Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak on Amendment 469, and I have listened with great care to the persuasive argument presented by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, whom I think I can also refer to as a noble friend. I have also been briefed by Justice, a body that I have the highest respect for; indeed, I have been a member of Justice—I think I joined in 1964—for up to 60 years.

I accept the widespread view in other countries that the age for findings of criminality should be 14 years, which is the proposition in Amendment 469. I accept also that Scotland has recently raised the age of criminality from eight years to 12 years. We should also take into account the alarming increase in crime committed by young children going down to the age of nine years, and even lower. I read, for example, from Home Office statistics, which record that 9,544 offences were committed by children aged nine or younger in 2024. That is a rise of 30% on the 7,370 under-10 crimes recorded in 2019, before the pandemic, and an 18% rise on the total for 2022 of 8,064. They range, alarmingly, over crimes concerning rape, arson, stalking, attacking police, making death threats and drug and racially motivated offences—that is for nine year-olds. In Cheshire recently, police faced an attempted murder suspect who was too young to go before the courts. I take full account of all that.

However, I have a sense of unease in raising the age of criminality from 10 to 14 years. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, raised the case relating to two year-old James Bulger, of February 1993. I need not go into the full facts, but it suffices to say that in a shopping centre in Bootle in Merseyside, a little boy, two year-old James Bulger, was separated from his mother and was met by two other boys, 10 year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. They proceeded to take him away, eventually to a railway line, where they committed the most horrendous murder of that little boy. Following that, they were tried and convicted in November 1993 and in June 2001 were released from prison on licence. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has dealt with their anonymity following their release.

The record is that—and I think this is very relevant—Robert Thompson is not known to have been a reoffender, but not so with Jon Venables. He has had multiple convictions, including for child pornography. He is currently in prison and recently, in 2023, bail was refused because he still posed a danger and a risk to the public. As I said, I have expressed my unease about this.

The only further comment I make on the horrendous case relating to poor two year-old James Bulger is that it is not the only recorded crime of horrendous behaviour by young persons. I recall reading in the newspaper of the recent murder of a pensioner, and I am fairly sure that it was underage children who were responsible for that. I also recall reading in the newspapers of the murder of a homosexual in a public park. Again, if I recall correctly, underage children were involved, including a young girl.

Juvenile crime, I suggest, should be kept on the record. It was highly relevant in the case of Jon Venables that it should be kept on the record. Perhaps we could make an exception for the very serious crime that I have outlined to your Lordships. But one way or another, that record of criminality should remain with the juvenile.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I am not going to repeat the wonderful presentation by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. There is a sentiment in me which wants to go a long way with some of the things we have said. I listened quite intently to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the arguments were what I call suitable for a seminar, in that you can look at all sides of them. I am persuaded that some children may need greater care and support. It is quite possible that those who exhibit criminality could be helped and end up in a different place. Certainly, listening to the wonderful presentation by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the cases that she has tried, I do not think anyone could say a 10 year-old can commit a crime—that would be very strange. If they have committed a crime, they have committed a crime, and in questions of criminality it is not simply a matter of the law, because, say, you are, like me, an older man at nearly 77. In all of us, there is a propensity to be saintly and holy, but also a darkness which you have to deal with.

I am not uneasy about children having a criminal record if they have committed a crime; I am uneasy about the way they are then treated. We heard from the noble and learned Baroness about making sure that their identity is not put out in the public domain, because there will be vigilantes who want to terrible things to young children. On the fact that a judge took a decision on their being taken to another prison, there are appropriate ways of punishing people without feeling that all punishment must be the same because the nature of the crimes is like those of other criminals. I would have a thought that, with a child such as Thompson or Venables, and considering what they did to young James Bulger, you need to find appropriate ways of dealing with their safekeeping and providing help, but not in the same way as you would treat a John Sentamu. For instance, if I commit a terrible crime, although I am 77, I should be answerable to the rest of the population. The way we handle children often leaves a lot to be desired.

I was a chaplain in a remand centre, and some of those young people had committed horrendous crimes. When you looked back, nearly 99% of their habits had been learned from adults; it was not that they were dreaming of doing these terrible things. It was a borstal for the young, so I take on the arguments made. On the arguments about children that the noble Baroness gave us, I do not think it is a question of age. I do not know how their brains work, although that might help in terms of sentencing, but for me it is not a question of age.

During the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, we went to Wales, and we—and William Macpherson, who was the chair of the inquiry—were shocked that children as young as six were committing some of the most horrendous racist incidents. By the way, we call it the Stephen Lawrence inquiry but the rest of the population do not say that. They keep on calling it the Macpherson inquiry. It is not that; its title is the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Again, you looked at the parents and they were not responsible. It was a group enterprise. Kids in school were learning the language and there was not enough information to help them understand that behaving like that is not going to help them.

We as a nation should take the view that all children belong to us, and it is our responsibility to make sure we create an environment in which they are going to be helped. Locking them up and throwing away the key cannot be acceptable where children are concerned, no matter what crimes they may have committed. We should examine, in the streets where we live, how well we have helped and supported children.

I ask the Minister, as we have matters that need to be taken seriously, to consider whether it is best to do this through this Bill, or whether it would be better to arrange a seminar to examine the issue before Report, and find out what would be best for our children, instead of applying the unhelpful label “criminal” or deciding that a threshold of 14 or 12 will do it, because kids as young as seven can do some terrible things. We should put our hand on our hearts and say that maybe, as a society, we need to do much better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

It is not quite like that, because the Foreign Office would have to issue special permission for the person who came within the jurisdiction, and now that we have clarified the law, that would give that individual immunity. As for the Attorney-General’s decision not to consent, there is a risk that that could be subject to judicial review, and there have already been attempts in that space. But I agree that that is a very important procedural requirement, and it is already in the Act.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 472 and 473. On the arguments and all the difficulties and intricacies, the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, cannot be doubted, given his involvement and the things he has done. In the end, however, I am a simple person. I know that there are complications and it is difficult, but if these amendments are accepted, it would allow the possibility of exploring all those intricacies and complications.

The really annoying thing for most of us is when people whom we know have committed terrible atrocities—when the evidence is incontrovertible—can leave the places they have devastated and come here to do their shopping and have holidays. This country, and particularly this present Government, say that everything is going to be best under the rule of law. Lord Bingham, in his book The Rule of Law, said some wonderful things—that the rule of law is the nearest thing we have to a universal origin. In other words, there are no areas the rule of law does not cover. I say that because there is a possibility of enshrining what Lord Bingham was talking about.

