Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

391: After Clause 167, insert the following new Clause—
“Misconduct investigations where officer acquitted(1) The Police Reform Act 2002 is amended as follows.(2) In section 13B –(a) in subsection (1), at end insert “but this is subject to the exception in section 13BA.”, and(b) in subsection (2), at the beginning, leave out “The” and insert “Unless the exception in section 13BA applies, the”.(3) After section 13B, insert—“13BA No re-investigation on acquittal for the same conduct(1) Where this section applies, the Director-General may not make a determination under section 13B(2) to re-investigate the complaint, recordable conduct matter or DSI matter.(2) This section applies where—(a) the Director-General, appropriate authority or relevant review body (as the case may be) has made a determination under paragraphs 23(2)(c), 24(2)(b) or 25(4G) of Schedule 3,(b) as a result of the determination mentioned in paragraph (a), the Director of Public Prosecutions has brought criminal proceedings against the relevant person, and(c) the relevant person has been acquitted in those criminal proceedings.(3) The exception in subsection (1) does not apply only if—(a) the relevant authority has come into possession of substantial new evidence relating to the conduct that was the subject of the investigation, and(b) the relevant authority is of the reasonable opinion that the new evidence would, if considered, be significantly likely to lead to a finding of misconduct or gross misconduct.(4) In this section—(a) “relevant person” means the person to whose conduct the investigation related; (b) “relevant authority” means the Director-General, appropriate authority, local policing body or relevant review body (as the case may be).”(4) After paragraph 24C of Schedule 3, insert—“Investigation where person acquitted in criminal proceedings
24D (1) This paragraph applies where—(a) an investigation of a complaint, conduct matter or DSI matter (“the index investigation”) has concluded and the final report has been submitted to the relevant authority,(b) the relevant authority has made a determination under paragraphs 23(2)(c), 24(2)(b) or 25(4F),(c) as a result of the determination mentioned in sub-paragraph (b), the Director of Public Prosecutions has brought criminal proceedings against the relevant person, and(d) the relevant person has been acquitted in those criminal proceedings.(2) In this paragraph—(a) “relevant person” means the person to whose conduct the index investigation related;(b) “relevant authority” means the Director-General, appropriate authority, local policing body or relevant review body (as the case may be).(3) Where this paragraph applies, the relevant authority may not initiate a new investigation, re-open an investigation or order a re-investigation against the relevant person in relation to the same complaint, conduct matter or DSI matter that was the subject of the index investigation.(4) Sub-paragraph (3) does not apply only if—(a) the relevant authority has come into possession of substantial new evidence relating to the conduct that was the subject of the index investigation, and(b) the relevant authority is of the reasonable opinion that the new evidence would, if considered, be significantly likely to lead to a finding of misconduct or gross misconduct.”(6) In paragraph 25 of that Schedule—(a) after sub-paragraph (4D) insert—“(4DA) The Director-General may not direct that the complaint be re-investigated under sub-paragraph (4C)(b) if paragraph 24D applies in relation to that investigation.”, and(b) after sub-paragraph (4E) insert—“(4EA) The local policing body may not make a recommendation to the appropriate authority that the complaint be re-investigated under sub-paragraph (4E)(a) if paragraph 24D applies in relation to the conduct to which the investigation related.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent the Independent Office for Police Conduct from investigating an officer where that officer has already been investigated and acquitted in court for the same conduct matter.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 391 stands in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. In Committee, speaking to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, I raised the case of the police officer, Martyn Blake, whose case served as the perfect example of the difficulties of serving as a police firearms officer.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct, as is the norm, investigated Martyn Blake following a police firearms operation in London that resulted in the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba, and he was subsequently charged with murder. The case proceeded through the full criminal justice process and the evidence was examined in open court before jury under the rigorous standards of criminal law. After hearing the evidence, the jury acquitted him.

For most people, an acquittal, after an initial investigation and then a full criminal trial, would represent the end of the matter, but in this case, despite the acquittal, the IOPC indicated that the circumstances of the case would still be examined further in the context of police misconduct proceedings. The IOPC then reopened those proceedings, constituting its second investigation and the third investigation overall.

Whatever one’s view of the original incident, the situation raises the question of how many times an officer should be required to defend themselves for the same conduct. We have had restrictions and double jeopardy since the 12th century, but this appears to be triple jeopardy. Police officers can be investigated by the IOPC, referred to the CPS, dragged through the courts, acquitted and then reinvestigated. My amendment would amend the Police Reform Act 2002 to ensure that where a police officer has been investigated for a complaint or a conduct or DSI matter, prosecuted in a criminal court and acquitted, the same conduct cannot simply be reinvestigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct unless there is substantial new evidence. That last point is important.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 reformed the law of double jeopardy by permitting retrial where there was new and compelling evidence. I completely understand that if new evidence comes to light, the IOPC may need to reopen an investigation. There is a safeguard in the amendment to ensure the fairness of the police complaints system. I do not dispute the importance of police accountability; public confidence in policing depends on robust oversight, and the Independent Office for Police Conduct plays a vital role in that framework, but accountability must also be balanced with basic principles of justice. When the criminal courts have examined a case and reached a verdict, there must be a strong presumption that the matter is settled.

I know only too well that police officers make difficult and sometimes life and death decisions in circumstances that are fast-moving, dangerous and highly uncertain. They do so in order to protect the public. When something goes wrong, it is entirely right that their actions are scrutinised carefully and independently, but it is equally important that the process is fair, proportionate and finite.

I hope that the Minister will realise the harrowing mental burdens placed on the police and accept the amendment. All I am asking is for him to meet me half way and bring something at Third Reading or perhaps commit to bringing forward a proposal along these lines in the upcoming Bill on police reform. If he does not accept my amendment today and cannot give me an assurance about police reform, I will seek to divide the House.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

In family cases of sexual or physical abuse, someone can be tried and acquitted but then dealt with in the family court on very much the same evidence. That is partly because there is a difference in the standard of proof, which, in a criminal case, is much greater than in civil and family proceedings. Having said that, I am entirely sympathetic to this amendment.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for initiating his Amendment 391. I know that it is motivated by the desire to support police officers in the difficult role they perform. He and I share that motivation. I say to him, however, that the amendment as drafted would have the effect of curtailing existing powers that the Independent Office for Police Conduct can use to reinvestigate or reopen a case that it has previously closed. The amendment also seeks, more generally, to prevent the reopening of investigations into complaints against the police from the public, again if such complaints have resulted in criminal proceedings which have not resulted in a conviction.

I take very straightforwardly the points made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who made the point that I was going to make: we know of no recent cases where the Independent Office for Police Conduct has reopened a closed case. However, it is in the public interest that cases of alleged police misconduct can, if need be, be reopened in the light of substantive new evidence or evidence that the original investigation was flawed. As has been said by the three noble Members who have spoken, not all criminal proceedings against serving police officers involve line-of-duty incidents. Some may involve serious corruption or sexual violence by police perpetrators, and there may be compelling public interest arguments for reopening such cases.

The powers of the Independent Office for Police Conduct to reinvestigate a case are already limited by existing law, which requires the IOPC to have compelling reasons to reopen a case. This is a legal threshold and is already a high bar. Disciplinary proceedings involve different evidential tests, as was mentioned by those who contributed, and the lower threshold for finding misconduct or gross misconduct is the balance of probabilities. They also serve a different purpose from a criminal trial. We rightly expect the highest standards from our police officers, so a blanket presumption that no police officer who has been acquitted in the criminal courts should face disciplinary proceedings would, in the Government’s view, be quite wrong—I think that reflects the points of view put by the noble Viscount, the noble Lord and the noble and learned Baroness. That is a compelling argument which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, will reflect on if he seeks to push the amendment, which I hope, in due course, he will not.

Amendment 392, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, seeks to improve the timeliness of police complaints and misconduct investigations by creating a new system of legal adjudicators with the power to overrule both chief constables and the Independent Office for Police Conduct by closing down investigations where they determine that there is no good or sufficient reason for any delay. As we have previously debated, unnecessary delays in these investigations are not in anyone’s best interests. I know the impact they will have on public confidence and on the welfare of the police officers involved. However, while it is right to strive for improvements in timeliness, this amendment risks adding another layer of bureaucracy, thereby adding cost and delay and not removing it.

The Government are committed to supporting chief constables to remove those who are not fit for purpose, but the amendment has the potential not only to overrule the responsibilities of chief constables and the Independent Office for Police Conduct, but to create some perverse outcomes. The Government’s recent police reform White Paper already confirms our commitment to an independent, end-to-end review of the police conduct system, which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, would support. It will include looking at timeliness and how this can be improved. Again, further process will be brought back following the police White Paper proposals.

Amendment 393A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, would require that, where a police officer uses force based on an honestly held but mistaken belief, that belief can justify the use of force only if the mistake was objectively reasonable. In effect, as she knows, it seeks to codify the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of police officer W80, which found that the civil standard applied to this test. As the House will know, police officers carry out important and demanding roles. The Government are determined to ensure that both the public and the police are able to feel confident in the police accountability system. That is why we commissioned a review—again, the noble Baroness referred to this—from Timothy Godwin, a former senior police officer, and Sir Adrian Fulford. They carried out a rapid, independent review into police accountability.

The findings of that review were published in October 2025—again, the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, referred to this—and it recommended that the Government change the legal test for the use of force in police misconduct cases from the civil to the criminal law test. The Government, again, have accepted this recommendation and we are in the process of making the necessary changes via secondary legislation. Our intention is that these changes will come into force later this year, in the spring of 2026.

While I understand the noble Baroness’s concept, I cannot support it, because we have put in place the independent commissioners to examine the matter thoroughly and they heard evidence from a wide range of stakeholders. Their recommendation was clear: the current approach has created confusion, inconsistency and, I accept, a very bad effect on police morale, particularly among firearms officers. I hope the changes we are making will bring clarity to the system. I reassure the House that it will still be the case that any force used must be proportionate, reasonable and necessary. I hope that satisfies the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, after her comments—it may not—and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey.

Finally in this group, I will speak briefly to government Amendments 395 and 397. These are technical amendments to ensure that specialist police force barred and advisory lists are consistently applied across police forces. The provisions in Clauses 173 to 181 and Schedule 21 are part of a broader effort to raise standards and conduct within law enforcement. They also include the closure of a legislative loophole. These technical amendments have been tabled to ensure that we have alignment in the treatment of civilian employees within the police service.

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I hope I have satisfied the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington. I hope not just that I have satisfied the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, but that on reflection he is able to listen to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and therefore not push his amendment to a vote. But, as ever, that is entirely a matter for him.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for his valid points and for injecting his valuable experience into this debate. I say to my noble friend Lord Hailsham that it is wrong to draw a comparison between policing and the medical profession. Policing is uniquely different.

This has been a thoughtful discussion about how we maintain robust police accountability while ensuring fairness to the officers who serve the public. The case of Martyn Blake has brought this issue into the public consciousness. Whatever view one takes of the circumstances of that tragic incident, the fact remains that the case was heard in open court before a jury and the officer was acquitted, yet the prospect of further investigation has remained. For many officers watching that case unfold, the concern is not about accountability; it is about whether there is ever a point at which a matter can truly be regarded as concluded.

As my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington pointed out, there is much current discussion about police morale and those young-in-service officers leaving the police service. The proposal in my amendment is fair to officers. It is clear for the system and maintains the integrity of the oversight framework. It is highly unfortunate and extremely disappointing that the Minister has not been able to at least meet me half way and make the commitment that I sought. On that basis, I beg to test the opinion of the House.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

This amendment would restore balance. It would not prevent swift action where a chief presides over grave failures or faces credible allegations of serious misconduct. However, it would ensure that any such reckoning is fair, proportionate and independently informed. I beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her amendment. It is a measured proposal that would simply require a police and crime commissioner, before suspending a chief constable, to be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for doing so and to consult His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.

Chief constables occupy one of the most demanding leadership roles in public life. They are responsible for operational policing, for thousands of officers and staff, and for maintaining public confidence in the rule of law. Therefore, decisions to suspend them are of the utmost seriousness, not only for the individual concerned but for the stability and effectiveness of the force they lead.

Recent events remind us why clarity in these processes matters. The policing of the Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture generated significant public and political debate about policing decisions and leadership accountability. In that context, the actions and judgments of the then chief constable of West Midlands Police, Craig Guildford, have been the subject of rightful scrutiny and commentary. There is potential concern about the necessity for the amendment, but I look forward to what the Minister has to offer on it.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her amendment. I say at the outset that she has a point: the process by which police and crime commissioners may suspend a chief constable should be looked at.

The noble Baroness has suggested that His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services should be involved in this process. As I discussed in Committee, the inspectorate already has such a role for the enforcement of resignations or retirements of chief constables under the Police Regulations 2003. I am pleased to tell the noble Baroness that the Government agree with the suggestion she has made; I do not wish to surprise the noble Baroness.

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[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke on this subject in Committee; I did so with considerable wariness given the strength and distinguished nature of the lawyers who were stressing the importance of open justice. I listened to their speeches incredibly carefully and the House owes them a great deal for coming forward and making the position clear.

I worry about the situation of firearms officers. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made an incredibly important point. Firearms officers do not pick and choose which incidents they attend; they do not have the opportunity to take legal advice before they pull the trigger, and if they do pull the trigger, the likely outcome is death. That is very different from the situations that most police officers find themselves in.

The second point is that we owe them the presumption that we—the Government, their force, and society more generally—will support them in the work that they do, and if they find themselves in the circumstances that we are discussing this evening, their anonymity will be protected until such time as they are convicted, if that is what happens, because by the time their anonymity has been granted, it is too late. I believe that they need to have that certainty at the outset before they go on any missions, before they are deployed.

We ask firearms officers to go into harm’s way. They face intense physical danger from what they do. They are called only to the most serious incidents and stand the risk of being killed themselves. They face the risk of prosecution or perhaps disciplinary action for the shot they discharge, if indeed that is the outcome—which is, as we have heard, incredibly unlikely, but it does happen. We owe them the limited support of the presumption of anonymity, which could be waived if the situation demanded that. It is a big step indeed to go against the presumption of open justice and I fully recognise that—a very powerful argument has been put forward there.

