as it were, in the way the target, as it were, in the way they should have done.
20:23
20:23
Baroness Young of Old Scone Portrait Baroness Young of Old Scone (Labour)
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conditions that could only be described as Dickensian. I mean, it simply shouldn't happen in a modern simply shouldn't happen in a modern UK. We're uniquely exposed to the UK. We're uniquely exposed to the volatile gas price. We've got the least energy efficient houses in least energy efficient houses in Europe. I mean, it's a litany of failure, and I think that this plan goes some way to really turning that around at long last. It tackles three very important issues as far as I'm concerned.

I want to explore one in particular with the Minister. I mean, it tackles the cost of living, issue it, which is going to be even more important in view of the volatility of the the global political situation. It tackles the health impacts on, on on poor families and of poor building standards. And it creates UK jobs. But when the Select Committee on Environment and Climate Change took a look at some of the issues to do with consumer behaviour and change to new systems, the the lesson that came out loud and clear from all of the witnesses we saw, were that they wanted help to make it easier and cheaper to switch from inadequate standards, polluting standards, ineffective standards to modern technologies.

So the role of the Warm Homes Agency is very welcome, but is really important. And can the Minister tell us a bit more about how that agency will be tasked with ensuring that the schemes that are in place don't fail, and that the sort of consumer confidence to make the change that's going to be really fundamental to this is going to be promoted.
20:25
Lord Whitehead Portrait Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)
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My my noble friend is right to focus attention on the extent to which consumers, the general public, will actually have confidence in the changes that are afoot, but also will be able to make decisions as to how they participate in those changes in the best way possible. And I do think that is one area where we have, as a country, been quite lacking in the past, although I would exempt from this the nation of Scotland, which of course has had a a national advice agency in place, giving impartial advice and assistance, and also seeing that through to installation for quite a while.

And one of the functions of the Warm Home Agency will be to provide that unbiased, informed advice and assistance which will actually ensure that what is what is being proposed for individuals, homes and after after all, they are the things that are most important in their lives and the things they are most concerned to get right. That actually those things are done with a with a high degree of transparency, reliability and effectiveness. And I hope that will be an early development of the Warm Homes Agency as it comes into place.

And I would just say that in terms of what we have just seen just recently with the problems that eco four has had, and the Public Accounts Committee report on it. We really do have to have that advice in place and also that regulation to make sure that the standards that we think we are delivering to people really can be applied properly.
20:27
20:29
Lord Whitehead Portrait Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)
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My noble friend is quite right. We are going to need a great deal of upskilling of individuals who are participating in this programme to make sure that they provide the best possible service that they can, and indeed, again, turning perhaps to that PAC report on. Eco four, that was perhaps an element of the process that actually people were putting particularly external home cladding into place without really being without really knowing what they were doing.

So it's it's going to be very important we do that and it is very important that we see the jobs, 200,000 of them or so that are going to come out of this programme as permanent, long term skilled jobs and not fly by night little contract jobs. These are real, real jobs, good jobs, which we want to make sure we're investing in. And I would just remark in passing to my noble friend, indeed, I bear the scars of the previous things and congratulate him for his his hand in warm front, which he will recall, along with programs such as certain chefs, really did make a difference at that early stage, and it is tragic that they all collapsed in the way they did.

So the opportunity now to not only bring back the lessons learned from those programs, but actually expand them in a way that has been done now, indeed does warm to bottom of my

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heart as well. My Lords, as we were not due to

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My Lords, as we were not due to return to the Bill until 2052, I beg to move that the House to adjourn during pleasure until that

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point. The question is that the House to adjourn during pleasure until 2052. As many as of that opinion will say content the contrary, not will say content the contrary, not
20:31
20:52
20:53
Viscount Hailsham Portrait Viscount Hailsham (Conservative)
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449 and indeed to speak briefly to 454. May I say to the noble Baroness how very grateful I am for Baroness how very grateful I am for her support for 449 well, Lord, I haven't asked this sort of feeling haven't asked this sort of feeling that I may be uniting my noble friend Lord Cameron and the Minister in opposition to my Minister in opposition to my amendment. I will forgive them on this occasion, but may I also say that I'm extremely grateful to that I'm extremely grateful to noble Lord Lord Marks for his support on the previous group of amendments, and I rather hope I might get some support from him on this occasion.

My Lord, the purpose of 449 is to ensure that Parliament has as much information as possible before a decision to proscribe is made. Milords I accept, of course, that it's not possible for Ministers to disclose in general, debate all the information which they may have received in private and which, in their opinion, justifies proscription. My Lords, I worked in the Home Office, in the Foreign Office for around seven years, so I am under no illusions. And of course, the Minister, who has the similar sort of track record, will be under no illusions either.

But having regard to the serious consequences of proscription, we need to do all that we reasonably can to ensure that when a prescription order is made, Parliament is as well informed as it can be, and that the justification for the order is well based. Otherwise, we are wholly reliant by Lords on the judgement of officials and of Ministers, and without being unduly personal on matters of such importance, I do not wish to be exclusively reliant on the judgements of Boris Johnson, Suella Braverman or Liz Truss.

However, informed and con sidered some may suppose them to have been. Parliament's intelligence and security committee could provide a way forward. Amendment 449 creates a precondition to the Secretary of State's ability to make a prescription order. The new subsection, Lord Reay, requires that if circumstances allow before the Secretary of State makes an order, the Secretary of State must place before the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament a statement of the reason for making the order, and in such circumstances, the report of that committee must be published before the order is made.