Globalisation has given we citizens of the world the possibility of living in a global village. It is no longer about living on this little island—we all belong to this huge global village, and whoever touches any citizen in our global village touches us. It is not just the people who live in Ukraine or somewhere else: they touch them, and they are touching us.

We are therefore partly involved in all this. The United Kingdom must not become a haven, as the noble Lord said, for those who committed such atrocities and are escaping justice and the places where they were done. We must not be a place that gives the impression that the door is open and they can come here. They do their shopping, and some even bring their children to send them to university or other places of learning; I have known this. They think that they are getting away with it. To me, that is what must not happen.

Margaret and I came to this country in 1974, and it was another nearly six years before Idi Amin’s Government fell. We were terrified to have any contact with the Ugandan embassy, because the people he had sent before his Government fell had committed terrible atrocities. Margaret and I knew these characters and they got away with it. In his regime, nearly 900,000 people were murdered, including the chief justice, the chancellor of the university, the head of the civil service—I could go on and on. These dictators and people like that seem to have a very long arm that prevents anybody getting near them.

For me, these amendments are opening a door for further conversation. The proposers of the two amendments were wise in saying that this, if it is to happen, should be laid at the door of the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General, who has a lot of advisers and very able people, will look at it and make a decision on whether prosecution happens. They are not simply opening it out to every court, to everybody, to think they can have a go. It is so limited. If we do not do this, as a country that really upholds the rule of law, and if we do not have this universal jurisdiction as an armoury in place, we will simply have people coming here when they have committed terrible atrocities, and they will look as though they are untouchable.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, all the speakers have made a powerful case in support of these two amendments, not least of course the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who moved the lead amendment. I apologise to him for missing the first few minutes. I was caught out because I had not remembered that Amendment 471 had already been debated. I have had the advantage of reading that part of the JCHR report, both on the account of—

Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I had planned to make a number of points in this debate, but I am pleased to see that they have all been made for me in far more elegant style than I could have attained myself. I will emphasise one point that has not had quite enough attention yet, and that is that this country is a world leader in animal welfare in the life sciences and in the development of products from the life sciences.

If protesters succeed in their aims, they will not stop animal research; they will export it overseas. The countries to which they will export it may indeed be able to match our research excellence, but they could not, I suspect, match our commitment to animal welfare. For this reason particularly, but for a great many other reasons noble Lords have raised, I oppose the amendment.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, my contribution will be very brief. It is the job of His Majesty’s Government to introduce regulations and laws. The Minister is today presenting to us draft regulations which were laid before the House on 27 November 2025, some months ago, for approval.

The point for me is that this is the 45th report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. It has scrutinised and gone through it all. What has it decided in the end? That it is expedient. It has no negative comment about it. Either we trust our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, or we do not. As a House, we make that committee. That is the battle.

In the end, I have to support the approval of these regulations because I trust our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Where it has not found an SI expedient—I remember my history of your Lordships’ House from 2005—it has sent it back, but it has not done this now. We should follow our processes and procedures and go ahead and approve it.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble and right reverend friend. I will be brief. It has been very clear to me in this debate that we need the life sciences in this country, and we probably conduct them in a better manner than many other parts of the world do, and that is a good reason for maintaining them here.

I am really grateful for what the Minister said in opening: that we are hoping to phase out animal testing as quickly as we can, but that is not practicable yet. Many of the horrendous examples referred to, such as the death threats received by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and the throwing of spikes, are criminal offences already. We do not need to add them to the schedule to make them criminal offences. We need to be clear that this is about adding actions that are not crimes at the moment to what is criminal.

As the conversation has gone on, I have become concerned about legislative overreach. I am concerned not just about this instance; this House and this country work on precedent, and if we allow secondary legislation to make such a change today, what will inhibit future Governments in making even more egregious changes through secondary legislation—or Henry VIII clauses if we want to call them that?

Although I cannot vote in favour of the fatal amendment today, having heard your Lordships’ debate, I would appreciate some reassurances from the Minister. What are the limits? How wide could this go? Does today not set a precedent that will enable future Ministers to place very wide statutory instruments before us that go beyond what was discussed when the original Bill was considered?

I would have preferred that this be dealt with separately through a small Bill, but we are where we are.

Police Reform White Paper

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the noble Viscount’s support on this matter. In response to his question about force sizes, we will be announcing a review very shortly, which we hope will be done by the summer. That will set the template for the Government to determine ultimately how many forces there will be and how we begin the process of changing that system accordingly. When parliamentary time allows—in that time-honoured phrase—we will bring forward measures to end the role of police and crime commissioners. This will be done by the time of the next election due for electing police and crime commissioners. In the initial phase we will also look at bringing together IT, forensics and procurement into a national service, but over time. Again, this will require parliamentary legislation to bring together the National Crime Agency and other bodies, including counterterrorism, into that body as a whole.

We also have a separate paper coming forward shortly that will look at fraud, which is currently the responsibility of the City of London Police as the lead force. We will be looking at how we can improve performance on that issue as well. These will not be quick fixes but if I look three to four years ahead, police and crime commissioners will have gone, the new structures will be in place for the new forces, and there will be accountability through the mayors or councils. We will be quite well down the road of the establishment of the wider national police service, bringing in training, national services and the roles of the National Crime Agency and counterterrorism police.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, Robert Peel talked about policing by consent, emphasising public approval, but his key recommendation was crime prevention, and a primary goal was dealing with disorder. He saw that merely punishing crime after the fact was a failure. All the statistics we get are for the number of arrests that have been made or the number of crimes prosecuted. We never get the number of crimes that have been prevented. In this new White Paper, which I welcome strongly, how are we going to get to the position that we have got to in health? A good health service actually prevents people becoming unhealthy. How are we going to get that balance?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I welcome the noble and right reverend Lord’s commitment to the proposals in the White Paper. If we look at government policy as a whole, in parallel to that a great deal of work is being done by my noble friend Lady Smith on education, on prevention and on strengthening citizenship in schools. There is a need, through the Ministry of Justice, to look at improving sentencing outcomes and better performance in prisons to stop people reoffending. Through the Sentencing Bill, we are looking at a wide range of community sentences that people could be put into rather than prison. That all has the objective of reducing crime and recidivism and preventing people getting involved in crime in the first place. In this White Paper, we are again trying to have that strong focus on what needs to be done about serious organised crime at the national level. At the same time, we need to focus on building community resilience, improving neighbourhood policing, and meeting the Peelian principles that the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Manchester mentioned: the police are the public and the public are the police, and that happens at a local level as well.

