Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

This discussion has opened up an important but much underdiscussed area of public policy. I hope that the Government seriously take on board all that has been said by those who have spoken and remain attracted to the idea of a serious review of this complicated area of law to see whether we can mend it.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. As is my way, I must sound a note of caution for one group of people. I know that many noble Lords have a problem with our very low age of criminal responsibility, but it affords a level of protection to young children being groomed for gangs. We need to bear that in mind.

I have great sympathy for these amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Spellar, spoke about the Lammy review. I was on the Lammy review. I ran a job club for over 12 years, and many of the young men I dealt with were unable to seek employment because of what we used to call a blip when they were younger that was still appearing on their DBS. That small blip often drove them to much more serious crime, because they were older and needed to raise more money.

We should do a review, because it is a complicated area, but there are two things to focus on. First, returning to my theme, the single biggest driver of crime is the idea that you have got away with it. If we are going to remove some of the consequences, we need to think clearly and carefully about how that will be perceived by people who are involved in criminal activity—particularly if they are young and do not have all the experiences to risk-assess their own behaviour. We must bear that in mind, because, inadvertently we might be encouraging them to approach criminal behaviour. The myth on the street will be that when you are 18, it is wiped out anyway. We might argue about the nuance of what we are prepared to wipe out or not, but that will not be the conversation on a dark night in the park when the boys are planning their next manoeuvre. It is important that we bear that in mind.

Secondly, there are people in gangs whose sole job is to recruit young people. One of the big things they say to those young people is, “You are too young to go to court”. We have to be careful about making that true, or at least appear to be true. Removing these spent convictions would be such a powerful thing to help people move on, and I support it, but let us think very carefully about how we talk about it, where we draw the lines, how we explain it and how it is enacted in reality rather than just in concept as we sit in this Chamber.

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to all these amendments, particularly Amendments 476, 477 and 478. These amendments highlight how the system of criminal record disclosure, particularly as it relates to children, is complex and very confusing. I am an advocate for criminal record reform, having been a youth magistrate for over 20 years and having been on the Youth Justice Board. Those roles have consistently demonstrated to me how decisions made in childhood, often in relation to relatively minor offences, can have consequences that extend well into adult life, as we have heard this evening.

As noble Lords will know, I recently tabled an amendment to the Sentencing Bill to address the anomaly in youth sentencing whereby the first court appearance, rather than the date of the offence, determines whether a young person is treated as an adult. I am therefore very conscious of the unfair impact these technicalities beyond a child’s control can have on their future.

Although we have had success in reducing the number of children in custody because we wanted to keep young people out of prison, we have at the same time increased the threshold of seriousness of offending in these disposals of conditional cautions over a number of years.

I know that the Justice Secretary has recently acknowledged publicly that aspects of the criminal records and disclosure system are in need of reform. Rehabilitation is about giving people a chance to change, and, where appropriate, we should work to ensure that childhood mistakes do not turn into lifelong punishments, giving them the opportunity to get on with their lives.

I am also attracted to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier referred. It is very important that the Minister view these amendments on childhood as an opportunity to reflect on a broader review of criminal records and the DBS disclosure system, which might now be appropriate.

These amendments highlight just how complex the system has become. Ensuring that the system is fairer, while keeping in mind the importance of rehabilitation and protection to the public, would, in my view, be a worthwhile objective.

Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a bit daunting to speak after one of the lawyers in this place. I am not a lawyer. I, as always, will speak to the Bill from the perspective of poor communities. My first plea to the Minister is to remember that in this country there is a great myth that poor people are the perpetrators of crime, whereas most poor people’s experience of crime is as a victim. It is from that point of view that I come to this debate.

I welcome the Government’s intention to put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system; I think I can safely say that that is an objective that we on the Conservative Benches share. However, good intentions are not enough. The test is whether the Bill strengthens public confidence, delivers justice in practice and protects victims, not whether it simply moves more cases through the system. A lot of poorer people are hearing, “The prisons are full and the courts are full, so we won’t bother doing it properly. We’ll just put them through quickly”. I want to be clear that the single greatest driver of crime is the idea that you are going to get away with it. I spent over three decades working in the poorest communities, so I know that crime is committed by a small number of people very regularly, who have the conversation about what risk they are taking. If you are going to put victims at the centre of this, that is one of the key questions you have to answer.

Ministers will say that the system is backed up or clogged up. I accept that the backlog is serious, but removing juries does not fix the cause of this delay. It does not create more judges, more courtrooms or more capacity. Jury trials are not the problem; they are a safeguard. Faster justice can be seen as less legitimate and will weaken confidence. I was one of the people who did the Lammy Review with David Lammy, and he was very strong at the time that poorer communities, particularly non-white communities, feel much safer in front of a jury. If you remove that now, you could be removing the confidence of those communities in our system in its entirety. These are the sections of our public most exposed to criminal behaviour, so we need to think very carefully about what we do on that.

