Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

I am not talking about grossly offensive, inflammatory provocations: they are crimes, they should be crimes and they will still be crimes. But this amendment puts an end to the nonsense for people such as council leaders, who are meant to be on your side and to enjoy freedom of expression but are cowed. So I hope that all sides of this House will stand shoulder to shoulder at this late hour with those council leaders who metaphorically put themselves in harm’s way. If we do not stand up for the unfashionably marginalised—people such as the Gypsies and Travellers who are looking for a home under the structure of a local plan, or public servants communicating a difficult message that may not be popular but is the right thing to do—who will? On that basis, I support Amendment 387B.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak. I spoke in Committee, and I listened to what the Minister put forward and what the noble Lord on the opposite Bench said about the recording of non-crime hate. It depends on how you see non-crime hate and on who is at the receiving end of it. For me, it led to the murder of my son. For individuals who think they have the right to walk around and talk about especially young black men in a certain way, what starts off as just verbal leads to violence. This is what I tried put across in Committee: people see the verbal as a playground, but it is not necessarily that. After the inquiry, when that was put into a recommendation, it was said that, if those who are on the receiving end—or people around them—perceive it to be something, that is what it is.

If you take that away and do not record it, how do you move forward, if it then moves from something verbal into violence and you have no way of tracking back to where it started from? Okay, so within the report here, it could be said in a way so it comes across to make sure that you do not lose that part of it, because some of it leads to violence and that is what happened to my son. Hence, I take offence when people say that it is just playground talk, because it does not necessarily mean that. So noble Lords should please consider what they are saying here and what implications it has outside, and our children.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

Perhaps I could briefly add something to what the noble Baroness has just said. Just to clarify, I think that the kinds of remarks that she is talking about that were made about her son would be recorded and would meet the new criteria under the anti-social behaviour incident regime, which, as I understand it, is going to replace the NCHI regime. They would remain on a police database in a way that could then be used to detect and prevent a crime: they would meet the new recording threshold. I have no objection to that kind of thing being recorded: I think that it would serve a useful policing purpose. So just to be clear, I am not in any way suggesting that those kinds of remarks should not be included in future—I think that they should be—but I want to exclude the more trivial things from being recorded and having the police waste so much time on them.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

But you would not know until it gets to that point: to violence. If you do not start off with where it starts from, you will never get to the end, whether that is from trivial chat or whatever you want to call it, or playground. Later on, if that same individual or whoever carries on, that leads to violence, and if you have no way of going back to check where that started from, how do you know to be able to prosecute that individual for what he said, going back further to where we are now? That is what we need to be very careful about.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, to follow on from the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon, one difficulty that we have had in relation to any discussion such as this is that the police are under an enormous amount of pressure because of the horrible things that happen—understatement of the year—to imagine that all speech can lead to violence. If they see that, obviously they will police all speech and treat everybody’s speech as potentially dangerous and damaging. Once that happens, we no longer live in a free, democratic society. That is quite straightforward.

One thing that I think is very difficult is that the horror of Stephen’s racist murder and the fact that the police did not intervene and there was so much scandal around it means that sometimes people feel very nervous, anxious or worried about saying anything in the name of fighting hate, in case they are somehow implicated in having prejudiced views. I would like to enthusiastically welcome the Government’s Amendment 383, abolishing the statutory basis for non-crime hate incidents, because, over the past few years, when some of us have raised problems with non-crime hate incidents, and with the police policing those incidents—as in attitudes and words—it has felt as though we were banging our heads against a brick wall. So it feels quite good to count this as something of a win, and even to be vindicated, because, to be honest, opposing non-crime hate incidents has meant facing some brickbats, both outside here, in my capacity as the director of the Academy of Ideas, and, to be honest, especially in here. There was a less than subtle inference that opposition to non-crime hate incidents, or indeed a whole range of hate legislation in fact, revealed some lurking bigotry or was proof that we were soft on hate.

Yet here we are, and that is proof of something else that is important: that it is always worth raising issues here and battling on, because sometimes Governments can change their minds and sometimes the College of Policing can change its mind—you can make people look at things again. I also welcome the outbreak of common sense and reasonableness from the College of Policing and the fact that there has been a genuine attempt to get on top of what obviously was not intended from the original non-crime hate incidents—it has got completely out of hand. Despite that, and despite the fact that I am delighted that the notions of freedom of expression and free speech have now been taken seriously by the different bodies, I still have some worries and would like some reassurance and clarification from the Minister.

I am worried about the risk of non-crime hate incidents simply being rebranded. The Government have suggested, as we have heard, that some incidents currently recorded as NCHIs will continue to be recorded as anti-social behaviour incidents. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Young, explained in terms of the higher threshold, I want to check with the Minister whether the behaviour that will be recorded that way will still be based on the subjective premise of a victim perceiving hostility or prejudice towards protected characteristics.

As so much anti-social behaviour regulation, as we discussed earlier on Report, is prosecuted to a lower evidential standard yet treated as a criminal offence and can lead to criminal sanctions, could this lower threshold be used in such incidents? I am worried about repeating the same problems. Can the Minister also rule out that any such anti-social behaviour hate incidents will be added to the national crime database, disclosed in enhanced DBS checks or investigated in much the same way as NCHIs? I am not sure about that.

