Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, has set out his reasons for insisting on his Motion Q1, which would delete records that the police hold non-crime hate incidents in certain circumstances which he outlined, even when the police had a concern about the pattern of behaviour and that it might lead to a crime.

I take issue with the comments that the noble Lord has made in that the whole Motion talks only about this very narrow area of what should be held and reviewed. The concerns that we have from these Benches are about the repetition of proposed new subsections (1) and (2), which say that non-crime hate incidents

“must not be recognised as a category of incident by any police authority in the United Kingdom”,

and that:

“No police authority or police officer may record, retain or otherwise process any personal data relating to a NCHI”.


Noble Lords will remember that we were lucky enough to have the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, with us after the College of Policing report was published, and he pointed out that there is a balance between free speech and the targeting of vulnerable people. Other noble Lords spoke movingly about this balance too, including the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, from her and her family’s own experience. So from these Benches, we were pleased when the Government laid their amendments on Report, which set out that balance between freedom of speech, which must be protected, and threats to vulnerable people. Their proposal to use anti-social behaviour mechanisms to record in the future is understandable and appropriate, and we hope that it will work out well. We will wait and see whether it really works.

We on these Benches believe that the combination of the Government’s amendment that is now in the Bill and the new guidance in the College of Policing report provide the balance that is needed to ensure that there is freedom of speech. However, the police will have the capability under the anti-social behaviour legislation to protect the most vulnerable in our community, especially if they are targeted by someone whose behaviour is escalating and the course of that pattern of behaviour could in itself become a crime such as harassment or, even worse, just progress more severely into an actual crime.

If there was nothing on any records up to the moment that a crime was committed, the police would not have been involved. For many vulnerable people who have harassment and other things going on, waiting that long deters and delays police action. There is a difference between that and passing the information on about the files. I believe that the Government’s amendments have dealt with that. On these grounds, we will not support Motion Q1.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Young of Acton for returning to the important issue of NCHIs. Our position as a party has not changed. With 60,000 annual police hours and a quarter of a million cases recorded, which is over 65 a day, this is the extent to which our police forces are having to go to record non-crimes.

The Government have stated that they are not accepting my noble friend’s amendment, as the College of Policing has now published its review into the instrument, complete with recommendations. I welcome this review and that the Government have accepted its conclusions, but it bears no requirements for action. Similarly, while the statutory code of practice addressing the recording of NCHIs has been revoked, there is little reassurance that this will be replaced by a more satisfactory system. This amendment seeks to commit the Government to necessary action now. This measure needs to be on the statute book. Should my noble friend wish to test the opinion of the House, we will wholly support him.

My Amendment 339B in lieu is a redrafted version of the amendment that I tabled on Report concerning the investigation of police officers for misconduct. I thank the IOPC for its engagement with me concerning this amendment. The version before your Lordships now is a more comprehensive drafting, but the underlying point remains the same. Where police officers are acquitted of criminal charges, all misconduct proceedings concerning that specific offence should be dropped.

I want to be clear about how this amendment would operate in practice. It would not mean that acquittal would shield an officer from any potential misconduct proceedings. For example, if the police officer was acquitted of manslaughter, he could still be liable for misconduct proceedings if due process was not followed on a related procedural matter such as filling in correct paperwork concerning the incident. However, the amendment would mean that the police officer, where he is acquitted of criminal charges concerning the use of force, could not then be subject to misconduct proceedings on that same question. As I said on Report, it is wrong that in the absence of my amendment, police officers can be investigated by the IOPC, referred to the CPS, dragged through the courts, acquitted only then to be reinvestigated. If it is the Minister’s intention to oppose this amendment, I will seek to test the opinion of the House.

Southport Inquiry: Prevent Programme

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Forsyth of Drumlean)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite her to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, our thoughts are with the victims and their families, especially this week with the publication of the inquiry report, which will have brought back many sad memories. The inquiry report is very clear that, unlike with the safeguarding of children, there is a glaring hole in the joint sharing of information to ensure that all agencies are aware of the risks that a child poses to others in society. Yesterday my noble friend Lady Doocey pointed out that under the Crime and Policing Bill the police will need to consult only the youth offending team. Surely, as the report suggests, there must be one lead agency managing this information, but all the agencies involved—schools, social care, medical services—must have a duty to record and share information. Will the Government look at this as an absolute, urgent priority?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

On the Statement yesterday, I responded to the request from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, to introduce amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill. The Bill finishes its stages in Parliament this week or, potentially, next week or the week after. We have been very clear that we want to examine the recommendations in full, but we received these recommendations only at noon on Monday. I think it is fair that we give them consideration, but the noble Baroness’s point about data sharing and co-operation was a significant failure identified by Sir Adrian, and one we will respond to in full in the summer.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as I said earlier, I am a paid adviser to the Metropolitan Police. However, I have not discussed this subject with the police; these are my personal views.

With regard to Amendments 406 and 407, from my operational policing experience I know that the proportion of transgender men and women in the general population is very small. The proportion of offenders who are transgender is even smaller, and the number of transgender people who are convicted of violence is tiny. The number of criminal offences committed by transgender people is neither statistically nor operationally significant for the police.

On victim data, the most important operationally useful data for the police in relation to hate crime is how the victim identifies themselves. For other offences, it is what motivated the assailant—that is, what did the assailant perceive the victim to be? Did the assailant perceive the person to be female, in which case it is misogyny? Did they perceive the victim to be transgender, in which case it is transphobia? The birth sex of the victim is not that operationally significant for the police, nor is it likely to be statistically significant.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have one sentence to add to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The Office for National Statistics, in response to an FoI, said on the collection of data in relation to the “gender identity different from sex registered at birth” category:

“We have to be robust enough to provide reliable estimates”,


but there is not enough data to be able to do that. Why? Because the data is so low that it is statistically insignificant. It is not corrupt and it is not many more to twist it for women. We need to be factually accurate when looking at this issue.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I was not making the point it has been assumed I was making. This is about consistency, which is the point made by Professor Sullivan. Different police forces are collecting different data on gender identity or sex, sometimes conflating the two and sometimes using multiple variations on a theme. I then used the analogy of this happening across criminal justice. From the point of view of whatever evidence someone is trying to collect, as has just been pointed out, if we are going to collect data—and maybe we should not bother—will it be useful if it is different all over the country depending on the department?

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am struggling to hear the question in the noble Baroness’s intervention. I repeat the point that the Office for National Statistics and the police data that is currently collected both say the numbers are so low they are insignificant and therefore unusable.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments raises two significant issues for modern policing: transparency in the use of algorithmic tools and the modernisation of police data and intelligence systems.

I turn first to Amendment 400, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. We on these Benches recognise the intention behind the proposal. As policing increasingly makes use of complex digital tools, such as data analytics and algorithms, it is entirely right that questions of transparency and public confidence are taken seriously. However, as discussed in Committee, we should be mindful that policing operates in a sensitive operational environment. Any transparency framework must strike the right balance between openness on the one hand and the need to protect investigative capability and operational effectiveness on the other.

Amendment 401, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, addresses a different but equally important issue: the state of police data and intelligence systems. Few would dispute that technology within policing must keep pace with the demands of modern crime, and the challenge is not simply identifying the problem but determining the most effective mechanism to address it. Modernising policing technology is a complex and ongoing task that already involves national programmes, investment decisions and operational input from forces themselves.

For these reasons, while we recognise the important objectives behind these amendments, the question for noble Lords is whether the specific legislative approach proposed here is the most effective way of delivering them.