There is one other point to consider that I do not think has been really explored this evening. The obvious conclusion if officers are worried that their names will be publicised should a legal action be brought is that they might hesitate in their duty. They might hesitate to pull that trigger and, in so doing, someone else, a member of the public, may be killed because there is doubt in the minds of those officers. That is something that we should consider very carefully as well.

I got to my feet with considerable temerity, as, apart from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I am the only non-policeman or non-lawyer present in the discussion so far. None the less, there are some points to bear in mind, and I support the approach of the Government.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 394 and to the other amendments in this group. Britain has a very proud and distinctive model of policing by consent. The defining feature of that model is that the overwhelming majority of our police officers do not routinely carry firearms and when firearms are deployed it is because the threat is so grave that lethal force may be necessary to protect life.

That responsibility falls on a very small and highly trained group of officers, and I do not think it hyperbole to say that police firearms officers are some of the bravest, most dedicated officers in the country. According to the latest Home Office statistics, as of 31 March 2025, 6,367 police officers were authorised to carry firearms in England and Wales. That compared with 6,473 the year before, so it is clear that their number is shrinking. That is not something we can afford. It is why my amendment would introduce a presumption against the prosecution of armed police officers where they had discharged their firearm. It would do this by requiring a prosecutor when considering bringing charges against an armed officer to apply the principle that it should be exceptional to bring a prosecution against that officer. This raises the threshold for prosecutions to be instituted. The CPS would have to clear a higher bar to do so.

I want to cast aside some incorrect aspersions. I am not suggesting that armed police officers should be above the law—I want to be absolutely clear about that. The higher prosecution threshold that would be introduced by proposed new subsection (4) of my amendment would still permit prosecutors to bring charges against officers where there are exceptional circumstances. All it is saying is that there must be an acknowledgment of the unique nature of the circumstances that lead to an officer discharging their weapon. Proposed subsection (5) would require prosecutors to give particular weight to the unique demands and exceptional stresses to which firearms officers are subjected, as well as the incredible difficulties of making time-sensitive, split-second decisions.

I want to impress this on the House. It is impossible to understand the immense pressure facing you when you are tasked with the responsibility of carrying a police firearm. I know—I have done it. I carried a firearm for a number of years while employed on counterterrorist duties. Imagine the toll it takes on you as a person. To make it worse, you always have the thought in the back of your mind that, if you do have to use your weapon, you might be hounded for years by the press, by protestors and even by the police force you so dutifully served.

To face the possibility of being dragged before the courts simply for doing your job, with your name splashed over all the papers, is enough to deter anyone, but we cannot afford that to happen. All police firearms officers are volunteers. We need these dedicated officers. We rely on them to protect us in this very building—they are outside, right at this very moment, standing ready to prevent any possible attack.

That is why I cannot support the amendments in this group from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. As I said in Committee, I am firmly supportive of applying the Government’s approach of a presumption in favour of anonymity. The amendments from the noble Lord would not, in my view, substantially alter the status quo, whereby the decision to grant anonymity is at the court’s discretion.

We all say that we must support the police, but support is expressed not only in words; it must be reflected in the structures of law and justice. Those who protect the public in the gravest of circumstances deserve a system that recognises the unique demands placed upon them. Above all, we must ensure that we protect those who protect us. If the Minister cannot accept my amendment, or if I do not hear warm words, I may well seek to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

394: After Clause 171, insert the following new Clause—
“Presumption against prosecution for alleged conduct by authorised firearms officers(1) Where a relevant prosecutor makes a decision to which this section applies, the prosecutor must, in making the decision—(a) apply the principle set out in subsection (4), and(b) comply with subsection (5).(2) This section applies to a decision of a relevant prosecutor as to—(a) whether or not proceedings should be brought against a person (“D”) for a relevant offence, or(b) whether or not any proceedings against D for a relevant offence should be continued,in England and Wales.(3) In this section, an offence is a “relevant offence” if—(a) it is alleged to have been committed by D acting in the exercise of functions as an authorised firearms officer,(b) the conduct alleged to constitute the offence involved the use by D of a lethal barrelled weapon to discharge a conventional round, and(c) D was, at the time of the alleged offence, authorised by the relevant authority to use that weapon with that round.(4) The principle referred to in subsection (1) is that it is to be exceptional for a relevant prosecutor making a decision to which this section applies to determine that proceedings should be brought against D for the offence or, as the case may be, that the proceedings against the person for the offence should be continued.(5) In making a decision to which this section applies, a relevant prosecutor must give particular weight to the following matters—(a) the exceptional demands and stresses to which authorised firearms officers are subjected to in the course of their duties, and(b) the exceptional difficulties of making time-sensitive judgments as are required by the nature of D’s functions as an authorised firearms officer.(6) The following are “relevant prosecutors” for the purposes of this section—(a) the Director of Public Prosecutions,(b) a Crown Prosecutor, or(c) any person to whom the institution or taking over of proceedings for a relevant offence mentioned has been assigned under section 5(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (conduct of prosecutions on behalf of the CPS).(7) In this section, “authorised firearms officer” means—(a) a member of a relevant police force who is authorised by the relevant chief officer to use a lethal barrelled weapon with a conventional round in the exercise of functions as a constable, (b) a National Crime Agency officer who is authorised by the Director General of the National Crime Agency to use a lethal barrelled weapon with a conventional round in the exercise of functions as a National Crime Agency officer,(c) a member of the Police Service of Scotland or the Police Service of Northern Ireland who—(i) is provided under section 98 of the Police Act 1996 (cross-border aid of one police force by another) for the assistance of a police force in England and Wales, and(ii) is authorised by the relevant authority to use a lethal barrelled weapon with a conventional round in the exercise of functions as a constable, or(d) a member of the armed forces who—(i) is deployed in support of a relevant police force or the National Crime Agency, and(ii) is authorised by the Secretary of State to use a lethal barrelled weapon with a conventional round for the purposes of that deployment.(8) In this section—“conventional round” means any shot, bullet or other missile other than one designed to be used without its use giving rise to a substantial risk of causing death or serious injury;“lethal barrelled weapon” has the meaning given by section 57(1B) of the Firearms Act 1968;“member of the armed forces” means a person who is subject to service law (see section 367 of the Armed Forces Act 2006);“relevant authority” means—(a) in relation to a member of a relevant police force, the relevant chief officer;(b) in relation to a National Crime Agency officer, the Director General of the National Crime Agency;(c) in relation to a member of the Police Service of Scotland, the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Scotland;(d) in relation to a member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland;(e) in relation to a member of the armed forces, the Secretary of State;“relevant chief officer” means—(a) in relation to a police force in England and Wales, the chief officer of police of that police force;(b) in relation to the British Transport Police Force, the Chief Constable of the British Transport Police Force;(c) in relation to the Ministry of Defence Police, the Chief Constable of the Ministry of Defence Police;(d) in relation to the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the Chief Constable of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary;“relevant police force” means—(a) a police force in England and Wales,(b) the British Transport Police Force,(c) the Ministry of Defence Police, or(d) the Civil Nuclear Constabulary.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would apply a presumption against prosecution for armed police officers where they discharge their weapons, and requires prosecutors to consider the unique burdens placed on armed officers.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 394 seeks a presumption against prosecution for alleged conduct by authorised firearms officers. I really think that we owe it to firearms officers, who have an exceptional responsibility, to provide this presumption against prosecution. I have to say that I did not hear the warm words that I was looking for from the Government Front Bench, so I am afraid that I seek to divide the House on this.

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At the same time, we must ensure that responsibility is not unfairly shifted on to the police. Much of the current difficulty stems from the lack of clear, shared guidance between police, ambulance and social care services. Blurred boundaries lead to gaps and delays. The “right care, right person” approach has reduced unnecessary police involvement but has also created new challenges. In some cases, other services have gamed the system to trigger police support. In others, officers have withdrawn too early, leaving vulnerable people without immediate help. I hope the Minister will look carefully at these unintended consequences and I beg to move Amendment 398.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for bringing back her Amendment 398. We broadly supported the intention behind her amendment in Committee, and we echo that today. It is of course not acceptable that there has been no independent review of the quality of the more than £400 million spent annually on training for eight years, and the statistics on police officer experience and unsolved crimes bear witness to that fact.

I am grateful that, since our debate in Committee, the Government have brought forward a White Paper that covers many aspects of policing, including training. That is a welcome step, but perhaps the Minister could outline some more specifics on the form that this reform will take? I am conscious that the College of Policing is still working on precise proposals, but an update would be very much appreciated. It is a positive sign that the Government recognise this gap in our policing and seem to be acting on it. As such, while we support the noble Baroness’s intention, we believe that letting the Government carry out their work is a more practical next step.

As we noted in Committee, while we also support the noble Baroness’s intention in Amendment 399 to provide the best possible care to those with mental health problems, we cannot support this specific measure. The Government made it clear in the Mental Health Act last year that they want to reduce the role of police in mental health decisions. We broadly support that. It reflects the belief that health workers, not the police, are the right officials to deal with mental health issues. Any police training must not blur this clear distinction. That said, I understand that police officers are often the first responders to situations concerning mental health patients, so I acknowledge the complexity of the issue and would welcome the Minister underlining the Government’s position on this in his reply.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for these amendments, which bring us back to the important issue of police training.

Amendment 398 would require the Home Secretary to commission an independent review of police training. As your Lordships’ House will be aware, the College of Policing is responsible for setting national training standards, including the police curriculum and accreditations for specialist roles. Our police reform White Paper set out our commitment to develop a licence to practise for policing. It will seek to create a unified system that brings together mandatory training with consistent professional development and well-being support.

As we work with the sector, we will examine the existing training landscape and look to the findings of the police leadership commission, led by my noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Herbert. We will also consider how this model can build on the accreditations and licensing already delivered by the College of Policing in specialist operational areas.

As has been noted, both this evening and in Committee, the College of Policing is also developing a national strategic training panel, which will provide further sector-led insight into existing training. We would not want to pre-empt the outcomes of this work or create a burden of extensive reviews for the sector when much activity is under way through police reform. We therefore do not believe it necessary for the Home Secretary to commission an independent review of police officer training and development, as proposed in Amendment 398. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment, as these issues have been examined comprehensively through existing work. I can assure her that it is a key element of our police reform agenda. Having published the White Paper, we will obviously progress that at the appropriate time and produce further reforms that may be necessary, which there will be further opportunities for your Lordships’ House and the other place to debate at length, whether through a legislative vehicle or not.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, was rather dismissive of introducing the licence to practise. Officers deserve a clear and consistent structure to empower them to learn, train and develop as skilled professionals. Once implemented, a licence model will provide greater assurance that the police have the correct training and well-being support to do their jobs and that there are regular reviews to ensure that they meet national standards. We recognise that we will not be able to introduce a licensing model overnight, but we have set out the first steps for a licensing model, including mandatory leadership standards and a strong performance management framework.

Amendment 399 seeks to ensure that police officers have the training required to deal with people suffering through a mental health crisis. As I indicated, the setting of standards and the provision of mandatory and non-mandatory training material is a matter for the College of Policing. It provides core learning standards, which includes the initial training for officers under the Police Constable Entry Programme. This underpins initial learning levels around autism, learning disabilities, mental health, neurodiversity and other vulnerabilities. Through forces utilising this established training, officers are taught to assess vulnerability and amend their approaches as required to understand how best to communicate with those who are vulnerable for whatever reason, and to understand how to support people exhibiting these needs to comprehend these powers in law and continue to amass specialist knowledge to work with other relevant agencies to help individuals.

We consider it impractical to expect, or indeed require, police officers to become experts in the entire range of mental health and vulnerability conditions, including autism and learning disabilities. Instead, the College of Policing rightly seeks to equip them to make rational decisions in a wide range of circumstances, and to treat people fairly and with humanity at all times.

I have said this a number of times: all forces are operationally independent of government. To seek to impose requirements on mandatory training risks undermining that very principle. Furthermore, each force has unique situations—different pressures, priorities, demographics and needs. To mandate that a small rural force must undertake the same training as a large urban force will not give it the flexibility it needs to best serve its local communities. Furthermore, the College of Policing is best placed to draw on its expertise to determine the relevant standards and training that the police require.

The training already provided equips officers with the knowledge to recognise indicators of mental health and learning disabilities; to communicate with and support people exhibiting such indicators; to understand their police powers; and to develop specialist knowledge to work with other agencies to help individuals. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, this is not about replacing real experts and mental health workers, in the NHS and other agencies, who are best placed to provide that specialist knowledge and expertise.

I hope that, on the basis of these comments and the work already under way, the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.

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[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, both the amendments in this group highlight a serious issue in policing. Many officers and staff are under extreme strain and we are not systematically measuring the scale of the problem. We support the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, for the mandatory recording and reporting of suicides and serious suicide attempts, a proposal backed by the Police Federation. Whether through his amendment or Amendment 409, it is important that we act now to bring this problem into clear view so that we can assess the risks and protect officers’ welfare, as we would with any other occupational hazard. It is therefore necessary to place a legal duty on forces and the Home Office to record these incidents and publish the figures so that appropriate support and interventions can be designed, and responsibility for preventable loss of life can be properly examined.

The police service rightly places emphasis on officer well-being, but these amendments would take a further step by increasing transparency so that we can understand what is happening to those who carry some of society’s heaviest psychological demands. Police officers are often the first to assist people in mental health crisis, but we must ensure that their own welfare is addressed. As my noble friend Lady Brinton observed in Committee, policing has often relied on signposting staff to external organisations rather than building internal support that is tailored to their needs.

First, however, we must remedy the lack of consistent data across forces. A unified system for collecting and publishing a mental health matrix would allow targeted evidence-based support that is timely and preventive. I hope that, in this instance, the Minister will recognise the importance of a clear duty to measure and report these outcomes as the basis for any serious strategy on officer well-being.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses the important issue of mental health and well-being for those serving in police forces. Amendment 408, in the name of my noble friend Lord Bailey, and Amendment 409, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, seek to improve the collection and publication of data relating to suicide and attempted suicide among police officers and police staff.