One reason why I support Amendment 387B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, is that it will make it harder to set up an alternative recording system that is NCHIs in all but name. I am also worried about ambiguity and confusion if we leave all this to guidance, as has been mentioned. As I understand it, police forces are not prohibited from continuing to record NCHIs under the Government’s amendment for quite a while, and I am just not sure how this is going to happen.

The statutory basis for NCHIs under Sections 60 and 61 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was simply a way for the Secretary of State to issue guidance. Will repealing the statutory basis alone not simply mean that the police will return to the pre-2023 position where they continue with NCHIs under their own guidance? Maybe I have misunderstood that. Even if that happening only temporarily until the Government worked out exactly what to do, I am concerned about this muddled period.

Amendment 387B would rule out this concerning prospect, offer the police some clarity and guarantee the outcome that we all desire. Clarity, or lack of it, has always been a bugbear in relation to non-crime hate incidents. It is why I am so anxious to hear how the Government’s plans will be communicated, and I hope there will be clarity. On the one hand, we have experience of how a lack of clarity led to the growth of NCHIs without any intention for that to happen. Even the current DPP, Stephen Parkinson, admitted to the Times Crime and Justice Commission that until recently he “had no idea” what an NCHI was, was puzzled by it, and had to look up what on earth the term meant. That was the current DPP, noting that even within the police service there has been some surprise at the level of non-crime hate incidents that were being investigated because they did not know what they were.

The last thing police forces need now is to be left in limbo in any way, while consultation, regulations or guidance is sorted out. We know from An Inspection into Activism and Impartiality in Policing published by His Majesty’s inspectorate in September 2024 that there has been inconsistency in the way forces have responded to NCHI guidance. What happens if some of the more EDI-enthusiastic forces carry on spending thousands of hours sifting through online posts, seeking out so-called hate and so on and investigating common everyday interactions as if they are crimes, which I know is not what the Government or the College of Policing intend?

Limbo in law is never good and any ambiguities can lead to the law being flouted. I will give just one comparison. As of October 2025, the start of the academic year, only one university had complied with the Supreme Court judgment clarifying biological sex in relation to the Equality Act. The rest claimed to be waiting for the EHRC code—waiting for guidance rather than complying with their legal obligations. I do not want the same thing to happen.

Police: Vetting, Training and Discipline

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Viscount is absolutely right. It is very important that we have training and professionalism of those who are in a position of influence and power in smaller units within the police force. Obviously, the particular case in front of us related to one particular police station in central London, and the undercover reporter revisited that police station to find that there was not an improvement in behaviour. Ten officers have been referred to the IOPC. Their behaviour is on camera but, self-evidently, local leadership should have spotted those issues in the first instance. That is something that the Metropolitan Police itself will be reviewing in its review once the IOPC has determined what action should be taken against the officers in question.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, what we saw on our TV some weeks ago just goes to show that, since the Macpherson report came out, talking about institutional racism, nothing much has changed. We have talked about it over the past 30 years, but we are still talking about the same thing now. When are we going to find that police officers begin to respect the community that they are policing, and the community has respect for them? Unless we do something within government, nothing is going to change. What has the Minister to say about that?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend, and she knows more than anybody else in this House how important it is that the police have the confidence of the community and that the community has confidence in policing. It is essential for public confidence that strict standards are upheld. I reassure my noble friend that we have taken action in the past 12 months to include new vetting standards, but, if she looks at the proposals for legislation in the next 12 months, she will see that that will put in place a range of measures to ensure that incidents to do with misogyny, racial hatred, sexual orientation and other transgressions by officers are dealt with speedily and effectively by the police. It goes back to a range of issues, but I hope that, this time next year, I will be able to give my noble friend greater confidence that the police have competence to deal with these issues.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, the policing Bill stands as an important framework for how we, as a society, respond to acts that cause harm and undermine our shared values. Among its many provisions, one issue demands our urgent attention: the failure to treat racist comments and abuse as crimes when they go unreported or unchallenged.

When racist comments are dismissed as “harmless” or “just words”, their impact is underestimated. In truth, silence allows prejudice to grow. Communities subjected to racism feel unsafe, unheard and excluded. This erodes trust between not only neighbours but the public and the institutions meant to protect them.

If racist acts are not reported and addressed, they normalise intolerance, creating an environment where discrimination can escalate into more serious violence, such as the racist murder of my son, Stephen. I do not want to see this repeated in years to come, with families forced to go through what my family has in the past 30-plus years. There has been an increase in knife crime since Stephen’s death. This needs to be addressed urgently to stop parents like me suffering the trauma of losing a child.

When racist behaviour is recognised, reported and challenged, it sends a powerful message: everyone—regardless of their background—belongs and deserves protection under the law. Within a school environment, racist name-calling must never be ignored, as it can escalate into more serious forms of harm and violence. If such behaviour is not addressed early and documented properly, it risks developing into more dangerous attitudes and actions as individuals grow older.

The Bill must therefore ensure robust measures that empower individuals to report racism, support victims and hold perpetrators accountable. Only then can we strengthen community cohesion and safeguard the dignity and equality that are the foundations of our society. For these reasons, I firmly believe that the abolition of the recording of non-crime hate incidents should not proceed, as doing so would risk silencing victims, undermining trust in law enforcement and weakening our collective ability to confront and prevent hate in all its forms. I thank the Government for their commitment to addressing crime on our streets.