Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, this Bill attempted to canter through some profoundly important issues, such as child sexual abuse, which the police have described to me as a “tsunami” and which I do not think is fully understood by most people, including some politicians. The other issue that is misunderstood is the rampaging impact of AI on our daily life. Both issues deserve a Bill on their own. But during the long hours of debate, we were constantly racing the clock. Starting debates at 3 pm, or later, and finishing them at midnight is not a way to make good legislation. If we are serious about effective scrutiny, we must modernise the sitting hours of this House as a matter of urgency. If scrutiny is to be meaningful, there needs to be more scope for the Government Front Bench to agree perfectly rational, sane and good ideas that have been suggested by amendments right the way across the House.

Nevertheless, I would like to thank the Ministers: the ever charming and affable noble Lord, Lord Hanson, who protected the Government with the tenacity that a lion would use to protect his cubs, ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Katz, and the brilliant forensic skill of the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, whose ability to demolish, as I know from personal experience, a carefully crafted speech in one sentence but always with charm and a disarming smile made me think, “If only she was on our side instead of the Government’s”.

I also thank noble Lords across the House, with special thanks to the Conservative Front Bench, who have been a joy to work with. I also thank my wonderful Bill team, in particular my noble friends Lady Brinton, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Marks on the Front Bench, and Elizabeth Plummer from our Whips’ Office, whose tireless and excellent support on legislation has kept us firmly on track at all times. Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to Barbara Davidson, my researcher, who is one of the most hard-working, efficient and effective people I have ever had the privilege to work with.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an incredibly long time coming. This Bill has endured 15 days in Committee and six days on Report in your Lordships’ House. It has been a mammoth of a task, but throughout the Bill’s passage, I am pleased to say that we have executed our duties in this House as diligently as ever.

To address the regret amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel set out our concerns about the lack of scrutiny of the abortion clause both in Committee and on Report. Our view remains the same: that such a significant change of abortion law should not have been rushed through Parliament, tacked on to a completely unrelated Bill. However, the House has now decided the matter and, as always, we respect that.

I said at Second Reading and again in Committee that I do not believe that a 500-page Crime and Policing Bill is going to bring down crime rates. We have an enormous amount of criminal law. The problem is that much of it is not effectively enforced.

Having said that, there are elements of this Bill that we are happy to see being sent to the other place. The Minister knows the parts of the Bill that I support; indeed, there have been several occasions on which he and I have been on the same page. There are some very good amendments that we passed on Report. I am pleased that the House supported my amendments to allow the police to seize vehicles using fly-tipping offences and to endorse the driving licences of fly-tippers with three penalty points. I am grateful to the Liberal Democrats and a number of non-affiliated and Cross-Bench noble Lords for supporting my amendment to increase the maximum sentence for the possession of a bladed article with intent to commit violence from four to 10 years and to force the Government to review the proscription of the IRGC. It is excellent that my noble friends Lord Young of Acton, Lady Buscombe, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge and Lady Bertin had the support of the House for their amendments as well.

I must, however, express my regret at a number of provisions that have ended up in the Bill. Clause 49, which makes low-value shoplifting triable either way, makes absolutely no sense to me. Clause 251, which gives foreign courts greater powers over the extradition of British citizens, is also undesirable. It is highly regrettable that the Government have inserted Clause 144, on aggravated offences. That clause is completely unnecessary, given Section 66 of the Sentencing Code and the raft of aggravated offences and hate crime legislation that already exists. It will only cause more problems for the police and is not going to contribute to the end of identity politics and a move towards greater social cohesion. When the inevitable happens and more people are arrested for speech offences, let it be known that the Conservatives warned the Government and tried to vote that down.

I am also deeply concerned that the Government’s amendment to grant themselves the mother of all Henry VIII powers passed. The Division was held outrageously late, which is not appropriate given the wide-ranging constitutional implications. Ministers will now be able to amend the entire Online Safety Act 2023 as they wish, and parliamentarians will have no say. This is not the way to regulate for AI chatbots. We should all be deeply troubled by this.

To end on a more positive note, I thank the Minister, genuinely, for engaging with me and with my noble friends Lord Cameron of Lochiel and Lord Sandhurst throughout the passage of the Bill. I am also very grateful to his officials and the Bill team for keeping us up to date with the government amendments. I thank all those in the Government Whips’ Office and in our Whips’ Office for their help, in particular Jamie Tucker in the Opposition Whips’ Office for shouldering most of the heavy lifting on this. And I thank the Lib Dem Front Bench for their co-operation on the Bill.

I sincerely hope that the Government will do some serious thinking over the Recess and take on board the suggestions from noble Lords in this place. When we come back to this Bill for consideration of the Commons amendments, I hope the Minister will be in a conciliatory mood.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

409G: Clause 183, page 235, line 3, at end insert—
“(2A) In determining whether to make a youth diversion order in respect of the respondent, the court must be provided with evidence relating to—(a) the alternative interventions that have been considered or previously applied,(b) the reasons why such interventions were considered inappropriate, unsuitable, or unsuccessful, and(c) consultations undertaken by the police with relevant individuals, experts or agencies, which may include youth justice services.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the court to be provided with evidence of any alternative interventions considered and any consultation undertaken with relevant individuals or agencies in respect of a child or young person subject to a youth diversion order application. This amendment strengthens the provision of multi-agency evidence to assist the court when undertaking the ‘necessary’ test and when making a youth diversion order.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to Amendment 417A.

Amendment 409G would ensure that, before a court imposes a youth diversion order, it has clear evidence of any alternative interventions that have been tried or considered, why they failed and what consultation took place with the child and the relevant agencies. The point of the amendment is to ensure that there is proper multi-agency input and that these new orders are used only when they are genuinely appropriate. It would also help the court to judge whether the order is proportionate and whether the necessity test has truly been met. The amendment is designed to make them more effective by clearly showing why other interventions have not worked. Early consultation will mean fewer orders being rejected, less wasted court time and conditions that are practical and linked to the services available locally.

Crucially, the amendment learns the lessons of the Southport case. There, a failure to share information meant that decision-makers were left without a full picture of the young person’s background. That led to an ineffective referral order in 2021, three years before the tragedy occurred. The amendment would help stop such failures from happening again. By requiring all relevant information to be brought together before a single decision-maker, it would ensure that multiple referrals and early warning signs are not missed. We know that proper multi-agency working, involving police, youth offending teams, social services and the voluntary sector, produces more reliable risk assessments and helps prevent serious harm. My amendment would embed that joined-up approach. It also encourages consultation beyond statutory agencies, extending it to parents and carers where appropriate. In the Southport case, the failure to consult the perpetrator’s parents was another missed opportunity. The amendment would help ensure that those closest to the child are properly involved from the start.

Amendment 417A addresses another crucial issue—data. The Independent Commission on UK Counter-Terrorism, Law Policy and Practice in its 2025 report made it clear that effective counter-radicalisation work depends on better data, especially when children and young people are concerned. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish annual data on the use and impact of youth diversion orders and related powers showing breach rates, the type of prohibitions and requirements imposed, and data about protected characteristics. Only with that transparency can we see whether these orders are truly helping to divert young people from custody or whether they are having unintended consequences for certain groups.

We already know that a strikingly high proportion of counterterrorism referrals involve autistic children—not because they are more likely to be radicalised, but because their intense interests can be misunderstood. These children are also especially vulnerable to grooming.

I place on record my thanks to Justice for its excellent briefings and invaluable work in shaping the amendment. I add my support to the related proposals tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

The tragic lessons of Southport show that interventions must be tailored carefully to the facts of each case. Amendment 409G would strengthen public protection by making sure that judicial decisions are based on the fullest possible understanding of a child’s circumstances. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, before I speak to my amendment and the others in this group, I just say that, as the Green Peers are not part of the usual channels, we were not able to give our views on the fact that this very important piece of legislation is being bullied through this House by the Government. It is absolutely outrageous that we do not have another day for Report. I hold both Members of the Front Bench accountable for this. It is not acceptable. This is no way to make good law, when we are going to be very tired in the later hours and possibly in the early hours.

However, on group 1, my Amendments 409H and 409J on youth diversion orders are supported by a wide range of organisations, including the Alliance for Youth Justice, the Centre for Justice Innovation, MLegal, the National Youth Advocacy Service, Sheffield Hallam University, INQUEST, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, Just for Kids Law and the Runnymede Trust. That is quite a lot of very experienced organisations that support these amendments. Their collective expertise in youth justice, children’s rights and legal practice adds considerable weight to the concerns that underpin these proposals.

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

I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Jones, for their amendments on youth diversion orders. Amendment 409G, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, would require the courts to be provided with details of previous interventions, both considered and imposed, and set out consultation undertaken with other agencies. Amendment 409H in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would amend Clause 185, which deals with measures which may be imposed by a youth diversion order. Amendment 409J, again in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would require a youth diversion order to be issued to the respondents in simple terms to ensure that they understand what is being asked of them.

I understand the sentiment behind these amendments, but I hope I can explain why the Government cannot accept them. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, we have had a lot of debate on this Bill and will undoubtedly continue to do so during ping-pong. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for his comments; we are doing our best. If noble Lords wish, we can have votes very speedily tonight—if people put their arguments succinctly and the Government respond succinctly, as I will try to do.

On the amendments to date, the Home Office is drafting statutory guidance which will, I hope, help with the points raised by the noble Baronesses. That will be by the negative procedure. It will be produced as soon as possible and will include further details on the circumstances for youth diversion orders. On Amendments 409G and 409H, the legislation already makes it clear that courts must consider the youth diversion order necessary for the purposes of protecting the public from the risk of terrorism or serious harm. Clause 185 clarifies that this test applies to each individual measure imposed by the order. As part of that, courts must also consider proportionality, which is key.