Now I accept, of course, that there may be circumstances in which the urgency of the matter demands more immediate action, and the new subsection three B and three C address that eventuality. In effect, the procedure is the same as that provided for in Lord Reay, but it is retrospective. In either event, the Intelligence and Security Committee will be able to examine the stated reasons in much greater detail than the House and public session can do. A degree of scrutiny and interrogation should be possible, and the report of the ISC could be very important, reassuring Parliament as the propriety of the order.

If that is the opinion of the ISC, or alerting Parliament. If the IOC is not supportive of the order. My Lords, I do not pretend that this is a complete safeguard. However, it is certainly an improvement and on that basis I commend 449 to the Committee as regard. 454. I think I can anticipate the arguments that are going to be advanced by the noble Baroness. She and I agree on an awful lot, and I know I should be supporting her on this matter.
20:57
Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti (Labour)
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I beg your pardon? >> Clause 185 insert. >> The new clause is printed on the master list.

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master list. Apologise to the chair. In my enthusiasm for moving things along for for colleagues who may be here for for colleagues who may be here for some time, I declare an interest as a member of your Lordships Delegated Powers Committee. But of course, speak for myself only, but very much with with those concerns in, in in mind, as you've heard from my friend who is also noble, but I cannot call him a noble friend. The the noble Viscount Hailsham I speak to.

449 in his name, which I've supported, and 454 in mine, and I'm grateful for his support, and also in the latter amendment, for the support of my noble friend Lord Hain. He's very sensibly not in his place at this hour. And and also Lord Verdirame in contrast with the previous group. And I'm sad that there aren't more participants in the previous group here. These are modest amendments, and I believe that these are modest process amendments that are capable of uniting everyone who spoke in the last group for and against the various amendments.

Because these amendments, both of them, are about increasing parliamentary involvement in and scrutiny of exceptional executive power, in particular, the power to proscribe an organisation as a terrorist organisation under section three of the Terrorism Act. To be clear, my Lords, I do believe, and this may surprise some members of the committee, that that such powers can be proportionate. They are capable of being proportionate. Because no one should be allowed to organise a private army in a democracy in particular that targets humans and a democracy is, is, is proportionately able to respond by prescribing a terrorist organisation, but is nonetheless a very awesome and and exceptional power for the executive to say that people will not just be prosecuted for their for their terrorist actions, but for a fairly broad and loose associations with people who may or may not, in the end, be guilty of terrorist offences.

I do not say this, my Lords, to relitigate the prescription of Palestine action, which came up at length in the previous group, like the noble Viscount Hailsham. I asked members of the committee to think not just about past prime Ministers that have had scepticisms about, but think about such powers in the hands of future prime Ministers, whoever they may be. And of course, sorry, Home Secretaries, because formally this is a Home Secretary power, the power to prescribe guilt by association.

So anyone who expresses support for an organisation that may that may have some people in it who have committed offences of whatever kind. So I support the noble Viscount in his 449, which is expertly set out, is about saying the ISC, the Intelligence and Security Committee owned by Parliament, appointed by the Prime Minister. So this is not sort of out of control democracy. It's still very tightly held. And people who've been vetted by the agencies, let's be clear about that and appointed by the Prime Minister that the ISC should have a role in scrutinising a prescription order with all the consequences that were discussed.

And I remember the noble Lady Baroness Fox in the last group saying that she was concerned about the recent prescription order. The ISC, which I feel is underused given its eminence and expertise. They should have a role before. Before the order is is laid before both houses of Parliament. I need not go on about that, because the noble Viscount has has done it so well. May I say a few words about my 454? A very short and simple, and I would suggest uncontroversial amendment that suggests that when organisations are to be prescribed with all the consequences that may flow from that, not just for members of that organisation, but for people who go on protests and hold up, you know, private eye or whatever it is.

These organisations should be prescribed one at a time. So each order signed by the Home Secretary and laid before both houses of Parliament for a one up and down, yes or no vote, no amendment possible. We know our parliamentary procedure. One organisation per order. Why do I say this to the committee? Because otherwise it is open to any Home Secretary of whatever colour in the past, the present or the future to prescribe a number of organisations in a single order, some of which may be, as most of them have been in the past, pretty uncontroversial.

Al Qaeda, Boko Haram. ET cetera. ET cetera. ET cetera. Combat 18 organisations that plainly fall within any common sense, let alone legislative definition of terrorism, because of the way that they instrumentalize and target humans for violence. That these orders currently may also include more controversial choices. As you've heard in recent times, and it should be open to members of Parliament in the other place. In particular, to say, I agree with so many of these prescriptions, but not with this one, because this one is, yes, a direct action protest nuisance organisation.

But it doesn't sit with my definition of terrorism. This is not a hypothetical because these matters are currently before the courts, and that's why I seek not to relitigate the prescription of Palestine action, although it did come up today. That's the courts will deal with that. But remember, they've already found an arguable case around the the recent prescription. So what if it's just one organisation per order? And just in case, a speaking note over over there with my noble friend says, oh, but what if we need to prescribe many on the same day? Still possible.

