Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Polak (Con)]

I rise to speak to my Amendment 286A, which proposes to fill gaps in Clause 79 so we can hold accountable all those who go out of their way to conceal the horrendous crime of child sexual abuse. This amendment is supported by multiple child protection organisations, including the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse and the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. I particularly thank Gina Rees from the NSPCC, who has advised me.

Obviously, it can never be acceptable for anyone to turn a blind eye to abuse. Yet across the seven year-long investigation, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse exposed countless instances where those whose organisations had a responsibility to protect children from harm not only failed to report child sexual abuse but took purposeful actions that actively sought to cover it up. These acts of intentionally concealing child sexual abuse are separate from, and go beyond, just failing to make a report, something which the Government’s mandatory reporting duty proposes to address. It means choosing and acting to prioritise something else, be that community, relationships or company reputation, over the safety of a child. I think we can agree across this House that that is unacceptable.

These acts of concealment are not a thing of the past. Take, for example, this real-life contact at the NSPCC helpline for those with concerns about a child. A special educational needs professional told the NSPCC:

“I’ve seen what happens when people report any concerns, even minor ones. Management bullies you, reduces your shifts, stops giving you what you need to support the kids. You’re expected to buy everything yourself for them instead of it being provided. If you thought you were on track for a permanent job, forget it”.


Bullying, threatening job stability and removing support for the children who are meant to be protected—these are actions, along with intimidation of witnesses and destroying vital evidence, that have happened for many years and still happen, with impunity, across our society. They not only undermine efforts to increase reports of child sexual abuse; they can deny victims their right to justice and hinder their access to vital support services in order to help them begin to recover from what they have suffered. As such, it is vital that our criminal justice system be equipped with new laws to catch these bad actors.

I appreciate that the Government’s current drafting of Clause 79 aims to do this by introducing a new criminal offence of preventing or deterring someone, under the mandatory reporting duty, from making a report. While that is an important part of thwarting the cover-up of child sexual abuse, this provision does not go far enough to cover the multitude of ways that reports of abuse can be concealed and could allow many of those who intentionally conceal this crime to slip through the net. This is because Clause 79 is triggered only when the person acting to conceal abuse does so by blocking or deterring someone, under the new duty, from making a report. This would not, for example, criminalise acts that could prevent abuse being discovered by a mandated reporter in the first place, such as intimidating victims or destroying vital evidence. Indeed, if the professional I referred to in my example earlier did not fall under the new duty to report, there is a strong chance that those who try to bully and intimidate someone in respect of doing the right thing would not be prosecutable under the current offence.

This feels to me like a glaring omission that could undermine the Government’s intentions with this clause. It also does not cover preventing those who are not mandated reporters from reporting, or acts to hinder this investigation of abuse after it has been reported. That is why I call on the Government and the Minister to look again at their current proposal and ensure that it is strengthened, so that those who intentionally act to cover up child sexual abuse, including those who threaten or deter those not under the reporting duty, are caught by this offence. I therefore urge the Government to accept Amendment 286A so that Clause 79 captures all individuals who intentionally cover up child sexual abuse.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 273, which is a very simple amendment that aims to put into action what IICSA recommended: that mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse should happen with no exceptions. The inquiry argued that, even if abuse is disclosed in the context of confession, the person—in this case, the priest—should be legally required to report it. It proposes that failing to report such abuse should itself be a criminal offence.

I am very glad that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester is in his place, because I know he has spent a long time on working parties looking at this issue. In earlier discussions in the House, in response to the right reverend Prelate, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, said that he had received representations from churches on this issue and expressed the hope that this would be further debated as the Crime and Policing Bill went through Parliament. My amendment is simply here to enable that debate to happen.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Polak and his Amendment 286A. As he lucidly put it, this amendment proposes to close several glaring loopholes in the offences outlined in Clause 79; otherwise, I fear it will fail to meet the aims and expectations placed on it by this Committee.

Our criminal justice system should be equipped with new laws to hold accountable all those who cover up child sexual abuse. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, put that case incredibly well and touchingly. It needs to be known that if someone acts purposefully to stop child sexual abuse being properly investigated and so denies the victims and survivors the protection and justice they are entitled to, they will face strong criminal penalties. That is why I support the Bill’s inclusion of Clause 79, which seeks to introduce new criminal offences for preventing or deterring someone, under the new mandatory reporting duty, from making a report. However, its drafting means that it would be limited in its ability to contribute meaningfully to the important mission of tackling child sexual abuse that we across the Committee strongly support.