On the second part of Amendment 409H, and regarding the really important points the noble Baronesses have made, Clause 185 already ensures that there are safeguards for an individual’s work or educational commitments and avoids duplication with requirements imposed by other orders. There are similar safeguards in other civil orders. I will address the point made by the noble Lord on translation services later in the debate, or in writing. On Amendment 409J, I recognise the importance of ensuring that the respondent understands the detail of the order imposed upon them. That is vital, and is a consideration for youth offending teams already.

Amendment 417A would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on youth diversion orders. The provisions in this Bill already expand the statutory remit of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation to include youth diversion orders. In practice, this will mean that youth diversion orders will be considered as part of the annual reports of the independent reviewer. I hope this helps the House. In addition, the Home Office does provide an annual report to Parliament on the use and oversight of disruptive counterterrorism powers. I give a commitment that I will review whether we should include reporting on youth diversion orders as part of this.

I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, for the government amendments. They are technical amendments to clarify the relevant court in Clause 186, which deals with notification requirements, and in Clause 193, which deals with applications to vary a youth diversion order.

Taken together, Amendments 413 and 414 update the route of appeal for both an applicant and a respondent of a youth diversion order. Current drafting includes a route for further appeal to the Court of Appeal in England and Wales. To align the appeal routes with other similar civil orders, this amendment removes the route to the Court of Appeal. This allows established appeal routes to be applied. The applicant or defendant will be able to appeal a youth diversion order made in a magistrates’ court to the High Court by way of case stated or to the Crown Court, with an onward appeal, allowed by way of case stated to the High Court. I hope that these technical amendments will help to clarify the purpose of the Government’s proposals.

I hope that with those assurances the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, will withdraw her amendment. If she wishes to press it, I advise my noble friends to vote against it.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I am disappointed with the Minister’s response because the current duty to consult requires the police to speak only to the youth offending team, not to social services, health, education and others who know the child. The whole point of my speech was to say that in order for these very powerful orders to be made, it is absolutely critical that everything is taken into account. That cannot happen if not all the agencies are consulted.

The lessons from Southport include years of escalating warnings that were missed. No one agency had the full picture, and I believe that without this amendment that will happen again. I am disappointed because the Bill is the quickest and simplest way to require proper multi-agency consultation as a basic safeguard before such orders are made, which is absolutely essential. I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

393: After Clause 167, insert the following new Clause—
“Suspension of chief constables(1) The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 is amended as follows.(2) In section 38 (appointment, suspension and removal of chief constables), after subsection (2) insert—“(2A) Before suspending a chief constable under this section, the police and crime commissioner (or their successor) must—(a) be satisfied on reasonable grounds that the chief constable’s continued exercise of their functions would present a serious risk to the efficiency or effectiveness of the police force, or seriously undermine public confidence in the policing of the area, and(b) consult His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (or any relevant successor inspectorate) and have regard to its views.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require a police and crime commissioner (or their successor) before suspending a chief constable under section 38 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, to consult His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services and to be satisfied that suspension is necessary to avoid a serious risk to the efficiency or effectiveness of the force or to public confidence.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 393 seeks to protect the operational independence of chief constables by introducing vital safeguards at the point of suspension—the moment when they are most vulnerable to political pressure in practice.

In Committee, I tabled an amendment addressing a later stage of the formal dismissal process. However, after listening to police representatives, it has become clear that the real problem arises much earlier. The unilateral power of suspension currently exercised by police and crime commissioners, without any duty to seek independent input, is a significant driver of the leadership instability we see today, with nearly one in five forces losing their chief constable every year.

Under the current framework, the independent inspectorate must be consulted before a chief is formally removed, yet suspension often pre-empts this and can be triggered on relatively vague grounds, including simply that a chief constable’s continued presence may be detrimental to the efficiency or effectiveness of the force. In practice, this suspension loophole means the mere threat of suspension is often enough to force a chief to resign just to avoid a very public confrontation.

This leadership churn has real-world consequences. In Devon and Cornwall, the disruption of having three chief constables in 18 months led to service shortfalls and diminished morale. The Government’s own recent White Paper admits that the PCC model has often “not facilitated effective management” and acknowledges

“tensions in the one-to-one relationship”,

which ultimately harm communities.

My amendment proposes two modest but critical adjustments. First, it would require the PCC to be satisfied on reasonable grounds that continued service poses a serious risk to efficiency or to public confidence, replacing the current vague thresholds. Secondly, it would extend the duty to consult HMICFRS at this earlier stage, creating consistency between the decision to suspend and the decision to remove.

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

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her amendment. I say at the outset that she has a point: the process by which police and crime commissioners may suspend a chief constable should be looked at.

The noble Baroness has suggested that His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services should be involved in this process. As I discussed in Committee, the inspectorate already has such a role for the enforcement of resignations or retirements of chief constables under the Police Regulations 2003. I am pleased to tell the noble Baroness that the Government agree with the suggestion she has made; I do not wish to surprise the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

Amazed is the word.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hope she can recover from that shock. I ask her to look at paragraph 134 of the White Paper, From Local to National: A New Model for Policing, which we published on 26 January. It says:

“We will reform the process for the appointment, suspension and dismissal of Chief Constables to introduce greater fairness, transparency and balance into the process. This will include introducing a requirement for Mayors and Policing and Crime Boards to seek views from His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary before taking any action to suspend the Chief Constable”.


I confirm that we intend to bring forward the necessary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows. We want to do that as part of the wider police reform package, so that it is not a piecemeal approach. There will be a wider police reform follow-through on the White Paper as soon as parliamentary time allows. It is a very ambitious programme. I want to make sure that we do not just deal with it in isolation. That reassurance is on the record, and on that basis I hope the noble Baroness will not push her amendment.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, tells me that it is a victory. I thank the Minister for that confirmation, and I am very pleased that it is not just when some chief constables are going to be sacked; it is actually at the stage I asked for in my speech. That is the key point. If they can be suspended and that does not require consultation with anyone, the fact is that practically all of them have just taken the view that they do not want a big public outing, so they have just resigned anyway. That is what I am trying to stop. The Minister has said that he is going to do exactly what I have asked for. Can someone write that down? I am delighted, and I therefore withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 393 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise; I thought the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, was going to speak only to his amendment, but in fact he was summing up. I should have spoken first.

We have sympathy with the principles behind the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. They would replace the current presumption of anonymity with a more flexible, case-by-case judicial test, based on real risks to safety, the public interest and open justice. These are important safeguards and they align with our long-held position. From these Benches, we continue to support a carefully balanced presumption of anonymity for firearms officers who face criminal charges, one that can be rebutted when a court considers identification essential for justice or for maintaining public confidence. The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, would make anonymity the exception, rather than the starting point. That risks undermining the reassurance that these vital specialists need.

In these thankfully rare cases, where hesitation can cost lives, we believe the balance should rest with a rebuttable presumption. It offers protection to officers acting in good faith, without compromising transparency or creating any sense of special treatment. Just as importantly, it protects their families. For me, this is a key issue. Police officers’ children should not have to face abuse at school or live in fear of vigilante threats or gang reprisals. Our approach suggests a middle way, avoiding a chilling effect on recruitment while maintaining public trust through strong judicial oversight.

We are less sympathetic to Amendment 394. While armed officers face exceptional pressures, the proposed presumption against prosecution would send a damaging message that they are being judged by more forgiving standards than other citizens. That is not a principle we believe that we should endorse.

Finally, we understand that the aim of Amendment 403, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, is to reassure firearms officers that the law recognises the realities of split-second decision-making, but we fear that it would, in practice, create a special homicide defence available only to that group. We would rather continue to trust judges and juries to apply the existing nuanced law, which already allows for context and proportionality, than to carve out a lesser liability for one profession.

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Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

398: After Clause 182, insert the following new Clause—
“Police training: independent review(1) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must establish an independent review of the quality of in-service police officer training within police forces in England and Wales.(2) The review must—(a) assess the consistency, effectiveness and outcomes of all training provided to police officers after completion of their initial entry-level training, including all—(i) in-service training,(ii) workforce development programmes,(iii) refresher courses, and(iv) specialist training;(b) consider the extent to which training equips officers with the necessary skills, knowledge and professional standards to reflect the demands of modern policing, including—(i) digital skills,(ii) investigative skills,(iii) trauma awareness and conflict management, and(iv) processes by which police officers are informed of, and trained in, changes to the law, and(c) make recommendations for improvement, where appropriate.(3) The review established under subsection (1) must complete its work within 12 months of its establishment.(4) Within three months of receiving the review, the Secretary of State must lay a statement before Parliament containing their response and proposals to take forward the recommendations in the review.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to establish an independent review on police training.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 398 I will speak also to the other amendment in my name, Amendment 399. Systemic flaws in our training infrastructure leave front-line officers underequipped and the public at risk. Training should be the bedrock of policing excellence, not a Cinderella function that is both underfunded and undervalued.

In Committee, the Minister asked the House to wait for solutions in the Government’s White Paper. That document has now arrived but, instead of solutions, it proposes to streamline training, and even scopes a reduction in essential public and personal safety training. In the real world of policing, “streamline” is too often code for cutting corners. At a time when one-third of our officers have less than five years’ service—the most inexperienced workforce in decades—reducing the frequency of safety and de-escalating training is a dangerous recipe for increased injuries and risk of misconduct.

The White Paper offers licences to practise and digital passports. These are bureaucratic distractions, not real reform. We risk burying officers under accreditation paperwork while they struggle to build chargeable cases for complex modern crimes such as cuckooing, stalking and online fraud.

Most concerning is the shift towards learning on the job within everyday operational work. For an inexperienced force, this too often means picking up bad habits from equally inexperienced colleagues. Furthermore, by absorbing the College of Policing into the new national police service, the Government are asking the police to mark their own homework. No organisation can objectively evaluate its own systemic failings. An independent statutory review should be non-negotiable. We cannot keep adding new duties into the statute book—respect orders, offensive weapons laws and the rest—without a concurrent independent assessment to check whether the training system, last audited nationally in 2012, can actually deliver them.