Just make multiple orders, but it will be one organisation per order so that no member of Parliament or or member of your Lordships' House can ever be said can ever be told. If you vote against this order, you've just voted against the prescription of something like Al Qaeda, even though it's the Women's Institute that you that was also included in the order. No disrespect to the Women's Institute. I think members of the committee take my point. One organisation per order, a real scrutiny of each prescription.

I, I really do. I really do suggest there is no reasonable opposition to that. If what we take seriously in this committee is, is parliamentary scrutiny of exceptional, exceptional executive action, however necessary it may sometimes be.
21:05
Lord Verdirame Portrait Lord Verdirame (Non-affiliated)
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My Lords, I've. in this group. Really, for the reasons that I've been so eloquently set out by the noble Lord Viscount Hailsham and by the hon. Lady Baroness Chakrabarti. The first point is really that prescription is a very significant power for the executive. The consequences are severe conduct that was hitherto perfectly lawful becomes not only unlawful, but criminal. And so for that reason we need to have a proper checks and balances. The second reason is that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti said, these amendments are actually quite modest.

They don't try to limit or amend the scope of the criminal offences, which was the case with some of the amendments, perhaps in the previous group. All they try to do is to increase parliamentary scrutiny, and it seems to me the case for doing so is is unanswerable. The third point is that, as we know, there has been a an intense debate on the prescription of Palestine action and views on that may differ, but my opinion is that whichever view one takes on the prescription of Palestine action, they should be able to support both of these amendments, particularly in light of the exchange.

Very interesting exchange in the previous group between Baroness Prosser and Lord Marks, where the idea that seemed to emerge was that there might be some way forward on tightening glorification by reference to proscribed organisations. But if the reference point is proscribed organisations that we must be absolutely certain that we are getting prescription right and we must be able to interrogate prescription, any prescription that the government decides fully. And for that reason, I also think that there's simply no answer in particular to amendment 454.

We do need to have one order for each organisation which the government intends to prescribe. It is no answer to say that this would place an undue burden. Civil servants will obviously have to spend considerable time putting together the evidence for prescription and as part of that, requiring them to prepare two different orders is not asking for too much, nor is it an answer to say that this would be an increased burden for Parliament. When we vote, scrutinise, vote on a prescription or scrutinise a prescription, we take a decision of great importance for the reasons that I've mentioned before, and I simply think we should not be put again in a position, as was the case a few months ago, where we have to decide on the prescription of very different organisations, where on the one hand, you've got organisations for which the case for prescription is probably uncontroversial.

And on the other hand, you have examples of organisation for which there is objectively an argument to be had as to whether prescription is a good idea or not. And for these reasons, I give my full support to both of these amendments.
21:09
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Portrait Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party)
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My Lords, I rise to support both >> My Lords, I rise to support both amendments as well. And on 4.49 I support this particular amendment because prescription is a huge power. The noble Lady, Lady Chakrabarti said. Awesome. And it is indeed an awesome power and it can turn ordinary behaviour into crime. Parliament should not be asked to rubberstamp those decisions without proper scrutiny. Prescription can criminalise membership, association and even everyday activity. Yet at present, these decisions are made almost entirely within the executive, with very limited parliamentary oversight, and that concentration of power carries risks.

It leaves decisions open to mistakes or overreach. And also, of course, it can undermine public confidence in counter-terrorism law. Parliament and the public need assurance that prescription is based on sound reasoning, reviewed independently and grounded in evidence. One of the things that we didn't really have when we were asked prescribed Palestine action was evidence. And since then we've had hints of various kinds about, well, we'll see when the evidence comes out and we'll understand why that prescription was justified.

But so far, I would argue it has not been justified. Independent scrutiny is particularly important when the intelligence underpinning a prescription is classified and supposedly cannot be shared widely, where decisions are urgent or complex. Having a committee report afterwards helps Parliament and the public understand the reasoning and reinforces the legitimacy of the action taken. Now, I would have also supported this, going further to address the Independent Review of Terrorism by David Anderson KC. That prescription should also be time limited and expire after a set period such as two years, unless Parliament is asked to pre to prescribe yet again.

As we know, once prescription has happened, it's in effect a lasting forever and decisions this serious should not be made in private and left to drift. Parliament deserves a proper look at the evidence, and I do hope that the noble Lords Minister is going to bring us the evidence, as he keeps hinting in various speeches now on 454, an excellent amendment, I've got to say, because when we prescribe Palestine action, it was bracketed with two groups. I can't remember their names.

They were right wing fascist organisations, and we had absolutely no choice about that. And so had we had each of those individually, then we could have made a much better decision. I would argue. It seems that we just have to trust the government and who trusts the government anymore. I mean, certainly not me, and certainly a lot of the general public agree with me. And so asking us to trust the government is not the way it should be.

It really should be. It should have better oversight. My Lords, I rise just to say a few words of support in in support of the noble Viscount Hailsham 409 and the noble Lady Baroness Chakrabarti 454. And I do Baroness Chakrabarti 454. And I do so on grounds that it's I'm sorry, so on grounds that it's I'm sorry, I do so on grounds really of quality.
21:12
21:14
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Portrait Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, Lord Verdirame used the phrase this is about getting the phrase this is about getting prescription right. And he's absolutely right in that I support both of these amendments. It seems to me that the noble Lady Baroness Jay was exactly correct in saying that we have to have, in respect of amendment 409, more independent parliamentary scrutiny. That actually goes for 4 or 5 for as well. Lady Lawlor was right to say that we are looking for checks and balances.