Clause 79 is dependent upon the new mandatory duty to report. The clause not only requires the action taken to directly involve a reporter under the duty, it requires the person attempting to conceal the abuse to know that the person that they are deterring is a mandated reporter. This brings with it a whole host of legal complexities. What does it mean to know that someone is under the duty? Does it require them to also know that the child sex offence has taken place to trigger the said duty? How could it be convincingly proved by the courts that someone accused of putting the needs of their institution above protecting a child also understood what the duty is, who it applies to and how that factored into their actions? These are important questions that need to be reconciled.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

Your Lordships’ House has, over the years, taken a very serious role in defending our free speech, freedom of assembly and right to peaceful protest. Just this afternoon, we have heard powerful speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Jones, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—probably the first time I have ever agreed with her—and from the noble Lords, Lord Cashman and Lord Clement-Jones.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed out something I have noted too. Out of power, political parties defend those rights very vociferously, but once they are in power as the Government, they are very tempted—as we see in this Bill—to introduce legislation to restrict protest more and more. In the 25 years I have been following this, I have noticed that successive Governments have increased not only legislation about protest but also the severity of the penalties for those protesting or organising protests. What especially concerns me is the cumulative effect of all those Acts.

I can accept that sometimes legislation is a proportionate response to emerging social issues, and I am sure that is something we will explore in Committee, but too often it has been the easy way for successive Governments to limit dissent against their policies. As we look at this Bill, with more curbs on protest, it is shocking to think—and this is something I especially want noble Lords to bear in mind as we go through the Bill—that international bodies have found that the UK has moved from being a champion of free speech and assembly to a nation where protest is a risk.

For example, the UN rapporteur for human rights and the environment, David Boyd, warned of the chilling impact of recent legislation on democratic rights. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the Public Order Act 2023 was “deeply troubling” and incompatible with international law. Michael Forst, the UN rapporteur for environmental defenders, condemned the harsh sentencing of climate protesters as

“not acceptable in a democracy”.

We have to take those as very serious criticisms.

On that last point, some of the sentences handed down to protesters are truly shocking. Even a short sentence can disrupt your life a lot. It can affect the jobs you can apply for. It can disbar you, for example, from going to the United States. In my case, that would be a very severe penalty as so many of my family live there. That is a massive disincentive to stand in protest, so there is a real chilling effect. I am fortunately quite old, so I think I have had my fill of protests—that is not to say that I would not feel like protesting some more, but I at least have a voice here now.

The reason I am speaking today is that I have heard the anger and frustration of the young. They need to make their voices heard on the issues that will critically affect their future. In this case, I am particularly thinking of environmental issues and climate change. Our job in this House is to enable those voices, not to crush them, not to frighten them into submission and not to chill them until they are frozen out.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said I was making assumptions about what views people have about Israel or Palestine. I do not think I made any assumptions about that at all. I just happen to think that, in a debate, it is helpful if people take questions and listen to the arguments of others and are prepared to deal with them. That is how in a democratic forum you test arguments. I think it is very helpful, and perfectly reasonable, for people to draw conclusions from the fact that people are not prepared to have their arguments challenged. That is all I was saying.

Let me come to the Minister’s opening remarks. I strongly support the proscription of all three organisations mentioned in this statutory instrument. I am going to limit my remarks to Palestine Action, as that is the subject of the noble Baroness’s regret amendment, and draw attention to and support several things the Minister said.

In part two of the amendment, the noble Baroness talks about the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation and mentions property damage. The Minister made it quite clear that, on multiple occasions, this particular group has been involved not just in property damage. The attack against the Thales factory in Glasgow caused over £1 million pounds-worth of damage and caused panic among the staff, who feared for their safety as pyrotechnics and smoke bombs were thrown into the area to which they were evacuating. When passing custodial sentence for the perpetrators, the sheriff said that throwing pyrotechnics at areas where people are being evacuated to cannot be described as non-violent.

It is very clear that this organisation is careless about the effects of its actions on people. I am not going to draw attention to the specific event that is now the subject of criminal charges, but once you start attacking the defence assets of the United Kingdom—the people and property designed to keep this country safe—you cross a line. That is a line that peaceful protesters do not cross, and it helps support proscription.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

In that case, would the noble Lord have proscribed the Greenham women?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and I look forward to hearing many more of his contributions to this House.