Clause 3 restricts parental responsibility only where a sentence is four years or more. I expect that Ministers will say that they had to draw a line somewhere, and I accept that, but why here? An offender with a sentence of three years and 11 months still remains a serious risk; victims will struggle to understand why safeguarding suddenly applies at four years. If the Government do not explain this logic carefully, public confidence will suffer. The reason I made the comment about speaking after a lawyer is that lawyers have this in their thinking, and they look at the world through the rules they have learned; most poor people are trying to make ends meet. Things need to be simple. Simplicity is fairness, and I want to be clear about that. Most people do not have the time to pore over the fine detail in the way we do in your Lordships’ House.

I welcome improvements in the unduly lenient sentence scheme, but for victims the issue is not intent but access. The current 28-day limit is simply unrealistic for many victims and their families who are grieving, traumatised and trying to navigate a complex legal process. I know Ministers will say that they will keep this under review, but can I gently suggest that victims need certainty not future monitoring?

I want to end on this idea of court backlogs. I return to my theme that getting away with it is the single biggest driver. I expect that Ministers will say that this Bill is not intended to solve every problem in the justice system—of course that is reasonable—but the court backlog is a central problem facing victims today. One of the biggest problems is seeing the perpetrator, as far as you are concerned, walking around “free as a bird”, to use the expression that one young man used with me this morning. That has to be addressed, but this Bill contains little to address it directly. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, was very clear about what goes on in court and I think that needs looking at, because the jury system and the speed at which we get people through is why people think the British criminal justice system is the best—particularly people who, in their life experience, may find themselves in front of it.

The Bill contains measures that I welcome, but it also raises serious questions. If the Government’s aim is to rebuild confidence in the criminal justice system, reforms must be logical, coherent and visibly on the side of victims. I look forward to scrutinising the Bill as we go through the process, because I truly believe that the Minister wants to do the right thing. I want to be part of helping that happen, because I believe this is far beyond party shenanigans. This is about what it means to exist in Britain today.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, I largely welcome what the Government are attempting with this Bill. I wish the Minister involved all the luck in the world, because this is a tough nut to crack. I believe he approaches it from the right point of view, with real passion, understanding and a focus on rehabilitation. When I come to my comments, I need him to take them in that spirit. I associate myself with the comments made about Baroness Newlove; she will be sorely missed. She was warm and welcoming, and a champion for the victim.

Before I go into my comments, I want to address some sentiments that I am picking up in the Chamber today. I have been in youth and community work for over 35 years now, and there seems to be a notion that criminals are victims. I caution the Minister about talking to communities, particularly poor communities, as if criminals are victims, because a poor community will have had all the challenges that those criminals have had but displayed none of that behaviour. If he is at home asking himself, “Why are the public so mean when it comes to rehabilitation or punishment?”, it is for the poor communities. They have had all those troubles and behaved the way they did—properly—but do not seem to be receiving the same support as criminals. I just want him to bear that in mind; it is very important.

My own youth and community work focused for a long time on gang work, which is why I say that we really need a strategy on tagging or electronic monitoring, whatever you want to call it. When you talk about county lines, tagging could be a vital tool in keeping some young children safe. Many years ago, I joined my local gang to break it up, and I wore a tag to see what that experience was like. I showed it to the young people who I was with, and they scattered. Then one 13 year-old boy came back to me in the morning and said something so profound that I have never forgotten it. He said: “Crime needs privacy; the tag breaks that privacy”. We really should look at using that tactic, but it has to have some kind of meaningful plan behind it. We cannot just give them out like Smarties.

We have talked about the acceptance of community orders et cetera. There are three sets of people who need to accept them: yes, the public and, yes, parliamentarians and the system, but also the criminals. The single biggest driver of crime is the idea that you have got away with it. If community orders are seen as a soft touch, they can be used as a recruitment tool. I can imagine a conversation where my local recruiter—I will not the colloquial term; it is not polite language—says to young people, “You’re only going to get a community sentence, so don’t worry about it”. It is very important to make sure that criminals see it as an imposition, not just to make the luvvies in comfortable parts of the country feel good about it.

Before I go on to some other comments, I want to say one more thing about responsibility. I have worked with children who have done some of the most heinous things possible for a person. I have also worked with children, in larger number by far, who have been involved in what I would call anti-social behaviour. The key thing missing from that conversation, not just for children but particularly for adults, is “responsibility”. In the Minister’s own work, he and his family have given people an opportunity to take responsibility. That has to be part of the conversation we have with people, particularly repeat offenders, about their own behaviour. They are acting irresponsibly, against their own best wishes and against their community. If that is not part of the conversation, we will never convince the public that we are doing the right thing by trying to rehabilitate people and not just punish them.