These amendments are concerned with democracy. They're concerned with Parliament having a say and having the opportunity to consider government proposals. Amendment 409, which was, if I may say so, economically and persuasively moved by the noble Lord Viscount Hailsham is plainly sensible, involving the IRC, and for the government to give reasons to the ISC before prescribing an organisation would, first of all, increase the confidence of Parliament. All sides of both houses in the government decision to prescribe, which, as everybody has said, is a serious and important decision on a matter of great significance for the rights of the individual, the rights of groups and for the public at large.

And I suggest that it wouldn't just increase the confidence of Parliament to have ISC involvement, it would also increase the confidence of the public in these decisions. The ISC is, of course, independent. It's parliamentary, it involves members of both houses and it's cross-party. And that seems to me, and I suggest is an important reason in favour of ISC being the ISC being involved. And it's entirely consonant with the assurance of the noble Lord, the Minister given in the last group, that the government acts on the advice of the security services in making decisions on prescription.

And that is, of course, as it should be. We would expect them to act on advice, but to involve the parliamentary committee, confidential parliamentary committee in that process can only improve the procedure. And I make another point made by the noble Lady Baroness Chakrabarti, that we should always be aware of the dangers of an overmighty executive not being as reasonable with its opponents and with others as we are used to expect. Things may change, and looking across the water, as the noble Lady Baroness Lawlor did, the United States shows us that respect for democratic independence and democratic procedures is fairly shallow, and it has to be protected.

We should not be complacent about the possible dangers, and I would suggest that this is a way of showing that lack of complacency. So for those reasons, an added lack of an added layer of democracy added independence. The involvement of the ISC would add to our national security and not detract from it. As far as amendment four, five, four is concerned, I'm bound to say that I agree with the noble Lady Baroness Chakrabarti when she said that there could be no reasonable opposition to this, the idea that orders should be able to relate not to a single organisation, but to multiple organisations is simply absurd.

Palestine action was proscribed along two alongside two others. One was the maniacs murder cult, which is a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organisation. And I'm using the government's own interpretation. They had claimed a number of violent attacks globally. They supplied and supply instructional materials, explaining to followers, mostly online, how to conduct terrorist attacks. The other was Russian imperialist movement, another white supremacist organisation described by the government as ethno nationalist with the aim of creating a new Russian imperial state.

That may sound eccentric, but in so doing they run a parallel paramilitary organisation called partisan, which increases its adherents capacity for terrorist attacks, and indeed two Swedish nationals attended partisan in 2016 before committing a series of bombings in Gothenburg in Sweden, with devastating results. My Lords, the idea that Parliament, this House or more importantly, the Other place should be given no choice but to approve proscription of one or prescription, or to approve proscription of all or deny proscription of all is frankly, an insult to Parliament.

MPs and peers were given no choice but to approve or deny approval, and I, on the Liberal Democrat benches, were deeply offended by being given that denial of choice. It's illogical, it's undemocratic, and it's unfair, and it is in fact, demeaning Parliament not to allow individual MPs to exercise a fair choice on whether to prescribe a particular organisation or not. These decisions need to be taken individually and on their own merits, having regard to the arguments for and against prescription of each organisation concerned as it arises.

The procedure that for that would be simple. As Baroness Chakrabarti explained, it shouldn't be a job lot put before Parliament as frankly an executive decision, with no choice being given to Parliament except the choice to endorse the job, lot or not.
21:21
Lord Cameron of Lochiel Portrait Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Conservative)
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Miles, this has been a short but a very interesting debate, and if I could briefly address amendments 409 and 454, each of which concerns the important and sensitive process by which organisations are prescribed under the 2000 act. Amendment 449. In the name of my noble friend Viscount Hailsham raises a legitimate question about parliamentary involvement and scrutiny in the prescription process. The ISC has, as we've heard, deep expertise, access to classified material and a very well established role in scrutinising national security matters.

And there is therefore an understandable attraction in ensuring that the ISC has sight of and can report on the reasons for a proposed prescription before an order is made, except in cases of genuine urgency. It may be, though, that the ISC would be receiving the same advice from the same organisations, be they the police or the security services, as the government are on issues of prescription, and therefore there might be an issue of of duplication. And I think it also is important, my Lords, to recognise that prescription decisions often need to be taken swiftly in response to fast moving threats, and the executive has to retain the operational flexibility to act decisively to protect public safety.

And I accept that the amendment recognises this through its urgency exception. However, we need to consider very carefully where the balance should lie between enhanced parliamentary scrutiny and the need for speed and discretion in matters of national security. And I look forward, genuinely look forward, to hearing the Minister or the Minister's view on whether the existing framework already strikes the right balance. Because if there is scope for a greater formal role for the ISC, in our view that cannot impede operational effectiveness.

Amendment 454, tabled by the noble Baroness Lady Chakrabarti, addresses another very important aspect of the prescription regime and, as we've heard it will require each prescription order to relate to a single organisation only, and it seeks to strengthen parliamentary scrutiny and accountability. And I can understand the argument presented so eloquently by her as usual. But I also recognise that these are matters ultimately for the executive and not the legislature. And I wait with anticipation to hear the views of the noble Lords Minister on both amendments.
21:23
Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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My thanks goes to Viscount >> My thanks goes to Viscount Hailsham Noble Viscount Hailsham for tabling amendment 449 and to my for tabling amendment 449 and to my noble friend Baroness Chakrabarti for amendment 454. And I'll try and answer the points on both of those two separate amendments, if I may. My contribution now, the Viscount Hailsham amendment from the noble Viscount would require engagement with the Intelligence and Security Committee in advance of prescription orders being made. And let me say to him, first of all, that as somebody who served on the Intelligence and Security Committee for five years, I know that it is a vehicle which is trustworthy, which does not leak, and which deals with security service issues from both houses in a responsible manner.