Amendment 399 addresses another critical gap by placing a statutory duty on every police force to provide regular, high-quality mental health training. Mental health calls now constitute 15% to 25% of all police demand, yet too many officers lack the specialist training to manage them safely. The amendment seeks to establish a national minimum standard aligned with “right care, right person”, requiring every officer to complete initial training within six months of assuming front-line duties, followed by refreshers every two years.

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[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for these amendments, which bring us back to the important issue of police training.

Amendment 398 would require the Home Secretary to commission an independent review of police training. As your Lordships’ House will be aware, the College of Policing is responsible for setting national training standards, including the police curriculum and accreditations for specialist roles. Our police reform White Paper set out our commitment to develop a licence to practise for policing. It will seek to create a unified system that brings together mandatory training with consistent professional development and well-being support.

As we work with the sector, we will examine the existing training landscape and look to the findings of the police leadership commission, led by my noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Herbert. We will also consider how this model can build on the accreditations and licensing already delivered by the College of Policing in specialist operational areas.

As has been noted, both this evening and in Committee, the College of Policing is also developing a national strategic training panel, which will provide further sector-led insight into existing training. We would not want to pre-empt the outcomes of this work or create a burden of extensive reviews for the sector when much activity is under way through police reform. We therefore do not believe it necessary for the Home Secretary to commission an independent review of police officer training and development, as proposed in Amendment 398. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment, as these issues have been examined comprehensively through existing work. I can assure her that it is a key element of our police reform agenda. Having published the White Paper, we will obviously progress that at the appropriate time and produce further reforms that may be necessary, which there will be further opportunities for your Lordships’ House and the other place to debate at length, whether through a legislative vehicle or not.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, was rather dismissive of introducing the licence to practise. Officers deserve a clear and consistent structure to empower them to learn, train and develop as skilled professionals. Once implemented, a licence model will provide greater assurance that the police have the correct training and well-being support to do their jobs and that there are regular reviews to ensure that they meet national standards. We recognise that we will not be able to introduce a licensing model overnight, but we have set out the first steps for a licensing model, including mandatory leadership standards and a strong performance management framework.

Amendment 399 seeks to ensure that police officers have the training required to deal with people suffering through a mental health crisis. As I indicated, the setting of standards and the provision of mandatory and non-mandatory training material is a matter for the College of Policing. It provides core learning standards, which includes the initial training for officers under the Police Constable Entry Programme. This underpins initial learning levels around autism, learning disabilities, mental health, neurodiversity and other vulnerabilities. Through forces utilising this established training, officers are taught to assess vulnerability and amend their approaches as required to understand how best to communicate with those who are vulnerable for whatever reason, and to understand how to support people exhibiting these needs to comprehend these powers in law and continue to amass specialist knowledge to work with other relevant agencies to help individuals.

We consider it impractical to expect, or indeed require, police officers to become experts in the entire range of mental health and vulnerability conditions, including autism and learning disabilities. Instead, the College of Policing rightly seeks to equip them to make rational decisions in a wide range of circumstances, and to treat people fairly and with humanity at all times.

I have said this a number of times: all forces are operationally independent of government. To seek to impose requirements on mandatory training risks undermining that very principle. Furthermore, each force has unique situations—different pressures, priorities, demographics and needs. To mandate that a small rural force must undertake the same training as a large urban force will not give it the flexibility it needs to best serve its local communities. Furthermore, the College of Policing is best placed to draw on its expertise to determine the relevant standards and training that the police require.

The training already provided equips officers with the knowledge to recognise indicators of mental health and learning disabilities; to communicate with and support people exhibiting such indicators; to understand their police powers; and to develop specialist knowledge to work with other agencies to help individuals. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, this is not about replacing real experts and mental health workers, in the NHS and other agencies, who are best placed to provide that specialist knowledge and expertise.

I hope that, on the basis of these comments and the work already under way, the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his response. I do not think it matters who is responsible for training. What matters is that training is appropriate and that officers are trained.

I spent most of last year talking to chief constables in the whole of the UK. Their view was very different from what the Minister just said. Their view was that they do not get sufficient training, that training is piecemeal and that they have virtually no training in anything to do with mental health. I do not think they were just making that up; this was something that they genuinely believed. In fact, I am pretty certain about it.

Also, HMICFRS has reported time and again that training is inconsistent, the quality is weak, there are weak checks on force-run programmes, there is poor support for new officers and obvious risks in forces marking their own homework. These gaps demand independent scrutiny. That is not similar to what the Minister just said. Training is a vital ingredient for officers. We sit in this House and in the other place, and we make rules and regulations as to what should happen. But we do not make sure that the people on the ground facing these problems every day are equipped to deal with them. That is, frankly, a disgrace. The fact that there has been no independent check on police training since 2012 is almost beyond belief. However, it is late, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 398 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

400: After Clause 182, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to record algorithmic tools(1) Each police force in England and Wales must disclose its use of any algorithmic tool used in the exercise of its functions that may affect the rights, entitlements or obligations of individuals by completing entries in the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS).(2) Under subsection (1) “algorithmic tool” means a product, application or device that supports or solves a specific problem using complex algorithms.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment places a duty on police forces to disclose any algorithmic tool used in the exercise of its functions.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 401 in my name. The amendment would place a clear legal duty on police forces to declare high-impact algorithmic tools using the Government’s algorithmic transparency recording standards, known as ATRS. It is currently just professional guidance, not a binding obligation, and compliance is dangerously patchy, with many live operational tools still undeclared publicly. Yesterday, a search of the public repository found only two entries for police AI tools, despite systems such as live facial recognition being in widespread use.

The Government’s White Paper promises a new registry through its police.ai initiative. However, without statutory backing, this risks becoming another underused voluntary scheme that takes years to implement while AI moves at a relentless pace. In Committee, the Minister claimed that the ATRS was too jargon-heavy and designed only for Whitehall. The ATRS contains dual tiers, a plain English narrative for citizens and technical details for experts. The real barrier is not jargon but commercial confidentiality clauses in procurement contracts. Without a statutory duty, forces cannot override these clauses, even where tools restrict rights and freedoms.

The Minister was also concerned about compromising operational effectiveness and scrutiny. The ATRS already builds in exemptions for national security and cases where disclosure would prejudice law enforcement. A statutory duty would codify these existing safeguards, not remove them. We are talking about tools of state coercion, predictive pre-crime models and risk-scoring 999 calls. The public are entitled to operational transparency to judge their fairness. Defendants cannot challenge what they cannot see.

My Amendment 401 responds to the national audit of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. It mandates a national plan, with clear milestones to modernise police data systems for real-time intelligence sharing. The Government’s White Paper admits that 90% of crime now has a digital element and that policing has fallen behind. Fragmented IT creates a back door for security vulnerabilities and a forensic backlog of 20,000 devices. The Minister insists that existing programmes offer more agility than a statutory plan, but this piecemeal approach is exactly what has failed us for 30 years.

I welcome the NPCC’s recent announcement of a national data integration and exploitation service. However, this is still at the scoping stage, offering only guidance. It lacks binding timelines and parliamentary oversight, which the serious failings exposed in the audit of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, suggest are urgently needed and that Amendment 401 would deliver. The Home Secretary says that she wants to go big or go home on police reform. This is her chance: a clear pathway towards a national strategic overhaul. A basic transparency duty must be part of that foundation. The service with the most intrusive powers should not work to a lower transparency bar than Whitehall. I beg to move.

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This Government are firmly committed to robust accountability and oversight for those in public office serving the public. It is only right that offences of this nature are investigated thoroughly to protect the integrity of those working in Parliament and Whitehall. However, decisions about whether to investigate potential criminal activity are a matter for law enforcement, which is operationally independent of government. It is only right that we respect this operational independence. It would not be appropriate to mandate how any law enforcement agency, including the National Crime Agency, deploys its resources when to do so could undermine its independence. Given those reassurances, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment and that other noble Lords will not press theirs.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his response and am pleased to hear that there is to be a new registry. I think the Minister said that it will be up and coming in a couple of months and that, critically, it will deal with the issues that I raised both in Committee and tonight on Report. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 400 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, both the amendments in this group highlight a serious issue in policing. Many officers and staff are under extreme strain and we are not systematically measuring the scale of the problem. We support the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, for the mandatory recording and reporting of suicides and serious suicide attempts, a proposal backed by the Police Federation. Whether through his amendment or Amendment 409, it is important that we act now to bring this problem into clear view so that we can assess the risks and protect officers’ welfare, as we would with any other occupational hazard. It is therefore necessary to place a legal duty on forces and the Home Office to record these incidents and publish the figures so that appropriate support and interventions can be designed, and responsibility for preventable loss of life can be properly examined.

The police service rightly places emphasis on officer well-being, but these amendments would take a further step by increasing transparency so that we can understand what is happening to those who carry some of society’s heaviest psychological demands. Police officers are often the first to assist people in mental health crisis, but we must ensure that their own welfare is addressed. As my noble friend Lady Brinton observed in Committee, policing has often relied on signposting staff to external organisations rather than building internal support that is tailored to their needs.

First, however, we must remedy the lack of consistent data across forces. A unified system for collecting and publishing a mental health matrix would allow targeted evidence-based support that is timely and preventive. I hope that, in this instance, the Minister will recognise the importance of a clear duty to measure and report these outcomes as the basis for any serious strategy on officer well-being.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses the important issue of mental health and well-being for those serving in police forces. Amendment 408, in the name of my noble friend Lord Bailey, and Amendment 409, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, seek to improve the collection and publication of data relating to suicide and attempted suicide among police officers and police staff.