The intention behind them is clear. If we are serious about supporting the well-being of those who serve in policing, we must first ensure that we properly understand the scale and nature of the challenges that they face. Policing is a profession that places extraordinary demands on those who undertake it. Officers and staff routinely encounter traumatic incidents and cumulative stress that comes from protecting the public in difficult circumstances, and I can personally vouch for that. While the vast majority serve with resilience and dedication, it is clear that these pressures can have a profound effect on mental health.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Bailey spoke movingly about the importance of ensuring that the police covenant is underpinned by robust evidence. Without reliable national data, it is difficult to identify patterns, understand risk factors or evaluate whether the support structures currently in place are working as intended. The same point was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who emphasised that better data is essential if we are to design effective prevention strategies.

There is already recognition across policing on the need to strengthen the evidence base in this area, and work is under way through national policing bodies to improve the collection of welfare data. However, the amendments before the House highlight the importance of ensuring that this work is transparent and capable of informing meaningful action. Ultimately, the police covenant reflects our collective commitment to those who protect the public. Ensuring that we understand and address the mental health risks faced by officers and staff is central to that commitment.

For those reasons, this group of amendments raises issues to which the Government should give careful consideration. I look forward to what the Minister has to say in response.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Bailey of Paddington and Lord Hogan-Howe, for tabling the amendments in this group. I am conscious of the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, supported the amendment’s general direction of travel.

First, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, that suicide and attempted suicide in the police workforce have devastating consequences. I and the Government recognise fully the need to address mental health and well-being in policing seriously and responsibly. As the noble Lord will know, the National Police Wellbeing Service already does vital work in tackling suicide risks to the police workforce, including work on prevention, postvention support for forces, a 24/7 mental health crisis line for anyone working in policing, and specialist trauma services.

I am grateful for the way in which the noble Lord has framed his amendment and brought it forward. However, I say to him respectfully that placing an additional statutory reporting duty in primary legislation is not, I feel, the right approach at this time. I say this for three broad reasons. First, much of the information sought by the amendments, particularly in relation to attempted suicide, is often clinical, confidential, medical data. In many cases, it cannot be lawfully or ethically shared with employers, so mandating this through primary legislation would be the wrong approach and would risk unintended consequences around confidentiality, trust and data integrity. In my view, that is a significant blockage in the amendment to date.

Secondly, I reassure the noble Lord that the absence of legislation does not mean the absence of action. This is a really important point. Police forces already collect data on deaths by suicide, and there is national co-ordination of that data. The challenge is not in getting forces to comply; it is in what we ask for from forces, how it is defined and, most importantly, how it is used to drive meaningful prevention. Again, I look forward to the future and looking at a revised national police service downstream, following the White Paper, where training, well-being and personnel functions are brought into the centre and where there is a smaller number of police forces on the ground. There will be a real focus on this, and I know it is important to do that.

Thirdly, I do not want to be locked into a rigid framework before necessary clinical, operational and ethical questions have been resolved. This is not simply a matter of reporting; it also requires high-quality support. In particular, as I think the noble Lord will accept, it demands a culture that understands that mental health challenges are there in police forces. Police officers see some horrendous things on the ground. They have really hard experiences and are very often traumatised. It is important that we embed in the culture of the police force how we respond to those issues. It is not simply about collecting statistics. I know that that is the noble Lord’s prime motivation but, ultimately, it should be about having an automatic, embedded culture that recognises the stresses and strains, helps identify them and puts in place measures to help people with their mental health.

That is why the Government are focusing their efforts on strengthening well-being support, trauma care and early intervention in the police White Paper, and also why my colleague, the Minister directly responsible for policing and crime, has engaged with police leaders, staff associations and experts to look at how we can improve the quality of the data and, more importantly, the quality of preventive action. As it happens, I had a useful discussion with the Police Federation at my party conference in Liverpool in October last year. We understand that there is a real issue to help support, but I do not believe that the amendments before the House on Report today would be the right solution at this stage.

With this recognition of the problem and a grateful Minister who says to the noble Lord, “Thank you for bringing this issue forward”, I hope that, on the basis of what I have said, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

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With the reality of May’s Senedd elections on the horizon, it seems that very little progress will be made on this issue in the short term. I hope the next Welsh Government, which I hope is a progressive one, continues to pursue further devolution, including the devolution of policing and youth justice, and I can assure them in advance of the continued support of these Benches.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, for bringing forward Amendments 409A and 409B, which raise the question of devolving policing and youth justice to Wales. As discussed in Committee, these amendments engage an important constitutional issue about the structure of the devolution settlement. It was argued that devolving these responsibilities could allow them to sit alongside other public services already devolved to the Welsh Government, such as education and health.

However, as was also noted, these matters currently form part of a single legal jurisdiction covering England and Wales. Policing and youth justice operate within that shared framework which supports co-operation between forces and national capability across the system. Changes of the scale proposed here would represent a significant constitutional shift. A matter of such importance cannot properly be considered through two amendments to an ever-growing policing Bill. Indeed, I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd: he is absolutely right that this certainly requires more time. It would require a broader, more fundamental discussion about the future structure of the devolution settlement which, in respect of policing, we on this side, I am afraid, would resist. I look forward to the noble Lord’s remarks.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, for returning to the issue on Report. We find ourselves in a very strange situation today where the noble Baroness who moved the amendment resides in Wales, the shadow Minister was a former Member of Parliament in Wales and resides in Wales, and the Government Minister is a former Member of Parliament in Wales and resides in Wales. We are having a bit of a Welsh fest today where every Member who spoke also resides in Wales. I apologise to my noble friends for keeping them here on this Welsh discussion. I have to say to the noble Baroness that I regret it being this late in the evening. It is slightly out of my control because of the way in which the debates have fallen.

As has been seen in the debate, there are a number of different views and within Wales there are a number of different views on this matter. The Government are still of the view, and the position remains clear, that policing operates effectively within a single integrated England and Wales criminal justice system, and it is really important that we examine that.

As my noble friends Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Lord Jones of Penybont mentioned, there is a lot going on in the policing world at the moment, not just in Wales but in England. There will be legislation to abolish police and crime commissioners and an examination of the model for their replacement. As has been said, that model will include the mayoral model in England but also a local authority model. We have given a very strong commitment that the structures in Wales will be a matter for discussion in the review that is being undertaken, pending the legislation that will come before this House, when parliamentary time allows, to abolish police and crime commissioners.

A review of the number of police forces, currently 43, will be undertaken in the next few months and completed in the summer. There will be significant engagement with the Senedd, Welsh police forces, current police and crime commissioners, Welsh Members of Parliament and anyone else who wishes to have a view on what the format should be in relation to any revised structure in Wales. Self-evidently, there are a number of options: the existing four police forces; a smaller number of police forces; a single police force; and the different types of governance structure that could be put in place. That will be part of the discussion that is undertaken.

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[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to this group of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. With the finishing post in sight, I will be extremely brief.

These amendments correctly identify a crisis at the heart of our police service. There is a consensus that our police are currently drowning in a sea of unnecessary paperwork, and my noble friend Lady Doocey’s policy paper, Policing Fit for the Future, makes the case with devastating clarity. It records the testimony of chief constables, who warn that low morale and heavy workloads are being compounded by

“archaic IT systems—some over 50 years old”

that force highly trained officers to spend more time as data entry clerks than as crime fighters. The Government’s own White Paper, From Local to National: A New Model for Policing, acknowledges this failure. It rightly sets out a mission to “strip away the barriers” that prevent officers focusing on the public’s priorities. We on these Benches welcome the ambition to automate manual processes and deliver millions of hours back to the front line.

I am not going to go into detail on the amendments, but we cannot support them as drafted. They risk micromanaging the police through the statute book and could become relics of a different era within a few short years. However, I urge the Minister to take the spirit of these proposals to heart and ensure that they are reflected in the new national policing model.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for bringing forward this group of amendments. Together, they address a theme that will be familiar to many across the House: the need to ensure that police officers are able to focus their time on policing rather than bureaucracy.

Amendment 409D concerns the publication of enforcement data for a number of offences that have become a source of considerable public concern, including shoplifting, offences involving blades, phone theft and fare evasion. We lend our strong support to the amendment. Greater transparency around enforcement activity can only help to strengthen public confidence and provide a clearer picture of how policing resources are being deployed.

Amendment 409E addresses the volume of paperwork that officers are required to complete. In Committee, it was rightly observed that administrative burdens can too often draw officers away from the front line. A review of the scale of those requirements and how they might be simplified would therefore be a sensible and constructive step.

Finally, Amendment 409F raises the question of data sharing and the efficiency of the systems that underpin case preparation and charging decisions. As many noble Lords will know, delays and inefficiencies in the exchange of information between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service can slow down the progress of cases and place additional strain on already stretched resources.

There is a significant amount of work that goes into the redaction of police documents before they are sent to the CPS, often for the documents simply to be sent back because they are overredacted. Furthermore, many of the cases the police redact may not end up being prosecuted. It is clear that this is a significant waste of police time and money, and my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe is right: it would make more sense for the CPS to take charge of the redaction of documents that may enter the public domain, given that it would have a far smaller number of documents to trawl through.

Taken together, these amendments all speak to a wider objective: ensuring that the system surrounding policing work is as efficient as possible, allowing officers to focus on preventing crime, catching offenders and protecting the public. The police should be spending as much time on the front line as possible, rather than being encumbered by unnecessary paperwork. I hope that the Minister will give them careful consideration and, as always, I look forward to his response.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, we are nearly there. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for returning to these issues, which were thoroughly debated in Committee, and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Davies of Gower, for their contributions to this short but nevertheless important debate. I know that the noble Baroness takes a keen interest in improving how police handle data and utilise their resources effectively. We share that objective and appreciate her constructive contribution to that discussion.

On the noble Baroness’s Amendment 409D, as announced in our police reform White Paper, the Government will introduce a police performance dashboard this year, which will allow chief constables and local policing bodies to analyse transparent and operationally significant data. This will allow forces to understand where they are performing well and where they can improve. The Home Office and the Office for National Statistics already publish extensive data, of course, on police-recorded knife crime, shoplifting and theft, and the outcomes assigned to these crimes. The published outcome data provides detailed information on what happened after a crime was recorded by the police, such as where a result is a charge or summons, out-of-court disposal, et cetera. Essentially, it links crimes to their investigative and judicial results, giving insight into how offences progress through the criminal justice system. Additional data is available through police.uk, where members of the public can access monthly crime maps and stop and search statistics. Transport authorities such as Transport for London also publish enforcement data on fare evasion. This is to say that the dashboards are still in development but will build on what we already provide in the public domain.

I know from her contributions to the Bill that the noble Baroness has concerns about how police are enforcing the law particularly around offences involving cyclists and e-scooters. The Home Office has recently established the police performance framework, which provides a strong mechanism for monitoring enforcement activity across all police forces in England and Wales. This framework is flexible and is currently scheduled for review in 2027-28. Mandating which offences the police publish enforcement data on through a fixed list in statute, as her amendment envisions, does not offer the necessary flexibility, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, noted, as to how the performance framework operates. In addition, it risks duplicating the work already being undertaken that I have outlined.

Turning to Amendment 409E, the Government have already gained valuable insight into how police time is used, through the 2023 Police Activity Survey, to which the noble Baroness referred. Given the usefulness of the results, the Home Office ran the survey again this year, with fieldwork taking place just last week. We expect to have results in the next few months and will consider how to ensure that they can enable police productivity improvements. From this activity, we expect to gain a detailed profile of how police time is used, as well as insights into productive and non-productive uses of that time. We have sponsored the Centre for Police Productivity in the College of Policing and launched the police efficiency and collaboration programme in 2024 to improve productivity and efficiency across police forces.

Furthermore, our recently published White Paper presents an array of the most significant reforms to policing for nearly 200 years. It outlines our plans to modernise the entire workforce, establish a new performance system to drive improvements in forces, strip out duplication and inefficiency and deliver £354 million of efficiency savings through a police efficiency and collaboration programme. I know that the noble Baroness is keen on efficiency savings, so I hope she welcomes that announcement.

Finally, on Amendment 409F, we support the noble Baroness’s desire to free up officer time by removing administrative burdens such as unnecessary redaction and improve the efficiency of case file preparation and the charging process. A large part of the redaction burden is driven by current disclosure practice, so we have collaborated with criminal justice partners to pilot a more proportionate approach to disclosure. The pilot, running in the Crown Prosecution Service’s south-east region, aims to reduce the redaction burden by reducing the unnecessary sharing of unused material and refocus efforts on what meets the test for disclosure. This should make case preparation more efficient and enable more timely and effective charging decisions. We are also working with policing to support the adoption of AI-enabled redaction technology. The majority of forces now have AI-enabled text redaction tools, and we are supporting those forces to adopt audiovisual multimedia redaction technology in the most efficient way.

In conclusion, we support the aims of these amendments, but given the work in train, I hope I have been able to persuade the noble Baroness that they are not necessary at this stage. However, I will be very happy to meet her request to facilitate a meeting with the most appropriate Minister, so that we can take the discussion forward. In the meantime, I invite her to withdraw her amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I will finish here because this is Report, but 50 metres is too short, although I think vicinity works. I agree with the noble Baroness on clarity; I am not against that, but you have to leave the police some flexibility given the circumstances they face. I do not think vicinity is an unreasonable suggestion. We can make that work, but 50 metres will never work.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, we have started the fourth day on Report with a wide-ranging and interesting debate on the general landscape of public order law. The noble Lords, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Strasburger, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Fox of Buckley, have argued that there are too many statutory limitations on protest in this country. I do not agree, and I suspect I will find myself in much agreement with the Minister on those amendments.

First, I will speak to my Amendments 377C and 377D. Amendment 377C would extend the notification period for public processions from six to 28 days. Currently, Section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986 requires any person organising a protest to notify the police of their proposal to hold it with six days’ notice. The purpose of this period is to ensure that the police can plan their resource requirements effectively. They need to examine the route, number of attendees and timing, gather intelligence on the groups and people involved and assess the likelihood of violence and disorder. If the procession is likely to be large or the cause highly contentious, or if those involved have a history of causing disorder, they may very well need to make contingencies and possibly bring in more officers.

