Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Carter of Haslemere and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Can we just clarify what we are talking about? I am tempted to say that those putting forward these amendments are living in a world of fiction, but I am not so rude as to suggest that. I am not suggesting even that they are misguided. I think all these amendments and their proponents are doing this with a total conviction that wrong will be done if this provision gets through, so let us just address what wrong will be done.

The wrong that will be done is that a woman may try to abort or kill her baby at a late gestation or an early gestation. The criminality would be the same because she is doing so outside the 1967 Act. That will be the case, but that is not what the problem is. The problem is that hundreds of innocent women are wrongly accused of a criminal act and sent for police investigation. One person was sent to jail, and 10 of the other 100 that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, mentioned had further investigations carried out and were then taken to court.

The Whip is trying to accelerate me, but we cannot accelerate unless I can address the issues raised.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I apologise, but can I remind Members that interventions are short and sweet? But because this is Committee, people can participate in the debate at their chosen point.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, to conclude, I do not have long comments on this. The Attorney-General would be there in such cases to examine whether something illegal and wrong has occurred, and he could withhold his consent for a prosecution if he considered that that was not the case. He would look at the particular circumstances. He or she would act quasi-judicially and independently of government.

Amendment 456 strikes a perfect balance and should give reassurance to women who have good cause to have a late termination, while preserving the criminal offence for those cases where a late abortion cannot be justified. It therefore meets Clause 191 half way, and I urge fellow Peers to support it.