The intention behind them is clear. If we are serious about supporting the well-being of those who serve in policing, we must first ensure that we properly understand the scale and nature of the challenges that they face. Policing is a profession that places extraordinary demands on those who undertake it. Officers and staff routinely encounter traumatic incidents and cumulative stress that comes from protecting the public in difficult circumstances, and I can personally vouch for that. While the vast majority serve with resilience and dedication, it is clear that these pressures can have a profound effect on mental health.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Bailey spoke movingly about the importance of ensuring that the police covenant is underpinned by robust evidence. Without reliable national data, it is difficult to identify patterns, understand risk factors or evaluate whether the support structures currently in place are working as intended. The same point was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who emphasised that better data is essential if we are to design effective prevention strategies.

There is already recognition across policing on the need to strengthen the evidence base in this area, and work is under way through national policing bodies to improve the collection of welfare data. However, the amendments before the House highlight the importance of ensuring that this work is transparent and capable of informing meaningful action. Ultimately, the police covenant reflects our collective commitment to those who protect the public. Ensuring that we understand and address the mental health risks faced by officers and staff is central to that commitment.

For those reasons, this group of amendments raises issues to which the Government should give careful consideration. I look forward to what the Minister has to say in response.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

As police ombudsman, I was faced with exactly this problem, and I knew that our criminal proceedings had to be dealt with first.

To continue, what we are talking about here is the standard to be applied in misconduct proceedings. These proceedings exist in large part not just to ensure accountability but to enable forces to reflect and learn. They also enable the police to demonstrate that they take seriously situations involving the use of force, even when that force has been held not to be criminal. Despite that, the use of force must be necessary and proportionate.

This has broader implications. A disciplinary system that cannot scrutinise unreasonable mistakes risks undermining public confidence in policing. Retaining the civil law test supports public confidence by ensuring that unreasonable errors of judgment are open to scrutiny. Removing that scrutiny would weaken the learning function of misconduct proceedings, pose risks to public safety and give the impression that unreasonable policing errors lie beyond the review of accountability. That would have an impact, inevitably, by diminishing trust in policing.

For these reasons, I would be very grateful if the Minister could indicate what steps the Government are willing to take to address the serious concerns raised about moving to the criminal standard for self-defence in misconduct proceedings, particularly in the absence of wider public consultation or engagement with the communities most affected by police use of force. I am grateful to Justice, Inquest, the National Black Police Association and StopWatch for their help and support in this amendment.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments all address the same question: how we protect the public from unlawful force while treating officers fairly when they carry out dangerous duties on our behalf. From these Benches, we start from two simple principles: there must be clear, consistent standards of accountability; and we must not drift into a two-tier justice system that treats police officers differently from everyone else.

On Amendment 391, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, we have particular concerns. It would, in effect, close off the possibility of independent scrutiny by the IOPC once a criminal court had acquitted an officer. That might sound attractive in the interests of family, but it risks confusing two distinct questions: whether conduct meets the high criminal threshold for conviction and whether it meets the professional standards we rightly expect from those who wield state power.

We are more sympathetic to Amendment 392 from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey. Misconduct cases that drift for years are bad for families seeking answers, for complainants whose evidence fades, for taxpayers funding prolonged suspensions and, not least, for officers left in limbo. The broad thrust of the amendment—that investigations need clear expectations and real grip—is one we support, while recognising that complex cases sometimes need longer and that rigid timelines can carry risks.

Amendment 393A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, seeks to put beyond doubt the test that should apply in police disciplinary proceedings involving the use of force. We support the aim of aligning those proceedings with the approach of the Supreme Court in W80 as a modest but important safeguard for bereaved families and communities who need to see that internal standards reflect the law as articulated by the highest court. If the Government are now moving in that direction through secondary legislation, so much the better, but Parliament is entitled to a clear, on-the-record explanation of the test, not simply an assurance that it will be sorted out behind the scenes.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

Before the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, sits down, I wish to say that this is not a rigid timeline for anything other than a review to look at the timeline. I accept that a complicated case may need to run, but even in a complicated case, somebody should say, “Okay, this is complicated—we need more time”. In many instances, 12 months would be the point where somebody said, “We need to wrap up and move on”.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

374: Clause 141, page 182, line 42, at end insert—
“(4) After section 14, insert—“14ZZA Imposition of conditions: live facial recognitionPrior to imposing conditions under either section 12 (imposing conditions on public processions) or 14 (imposing conditions on public assemblies), the senior officer of the police force in question must confirm that live facial recognition will not be in use, unless a new statutory code of practice for the use of live facial recognition surveillance in public spaces in England and Wales has previously been presented to, and approved by, both Houses of Parliament.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that police cannot use live facial recognition technology when imposing conditions on public assemblies or processions under sections 12 or 14, unless a new, specific code of practice governing its use in public spaces has first been formally approved by both Houses of Parliament. It is intended to safeguard public privacy and civil liberties by requiring democratic oversight before this surveillance technology is deployed in such contexts.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 374 seeks to place statutory guardrails on the use of live facial recognition, echoing the recent calls from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. We recognise that this technology can assist the police in tackling serious crime, but it must be used responsibly. Its rapid spread into everyday policing before essential safeguards or parliamentary scrutiny are in place raises profound constitutional concerns, particularly in the policing of dissent. Amendment 374 addresses the most contentious use of this technology, at protests and public assemblies. It would prohibit live facial recognition when police impose conditions under the Public Order Act unless and until Parliament had approved a new statutory code of practice. These are moments when people exercise their fundamental rights to free expression and peaceful assembly; rights which depend on participants feeling safe from tracking or retrospective profiling.

This Bill already tightens protest offences and curbs anonymity; layering unregulated facial scanning on top of those restrictions risks further shrinking the space for lawful dissent. Many people will have perfectly legitimate reasons to think twice before attending a demonstration if they know their face may be scanned. Without clarity on how watch-lists used at protests are compiled, people have no way of knowing whether they are being flagged for genuine risk or for the views they hold. At a protest, the chilling effect is not just about being scanned; it is the fear of political profiling. If the Government cannot clearly define who is a legitimate target for facial recognition at a peaceful assembly, then such deployments are, by definition, arbitrary and cannot meet the legal test of necessity and proportionality.

Operationally, the emerging concerns around false positives and the significantly increased risk to those from minority-ethnic backgrounds are a real headache for policing large public gatherings. Deployment without a code of practice will likely result in dozens of wrongful stops to verify identities, with confrontations that divert officers from real security threats and de-escalating crowds. We have already seen how damaging these errors can be. Just in the last few weeks, an innocent south Asian man was arrested at his home in Southampton for a burglary 100 miles away in Milton Keynes. He was handcuffed and held for nearly 10 hours because he was wrongly matched to CCTV footage by a Home Office algorithm that its own research shows produces significantly higher false positives for black and Asian faces. Last month, a man was publicly ejected from his local supermarket after staff misinterpreted a facial recognition alert.

These are not minor glitches to be shrugged off. They are serious violations that erode public trust, particularly in communities already wary of state power. The Government’s consultation is welcome, but it is far too slow for the pace of change we see on our streets. Until Parliament has set clear rules, Amendment 374 is both necessary and proportionate. We must ensure that Parliament, not oblique algorithms, decides the limit of state power. I beg to move.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords, we are talking today about live facial recognition at protests and why the police must not be allowed to use it until Parliament has agreed a clear and democratic code of practice. At its heart, Amendment 374 is about power and trust. Live facial recognition is not just another camera on a street corner; it is a mass surveillance tool that can scan every face in a crowd, compare people in real time against a watch-list and permanently change what it feels like to stand in the public square. Once you normalise all that at protests, you change the character of protest itself.

If people think that simply turning up at a demonstration means that their face can be scanned, logged and potentially mismatched to a suspect list, some will decide that it is safer to stay at home. That is a direct, chilling effect on the right to protest, to assemble and to speak out against, or for, the Government. We should not let that happen by stealth through a patchwork of local decisions and internal guidance that most citizens will never see. That is what is happening at the moment.

The technology itself is far from neutral. We know that facial recognition systems can and do get things wrong. They perform differently across age groups and ethnicities. A false match in the context of a protest is not a minor inconvenience. It can mean being stopped, questioned, detained or stigmatised in front of your friends, your colleagues or your community, not because of something you did but because an algorithm made a guess. Allowing that at political protests without proper rules and oversight is an invitation to injustice.

It is not enough to say, “Trust the police. We have internal policies”. The question here is not whether any particular chief constable is well-intentioned; it is whether the state should be able to scan and track people at political gatherings without Parliament having debated, defined and limited that power. In a democracy, if the Government want tools that can alter the balance of power between citizen and state, they must come to Parliament, set out the case and accept constraints.

That is why a publicly debated statutory code of practice matters. It is where we answer basic questions that are currently left in the grey zone. In what circumstances, if any, is live facial recognition at a protest justified? Who sets the watch-lists and on what criteria? What happens to images of people who are not of interest? Are they actually deleted? If so, how quickly? Who can access them and for what purposes? What independent oversight exists when things go wrong? Until those questions are answered openly, the use of live facial recognition at protests rests on unpublished risk assessments and technical documents that ordinary citizens cannot challenge and that elected representatives cannot easily amend. That is the opposite of how intrusive powers should be operated in a liberal democracy.

We should also be honest about the precedent. If we accept live facial recognition at protests now, without a code, it will be used more often and for more purposes later. Once the infrastructure is there and the practice is normalised, it will be very hard to row back. The time to set limits is before the rollout, not after the abuses. Police should not have, without parliamentary approval, the ability to quietly turn every protest into a data-harvesting exercise, watching not just the few who pose a risk but the many who are simply exercising their rights.

The principle is simple: if live facial recognition is to be used at all in the context of political protest, it must be under a clear and democratically approved code of practice, debated in Parliament, tested against our human rights obligations and subject to real oversight and redress. Until that is in place, the police should not be allowed to deploy this technology at protests.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As I have tried to indicate to the noble Lord, we have had a consultation that finished on 12 February, and we intend to respond to it by the summer. Currently, what that response will be is to be formulated, so I will not give him chapter and verse on when and how. However, if legislation is required, we will look at that at the earliest opportunity, as we always do.