I want to talk about Parts 3 and 4 of the Bill. On Part 4, it is my experience, some years ago as a councillor in Somerset, providing and maintaining sites for Gypsies and Travellers, that leads me to realise what an utter disgrace this part is. The Minister said in opening that this was in the Conservative manifesto, and so it was. It was a dog whistle that really builds on social anxieties to garner votes, and that is about as low as it gets. It also demands the impossible. It reminds me of the ill-guided bedroom tax legislation, because that demanded that people move to smaller houses when there were no smaller houses for them to move to. This is the same: it demands that people solve a situation where there are no sites available for them. It is just inadequate provision. Really, the Government need to rethink this entire part and get rid of this part entirely.

I was interested in the well-meant speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on Part 3, which I now turn to. It put me in mind of a quote from the author John Grisham, who said:

“Privileged people don’t march and protest; their world is safe and clean and governed by laws designed to keep them happy.”


Of course, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, reminded us about the suffragettes. Women would not have the vote had they not been marching, protesting and disrupting life around Parliament tremendously. I believe that street protest is a fundamental protection that people have when those in power get it wrong, at not only a national but a local level. We have barely mentioned the local level this afternoon, but that is equally important. Feet on the street is a way of protecting your local playing field or library when they are threatened with closure. This country has rightly deplored regimes that criminalise dissent and discourage protest with threats of jail. Yet here we are, in this part, looking at doing just those things. To be noticed, dissent cannot be silent; it is likely to be disruptive and upsetting. I remember protesting once with the charity Baby Milk Action. We had a small white coffin on the high street in Yeovil, and it did upset passers-by but they were really interested in why we had a coffin there. If this Bill had been in place, I expect we would have been charged with upsetting the local population.

Part 3 of the Bill as it stands would have a very chilling effect on protest, because the proposed crime of serious annoyance carries a big sentence. As others have eloquently said, it is just not adequate to leave the Home Secretary to define that part. When looking at Part 3, I ask myself why it is in the Bill at all. I think it is there because the Government have realised, and Boris Johnson in particular has realised, just how many howls of protest there will be when the current Conservative proposals come into being, in communities in towns and villages that will be excluded from planning decisions under the planning Bill, and from thousands of people as the Government fail on climate change measures, such as the appalling collapse of the Green Homes policy. The Minister condemned some of the Extinction Rebellion actions yesterday. The name of their campaign was Insulate Britain, and that is a direct result of the Government ratting on the Green Homes policy.

In conclusion, do the Government really believe that those who voice their concerns loudly should suffer for life? That is exactly what will happen if they have a criminal record. Algorithms check whether you have a criminal record. It will be impossible for you to get a job interview, to rent a house or to get a visa for the United States. Life will be a series of no, no, no. As this Bill stands, if you care about your future, you cannot afford to go on marches or attend protests. But if you care about the future, you really cannot afford not to do those things. You have to try to protect the things you see as under threat, whether it is the whole planet or your local sports field. Our job is to make sure that that is still possible.

Operation Midland

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what urgent steps they will take to restore confidence in the Metropolitan Police following the conclusions of Sir Richard Henriques report into Operation Midland.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, allegations of sexual offences are among the most serious to be investigated by the police. The police have a responsibility to investigate such allegations, thoroughly, sensitively and with rigour, so that the facts can be established. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was right to ask Sir Richard Henriques to carry out this independent report, and it is now for the Metropolitan Police to address the findings and take action where necessary.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her reply. An initial reading of the report suggests that the operation fell short on a number of issues of natural justice. I want to ask the Minister about one: will she make sure that her department issues guidance that people under investigation should remain anonymous until the police are in a position to bring charges?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we had a very good debate on this in the last couple of weeks and there is a general principle: people should remain anonymous before charge, but there are circumstances in which names may be released and it is in order for victims to come forward. I must say to the noble Baroness that victims’ groups support that principle.

Calais: Refugee Camp

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, appreciate the work that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has done. He has done as much as a parliamentarian can, and more, to keep this issue at the top of our agenda. I add my heartfelt thanks to him for all his effort and work in doing that.

The noble Lord has covered the issues that the Minister needs to answer this afternoon. I shall add some comments as the trustee of a charity, Articulate, which works in the camp in Calais with its partner Hummingbird. These charities work to provide a safe space for children in the camp where they spend some hours doing things that children normally do, such as drawing and playing. I want to pay tribute to all the volunteers who go over to Calais for these charities, at their own expense, often giving up their own work to do so. The conditions they work in are really difficult, and there is no structure to rely on, a point I shall come back to at the end of my speech. I shall share a few of their comments with noble Lords and then ask the Minister a question.

The first comment from one of our volunteers is: “I used to worry when I read about the refugee crisis and the so-called Jungle in Calais in our newspapers, or saw images of children in the camp living in squalid conditions on my TV screen. But now I worry when I don’t—when I know that what is happening is going unreported”.

