Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, it has become a cliché to say that a week is a long time in politics, but it is an idiom that forever rings true. We began a couple of weeks ago with the Government still firmly wed to the idea that digital ID cards were going to save us all, and we ended the week with the policy relegated to a footnote in future history books. As with everything the Government touch these days, the digital ID policy had become completely toxic and incredibly unpopular, forcing them into the U-turn. It is a U-turn I am supportive of, and I am pleased that the Government have finally seen sense and ditched this policy.

I suppose I should be grateful to the Minister for somewhat negating the need for this amendment. It is quite easy being in opposition when the Government do your job for you.

The amendment is intended as a safeguard to prevent the police being able to require a person to show them a digital identity card when—or should I say if—such a scheme is ever introduced. Fundamentally, this whole debate comes down to who we are as a nation. Britain has never been a country where, in peacetime, one must have an identity card simply because the state mandates it.

I heard much Newspeak about the policy from Government Ministers soon after the announcement. Following the immediate backlash, many started claiming that it was not going to be mandatory after all, and that it was simply mandatory if you wanted to work. The Prime Minister said at the announcement of the policy:

“Let me spell that out: you will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It’s as simple as that”.


But requiring everyone who wants a job to have digital ID does make it mandatory—we all need to go to work to earn a living. We heard the justification change more times than we could count. First, it was needed to stop illegal migration and illegal working. That argument was soon blown out of the water by the fact that employers are already required to undertake right-to-work checks, and those who violate the law already were never going to suddenly start conducting such checks simply because of the existence of digital ID. Then we heard that it was necessary for efficiency and joined-up services. I can only wonder what the next justification would have been.

That is why I tabled this amendment. It was always a probing amendment, but we must make these arguments to stand up for the principle. The Government might have U-turned on this now, but what is to say that we do not see this pernicious policy creep back towards becoming mandatory in the future? In such a scenario, having such a legislative guardrail against potential police use of digital ID would make sense.

Fundamentally, the principle is that Britain is not a country where police officers require the presentation of mandatory ID cards. A person should be able, if they so wish, to go about their lives with as minimal interference by the state as possible. Digital ID cards were a wrong-headed and poorly thought-through policy, costing large sums of money that we do not have and coming at the expense of fundamental British values. I am glad to see the back of the mandatory element, but we must guard against any future expansions of this scheme. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am, of course, also delighted that this amendment is now unnecessary and irrelevant, but it fits into some broader concerns that have been expressed in Committee, such as the planned nationwide rollout of police-operated live facial recognition cameras and a whole range of technology used to introduce a surveillance state. The use of digital ID would have not only created that very unpleasant checking of one’s papers by the police but introduced an element of technology which, without being anti-technology, could be seen as problematic.

I noted and would like the Minister’s response to an interview that the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, did with Sir Tony Blair last week, in which she talked about AI and technology having a transformative impact on

“the whole of the law and order space”,

which would therefore mean that digital ID was not totally off the table. The Home Secretary said

“my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times”—

a rather chilling declaration, I must say. At this stage, as we are not going to have to discuss digital ID, that broad use of technology and surveillance might be something that the Minister could reassure us on specifically. It is good to see the back of digital ID, but I am not keen on the eyes of the state being on us at all times as a justification for tackling crime and disorder.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for setting out the case for Amendment 415. He says a week is a long time in politics, but I am going to take him all the way back to the announcement on 26 September from the Prime Minister that the Government were intending to introduce a national digital ID scheme for all British and Irish citizens and those with permission to be in the United Kingdom.

The national digital ID will empower people in their lives and their interactions with the state. It will make it easier to access public services, cut back on bureaucratic processes and support fairness across society. The national digital ID scheme will be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny in due course. In the short term, we will examine options for appropriate oversight and safeguards of the digital ID, with a public consultation set to launch soon.

As has already been said publicly, the digital ID will not be required when a person is stopped by the police using stop and search powers. This was picked up in this debate and the debate on the previous amendment by, among others, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. It will not be mandatory for those eligible to obtain the digital ID and, as such, there will be no penalty for not having one.

Law enforcement use of data is governed by Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018. This places a range of obligations on law enforcement, including requirements that law enforcement processing of data must be necessary and proportionate, for a specific purpose and not excessive. All three noble Baronesses who spoke raised concerns over a move towards a surveillance state—certainly, that was the theme of the speeches by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. To be clear, the new digital ID will not be used for mass surveillance of the population and will be designed in accordance with high standards of security and privacy. We will ensure safeguards are in place to make sure that any access to data is both necessary and proportionate.