The short period of six days causes significant problems for the police, the public and the organisers of the protest, and it may take the police a substantial amount of time to gather all the available evidence and set conditions so the organisers can often only be notified of those conditions the day before the protest is due to take place. This does not give them adequate time to ensure that they can comply with those conditions, nor does it allow the public and businesses adequate time to adapt.

Policy Exchange’s polling demonstrated that the medium level of notice that respondents believed protest organisers should have to give to the police is 28 days. In its survey, 51% said organisers should have to give at least three weeks’ notice while 45% said the period should be at least four weeks. The 28-day period is also incidentally the same notice period as exists in Northern Ireland, and while I appreciate the different historical and political context in Northern Ireland, it does not seem unreasonable to extend that to England and Wales—especially given the substantial time and effort that police must pour into planning for large-scale protests.

Amendment 377D concerns the criteria on which the police may prohibit a protest. Currently, Section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986 permits the police to prohibit protests if there is a likelihood that the protest will result in serious public disorder. However, that is the only criterion included in that section, meaning there is no ability for the police to prohibit a protest if there is a risk of serious disruption to the life of the community, nor does it allow the police to take into account their own resources and ability to maintain public safety when making their assessment. My amendment would extend the criteria for the prohibition of protest to include where the chief officer of police has a reasonable belief that the protest could result in “serious public disorder”, “serious damage to property”,

“serious disruption to the life of the community”

or that it would

“place undue demands on the police”.

Given the Government's commitment to reform of public order law, I would think they should be able to accept these two amendments. Before the Minister says they need to wait for the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, into public order and hate speech to report, I gently remind him that the Government were perfectly happy to pre-empt that review and legislate to extend the legislation aggravators based on characteristics last week. If they were happy to do so for that provision, I do not see why they cannot accept mine. However, if the Minister finds himself unable to do so, I am minded to press them to a Division when called.

I will also briefly comment on the other amendments in this group. Amendment 369, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, and others, would create a new statutory right to protest. While the attention behind this is understandable, it is difficult to see what legal gap it is intended to fill. As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has already explained, the right to protest is already protected through the common law and currently through Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights incorporated domestically through the Human Rights Act.

However, it is important to recognise that we do not derive our rights in Britain from international treaties or even from domestic statute. The right to protest was protected before Parliament passed the Human Rights Act in 1998 and before we joined the ECHR. It is a right derived from ancient English liberty and our common law inheritance, so placing it into the Crime and Policing Bill in 2026 will not change a thing. I dare say if we were to leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act, we would still have our ancient freedom to protest intact.

What is more, creating a new declaratory clause risks adding greater complexity without adding meaningful protection. Indeed, by restating rights that are already well established, we may inadvertently create new areas of legal uncertainty rather than clarity for the police, local authorities and the courts, and for those reasons I cannot support that amendment.

A similar concern arises with Amendment 369A, which would introduce a reasonable excuse defence relating to concealing identity at a protest. Clause 133(2) already contains these defences. They include when a person is wearing a face covering for health reasons, religious observance or a purpose relating to their work, and that is a perfectly reasonable and pragmatic list of exceptions.

Amendments 372A and 372AA seek to narrow the circumstances in which conditions may be imposed on protests in the vicinity of places of worship. In doing so, they replace the current test by which a protest may intimidate with a requirement to demonstrate a specific purpose to intimidate. That is a significantly higher threshold. The difficulty is obvious. In practice, intimidation often arises from the circumstances and impact of a protest rather than from an explicitly stated intention. Requiring the police to prove purpose before acting risks tying their hands precisely when communities may feel most vulnerable.

On Amendment 373, as I stated in Committee, we on these Benches are supportive of the introduction of police powers to take into consideration cumulative disruption when placing conditions on protests and assemblies. I do not therefore agree with removing Clause 140. After all, the previous Government tried to introduce this in 2023 and it was the Liberal Democrats and Labour who voted it down in this House at the time, so it is good to see the Labour Party finally has come round to the Conservatives’ way of thinking.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Marks, Lord Strasburger and Lord Davies of Gower, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for affording us this further opportunity to debate the right to protest and public order measures in the Bill. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate.

The Government fully recognise the importance of peaceful protest in a democratic society. However, Amendment 369, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, would place in statute a right that is already clearly protected in domestic law—and it is not only me saying that, as we have heard from the formidable legal troika of the noble Lords, Lord Faulks and Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. As they said, public authorities are bound by the Human Rights Act to uphold Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which cover freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. These rights are qualified and may only be limited when restrictions are lawful, necessary and proportionate. Common law also provides strong recognition of peaceful protest. Introducing an additional statutory provision risks creating overlap and uncertainty, particularly for operational policing, without offering any meaningful new protections.

In their contributions, the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talked about the risks of, shall we say, a more extreme Government and this paving the way for further restrictions on the right to protest. I can only agree with comments made by a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Faulks: I hope the occasion never arises, but that is democracy, and any incoming Government that have that kind of mandate would not find it hard to overturn not only provisions that the Government are making in this Bill but the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, proposes, should it make its way on to the statute book. I am therefore not sure that argument really washes.

The Government remain firmly committed to safeguarding the right to protest. That is one reason why we have asked the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, to review the current legislative framework. One of the matters being explored as part of the review is—to quote its terms of reference—whether the current legislation

“strikes a fair balance between freedom of expression and the right to protest with the need to prevent disorder and keep communities safe”.

The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, is expected to report later in the spring. I assure noble Lords that we will consider very carefully all his recommendations, including any proposing a strengthening of the right to protest.

Amendment 369A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, would provide a reasonable excuse defence for concealing a person’s identity at a protest in a designated area and shift the burden of proof away from individuals within that designated area on to police. Instead of requiring a person to justify why they had a valid reason for wearing an item to conceal their identity, as set out in the specified defences, it would place the responsibility on the police to assess, during a live protest, whether the explanation provided was reasonable or not. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that is not necessarily always an easy thing to do.

Clause 133 currently provides three statutory defences for concealing identity at a protest within a designated area: relating to the health of the person or others; religious observance; or for a purpose relating to that person’s work. The offence carries a reverse burden of proof, meaning it is for the individual to prove they concealed their identity for one of these reasons. I consider this a proportionate and carefully balanced offence.

It is important to highlight that any decision to designate an area and arrest a person concealing their identity must take into account Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, meaning that all decisions must be necessary and proportionate in relation to the right to peaceful protest. It is important to bear in mind that a locality will be designated only when it is thought that a protest activity is likely to involve or has involved criminality, so it is expedient to do so in order to prevent or limit the commission of offences.

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[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I think it is very odd that there should be a distinction made by the Government between a memorial to Florence Nightingale and a memorial to Edith Cavell. That is purely an example that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, has given us. If that is so, what on earth is the point of the clause?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Parkinson for tabling these amendments that seek to ensure that our memorials of national and historic importance are afforded the respect and protection they deserve under the new offence created in Clause 137. As was noted in Committee, the offence of climbing on specified memorials was introduced to address gaps revealed by recent protests around war memorials, such as the Royal Artillery Memorial and, indeed, around the statue of our great wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill just outside this place. It was first introduced as part of the previous Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, and it is welcome that this Government have taken up the mantle.

Under the current drafting, however, only grade 1 listed memorials are specified, together with the statue of Sir Winston Churchill, but the list does not capture other memorials of equal national significance. As my noble friend has argued so eloquently, using grade 1 listed memorials does not serve a real practical purpose. It is much more about administrative ease. Why does Sledmere get two specified memorials but the Women of World War II Memorial gets no such protection? Amendment 370 would broaden the definition of “specified memorial” to include any war memorial that has been listed or scheduled, not just those that happen to be grade 1 listed.

That approach aligns with the fact that the significance of a memorial is not solely a function of its listing grade but of the history it commemorates and its role in national remembrance. Expanding the scope in this way provides a more objective and inclusive basis for protection and avoids arbitrary outcomes based on historic listing decisions.

Amendment 372 complements Amendment 370 by adding two memorials of particular national importance: the monument to the women of the Second World War in Whitehall, which honours the immense contributions of millions of women during that conflict, and the Holocaust memorial garden in Hyde Park, which stands as a poignant reminder of the horrors of genocide. Including those memorials recognises the breadth of sacrifice in the diverse stories that make up our collective history. I hope the Government will concede to this. If they do and my noble friend is content, so will I be.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who spoke in this short but important debate, particularly to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, who spoke very movingly about the power of memorials in every community and the hurt that communities feel when they are damaged or disrespected. Amendments 370, 372ZZA and 372ZZB, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, seek to expand the list of war and other memorials covered by the new offence of climbing on a memorial provided for in Clause 137. I am grateful to him for taking the time to meet with me and officials last week on this issue and for his thoughtful consideration of how best to achieve the Government’s aim, which I think is shared across the House.

As regards Amendment 370, I fully acknowledge that many of the listed and scheduled memorials covered in the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 commemorate events and individuals of great national importance. The Bill intentionally sets out a clear and fixed list of memorials which provides certainty for the public, policing and the courts. By contrast, Amendment 370 would link the offence to memorials listed or scheduled under two separate heritage Acts. Those Acts encompass a far wider range of structures than the focused list in this measure and can change over time. Therefore, this would introduce an uncertainty about which memorials were captured at any given point, undermining the clarity and consistency that the measure is intended to achieve. For this reason, I cannot support the amendment.

The noble Lord, and perhaps the House, will be pleased to hear that I am much more disposed towards his Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB, which seek to add the monument to the women of World War II and the Holocaust memorial garden in Hyde Park to Schedule 14. Our aim is to ensure that memorials that have been deemed at threat in the course of a protest are covered by the offence. As the noble Lord has explained, these two memorials have been targeted in recent years. They are both culturally significant, and I agree with him that we need to protect them under this new offence. I am therefore happy to confirm that the Government support these two amendments.

The Holocaust memorial garden in Hyde Park is of course designed to be enjoyed as a garden and people are free to walk within it. I have given consideration to the practical issue of whether the police will be able to enforce this offence. The intention of the offence is to capture the action of climbing and I am confident it will not capture walking on an installation such as the Holocaust memorial garden. There are other memorials listed in Schedule 14 which have steps that may be sat on by members of the public, such as the Royal Artillery memorial in Hyde Park. I am content that, in enforcing this offence, police officers will use their discretion to consider whether an offence is committed.

As I have previously stated, the provision includes a power for the Home Secretary to add further memorials by secondary legislation. This might include the statue of Florence Nightingale in Waterloo Place, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. This Government will be able to add to the list of protected memorials should a site be identified that requires inclusion. I remain of the view, however, that not every memorial or every war memorial can be included. To do so would make the measure unenforceable due to the number of memorials and many, by their nature—for example, commemorative plaques—cannot be climbed on. That said, I accept we need a clear process for deciding whether to add further memorials to Schedule 14.

We will commit to setting out the process through which the Government will add to the specified list of memorials through secondary legislation. We will ensure a methodical and structured approach to consider which memorials have a significant public interest in being included. We will set out the process shortly after the Bill receives Royal Assent. As the Home Secretary has already indicated, this will include the national Holocaust memorial when it has finally been built. I hope that I have been able to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and that the combination of the addition of the two memorials specified in his Amendments 372ZZA and 372ZZB and the process I have outlined for considering the case for adding further memorials will persuade him to withdraw Amendment 370.

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[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to add how delighted I am that the Government have done that. It is rather overdue and will give some degree of satisfaction to at least some families of MPs in particular.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, in Committee I raised some strong objections to the amendment that the Government were proposing then. We were concerned that the proposals could inadvertently criminalise canvassing and leafleting an officeholder from a rival political party. We were also concerned about the proposed second aspect of the offence, which could criminalise making representations about a matter relating to the officeholder’s private capacity.

I still have reservations about the principle behind Amendment 371. I do not accept the Government’s argument that all protests outside a public officeholder’s dwelling constitute harassment. That is the stated view of the Government, but I think it is demonstrably false. If a protest outside a public officeholder’s home becomes actual harassment within the meaning of the law then that should be prosecuted as such, and if the protest breaches the peace or becomes highly disruptive then there are already laws to deal with that, but simply saying that any person who wishes to make representations to a politician about their actions or policies outside their house is harassment and therefore unlawful seems a disproportionate infringement of liberty.

Having said that, I am grateful to the Minister for taking our comments on board. The amendment that the Government have tabled on Report is much improved and far more tightly drafted, and I welcome that. Could the Minister confirm that the definition of a protest in the amendment will not include canvassing and leafleting or asking someone to sign a petition? I think we would all benefit from that being on the record. Given that the Government have listened to our concerns, while we are not completely content, we will not oppose this amendment.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I particularly thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, because I feel that at this Dispatch Box I do not always meet the high bar that she sets for defending the Government’s position, so it is always good to win her praise.

To pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, the Government are committed to defending democracy. I therefore assure him that Amendment 371 does not restrict political campaigning. It is perfectly legitimate for campaigners during election time to door-knock and speak to their local public officeholders about different political opinion. Where this crosses the line is when these people choose to protest against the public officeholder at their home.

These government amendments are vital to protecting our democracy. As my honourable friend the Security Minister has made clear, harassment and intimidation must never be accepted as part of a public officeholder’s role. This cannot become the new normal, and the scale of the problem cannot be overstated. It is not simply MPs, either. The Local Government Association’s Debate Not Hate survey in 2025 found that seven in 10 councillors had experienced abuse or intimidation in the previous year. The Speaker’s Conference reported that an astonishing 96% of MPs who responded to their survey had suffered at least one form of abuse, intimidation or harassment. This demonstrates that it is a real problem. Harassment is not simply confined to online spaces; it is very active in the real world too. We must therefore put protections in place not only to keep public office holders safe but to ensure that they feel safe, and that their families are protected. With that, I beg to move.