On all those fronts, we are trying to prevent and reduce both crime and repeat crime, give the public confidence, improve standards in the police force and deal with significant, severe future challenges in organised crime and international issues such as internet and AI crime. I hope that reassures the noble and right reverend Lord. That is the Government’s plan, and we will no doubt be held to account on it by this House.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment, following on from what both noble Lords have said. Policing is a difficult, dangerous and stressful task. I have for many years referred to police officers as the men and women who are the dustbin collectors of society. They will go where other people do not want to go. I take my information source beyond those whom the noble Lords have mentioned. My son did 32 years in the police service. He has just retired as a senior detective, running one of the most difficult parts of the Metropolitan Police, and he now has a very senior role in government. Over the last two to three years, he and his friends have reported how people are either thinking about committing suicide or have attempted suicide, and in his command over about 18 months two committed suicide.

Whether and how you deal with a suicide is a difficult question. It is sensitive information. People shy away from it, understandably, but there is no doubt that we have a suicide problem in policing. My 30 years’ experience of Northern Ireland was in taking people into the most difficult situation in policing that has ever been undertaken—more of that later, no doubt, at the public inquiry, with what has been disclosed recently. Out of 28 people, all hand-picked, who went into Northern Ireland on the so-called Stevens 1, four of them never came back to policing. Two of them were thinking of committing suicide and I referred them to the force medical officer. Those people never reached the statistics.

Like my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe, I was an inspector of constabulary for nearly two years, inspecting many forces across the country, from the largest to the smallest. One of the most important roles of the inspectorate in that case—we have discussed this—was that we went and looked at the sickness rates of a force. If we found that the sickness rates were very high, performance and morale were low. We would dig deeper, but it was difficult to find out where suicide played a role or if it played a role at all. We have a problem here and I say to the Minister, who is always supportive, that this may well be a nudge in the right direction.

Some of us, as old men do, have dinner parties or meet up for a glass now and again, and the information that I am getting from my old colleagues and current colleagues, who I have to keep in contact with because of the activities that we are now about to be involved in in relation to Northern Ireland, is that there is a problem. I can understand why some chiefs would shy away from that. We have a police commissioner here who did a superb job—not many of them do or did, but he did—and if you listen to what my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe has to say and to my information, we need to do something.

Maybe this amendment is too long and complex for it to stand the test of examination, but there is an amendment further on, submitted by my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe, which is short, sharp and to the point. It holds the kernel of what we are dealing with. I support the amendments, including the final amendment, whichever way my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe wants to go. Let us have a look at it. What is there to hide behind these figures? Why has this survey come back with very little information in it? Speaking as a chief constable, a commissioner and an HMI, I think that that is not good enough. I do not believe that the Home Office should be treated in such a way.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I, too, support the shortest of all the amendments. My noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe’s Amendment 438A gets to what needs to happen without a lot of description. I have always felt that brevity is the best answer to a problem, because you know what is being asked for. I want to congratulate him on putting in this amendment. Every organisation will face this question of suicide and, if there is a way of collecting the data and working out why, that is necessary. I believe that the duty of candour is not simply about the way the police treat citizens; it is also about the way the organisation treats the police service. There must be a duty of candour from the chief officer and, of course, the Home Office has a part to play. I support this wonderful short amendment, because that is what needs to happen. With a much longer amendment, I am afraid that what is simple will be lost in quite a lot of detail, which is not what we want.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches there is strong support for Amendments 435 and 438A, which would finally shine a light on one of the most sensitive and least discussed aspects of police welfare: suicide and attempted suicide among officers and staff. This is not about apportioning blame; it is about creating conditions in which people can seek help early and leaders cannot look away. Nearly two years ago I sought this very information and was assured that work was happening to collate it. Yet no figures have emerged, leaving families, colleagues and policymakers in the dark, still awaiting clarity and transparency. These amendments would ensure that bereaved families do not feel that their loss has been silently absorbed and they would confront the lingering stigma around mental ill health in policing.

Policing demands a particular duty of care that transcends the ordinary employer-employee relationship, as the state requires officers to face repeated trauma that is unparalleled in any other walk of life. We are now operating in what many describe as a crisis policing model, where officers spend most of their time dealing with the darkest parts of human experience with far fewer opportunities to balance that with visible neighbourhood-based work. In the past, time spent on community policing would lift them out of the dark place. Today, that release valve is much weaker. Much of the informal support that once existed has disappeared. Officers used to have shared spaces where they could decompress together at the end of a shift, but those communal areas have largely gone. From staff sifting through distressing online material every day to front-line officers facing the increasing likelihood of physical assault, the psychological strain is relentless. This feeds a siege mentality in a service that still struggles to recognise emotion and is not naturally open.

Policing remains an environment where taking paternity leave can invite mockery and where the burden can fall especially heavily on women and minority officers amid unreported discrimination. In too many forces, officers still fear that admitting vulnerability will derail their career progression. If Parliament seeks people to shoulder that burden on our behalf, it must insist on collecting basic information. Tracking suicides and attempted suicides would pinpoint hotspots and high-risk groups, enabling proactive measures such as resilience training, peer support and routine psychological screening. I urge the Minister to take these amendments back to the Home Office and consider bringing forward concrete proposals on Report.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

My Lords, this is not a small matter that we are debating. I have listened to both sides of the argument. The argument in favour of these stand part notices was made in detail, initially by the noble Lord, Lord Black, and was then supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. I listened to those submissions, and they strongly reflected my own. I asked myself: is there anything I can usefully add? I do not think there is, but we are dealing with a matter of high principle. The noble Baroness, Lady Cash, reminded us of the statement that hard cases make bad law. What we have heard in opposition to these stand part notices exemplifies that proposition. We are dealing with a very important matter, and we should not allow a few hard cases to make bad law.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I find myself persuaded by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. This is a moment when, as legislators, we have to pause and ask where the balance really lies. For me, this is not an either/or. When legislators try to legislate, they must not pass the burden of coming to terms with difficult conundrums to someone else to resolve. I would be quite unhappy if we were to leave it to the judge to decide. If they go for anonymity, the courts could then be seen by some people as being on the side not of the citizen but of a few. We have to resolve this and come to a common mind on where we think this should be done. It seems to me that we should not burden the courts with coming to a decision. Legislators should make up their minds on what way they want to go.