I cannot pre-empt the King’s Speech and I cannot give a timetable on that, but I will give a timetable when we respond to the consultation. We should remember that the Government initiated the consultation—we were not forced into it—to get to a position whereby the very issues that noble Lords have mentioned today are considered. With those comments, I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and all noble Lords who have spoken. I have no doubt at all that everything the Minister said, he actually believes. But it reminds me of when I was on the Metropolitan Police Authority for the first time and I went round all the police stations in London—I think there were 32 at the time, with 32 borough commanders. The first thing I noticed was that, at the time, if you took samples, they had to be stored in a fridge for X number of days at a particular temperature and then they had to be destroyed within another number of days. In almost 60% of the stations I visited, none of this had happened.

So I understand what the Minister is saying: that unnecessary facial recognition photographs will be destroyed instantly. But I would feel much happier if there was some process for ensuring that that is being done and a way of checking that. I am pleased to hear that there is going to be a debate on what guardrails are needed—because they are desperately needed—but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 374 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

380: Clause 154, page 201, line 24, at end insert—
“(7A) Authorised persons listed in section 71A may not use the information referenced in subsection (1) for the purposes of biometric searches using facial recognition technology.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that the DVLA database cannot be used for searches using live facial recognition.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 380 erects a vital safeguard. It blocks Clause 154 from handing millions of drivers’ private photos to the police for facial recognition searches without full parliamentary scrutiny and explicit consent. It stops a road traffic database being quietly repurposed for mass biometric surveillance, while still allowing proportionate, tightly regulated data sharing for genuine policing needs.

In Committee, Peers from across the House voiced concerns echoing not just the Liberal Democrats but a wide range of civil society groups, among them Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Justice, StopWatch, Inquest and Privacy International. The Minister still tells us that this is merely a tidying-up exercise with no impact on facial recognition, but the evidence tells a very different story. It points to a plan to funnel photos of over 50 million innocent drivers into a vast facial recognition repository, dismantling vital privacy safeguards.

For anyone who thinks that sounds exaggerated, let me make three points. First, the previous Government explicitly justified an almost identical clause on the basis that it would enable facial recognition searches; they were candid about that intention. If this Government do not share that purpose, they should have no difficulty supporting my amendment.

Secondly, thanks to freedom of information requests, we now know that other civic databases, passports and immigration records are already acting as de facto facial recognition libraries, without public knowledge, consent or a clear parliamentary mandate.

Thirdly, there is a strategic facial match-up project—a joint Home Office and police scheme—to enable facial recognition searches across multiple databases, including non-policing ones. Its existence has yet to be confirmed in public Home Office policy documents, having surfaced only via government tender notices, media reports and oblique spending references. If this project does not exist, I invite the Minister to set the record straight.

Facial recognition turns an ordinary photograph into biometric data, a unique identifier like a fingerprint or DNA, which in law should be retained for criminal justice purposes only under very strict safeguards. The UK does not currently have population-wide biometric databases of innocent citizens. Creating a single, easily accessible policing platform for these civil images runs directly against the European Court of Human Rights’ warning that blanket retention of biometrics is a serious and disproportionate interference with privacy. Plugging the DVLA database into a facial recognition engine also risks creating a honeypot for hostile states and criminals, exposing the lifelong biometric signatures of almost every adult driver.

There are practical problems as well. Driving licence photos are updated only every 10 years, so the database already holds millions of outdated images. Using that kind of so-called “noisy data” for facial recognition inevitably increases the risk of false positives and wrongful stops. We know that this technology is far less precise than DNA and has already contributed to wrongful accusations, yet we are assured that its accuracy is improving. However, there is no timescale for this. The Government are, in effect, asking Parliament to sign a blank cheque for mass access to our biometric data. Amendment 380 simply asks this House not to hand them the pen. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I know a young man who has just got his driving licence. He is very excited and sees it as a rite of passage; he is now a grown-up. He has joined the club of drivers and he shows his driving licence with pride. I can assure noble Lords he has no idea that applying for a driving licence means that he is joining a vast biometric police database, a club of police surveillance, and his mugshot will be treated like one of those Most Wanted gallery of rogues images.

This is a corruption of public trust. The public apply for one thing, only for it to be subverted and used for something else. It seems to me to be duplicitous and behind the backs of the public. Currently, police forces can directly access and search DVLA data only in relation to road traffic offences and must phone the DVLA in relation to other offences. I note that the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, would not prevent police forces accessing DVLA data for law enforcement purposes, but it should not be the default position. It is important to create this safeguard to prevent such data being used to conduct, in effect, phishing exercises of facial recognition. Therefore, we need this amendment to be taken seriously and I will be interested in what the Minister has to say.

This is not some paranoid dystopian vision. In a recent submission to the Home Affairs Committee, the National Police Chiefs’ Council stated that police chiefs were indeed seeking access to the DVLA database for facial recognition. That would be a huge expansion of police surveillance powers, granting them access, as we have heard, to the biometric data of tens of millions of citizens. We cannot overestimate how important it is that we do not just nod this through but take seriously the risk to civil liberties. It is why the noble Baroness’s Amendment 380, which creates a safeguard, is so important: to protect the civil liberties and privacy of innocent driving licence holders.

I conclude with a quote from Big Brother Watch, which says that this represents

“a disproportionate expansion of police powers to track and identify citizens across time and locations for low-level policing needs”.

In a way, it is an abuse of the police to ask them to use these underhand methods, and it is therefore vital that there are safeguards in law to prevent this happening, particularly because it is happening behind the backs of ordinary people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a useful debate. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for tabling the amendment, and to the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for speaking in support of it. I am grateful for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, which echo some of the points that I will make. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, pointed to one of the arguments that I will make: that access to the data will be subject to a statutory code of practice to ensure that its use is appropriate.

I remind noble Lords of the purpose of Clause 154: it is simply about bringing legislation up to date, which is what I said in Committee when we debated this matter. As a result of technical changes to the way police and law enforcement access driving licence data, it has become clear that we need to improve the DVLA data access regime by setting out clearly in statute—which is what Clause 154 does—which persons can access DVLA driving licence data. The legislation provides additional clarity on this issue.

The measure will enable us, through secondary legislation made under these new powers—this goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—to expand the purposes for which DVLA data may be accessed automatically to include policing or law enforcement purposes. This means that the police will have another tool to cut crime and keep the public safe, in line with the commitment by chief officers to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry when investigating an offence. I emphasise that access to the data will be subject to a statutory code of practice to ensure that its use is appropriate.

We are clear that there will be strong safeguards around the use of DVLA data, which, as I have said, will be introduced via regulations made under the new provisions. We debated earlier government Amendment 382, which ensures that these regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure in both Houses, in line with a recommendation from the Constitution Committee.

We want to ensure that officers undergo training prior to being able to access information. The police are already legally required to consult with local communities. Extensive audits of who has accessed DVLA driving licence data are maintained. It is already standard practice that each time the DVLA driver database is accessed by a police officer, the details of what information is accessed and for what purpose is logged. This will continue to be the case once the revised measure is implemented.

On the issue of facial recognition technology, I want to make it clear to all noble Lords who have signed this amendment, including the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that police forces do not conduct biometric facial recognition searches against images contained on the DVLA database. Officers use the DVLA database for day-to-day policing matters. Anybody who has watched a police programme on a Monday night—when they get the opportunity in the recess to do so—will have at some point seen a police officer pull over a car and look at an individual who says, “I haven’t got my licence with me”, and tell them they are Jimmy Jones of X address. The police officer then wants to check that they are Jimmy Jones of X address, and so they access the DVLA database. Nine times out of 10, on the police shows that I watch on a Monday night during recess, it is a false name, and therefore there is police action accordingly. That is the purpose for which the police currently use the database.

As I said in our earlier debate on Amendment 374, the use of facial recognition technology in all circumstances is currently subject to safeguards, such as the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act. As I have said in previous discussions, any use of facial recognition technology will be subject to the outcome of the consultation that we finished on 10 February. That will be completed in about 12 weeks and, by the summer, we will have government proposals which the noble Baroness, along with both Houses of Parliament, can scrutinise, to achieve some view on whatever the Government propose following the outcome of that consultation.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, that, if the amendment were agreed by the Government tonight then the police officer who stopped somebody on the street—potentially a drunk driver, an unlicensed driver or a driver with no insurance—would not be able to access the DVLA database. That goes to the very points that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made in his speech.

This is not about mass surveillance. It is about using the DVLA database in an appropriate way—logged, recorded and monitored by the police to ensure that we check that person A is actually the right person who can drive that vehicle at that particular time. It is not, with due respect to noble Lords, mass surveillance. It is proper use of police technology to ensure that the DVLA database helps catch bad actors in the act of doing bad things. I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, there is no chance at all that I am going to withdraw the amendment, but I think the Minister knows that. We are not on the same page on this. How on earth can the Government justify taking information that people have given for one purpose and using it for something else? It is totally and utterly disgraceful. People have given their photographs to get a driving licence; it is wrong that they can now be repurposed to be checked by police. Just let me finish the sentence. There is nothing wrong with the Government, in their consultation, saying to people, “We want to repurpose the DVLA driving licence database because it would be really helpful to police. Would you be willing to agree to this?”, but they did not say that. They have just taken it.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness think that a police officer, at 11 pm, on a street here in Westminster, should not access the DVLA database to check that the person is who they say they are? If she thinks that, she would really be blowing a hole in every Monday night television programme that I have ever watched.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

I suggest that the Minister has been watching too many of these television programmes. There is a complete lack of transparency. The Information Commissioner’s Office had to learn about the use of passport databases through media reports, rather than Home Office disclosure, even though this appears to have been happening since 2019. It is just so completely and utterly wrong. If people had given their information for it be used for those purposes, it would be fair enough and no problem at all, but they did not and the Government have taken it without permission. The whole situation is absolutely appalling.