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

371B: In subsection (1), leave out paragraphs (a) to (c) and insert “Condition 1 has been met and that one of either—
(a) Condition 2, or(b) Condition 3,has been met.(1A) Condition 1 is that the group has as its purpose and practice the deliberate commission of one or more of the following offences—(a) an offence under section 1 of the Public Order Act 1986 (riot),(b) an offence under section 2 of the Public Order Act 1986 (violent disorder),(b) an offence under section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 (destroying or damaging property), or(d) an offence under section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023 (interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure).(1B) Condition 2 is that the offences mentioned in Condition 1 are carried out with the intention of influencing public policy, parliamentary debate, ministerial decision-making or the exercise of democratic functions.(1C) Condition 3 is that the activities of the group create a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions, or the rights of others.”

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Walney, for bringing forward Amendment 371A and all noble Lords who have added their name to it. I thank the Members of your Lordships’ House who, I hope, will be speaking to it. This amendment is eminently sensible. We have heard several examples already of groups which engage in criminal and intimidating behaviour to further their ideological ends, but which do not necessarily pass the terrorism threshold. There is no justification for their continued lawful existence, but to proscribe them as terrorists obfuscates the meaning of the category and incorporates inactive supporters within the definition. The pertinent example of this is Palestine Action. I will not speculate on whether the behaviour actually amounts to terrorism, but the actions of its supporters following its proscription highlight the necessity for action.

An organisation that damages defence infrastructure and attacks members of the public should cease to exist, but for the police to then have to spend precious time arresting hundreds of protesters with placards is clearly not ideal. It may seem morally dubious on behalf of those protesters, but I think we can all agree that they are a far cry from the archetypal terrorist supporters of, say, ISIS or the Taliban. Most importantly, it is a waste of police time to have to deal with sanctimonious protesters who otherwise peacefully support a general ideological cause. That is why we entirely support the noble Lord’s amendment. Our Amendment 371B introduces a minor change to the drafting that reflects our belief that the proscription of groups in this category should not be contingent on whether they fulfil the criteria of both subsections (1A) and (1B). Individually, the actions in both subsections should merit a protest group being proscribed and prohibited from taking further action.

If a listed crime is committed that creates a serious risk to the safety of the public, then the line is crossed from dissent to danger. I think noble Lords can agree that whether a group is for an ideological end or not, this should merit proscription. The very act of a group entering an arms factory with sledgehammers should preclude its existence, regardless of motive. That said, ideological motive is also a factor that should be considered in its own right: if a group shuns peaceful protest and becomes willing to commit criminal offences to further a political end, that should be grounds to ban it. Take, for example, BASH BACK, the activist group which has consistently engaged in criminal damage, vandalism and intimidation in the name of so-called transgender rights. To take one example—as I am sure my noble friend Lady Cash will highlight—it recently spray-painted the office building of the Equality and Human Rights Commission for simply declaring that biological sex is biological sex.

This vandalism is an offence under Section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 and should result in a group being proscribed. I am, however, wary that spray painting and other forms of vandalism may not be seen to create a risk of serious harm to public safety, and I am not confident that, with the right lawyers, the actions of these groups would result in them being proscribed, because of a technicality. Criminality alone introduces the possibility of restricting the practice of a protest group. Whether this is augmented by either a risk to public safety or by an intention to influence political decision-making should confirm that decision.

That being said, I reaffirm my support for the noble Lord’s original amendment. It is a pertinent time for this debate, and I believe that Amendment 371A finds the right balance between prohibiting criminal activity and permitting peaceful support. I hope all Members of your Lordships’ House can recognise the rationale for moving away from a rigid binary between terrorism and protest and acknowledge that it is a spectrum that will benefit from more nuance. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition will support this amendment, and I look forward to hearing the closing remarks of the Minister and of the noble Lord, Lord Walney.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 371A from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. As the noble Lord mentioned, the House will be very familiar with the problems that have arisen from the use of the power that the Secretary of State has to proscribe a terrorist group. The virtue of Amendment 371A is that it avoids any such description. It focuses on the severe mischief that we know certain groups are causing in our society.

Who could object to the Secretary of State having a power, by regulation, to designate a group as an extreme criminal protest group if there is a reasonable belief that its purpose and practice is the deliberate commission of the serious offences set out in this amendment: riot, violent disorder, destroying or damaging property, and interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure? Surely the Secretary of State should have power to take action, particularly when, as the amendment requires, those offences are carried out with the intention of influencing public policy, parliamentary debate, ministerial decision-making or the exercise of democratic functions, and they create a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions or the rights of others.

We all support the right to protest, but there are limits, and these clearly are breached by deliberate conduct the purpose of which is to act in the way set out in the tightly drawn amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. As he has pointed out, he has avoided in his drafting the real problem that has arisen in the Palestine Action case: that people are criminalised by reason of support for that body. That has caused problems. The Court of Appeal case is pending, but this amendment avoids those difficulties.

So I support this. I hope the Minister will not tell the House that this is not the time and that we should wait in particular for the report of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. I too have the highest regard for him, but we should bear in mind that, with this Bill, the Government have not waited for his report in a number of provisions relating to public order, particularly and rightly on cumulative disruption. So I say to the House: let us deal with this. This is a legislative opportunity; it is a pressing problem, and we should deal with it now.

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[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, despite having some hesitation about it, we are broadly support of Amendment 371A from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. The concept of the new category of extreme criminal protest groups that are not proscribed has real merit and is plainly an attempt to plug an uncomfortable gap. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Walney, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that unlawfulness is at the heart of this amendment. The amendment states that the group must have

“as its purpose and practice the deliberate commission of”

one of a series of serious offences, and that

“such offences are carried out with the intention of influencing public policy, parliamentary debate, ministerial decision-making, or the exercise of democratic functions”,

and that,

“the activities … create a risk of serious harm to public safety, democratic institutions, or the rights of others”.

Those provisions make it clear that extreme criminal protest groups are well named. The provisions as a whole would also make it clear, however, that it is not appropriate for proscription of those groups whereby any support for the groups is made a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act.

If the amendment would avoid the prosecution of peaceful protesters for peaceable support of groups that could be branded terrorist under the Terrorist Act, we could support it unconditionally because there would then be a hierarchy of offences. At the top of the tree would be offences under the Terrorism Act, and then the treatment of groups which qualified as extreme criminal protest groups under the Walney amendment. But the Government have not committed and would not commit—and I do not suppose they will at this stage commit—to end prosecutions for peaceable protesters under the Terrorism Act. That may change after the Macdonald review, or it may change if the Government’s appeal against the High Court’s decision in relation to Palestine Action is unsuccessful. However, our position is that it would be helpful to have a middle course, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, pointed out in very sensible terms. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, articulated the same point very well, but in a different way.

The problem we see with the amendment is that it does not affect the Terrorism Act, and there would remain the potential for prosecution of peaceful protesters under that Act as the law stands. So we have decided, with some hesitation, that it is probably sensible to await the Macdonald review. I accept that I am making that point in the face of the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that we should not be asking for any legislation along the lines of the Walney amendment to wait at all. Of course, there is the problem that not accepting this amendment would leave us with the limited choice of the Terrorism Act or nothing, and that is a very unfortunate position to be in.

We have some concerns about the drafting of the amendment, and they are not minimal. Under proposed subsection (3)(b),

“promotion of a designated ECPG, including public advocacy, recruitment, or dissemination of the group’s materials”

would be an offence. Would subsection (3)(b) cover handing out leaflets or carrying posters or flags in a peaceable way? In proposed subsection (3)(e),

“providing material support, training, funds or equipment to the group where the person knows or ought reasonably to know that the recipient is a designated ECPG”

suggests that the level of knowledge required is very low. What is material support? What would count as equipment? Would posters, flags or banners count as equipment? It would be considerably worrying if the answer to those questions was positive.

In sum, we are broadly supportive and believe that there should be a middle category, but we are concerned about the amendment as it stands. The Government should be seriously considering their position between now and Third Reading; they should listen to the very strong feeling in the House that something is needed in the way of a middle course that would prevent these prosecutions for peaceable protest and support under the Terrorism Act. They should then come back to the House at Third Reading with an amendment that could answer the criticisms and gain widespread support.

Finally, we have considerable sympathy with Amendment 419 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which calls for the publication of a counterextremism strategy.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. Noble Lords have spoken of the effects that these groups can have when they go unchecked, and I think that the whole House has benefited from listening to these anecdotes. We cannot stand for a society in which violent, insurrectionary behaviour is normalised. Groups such as Palestine Action or Bash Back should not be allowed to exist given their past actions, and this amendment provides for that. That said, their supporters are not advocates of general terrorist activities and, while they support morally dubious causes, requiring their arrest for standing outside with a placard is a monumental waste of police time.

For similar reasons, I also support Amendment 419, tabled by my noble friend Lord Goodman. His is a very simple amendment, which merely asks the Government to publish a counterextremism strategy, given the ever-increasing extent of political extremism and its encouragement in some quarters. Amendment 371A strikes a balance. It adds nuance to a category of offences that desperately needs it, and we wholly support its intent. I hope that the Minister will agree. I am happy to withdraw my Amendment 371B and, should the noble Lord, Lord Walney, wish to divide the House, we will support him.

Amendment 371B (to Amendment 371A) withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support these amendments because it is very important that live facial recognition should be subject to legal oversight and judicial oversight; there should be a law. We should see such amendments in the context of an overall parliamentary democracy which believes in lawful freedom of expression, whether it is in Parliament, the newspapers or public places. Live facial recognition without a proper legal framework could be used in an undemocratic fashion. Police, sadly, will find evidence very often for whomever they wish to convict. I know that is not necessarily the case, but if you are under pressure as a police officer to make your case stick, you will trawl whatever evidence you can to get it through to the stage of being investigated. I urge your Lordships to support these amendments because they will strengthen our democracy, and it is important that people should feel that they live in a free country, not in one subject to the sort of powers we see exercised in other countries, such as China.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments returns us to an issue debated at some length in Committee: the use of live facial recognition technology in policing. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for tabling these amendments on this important topic.

As set out in Committee, we on these Benches cannot support proposals that would severely restrict or pre-empt the operational use of live facial recognition by law enforcement. Live facial recognition is an increasingly important tool in modern policing. Used lawfully and proportionately, it has already demonstrated its value in identifying serious offenders, locating wanted individuals and preventing violent crime before it occurs. It has been deployed particularly effectively in high-risk environments such as transport hubs and major public events, where rapid identification can make a decisive difference in protecting the public.

That does not mean that safeguards are unnecessary. There must always be a careful balance between the protection of civil liberties and the need to equip police with effective tools to tackle serious crime. The use of new technologies must be proportionate and subject to appropriate oversight, but the amendments before us would go significantly further than that. In different ways, they would either prohibit particular uses of the technology, place rigid statutory barriers in its way or create restrictions that would unnecessarily impede the ability of the police to deploy it where it may be most needed. Amendment 374 would prohibit the deployment of live facial recognition in the context of public assemblies or impose extensive prior authorisation requirements. It risks tying the hands of the police at precisely the moments when rapid and flexible operational decision-making may be required.

We must recognise the points raised in Committee that the Government are currently consulting on the future regulatory framework for live facial recognition. To attempt to settle these questions piecemeal through amendments to this Bill would risk creating an incomplete or inconsistent framework. While the concerns raised by noble Lords are legitimate and deserve careful consideration, we should not default to restricting a technology that has already shown its potential to disrupt serious criminality and protect the public. The challenge is not to prohibit its use but to ensure that it is deployed responsibly, lawfully and proportionately. For those reasons, we cannot support the amendments in this group. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for tabling these amendments and to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for supporting some of the arguments that I will make in response to them. The noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Strasburger and Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, have all put their finger on their concerns around the use of this technology.

I will begin by providing a view of what live facial recognition does. It allows for real-time location of individuals of interest to the police. It scans the faces of those passing a camera in real time, comparing faces against a predetermined, specific watch-list of, potentially, wanted criminals, vulnerable missing persons or individuals posing risks to public safety. If no match is made—this goes to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, made—currently, the scanned face is deleted instantly. Every deployment and every specific bespoke watch-list for that deployment must have a defined policing objective, be supported by clear intelligence and ultimately be determined by humans.

Noble Lords will be aware that the use of facial recognition technology in all circumstances, including in live facial recognition, is already subject to safeguards, including those provided in the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act. I agree that there needs to be a framework, which is the nub of what I think all noble Lords have said in this debate.

The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, will know that the Government had a 10-week consultation for that very purpose—to look at the issues of a legal framework where law enforcement use of biometrics, facial recognition and similar technologies could be used. The consultation ended on 12 February. I give the House an assurance that the Government intend to respond to it by the summer; we have more or less a 12-week deadline from the end of its closing, but it will be by the summer. The consultation is clear that the Government need to design a new framework and assess how the police use technologies such as facial recognition. It needs to ensure that there are safeguards, as noble Lords have mentioned, around the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, that we protect these rights and that facial recognition technology is demonstrably proportionate to the seriousness of the harm being addressed.

We are currently considering the consultation and, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, said, that should take its course. However, we intend to set out our proposals in due course, which will be subject to scrutiny by both Houses of Parliament. I hope noble Lords accept that it would not be appropriate to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation or the proposals that Government will bring forward, which we will ensure have new legal framework for the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies.

While I think that the points made by noble Lords have real merit, I hope that, with the comments I have made and the reassurances I have given, we will save the difficult debate about regulation, how it operates and what the proposals mean for a proper legal framework for another day, which will come very soon. I hope the noble Baroness will—

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[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the APPG for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, and speak in support of Amendments 375, 466 and 468. I thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, for his introduction to this important group of amendments. As has been said, this is the start of a journey to reach equality of access to services for those currently living a nomadic life.

Several noble Lords across the Chamber made representations against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, brought in under the previous Government in 2022 and subsequently ruled to be a breach of the Human Rights Act. Those who objected listed the effect the new restrictions would have on family life, those with health issues and access to education, et cetera. In a society that purports to uphold the rationale of equality for all, it is unacceptable to discriminate against those who follow a different lifestyle from the majority of us.