I am persuaded by the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. I have always been in favour of open courts, trial by jury and no citizen being above the law. We should all have equality before the law, but that argument can sometimes, unfortunately, ignore circumstances that need to be differentiated—not because you do not want fairness and equality but because, if you blindly go down a particular road, you may cause a greater injustice. That is why I am not in favour of people who are so moralist and who keep to their morals: if you are not careful, you could end up with an injustice.

To those who oppose these clauses and to the Government, who bravely want to put this particular way of doing it in the Bill, I suggest that a further conversation needs to be had. How do we resolve this? Clearly, some of us—and I am one of them—would like to defend police officers who have to decide in a split-second to do something, without a lot of thought. They see a danger and they want to neutralise it—not like in Minnesota, where I do not think there was any danger; I would not want to defend those kinds of actions. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has given us the figures, and actually the statistics are very low. In the unfortunate cases where this has happened, most of our armed police officers are disciplined and well trained. However, in life, you always end up with risks you did not anticipate.

I would want to go the way that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, argued for—that if somebody took a decision because they saw greater danger and they took somebody out, I can tell you, the media and other people will focus on their family, not on the decision that was taken. We who are legislators cannot ignore the difficulty that that raises for families.

I do not think that volunteers will disappear immediately if these clauses are not part of the Bill. I still think there are people who, for the sake of security and the well-being of society, will continue to volunteer—but you are going to make it more difficult. I plead with all of us in that regard. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, has encapsulated my thoughts on this but I am still in a quandary: will I vote for this or for that? I just hope that the mover of this stand part notice will withdraw it, knowing that Report is still to come, so that it is a clear conversation, and then we can all make up our mind where this is going to lie.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, can I just make an observation that the question is whether we agree these clauses in the Bill or not? If we do not agree the clauses in the Bill, they will fall out of the Bill and then we cannot consider them at a later stage. If we want to consider them at a later stage, we must agree them today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches are grateful to the noble Lady Baroness, Smith of Llanfaes, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for tabling Amendments 433 and 434, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for adding his name to Amendment 434. These amendments relate to the devolution of policing and youth justice to Wales.

My noble friend Lady Humphreys has signed both amendments as they agree with Lib Dem policy and our ambitions for Wales, but, unfortunately, she cannot be in her place today. Our manifesto for the general election in 2024 promised to:

“Deliver a fair deal for the people of Wales by … Devolving powers over youth justice, probation services, prisons and policing to allow Wales to create an effective, liberal, community-based approach to policing and tackling crime”.


To the disappointment of many in Wales, the issue of devolving justice to Wales was absent from Labour’s general election manifesto, despite Keir Starmer committing a year before, in 2023, to introducing a take back control Bill to devolve new powers to communities from Westminster. This commitment appears to apply to England only, and gradually, over the months since the election of the Labour Government, their lack of ambition for Wales has become more apparent.

After the State Opening of Parliament in 2024, there was no new mention of new powers for Wales in the King’s Speech. In July 2025, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, said that the UK Government could row back on its promises on the devolution of probation and youth justice, despite the Welsh Government beginning the groundwork to prepare for what they believed to be a realistic project.

Noble Lords have raised queries about the consequences of the decision taken by the Government in November last year to abolish police and crime commissioners—a decision that those of us on these Benches applauded. At the time, noble Lords from Wales were concerned about the lack of clarity on the Government’s plans for the transference of the PCCs’ functions to Wales. The assumption was that the functions would transfer to mayors in England and to the Senedd in Wales. However, far from providing clarity, the answers they received amounted to pure obfuscation. Now we learn, in what could be described as a slap in the face to the Senedd, that the functions of the PCCs are to be transferred to a new board, placing the Welsh Parliament on the same level as a non-mayoral authority in England.

On these Benches we understand the difficulties so ably clarified by the noble and learned Lord in his contribution to the Sentencing Bill of devolving just one part of a system. But where has English Labour’s ambition for Wales disappeared to? For all the platitudes about mutual respect and co-operative working, the disrespect is beginning to show, sadly. Where is the recognition that Wales has been ready for the devolution of the justice system for the last 25 years at least, and where is the road map for our two nations to achieve that together?

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I do not come from Wales. I am speaking because I have sympathy, and I have friends there. I remember somebody asking me, “Are you evangelical or Anglo-Catholic?” I said, “Catholic, yes; Anglo, no”. Wales may sometimes feel it is singing that song.

The devolution of justice and policing to Wales are two sides of one coin, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said. To those who tabled Amendments 433 and 434—the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain—I simply ask one question: if policing and youth justice, this one coin with two sides, are devolved to Scotland, why not Wales?

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment 411, because it brings clarity and accountability to the exceptional power in Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. This is not a call to strengthen police powers; it is a call to describe them accurately, so the public understand their narrow scope and the safeguards that constrain them.

Section 60 is triggered only when

“a police officer of or above the rank of inspector reasonably believes”

one of a small number of factors: that incidents of violence may take place in a locality; that a weapon used in a recent incident is being carried locally; or that people are carrying weapons without good reason; and that there has already been an incident of serious violence. The statute requires the authorisation to be for

“any place within that locality for a specified period not exceeding 24 hours”.

These are tight operational limits.

Changing the definition from “serious violence” to “violence” keeps all the safeguards that make this power exceptional rather than just routine: the inspector-level threshold; the written and recorded authorisation; the geographic and temporal limits; the ability to seize weapons; and the requirement to provide records to those stopped. Those are not peripheral details; they are the legal guardrails that protect civil liberties while enabling targeted public safety action.

I simply ask: where is the dividing line between violence and serious violence? If someone gets stabbed multiple times and it is life-threatening, we would all agree that is serious violence, but what about the person who gets stabbed once and suffers a non-life-threatening cut? Is that merely violence and so does not count? That is why we have to change this definition to any violence, no matter how serious it may be called. This is not a wide-ranging opening of the stop and search powers applying everywhere for all time. Using “violence” in operational documents with an explicit cross-reference to the Section 60 triggers reduces confusion with broader strategic programmes labelled “serious violence”. It prevents the normalisation of suspicionless searches and makes it easier for Parliament, oversight bodies and the public to scrutinise each authorisation against the statutory test.