And I would say to the noble Viscount, in the light of that, he will be aware that my noble friend or my right hon. Friend, in this case, the Security Minister has, following the Palestine action discussion that we had, has written to the Intelligence and Security Committee and expressed his intention to write to the committee ahead of future prescription orders being laid in Parliament. And if the Committee wishes to have it, to give them a privileged briefing on the reasons why the prescription order is being laid so that the Committee can, in confidence of the Security and Intelligence Committee, have that detailed information before it.

Now, I think that meets the objectives of the Viscount

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Astor, Sir amendment. Indeed a good step forward, but I think it falls slightly short in I think it falls slightly short in that I don't think he's telling your Lordships Committee that the committee will be making a report committee will be making a report to Parliament.

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to Parliament. Well. The the gap between the time gap between informing and debate would be for the security Minister to determine. But again, I would argue in most cases I would expect without putting a burden on my noble friend Lord Beamish, that is the chair of the committee, that the chair of the committee will probably want to contribute to that debate and would be able to inform the House if they felt there were issues they wish to draw to the attention of the House.

And there is also, although my noble friend Lord Beamish is the chair who sits in this house, there will be a senior member from the House of Commons who would also be able to answer to the Commons on any issue. So the noble Viscount is right. But I think that the spirit of his amendment is met. But obviously that's for him to make a judgement. I think it is, but that's for him to make a judgement now on amendment 454, which had support across the House from the noble Lord Marks Lord Verdirame Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb.

On amendment 454, my noble friend asked for prescription orders to include one single organisation at a time. Now, historically, and I say this to my noble friend, prescription orders have come in groups on many occasions. At the beginning of 2001, some 20 groups were prescribed in one order that took effect under the first Statutory Instrument made. Under that order, four more organisations were prescribed. On the 1st of November 2002, 15 were prescribed on the 14th of October 2005, and so on.

Now, in the interests of both parliamentary time and also the speed and flexibility to put those orders down. That was the case then, and it was the case when we tabled the order with three organisations in June, July of last year in this House and at the same time in the House of Commons. Now I, I put that to my noble friend that security issues sometimes require a speedy response and that those issues were done in that way for that reason.

But can I give her another reason? Can I give her one more reason, which she may want to reflect on? The reason I give is as follows. There is a threshold for prescription under the 2000 act, and whether you like it or not, the decision of the government was that the three organisations that were bundled together in the debate in July of last year had all met that threshold. I was available, as was the security Minister in the House of Commons, to answer questions about each and all of those organisations.

But in terms of the advice from the security services, the advice from officials and ministerial examination and judgement of that advice, all of those organisations cross the threshold so individuals might want to vote against each one individually, but if they do so, they're voting against exactly the same principle. In each case that the organisation had crossed that threshold.

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I'm so grateful to to to my noble friend, the Minister, as, as always, for his patience and always, for his patience and fortitude and and engagement. But with respect, the historical with respect, the historical precedent doesn't answer the constitutional question, which is, constitutional question, which is, wouldn't it be better for Parliament to be able to have an up and down vote, given that and down vote, given that Parliament has already decided that it has a role in approving these prescriptions? Wouldn't it be a more meaningful approval if it was one one organisation per order and multiple orders can be drafted and signed on the same day? I say this as a Home Office lawyer who worked, including on on terrorism matters.

And finally I say to my noble friend who I respect so much, this is not about him, and this is not about the current Home Secretary. This is about the future and about the checks and balances that noble Lords opposite spoke about so

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passionately. Well, I'm grateful to my noble friend. And again, I just I just friend. And again, I just I just say to her that the fact that there were three organisations bundled together in July of last year together in July of last year didn't stop a significant number of members of Parliament voting against the order, nor did it stop a significant number of peers voting against the order. Now, they voting against the order. Now, they may have voted against it because they didn't like Palestine action, but I just put to my noble friend again that Palestine action had crossed exactly the same threshold as the two other organisations in that order, and the judgement is not a judgement about Palestine action, it's a judgement about the intent of Palestine action, which, in line with the intents of the other two organisations in that order, which the noble Lord Marks referred to and which gave an explanation of their actions.

I was accountable at this Dispatch Box to say that those three organisations had crossed the threshold. Here was an order we put together for speed and efficiency and accept my logic or don't. The House accepted the logic in both houses. Some people voted against maybe because of Palestine action, but in essence, in voting against Palestine action. The logic was they were voting against exactly the same tests that had been put against the other two organisations, so that that's the point.

Now I'll take, I'll take.

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Two interventions. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. At this stage. May I I'm sorry. At this stage. May I make ask the noble Lord to consider two points. The first is that the two points. The first is that the procedure he has described involves procedure he has described involves an executive decision that the organisations had crossed the threshold, and an executive decision that they ought to be proscribed. That is not a parliamentary decision. Far from it. And if you're going to give members of Parliament a meaningful vote, they have to have an opportunity to express a view on each of those prescriptions.