The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Cash seek to require the police to record the ethnicity and sex of a suspect. These are steps that these Benches wholly support. The importance of these measures can hardly be overstated. Recording ethnicity data has been recommended by experts of all professions, parties and associations. It is a requisite for enabling police to track and measure crime trends within certain communities and serves a secondary purpose of allaying or affirming arguments and claims about offending statistics, which currently are regrettably too often reduced to conjecture. Similarly, we support the recording of sex data as part of a larger drive to secure the rights of women by delineating sex from whatever gender identity an individual assigns themselves.

We are entirely supportive, therefore, of my noble friend Lady Cash’s amendments and are grateful to other noble Lords who have spoken in support of them tonight. I hope the Minister agrees that these are issues that should be above the political divide and that these amendments will improve operational efficiency. I look forward to his response.

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[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is me again. I declare my interest as a paid adviser to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, particularly on issues of culture and leadership.

In the UK, we police by consent. That relies on public trust and confidence. Public trust and confidence, in turn, relies on the police treating every member of the public with dignity and respect, no matter their background or the community with which they identify. In addition, to ensure every police officer and member of police staff can be themselves and give of their best, the public sector equality duty is essential. Yesterday, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir Mark Rowley, told the London Policing Board that he was committed to continuing the work of the UK’s largest police force on diversity, equality and inclusion. If noble Lords will not take my word for how important the public sector equality duty is to policing, maybe they will take Sir Mark’s.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, introduced Amendment 402, which proposes that the police should be exempt from the public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010, to ensure that they are

“solely committed to effectively carrying out their policing functions”.

I still have some difficulty in following the arguments for this amendment; I also raised this in Committee. I wonder whether the noble Lord seriously believes that applying the PSED takes away from the police carrying out their duties effectively. In speaking earlier to Amendment 400, my noble friend Lady Doocey mentioned the review by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and the importance of standards, training and inspection: the perfect circle that ensures police forces are working effectively. The PSED is absolutely at the heart of that.

A number of high profile cases have absolutely strengthened the need for the PSED. Indeed, it has been failings in policing that shocked the country, and every report on those incidents has talked about appalling attitudes to vulnerable people. On Monday evening, the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon, spoke about the murder of her son Stephen, and how that racist murder might have been stopped if the police had done their job earlier, when the harassment was escalating. Following the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the Macpherson report of 1999 was a means of changing the culture in public institutions, not just the police, to ensure that they had due regard to race equality decisions. This was later extended to disability and gender issues.

It was clear in Macpherson’s report then that the police were “institutionally racist” and had a lack of curiosity, in the Lawrence case, about the anti-social behaviour of young white gangs and what they were doing to local Black young people. The whole design of the PSED was to ensure that the police could do their job properly, without fear or favour, and support vulnerable communities. There are many excellent, moral and dedicated police officers who fulfil this every working day. Sadly, it has not always been consistent.

When sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were murdered in a park in June 2020, the public were appalled by the behaviour of the police. Photographs of the dead girls were taken and shared by police officers: this was racism and misogyny. In that case, more work was needed to change the culture of the Met. When Sarah Everard was murdered in March 2021 by a serving police officer, the country was shocked. The background story about misogyny in the force was equally shocking, as was the fact that, at work, the dreadful behaviour of the murderer had been tolerated and not dealt with. I raise these cases because each of the reports on these incidents keeps returning to the culture that engenders racism and misogyny in certain places in the police.

I have absolutely no doubt, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, that there is an enormous amount of work going on to change that culture, and in many forces it is working well. But without the PSED there would be no priority to have due regard to race, gender and disability. There would be no yardstick for the police inspectorate to look at and address culture. There would be no clear duty to ensure that staff are trained. Worst of all, it would be all too easy to slip back into the old ways. I am sure that the Conservative Front Bench would not want that to happen. The PSED is an important tool in the armoury of the police to keep us all safe, including those who are both vulnerable and at high risk. Please do not support Amendment 402.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We are here again. I do not expect the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, to understand why I am not going to change my position. There is a view that, for all the reasons that have been given, equality is extremely important for a public sector body. I did not disagree with a single word that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, or the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, and I stand here to say that the public sector equality duty is one that this Government fully support.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, is not going to press this amendment to a Division this evening. If he did, I would ask my noble friends to vote against it. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, the police are the public, and they have the confidence of the public. The Peelian principles, on which the police were established all those years ago, are about the police reflecting the public, understanding the public and taking the public into account. The public are made up of people who have disabilities, people who are gay, lesbian and trans, and women who face particular challenges. The public are people who have protected characteristics. We need to understand that.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the government amendments are welcomed from these Benches. In their scope and depth, they ensure that offenders who have committed the heinous crime of child cruelty will now be required to notify, and will be monitored carefully to ensure that their access to children is supervised to protect children from such offenders. As we debated in Committee, these offences need to be brought into the safe scope of high-level offender management.

I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Katz, about Tony Hudgell and his family. They are doughty campaigners who have shone a spotlight on an area that most of society has ignored over the years.

I read Amendment 389 with interest. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and the Minister, whether proposed new subsection 6, identifying relevant offences, would be covered in government Amendment 388C.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this is an important group of amendments, concerning the creation of a child cruelty register. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the development of this proposal over the course of the Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House and the other place.

I remind all noble Lords that the reforms before us today, as we have heard, are the result of determined campaigning over a long period. I place on record the sincere thanks of the Opposition Benches to Helen Grant MP and her constituent, Paula Hudgell, whose tireless advocacy has brought this issue to national attention. I am incredibly pleased that Parliament has responded to this campaign and I welcome very much the Government’s decision to accept our proposals and bring forward their own amendments to establish a notification regime for child cruelty offenders. I put on record my sincere thanks to the Minister for his engagement on this matter.

As noble Lords will appreciate, there remain differences of view about the precise scope of the register and the offences that should fall within it. From these Benches we have consistently argued that the register should cover a broader range of offences to ensure that the system captures a full spectrum of conduct that poses a continuing risk to children. While the Government’s proposals do not go as far as we might have wished in that regard, they nevertheless represent real progress and a clear acknowledgement that the existing gap in the law must be closed.

We welcome the Government’s willingness to move in this direction and hope that, as the policy is implemented, there will remain scope to review and strengthen the regime where necessary. I have one question for the Minister. Because it is vital that the register is established as soon as possible, can he give from the Dispatch Box an indication of possible timelines for when that might happen?

Once again, I thank Paula Hudgell and Helen Grant MP, who have performed a tremendous service in bringing this issue to the attention of Parliament and the wider public. I hope that all noble Lords from across your Lordships’ House will join me in recognising their efforts. For the avoidance of doubt, I will not be moving Amendment 389 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower.

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[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, for the meeting that she had with my noble friend Lord Marks and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I gather that the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, had a different meeting. We entirely support the amendment and were very pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, talked about the principles of agreeing with the review. We think that is very important.

We absolutely agree with the principle, as set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, that children should not be adversely affected by backlogs, which they have absolutely no control over at all. There is a broader principle: the age at which an offence or caution took place should absolutely be the age at which the offender is dealt with. With regard to the review, we believe that youth cautions and conditional cautions should not remain on the young person’s record once they have become an adult. We hope that that will be taken into account in the review as well.

I echo the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, on the very careful wording by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, in proposed new subsection (2)(c) about ensuring that

“the regime appropriately balances public protection with rehabilitation”.

That seems to be common sense. We endorse that and hope that the Government will use it as the basis for their review.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sater for tabling this amendment on a hugely important issue. I can be relatively brief because she gave ample reasons for the amendment. When criminal records are disclosed, they should be done so regularly and proportionately across all cases. She gave many compelling reasons for the amendment and, as she said, it is modest. It does not ask much of the Secretary of State. I agree absolutely with my noble friend that this system would simply benefit from an updated review. For all those reasons, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords, given the hour I do not want to detain the House for much longer. In fact, I have deleted the first page of my speech accordingly, and I will address the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, in a moment.