This amendment is modest, practical and proportionate. It highlights the statutory safeguards and does not remove any of them, but it gives the police a sensible power to save lives and prevent injury where they think that there may be more violence. I urge the Committee and the Minister to support Amendment 411.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the wording as it is in the Bill. The word “serious” is quite important. Stop and search, particularly in the London area, has been abused. You are supposed to stop somebody because of “reasonable” grounds to suspect, but as somebody who was stopped and searched six times, and every time I did not have anything they thought I would have, I see it as a sort of overpolicing.

It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, is not here, because when he became the chief police officer in this place, he realised that some of this was not working and was antagonising communities, not delivering the result that was expected. The Bill is worded in terms of “serious”; the amendment tries to lower the threshold. As the intention of the Bill is to stop serious crime, “serious” to me is quite important. I do not support the amendment and would like to retain the wording in the Bill.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The wording in the Bill is the wording the Government have agreed. That is the position that we have taken. We may have a disagreement on that. If my noble friend wishes to put an amendment down on Report to change that wording, that is a matter for her. She has made a further suggestion about a further defence. Those are matters that I suggest should be considered by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. If she wishes to expediate that quickly, she has the opportunity along with anybody else to table an amendment on Report. But the Government have given serious consideration to this and Clauses 118, 119 and 120 are the result of those considerations. They are at the request of the police, they are proportionate, and they are, in my view, compliant with human rights. I commend them to the House and in a gentle way urge the noble Baroness, either today or in the future, not to seek to withdraw them.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I happen to support these clauses, but I have the same concern as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that this has been drawn rather too narrowly and there may be areas that may have to be considered.

Secondly, the noble Lord is quite right: the clauses give this power to the police to prevent crimes being committed. What happens if the police get it wrong? We all know what happened with the sus law and reasonable grounds to suspect: they suspected and stopped people again and again, and nothing was actually worth suspecting. I do not want an answer; I want the possibility of considering what will happen if the police get it wrong. We have the Birmingham question still; I do not want to talk about it, because there are inquiries going on. What measures does the noble Lord want to address the particular conundrum that is there?

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I add this, to save time. I know people are trying to expand the number of conditions, but I would like us not to run away with the assumption that the work face mask makes sense. Intuitively, it does, but I do not understand the paint sprayer who is at a protest wearing their mask. They are either at the protest or at work; I am not sure why they are wearing the mask at the protest. I do not understand that juxtaposition, and it may be for the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, to consider as well.

Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The provisions in the English devolution Bill are Department for Transport provisions led by my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, based on recommendations that have been made to the Government by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. We believe—and, ultimately, this will be for my noble friend Lord Hendy to hold to account—that those changes in the regulations will ensure that there is greater control over the allocation and control of licences. Ultimately, it is for him to agree those recommendations, with the House’s support, and deliver on them. It has been identified as a gap, and we have tried to close it. Further lessons may come out of the inquiry led by my noble friend Lady Longfield with the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, supporting her, which may look at further issues to do with the points that the noble Baroness has mentioned, but I hope the Government’s swift action on taxi licensing is welcome.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, the last paragraph of the Statement says that

“the chair and panel of an inquiry … will shine a bright light on this dark moment in our history. They will do so alongside the victims of these awful crimes, who have waited too long to see justice done. This inquiry is theirs, not ours”,

so it belongs to them. I want to know whether there will be a counsel to the inquiry to advise them in matters that sometimes may need clarification. Will the survivors, whose inquiry it is—the same question was asked by the noble Lords from the Official Opposition—get counsel from the start so they can see what kind of legal advice they are going to get? These are traumatised people who have been violated, so from the start a policy needs to be made, in conversation with the chair, that they will have a counsel to help them. Without that being put in place, I am afraid that the three years are probably going to end up without getting the direction that is required.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord for his comments. The £65 million that we have allocated to the budget for this inquiry includes a range of issues to do with the management of the inquiry. I would like to allow both my noble friend Lady Longfield and her two panel members, with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, to detail in due course how that expenditure is going to be allocated. We have allocated a budget of £65 million that we think is fair, and it is important that they have an opportunity to report back on how that budget is allocated. Again, for the record, the inquiry is going to look at historical and current failures in the performance on grooming gangs. That is what it is about. As ever, the point that I have mentioned about current potential criminal action is one for the police.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 59—to which I have added my name, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee —which was moved so effectively and powerfully by my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton. In Committee, I spoke about the importance of our amendment then, and the amendment before your Lordships today reflects changes which we believe will make it attractive to the Government, as well as being a balanced and effective approach; I hope the Government will agree with that opinion.

As has been said, once fully commenced, Section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act would make far-reaching amendments to the general inadmissibility of asylum and human rights protection claims from EU and other nationals introduced by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. We believe this will likely result in violations of the United Kingdom’s international human rights obligations.

As my noble friend said, in Committee our Amendment 104 sought to repeal Section 59 of the IMA in full. It was widely supported and I was particularly pleased by the intervention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, following my recognition of the importance of the 2010 Supreme Court judgment in HJ (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department. As noble Lords will know, he was one of the justices in that case. The concern in Committee and the concern now is about the efficacy and legality of Section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act as currently drafted. The Government have made it quite clear that they believe that Section 59 of the IMA must be retained, hence why we have tabled this new amendment which looks to make changes to Section 59 with the intention of ensuring that it can provide the flexibility that the Government may require, but in an effective and legal manner that has as few unintended consequences as possible.

To put it briefly, the amendment would turn the duty of the Secretary of State into a power. It clarifies the exceptional circumstances test and provides an effective mechanism for the management of the safe states list and the removal of states which are no longer safe. Importantly, it would enable the United Kingdom to uphold the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights and would therefore be less likely to be challenged within the courts.

To be safe, a state must be a place

“where its citizens are free from any serious risk of systematic persecution, either by the state itself or by non-state agents which the state is unable or unwilling to control”,

and free from a serious risk of persecution in general. That is from the 2015 Supreme Court judgment in R (on the application of Jamar Brown (Jamaica)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department.

As I said in Committee:

“There can be no general safety presumption if there is a risk of persecution to even one recognisable section of a community”.—[Official Report, 3/9/25; col. 802.]