I have long campaigned for legislation to require every local authority to provide permitted permanent sites for Gypsies and Travellers alongside permitted temporary stopping sites for those who travel as part of their culture and way of life. This has always been rejected by Governments of different political persuasions, and I welcome the Minister’s comments this evening on the provision of sites in the future.

I am now lucky enough to live in an area that has adequate, decent provision for those identified as Gypsy, Roma or Traveller. Several of those sites are within a short walk of my home. I am delighted that those people are able to be married in the church in which I also worship, and that they are able to grieve the passing of their loved ones in the same environment. Everyone should be able to access education for their children, alongside healthcare for their elderly, even if they are moving from area to area around the country. A stopping place or site which allows this to happen should be a right, and not left to a local landowner to permit for short periods.

This small group of amendments is not a magic wand to ensure that sites appear overnight, but it is a step in the right direction to help families raise their children in a relatively safe environment. I support the Minister’s amendments.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity for debate that the Government’s Amendment 375 has afforded us. This is obviously a highly contested issue but, before we start, I put on record the very specific nature of the issue we are debating. In 2024, the High Court declared that a specific section of the Conservative Party’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 was incompatible with Article 14, the prohibition of discrimination, and Article 8, the right to private life, of the European Convention on Human Rights. That section extended the prohibition on returning to land covered by requests to leave from three to 12 months. That is why the Government are now attempting to reverse that change. The judgment did not, as claimed in Committee, nullify that no-returns order.

I will make His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’s position clear: although we accept that the law as it currently stands renders the continuation of the current offence of returning to or re-entering prohibited land untenable, we would ultimately rather that the human rights law that has caused this incompatibility be repealed and the offence upheld. It is not racial discrimination to uphold one of the fundamental governing systems of our society. As perhaps some noble Lords in the Chamber will want to hear, private property has been a continuous thread throughout our history that has galvanised peace and prosperity in our country. Remove the right to private property and you create a system that favours freeloaders and fraudsters.

In the judgment, the presiding judge spoke of a balanced structure between the property rights of landowners and occupiers and the interests of Travellers. The increase in a no-returns order from three to 12 months would supposedly disproportionately affect the balance in favour of landowners. I do not believe that the interests of trespassers should be equally balanced with those of landowners and occupiers, if at all. That does not pertain to the Gypsy Traveller community; it does not matter who the people are. Declaring that the right to private property should trump the subjective desires of an individual or group does not have a racial element. It is an entirely neutral law and fundamentally liberal, in that it affords the same freedoms to all.

It is true to the latter point that it is disheartening to see the party that was once the vehicle of Manchester liberalism now supporting such a partial and anarchic view of the world. Therefore, if the law posits that upholding the belief in private property and enacting its enforcement in law is considered wrong, the law should be repealed. If the law ascertains that private property undermines an abstract theory of human rights and that the latter should prevail, the law should be repealed. If the law favours the human rights of the infringer over the victim, the law should be repealed. If the law is able to overturn the decision of a sovereign, elected Parliament acting of its own volition, the law should almost certainly be repealed.

Therefore, although we welcome the Government’s attempt to find a compromise between our legal commitments, we are unfortunately of the opinion that they are amending the wrong Act entirely. They are still rather dogmatic in their commitment to this outdated doctrine, but they are simply kicking the can down the road and delaying the inevitable. Whether the courts allow a three-month no-return period is immaterial; there would still exist an extrajudicial doctrine that has the ultimate say over the United Kingdom’s Parliament. There will simply be an appeal to this amendment, and if that is unsuccessful, they will find themselves facing the ECHR in another challenge to another Act.

We are sympathetic to the Government’s attempt at a balancing act, but they are targeting the symptoms over the cause. That cause is the ECHR enshrined in the Human Rights Act. The ECHR has served its purpose, but the fact that it now favours rule-breakers over rule-takers shows that it does so no longer. The Government must recognise this truth, and I suspect that deep down they do. They should follow the advice of the Conservative Party and leave the ECHR. Perhaps the Minister will reply bearing good news.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Before the Minister replies, I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that the rule-breakers are not those who want to return within three months; they are the local authorities that have statutory obligations to provide proper sites for Travellers but are failing to do so.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I accept that, to a certain degree.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Let me clear up something straight away. There is not going to be a meeting of minds between me and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, on the abolition of the ECHR. I will leave it at that. There is no common ground between us. Yes, we are generally looking at some reforms, but there is no common ground on abolishing the lot, which is what the noble Lord seeks to achieve. There is blue/red/orange water between us on this; I will leave it at that.

On the question raised, I am grateful for the support of my noble friend Lady Whitaker and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. We have moved in light of the judgments that were made, and we have instated the three-month period in this legislation. That is the right thing to do in relation to the legislation. I think the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, accepted that, while having a wider target. At the moment, I will take his acceptance of that as support. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for her support, and I am grateful for the constant chivvying of my noble friend Lady Whitaker on this issue.

In my opening remarks, in anticipation of what would be said, I said that the Government agree that planning appropriately for the housing and accommodation needs of our diverse communities is essential in supporting sustainable and inclusive growth. It is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, just reminded the House, that the responsibility to set pitch and plot targets for Traveller sites lies with local authorities, and absolutely right that they must identify specific deliverable sites sufficient for five years against targets. As I said in my opening remarks, a revised National Planning Policy Framework and the Planning Policy for Traveller Sites were published at the end of December 2024, following extensive consultation.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is currently consulting on a new national planning framework. That consultation runs until 10 March. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and my noble friend Lady Whitaker mentioned the need to look at more sites. That is actively being looked at. Despite the wide reservations of the noble Lord, but with the support of the Liberal Democrat Benches and my colleague Lady Whitaker, I hope that my amendments can be accepted by the House tonight.

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Irrespective of any argument on Ziegler, I suggest that the effect of this proposed new clause as drafted is inconsistent with the Human Rights Act and is in fact a dangerous clause. The same goes for the proposed new clause that is specifically about the obstruction of the highway—it is part of the same argument in that narrow context. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that it is difficult to decide on, but, sometimes, the courts are there to decide difficult issues.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, the recent ruling of the Supreme Court in R v ABJ and R v BDN has thrown the law of public protest into even greater confusion. That case relates to two protesters prosecuted under Section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000 for expressing public support for Hamas, a proscribed organisation. The appellants claimed that their charges under the Act represented a disproportionate interference with their right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court unanimously dismissed this appeal and, in doing so, ruled that the Section 12(1A) offence in the Terrorism Act does not represent a disproportionate interference with the convention rights.

I raise this ruling because it highlights the confusion around protest law ever since the Supreme Court delivered a different ruling in the case of DPP v Ziegler in 2021. We have discussed the implications of the Ziegler ruling in this House on a number of occasions. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has again reminded us of the details in that case. There is a clear tension between the court’s ruling in Ziegler and its ruling last week.

The court has made it clear that the Ziegler logic does not apply to the Terrorism Act defence but has not yet rectified the damaging consequences of the Ziegler decision. The basis of the court’s reasoning in Ziegler was the lawful excuse defence in Section 137 of the Highways Act 1980. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel and I tabled amendments to remove the reasonable excuse defences from a number of Acts that are used to prosecute highly disruptive protesters, including the Highways Act and the Public Order Act 2023, and from this Bill.

When I spoke to those amendments, the Minister said that,

“the reasonable excuse defence is necessary in these instances to ensure an appropriate balance between protecting the wider community and the right to protest”.—[Official Report, 13/1/26; col. 1633.]

It is clear that the balance has not been made. I have not tabled those amendments to remove the reasonable excuse defences again, apart from Amendment 377B, which would remove the reasonable excuse defence from Section 137 of the Highways Act. I can think of no possible excuse for anyone purposefully to block the highway unless they are authorised to do so, such as the police or officers of National Highways. Removing that defence would render the issue in Ziegler null and void since that defence was the issue under consideration by the court.

However, I accept that the problem has now grown. The Supreme Court’s decision in the Ziegler case means there is now judicial precedent, and defence lawyers up and down the country have been lining up to utilise that argument so their clients can get off scot free. That is why I will be supporting Amendment 377 from the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. While I would prefer to remove those defences entirely, it would be better that the clarity in the law provided by Amendment 377 was made. His amendment would apply more widely than mine and therefore, I am happy to admit, provides a more substantial solution to the problem.

I would like to pick up on something that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said in Committee:

“much of the criticism of Ziegler fails to recognise that the courts themselves have understood that Ziegler went too far, and that what Parliament has determined in relation to the law is the governing law”.—[Official Report, 13/1/26; col. 1623.]

I accept his interpretation that the courts by subsequent decisions have recognised the issue of Ziegler, but the decision in Ziegler still stands as case law. It has not yet been overturned. I think that serves as one of the strongest arguments for Parliament to pass Amendment 377 and rectify the error that the courts have themselves acknowledged.

If the European Convention on Human Rights prevents the application of the law as passed by Parliament or prevents the conviction of those who should be convicted, that demonstrates that we should leave the ECHR, but while we remain within the purview of the Strasbourg court and while the Human Rights Act remains on the statute book, the decision in Ziegler needs to be reversed. Therefore, if the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, wishes to divide the House on Amendment 377, he will have our full support.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who took part in this short but important debate, and I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Faulks and Lord Davies of Gower, for tabling these amendments which seek to narrow the existing lawful or reasonable excuse defences that may be used for public order offences.

It may be helpful to set out how a lawful excuse works in practice. A person is automatically treated as having a lawful excuse only under two specific circumstances. The first is if the defendant honestly believes that the person who is entitled to consent to the damage has given consent or would have consented if they knew of the circumstances—for example, an honest belief that the owner of a car in which a child was locked on a hot day consented, or would have consented, to the defendant smashing the window to get the child out. The second is if the defendant acts to protect their own or someone else’s property and they honestly believe both that the property needs immediate protection and that their actions are reasonable—for example, a person damages one person’s property while accessing the property of another to prevent a fire. It does not matter whether a person’s belief in those circumstances is reasonable or justified; it just needs to be honest.

Whatever the failings of, or, indeed, one’s views on, the Ziegler judgment, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said in his sagacious contribution, case law has moved on and the Supreme Court has made subsequent rulings which chart a clearer path. It is the case that the right to private property will always need to be balanced with other convention rights, such as the right to protest and freedom of expression. This will have to be judged on a case-by-case basis, but leading case law has set out the parameters, and the Court of Appeal did not say that the exercise of a person’s convention rights could never form the basis of lawful excuse for criminal damage.

While I acknowledge the concerns of noble Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy for the arguments advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. It is for the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts to decide what may constitute lawful or reasonable excuse in individual cases. Further, the current scope of the defence allows the CPS the necessary flexibility to consider the full circumstances of each case on its merits. The types of behaviour that noble Lords have suggested, such as intimidating or harming members of the public or the risk of damaging property, are unlikely to be considered a reasonable excuse. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

377C: After Clause 142, insert the following new Clause—
“Extension of notice period for public processions(1) Section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986 (advance notice of public processions) is amended as follows.(2) In subsection (5) for “6” substitute “28”.(3) In subsection (6) for “6” substitute “28”.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would extend the notice period that is required for public processions to take place from 6 to 28 days.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to extend the notice period for public processions from six days to 28 days. The Government have resisted this; however, the police feel that it is difficult to operate under the current system and would prefer that it was 28 days as opposed to six. On that basis, I think we should be supporting the police, and I beg to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

377D: After Clause 142, insert the following new Clause—
“Prohibition of protests(1) Section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986 (prohibiting public processions) is amended as follows.(2) For subsection (1) substitute—“(1) The chief officer of police may apply to the Secretary of State for an order to prohibit the holding of all public processions (or any class of public processions so specified) for a period of not more than 3 months in any district or part of a district if either of the following conditions are met.(1A) The first condition is that the chief officer of police reasonably believes that the powers under section 12 will not be sufficient to prevent a public procession in the district or part of the district from resulting in –(a) serious public disorder,(b) serious damage to property, or(c) serious disruption to the life of the community.(1B) The second condition is that the procession would place undue demands on the police.”(3) In subsection (2)—(a) omit “a council may with the consent of”;(b) after the first “Secretary of State” insert “may”.”

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment relates to the prohibition of protests, where the chief officer may apply to the Secretary of State for an order to prohibit the holding of all public processions, and where he or she considers there may be serious public disorder, damage to property or, indeed, serious disruption to the life of a community. That is an eminently sensible amendment, and the Government have resisted this again. However, I feel that it would be a great tool in the box for police, so I look to divide the House on it.

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[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that the fact that this access is to be authorised by regulations is a saving grace. We know full well that in this House, fatal Motions virtually never succeed. The Conservative Front Bench may take some comfort from the fact that there would be provision for regulations, but the reality is that once the enabling legislation is passed, regulations will be in the hands of the Government, and nobody can do anything about it.

This is an issue of consent. People who apply for driving licences do so and have done so for many years on the basis that their photographs and biometric data are provided for the limited purpose of applying for a driving licence—that goes for all the information they provide. It is not for the purpose of enabling a trawl for suspects. One can envisage a position where, in some circumstances, authorisation to use information in public hands, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, suggested, may be appropriate, but this is not the place for it to be provided for by regulations subsequent to and consequent upon this enabling clause.

It is a question of public trust. The information and photographs are provided by applicants for driving licences based on the trust that they will be used for that purpose and that purpose alone. To misuse that information to enable a trawl of photographs to see if they might be suspected of some offence, with nobody having any real control over that use, is an abuse of trust. For that reason, I support the amendment.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I will address Amendment 380 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Strasburger. I am grateful to them for raising an issue that deserves careful consideration. The amendment would prevent authorised persons using information held on the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency database for biometric searches using facial recognition technology. It is right to ensure that Parliament scrutinises these emerging powers thoroughly. Public trust in policing is vital, and it is only through open debate and clear safeguards that such trust can be maintained.

The DVLA database contains photographs and personal information provided by millions of law-abiding citizens for the specific purpose of licensing drivers, and it is therefore entirely understandable that noble Lords should question whether it is appropriate for that information to be used in other contexts, particularly the context of advanced biometric searches. The principle that personal data should not be repurposed without clear justification is one that many of us across the House share.