First, this amendment insists that all future incident recording guidance must have due regard to freedom of expression—and that matters. In a liberal democracy, the test is not whether we protect only speech we agree with; it is whether we protect the space for robust, sometimes uncomfortable, debate on race, religion, sex, gender, politics and many other issues.

Police guidance should start from the principle that lawful speech is not a policing problem. Further, it deals with the past as well as the future. It should require that historic non-crime hate incident records which do not meet the proper recording threshold must not be disclosed on DBS checks and must be deleted when discovered. That is vital for natural justice. If we accept that this category has been misused and overused, we cannot leave people’s lives quietly marred by data that should never have been held in the first place. I particularly address these remarks to the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence.

This is not about turning a blind eye to genuine hate crime. On the contrary, by scrapping a vague, perception-based non-crime category, we free up police time and attention to focus on real offences: threats, harassment, violence and criminal damage. We will make the system clearer for victims and for officers. We will be sending a simple message that if you have been the victim of a crime, the law is there to protect you, and if you have merely heard something you strongly dislike, that is not in itself a matter for the police.

At the moment, too many people are unsure where that line lies. They fear that expressing a lawful view on a controversial subject might bring a knock at the door or a mark on their record. That chilling effect is corrosive. It drives honest disagreement underground and pushes some people out of the public square altogether. We should be defending the right to argue and criticise, and to challenge within the law, not encouraging people to outsource every disagreement to the police.

The amendment would preserve the ability of the police to record information where it is genuinely necessary for crime prevention and public safety. It would hardwire respect for freedom of expression into any future guidance. In doing so, it would strengthen civil liberties and good policing. It says that the police are there to deal with crime, not to catalogue lawful opinions. This is a distinction worth defending and I urge the House to support this amendment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the contributions from the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Young, on their amendments, and to other speakers around your Lordships’ House. I want to return to the difficult and sensitive issues, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, of where the boundaries are and protecting the vulnerable versus free speech. We have debated that in some detail, with examples in Committee, so I will not rehearse those. I have two questions for the Minister about the new arrangements.

We are losing from the guidance a useful paragraph that sets out exactly that the risk of significant harm may be greater if the individual who has experienced the incident is considered to be vulnerable, and then directs people to the College of Policing as to how the police do that. I mention this to the noble Lord, Lord Young, who said that everything under the regime that is about to disappear was entirely in the view of the individual who felt that that they were being done. That has not been the case. It has been assessed by the police, following the code of practice.

Can the Minister reassure your Lordships’ House that, in deleting Sections 60 and 61 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, the police will not lose the balance that we have in the current code that sets out how to determine a vulnerable person from one of the categories covered in the Act, including race, religion, disability and LGBT, and the real risk that a crime may be committed in the future?

The noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, spoke very eloquently. What she did not say, and everyone has assumed, is that it was absolutely obvious from the start, when the verbal attacks started on Stephen and other young people in his area, that it would not have looked like something that should have been recorded. But there is something called a course of conduct, which is very common in harassment and stalking and a number of anti-social behaviours that start to build up, and the police bring in psychologists to look at that behaviour. One of the problems is that we cannot lose that progression. If things stop being recorded, I do not understand how you can do it. There are certainly rules about not using it in DBS checks, but if you lose that information, I really fear that the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, is right to have concerns. So, can I ask the Minister if the Government—

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

The disagreement is not about whether incidents should be recorded because they could form part of a course of conduct which ends in a serious crime. The argument is about where the recording threshold should be placed. Surely the noble Baroness will accept that, if it is so low that the police are recording 65 non-crime hate incidents every day in England and Wales alone, then the threshold is too low.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The hour is late and I really do not want to get into a debate about that. The point is that the police are going to have to make whatever the new system is work. My worry is that there seems to be a line now that might exclude cases that are important because of the course of conduct which might become a criminal act.

I did not manage to get quite to the end of my speech. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government are confident that such a course of conduct under a number of non-crime hate incidents would be visible to the police if the code of practice is repealed and the police stop recording them.

[Lord Lebedev (CB)]

My Lords, I will not take much of your time. First, I fully respect and acknowledge the arguments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, which I feel have been addressed very well from the other side of the House. I support Amendment 387B and endorse the arguments made by noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, in favour of this amendment.

Last July, I was able to raise the widespread concerns so many of us have about non-crime hate incidents—NCHIs—in a short debate in this House. I was encouraged by the widespread support across parties for a robust stance in defence of free speech. Many noble Lords outlined how pernicious NCHIs are. I was grateful to the Minister for his thoughtful engagement on the arguments.

Since that debate, there has been a welcome retreat from the use of NCHIs, with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and others recognising the inappropriateness of using valuable police time to harass individuals for exercising their right to free speech. Like the noble Lord, Lord Young, I am pleased that police leaders and Ministers now recognise that recording the names of citizens on police databases for actions which are not crimes should be curtailed. That is customary good practice, but it is, in this case, not enough.

We need to ensure that there is appropriate statutory protection for free speech, and we need to ensure that past expressions of opinion, which may have been recorded under a previous regime, cannot be used to blight the future of citizens. Amendment 387B would not only wipe clean the slate but affirm the importance of free speech, the foundational freedom on which all others depend. I commend it to the House.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I cannot—not as a lawyer; I cannot refer to case law on this—but I would not rely on past example alone. If we are passing laws that seek to apply equality, we should seek to apply it on the basis of somebody’s disability status, whether they are disabled or not. It is not implausible—though I accept it is far less likely and far less numerous in past occurrence—for that to be the case. In some of the other areas in the heated debates that we see, it is not as implausible as many of us would like to assume. If it is possible to tighten this up in the drafting, I think it would do the job the Government are seeking to do in a complete way.

That would not prevent the Government fulfilling their manifesto commitment for delivering protections to trans people and disabled people; it would simply ensure that everybody was treated in this area of the law on the basis of protected characteristics in the same way. At the moment, there are greater protections for everybody of every conceivable sexual orientation and people of either sex, but there are not on each of the areas set out in the Equality Act. More pertinently, it would avoid fuelling what is already a very unhelpful public discourse about two-tier policing and laws, or some of the more charged debates that we have in the darker corners of the internet or from the more far-fetched foreign critics who have been mentioned previously.

On Amendment 336 from my noble friends Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Cameron of Lochiel, while it is understandable that they are probing this area, I do not think that their amendment is warranted. It probes the question of whether protections for transgender people should apply to people who are “proposing to undergo” a process of gender reassignment. In fact, Section 2 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which has been the law of the land for 22 years, requires somebody applying for a gender recognition certificate to undergo that process to have

“lived in the acquired gender throughout the period of two years”

preceding their application. Signalling an intention to propose to go through that process is an important part of the law as it stands, and therefore Amendment 336 is not needed.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for raising the issue about someone who was not deaf. Unfortunately, he has forgotten that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 set out exactly why people with disabilities were disadvantaged in society—and, frankly, still are. That is why some people—whether we are talking about someone who is deaf, someone who is in a wheelchair, someone without sight or someone with severe autism—need some support to have equality. That is not what these amendments seek to do. What these amendments seek to do is to say that someone who is disabled should now be included with other people as someone who can be targeted simply because of their disability. I want to give two brief illustrations to explain why it is important.

Two years ago, a man launched a racist tirade at passengers on a packed London train. He started shouting extreme racist abuse at a woman in her 70s, using language that I could not possibly repeat in your Lordships’ House. When passengers tried to intervene and support this elderly lady, they were then shouted at and attacked and became scared. Indeed, one person left the train. The police were able to use aggravated charges because the words he used to describe her were clearly racist. She was chosen because of the colour of her skin. It was not because she was just sitting there.