That's the first question. The second question is rather simpler. We have a parliamentary service of unqualified, unparalleled quality. It wouldn't be beyond the wit of them, or generally to devise a system of d grouping where if either one or a number of MPs or peers wanted the orders to be drawn up separately, then they could be drawn up separately. If everybody was content that a bundle of 24, 15 or 3 orders could be dealt with together, they could be dealt with together.

That would just involve minimal consultation, a slight procedural adjustment, but would involve the importation of fairness and good sense into a procedure. And certainly those people that I know that voted against the prescription of the three had nothing against the prescription of the other two, but were concerned that they were being told they had to vote against all three if they wished to, if they wished to argue against the prescription Palestine Action Group. And I ask him to accept that that is unfair and and a denial of parliamentary democracy.

Yes.

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I don't know if the noble Lord can.

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can. Take all the questions in one go. The the threshold may be the same, but there are three separate decisions, and each decision is based on different evidence. So we based on different evidence. So we are dealing analytically with three distinct decisions. And that is the reason why there should be three reason why there should be three different orders. The historic examples to which the noble Lord, the Minister, referred, I suspect, but I'm not certain. And perhaps he can explain refer to cases where all of the various organisations were in the same context, whether it was Afghanistan or ISIS or al Qaeda related organisations.

What we had in that case, in the case of Palestine action, was the lumping together of very different organisations, a British extreme movement and to white supremacist Russian movements, which they've got nothing to do with each other. And the evidence is different. So would the noble Lord accept that in those circumstances in particular, where we are dealing with very different decisions based on different evidence, there should be an order per organisation? Well.

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Let me say it is a fair and reasonable point that the noble Lord Marks and Lord Verdirame have Lord Marks and Lord Verdirame have made fair and reasonable point. The point I'm putting in response to that fair and reasonable point is that we group them for speed, we group them for efficiency, and we group them for efficiency, and we group them for reasons historically, that they have been grouped because we want to clear a number of prescription orders at the same time.

But I also just still put that point on the table for the committee that if an organisation, in the light of the security services, the advice of officials, ministerial interrogation of that, and now with the added locus of the Intelligence and Security Committee having sight of and being able to be briefed on those orders, if we did bring in future three orders together in one order, the threshold remains the same. That threshold has been crossed. So it might be that members have a sympathy for the Palestinian cause rather than the Russian nationalist cause.

But the threshold that has been decided by ministerial jurisdiction on advice from officials and the security services is the same. They have crossed the threshold of the 2000 for a terrorist organisation. So this making them separate orders would still mean that members of both houses would have to vote and say, we don't accept they've crossed the threshold. Well, that's that's a different decision. But anyway, I think if I can, because I'm conscious of time, those points have been made.

I have put the government's case on on that issue, and I would hope that with the discussions I've given to the noble Viscount Hailsham and with my explanation, take it or leave it on the points about this aggregation of of the of the orders. I hope that I've tried to put the case and members can reflect upon it. But in the meantime, with regard to the noble Viscount Trenchard amendment, I would ask him to withdraw it.
21:37
Viscount Hailsham Portrait Viscount Hailsham (Conservative)
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I'm conscious that the committee wants to make progress, so I will be very brief. I hope that the Minister will realise we're not revolutionaries here. We are, all of us parliamentarians. The Minister refers to the threshold. But the truth is, Parliament never knows the detailed reasons. And it is because we don't know the detail reasons that we want to involve the eyes to a greater extent even than the Minister has suggested. And I personally would like to push him to saying that there would be a report, whenever possible, more than just a statement from the chairman as to the Baroness Bull Baroness Willis amendment.

It's very difficult to see any kind of disadvantage to what the noble Baroness is suggesting. All in and all out is not a good way forward. The Minister and his charming way talks about efficiency as speed and so-so. But the truth is, you could lay three orders in one day, each of them with a separate object, and that would be a proper way forward. But all of that said, with your Lordship permission, I should

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withdraw amendment 449. Is it your Lordships pleasure that the amendment be withdrawn? that the amendment be withdrawn? The amendment is by leave withdrawn. The amendment is by leave withdrawn. Amendment 415 not moved. The question is that clause 186 and question is that clause 186 and part of the bill, as many as that opinion will say content. The contrary not content. The contents have it. The question is that have it. The question is that schedule 20 be the 20th schedule to the bill, as many of that opinion will say content.

Content the contrary, not content. The contents have it. The question is that clause 187 stand part of the bill. As many as that opinion will say. Content the contrary not content. The contents have it. The question is that schedule 21 be the 21st scheduled to the bill. As many as that opinion will say content the contrary not content. The contents have it. The question is that clauses 188 to 190 stand part of the bill. En bloc as many as that opinion will say content.

Content the contrary, not content. The contents have it. Amendment 452 Lord Hanson of Flint. The question is that amendment 452 be agreed to. As many as that opinion will say content the contrary not content. The contents have it. Amendment 453 Lord Marks Lord Henley.
21:39
None Portrait AMDT: 453 Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, I've considered this amendment during the course of amendment during the course of preparing for today's debate, and it calls for a review of how raising the threshold for classifying offences of terrorism related related under the 2021 act has impacted sentencing within a within a time frame, and considering the review that is considering the review that is underway by the noble Lord, Lord Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, it does seem to me to be a waste of time to call for a review that is plainly within his terms of reference, within a time frame after this act was passed into law.