The second comment is: “I have been working in Calais with children and young people since April, and each week that I go I see the situation deteriorate. Now with winter approaching, hope in the camp is diminishing and the boys are taking greater risks to get to the UK. I now worry each week when I leave the camp that a child we have got to know over the past five months will become another name on the ever growing list of children who have disappeared or lost their lives crossing borders”.

The third comment is: “A deaf boy who we see regularly in our safe space drew me a picture of the different ways he attempts to get into a lorry each night to get to the UK. The image only highlights to me the absolute danger this child is in”.

The volunteers mention many of the health issues—“weeping, itchy eyes from the CRS firing tear gas into the camp, children who have terrible coughs, children who have scabies. These children certainly need proper medical attention”.

The final comment is along the lines that were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, in her powerful contribution: “The camp has no protection from within, you could say it is pretty lawless. CRS who guard it are known to be physically abusive to the children and the children report this to us frequently. There is no one official to tell when things are happening at night. The worst thing about the camp, they said, was the lack of protection. The youngest we work with who is unaccompanied is eight, and there are children with disabilities and high needs in the camp”.

My comment to the Minister echoes that of the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. Surely the very least that can be provided by two of the wealthiest nations in western Europe is temporary accommodation that is fit for children, regular, nutritious food that they can count on and medical attention that addresses their basic needs while they are going through the lengthy processes that they will inevitably have to go through. From time to time, Ministers have said that this would not be possible because it might create a pull factor, but it can be ring-fenced to the children there now—not a huge number. The fact that we in Britain and France cannot get our officials and Home Secretaries together to provide something like this in the next few months, until these children get their passage, is something the Minister needs to explain this afternoon.

Calais: Refugee Children

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will address the position of the refugee children in the Calais camps who are eligible to come to Britain.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as a trustee of a charity that works in the Calais camp, among other places.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, we are already working closely with the French to help to identify and transfer children who are eligible and are about to second another UK expert to France to support that work. Over 70 children have been accepted already this year and more arrive almost every week. Transfer requests are now generally processed within 10 days, and children are transferred within weeks.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, and I read carefully her reply to my noble friend yesterday. However, as she said, some 70 children have been accepted this year, which is about two a week, and yesterday she asserted that her department is working very quickly. Is she satisfied that that is quick enough? Given that the French intend to dismantle the camp by Christmas and that at least 370 children are eligible, that should be more like 20 a week. Further, does she realise that young people seeing the camp dismantled will take greater and greater risks in trying to get on to vehicles coming to the UK? Can the Minister assure the House that her department will be able to up the capacity to at least nearer 20 a week?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, on the question of whether we are doing things quickly enough, in an ideal world we would move all the children tomorrow. However, we cannot just take a child out of a country—I tried to make that clear yesterday and I make it clear today. Following due process is in the best interests of any child whom we are concerned about. We have to take account of the laws of the country in question—that is, France. When the child is in France, he or she is under its jurisdiction. We are working very closely with that country to make sure that children are transferred as quickly as possible. The welfare of the child is utmost.

Terrorist Attack in Nice

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes a good point about the things we need to do in this country, which we do. The amount of barriers outside this building has certainly increased in the time that I have been here, and our security and intelligence services monitor the places around the country which they feel are vulnerable, and measures are put in place accordingly.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

One of the things that the French really appreciated after the attacks in Paris was that British people continued to visit France, and enjoy all that it has to offer, in such numbers. I am sure that the Minister will agree with me that it is really important for the message to go out that France is no more dangerous than any other country—I declare my interests in the register—and that it is a destination that British people should still be pleased to visit.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness reflects some of the comments that I heard in the light of some of the spikes in hate crime after the EU referendum. We should not let these sorts of events defeat us: France is a beautiful country that many people want—and will continue to want—to visit, and we should not be cowed by these sorts of threats. We should continue our daily lives and our holidays to these lovely countries.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, this Government have told us time and again that they have a long-term economic plan but they have been pretty silent on any environmental plan.

The issue I want to talk about is a big threat to our next generation—I think that is widely recognised—but it is also symptomatic of how economics have taken over from social and environmental issues. The issue I want to talk about is obesity and why the next generation are eating so badly that they are becoming either really obese or malnourished. We now have the worst overweight figures in the OECD. Why is that? I recognise that it is a long-term problem but it starts because the food system itself is broken.

Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s erstwhile adviser, was talking about this during the publicity for the publication of his book a couple of weeks ago. He says that taxpayer subsidies prop up an iniquitous structure rigidly set up in favour of “big food” and that those subsidies should be redirected to farmers and producers who are doing the right thing. I agree with him, but what a shame he did not say that when he was at the heart of government. The food sector is always siloed into one government department when actually it is a question of things that happen in Defra, the Department of Health and the Department for Education—it cuts across all departments. So what a shame he did not take advantage of his position while he had it.

The food system is broken. At one end we have the producers producing excellent meat, fruit and veg who cannot make a reasonable living. The noble Lord, Lord Plumb, highlighted the dairy farmers. The noble Lord, Lord Curry, put it rather well, I thought, when he said that the farmers are those with whom the buck stops. Young, enterprising would-be growers cannot even afford the land upon which to start.

Of course, historically the choice was made to subsidise sugar production and not vegetables, and wheat but not fruit, and we have had to live with the results of that. But it is also a part of the system where manufacturers are creating processed foods that really have no nutritional value. Supermarkets are basically in a race to the bottom on cost and have found that the less nutritious food sells if you give it enough so-called mouth appeal—that is, sweet, salty foods. I am sure that noble Lords will be as shocked as I was by the Netmums finding that:

“Sugar is used in massive quantities by the food industry”.

The example given was Heinz Farley’s Rusks, which contain 29g of sugar per 100g. Those are for babies and nearly a third is sugar.

However, the answers are within our reach. One of the best moments for me of the coalition Government was when Nick Clegg, then Deputy Prime Minister, announced that the long-held Liberal Democrat policy of starting children off with a good nutritional input would become government policy so that proper school meals would be provided for every single infant school pupil for free. I hope that this Government will continue that drive to make sure that at least primary schoolchildren get that sort of start in life. Perhaps the Minister will reflect on the fact that while the Government are set on creating more academies and free schools, those children will be offered meals that do not have to measure up to any nutritional standards at all.

I was very saddened to read that the UK Government are now one of only three out of 28 in the EU to decline to take part in an EU scheme that makes the provision of affordable fruit and vegetables for schoolchildren a possibility. I wonder why the Government have declined to take part in that. We took part in the milk scheme that the EU ran and that has been amalgamated with the fruit and veg scheme. Of course, obesity is not just a UK problem and this is one example of the EU trying to give children a better start in life. Why would we not take part in that? We need a total overhaul of a broken food system which is ruining the health of our children and, at the same time, ruining countries far away.

I am sad, too, that the noble Lord, Lord Eden of Winton, is to leave this House because he is one of the few to have championed biodiversity and what is happening to the rainforests. In countries far away, the impact of the vast quantities of soya grown to feed our cattle and pigs is massive, when our home-grown grass for cattle produces a far healthier diet and meat of a superior quality. Those countries far away are losing their varied habitats to a monoculture, so we will miss the examples from the noble Lord, Lord Eden, of that sort of destruction.

The Government are consulting on the Human Rights Act. They should bear in mind that a decent environment in which to live is one of the most basic rights of all. Environmental protection, whether here or abroad, must be considered as part of human rights. Although there was no protection of the environment in the original 1949 European Convention on Human Rights, many other countries have since recognised its importance of in their fundamental laws. Notably, Germany added that in 1994, while in France in 2004 an environmental charter was added to the French constitution. We are approaching the 800th anniversary of the Charter of the Forest. We have talked a lot about Magna Carta, which was terrific for the barons, but the Charter of the Forest was what gave the person living on the land, and trying to make a living from it, some rights of their own against the encroachment of the King. It is time that we celebrated that 800th anniversary by thinking about environmental rights and putting them at the heart of what we regard as human rights.

Children: Online Privacy

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we need to keep this matter constantly under review. We cannot be at all complacent about it and the relevant advice will need to be strengthened as the technology advances. The Government have set up a website through the National Crime Agency called Thinkuknow, which is aimed specifically at young people—indeed, children as young as five—and has specific information on this issue. In the context of this Question, new guidance is available there to young people who feel that they may have been a victim of this particular hacking incident.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, as the shocking case in Indonesia showed, not only are children in this country at risk, but adults in this country are preying on the privacy of children in countries which may not have the same capacity as we do to ensure the privacy of their children.

[Lord Bates]

Yes, indeed, my noble friend is absolutely right. That is why the child exploitation unit command within the National Crime Agency is now able to tap into the National Cyber Crime Unit. There are officers in some 40 different countries around the world. It is also why the Prime Minister will host a conference in December with representatives and partners from more than 50 countries to see what more can be done.