Contrast that with last autumn when comedian Rosie Jones was attacked on a train from Brighton to London Victoria. She was hit with a wine bottle—luckily, it was only plastic; she said that only a comedian could do that. She was hit only because of her cerebral palsy and probably, she thinks, because she is well known to be LGBT. At the moment, those people could not be considered for an aggravated sentence—and that is what these amendments seek to do. That is the point. Therefore, I have no problem whatever in saying that we should support these amendments.

I have reported in your Lordships’ House before that people have said to me on a train, when I have been commuting in the rush hour, “Why are you taking up space? People like you don’t work”. That is not an aggravated offence. But when someone tried to kick me on a platform because they felt I should not be there because I was in a wheelchair and in her way, that would have been an aggravated offence if they had caught her.

I am really struggling with all these debates going on at the moment. Yesterday, the leader of the Conservative Party made a big announcement about getting rid of equalities, and everyone is talking about identifiers. I do not have an identifier; I am disabled—and sometimes people take it out on me. I can live with most of it, but sometimes it goes beyond the right place. Frankly, members of our judicial system should be able to make up their minds about whether it is an aggravated offence. That is the subject of the amendments we are debating today.

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[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

My Lords, those of your Lordships who were in Committee will recollect that, as my noble friend Lord Herbert suggested, I tabled an amendment seeking to remove all aggravating hate crimes.

One of the points that I thought that I made quite well was to show the utter incoherence of aggravators at the time. One law had a few protected characteristics, another had others, some had lots, some had a few. I thought that I had made a point there. It is as if the Minister has said, “Hold my beer; okay, if you feel that it is incoherent, we’ll just put all the protected characteristics into as many laws as we can and we will make it more rational”. I agree that that is the effect of this amendment. Like my noble friend, I am against all aggravator laws. I do not propose to make the earlier speech but I will rehearse very quickly some of the major points.

It is quite a difficult stance to make. The Minister was extremely eloquent in saying why he felt that this amendment should pass and received a huge amount of support from the Benches behind him. It is a difficult argument to make but I will explain why I think that this amendment is bad and why aggravation of hate crimes is poor.

I am going to make four points. First, they are clogging up the courts. All state resources are limited. Choices have to be made. If you put aggravation of a crime as an additional reason for prosecuting that crime, the police will be far more reluctant not to prosecute. You will not get the old-fashioned bobbying. We are not talking about trivial crimes. We are talking about serious crimes, and those can already be prosecuted.

In the old days, a policeman could say, “Come on, chaps, break it up. Don’t do that”. But if someone had said, “You Black bastard”, or whatever—I hate to even say that phrase—the police would find it very difficult not to prosecute. It increases the time of the courts. But in fact, there is a better way than criminalising this, which is just to let society work it out.

My noble friend said that transgender crime was on the increase. I have just looked it up on the AI, and apparently it is not. We know that hate crime against gays and lesbians has massively declined as society has come to accept that it is a perfectly natural thing and that it is something to just ignore or accept, but it is not something to criminalise.

My second point is that this—

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. He keeps talking about hate crimes, but this is not about hate crimes. This is about offences already on the books in which a judiciary is asked to look at whether it has been aggravated because of the individual’s characteristics. It is not about hate crimes.

[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. I was just about to get on to that in my second point, which is that the whole idea of an aggravated crime increasingly weaponises and politicises the concept of hate.

In the previous debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made some very affecting comments. I was able to talk with her about the incident that she also mentioned this evening outside the Chamber. Over the years, my very long-standing and noble friend Lord Shinkwin has told me some very harrowing things that have happened to him. The disabled protected characteristic having an aggravated crime is possibly the most difficult of these to speak against.

But whatever that protected class is, it is exactly the point that the noble Baroness was making. This is an aggravator to a crime that exists. If the crime is committed, it does not matter why it was committed; it can still be prosecuted. If it cannot be prosecuted, you cannot prosecute the aggravated aspect of it either. Weaponising hate and making it into a thing ignores the fact that these are merely aggravator laws. They are not laws that in and of themselves create a crime; they merely aggravate an existing crime. That has received very little attention in the debate this evening.

Thirdly, it further creates and promotes the concept of society as identity groups. I have the view that we are all human beings and the way to have a coherent and well working society is for us all to work together, whereas with aggravated crimes, people with one or another protected characteristic are encouraged to say, “I’ve been discriminated against. They are the things against me. These people are hateful”, instead of saying, “Let’s all join together and just stop crime”.

I would like to lean on two actors who I very much respect and think of as very thoughtful people: Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. They have both been quoted on numerous occasions as saying, “How do you stop hate crime? How do you stop racial hatred? The answer is you stop talking about it”. If they believe that, and I happen to agree with them, what is it about what they say that noble Lords disagree with?

My final point is on this idea of looking into people’s minds. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, talked about a case where the difference between committing a bad crime and committing it because you dislike the gender or whatever it was of the individual was a wrap on the knuckles or going to jail for six weeks. How do you know exactly what was in that person’s mind? Was it just an off-the-cuff remark, or was it some deep hatred that deserved society’s censure? You do not know. Queen Elizabeth I said, “I do not want to look into men’s souls”. It has been a fundamental part of British jurisprudence since the 17th century—I do not know why the noble Baroness thinks that is funny; it is fundamental to the way we conduct our society.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, Amendment 338 responds directly to what we have learnt from the domestic abuse protection order—DAPO—pilot, which is currently rolled out across Greater Manchester, Cleveland, North Wales and the London boroughs of Croydon, Bromley and Sutton.

We know that positive requirements such as behaviour change or substance misuse interventions are vital tools in tackling perpetrator behaviour, but the current legislation makes it extremely difficult for criminal courts to impose these requirements quickly, particularly in police-led cases where hearings must take place within 48 hours of a domestic abuse protection notice being issued. The changes we are bringing forward will remove those barriers and ensure that victims receive stronger, enforceable protection at the very first hearing.

The change will allow criminal courts to require a perpetrator to attend a suitability assessment as part of the original order, and if the assessment shows that a programme is appropriate, that requirement will apply automatically without the need for further hearings. These amendments are not needed in the civil and family courts as those jurisdictions already impose an assessment requirement as part of a DAPO. We are also removing the need to identify and name a programme provider up front for all courts—one of the key issues raised by operational partners in the piloting areas. Instead, we will set out the role of the responsible person in statutory guidance to ensure flexibility for local delivery.

Finally, we are also closing a gap in the legislation by giving criminal courts the power to vary a DAPO of their own motion, bringing them into line with the civil and family courts. Together, these changes will streamline the process of imposing a positive requirement condition in a DAPO, reduce unnecessary adjournments and ensure that victims of domestic abuse benefit from quicker, more consistent and more effective protection across all court jurisdictions. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the Minister and from these Benches we support the changes set out in her Amendment 338. My Amendment 361A says that if

“there is reasonable suspicion that a death by suicide has been preceded by a history of domestic abuse committed against the person by another person, the relevant police force must investigate that suicide as if it were a potential homicide”.

My honourable friend Marie Goldman MP has talked with a number of domestic abuse campaigners who have become increasingly concerned that police and CPS procedural policy should include this presumption, because sometimes it is missed. Pragna Patel from Project Resist launched a Suicide is Homicide campaign last year, and the group Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse has been calling for this for many, many years. Frank Mullane, its chief executive, said to the Guardian that doing this would guard against evidence being destroyed or lost,

“for example where police have returned the victims’ phones and laptops”,

after an assumption of suicide has been made, thus losing key evidence that might be needed at a later date.