So I don't propose to proceed with this amendment. I've spoken to the noble Lady Baroness Jay about this, who's content to go along with it. Baroness Doocey, who shares the amendment with me. So I don't know whether the procedure is now that I simply don't move it or that I withdraw it, simply don't move it. Lord Katz seems to be signifying, so I don't move it.

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I think I think it is the amendment proposed, as you've spoken to it is that after clause spoken to it is that after clause 190, insert the new clauses are the 190, insert the new clauses are the words on the Marshalled List. But you might wish to withdraw. The amendment.

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Would be correct. Is it your Lordships pleasure that the amendment is by leave that the amendment is by leave withdrawn? The amendment is withdrawn. Amendment 454 Baroness Chakrabarti not moved. Amendment 454 a Lord Goodman not moved. Amendment 454 B Lord Goodman not moved. Amendment 454 C Baroness

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Neville-Rolfe. My Lord. I rise to move. Amendment 454 C
21:41
None Portrait AMDT: 454C Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative)
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>> I rise to move. Amendment 454 C which seeks to increase the punishment for sabotaging an punishment for sabotaging an undersea cable to a 15 year prison sentence and an unlimited fine. sentence and an unlimited fine. This constitutes critical national infrastructure, and we need a infrastructure, and we need a strong deterrent, as I believe, as do 1 or 2 others from the backbenches who I think are probably being caught out by the loss of the last amendment. Interestingly, one of Rishi Sunak's early successes was a pamphlet on the subject for Policy Exchange, which he wrote with Admiral James Stavridis of the US Navy, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.

Written in 2017, it helped propel him into office and to extraordinarily rapid advancement. But as he said, well, few realise it is our ability to transmit confidential information to conduct financial transactions and to communicate internationally. All depend upon a global network of physical cables lying under the sea. And, as the Admiral said, we have allowed the infrastructure of undersea cables to grow increasingly vulnerable. A severe attack by a hostile actor is potentially catastrophic, but even relatively limited sabotage has the potential to cause significant economic disruption and damage.

Military communications. So fast forward to last year, when I took a renewed interest in the subject with the release of a report by the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy, it found, as the Minister concerned said in reply to a question I asked last year that the UK has plenty of cable routes and indeed good repair processes for business as usual breakages. However, it found particular vulnerabilities around the UK's outlying islands, military cables and the financial sector, with a small set of high value targets on onshore infrastructure was also a concern, with links to data centres creating worrying levels of concentration.

All of this infrastructure could also be targeted in a crisis. It noted that there are various laws around telecommunications, notably the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885 with low penalties, £100 for damaging a cable by culpable negligence, with only modest increases possible via secondary legislation. The report also concluded that updated and tougher criminal liability provisions might help. In response to the report in December, the government argued that the National Security Act 2023 could be used with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, but only if the activity was carried out by a foreign state or at the direction of a foreign state.

Where this was not possible, it would be necessary to rely on the 1919 and the 1885 act. My Lords, this act is plainly inadequate for today's dangerous situation. As the time is late, I would like to cut to the chase and hope that the Minister might look positively at my simple amendment. In these dangerous, dangerous times. I beg to move.
21:45
Lord Cromwell Portrait Lord Cromwell (Crossbench)
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I proposed after clause 190. Insert the new clause. The words is printed on the Marshalled List. >> I'll be very brief, and I apologise for arriving a little late to the scene. The intermediate amendment before this one seems to have disappeared suddenly and caught me sprinting down the corridor, so I. I crave your indulgence, if I may, and I have cut most of what I was going to say, mainly because it's been so well introduced by the noble Baroness. This is an important amendment, I support it.

These are two way supply chain of information and there is important to us, perhaps more so as any other supply chain for our national security, for our economy and the basic functioning of our society. Those who wish us harm are aware of this. Our experimenting with ways of disrupting and damaging these cables, and finding ways to attack even the deepest of them. The Commons debate on the report, which the noble Baroness referred to, pointed out that deliberate damage can be denied or made to look accidental, and that undersea cables governance falls between eight departments, seven agencies and numerous private sector actors, and the need for co-ordinating coordinated updating of the legislation is clear.

The government response basically agreed with us. My Lords conclude these are perilous times of escalating insecurity and they escalate and they highlight how vital yet vulnerable these cables clearly are. Wider legislation may be required in due course, although goodness knows when. But in the meantime, we should act now as legislators in this bill to update, clarify and deter interference from this, from attack on this vital infrastructure. Thank you for your time once again.
21:47
Earl Russell Portrait Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lord. I rise briefly to >> My Lord. I rise briefly to support this amendment. This amendment offers a small change to a historic act, but it relates to a historic act, but it relates to the very lifeblood of of modern society on the data that we all depend. The UK is a crucial junction box with 64 submarine cables. Two of them carry, you know, 75% of transatlantic capacity goes through just two cables landing in Cornwall.

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

This act does need to be updated. We feel this amendment addresses a real problem. The maximum term for wilfully damaging undersea cables is up to 15 years, coupled with A2A level five fine, this sends a stronger signal. It aligns more clearly with legislation that is in place to govern other critical infrastructure national infrastructure, including undersea energy and other bits of critical things that we depend on. So to our mind, we see this as really serving two purposes. The first is a sensible tidying up measure, an interim step, I guess, if you like to remove an obvious anachronism from a still operating statute.