As I said, the public consultation will be launched in the coming weeks. This will ensure that any legislation includes appropriate safeguards. I am sure that, without much prompting, my noble friend and the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Fox of Buckley, will be first in the queue to contribute to that public consultation.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Can the noble Lord clarify something? Initially, those of us who spoke suggested that possibly this amendment was not needed because digital ID was not an immediate issue and was not going to be brought in as a single identifier. So far, the Minister’s arguments have been a justification for digital ID. Is it back on? It would be useful for campaigners to understand that, let alone those of us here. When campaigners argue that digital ID is part of a surveillance state and so on, one wants to say, “Don’t be too paranoid”. I am now getting paranoid myself, having been told that the digital ID scheme had been put to one side, that it has sneaked back into the House of Lords in response to an amendment that most of us thought was not necessary.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I am going to try to stay roughly on the topic of the amendment, rather than turn this into a wider debate on the introduction of digital ID, because I am not entirely sure that my briefing will cover all the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has addressed.

To be absolutely clear, we are not stepping back from the idea of introducing a digital ID. On 15 January, there was an Urgent Question on the issue in the other place that was repeated here. We have been very clear that we are introducing a digital ID programme. There are two core objectives: first, to make accessing public services easier and to make the state work better for ordinary people, and, secondly, to aid with right-to-work checks and catching those who are working illegally. To be clear, that is still happening. As I say, there is a public consultation coming that will set out the scope of the scheme, and those who wish to respond will be able to respond in those terms.

To respond directly to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, around the use of ID by policing and enforcement agencies, there are already safeguards in place to ensure that the use of any such measures is balanced against the need to protect individual privacy rights. That will be the same for digital ID as it is for existing police access to information contained within the passport and immigration databases, for example, which is done in specific circumstances where that is lawful, necessary and proportionate. An example of a legal safeguard already in place is contained in the UK Borders Act 2007, which makes it clear that holders of e-visas cannot be required to carry them at all times.

I think I have already touched on the issue of stop and search, but I cannot quite remember because of the flow of the interventions. To be clear, the digital ID will not be used as part of stop and search, and police officers will never demand to see it as part of stop and search. However, consistent with current powers where immigration enforcement are carrying out an enforcement visit or warrant, they have powers to ensure that all those who are employed have the right to work in the UK. These powers include the ability to demand ID, take biometrics, and detain, search and seize property to assist their investigation. I hope that provides some clarity on that point.

Given the considerations that I have set out, particularly the fact that the introduction of the digital ID scheme will require its own legislation in future, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support the excellent amendment of my noble friend Lord Young of Acton. I declare an interest as a paid-up member of the Free Speech Union.

I was brought up in Plumstead in south-east London, as was Stephen Lawrence. I can absolutely understand the horror and the imperative for action that arose from the disgraceful racist murder of that young man in 1993: there was a clamour to tackle the culture that gave rise to five racist thugs taking that young man’s life. That is a very important context, but I am afraid that things have developed in a way that we did not foresee way back in 1993.

In preparing for this debate, I was reminded of the remarks of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, in 2024:

“I had to look up what on earth the term”—


non-crime hate incidents—

“meant—I was puzzled by it”.

Coming from the DPP, that reveals a lot about what a strange anomaly NCHIs have been.

The idea that there is a kind of police record that can result in ordinary people who have committed no crime being visited by police at their home or workplace because an investigation has been launched into whether their views or attitudes may one day lead to criminal activity should be seen as entirely incongruent with British justice and freedom of expression. It brings to mind the film “Minority Report” and the fictional idea of pre-crime. But this is not fiction: it is the real world. The idea that, in the real world, a person could lose their job because an NCHI shows up on an enhanced DBS check ought to be anathema to us.

Mention was made earlier of Allison Pearson. My noble friend Lord Herbert of South Downs is absolutely right: it was the Communications Act or another piece of legislation that was involved when Essex Police visited her on Remembrance Sunday 2024. She has nevertheless raised the public profile of the impact of NCHIs on people and, for that, we should thank her, as we should Harry Miller and others.

The Times reported that year that 13,200 NCHIs were recorded by 45 police forces in the 12 months to June 2024. That includes allegations against doctors, vicars, social workers and even primary school children. As we have heard, Policy Exchange calculated that this had amounted to at least 60,000 hours of officer time. It surely was never a defensible use of police time, especially while so many serious crimes such as burglaries and sexual offences remain unsolved and uninvestigated. There are too many stories to tell, but one elderly woman was shocked to find herself the subject of an NCHI after taking a photograph of a sticker which read: “Keep males out of women-only spaces”. She did not even put the sticker up; she just took a photo of it. The 73 year-old received a visit from police officers after she was caught on CCTV taking the photo of the sticker, which someone had put up on an LGBT Pride poster. She said she agreed with its sentiments and wanted to show it to her partner. Apparently, the police thought this made her a likely future criminal.

My noble friend Lord Herbert said that these cases have been bad for public confidence in the service, and he is right. It is therefore welcome that over the last year or so there has been a growing realisation and consensus in the Government that there is a need to address the problem. In particular, I welcome the recent press reports that the college and the NPCC are set to recommend scrapping non-crime hate incidents as a result of the review.