On Monday, the Scottish courts convicted a man of killing his wife after she took her own life. There was a history of domestic abuse right from when they first got together, which included his choking her. There was considerable evidence that he had continued to coerce and pressure her, which eventually forced her, very regrettably, to take her own life. This news from Scotland is good, and I am very grateful for the discussions with the Minister, but I hope she will look favourably on this and reassure your Lordships’ House that the Government will consider putting it into practice.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I want briefly to thank the Government for Amendment 338. I know the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and her team are extremely grateful that they have been listened to—this is something they have wanted for some time—so I would just like to say a big thank you for that. On Amendment 361A from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I understand the reasons for it, and I hope the Minister will be able to give an encouraging response. As far as Amendment 409C is concerned, I cannot see the Government accepting that. The reasoning behind it is right, but I cannot see it being practical or effective.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, I ask the Government to think again. Removing “alarm” would send a clear signal that speech which merely offends, shocks or unsettles is part of the rough and tumble of living in a free society, the currency of the marketplace of ideas, and not a criminal offence. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for bringing this amendment back, because I had some thoughts on this after the debate we had in Committee. Having read English at university, I went back to the definition of “alarm” and started to look at the definition used in the Public Order Act. There are components of causing alarm, particularly in the Public Order Act, which the noble Lord wants to amend. The levels at which charging happens use different definitions of alarm, which are quite interesting for these purposes.

The definition of alarm in this context is to create a state of apprehension, fear or panic in a person, often accompanied by a sense of immediate danger or worry that something unpleasant is going to happen to them. There is a key difference in usage. Section 4A of the Public Order Act details using “threatening, abusive or insulting” conduct with

“intent to cause … harassment, alarm or distress”,

and, on likelihood, using threatening or abusive conduct that is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, without necessarily intending to.

The issue I take with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, is that he says it is all just about how you are feeling, but the point is that the definitions at the different levels within the Public Order Act, at least semantically, seem to show that it is more than that, because you need to identify what has triggered that sense of alarm. It is a range, as we have discussed in previous debates. Because his amendment wants to remove “alarm” from intentional harassment, alarm or distress, it falls at the higher level that I have just described. I wonder whether he might reconsider it in that light, because when the 1986 Act went through it was clearly very well thought through.

Interestingly, the OED definition:

“To make (a person) feel suddenly frightened or in danger; to strike or fill with fear”,


says that more recently it has been seen in a slightly weakened use. However, the WordWeb online dictionary says:

“Experiencing a sudden sense of danger”.


In a lot of dictionaries I have looked up, there is the repeated use of it as not just how you feel but a panic response to danger, a heightened level. Therefore, certainly in my books, it should stay with harassment as well, because they are both more serious than just feeling a bit worried about something, which is what the noble Lord described.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough’s amendment, which would remove the word “alarm” from the relevant sections of the Public Order Act. I entirely support his aims. Alarm is not an emotion that should be policed, if emotions should be policed at all. The Act in question has been used for the unprecedented policing of speech that we have seen recently, for which Sections 4A and 5 have been largely responsible, and any measure that weakens the effect of this law is welcome. So, although I am sceptical that he will, I hope the Minister will accept this amendment.

Transnational Repression in the UK (JCHR Report)

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of human rights at Liberal International. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. His focus on querying suspicious non-suspicious deaths over the past nine years is very serious and, from these Benches, we echo his concern and call for a cold cases review.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, on his maiden speech. It was imbued with his love of learning and of the creative arts and his passion for people in his role of chair of the EHRC as well. For our debate today, that passion in fighting for the rights of everyone was evident. From these Benches, we welcome him and look forward to his future contributions.

This report highlights in detail how this country responds to attacks on foreign nationals—and, indeed, some of our own nationals—on our soil by other Governments and repressive regimes. From these Benches, we thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and his committee for this excellent piece of work. I also echo my noble friend Lord Dholakia’s comments about the extensive work on human rights done by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, beyond this committee, over many years.

There is no doubt that transnational repression can be difficult to identify and manage; the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, shows exactly that. The report clearly sets out these difficulties, as we have heard in the debate: whether it is having a clear definition that makes it obvious when someone needs assistance; whether the existing law is sufficient to enable our police and intelligence agencies to assist them; and, very importantly, whether the current practical arrangements are actually working. The example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, of TNR on a senior Pakistani lawyer was particularly apt here.

As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, highlighted, the report also covers the very difficult issue of strategic lawsuits against public participation—SLAPPs—and Interpol’s notice and diffusion mechanisms and how they can be exploited through the use of either lawfare or red notices, which were, the report says,

“the sniper rifle of autocrats … long-distance, targeted, and highly effective”.

The noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Cryer, emphasised the TNR on Iranian dissidents at home or abroad. The numbers are very worrying. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, reminded us that sometimes our friends, such as the USA, can also behave in a very unacceptable manner. I thank Amnesty International, the Stop Uyghur Genocide campaign and other organisations, as well as the individuals who have been targets of transnational oppression and who told me their personal accounts when I was at the UN Watch annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy last week.

The Government’s response to this report goes some way to accepting the issues raised by it. However, it is a shame that it does not go further, and I will use my time to query some of that in the light of the evidence taken by the committee, as well as of the contributions during this debate. Like others, I will not identify individuals. This matter is so serious that we should not put anyone at risk through this debate, and I know that the committee took equal care with people who felt they could not be named.

Although this report focuses on TNR in the UK, we know that it happens beyond our borders too, and that comparison may be helpful for us. In the Netherlands last year, Dutch society was shocked when a Dutch Uyghur was assaulted inside a city hall—a blatant attack in a democratic space. That is chilling. A correspondent noted:

“As a Uyghur activist based in the UK, I have personally experienced this pressure. Chinese police have contacted members of the Uyghur community and demanded that they report on my activities. I have had no contact with my family for nine years as a direct result of transnational repression. My relatives have been subjected to intimidation and coercion, and forced to publicly condemn me in order to safeguard themselves from reprisals. This is the human cost of speaking out”.


We know that this is true for other targets of the Chinese authorities. Hong Kong Watch reports concerns that people have moved home or, in the case of one family I heard of a couple of years ago, have had to change their names. The psychological effects of this were emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow.

The problem with TNR is that we too often think of appalling extreme events, such as the Salisbury poisoning that targeted the Skripal family but killed civilians as well. Much more is insidious and affects families back in the home country as well. I spoke recently to an Afghani who fled after the Taliban re-established their power. The TNR that this person experienced in the UK came from a number of asylum seekers who also fled Afghanistan. The individual said that they saw two types. There were those, mentioned by other speakers, who were blackmailed and pressured to bully and coerce individuals to protect their families who were still in Afghanistan, but, more worryingly, they noted that it was evident that some people clearly had sympathy with those in power, even though they claimed to have fled them. They said that this particular type of TNR is very worrying because those people had asylum-seeking status.

I also talked to Chloe Cheung in Geneva, who gave evidence to the committee last week; like with that evidence to the committee, I found her personal testimony moving. We need to ensure that China’s actions are condemned and it should be added to the enhanced tier list.

I talked last week to a victim of TNR who is currently living in Europe. The support they get from the police in their new country is impressive, including armed police supporting them when intelligence suggests that is necessary or when they may be in a vulnerable environment. But when they came to visit the UK they not only lost the support and intelligence of the experts in their country but found it very difficult to get support from day one because they were not based in the UK, even though they were still severely under threat. Will the Minister say what should happen when someone currently receiving support and protection in a country that we would regard as a friend is invited here, particularly for events, but is not entitled to the same level of support and protection in the UK as they get in their new base?

The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, reminded us that TNR changes as technology develops. The use of AI is a real threat. Will the Minister say whether those investigating TNR across agencies are supported by cyber security experts? The tackling TNR in the UK working group, co-ordinated by Amnesty, points out that we should work closely with our Five Eyes allies to tackle the misuse of red notices, but I also wonder whether we share our experiences with them and European colleagues so that we can all learn to manage TNR better.