And secondly serving, notice that it will wait for more comprehensive regime that is also really, really clearly required. So this we see as an interim measure and an encouragement to the government to bring forward a more comprehensive framework to deal with this problem. I have more of my speech, but really, considering the time, I think I will leave it at that. We feel that this is just that it's proportionate. There are some issues about it. Materiality, about scope.

But I will leave it for another time. Generally, I think the government should view this, should accept it, should view it as a stepping stone towards clarifying this area of law and making sure that we really have the proper penalties and security for our vital infrastructure.
21:50
Lord Cameron of Lochiel Portrait Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Conservative)
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Can I thank my noble friend, Lady Neville-rolfe for tabling this amendment? And to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, and who have spoken in this debate, and I should also like to express from the outset my thanks to the diligent work of the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy. Their report into the vulnerabilities of our undersea cables is a brilliant piece of work, and really does make for sobering reading. As the noble Lord Lord Cromwell said, these are perilous times and there never has been a more important time to consider the measure proposed.

Given that cables are the invisible backbone of much of our economy, security and everyday life. As we've heard, they carry the vast majority of international data traffic. They underpin financial transactions and connect critical services and link the UK to our international partners. The committee's report underlined that while the UK has plenty of cable routes and good repair processes for what it phrased as business as usual breakages, there are, however, distinct vulnerabilities, particularly where multiple cables cluster or connect to key landing stations, and in the link servicing our outlying islands.

And on that last point of our outlying islands, as someone who represented in the Scottish Parliament, the Highlands and Islands region for eight years or so, that last point is very real to me on a personal level, because these are not abstract concerns. They're very real damage to a cable, for instance, connecting the Shetland Islands in 2022, for example, disrupted mobile landline and payment services for days. And as we've heard, despite these vulnerabilities, the legal framework has not kept pace with with the security environment.

The principal instrument remains the Submarine Telegraph Act of 1885, the deterrent effect of criminal sanctions matters. As the Committee observed, the UK cannot simply assume that hostile actors would refrain from targeting these cables in a future crisis, and the government has to be prepared for the reality that hostile states or proxy actors may exploit these vulnerabilities deliberately. In conclusion, I would add that increasing penalties is certainly not the only measure the government should be taking.

The threats we face are far more wide ranging than simple criminality. And there is, I think, a need for a whole of government approach to protecting critical infrastructure, such as submarine telecommunications, that would involve the DVT, DESNZ and home offices, home office. But I think, my Lords, this amendment is a start, and I do hope that the noble Baroness, the Minister, will listen and take action.
21:53
Baroness Levitt Portrait Baroness Levitt, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Labour)
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My Lords, this government takes the security of our subsea cables extremely seriously, and I am grateful to the noble Lady Baroness Neville-Rolfe for raising the issue. It's crucially important and right that it's debated and achieves the attention it deserves, as the noble Lady has said. The Joint Committee for the National Security Strategy conducted a recent public inquiry into the security of the UK's subsea cables, and it's shone a spotlight on this issue. Following that inquiry in November 2025, the government has formally committed to increasing penalties for those who damage subsea cables where the activity cannot be linked to a hostile state because, as the noble Lady rightly says, where it can be linked to a hostile state, a life sentence is available through the National Security Act.

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

One further aspect about the non-criminal elements of this that may reassure your Lordships House is that cable breaks do happen regularly in UK waters. Given the busy nature of our shallow seas, but the UK's international connectivity is highly resilient and we do have a well developed system of civil litigation that ensures that cable owners are reimbursed when a break occurs. So I hope that for all these reasons, the noble Lady will be content to withdraw her amendment.
21:55
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative)
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It is. >> It is. >> Great late, but I'm grateful for the support of the noble Lord Cromwell, the noble Earl, Lord Cromwell, the noble Earl, Lord Russell and my noble friend, the opposition spokesman Lord Cameron of Lochiel with his compelling Scottish perspective. I mean, given the vulnerabilities that have been identified and identified successively and obviously most recently by the Joint Committee report on the Committee on National Security Strategies report, which I think nobody is disagreeing with.

It is actually important that something is done here. The noble Lady rightly refers to the possibility of civil litigation, but I don't think for something of this seriousness, and given the scale of the threat that we now have in the waters, you know, around our country, that's really good enough. So I you know, I will reflect, but I hope the government will perhaps take this away, perhaps come forward with their own amendment. That would obviously be ideal. Perhaps we can have some further discussions about how we actually solve this problem sooner rather than later.

I know at the point that the noble Lady made about fisheries and so on, but that sort of feels like an excuse normally when you have a I've been to Security Minister, when you have a big security issue, you do try and take steps as quickly as you can, as has been done with quite a lot of previous legislation to mend matters. But for today, I will withdraw the amendment, but might

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come back to this report. Ziegler Lordships pleasure this

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Ziegler Lordships pleasure this amendment be withdrawn. The amendment is by leave withdrawn. My Lords beg to move the House be resumed. The question is that the House be resumed. As many as that House be resumed. As many as that opinion say. Content and the contrary not content. The contents

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contrary not content. The contents have it. My Lord Lebedev. Of the House do now adjourn.
10:30
None Portrait Introduction(s): Baroness Martin of Brockley; Baroness Nargund
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