In relation to the HJ (Iran) Supreme Court judgment, the hard-won legal rights for LGBTQI+ refugees are meaningless if the safety of states does not account for their safety. Such refugees will have to hide fundamental parts of their identity if they cannot leap over the “exceptional circumstances” test currently in place, and are sent back home in contravention of that judgment. But, surely, even if their claims are declared inadmissible this Government will not send them home, forcing them to live in hiding in a state that the UK has called safe but is not in reality safe for them. I therefore look to the Minister to reassure me on that point.

If there is a real risk that a person would suffer inhuman and degrading treatment upon return to their home country, it would be a breach of their human rights to fail to rigorously scrutinise their claim. I believe that such claims must therefore be considered. This means that if the wider inadmissibility test is to be kept, it must be altered. Similarly, hard-won gay marriage rights will mean little if we must still show exceptional circumstances before a national of a safe country may be permitted to live here with their British or settled partner.

These are some of the reasons that we have added to the exceptional circumstances test the requirement for the Government to consider these claims if a failure to consider them would breach the human rights convention—arguably, a minimal safeguard to ask for. I hope the Government will have the courage to do the right thing: accept their human rights obligations and adopt this amendment or, at the very least, further reflect upon it and our submissions. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I supported this amendment in Committee. It has been quite improved and I therefore agree with the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Browne and Lord Cashman. I do not want to go over what they have said because they put the case clearly.

It must be welcome that this amendment would turn

“the duty into a power, to declare as inadmissible a human rights or asylum claim, which may not”

in the end

“be exercised if the failure to consider a claim would contravene the UK’s obligations under the ECHR”.

That to me is the nub of it and, therefore, the Secretary of State, instead of simply having a duty, would actually have a power to do something about it. There is an ability, under the Human Rights Act sometimes, for people to know that this has been breached—but who should then put it right? It seems that this Bill gives the opportunity to turn a duty into a power.

The amendment would also do another thing. It would create

“a duty to remove States from the Safe States list, if they are no longer safe”.

To have a list over which you cannot have the power or duty to do that can really prolong a misnomer. When people may have come from some places that were safe yesterday, but tomorrow are no longer safe, it seems to me that the Secretary of State needs to be given the duty to do so, because we are living in a world that is so changeable.

When South Sudan became independent everybody was full of rejoicing. I was involved with a lot of asylum people coming to Uganda, because I was hearing cases as a judge up in the north. After the sheer carnage that went on in South Sudan, where people’s lives were ruined and destroyed for so many years, peace came and everybody rejoiced. Who would have believed that it would not be long before warring factions were tearing that country apart? The carnage in Darfur was quite unbelievable.

Then what happened? Sudan was being ruled by a real dictator, but then that Government were overthrown, and overnight law and order began to collapse. It was not very long before two warring factions were tearing that country apart. Yes, we hold the pen on behalf of the United Nations, but, my friends, we almost do not have the wherewithal to deal with such brutality.

Therefore, a country that was safe a few months ago could suddenly end up in a real mess. We created a list of safe countries under that Act, so the Secretary of State should have the duty to remove such a country when it is judged to no longer be a safe country. This amendment is in keeping with that. I am very grateful to the Government for saying how much they are going to be ruled and governed by the rule of law. There is nothing here that is not supported by the rule of law, so I support this amendment.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. First, I apologise on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who is still not well. I know that she would have intended to support this amendment as it is now. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, has presented us with a very neat solution to a problem that the Minister espoused in Committee. He has also sought—and I think this is the whole purpose of the amendment—to make sure that previously unworkable and satisfactory legislation is converted into something that has a sense of purpose and direction, and which is understandable and has clarity and definition within it.

In reply to my question in Committee as to why the Government are retaining Section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act, the Minister said that it would be right

“to retain the flexibility to expand the use of inadmissibility in the event that we see asylum claims from individuals from countries that we would generally consider safe”.—[Official Report, 3/9/25; col. 825.]

That was the reason given for retaining that particular section.

I think the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, has just expressed the issue with the words “generally safe”. There are many countries that may be safe for some people but not for all people. The one that currently sticks out an absolute mile is Georgia. If someone has any political thought that has nothing to do with Georgian Dream, they will be imprisoned. I have lost count of the number of politicians who I—and, I know, other noble Lords in this House—have met, who said that the day after we met them they would be going back to go to prison because they were going to be arrested, simply because they were politicians who were elected by the people but who did not speak on behalf of the Government, and who were speaking out against the Government. While “generally considered safe” means that it is generally safe to send people to Georgia, we would be absolutely wrong to send somebody who had a political opinion, because we know the disgraceful ways in which politicians have been treated in that country.

In conclusion, this amendment is a worthy solution to a problem that has been identified. In the context of the Government wanting to retain Section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act, they have before them a workable solution to make sense of it and convert it from an unworkable, unsatisfactory position into something that is exactly the opposite. We on these Benches commend it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to express my strong support for everything that the right reverend Prelate said. I will not repeat the principled case I made in Committee, but I thank my noble friend the Minister for the letter he sent me after the debate. In it, he stated that

“it is important to ensure clarity both for applicants and decision makers”.

One way of achieving greater clarity would be to accept the right reverend Prelate’s request that the guidance spell out explicitly that a person must not be refused citizenship because of irregular entry if that were to contravene our international obligations, particularly under the refugee convention, and that anyone who entered as a child should not be barred from citizenship on the grounds of the manner of their entry.

Leaving it to full discretion does not ensure clarity, despite the helpful reassurances provided by my noble friend and other Ministers, with the result that some of those who entered as children might be denied citizenship, even though it is accepted that the immigration breach was outside their control. Indeed, the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, of which I am a patron, has already received reports of refusal on character grounds, based on how the person entered the UK as a child. The PRCBC also contests what my noble friend said in Committee about the guidance providing flexibility; in its experience, the guidance is routinely applied in a rigid fashion.

Therefore, I urge my noble friend not to plead flexibility as a justification for rejecting the very modest request of the right reverend Prelate to spell out in the guidance our obligations under international law, including our commitment to upholding the best interests of children. As the Court of Appeal has advised on sentencing policy, children are not mini-adults. No child who entered the country by irregular means should have that held against them when, subsequently, they would otherwise become eligible for citizenship.

I wish we could strike out completely this unjust and, as the right reverend Prelate called it, immoral rule, which will, as we have heard, impede refugee integration. The amendment would, at the very least, erect some guardrails around the rule’s implementation and thereby mitigate its impact. Failing that, I hope that my noble friend will be able to give the assurances sought by the right reverend Prelate.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I find myself persuaded by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford. Her arguments need to be listened to.