However, while the concerns behind this amendment are sincere and valid, I fear that it is unnecessary and ultimately misguided. It would risk undermining the ability of our police and law enforcement agencies to prevent and investigate serious crime. First, it is important to recognise the operational value that carefully regulated facial recognition tools can provide to modern policing. The technology, when used responsibly, can assist officers in identifying suspects in serious crime, locating dangerous offenders and protecting the public in situations where time is of the essence. It can be particularly valuable when investigating crimes involving unidentified individuals captured on CCTV or other images.

The police already rely on a range of databases and identification tools to perform these tasks. Photographs from custody suites, passport records and other lawful sources have long assisted the police in identifying suspects and victims alike. Facial recognition technology represents in many ways a technological evolution of that long-standing investigative practice. The amendment before us would place a blanket prohibition on the use of DVLA images for biometric searches involving facial recognition. Such prohibition risks creating an artificial and potentially harmful limitation on investigative capability. If a suspect’s image appears on CCTV and the only high-quality image available for comparison is contained within a DVLA database, the amendment would prevent police even conducting that comparison. We must ask ourselves whether that is a proportionate outcome.

Secondly, it is worth emphasising that the use of facial recognition technology by police forces in the United Kingdom is not taking place in a regulatory vacuum. The deployment of such technologies is already subject to a framework of legal safeguards, oversight and guidance. Police forces must operate within the boundaries of data protection law, including the principles established under the UK general data protection regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. Their activities are subject to oversight by bodies such as the Information Commissioner’s Office and, where appropriate, the courts. Moreover, the use of live facial recognition by police has already been subject to significant judicial scrutiny. The courts have made it clear that deployments must be proportionate and transparent, and accompanied by appropriate safeguards. That jurisprudence has helped shape operational guidance and policing practice in this area.

Given that context, I question whether it is wise for Parliament to impose a sweeping statutory ban in relation to one database. Doing so risks pre-empting the careful regulatory balance that is already evolving through legislation, oversight and case law. That does not mean that the concerns raised by the amendment should be dismissed—far from it. The growth of biometric technologies demands a clear and robust legislative framework. Many Members across this House have rightly called for greater clarity about how facial recognition should be governed in the future. I feel the same. Questions of transparency, accountability, accuracy and bias must continue to be examined with great care.

However, those broader questions should be addressed through a comprehensive approach to biometric governance rather than through a single amendment targeting one database in isolation. If Parliament concludes that additional statutory safeguards are required for facial recognition technology then we should consider them holistically, ensuring that any rules are consistent, proportionate and grounded in operational reality. A piecemeal prohibition risks creating unintended consequences while failing to resolve the underlying policy debate.

For those reasons, while I commend the spirit in which the amendment has been brought forward, I regret that I cannot support it. Instead, I hope that the House will continue the broader necessary conversation about how facial recognition technologies should be regulated, ensuring that we protect civil liberties and the ability of our police to keep our communities safe.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a useful debate. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for tabling the amendment, and to the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for speaking in support of it. I am grateful for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, which echo some of the points that I will make. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, pointed to one of the arguments that I will make: that access to the data will be subject to a statutory code of practice to ensure that its use is appropriate.

I remind noble Lords of the purpose of Clause 154: it is simply about bringing legislation up to date, which is what I said in Committee when we debated this matter. As a result of technical changes to the way police and law enforcement access driving licence data, it has become clear that we need to improve the DVLA data access regime by setting out clearly in statute—which is what Clause 154 does—which persons can access DVLA driving licence data. The legislation provides additional clarity on this issue.

The measure will enable us, through secondary legislation made under these new powers—this goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—to expand the purposes for which DVLA data may be accessed automatically to include policing or law enforcement purposes. This means that the police will have another tool to cut crime and keep the public safe, in line with the commitment by chief officers to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry when investigating an offence. I emphasise that access to the data will be subject to a statutory code of practice to ensure that its use is appropriate.

We are clear that there will be strong safeguards around the use of DVLA data, which, as I have said, will be introduced via regulations made under the new provisions. We debated earlier government Amendment 382, which ensures that these regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure in both Houses, in line with a recommendation from the Constitution Committee.

We want to ensure that officers undergo training prior to being able to access information. The police are already legally required to consult with local communities. Extensive audits of who has accessed DVLA driving licence data are maintained. It is already standard practice that each time the DVLA driver database is accessed by a police officer, the details of what information is accessed and for what purpose is logged. This will continue to be the case once the revised measure is implemented.

On the issue of facial recognition technology, I want to make it clear to all noble Lords who have signed this amendment, including the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that police forces do not conduct biometric facial recognition searches against images contained on the DVLA database. Officers use the DVLA database for day-to-day policing matters. Anybody who has watched a police programme on a Monday night—when they get the opportunity in the recess to do so—will have at some point seen a police officer pull over a car and look at an individual who says, “I haven’t got my licence with me”, and tell them they are Jimmy Jones of X address. The police officer then wants to check that they are Jimmy Jones of X address, and so they access the DVLA database. Nine times out of 10, on the police shows that I watch on a Monday night during recess, it is a false name, and therefore there is police action accordingly. That is the purpose for which the police currently use the database.

As I said in our earlier debate on Amendment 374, the use of facial recognition technology in all circumstances is currently subject to safeguards, such as the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act. As I have said in previous discussions, any use of facial recognition technology will be subject to the outcome of the consultation that we finished on 10 February. That will be completed in about 12 weeks and, by the summer, we will have government proposals which the noble Baroness, along with both Houses of Parliament, can scrutinise, to achieve some view on whatever the Government propose following the outcome of that consultation.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, that, if the amendment were agreed by the Government tonight then the police officer who stopped somebody on the street—potentially a drunk driver, an unlicensed driver or a driver with no insurance—would not be able to access the DVLA database. That goes to the very points that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made in his speech.

This is not about mass surveillance. It is about using the DVLA database in an appropriate way—logged, recorded and monitored by the police to ensure that we check that person A is actually the right person who can drive that vehicle at that particular time. It is not, with due respect to noble Lords, mass surveillance. It is proper use of police technology to ensure that the DVLA database helps catch bad actors in the act of doing bad things. I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

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[Lord Lebedev (CB)]

My Lords, I will not take much of your time. First, I fully respect and acknowledge the arguments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, which I feel have been addressed very well from the other side of the House. I support Amendment 387B and endorse the arguments made by noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, in favour of this amendment.

Last July, I was able to raise the widespread concerns so many of us have about non-crime hate incidents—NCHIs—in a short debate in this House. I was encouraged by the widespread support across parties for a robust stance in defence of free speech. Many noble Lords outlined how pernicious NCHIs are. I was grateful to the Minister for his thoughtful engagement on the arguments.

Since that debate, there has been a welcome retreat from the use of NCHIs, with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and others recognising the inappropriateness of using valuable police time to harass individuals for exercising their right to free speech. Like the noble Lord, Lord Young, I am pleased that police leaders and Ministers now recognise that recording the names of citizens on police databases for actions which are not crimes should be curtailed. That is customary good practice, but it is, in this case, not enough.

We need to ensure that there is appropriate statutory protection for free speech, and we need to ensure that past expressions of opinion, which may have been recorded under a previous regime, cannot be used to blight the future of citizens. Amendment 387B would not only wipe clean the slate but affirm the importance of free speech, the foundational freedom on which all others depend. I commend it to the House.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow so many excellent speeches from noble Lords across the House who recognise the problems that non-crime hate incidents have caused. I am very pleased to see that there is much agreement on this matter, and I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Herbert of South Downs, for his update, as it were. I am also particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, for her very important intervention.

Like many of my noble friends and many noble Lords around the House, I fully support Amendment 387B tabled by my noble friend Lord Young of Acton and the noble Lords, Lord Strasburger and Lord Hogan-Howe. The amendment would bring about the abolition of the category of so-called non-crime hate incidents. If this were to become the law of the land, NCHIs would be permanently dead. Their recording and retention would end, and we could finally put this well-intentioned but ultimately damaging experiment to bed.

We have had many debates during the passage of the Bill about the various tenets of hate crime laws and aggravating factors based on hostility. Indeed, only last Wednesday, the Government were successful in expanding their enormous web of legislation even further, despite our best efforts to stop them. We have lost that battle for now, but I reiterate my opposition to those provisions. While related to the debate we had last Wednesday, the matter before us now is rather different. Non-crime hate incidents are not hate crimes; they are something quite different. They represent the recording by police of incidents that are not crimes at all.

The House will have heard the background to NCHIs from other noble Lords, so I will not repeat that, but their establishment in 2014 via guidance issued by the College of Policing was motivated by sincere intentions. They were supposed to assist police in identifying patterns of hostility in communities that might escalate into criminal behaviour, and that objective was understandable, but in practice, the policy has drifted far beyond that limited purpose. We now find ourselves in a position where individuals can have a police record created about them for conduct that is entirely lawful, simply because another person perceives it to have been motivated by hostility. That is a very serious matter indeed.

The threshold for the recording of these incidents is ridiculously low. A person needs only to be concerned by another’s conduct in order for them to report such conduct to the police for recording as an NCHI.

The matter has quite rightly received serious scrutiny in recent years, and I particularly want to reference the independent review conducted by the College of Policing and led by my noble friend Lord Herbert of South Downs into the use of non-crime hate incidents. The review acknowledged a number of very significant concerns, and it recognised that the recording of such incidents had in some cases created a chilling effect on free expression. It also identified problems with the threshold for recording and the potential for disproportionate interference in the lives of individuals who had committed no crime.

The review led to revised guidance from the College of Policing intended to raise the threshold for recording NCHIs and better protect freedom of expression. I welcome that effort. It was a step in the right direction.

The review also demonstrated something more fundamental—that the concept itself is deeply problematic. We have seen, over the years, a number of examples where the recording of non-crime hate incidents has been plainly vexatious, trivial or disproportionate. In one widely reported case, a former police officer found himself the subject of a non-crime hate incident after engaging in a debate on social media about gender identity. There are several examples that have been given in the debate, so I shall not provide further evidence. There have been cases where individuals have had police records created simply for sharing satirical material online, expressing controversial opinions or engaging in perfectly lawful political debate. We should pause and consider what this means in practice.

In some circumstances, such records may be disclosed during enhanced background checks conducted by the Disclosure and Barring Service. That means that an allegation about a non-criminal matter could potentially affect a person’s employment prospects, particularly in professions involving children or vulnerable adults. There have been documented cases where individuals have feared precisely that outcome.

I also recall the remarks of Ministers during our Committee debates, in which the Government acknowledged the importance of protecting free speech in this area, and the Home Office has repeatedly recognised the need to strike the right balance. Indeed, the Home Secretary herself has spoken publicly about the importance of ensuring that policing does not stray into the regulation of lawful expression. She has emphasised that police officers must focus on real crime and genuine threats to public safety. I agree with those sentiments, but I suggest that the time has come to move beyond incremental reform. The fundamental difficulty is that the concept of a non-crime hate incident places the police in the position of adjudicating perceived hostility in circumstances where no law has been broken. That is an uncomfortable and inappropriate role for the police service.

I put on record my thanks to the Minister for making the time to meet us and to the College of Policing for the briefing it gave on its plans for the future recording of such incidents. It was helpful of the Minister to set out some of that when we opened.

As my noble friend Lord Young of Acton said, the proposals by the college are certainly welcome. It has been clear that NCHIs will not exist any more and that any incident where hostility is a motivating factor will now be recorded as an ASB incident. Critically, these will not be disclosed in enhanced DBS checks. The college has also said that it will be providing updated guidance and training to clarify the higher standards of proof required for the recording of such incidents, and a new triaging method.

This is all welcome, but that does not mean that all is perfect. I still have some concerns and will briefly outline them. My first concern is that, if the abolition of NCHIs is not embedded in statute, there is the possibility of them being brought back to life in the future. All it would take is a change in Home Secretary, or a new Prime Minister, who could reintroduce them by the back door. If all we have is guidance, there is no legal safeguard to prevent them returning. I would feel much more comfortable knowing that they are gone for good and will never be resurrected from the dead.

Secondly, it must be explicitly acknowledged that any guidance produced by the College of Policing about the future recording of incidents will have freedom of expression at its heart. If this had been the case when the NCHI regime was created, we might not have seen as many unintended consequences. It is a fairly basic requirement, which is why I am pleased that my noble friend has included that in his amendment.

Thirdly, the issue of historic NCHI recordings needs to be addressed. Given that the Government have now agreed to abolish them, it does not seem right that thousands will still exist and may very well be disclosed in enhanced DBS checks. That is a matter of fairness. Individuals should not carry the burden of a police record relating to conduct that was never a crime in the first place. That has now been acknowledged as a mistake.

However, like my noble friend, I appreciate the point made by the College of Policing: that to require their deletion within a few months, as the original amendment sought, would be a highly labour-intensive process. If our purpose is to prevent the police wasting time and allow them to do their job, requiring them to sit down and trawl through every single file does not make sense. However, where NCHI recordings are discovered, they should be deleted and they most certainly should not be disclosed. It is sensible to have the guarantee in statute.

The college and the Government have made commendable progress and I reiterate that I am genuinely pleased at the direction of travel. However, we still need some guardrails. That is why we on these Benches believe that there must be a provision in legislation to ensure that NCHIs are gone, that they do not return and that the new regime is more transparent, reasonable and respectful of freedom of expression. For that reason, I very much support Amendment 378B and, if my noble friend does press it to a Division, we will follow him into the Content Lobby.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the discussion and, in winding up this debate, I put on record my thanks to Sir Andy Marsh of the College of Policing for the work he has done on this exercise of examining non-crime hate incidents. I remind the House that we are here today with the amendments I have tabled and with the outline that I have given from the College of Policing response, which the chair of the College of Policing has also endorsed. We are here today because the then Home Secretary, my right honourable friend Yvette Cooper, commissioned that review and asked for a report to be produced. That is why we are here today: we have taken action.