In order to do that, we need to collect good data. The police are the obvious body for this. But it is also clear, from talking to those on the receiving end of TNR, that it is the other agencies involved—local government, the FCDO and so forth—from which broader data should be collected, certainly by the police. The noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham, was right to highlight the problems of the reliance that our universities have on Chinese students. Our Australian colleagues have long battled with this subversive influence attempting to silence higher education institutions. The illustration made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, regarding Chinese students in the UK trying to pressure HEIs not to criticise China, is also chilling.

Not much has been mentioned today about the Vietnam Government, but they have become habitual users of TNR for their opponents, both in-country and abroad. There are many familiar techniques: they have a particular habit of abducting their people when in other countries, whether in Berlin, or Bangkok, and getting them back into Vietnam. There is pressure on the diaspora and indirect discrimination, as we have heard about. There is certainly a risk of abuse of Interpol red notices. But there are other subtle mechanisms as well, such as using business techniques to try to scare these people out of country, and we need to be aware of that too. I am not sure that the police always pick this up.

As many others have said, will the Government reconsider the adoption of a definition of TNR? My noble friend Lady Ludford and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, have said that this is important, and they are right. Will the Government review that? Will the Government also undertake a review of the effectiveness of managing TNR cases in the UK? Will the Government include a comparison with some of the other nations managing TNR, as I mentioned earlier. Will they also undertake to set up a dedicated hotline within 12 months? Last week, I heard of one person who had need to call 999 in an emergency, and the call centre staff member said that they did not know what TNR was, and was therefore unwilling to pass them on to somebody with more knowledge. That was very frightening, as there was nowhere for them to turn to. As I end my contribution, I think of people in that sort of position.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 8, 9 and 10 in my name, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who is outside the Chamber at the moment—I think she is talking to the other Minister—has kindly added her name. I thank the Minister and his officials for the meetings that we have had since Committee to discuss these issues.

The three amendments could be called the Newlove and Waxman amendments, because, in effect, they articulate the views and concerns of the late lamented Baroness Newlove and her successor as Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, about the issues that people on the ground experience in dealing with anti-social behaviour, most particularly the experience of victims.

Amendments 8 and 9 seek to improve the accessibility of the ASB case review by removing local discretion over thresholds and the definition of a qualifying complaint, which currently are creating unnecessary barriers for victims. The anti-social behaviour case review was established as a mechanism that allows victims to trigger a multi-agency resolution-focused review of their case, as in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which set out a threshold for when a case review could be activated; it said three—or a different number, as set out under local review procedures —or more qualifying complaints within a six-month period.

However, the existing framework gives local organisations enormous discretion in setting local procedures, including defining the number of ASB complaints required and what constitutes a qualifying complaint. Consequently, authorities are able to add their own caveats, which creates yet another postcode lottery for victims. It creates inconsistencies in access to support and it delays intervention in situations where harm is escalating. For example, some authorities refuse to initiate a case review while an investigation is ongoing.

Similarly, the 2025 Local Government Association survey found that 62% of respondents applied additional local caveats, such as, as I mentioned, not allowing applications while an investigation is ongoing; requiring applications to be submitted within one month of the last reported incident; refusing a case review if one has already been conducted for behaviour of a similar nature; or rejecting complaints deemed to be “frivolous”, whatever the local authority’s definition of frivolous happens to be. This range of caveats presents a serious barrier to victims being able to seek timely relief.

Conditions such as prohibiting applications during ongoing investigations, imposing narrow time limits for reporting or refusing repeat applications, even where the behaviour is continuing, place the burden on the victim rather than on the system designed to protect them. Investigations can take months, during which victims may experience continued harm without any mechanism available to them to trigger a multi-agency response. As I mentioned, “frivolous” introduces subjective judgments that risk undermining victims’ credibility and, in particular, undermining confidence in the process. Collectively, this results in inconsistent access and contributes to the postcode lottery.

The Government’s response to these amendments in Committee referenced their newly launched ASB statutory guidance. While the Home Office’s updated guidance encourages a threshold of three complaints in six months, it is not legally binding and does not prevent authorities introducing additional conditions. Therefore, without legislative change, inconsistency and local caveats will continue. These amendments are designed to close these loopholes and establish firm national standards that the system currently unfortunately lacks.

Amendment 10 seeks to support the identification of gaps and barriers that victims face in the ASB case review process by ensuring what is surely a no-brainer: the consistent collection and publication of data. In this sort of situation, data really is king. One is flying slightly blind if one tries to make judgments about what is and is not going on if the data which one is relying upon to make those judgments are themselves seriously flawed and, as we have seen, open to individual interpretation to a significant degree across multiple local authorities.

In Committee, in response to the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I put forward on anti-social behaviour, the Government said they wished to see how the new ASB guidance beds in before considering further legislation. This was the position also on the proposals to require independent chairs for case reviews and to ensure that victims are able to attend, or at least have their views represented.

We accept that the guidance needs time to take effect. Guidance is one thing, but if you do not have any meaningful way to monitor whether that guidance is being applied consistently, how it is being applied and what effect it is having then it is quite difficult to judge whether the guidance is doing what you want it to do.

Currently, data collection on the ASB case review is sparse, inconsistent and fragmented. There is a patchwork of information and no adequate national oversight. The original legislative framework for the case review requires local bodies to publish the number of case reviews they conduct and refuse each year. However, this information is somewhat meaningless if we do not know the reasons why an application for review was refused. In particular, as we have heard before, local bodies can set their own parameters for qualifying incidents and set caveats on the thresholds.

I recognise that the Government have introduced Clause 7 on the provision of information to the Secretary of State, whereby authorities may be required to provide

“reports of anti-social behaviour made to the authority … responses of the authority to anti-social behaviour, and … ASB case reviews carried out by the relevant authority”.

However, this merely outlines the types of information that the Secretary of State could require from local bodies, which, in the view of the Victims’ Commissioner, does not go far enough. Without proper data, it is not possible to assess whether the guidance is working in practice.

In responding to this group, we would be enormously grateful if the Minister could tell us whether the Government will commit to ensuring that the relevant authorities are required by regulations to collect and provide to the Secretary of State the data points as in Amendment 10. Specifically, this would mean information in relation to: first, where local bodies determine the threshold for the case review was not met, by reference to the local review procedures, and the reasons why they made that determination; secondly, the number of case reviews carried out that were chaired by an independent person; thirdly, the number of reviews where the victim or their representative was given the opportunity to attend; and, finally, the number of reviews carried out where the victim or their representative attended the review in person.

I hope that we will have a positive response from the Government. I know that the Minister is sympathetic to this. I know that everything cannot be done simultaneously, but the case for more consistency, as required in the first two amendments, and for providing meaningful, useful data to judge whether the new guidance is working is important enough that I hope the Government will give this some serious attention. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I signed the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell. He spoke eloquently to the detail and, indeed, during the debate that we had in Committee on them. I want just to summarise the key reasons.

We understand why the Government want to see their guidance bed in, but we are already picking up concerns about some of the detail. The point of these three amendments is to set very clear ground rules for each of the stages, partly to make the data reliable but also partly to give absolute clarity about what happens at each stage of the review.

The first amendment is about the threshold for the case review, the second is about the nature of the ASB and whether that is a qualifying complaint, and the final one concerns collection and review of the data. The first two are important because we have already heard that local authorities respond very differently. Finally, as the noble Lord said, data is vital. If certain characteristics about each case review are published, having that collection of data would be extremely helpful. Then, by reviewing the data by authority and elsewhere, it would become very easy to see how the case reviews are happening nationally.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, for his work on these amendments, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her contribution to the debates on anti-social behaviour reviews, both today and in Committee. It is an important issue that touches on how our system responds to persistent harm affecting families and communities. We on these Benches are very sympathetic to these amendments.