There is the potential for 50 million drivers to be put on a permanent database and to be checked every single day. Of course, the police want it; I would want it if I were the police. It will make their lives so much easier. It will make it very easy for them to check everything they need to check, but that should not be the purpose of this.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

The noble Baroness is very eloquently making her case on the basis of a lack of consent. I suggest to her that the police regularly use material that people have not given their consent for them to use—for example, their fingerprints and saliva.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

I do not accept that that is the same as 50 million innocent drivers being put on a database. However, I have given all the arguments and we have had this debate twice. The noble Lord is gesturing. I am sorry; what does that mean?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I was simply saying that, as the noble Baroness has already indicated that she is going to divide the House and given the hour, it would probably be quite useful just to go to that stage.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

I think that is very unfair, because my speeches are probably shorter than those of anybody in this House. The noble Lord should not pick on me because he does not like what I am saying. I do not like being bullied.

I do not believe that what the Government are doing is right and I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

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

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for leading on this, and for the excellent and clear speech that she just gave, as well as in the previous debate, which I read about in Hansard.

First, this is an example of a difficult area that people have steered clear of for many years, because they were frightened that, if they talked about it, they would be accused of racism. Secondly, it is not therefore understood, because it has not had public exposure in broader society. The fact that the Government have accepted these amendments will help raise the debate in a way that is not seen as in any way suspicious.

Whether it is clans, family structures or whatever, the multi-perpetrator point is well made, very important and not understood. My only reservation—I do not even know whether I have it—is that I have been very involved in, and concerned about, joint enterprise law, where not one perpetrator but a group of perpetrators was found guilty. That has led to a huge number of miscarriages of justice—there was recently a debate in the House on it. The danger of everyone in the vicinity being drawn in, and guilt by association in any way, makes me nervous. We must ensure that we are not criminalising people who are part of the family and maybe looked away, but who are not necessarily perpetrators. It would be very helpful if that could be cleared up. In general, however, the clearer that we in this House can explain the law, rather than waiting for the court to interpret us—that point was well made—the better.

Secondly, for those involved in the earlier debate on misogyny, women and so on, which was rather fractious, I regard this as heroic work in fighting crime against women and misogyny. Anyone involved in tabling these amendments and persuading the Government to adopt them deserves to be highly commended, because this is what lawmaking should be, rather than signalling one’s disapproval.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister said in his introduction, as a result of the earlier amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, the Government have now brought forward much-needed statutory guidance, together with a clear statutory definition of this pervasive yet often overlooked form of abuse. Both are vital tools for front-line professionals. Without them, warning signs go unseen, cases slip through the cracks and victims remain dangerously exposed.

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[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be very brief, partly to remind all noble Lords that the shop workers’ union, USDAW, under Joanne Thomas, the current leader, Paddy Lillis before her and, indeed, John Hannett—the noble Lord, Lord Hannett—has campaigned for years for freedom from fear for a predominantly female workforce facing violence at work. As we have heard, that got a lot worse through Covid. At the time, USDAW was pressing for legislation; nobody listened. I have to commend the Government for listening to the campaign from the grass roots all the way up to the top of USDAW for that protection for workers in that industry.

Having said that, I have looked at the very latest figures from the Health and Safety Executive and from the Labour Force Survey, which show that public-facing workers across a number of industries, sectors and jobs disproportionately face violence at work. More than that, I have heard it from workers themselves. Bus workers, transport workers and hospitality workers have been spat at, assaulted and threatened. I also alight on transport workers, because they too perform a significant act of public service in the work they do. They often face real threats and real assaults because of the job that they do.

I share my noble friend Lord Hendy’s hope that, even if the Government cannot support this amendment, my noble friend the Minister could at least commit to talk to colleagues in the relevant departments to get us around the table to look at a real strategy for prevention of violence and enforcement of the laws we have. Many workers still feel unsafe going to work to earn a living and no worker should face that threat at work.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, we strongly support the creation of a specific offence of assaulting a retail worker. It sends an important signal to those working in shops at a time when shop theft has surged and the risks to staff have grown. But if this measure applies only to those who work in shops, we risk sending an unintended message to other front-line staff that they somehow count for less.

The Minister previously gave three reasons for rejecting the noble Baroness’s amendment in Committee. First, he said that the case is especially strong for shop workers because they enforce age-restricted sales and are on the front line of theft. We agree that shop workers are at particular risk—that is why we support these clauses—but many other public-facing workers also enforce rules, refuse service and challenge bad behaviour. They too attract anger and sometimes violence.

Secondly, the Minister said that a narrow definition of retail worker is needed for legal clarity, while suggesting that some hospitality workers might be covered by the definition of retail premises in Clause 38. In practice, that causes new uncertainty. It is hard to justify protection for a worker in a café inside a supermarket but not for one in a café next door to a supermarket.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

1: Clause 1, page 2, line 4, leave out “just and convenient” and insert “necessary and proportionate”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment amends the test for imposing a respect order to require the court to be satisfied that it is necessary and proportionate to make the order for the purpose of preventing the respondent from engaging in anti-social behaviour.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House; I was not ready, but it is worth waiting for. This amendment would change the legal test for imposing a respect order, requiring the court to consider this step “necessary and proportionate”, and not merely “just and convenient”, in preventing a person engaging in anti-social behaviour. This small, targeted change would ensure that the test is more proportionately aligned with the potentially serious consequences of these quasi-criminal orders, since a breach can result in up to two years’ imprisonment. It would also better reflect the Government’s stated intention that these orders should be used to tackle the most persistent cases of anti-social behaviour.

As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, noted in Committee, these cases would be adequately covered by a “necessary and proportionate” framework. The Minister says that judges must already take necessity and proportionality into account under the Human Rights Act. If that is so, I struggle to see why that very safeguard cannot be placed transparently in the Bill. This is a critical point, given the well-documented failures of previous anti-social behaviour powers. The evidence shows that, in practice, vague legal tests not only lead to inconsistent decisions: they sometimes deter the courts from using orders.

A more rigorous test would also address concerns about systemic bias. Existing anti-social behaviour powers continue to fall more heavily on minority-ethnic and other disadvantaged groups. Without stronger safeguards, this will almost inevitably be repeated by respect orders. Tightening the test is a modest way to reduce that risk, and will provide greater clarity for all concerned—judges, counsel and victims—as well as those made subject to these orders. It also better aligns the order with the risk assessment duty already outlined in new Section J1 inserted by Clause 1.

In Committee a number of Peers expressed concern about judicial overreach, particularly with tools so sweeping that they can order somebody to do anything described. But the current broad and vague test will do nothing to solve this. In fact, it will make matters worse. The quasi-criminal nature of these orders will invite legal challenge, causing delay in already backlogged courts, potentially clogging the system with marginal cases while doing little for victims of persistent and ongoing anti-social behaviour. A clear necessity and proportionality requirement would sharpen the law, focus efforts on the worst cases and help ensure that respect orders become the tool of choice for serious or repeat anti-social behaviour, rather than just another broad but inconsistently used power added to an already confusing landscape.

I have one final point. In Committee we welcomed the Home Office’s plan to pilot these orders, only to be told that the Government had decided that this was no longer necessary. On that occasion, the Minister informed me that things change. However, since then things appear to have changed again: the latest policy paper says that respect orders will now be piloted before being rolled out nationally. That is obviously very welcome, but I hope that today the Minister can reassure the House that—in this matter, at least—there will be no further changes. One change I strongly advocate is that outlined in Amendment 1. If it sharpens the law, improves enforcement and offers greater protection against injustice for the price of a modest drafting alteration, why resist it? I beg to move.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. As I understand the Government’s position, they accept that it would not be appropriate to impose such an order unless it is necessary and proportionate, and indeed that is the test applied by the European Convention on Human Rights, so the only question is whether the language of the Bill, and the Act that it will become, should reflect the true test. It seems to me, as it seems to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, highly appropriate that what is in the legislation should set out the true test. This has to be applied not just by judges but by police officers, local authorities, communities and everyone who is responsible for considering and enforcing this legislation. Let us put the true and proper test on the face of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

It was 12 years ago. Although I was a Member of the House of Commons at the time, I would probably have done whatever my noble friend the then Chief Whip asked me to do.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, and I am very grateful for all the support that I got. I am disappointed, but not at all surprised, by the Minister’s response because, in my experience, the Minister is good at listening but not particularly good at hearing. I think we have done everything we can to put the case, both in Committee and tonight on Report, so I do not really see any point in examining the arguments any further. I would therefore like to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, in opening this group on waste crime, I thank my noble friend Lady Doocey for her support. Serious and organised waste crime is now a multi-billion-pound scourge on our economy, countryside, environment and communities. It is out of control, and it is only getting worse. Figures released this very morning show an 11% rise in large-scale fly-tipping: some 52,000 tipper lorry load incidents in 2024-25, up from 47,000 incidents in 2023-24. Defra estimates that this alone will cost local authorities £19.3 million. From Hoad’s Wood to Kidlington to Wigan, serious organised criminal networks are leaving a trail of environmental and economic damage across our country. The Government’s own data suggests that up to a fifth of all waste may be passing through criminal hands.

The national cost in lost revenue, redemption and enforcement runs between £1 billion and £4 billion each year. One site alone, Hoad’s Wood, cost £15 million to clear. That single clear-up equalled the Environment Agency’s entire annual waste crime budget, draining funds intended for flood defences from the Environment Agency.

New illegal sites continue to emerge almost daily. Since the Environment and Climate Change Committee, of which I am a member, published its report last October, more large-scale waste dumps have been discovered than the agency itself had previously known existed. That should worry and alarm this House in equal measure.

Our systems are broken, and broken systems are creating broken outcomes. The fear of uncovering the true scale, or of bearing the financial consequences, has allowed the crisis to fester and to grow, to the organised criminals’ advantage. My amendment responds by proposing to make serious organised waste crime a statutory priority for the National Crime Agency. It would require the Secretary of State, when setting the National Crime Agency’s priorities under Section 3 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, to include the threat and to ensure that it features in the National Crime Agency’s annual reporting.