Regrettably, here in London we have had a huge rise in crime. Overall, the Met Police’s recording of crime has gone up by almost a third. Knife crime, which I have seen blighting communities—black and white, rich and poor—because of the fear it generates, has gone up by 86% in the capital. Something needs to be done about that. Only 5% of robberies were solved in the capital last year, which generates the idea that lawlessness is what is happening on our streets. That must be nipped in the bud.

I want to talk about tool theft. The theft of tools and expensive farm gear is very important because if you come from a community that is striving, when tools are stolen it sends the idea that those who are trying are fools while those who commit crime are on to something. That is why it is important that tool theft, in particular, and farm equipment theft are really drilled down on. It sends a message about striving, because the antidote to poverty is not welfare but work. The idea that people in your community are trying to work is very important.

I want to talk about shoplifting as well. What shoplifting is doing to communities is sending the idea that there is no consequence from it; you will speak to people who will tell you that. Shop owners have no confidence that the police have the resources or the desire to go after shoplifters. Customer theft losses in this country topped £2.2 billion last year, which is a record amount and has a ripple effect not only for our businesses but in communities.

That is compounded by the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting through this imminent Sentencing Bill, in which short sentences will, in effect, be banned. Technically, that might be incorrect, but I tell the House that on the street, that is how it is read. I have great sympathy for what the Minister is trying to do with short sentences. I dealt with many young people who went to prison; it was basically a college of crime, so they came back with a much better idea of it than the one they left with. But what is the consequence for low-level crime and for shoplifting? That really has to be brought home to the public. I go back to my theme: if we are to convince the public that rehabilitation and dealing with crime in the community are worthwhile things to pursue, things such as shoplifting will have to seem as if they have some kind of consequence. I ask the Minister again: what is the consequence? How will we tell the public that there is a consequence for what many people consider a low-level crime?

The release of criminals part-way through their sentences also poses a significant threat to society. After just over a year, this Government have freed 26,000 criminals. Where are they? Whose houses are they living in? What effect are they having on people’s communities? I do not see them in the new place where I live, but what effect are they having where I come from? We cannot just push these people out into communities. They might not be your communities, but they are mine. It sends the notion that crime is something people have got away with, or that they can commit more crime. We have to look at the effect of putting those people into particular communities. If we were releasing them into Belgravia, that would be one thing—but that is not where we are releasing them to.

The Government’s own impact assessment says that the Bill will reduce demand for prison places by only 7,500. I know that is not a big figure, and I welcome any reduction, but if we are to say to the public that the motivation for the Bill is that we want to reduce demand for prison places, we will have lost before we begin. We need to say to them that the motivation for it is to reduce crime on the street, to make them safer and to cut reoffending—not to free up prison places, because that simply does not wash. If you doubt me, go to your local chip shop or pub and have a conversation. When you bring that up, see what the response is.

In response to the Bill the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, my late noble friend Lady Newlove made this statement:

“Continual adjustments to sentences through emergency release schemes have eroded public confidence … any new sentencing framework must deliver … above all, public safety”.


I agree with that analysis and so will the public. Please can the Minister tell us how he will display to the public that this is a worthwhile thing to pursue?

The other problem, of course, is about the confidence of our police services to carry out their job. Many police officers feel that they are under a witch-hunt and that if they use the powers they have, they will end up losing their job. That is devastating for poor communities, who need the police to act with confidence to keep them safe. That is very important. We are about to lose 1,300 officers across the country; here in London, we are about to lose 2,000 police officers and police staff. That could have a detrimental effect on the Metropolitan Police’s ability to police the capital. It is important that the Bill addresses issues around the finances and resources that the police have just to carry this out in the first place.

I end on this notion—I want to go back to it for the Minister. The single biggest driver of crime is the idea that people will get away with it. Whatever we decide in this House, we must send a strong message that they are not getting away with it. We are rehabilitating the system that deals with them, but they are not getting away with it. If the Government miss that trick, we will just be right back to where we were in the beginning.

Police, Prison and Probation Officers

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Neighbourhood policing is the bedrock of British policing, and it is the right model for us. We lost 20,000 police officers under the last Government, but we expect up to an initial 3,000 neighbourhood officers in neighbourhood policing roles by the end of next year. Every community deserves visible, proactive and accessible neighbourhood policing, with officers tackling issues that matter to people.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, as I am sure the Minister will know, police services countrywide struggle to recruit members from the black and ethnic-minority communities, and that is mainly because of the very low level of morale among black serving officers. What work is the Minister specifically doing to support the morale of those police officers?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am pleased to know that we have a race action plan that we are working with police constables; it is really important that we recruit fantastic people and make sure that we represent the communities we serve.