In Committee, noble Lords rightly underlined that anti-social behaviour is rarely about a single, isolated incident, but often results in repeated conduct that causes cumulative distress and disruption. The ASB case review—previously known as the community trigger—plays a very important role as a safety net. It is designed to bring agencies together to ensure a joined-up response where local action alone has not resolved the problem. Its predominant purpose is to give victims an early opportunity to have their situation collectively reviewed when they have reported multiple qualifying incidents over time.

The amendments in this group seek to strengthen that mechanism by bringing into statute some elements that are currently left to local discretion. A statutory threshold for convening a case review—removing caveats that frustrate victims—would provide clarity and consistency across the country, ensuring that victims do not face a postcode lottery when accessing this right. In Committee, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott echoed this point, noting that a statutory threshold would streamline the process and prevent agencies imposing additional barriers that can deter applications. That would depend, of course, on where exactly the threshold was set.

These amendments also include measures targeted at transparency. They would require authorities to publish the reasons why they determine that a threshold has not been met, and to publish data on independent chairing and on victim attendance. That increased transparency would build confidence in the process and assist in identifying patterns of variation between areas. However, as was raised in Committee, it is important to balance those laudable aims with the need to avoid imposing disproportionate bureaucracy on bodies that are, perhaps, already under pressure. The Government explained that updated statutory guidance has been published, as we have heard, to strengthen awareness of the case review mechanism and to help agencies guide victims through the process. We should therefore reflect on whether mandating every procedural step in statute will, in practice, make the process smoother or potentially risk diverting resources from handling the underlying behaviour. None the less, this group of amendments is rooted in a shared desire to ensure that victims of persistent anti-social behaviour are heard, supported and treated fairly. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for tabling these amendments. We wholly support the intention of Clause 41, which introduces the offence of child criminal exploitation, but I have several concerns regarding the amendments, which I hope he will be able to allay.

First, is the original crime being brought forward to highlight and punish exploitative behaviour? An adult will perhaps get a 12 year-old to shoplift or deal drugs because they are less conspicuous and have less chance of being caught. That type of coercion is what is being targeted here. I am not so sure that this is always the case when it comes to older teenagers. When the child is 16 or 17, it is often far more of a voluntary decision, based on a mutual understanding, to commit a crime. While there may be exploitation, the offender may not be enticing them towards crime because they are a child. That is a subtle but important difference in intention. Introducing strict liability up to 18 removes the discretion that courts often exist to provide.

That brings me to my second concern, which is that this may end up being used to absolve fully complicit young offenders of criminal responsibility. The Government have made it clear that they see 16 to 18 year-olds as adults, and the law already provides them with many legal rights that 15 year-olds do not have. The Government will soon give them the right to vote. Is the Minister really arguing that personal volition never plays a part in crimes committed by young people? Of course there will be cases of exploitation, but I am sure that your Lordships’ House will agree that there will also be cases where that is not the case. Introducing strict liability will open the door to others already implicated in the crimes committed by the teenager being rendered wholly liable for a crime that somebody else was a part of.

I understand the Government’s intentions with this updated measure. It involves a different principle from child sexual assault, but just as that crime includes a condition that factors in intent, so should this crime, on the part of those under-18. Obviously, there should be an arbitrary cut-off, as the original measure suggests, but we have a criminal age of responsibility of 10 and we are giving 16 year-olds the vote; to suggest that 16 to 17-year olds involved in a crime with an adult can always claim that they were exploited and coerced is not consistent. I hope that the Minister will be able to address these points.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. I was just checking with another Member of your Lordships’ House before I started my winding-up speech. My apologies for not attracting his attention.

We welcome the Government’s decision to address child criminal exploitation. The range of measures in the Bill are certainly a start and address the growing concern about children being exploited into criminality. I particularly welcome the Minister’s letter, dated a couple of weeks ago—about 15 February—explaining that the amendments laid address a highly specific concern about the requirement for the prosecution to prove that the perpetrator did not reasonably believe the child was aged 18 or over, if the child was aged 13 or over. We thank him for that.

However, from these Benches we urge the Government to go further in the longer term in ensuring that all children are safeguarded from exploitation. This needs to be recognised as a form of exploitation. Along with a number of organisations, we think that this should be done through a statutory definition in Parliament, partly because that will guide the services but also because it would make it very clear where the boundaries are on CCE.

Hand in hand with this is the whole issue of cuckooing, which we will come to in the next group. That is equally important. It is one of the newer, more virulent ways of coercively controlling children. We welcome the amendment, wish it had gone further, and look forward to discussions in the longer term about how that can be remedied.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords and will try to respond briefly. I remind the House that we are responding to requests from noble Lords, and in addition from partners in children’s charities, law enforcement and Members of the House of Commons, to make a change to ensure that the child criminal exploitation offence works as intended to protect the children most at risk of being targeted.

As both the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, have said, boys aged between 15 and 17 and, very often, Black and other minority children are commonly overrepresented in those figures. They are the same children at risk of being wrongly perceived as being older, and therefore not protected. We have tried to ensure that we place the responsibility for any criminal activity firmly where it belongs in this case, which is with the adult who is effectively trying to groom, encourage, lead—however we wish to describe it—the child under the age of 18. For the purposes of this legislation, a child is dealt with as being under the age of 18.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, raised again his concerns about voting at 16. That is an issue for debate, and it is a Labour manifesto commitment, but it is not an issue for debate today.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords here this evening, I am quite keen to get home, especially as I will have to stay up all night tomorrow night reacting to the Gorton and Denton by-election, which is going to be very exciting. I hope the Minister expresses the same sort of support for these amendments—well, obviously he will not, but perhaps somebody else will—because I am concerned that Labour has promised something that these clauses will not actually deliver. Perhaps I can explain.

I want to thank the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Randall of Uxbridge, both of whom signed these amendments, although the former’s name is not on them. Amendment 195 and the related amendments seek to ensure that children are not held criminally responsible for the offences of cuckooing or coerced internal concealment where those acts arise from exploitation. These amendments come from joint work by the Children’s Society, Action for Children, ECPAT UK, Catch 22, the Alliance for Youth Justice, the NSPCC, Barnardo’s and other academics.

The Government’s decision to introduce the offence of CCE, alongside new offences addressing cuckooing and coerced internal concealment, demonstrates a genuine commitment to closing gaps, increasing justice and ensuring that those who exploit children are held to account. Taken together with the new preventive orders and the strengthened safeguarding orders elsewhere in the Bill, this represents real progress.

However, there is a troubling inconsistency at the heart of the legislation as drafted. Children being exploited by adults, whether forced to take over another person’s home or to facilitate internal concealment, could be criminalised. While the offence of child criminal exploitation applies only to adults, Clauses 58, 61 and 62 bring children under the age of 18 within the scope of the new offences of cuckooing and coerced internal concealment. That means children who are themselves being exploited by adults could, in law, be treated as perpetrators rather than victims. This directly contradicts the Government’s stated intention to address the imbalance of power exercised by adults who use children to commit crime. It also risks undermining the very purpose of the new offences by re-criminalising children through the backdoor.

We know from the National Crime Agency that child exploitation is a defining feature of cuckooing linked to county lines activity. Police forces report children as young as 14 being found in properties that have been taken over for criminal purposes. This clearly is a legal point, and I am not a lawyer; I very much hope the Government’s lawyers can look at this and see that I am right and perhaps tighten up the Bill as drafted. Children subjected to violence, grooming, intimidation and control cannot meaningfully refuse adults who demand their help. They cannot consent and they should not be punished for crimes that arise directly from their exploitation. This Bill really has the potential to mark a genuine shift in how we respond to child exploitation, and these amendments could help ensure that children are victims and not offenders, and that the law reflects that without any sort of ambiguity.