That simple amendment would move waste crime from operational consideration to unequivocal accountability. I came across the issue through Hoad’s Wood, an ancient woodland and SSSI, where a vast illegal dump was allowed to accumulate, prompting a ministerial direction and a clear-up. That episode revealed a much wider criminal enterprise: sophisticated networks, often linked to drugs, firearms, and modern slavery, exploiting waste crime because it offers high-profit and low-risk reward.

Our enforcement architecture is simply not fit for purpose. Intelligence still vanishes in what has been described as a Bermuda triangle between various agencies. Local councils face clean-up bills that they cannot meet; communities endure polluted landscapes, falling property values and long-term health risks. Most sites are never cleared; prosecutions are rare, and often overly lenient when handed out; and proceeds of crime are seldom, if ever, recovered.

The Environment Agency, as a regulator, cannot fight these criminal cartels alone. Its dual role, licensing legitimate operators while tackling organised gangs, leaves it underresourced and overstretched. A mere handful of staff in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime cannot match adversaries with the capacity to purchase land, create fake companies and launder millions of pounds through waste crime.

Elevating waste crime to the National Crime Agency’s strategic priorities would change all of that in an instant. It would bring forensic accounting, integrated threat assessments, and co-ordinated operations linking the National Crime Agency, the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, the Environment Agency, HMRC, the police, and Border Force agencies. We have seen this model work against trafficking and cyber crime, with combined intelligence, freezing assets, and dismantling networks.

That would also strengthen parliamentary oversight. Ministers would be accountable for performance and resourcing, as they are for the National Crime Agency priorities. Waste crime would no longer be seen as an environmental issue on the margins but recognised as part of our national security infrastructure. The Government’s forthcoming White Paper and the new national police service provide a perfect and timely opportunity to rewrite this fight against the waste criminals to make it fit for the 21st-century threats we face.

Waste crime fits that description: national, organised, profitable and currently evading fragmented local resources. By hardwiring it into the National Crime Agency priorities now, through the Crime and Policing Bill, we can ensure that it receives the strategic response it demands.

Serious organised waste crime demands a serious organised response. This amendment is precise, proportionate and necessary. It would ensure that, when national priorities are set, serious and organised waste crime cannot be ignored. I urge Ministers to seize this opportunity for systematic reform. I beg to move.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, serious and organised waste crime—fly-tipping on an industrial scale—is poisoning our soil and waterways and, at least until fairly recently, was a largely hidden scandal costing billions of pounds in environmental and clean-up costs. Desecration of the land is not a local nuisance; it is now a significant part of the organised crime playbook, along with drugs and trafficking. The scale of this problem means that the Government need to show leadership now and act without delay. The new guidance that the Government propose in this Bill is welcome, but it falls dangerously short of what is needed. Reminding councils of the powers that they already have is simply not good enough. Minds need to be focused; communities up and down the country are crying out for real enforcement. I urge the House to support Amendment 18.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, we support the principle underlying this amendment. Serious and organised waste crime both is an environmental nuisance and has real consequences for communities and the taxpayer. As we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the Government’s own estimates say that around 20% of waste in England may be illegally managed at some stage in the supply chain, and that over a third of waste crime is linked to organised crime groups. These figures underline that waste crime is not simply limited to opportunistic fly-tipping; in many cases it is co-ordinated criminal activity driven by profit. It is therefore entirely understandable that noble Lords wish to see it recognised as a national strategic priority.

However, we have some reservations about placing such a requirement in statute. Under Section 3 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, the Secretary of State already determines the NCA’s strategic priorities following consultation. At present there is no fixed statutory list of priorities, and to single out one specific crime type in primary legislation would be unusual. The question, therefore, is not whether waste crime is serious but whether this is the right legislative mechanism. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to ensure that serious and organised waste crime receives a sustained and meaningful focus.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Economic crime is becoming more complex, international and sophisticated. We ought to be on the front foot in tackling it. This amendment would help ensure that those fighting economic crime are properly resourced and able to plan ahead.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, economic crime is not a marginal issue. It is a national crisis affecting millions of people every year but, generally speaking, it goes under the radar most of the time. These are not victimless offences: they destroy life savings, devastate small businesses and undermine trust in our economy and democracy. When economic crime goes unchecked, it is not the powerful who suffer but ordinary people.

The amendment is modest and pragmatic. It would not establish a new fund; it simply asks for a viability study. I know the Minister is never keen even on turning a semicolon into a comma but, in this instance, it is not asking an awful lot of the Government—the Minister must stop stabbing his heart—just to agree to look at a viability study. It is really not a big deal. There are already clear precedents for this approach, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, just said; the FCA, the Ministry of Justice and parts of the police are already able to retain fines in different ways. If the Government are really serious about the UK’s reputation as a global financial centre, they must match rhetoric with resources. Can I persuade the Minister, for once, to move and just say yes?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, for moving this amendment. Economic crime is one of the most pervasive threats to public trust and business confidence in the UK. In the year ending March 2024, fraud accounted for around a third of all crime recorded by police. Industry estimates suggest that economic crime costs the UK economy tens of billions of pounds per year, according to police statistics. These staggering statistics underscore the need for effective enforcement and resourcing.

In this context, the need to seek more sustainable and predictable resourcing for economic crime enforcement is understandable. The proposal to assess the viability of an economic crime fighting fund based on reinvesting a proportion of receipts from enforcement reflects a desire to tackle this persistent and widespread issue. I recognise that there may be merits to an approach that allows specialist technology and expertise to be built and retained over multiple years.

The amendment also calls for an examination of the impact of budget exchange rules on the functioning of the asset recovery incentivisation scheme. There have been reports that recovered assets sometimes cannot easily be redeployed by front-line investigators and that incentives can be blunted by accounting constraints. If funds that are recovered through enforcement cannot, in practice, be retained or redeployed effectively by those doing the work, it is sensible to ask whether the current framework is optimally aligned with the policy objective of strengthening economic crime capability. However, I recognise that any move towards hypothecation of enforcement receipts raises potential governance issues, and there is also the question of how such a fund would sit alongside existing funding streams and the Government’s wider strategy in this area.

I therefore look forward to the Minister’s response to this amendment. I would be grateful if he could outline what steps the Government are currently taking to fight economic crime and whether they believe that any further action is required.

--- Later in debate ---

I very much hope that the Government can stay ahead of the technological curve, or at least not be left chasing across the land, rather like the Keystone Cops, after unidentified drones as they disappear, whizzing, over the horizon. I beg to move.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, as the Home Secretary observed in the recent White Paper, policing has not always kept pace with a rapidly changing world. Airspace has indeed become a new frontier for both opportunistic and organised crime. Drones are now being used by burglars and organised gangs as near-silent scouts, identifying empty homes, weak locks or high-value items through windows. The law can, of course, address the burglary that follows, but it struggles to capture the preceding act of reconnaissance. This is particularly relevant to rural crime, where drones are acting as the advance guard for the theft and export of GPS equipment.

In our prisons, drones are described by residents as “almost routine”, delivering drugs, phones and weapons straight into exercise yards. Ministry of Justice data shows more than 1,700 drone incidents in a single year. That fuels violence and instability across the estate. However, as the Justice Committee pointed out last October, the problem is not only the drones but the conditions that allow them in: broken windows, unmaintained netting and faulty CCTV. Creating a new offence may have value, but it cannot by itself remedy years of underinvestment in the prison system.

I want to raise two further concerns. The first is an operational one. With core capital grants under severe strain, how can we realistically expect overstretched forces to invest in drone detection and countersurveillance technology? Secondly, until national integration plans are fully delivered, data on drone incursions will remain largely trapped in 43 police silos, leaving us blind to the wider intelligence picture.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, for tabling his amendment. We entirely understand the intention behind it and support its aim.

In government, we gave police forces the power to intercept or seize drones suspected of being used to break the law, and those that attempt to smuggle drugs or weapons into prisons. Before the 2024 election, we announced our intention to implement no-fly zones around prisons, extending the current provisions over airports. We therefore entirely support the aim of prohibiting drone use for criminal ends. Using drone technology as a reconnaissance tool for a crime is self-evidently wrong and that should be reflected in the law.

Similarly, using drones to carry drugs, stolen goods, weapons, harmful substances or anything similar must be tackled by the police. For the police to do so, they must be given the means. Nowhere is this more evident than in prisons, where drugs and weapons are being transported in by drones in order to run lucrative illegal businesses. Reports suggest that some offenders are deliberately breaking probation terms in order to sell drugs in jail, where they can make more money. Anything that enables this must be stamped out. If drones are indeed a means of transport for many of these drugs, we should target those who operate the drones and play a part in criminal enterprises. I hope that the Minister recognises this problem and will agree with me that the amendment is entirely correct in its aims.

Police Reform White Paper

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, when, on 20 January, I asked the Minister when this White Paper would be published, he said that I would not have to wait too long to see the Government’s police reform proposal. I am very pleased to say that he was correct; on this occasion “shortly” did indeed mean shortly.

I think it fair to say that one of the major concerns surrounding policing at the moment is accountability. The public rightly want to know that the police are held to the highest standards. That, of course, has been thrown into the spotlight by the Maccabi Tel Aviv affair.

In her response to this in the other place, the Home Secretary talked of

“the failed experiment of police and crime commissioners”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/1/26; col. 612.]”.

I must say that I am not entirely convinced that the Government’s alternative will solve the problem they say they have identified. We know from the White Paper that control of the police is to be moved to the newly created strategic mayors, but what is the difference between this model and the PCC model? Both are elected, both are partisan, both are accountable to local people. What is more, where mayors do not yet exist, the Government have proposed putting forces under the governance of policing boards made up of local councillors. Is the Minister certain that these structures will deliver on accountability effectively?

