Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Committee stage
Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Follow that, my Lords.

I appreciate the measured approach of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, to the significant measures that he proposes in his amendments, and I appreciate the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, from the Front Bench, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, in support of the measured way in which he brought forward his amendments. Having said that, I stand with the noble Baronesses, Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green and Lady Brinton, in saying that I cannot and would not wish to accept those amendments. Hate crime legislation exists because offences motivated by prejudice inflict deep harm on victims and on entire communities. These crimes target people for who they are, undermining social cohesion and spreading fear. It is my view that repeal would not just send a wrong signal but say that identity-based hostility is no more serious an offence than any other offence, and I am afraid that it is. Our laws rightly recognise its heightened impact and ensure that justice outcomes reflect that gravity.

Despite the fact that the noble Lord and others have mentioned and prayed in aid figures that have risen, hate crime laws deter abuse. They uphold the shared values of society. The noble Baroness, Lady Hunt, made the very good point that they provide a measure of awareness and of the potential for those offences. Ultimately, they protect victims with protected characteristics that they cannot change. It is really important to remember that they are being attacked, or preyed on in many ways, for characteristics that they cannot change.

Let us be clear, because the noble Lord has been measured and clear, that this amendment would remove offences of stirring up racial hatred. It would abolish—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, it took me a few seconds to react to and think about what the Minister said. For the information of the House, I think it would be fair to recognise that several of the nine protected characteristics are not immutable and are capable of change. Gender identity is one; marriage and civil partnership is another. Let us be clear: some are immutable, but others are capable of change. I am not expressing an opinion on this proposed new clause, but in general it is fair to say that protected characteristics socially evolve and develop over time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is a view, but not one that I share. There are protections in the Public Order Act 1986 against stirring up hatred on racial or religious grounds because, yes, I am equal under the law if I have that hatred against me, but that hatred may be generated because I happen to have a racial or religious characteristic that is subject to attack. So, we are not equal under the law, because if I did not have that racial or religious characteristic I would not have been attacked. For me, that is therefore an aggravating factor and a reason why we should maintain those offences.

I go back to what I was saying a moment ago. This would remove offences of stirring up hatred under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act. It would abolish racial and religiously aggravated offences under the Crime and Disorder Act and delete aggravating factors of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity from the Sentencing Code. At the very time when Jewish people are being attacked for being Jewish and transgender people are being attacked for being transgender, that is not acceptable. I am not saying that either noble Lord wishes to encourage or support that type of activity—I recognise from the measured way in which they put their arguments that they do not. They have an honestly held opinion that removing that legislation would be of benefit to society. I happen to disagree and I am trying to put the reason why. If there is clear water between us, that is the nature of political life. I am not imputing any characteristics to the noble Lord for bringing this measure forward.

However, the effect of this would be to compromise the ability of the courts to reflect the greater harm—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green, said—to undermine deterrence and clarity for police and prosecutors and to signal that those crimes are no more serious when they are motivated by hostility toward protected characteristics, contrary to long-standing principle. It would also risk eroding public confidence, particularly among people with those protected characteristics. The underreporting that the noble Baroness mentioned would absolutely nosedive if these provisions were taken away, because people would think that society had not put that down as a benchmark by which people should be judged. I am therefore afraid that I cannot accept the amendment.

I must also give notice to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, who made a very helpful plea that we should not bring forward further protected characteristics. I regret to inform him that, on Report, I will be very proud to stand here and move an amendment which puts transgender and disability as protected characteristics, in line with the manifesto on which my party stood and won an election in July 2024. We will be bringing forward amendments in the Crime and Policing Bill on Report to give effect to this change. We can have that debate openly and honestly, but I say to the Committee that society has some basic principles of respect that it should enshrine in law. The legislation that the noble Lord is seeking to remove would undermine that principle and I will not support it.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I have listened carefully to this debate and the previous one without intervening. I have a lot of sympathy with the Minister, as he knows, on many of the measures in the Bill, but I am a little surprised at his unequivocal rejection of several of these kinds of amendments, only because we have the Macdonald review going on. Will he accept that, if it comes up with recommendations while the Bill is not yet an Act, he will accept amendments to take on board those recommendations?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Let me say two things in response to that. We have commissioned the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, to look at a review of protests and a range of matters to do with that legislation. However—and this is where I accept what the noble Baroness said—we will have to look at what the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, brings forward and the Government will have to take political decisions on whether we accept it.

