Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Pannick

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

The noble Baroness says that child homicides are very rare, but they have doubled in the past 12 years. All the statistics that I quoted were from the Youth Justice Board and the Office for National Statistics, showing a huge increase in knife crime. Then there are the police forces themselves; there is an article relating to the Met, or a discussion on a blog from yesterday, asking whether knife crime by children was out of control—and those are their words, not mine.

There has been a huge increase in viciousness, knife use and violent crime by children, and I suggest in my amendments that lowering the age to include 14 to 18 year-olds in respect orders might make a difference, if we could hive them off early. Of course, I accept that children in Scotland, as in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, will also have violent tendencies. My concern is that we are failing to intervene early enough to do anything about them; that is the whole cause of the problem in the past 30 years—a lack of early intervention to deal properly with children. For some, that will mean a caution or restorative justice; for others, it could mean better work from social services. But some prolific young offenders may need to be taken out of circulation, for their own benefit and to save the lives of other children.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, accurately pointed out that a respect order may be made merely on the balance of probabilities—the civil standard of proof. Will the Minister confirm my understanding that, if a criminal charge is to be brought for breaching a respect order, it will be brought under new Section I1, and the offence of breach of respect order? It is then for the prosecution to establish beyond a reasonable doubt, on the criminal standard, that the person concerned has not merely breached the respect order but has done so without reasonable excuse. That may provide an answer to some of the more graphic and extreme examples that have been given in this debate of when a respect order may apply. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether my understanding is correct.

In this debate we need to take account of the fact that anti-social behaviour occurs in our society with alarming regularity and causes misery to law-abiding citizens. There needs to be some effective means of addressing it. Having said all that, I share some of the concerns that have been expressed as to the width of the powers that we are being invited to endorse. There are two particular concerns that I have.

The first is that in new Section A1(1)(b), it is sufficient for the court to consider it “just and convenient” to impose a respect order. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred to that—and I have great sympathy with the argument that that really ought to be a test of “necessary and proportionate”. All the sorts of cases that one would want to see prohibited by law could be brought within a necessary and proportionate test.

The other concern that I have—and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, was the one who mentioned this—is that in new Section A1(9), the test of anti-social behaviour is

“conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person”.

That means any person, however vulnerable they may be, or weak-minded, which is a purely subjective test. I suggest in this context that there really needs to be some objectivity written into the definition, whether or not by referring to a reasonable person; other types of drafting mechanism could be adopted. I share some of the concerns, but I also see the need for an effective and functioning system in this context.