Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I have never committed murder or been a hangman, but I can take a view on capital punishment from a moral view. To disaggregate people and their right or obligation to comment on the debate is not helpful. I caveat that by saying I have an awful lot of respect for how eloquently the noble Baroness put her case.

As I said at Second Reading, this will harm women, increase the number of late-term abortions and dehumanise children in the womb in a way I find chilling. But that has not been reflected on in the way that this has come to form part of the Bill.

During the debate on Report in the other place, which lasted a little over two hours in total, three new clauses were debated: proposed new Clause 1, which is now Clause 191; proposed new Clause 20, which proposed an even more extreme form of decriminalisation than that which we are considering today; and proposed new Clause 106, which I am delighted to see tabled again as Amendment 460 in the name of my noble friend Lady Stroud, which, needless to say, I strongly support.

In fact, saying that there were two hours of debate on such a significant proposal is perhaps overly generous. Sandwiched between the remarks of the three Members moving the proposed new clauses and the responses of the Front Benches, just 46 minutes were given over to speeches from Back-Bench MPs. The point is that there has been a scandalous lack of consideration of this change in our law and its impact.

I accept that some aspects of abortion law are an issue of conscience, but that is not a “get out of jail free” card for failure to undertake any form of due diligence, particularly on proposals that many of us regard as potentially dangerous. There is no impact assessment, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny and there has been no consultation of any kind. I hope that the Minister, in responding to this group, addresses those issues.

I strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, in her proposal to remove Clause 191 from the Bill and will do so again on Report. However, the danger of Clause 191 is compounded by the continuation of the pandemic hangover policy of pills by post, which provides for easy access to abortion pills without sufficient checks. I am afraid I simply cannot understand the view that holds that Clause 191 is pro-women. In combination with the ongoing availability of pills by post, it instead seems to me to offer the worst of both worlds. It opens the gates for overly expeditious access to less-than-safe care.

As the Member for Reigate in the other place has said:

“Being pro-choice should not mean supporting fewer checks and worse care for women seeking an abortion. Indeed, this is an issue where both sides of the abortion debate ought to eschew tribalism and unite in support of common-sense measures that safeguard women”.


I hope that we can rise above tribalism on this issue and find some common ground.

There are amendments in this group which I strongly support, including Amendments 455 and 459, but I will move on to my own Amendment 461F. While I would pick out other excellent amendments from this group, in the interests of time I will speak to my amendment particularly. My amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance on the investigation of offences relating to abortion and infanticide within 12 months of the commencement of Clause 191. The amendment is concerned with providing clarity and clear protocols to distinguish between what would be a decriminalised self-induced abortion and a criminal act of infanticide or child destruction.

My amendment is also designed to reassure proponents of Clause 191, including some who advise concern about possible intimidation or distress caused to a woman who may have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. I recognise those concerns. Women facing miscarriage, stillbirth or medical crisis deserve care, dignity and compassion and nothing in my amendment would change that. However, I point to the other way around and suggest that the absence of clear guidance is what can produce overreach and inconsistency. When professionals are left uncertain about the law and about thresholds, practice understandably becomes variable. Some cases may be mishandled—

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I am puzzled by something that the noble Lord has said and perhaps he would like to clarify. I am not quite sure how jailing women is pro-women.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

If the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, will forgive me, I did not quite hear the last part of her question.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

The noble Lord has talked about being pro-women and I would like him to explain to the Committee why jailing women is pro-women.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

The simple point is that if Clause 191 is incorporated into the Bill, we will have a situation where many more women are under threat of coercion and many more women will face complications. Even the incomplete and substandard figures produced by the Department of Health on abortion in 2023 show that, at over 20 weeks’ gestation, 60.3% of women per 100,000 experienced complications arising from abortion in all clinical settings. That phenomenon will continue and will get worse. I hope that that is sufficient for the noble Baroness.

My amendment is directed towards striking an appropriate balance by providing legal certainty that would prevent overzealous investigation, weighed against the need to protect children. By defining clear thresholds for investigation, we protect vulnerable women while maintaining a shield for infants born alive. Clause 191 fundamentally changes our legal landscape and it is appropriate and reasonable to require updated public consultative guidance so that police and prosecutors understand what remains investigable, what standards apply and how to act lawfully and consistently.

In conclusion, if Parliament insists on decriminalising the woman’s role in procuring her own abortion, it has a profound moral duty to ensure that the law can still protect the infant the moment it leaves the womb. Amendment 461F is a measured attempt to ensure this and arguably the bare minimum in terms of responsible lawmaking. I urge noble Lords to support my amendment and others in this group, which seek to protect women and the most vulnerable lives among us. I urge Ministers to consider my Amendment 461F carefully as the Bill moves to Report.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend on the Front Bench. When Section 149 of the Equality Act came into effect, it was seen largely as benign. It very reasonably imposed an obligation on public sector organisations to treat people with fairness and equality and to ensure that there was equality of opportunity within the organisation and in the interface that those bodies had with the wider public, whether it was local government, the NHS or other bodies. However, it has unfortunately been the subject of Parkinson’s law, where the work expands to fill the category. Therefore, instead of focus on the managerial targets, action plans and strategy documents which would deliver demonstrable improvement in policing performance across a wide number of areas and criminal activity, there has often, regrettably, been an overfocus on the public sector equality duty.