Amendment 198 concerns Clause 62 and the provision of statutory guidance for agencies responding to child criminal exploitation. Again, it comes from the same child action networks I mentioned before. As I have said, the creation of new offences and preventive orders in this Bill is welcome, but legislation on its own is a blunt instrument and its success will depend entirely on how it is implemented on the ground by the wide range of statutory agencies that come into contact with children at risk of exploitation. Child criminal exploitation is complex, hidden and constantly evolving. It cuts across policing, social work, education, health, youth justice, housing and safeguarding partnerships. We have to have a joined-up, consistent, well-informed response; otherwise, it is pointless putting any of this into the Bill. Support and guidance must extend to all public authorities with statutory responsibilities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, because without comprehensive multi-agency guidance we will continue to see uneven responses, confusion over roles and responsibilities, and children falling through the cracks.

Elsewhere in the Bill, in Clause 99 in Part 6, the Secretary of State is rightly given powers to issue multiagency statutory guidance on the new stalking offence. That recognises that identifying victims, managing perpetrators and preventing harm requires co-ordinated action across multiple agencies. Child criminal exploitation is no less complex and, in many cases, far more so, and the same approach should apply here. Amendment 198 would ensure that statutory guidance is issued to all agencies operating under Section 16E of the Children Act 2004, reflecting their safeguarding activities and duties.

I realise it is very difficult for the Government to react to all the amendments that we put in. I am feeling a bit lonely on these Benches, actually—I do not know if everybody else has gone home already; I am quite jealous. My ambition is to ensure that the provisions in this Bill are supported by the clear, authoritative, multiagency guidance necessary to make them work in practice, and to make sure that we can see they are working in practice. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has outlined the amendments and their importance in detail. I want to echo her last point about the need for proper guidance to set out exactly what the many agencies that should be involved need to do. The group of charities that have written to us propose that this should

“Provide clear advice on the complex and evolving nature of CCE”,

including cuckooing;

“Clarify the roles and responsibilities of all relevant partners”

and “Emphasise transitional safeguarding”, ensuring that young people do not suddenly get pulled out of somewhere and have absolutely no resource to face a new life. They add that it is important that this is not just the obvious agencies; it needs to include those concerned with slavery and trafficking and the police specialists working in child abduction, and it needs to extend to care orders, secure accommodation and deprivation of liberty orders.

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[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this debate. I start with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb—and I start by welcoming her genuine recognition of the progress that we are making through this legislation by introducing the new child criminal exploitation and cuckooing offences in this Bill. We are grateful for that. As she explained, her Amendments 195 to 197 seek to restrict those who commit the cuckooing and internal concealment offences to those aged 18 or over.

The Government fully recognise that children, particularly those exploited by county lines gangs, are often used to carry out cuckooing activity or to persuade others to internally conceal items such as drugs for a criminal purpose. The act of turning these children into exploiters themselves is particularly appalling and is why this Government’s work to target child criminal exploitation is so important. I think that everyone across your Lordships’ House recognises that. While I appreciate the spirit of these amendments and believe that it is absolutely right that children, when they have been exploited and groomed into criminality, should be protected as victims, this does not in itself override the age of criminal responsibility, where the law holds children over a certain age responsible for their actions. It is possible for a child to commit cuckooing or internal concealment without having been exploited to do so.

Let us be clear that decisions as to whether to charge someone should be taken on a case-by-case basis. As with all offences, the police exercise operational judgment when investigating and gathering evidence to establish the facts of a case, and the Crown Prosecution Service’s public interest test will of course apply. This includes consideration of the child’s culpability and whether they have been compelled, coerced or exploited to commit any potential crime of cuckooing or internal concealment. We will also issue statutory guidance to support implementation of the cuckooing and internal concealment offences, including on how the police should respond and identify exploitation when children are found in connection with cuckooing or internal concealment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, posed the question why we are not creating a statutory defence for children against their prosecution for crimes, including cuckooing and internal concealment, committed as a result of effectively being a victim of child criminal exploitation. When a victim of proposed child criminal exploitation offences also meets the definition of a victim of modern slavery, they may retain access to the statutory defence contained in Section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Many victims of CCE will continue to be able to access the Section 45 defence, as they do now. However, we consider that creating an additional stand-alone statutory defence for victims of child criminal exploitation beyond that which already exists in Section 45 of the 2015 Act for victims who are also victims of modern slavery and/or human trafficking could have unintended consequences, given the breadth of the proposed offence. The child criminal exploitation offence is to address the imbalance between children and those individuals who criminally exploit them.

I add that we are working with partners in the criminal justice system to improve awareness and understanding of the Section 45 defence, which will support the early identification of potential victims of modern slavery and prevent criminal proceedings being brought against victims. It is intended that guidance on the potential availability of the Section 45 defence under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 for victims of child criminal exploitation will be included in the statutory guidance that will accompany the new offence.

I turn to Amendment 198. We similarly sympathise with the intention behind the amendment to introduce statutory guidance for multi-agency partners. It is essential that agencies work together to safeguard and protect children and vulnerable adults from criminal exploitation. However, statutory safeguarding responsibilities are already set out in statutory guidance, principally in Working Together to Safeguard Children, which includes guidance on child criminal exploitation. To supplement this, we will issue non-statutory guidance for partner agencies on the child criminal exploitation offence and orders and on cuckooing and internal concealment to support them to identify these harms and recognise how their statutory responsibilities apply. Issuing separate statutory guidance with additional legal burdens for safeguarding partners on these specific crime types alone risks duplication and a siloed approach to protecting children and vulnerable adults—something that I am sure we would all wish to avoid happening.

More broadly, the Government are taking a range of actions to strengthen child protection through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will introduce new multi-agency child protection teams in every local authority in England. This will ensure stronger join-up between police, health, education and children’s social care when responding to harms such as child criminal exploitation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned stalking offences, which are committed mainly against adults, so it is appropriate to have bespoke guidance. Here we are talking about safeguarding children where the DfE guidance will apply, so it is appropriate that we take this approach, given the range of agencies involved for children. I hope that, given those assurances, the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I said in my contribution that I hoped that the agencies might extend beyond the usual ones, and the Minister certainly named the usual ones. Would it, for example, include working with the local gangmaster operations as well?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I will not speculate. I suspect that would be the case, but I had probably best undertake to write to the noble Baroness to confirm that detail.

Government Website: Registering a Death

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Brinton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to update the Government website page on registering a death, specifically the requirement to do so within five days.

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

The five-day timeframe in England and Wales to register a death starts once the medical examiner has sent the medical certificate of cause of death to the registrar. While the guidance provided on GOV.UK is up to date, the General Register Office for England and Wales will continue to work with relevant departments to ensure that this information best supports the bereaved. Civil registration is a devolved matter in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, recently, it took nine days to register my sister’s death, instead of the five stated on the website. The medical examiner’s office and the registrar both told me that, every day, bereaved families are confused and distressed, as they believe that they are breaking the law because they think it is death that triggers the five-day clock and not the medical examiner signing the papers off. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, told me that her medical examiner was taking up to a month to do this and that there were further delays in registering the death. Will the Government update the website, adding the certifying hospital doctor—the first step that the public encounter—ahead of the medical examiner’s role, to clarify the timeline? Will the Government review the five-day rule in the light of delays in some ME and registrar services?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I offer my condolences to the noble Baroness on her loss. She has a point. I have discussed this with officials and we are looking at how we can improve the website and make some changes to it. That will be done, and I will write to the noble Baroness within a month, when it has been completed.