Archbishop Robert Runcie defined a saint as a person whose character has never been fully studied or explored. We all have a dark side to ourselves. If we talk about good character, it may appear in a person’s life only when they have moved away from all the bad stuff that was hanging around them. We carry within ourselves both a sainthood and some not so good characteristics—that is why Archbishop Robert Runcie’s definition of a saint was right.

When I arrived in this country in 1974 and went to Cambridge to study theology and my doctorate, I was so unwell in the first seven months that I was going in and out to see doctors. Eventually, they said that I must have lost a lot of blood through internal bleeding, from the blows received from Amin’s soldiers. I was very angry—extremely angry—that I should be subjected to such terrible things. Of course, that was all bottled up, but I was very angry. Had someone said to me at the time, “We want to know how good your character is, so that we may see whether you can become a citizen”, I would still have been extremely angry in those interviews.

It was not until one night, when I remembered my mother saying, “John, never point a finger at anybody, because when you do, three others are pointing back at you”. Friends, noble Lords, noble Baronesses, this whole question of good character can be very subjective and misleading when the person first arrives, particularly when they come as children. We all have the grace and ability to grow out of some of the not-so-good bits of us, but we still remain a very rough diamond. We are never fully polished until we go through the gate of death.

I find it strange that this country—that I have grown to love, that always shows give and take, that always has this magnanimity of meeting people halfway—would, I am beginning to understand, now use good character as a ground for someone being accepted as a citizen. How do you know that at the time you receive them? They could go on and do some outrageous stuff, because within all of us there is the good and bad. Legislation based on good character as a way of allowing someone to be a citizen has probably not understood that we are on a scale of learning, of growing, of finding ourselves in the future. Even when we die, there will still be lots of stuff that we have not dealt with.

May I plead that when the guidance comes, particularly on dealing with people who arrived here as children, there is more grace than the harshness which I sometimes hear has come into this most green and pleasant land. People become more harsh, more judgmental, more unloving, more uncaring. The legislature should be the guardian against such attitudes and behaviour. I support the amendment.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, we listened to the right reverend Prelate talking about coming to this country, as indeed did the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. Just think for a moment: the right reverend Prelate and her parents arrived in this country as refugees from a place they could not go back to, and where, I seem to remember, the right reverend Prelate’s brother had been murdered. If they had come to this country illegally, would we really have sent them back, as being of bad character? If one thinks about it, it is quite extraordinary.

As Members of this House will know, like the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, I was a judge. I spent a lot of my time hearing evidence, often from people of bad character. Bad character is, of course, a wide definition. Technically, I suppose, you are of bad character if you speed: to that I admit—on more than one occasion. Are you of bad character if you are fleeing a place you had to leave because you might otherwise be dead, and are coming to this country by the only means you could? Let us bear in mind that the places people can go to in order to come legally to this country are almost non-existent. Consequently, nearly every refugee to this country comes illegally. Are we to say that doctors, lawyers, nurses, accountants, all people fleeing for good reason, are to be treated as being of bad character? I say to all Members of this House: we really need to reflect every now and again on what comes before this place and what we ought to do.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am particularly interested in the student visa amendments, which are both very helpful. There is now an informal assumption that there is a problem with some overseas students playing the system and potentially using their student visas as a mechanism for seeking asylum. The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, presented a balanced and sensitive case so that all of us can understand, first, the importance of overseas students to the UK and, secondly, the legitimate use of asylum seeking if circumstances change, while at the same time understanding that there is potential abuse of the system. The problem is that while there is a focus on, for example, small boats, maybe a focus on universities does not feel quite as newsworthy and headlines will not be generated, or it seems somehow more legitimate if they have come to do even a media studies course—they cannot be criminals. None the less, there is a problem if the system is abused.

There are two additional points that have not been referred to. I fear that UK universities themselves have mis-sold universities to overseas students, treating university courses as cash cows. One of my first more militant acts at university, many decades ago, was a week-long sit-in to defend overseas students from increased fees, and I have always thought that it was an important part of our education system to defend them. However, universities simply sell inappropriate courses for money to students who often cannot to speak adequate English for a degree. That is not to criticise them; I am criticising the university managements who sell their courses in that way. That kind of cynicism is likely to rub off on students, who will not necessarily come here and think, “I must take seriously my duties and responsibilities to higher education and the pursuit of knowledge”, because the universities have, in an entirely instrumental, business-like fashion, sold them a course that is maybe not very good and not taken any notice of their facility for education. Why would you not become cynical in those circumstances?

Finally, I hope that the Government will take the opportunity provided by both these amendments to think about universities and overseas students, because this is very much in the news in the context of Sheffield Hallam University. We now know that Sheffield Hallam’s management betrayed one of its own academics and compromised academic freedom to guarantee a continued flow of Chinese overseas students, stopping that academic’s research because the Chinese state found it inconvenient. It is not in any of our interests to allow universities to become politicised instruments of overseas students, be it the state, using them in a particular way, or those who recommend that, if you study in the UK on one of these courses, you will easily get asylum. I know that this happens. It is a form of people trafficking that is just not hitting the headlines, but I can assure you, it is happening. I therefore support both amendments and I was very pleased to see them.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, as the House knows, I have sat in a lot of these debates and never stood up to speak, but I feel compelled to speak today. I declare my interest as having been chancellor of two universities, York St John University and the University of Cumbria, for well over 12 years. We had a lot of overseas students. I am not persuaded by what I am hearing today. It is very easy to cast aspersions when you are not within the university itself. Most of our universities do a fantastic job in registering people who really want to study here. Both York St John and Cumbria had training centres in China, so the students had a good command of English before they got here. All the students in those years actually went back, unless they remained to do some research, which was also allowed. Please let us not have these generalised statements about universities all being the same.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I want to clarify, in case there was any confusion, that I have worked with and have great admiration for many Chinese students in this country. My contribution was not an attempt, in any way, at smearing them. That is not to say that there is not an abuse of the system in some instances. I was querying whether we should be attentive to that, because the students are betrayed when they are not given proper education in this country and are used in a particular way for political ends. That does not mean, at all, that all Chinese students are doing that.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My experience is quite different. I have been a chancellor of two universities that have actually recruited students from all over the world—for education, not for any other purpose. They were also wonderful universities for students within our own country. Before the founding of the University of Cumbria, students used to leave Carlisle to go to different universities in our country and they never went back. The creation of the University of Cumbria benefited local businesses —we have talked about manufacturing in places such as Barrow—so it has been wonderful seeing our own local students rising up to the possibility of being very good engineers, manufacturers, nurses and doctors, or being trained in other ways. I stood at the podium giving out degrees to students from all over the place. At York St John, there were always four ceremonies, each with about 400 students at a time. That is what I know from what I experienced—it is therefore possible for me to say that.