As someone with a background as a human resources manager and practitioner, I believe that every decent leadership in every organisation should have a set of policies which deliver fairness and equality within the organisation. It should not be incumbent upon the Government to compel organisations to do something that they should already be doing. Many leading organisations in the public and private sector do so anyway because treating people with fairness and decency and giving them opportunity delivers better performance.

I apologise to the Committee for mentioning again my experience on the British Transport Police Authority. At the end of October 2023, I was invited to attend a workshop on diversity, equality and inclusion. That cost the taxpayer £29,000 for, essentially, two days of a workshop, some handouts and some supplementary material which contained contested theories around critical race theory, white privilege and microaggressions. I declined to attend the first day; the second day was much more productive because it was focused on the senior management objectives of the British Transport Police. This expansion of the public sector equality duty has been inimical to the main objectives of policing, which are to tackle crime and protect the safety and security of our citizens—on the railways, in the case of the BTP, and in the wider country.

There is a special case to be made that policing is different because it has the responsibility, as a corporate entity within the Peel principles, to police by consent and to treat people equally irrespective of their age, race, religion or ethnicity. There is an issue of undermining the trust and faith people have in the police if we concentrate too much on a duty which is quite divisive, contentious and controversial.

For those reasons, I support my noble friend’s amendment and look forward to the Minister’s answer. I hope that he will at least engage with the argument. He is shaking his head—I do not know why, because we have not yet concluded the debate. He should know better than to dismiss any noble Lord before the conclusion of a debate. For the reasons I have enunciated, I hope that the Minister will at least engage with the debate in a thoughtful way, which is what we normally expect from him.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, the public sector equality duty exists so that our public services in the UK, which are funded by all of us, obey the laws on equalities. It is there because that is not what used to happen—and sometimes it still does not happen. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that all he had to do was watch the recent television programme about the goings-on—the racism and misogyny—in one of our local police stations to know that we need these things on our statute book. As a veteran of the Equality Act 2010, I am very proud that we have them there. I hope my noble friend the Minister will give his usual defence of, “It’s Labour that always triumphs and always puts forward equalities, because that is actually important for our society”.

Foetal Sentience Committee Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I think that is a fatuous conspiracy theory again, but, if the noble Baroness satisfactorily answers my question about the involvement of Marie Stopes International and BPAS in the RCOG, I will gladly debate with her on the issues that she raises.

If I can continue—

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I really must ask—

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I will not give way.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I am not addressing the noble Lord. I am speaking to my colleagues on his Front Bench. I am very sorry, but shouting “you” and pointing is not the conduct that we expect in this House. It is in our guidance, so I ask the Government Whip to please remonstrate with his colleague not to behave like that.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I say to noble Lords that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, had ample opportunity to make her points. She intervened on me and I put a very reasonable question back to her. Perhaps I can now continue.

Noble Lords may be aware of a fascinating peer-reviewed academic study published in 2010 of twins in the womb at 14 weeks of gestation. The study found that the twins’ self-directed hand movements were more calibrated than movements to the uterine wall, while movements towards the co-twin exhibited even greater care. The study determined that such deliberate actions could not be the result simply of spontaneous reflexes. The team behind the study concluded that these findings force us to predate the emergence of social behaviour. Another study published by a team of child psychologists and neuroscientists in 2006 found “surprisingly advanced motor planning” in foetuses at 22 weeks’ gestation, again pointing towards a sentience of the foetus during the second trimester of pregnancy.

These are precisely the kinds of studies that ought to be informing government policy, yet neither was cited in the RCOG reports on foetal sentience to which my noble friend alluded earlier. Some will no doubt argue that a committee is not required when we have the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to guide us, but, on the contrary, I would suggest that RCOG reports on foetal sentience highlight the need for objectivity in this area and there are a number of good reasons to be cautious about accepting the conclusions. The RCOG itself has now distanced itself from some of the conclusions in its 2010 report. For example, its updated 2022 report no longer asserts, as the earlier one did, that a foetus is in “continuous sleep-like unconsciousness or sedation”. The 2022 report also removed a section on responding to common questions that included answering the question, “Will the baby feel or suffer pain?” with “No, the foetus does not experience pain”. Seemingly, it is no longer sure.

Since the RCOG has rejected sections of its own report, it would seem wise not to assume that its 2022 update is wholly reliable either. In a letter published in the European Journal of Pain, Italian neonatologist and bioethicist Carlo Bellini, who has written extensively on foetal pain, has questioned the conclusions of the 2022 report, arguing that they were based on misrepresentations and incorrect extrapolations of research cited in their support. As a layman of course it is difficult for me to comment objectively on differing research, but what is clear is that government policy would be assisted by a committee that can provide objectivity in this debate and consider all relevant findings. In fact, this is something that ought to be supported by the RCOG.

Let me finish with a final reflection on why this matters beyond simply informing the abortion debate. A 2007 academic journal cited in Neurodevelopment Changes of Foetal Pain asserted:

“Exposure of the foetus and premature newborn to pain has been associated with long-term alterations in pain response thresholds as well as changes in behavioural responses relating to the painful stimuli”.


In other words, if a baby experiences pain before birth, it may impact its development and behaviour in later life. It is therefore imperative that we understand foetal sentience adequately so that any treatment of unborn babies is performed in a way that will not lead to long-term damage. I therefore strongly support my noble friend’s Bill.