On the structural reforms, it is vital to ensure that this process of reorganisation does not inadvertently make things worse. At the moment, there are essentially two tiers of policing structures: the national tier consisting of the British Transport Police and the National Crime Agency, and a local tier made up of the 43 territorial forces.

I am happy for the Minister to correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that the White Paper creates a three-tier policing structure. At the national level we will have the national police service, then the regional police forces, and underneath those the local policing areas. Does that not mean a possible proliferation of forces, and is there a risk that this could increase bureaucracy and fragmentation, rather than reduce it as intended?

The White Paper mentions the National Crime Agency, which will be subsumed into the national police service, but there is no mention of the other national forces such as the British Transport Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. Can the Minister tell the House what will happen to the British Transport Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary? Will they also be merged into the national police service?

As a final point, I would like to make a general observation about structural organisational change. There is an inevitable tendency for large-scale reorganisations to distract from the day-to-day functions that the bodies involved are tasked with executing. The Government will need to ensure that this does not happen and that police forces are still as focused as ever on fighting crime while the reorganisation is ongoing. There is also no guarantee that organisational reform is the solution the Government think it is, or that this will be the final structural reform of policing.

We need only look at the restructuring of other public bodies such as border enforcement or, indeed, at other parts of the United Kingdom, of which I have some personal experience. In Scotland, the formation of Police Scotland in 2013 has, if one looks at it as fairly as possible, been a mixed picture when it comes to effectiveness. So I end with a cursory warning to the Government: they must learn the lessons of past restructuring of public bodies and ensure that we do not have a never-ending process of continuous mergers, demergers and restructuring that simply sucks time, money and effort away from front-line policing.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, our system of policing is outdated—that is beyond doubt. The White Paper is right to promise radical reform, but, for victims and communities, the real tests are simple: will more crimes be prevented and will more offenders be brought to justice? Reform cannot be a top-down, money-saving exercise imposed from the centre; it must rebuild capacity, confidence and local trust. Get it wrong and communities will feel even more abandoned, widening the gap between police and public.

The plan for a new national police service and fewer, larger regional forces has merit, but real questions remain. Of course we need strong national capability for terrorism, serious organised crime, fraud and online harms that cross borders, but restructuring is a means, not an end. Experience in Scotland shows that mergers alone do not deliver better results. If design and implementation are mishandled, local connection suffers. The first priority must be to define clearly what we expect the police to do, recognising how their role has expanded, and then to provide realistic, long-term funding before redrawing force boundaries. Leadership and scrutiny, not structure, drive performance.

At present, the police are the agency of last resort for everything from children’s social care to adult mental health crises, as overstretched services retreat and leave the police to pick up the pieces. We welcome the commitment to ring-fenced neighbourhood policing, but we must ask whether the proposed model of mega-forces plus local policing areas will really empower local communities or simply add another layer of bureaucracy. Without proper funding and wider criminal justice reform, restructuring alone will not make our streets safer. Since we all agree that community policing is vital, can the Minister assure us that extra officers will be protected for visible neighbourhood work, backed by stable multi-year funding, not redeployed elsewhere when budgets tighten?

We support in principle a national licence to practice, tougher misconduct rules and stronger leadership after the shocking failures of recent years. We need officers and specialist staff with the right skills, character and integrity. Rising standards can rebuild trust but must not load more bureaucracy on to an already exhausted workforce.

The creating and purchasing of IT and data systems is sensible, but only if designed around operational needs and with sustainable funding. After all, procurement must be handled by qualified professionals so that we never again see the Home Office-driven debacle over the recent replacement emergency service radios, now running 12 years late and around £8 billion over budget.

We welcome the decision to abolish police and crime commissioners, but whatever replaces them must be representative, transparent and subject to robust scrutiny. Meanwhile, the Home Secretary proposes new targets, intervention powers, turnabout teams and the authority to dismiss chief constables. Can the Minister say what safeguards will protect the operational independence of policing, particularly from short-term political pressure? No individual, whether a PCC, mayor, council leader or Home Secretary, should have unilateral power to dismiss a chief constable. Can the Minister confirm that the Home Secretary will be bound by the same consultation rules that apply to PCCs now under Section 11A of the Police Regulations 2003?

Finally, on live facial recognition, rolling out such powerful technology before strong statutory safeguards are in place means relying on algorithms whose accuracy, bias and oversight remain, at best, disputed. If the Government move too fast and lose public trust, it may take many years to rebuild.

Liberal Democrats want a system of policing rooted in communities, fit for modern threats, accountable and trusted. We will work constructively on reforms that raise standards, but we will challenge fiercely any move towards centralisation without transparency or any attempt to treat restructuring as a substitute for leadership.

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

My Lords, to go to the heart of the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, this is being done for a purpose. Crime is changing: fraud and online crime are widespread, and sexual abuse, terrorism and a range of national crimes impact policing and the communities the police serve. There is a strong need to reconnect local police with local crime, such as shop theft, and with neighbourhood policing issues, such as antisocial behaviour. To deal with that, we currently have a patchwork of 43 local forces, some led by a mayor and some by a police and crime commissioner. Some mayoral areas, such as Liverpool, do not have a police and crime commissioner; others, such as Manchester, have a police and crime commissioner. In West Yorkshire, there is a police and crime commissioner and a deputy mayor appointed to report to the mayor. In the West Midlands, the police and crime commissioner runs in parallel with the mayor. New mayoralties are coming on stream in the next couple of years, and that patchwork quilt will continue to develop.

At a national level, we have no procurement organisation. We have police chief leads who deal with their local force but who are also leads for particular areas. We have a National Crime Agency, a national helicopter service and forensics. With this proposal we are trying to ensure that we give greater support to the neighbourhood policing model at a local level, and have a consistent model of leadership through the elected mayor or an elected board of councillors. That will be examined. In conjunction with the Senedd, we will look at the model for Wales. At the same time, we will look at force numbers. The proposals include a review in the next five or six months, with a chair to be appointed shortly. Its terms of reference will be to look at how we can slim down the number of forces to save money and give a regional structure.

In answer to the points from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on accountability, there will be an official—a mayor or councillor—who is responsible for that. The Home Secretary will have the power to remove chief constables. There will be a review of the number of forces. I do not know yet what that review will show, but it will help save money and give some focus. We intend to start very shortly to establish the national service. This will initially look at IT, forensics, the helicopter contract and procurement. Is it right that 43 forces procure 43 sets of uniforms? Is it right that there are different phone systems at a local level? Those are things that we need to look at. Later, the National Crime Agency, counterterrorism and regional crime units will be brought into focus, looking at how we deal with national issues.

Are we doing that for a purpose? We are. What is the purpose? To focus on things that matter on the ground and that matter collectively, nationally, and to potentially make better efficiencies and savings in the organisation and spend for things such as procurement of vehicles and uniforms. It is important to do that, and that is the model we are looking at.

There are issues. The noble Lord asked about the British Transport Police. That is not in the model at the moment; that is a matter for the Department for Transport. Everything can be examined, but that is not on the table at the moment.

In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, on facial recognition, she knows that we are currently consulting on the standards and governance for it. Going back to my time as Police Minister 16 years ago, we were looking at things such as automatic number plate recognition. That was being tested in the last part of the previous Labour Government and is now a natural and automatic part of crime fighting, where you can track number plates and see who is involved with them. Going back 25 years, CCTV was a worry, but it is now an essential part of evidence gathering and crime fighting. I therefore say to the noble Baroness that we need to regulate facial recognition, but it is one of the next steps for the future of how we identify missing people and missing suspects, and we will use it to help identify how we can further reduce crime.

All this is done for a purpose. We are trying to re-energise neighbourhood policing and remove the barriers that stop the police focusing on things that matter. We are also looking at how we can organise nationally in this rapidly changing world; build capability on AI, for example, and save police time and resource; and improve standards, which again goes to the noble Baroness’s point. We have the licence to operate in these proposals and, in the policing Bill, we have proposals to vet police officers and raise standards. They are all important. It is important that we look not at where we are now but, as part of this reorganisation, at where we are going for the future, and at how we can better use AI and modern capabilities and technology to help improve police performance on the ground.

I therefore say to the noble Lord and noble Baroness, who are both my colleagues, that they have a very positive role to play in helping to design this service. However, ultimately, we cannot stay where we are. Rightly or wrongly, we think that the police and crime model has not worked efficiently and that we have too big a patchwork; we need to review and make a difference to it. It has been acknowledged for a long time that we have too many police forces. I say to both contributors that the police welcome this, from the Chief Constables’ Council through to the inspectorate and police forces across the country. We have an opportunity to redefine policing for the next 25, 30 or 40 years. This is a real opportunity to get better value for money, better performance and better efficiency, and to ensure that we meet the challenges of future crime.

National Police Service

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The White Paper is very clear that it wants to set both metrics for performance and standards for policing. In the police accountability Bill currently going through Parliament, we have put in place a range of measures for improving police performance, improving vetting and improving standards. The whole purpose of the White Paper is to improve efficiency, improve delivery, meet future challenges and use tools such as AI to be able to perform better than we are currently, with a smaller, more effective police force in terms of organisational size, neighbourhood police on the ground and central organisation, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, mentioned, looking at critical central issues.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that responsibility for fraud, cyber and economic crime will transfer from the City of London Police to the new national police service?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

No, we cannot, because at the moment cyber crime issues are dealt with by the National Crime Agency. We are looking to establish a national police force area. Fraud is with the City of London Police, and very shortly I will bring to this Parliament a new revised fraud strategy. We are looking first and foremost at the reorganisation of police force sizes; secondly, at what we need to do nationally on procurement, IT, forensics and other issues; and thirdly, at where best those services fit and whether we have a national police service that oversees all those issues or the City of London Police ultimately keeps that provision. In the fraud strategy coming shortly, the City of London Police plays an extremely central role.