I am defending a principle here today. The noble Lord will be looking at potential issues around implementation, tweaks, et cetera, but the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, has made a well-measured assault on legislative tenets. I cannot ever see this Government accepting the removal of those legislative tenets, but we will always accept the recommendations being looked at. Going back to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green, on how we can improve the monitoring, policing and understanding of these issues, it is a complex area, as the noble Baroness knows through her experience and recent appointments.

We will also be bringing forward on Report offences relating to transgender and disability, which was in our manifesto commitment. That is another complex area, which is why it has taken time for us to get to the stage of bringing forward the amendment. When we do so, we will have to look at it in the context of the whole package that the noble Baroness has worked on, that this Committee is looking at now and on which the noble Lord made his comments.

From this Dispatch Box today, I simply say that I cannot accept his amendments. I think he knew that before he introduced them. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, hinted as much in his contribution, but I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. If he revisits this on Report, we will have that discussion again in a fair, open and measured way, as we have today.

Shamima Begum

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, in the Home Secretary’s recent Statement on a fairer pathway to settlement, she emphasised good character and conduct for the granting of citizenship. Does the Minister agree that, in the case of naturalised citizens who have had a very short period of residency in this country, their presence in the UK being conducive to the public good adds to and is in conformity with her views?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The position that the noble Baroness refers to is currently subject to consultation. I will take that as a representation, because I will need to look at the details of what she has said with a forensic eye after this Question Time is over. The key point is that proposals that the Home Secretary has brought forward are to ensure that we put some discipline and management into the migration system. The good character test is one that is currently open to interpretation through consultation.

UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I declare an interest as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but I am speaking in a personal capacity today.

The Minister has given a spirited defence of all the international actions that the Government are taking to try to battle this pernicious trade. Closer to home, in terms of our internal domestic actions, he has been remarkably silent on President Macron’s exhortation to our Government to do more in domestic law to challenge what happens here, not least our very lax labour standards in the large grey market, which is the pull factor that brings so many people to come here in such treacherous journeys.

Will the Government contemplate looking at two things proposed by Sir Trevor Phillips, a member of the Minister’s own party? One is digital ID cards, also proposed by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and rolling them out. The objections of 2006—I remember them well—are no longer as palpable as they were then on the part of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives because you can design the system very differently with technology now.

The second thing would be to tax remittances because the whole point of someone coming and trying to work here is so that they can improve things at home. Remittances have apparently gone up from £6 billion to £9 billion, so that would be a lucrative way of filling the black hole. I wonder whether the Minister would comment on those things.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point on some of the pull factors and the illegal grey market and black market in employment. She will know that we spent a lot of time last night on the Employment Rights Bill. That is partly to ensure that we undertake those standards. At the Home Office, we have been engaged over the past six months in an active programme of cracking down on illegal working, removing people who are found to be working illegally and taking action against individuals who have been involved in providing that illegal work. I can supply figures to her after this discussion on the success rates of those actions.

The noble Baroness mentions ID cards. I have said many times in this House that I was a Minister in the Home Office when we had ID cards. They were scrapped by the coalition Government. There are no plans to return to ID cards, but, self-evidently, we want to ensure that we have biometric and other data for people arriving in this country, and that data is collected at a local level. The question of remittances is one that I will reflect on after this discussion, but we have to ensure, from my perspective, that the pull factors are dealt with. The key focus of the Government is to get international co-operation to smash the gangs that are dealing with the aftermath of some big worldwide problems, exploiting people, selling them false promises, putting their lives in danger and allowing people to enter illegally. We believe that on an international basis, we should have that co-operation to manage those pressures in a more positive and constructive way.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Monday 20th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord has experience far beyond any that I could bring to this House, so I am grateful for his contribution today. He raises an extremely important point. We have established a fund—it is of only £5 million, but it is available to all local authorities to draw on to establish the work that needs to be done. That was in the initial announcement from my right honourable friend in the House of Commons last week and will be kept under review for the future. We have given the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, a remit to look at the existing areas of concern within local authorities. No doubt she will come back with an audit and further recommendations for the Government to consider.