My noble friend Lord Herbert has promised that there will be a sea change. We must wait and see the final detail on how the changes are delivered in practice. I say this partly because what we are attempting to do in turning policing away from an excessive focus on what we might call DEI issues towards the criminal matters that the public care about goes against the grain of the last two decades of police culture. We have seen before how difficult this is to uproot. The previous Government published new statutory guidance on NCHIs in 2023. Training should have been given to call handlers on the raised thresholds and common-sense tests, and we should have seen a reduction in the number of non-crime hate incidents recorded, but, sadly, the report published the following year by His Majesty’s inspectorate, An Inspection into Activism and Impartiality in Policing, concluded that there was

“inconsistency in the way forces have responded to the new guidance”

and that

“We often found that call takers hadn’t received training about NCHIs, and had limited, if any, knowledge”


of the statutory guidance.

First, can the Minister say how we will ensure that police training on the new regime is not undercut by an obsession with DEI issues and the politicisation of policing which has clouded police judgments too often in recent years? Secondly, we need to see a clearer commitment from the Government on how they plan to respond to the NPCC report and what the timelines will be. I know there are ongoing reviews into police discretion and hate crime, and I particularly welcome the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, of hate crime legislation. I hope that he will feel emboldened to address one of the more fundamental issues; namely, the injustice resulting from the creation of a hierarchy of victims by legislating for certain protected characteristics rather than treating all victims equally.

However, these ongoing reviews should not be an excuse for inaction. Will the Minister make the commitment that, should the NCHI review require primary legislation to implement its recommendations, this will be done via amendments on Report—a point made by my noble friend Lord Blencathra—preferably adopting my noble friend’s carefully crafted amendment?

While I understand the previous Government’s decision to introduce statutory guidance via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 as a first step towards introducing some common sense in this area, it had the unfortunate consequence of providing a statutory basis for recording NCHIs. If this is to be corrected, the law will need to change.

Again, the devil will be in the detail. The NPCC’s final report has not yet been published, but it did publish a progress report last October. There were a number of points where I would want to see improvements in the final report before I could feel confident that the new system will avoid the pitfalls of the current regime. One of those relates to the NPCC’s recommendation that the Home Office introduce a new national standard of incident recording. As I alluded to earlier, the current threshold, which dates back to 2011, is too low and does not adequately cater for contemporary policing demands.

We ought to think carefully, too, about any new definition. The current draft proposition put forward by the NPCC defines an incident as

“a single distinct event or occurrence which may be relevant to policing for preventing or solving crime, safeguarding individuals or communities or fulfilling other statutory policing purposes”.

This helpfully makes it clear that there needs to be a clear policing purpose for this data to be recorded. I am concerned about the words “may be relevant”. At the very least, would it not be better for it to say, “likely to be relevant”? My concern is that an activist police officer would record practically anything on the basis of “may”. We all know hoarders—the kind of people who keep everything because they tell themselves it may be useful in the future.

Finally, we need greater clarity on enhanced DBS checks. The progress report recommends that the Home Office consider whether there needs to be further guidance, but key questions are ignored. Will the police delete NCHIs that they have already recorded, and will the new anti-social behaviour incidents be disclosable in enhanced DBS checks? I am pleased to support this very good and sensible amendment.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to the noble Lords, Lord Young of Acton and Lord Hogan-Howe, for leading on this. It is telling that there is cross-party support for this amendment. The Government should take note of such rich and excellent speeches from across the House. There is widespread concern for all sorts of reasons, and action should be taken.

I feel a bit cynical because I have celebrated the demise of non-crime hate incidents on a number of occasions in the past. When the Fair Cop founder Harry Miller won his High Court challenge in 2020, the judge declared that non-crime hate incidents had a chilling effect and unlawfully infringed on Harry’s freedom of speech. I remember that a lot of us thought that would be the end of that. I then listened to a number of Home Secretaries declaring that there was a problem with non-crime hate incidents, and I thought, “Oh, good, something will be done”, because politicians like to do something. But I am most reassured, genuinely, by the present Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who seems to be determined to get to the bottom of this and to sort it out. Her emphasis that the police should focus on streets and not tweets is quite a good summation of where we are. However, despite that universal acknowledgement that non-crime hate incidents are not fit for purpose in many ways, I worry that, as with the Greek mythological Hydra, all the various attempts at cutting off the monstrous NCHI serpent’s head will result in another couple of heads growing instead. It is important that we do not just console ourselves with getting rid of the name while allowing the sentiment and the politics of it to remain.

As somebody who has spoken many times on this issue in this House, often greeted by some eye-rolling but also offered endless assurances that it was all being sorted—not by this Government but by a previous Government—I now believe that assurances are not enough, and we need to make this issue watertight. We need primary legislation as a guarantee that there will be no more non-crime hate incidents and a full deletion of the historic records held by the police. The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, made the point that when there have been changes in the criminal law, records have not been deleted, but these are not crimes, so they should be deleted. Even if they are not used, the idea that the state has a file on hundreds of thousands of people with the words “bigot” or “hate criminals” across them, even if they are hate non-criminal, is not right and they should be deleted.