I must declare a second interest: I came here on a student visa in 1974, which was renewed every 12 months until I was ordained in 1979. Later, when I became Bishop of Stepney, I was given indefinite leave to remain but I never applied for naturalisation in this country, which was a possibility, until 2001. I was a faithful student who came here on a student visa. It is no good anybody telling me that if some Ugandans come here—let us say there are four of them—and involved themselves in criminal acts, we can then use those four as a test case to say that people from that country should not get visas. From all that I know, most of the students from Uganda went back—my circumstances were part of something different. Please can we not express guilt by association, where we say, for example, that if some people from Nigeria do something, all of them must be the same, so we must always gather the figures and numbers?

This has always been a free country for me, and it has helped quite a lot of people who have been in great difficulty. I came here because of Amin’s trouble; I had to give up my law job. My staying here has to do with me continuing to study and then being invited to become a chaplain of a prison in Richmond, which I did for four years. Indefinite leave was quite a different thing. I always resisted naturalisation to become a British citizen; at the time I thought that I was natural and that there was no need to be naturalised. Still, occasionally, whenever I hold my British passport, I say, “To get this, I had to be naturalised”. That term is pretty offensive, because there is nothing unnatural about me that needed to be naturalised.

My dear friends, yes, there is now concern about people, who either are on student visas or came here on asylum, having committed offences, but these amendments make it seem that Britain’s history has nothing to teach us. For that reason, should the amendments be voted on, I will move in the direction of the Not-Content Lobby.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I will draw us back to the amendments before us. Amendment 35 requires the Secretary of State to collate and publish detailed data on overseas students whose visas are revoked due to criminal offences, and raises several important questions concerning data collection accuracy, resource allocation and the practical application of policy. The intent of the amendment is clear: to provide essential data to evaluate risks and ensure individuals who commit crimes are removed.

I almost have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for not getting answers to the questions he has asked time and again. What remains is that we have to look at the necessity of the subjects of those questions and their implementation. If the object of the amendment is to provide the data necessary to design efficient public policy, the first question must address the existing statutory landscape. The answers that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, got suggest that the Home Office did not collect the data relating specifically to student visas and criminality. What specific, new infrastructure or operational commitment would be necessary to collate this information reliably, particularly as the Minister implied that the Home Office already publishes a

“vast amount of data on immigration”—[Official Report, 26/6/25; col. 440.]

in regular publications that cover these themes?

Secondly, the amendment would require the publishing of figures on visa revocation, detention and deportation following a criminal offence. Given that 14,000 people who originally entered on a student visa claimed asylum in the latest year reported, and considering that subsequent detention or deportation is often tied to the outcome of complex asylum or human rights claims rather than solely the original criminal conviction or visa revocation, how will the published data accurately distinguish between detention related directly to government removal actions versus detention protracted by pending asylum appeals or other legal challenges? The Immigration Rules already provide for the cancellation of entry clearance and permission to enter or stay when conditions are breached. Would a statutory duty to publish retrospective data fully address the underlying problem, or would resources be better focused on the proactive enforcement and timely application of the existing Immigration Rules?

Thirdly, the amendment mandates that the published data

“must be broken down by nationality”.

That is intended to highlight countries associated with a high risk of abuse of the visa system, allowing the Home Office and universities to take risk into account when making decisions. What specific safeguards will be put in place to ensure that the publication of criminality data, broken down by nationality, does not lead to profiling or unfair discriminatory practices against students from those nations who are law-abiding citizens, especially given the clear parliamentary intention to use the data to identify countries of particular risk?

Amendment 35C, which is yet to be introduced by the Conservative Front Bench, proposes that the Secretary of State must declare an asylum or human rights claim inadmissible if the claimant entered on a student visa, applied for asylum more than two days later and there is “no evidence” of materially changed political circumstances endangering their life or liberty. This measure is flawed both practically and legally, and we must oppose it for three key reasons.

The proposed new clause establishes a near-automatic system of inadmissibility for a specific cohort of asylum seekers. The approach is inherently problematic because it fails to process cases based on individual merits and lived experiences. There is no substantive consideration of the asylum or human rights claim. Even if the primary motivation for the amendment is to counter visa abuse, refusing a person’s asylum claim without consideration of the merits and/or risks, placing the UK in breach of its obligations under the refugee convention, specifically the prohibition on refoulement, is a matter of serious concern.

The amendment conflates asylum and human rights claims. Many human rights claims are founded not on a country’s general safety but on an individual’s personal connection to the UK, such as family ties. Automatically barring these claims simply because a person arrived on a student visa is an anomalous and unjustifiable imposition of a blanket ban.

The proposed new clause explicitly states that the inadmissible declaration is not a refusal of the claim and, as such, no right of appeal arises. Furthermore, it declares that the decision is

“final and not liable to be questioned or set aside in any court”.

Such provisions, which seek to exclude judicial review—we are going to have plenty of those today—of immigration decisions and to remove the right to appeal are repeatedly condemned as unconstitutional and contrary to the ECHR, which is of course part of our domestic law.

The intention behind the amendment may be to clamp down on those abusing the student visa route, especially concerning the 14,000 who claimed asylum after entering on a student visa in the last reported year. However, this absolute inadmissibility straitjacket would be functionally unworkable, echoing the failures of previous legislation. This amendment is ineffective, inhumane and legally unsound.

Amendment 71 seeks to fundamentally alter the established visa penalty mechanisms contained within the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. The stated intent of the amendment is clear: to force the Government to impose visa penalties immediately if a country fails to co-operate on removals or the verification of identity of its nationals. While we share the desire to see prompt and effective removal of those who have no right to be here, the amendment risks undermining that very objective by destroying the necessary operational discretion essential for effective diplomacy and returns policy. The mandatory penalty system removes the ability to use engagement, diplomacy and other means to successfully unblock co-operation with other countries. We simply cannot tie the hands of a Secretary of State with a rigid system that risks damaging international relations without guaranteeing an increase in removals.