I recognise that the noble Lord has concerns about long-term funding for key services that are about interventions. I can say to him only that we are going to keep all that under review. I know I will have his support, and that of others with great experience, in implementing the IICSA recommendations and when we bring back proposals on the other recommendations, in what might be only 10 weeks’ time.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, although I am speaking in a personal capacity today. About a week ago, when the Minister and I engaged on a similar but different Statement, I asked him two questions and he said he would need to go away and think about them. One was about data. I do not know whether he has seen the reports, based on freedom of information requests, about backsliding. I very much welcome the emphasis on ethnicity data collection and demographics, as the Statement says. Has he seen the statistics? I will give him only three examples. In Hampshire, in the past five years, 58% of offenders sentenced for all sexual offences involving children were recorded as having an unknown ethnicity. In West Mercia, it was 55%, and in Leicestershire, it was 52%. If the police are already not recording identity for fear of being accused of either racism or Islamophobia, what are the Government going to do, before we get the full gamut of actions under the Jay report, to ensure that the current requirements are met?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness had a conversation with me, both in this Chamber and outside. She will know that there are occasions when Ministers can absorb views but cannot necessarily give definitive answers, because policy is developed outside of just the discussions in this House and in government as a whole. I hope she will welcome that one of the policy initiatives in the second Statement made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary was the collection of data—the very point she raised with me before we made that announcement. I could not give her assurances then because we had not made the announcement; now we have. That data will be collected by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. If it shows matters that need to be addressed, they will be addressed, to try to reduce this curse.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I reiterate my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, for establishing the inquiry in the first place. She was right to do so, and in due course I want to do justice to the recommendations that have come out of that inquiry.

She raised an extremely important point about companies, because online grooming material, the deepfake stuff now coming out and a whole range other material are extremely worrying and perturbing. Social media companies must have responsibility for that as well as society. The Government will introduce a requirement for companies to report online child sexual exploitation and abuse identified on their services to the National Crime Agency. This requirement will be underpinned by regulations which will ensure that companies provide high-quality reports with the information that law enforcement needs both to identify offenders and to help support and safeguard victims. In-scope companies—and we will have to determine which those are—will have to demonstrate that they already report under existing mandatory or voluntary overseas reporting regimes, which will ensure that they are exempt from this recommendation and avoid duplication of companies’ efforts.

I hope that I can reassure the noble Baroness completely that online companies have a real responsibility. They cannot just host material; they must have responsibility for some of that content. The steps that I have outlined, which are underpinned by the first three elements of the response to the report, are ones which the Government will take forward with some urgency.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and I want to make it clear to the whole House that I am speaking in a personal capacity today.

I want to ask the Minister about the proposal in IICSA for a single core dataset, which the Government say in the Statement that they are planning to implement. Would this be an accessible dataset, open and transparent? Or would journalists, or others seeking information on that dataset, need to go through the inevitable delays that freedom of information requests and appeals entail? This is particularly important because, as he will know, the other recommendation of IICSA is that a national public awareness campaign be mounted. National public awareness will work only if we call out people, particularly those who are now, we are told, for the first time going to be described by ethnicity in that database.

As, I think, the only person in the House who grew up within those communities, having grown up in Pakistan, I want to refer to deportations to that country. Can the Minister tell the House what steps the Government are planning to take to seek deportation of those who are convicted and who then seek to thwart that through renouncing their nationality—I refer particularly to Pakistan in this regard? Will he call in the Pakistani ambassador and open talks with the Pakistani Government to ensure that those who have dual nationality are not permitted to renounce it once they are under police investigation?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for those questions. There is a significant amount of detail in the points that she has raised, and I hope she will understand and bear with me when I say that the Government are working through the broad objectives that we have set. The first three objectives I have mentioned are on mandatory reporting, the grooming aggravated offence and online work. These are the three major priorities.

I note what the noble Baroness said about the database. If she will allow me, I want to reflect in detail on that point. It is an important way in which information is put into the public domain and I do not want to commit today to things that we find are impractical or counterproductive downstream. I will note that point and follow up on it.

The noble Baroness made a point about convicted individuals from a particular nation. From the Government’s point of view, people who commit child abuse—whatever their race, ethnicity, background, sexual orientation or other things—should be held to account by the forces of the law and prosecuted accordingly when evidence is brought forward. In the event that she mentioned, of someone who has been convicted who has a nationality which is not British and has served a sentence in a jail in this country, the Government always reserve the right to deport that individual back to their home country in due course. The noble Baroness raised dual nationality issues. If she will allow me, rather than commit today on the detail of that extremely technical and complicated issue, I will take it back and discuss it, but it is an important procedure going forward.

I say to the noble Baroness and to all in this House that I want to focus not just on the nationality of any particular or potential groomers or offenders but on people who undertake grooming and offending and to make sure that we tackle that across the board. Individuals of whatever nationality should be held to account for their criminal actions.