I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, talking about his experiences. That was not the responsibility of this Government. We are trying to change that regime. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, that we are trying to change that regime. I say to all noble Lords who spoke that we are trying to change that regime. However, I say to my noble friend Lady Lawrence of Clarendon that, in doing so, we want to ensure that we keep the essence of what that regime was established for: to identify precisely the issues that she mentioned in her very powerful contribution. The intent—to gather information, to prevent crime, to understand tensions, to look at potential areas where tensions could arise, to support investigations and to safeguard the vulnerable—remains as relevant today as it did 30 years ago.

I say to the noble Lords, Lord Lebedev, Lord Fuller, Lord Young of Acton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, who have spoken on this issue, that we understand the issue. However, I hope that we are making some movement to address the concerns, at the same time as keeping the essence of why those non-crime hate incidents needed to be recorded in the first place, and to have the revisions that the College of Policing have brought forward. Once they are endorsed, we will look at how we put those into practice in due course. I hope that will help both the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments is focusing on penalties and other measures for dangerous cycling on our streets. These Benches support a proportionate and evidence-based approach to updating the law, whereby any changes do not discourage people from cycling—considerately, of course—which we believe is an important mode of sustainable transport. The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, once again try to disqualify cyclists for dangerous cycling. None of us likes seeing inconsiderate cycling on our streets, just as we do not like seeing dangerous or inconsiderate driving. However, we do not think these amendments are practical; they are not easily enforceable, so we will not be supporting them.

The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, looking to add up to 12 points to a person’s driving licence for dangerous cycling, are an interesting proposal, given that many people who cycle also have a driving licence. However, fewer people are learning to drive, and this would not work for every cyclist. Whether this is proportionate and right is debatable. The issue remains, as we have heard throughout this debate, that traffic policing has been facing cuts across the country and it is not a prioritised area for policing; limited enforcement is also a challenge.

We do not support the other amendments from the noble Lord, Hogan-Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, to set up a licensing scheme for cyclists and reports on cycling. We do not think they are necessary. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the new amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, try to tackle the many problems that have arisen with the rise in the number of delivery cyclists on our streets. We have been debating this here and on the devolution Bill. Most are picking up shopping from supermarkets or fast food and taking it to people’s homes. The amendments attempt to put some responsibility in law for the company the cyclist or driver may work for, but, as we have discussed, the challenge is that they may not actually be an employee.

We all acknowledge that there are real issues in this area with emerging micromobility modes and technology and their use. But the way forward is comprehensive legislation on e-bikes and e-scooters, addressing what is legally allowed on our streets, what safety standards we expect and the rules on their use. I therefore ask the Minister when the House might expect such legislation to address the many concerns we have heard expressed throughout the passage of this Bill. This is a real issue: we all see it day in, day out. I would like to understand how the Government plan to address it going forward, beyond this Bill. Specific legislation and a joined-up approach, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, are clearly needed, rather than amendments to the Bill today. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, we have spent many hours in your Lordships’ House debating the issue of dangerous cycling and the misuse of e-bikes. In Committee, I welcomed the Government’s measures to create offences to criminalise causing death by dangerous cycling, and it is right that offences relating to cycling are brought in line with those for driving. I am also aware that there are significant concerns about criminality arising from the use of e-bikes and that courier companies are not being held responsible for the actions of their riders. There is very evidently a problem here. It is for the Government to now come to Parliament with solutions to these issues. We do not need report after report, review after review and trial after trial. We need to need to know what the Government wish to do in this space, rather than simply what they do not want to do.

Fundamentally, there is a serious problem with enforcement. A large number of laws, rules and regulations already apply. E-bikes have legally prescribed specifications and cyclists are supposed to obey the rules of the road. The crux of this issue is enforcement—or the lack of it. Cyclists frequently flout the rules of the road with impunity and owners of e-bikes are illegally modifying them to go far faster than they were intended to. This presents real and very serious concerns for public safety. It is time for the Government to act and not prevaricate. I look forward to what the Minister has to say.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, so aptly put it, cycling is one of the issues that your Lordships’ House likes to debate at length. It is an important issue and I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate: the noble Lords, Lord Lucas, Lord Hogan-Howe, Lord Blencathra, Lord Shinkwin, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Davies, the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe, Lady McIntosh and Lady Pidgeon. Some of them, though not all of them, were a very interesting supporting cast at a meeting in which I very much played junior partner to my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill. I also thank them for that. There, we had a helpful discussion about some of the wider issues about the way that we frame some of the vehicles we have been talking about this afternoon.

We can all agree on the need for all cyclists, as with motorists, to obey the rules of the road so that our roads and pavements are safe for all users. As the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, put it, we can all say—at least, I hope we would—that we are pro-cycling but anti-lawbreaking. The issue is whether the proposals in these various amendments are workable, proportionate and do not have the unintended effect of deterring cycling and other forms of micromobility.

I will address the amendments in turn. Amendments 318 to 325 and Amendment 333, from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would allow for persons to be disqualified from cycling upon conviction of any of the offences in Clause 121. As we made clear in Committee, our fundamental concern is that such a disqualification could not be adequately enforced without some form of licensing for cyclists. Licensing for cyclists would be both costly and complex, and would mean the majority of law-abiding cyclists would face additional costs and barriers to cycling. It is a disproportionate response, given that these new offences are to deal with those rare cases in which cyclists have caused the death or serious injury of another road user.

I do not accept that the cycling disqualification would be an effective deterrent without effective enforcement. Moreover, it would place an unreasonable burden on the police or, alternatively, raise unreasonable expectations if your Lordship’s House were to give the courts the power to impose a disqualification without an accompanying effective enforcement mechanism. It may well be the case that the only way the police could identify whether such a disqualification was in force would be if the person was found to have breached it after being involved in a subsequent incident. This would entirely defeat the purpose of the disqualification and would not have prevented another incident. It would, in fact, likely be discovered only after another incident has occurred.

I turn to Amendments 326 to 332 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, starting with the amendments that would enable a person to receive up to 12 points on a driving licence upon conviction of any offences in Clause 121. Reaching 12 points on a driving licence would result in a person being disqualified from driving a motor vehicle. Section 163 of the Sentencing Act 2020 provides a general power for the criminal courts to impose a driving disqualification on an offender convicted of any offence. In addition, Section 14 of the Sentencing Act 2026 provides courts with the power to impose a driving prohibition requirement as part of a community sentence or suspended sentence. I hope these go some way to meeting the noble Lord’s objectives.

Amendment 343, again in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, would create a registration scheme for the purpose of enforcing the new offences in Clause 121. Although I accept that a registration scheme for cycles would make enforcement of offences easier, the absence of a registration system does not, of course, make enforcement impossible. As the noble Lord will know, the police would be expected to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry open to them. As he said in his own contribution, there are some forces that are very effective at this, in particular the City of London Police, which he has direct experience of.

As with the example of licensing for cyclists that I referred to earlier, we cannot escape the likely significant cost and complexity of introducing a registration scheme for cyclists. Around 1.5 million new cycles are sold every year. No data is collected on this, but some estimates say that over 20 million cycles are in existence. It would therefore be a gargantuan task to introduce such a registration scheme, or indeed a licensing scheme. It would, for example, require all existing cycle owners, potentially including children, as well as those making new purchases to submit their information to some form of central database, and for some form of registration plate to be produced and affixed to each individual bike. Even if that were deemed proportionate, it is not realistic to suggest that detailed regulations could be delivered on this within six months of Royal Assent, as the noble Lord’s amendment proposes.

Amendment 341, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, would require the Secretary of State to undertake a review of the misuse of e-scooters, including their impact on safety and an assessment of the appropriateness of the legislation within 12 months of Royal Assent. At this point, as others have, I pay tribute to the work that the noble Baroness has done previously in this area. The safety of all road users is, of course, an utmost priority, and no one should feel unsafe on our streets. It is essential that new transport technology works for everyone. That is why we must crack down on those using e-scooters irresponsibly and in an anti-social way.

However, I do not believe that, after more than five years of running e-scooter trials, the Government should tackle that issue by undertaking yet a further review. I remind noble Lords that private e-scooters remain illegal to use on public roads, cycle lanes and pavements. Rental e-scooters can be used only as part of the Government’s national rental e-scooter trials. Last year, we announced an extension to the rental trials until May 2028, to ensure we have the best possible evidence base to inform any future legislation. We have collected some evidence, but it is still relatively new technology and there remain things we need to learn. We will use this additional time from extending the review to supplement our evidence and draw on further experience.

As I mentioned in Committee, the Department for Transport has already announced that the Government will pursue legislative reform for micromobility vehicles. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, said, we want to pursue a joined-up approach. We will pursue legislative reform for micromobility vehicles, which will include e-scooters, when parliamentary time allows. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, tempted me to go down a path of speculating what might be in a forthcoming King’s Speech, which is several rungs above my pay grade. I am afraid I cannot do that but, as I said, this is something we wish to pursue when parliamentary time allows.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I want briefly to thank the Government for Amendment 338. I know the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and her team are extremely grateful that they have been listened to—this is something they have wanted for some time—so I would just like to say a big thank you for that. On Amendment 361A from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I understand the reasons for it, and I hope the Minister will be able to give an encouraging response. As far as Amendment 409C is concerned, I cannot see the Government accepting that. The reasoning behind it is right, but I cannot see it being practical or effective.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Government and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for their amendments in this group. I do, however, have some concerns about the Government’s Amendment 338. We on these Benches believe that domestic abuse protection orders are a very important civil tool; indeed, they were introduced under the previous Conservative Administration. However, they are not, and should never become, a substitute for proper criminal justice consequences. Amendment 338 will expand orders to include mandatory participation in assessments and activity programmes. With respect, I do not believe that the answer to domestic abuse lies in programme participation; it lies in firm sentencing and, where appropriate, immediate custody.

I raise these concerns in the wider context of the Government’s sentencing policy. During the passage of the Sentencing Bill, this House divided at Report on a Conservative amendment that sought to exempt domestic abuse offences from the new rebuttable presumption against short custodial sentences of 12 months or less. Noble Lords on these Benches, in particular my noble and learned friend Lord Keen, argued that domestic abusers should not benefit from an assumption in favour of suspension. When the issue was pressed to a vote, the Government resisted that exemption.

Noble Lords are therefore now faced with an uncomfortable contradiction. The Minister will no doubt say the Government are determined to be tough on violence against women and girls; yet, when given the opportunity to ensure that domestic abusers would not fall within an automatic presumption against immediate custody, they declined. Against that backdrop, it is difficult to accept that expanding programme requirements within civil protection orders represents a meaningful, tough stance against domestic abuse. Real deterrence requires certainty of punishment.

Turning briefly to Amendment 361A, I have sympathy with its intention. Where suicide may have followed a history of domestic abuse, investigation must be rigorous and sensitive. However, requiring all such cases to be investigated as if they were homicides raises practical and legal concerns. Police investigations must follow clear evidential thresholds, and homicide procedures carry significant procedural and resource implications. A rigid statutory instruction risks unintended consequences and may not in practice deliver better outcomes. It is for officers and detectives who arrive at the scene of a crime to determine, on the basis of the available evidence, how to investigate that death. Prescribing in law how to advance an investigation in specific circumstances is not an appropriate course of action.

In conclusion, I am not persuaded that expanding the scope of domestic abuse protection orders is a legislative solution to the problems women and girls face daily. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I genuinely thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Doocey, who is not in her place, for Amendment 361A. As I find is so often the case with the noble Baronesses, there is very little between us on the principles involved. The Government agree that it is vital that police officers understand the link between domestic abuse and suicide; the only issue is how it is most effectively to be achieved.

There are three reasons that the Government cannot support the noble Baroness’s amendment. The first is that this is about the effective enforcement of police standards and, in our view, primary legislation is not the right place for this to sit. The second is a concern that it would not work, because there are no consequences contained within the amendment for not doing what the amendment requires one to do. If police forces are not inclined to do it anyway then an amendment that does not have any consequences is unlikely to make a difference.

The third and real reason is that, as we say, we are already on it. I will explain why we say that. The Government are already taking steps to improve police responses to suicides, including for cases where victims have taken their own life following domestic abuse. First, last year, the College of Policing published new national guidance for officers which highlights the importance of considering any history of domestic abuse and applying “professional curiosity” at the scene of these deaths. Secondly, the Home Office is working with the police to monitor the implementation of this new guidance, and has since commissioned five deep dives with select police forces to examine how the police are responding to suicides and unexplained deaths that follow domestic abuse. Thirdly, the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, published in December 2025, sets out that the senior investigating officer training programme for police officers will, going forward, cover deaths that follow domestic abuse, including suicides.

Fourthly, the Government are continuing to build the evidence base on suicides that follow domestic abuse through funding research developed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s domestic homicide project in order to capture information on these deaths from all 43 police forces in England and Wales and identify how the response can be improved. Fifthly, the Home Office is working with the domestic homicide project to explore the possibility of expanding the project’s scope in future years to encompass all suicides that occur in the context of violence against women and girls. This will enable deeper analysis and a more comprehensive understanding of every suicide resulting from these forms of violence and abuse.

Lastly, in relation to the criminal law, the previous Lord Chancellor asked the Law Commission to undertake a review of homicide law, including the use of manslaughter offences where abuse may have driven someone to suicide. Its final report is scheduled for publication in 2028. I know that your Lordships have expressed concerns before about this particular review, but this is the Law Commission’s own time frame and it is a serious piece of work.

I completely understand and acknowledge the impact that these deaths have on families; it is absolutely devastating. Supporting them is central to the Government’s approach. That is why the Home Office funds the organisation Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse to provide specialist support to families bereaved by suicide following domestic abuse. The Government are clear that the police must respond effectively and comprehensively to suicides following domestic abuse, and the programme of work that we are already undertaking will ensure that they have the knowledge and the tools with which to do so. In the light of the Government’s ongoing work, I hope that the noble Baroness will be content not to press her amendment.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for supporting government Amendment 338 today. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, we are not here to re-debate the Sentencing Act all over again. The point is that this is only one tool in the toolbox of domestic abuse protection orders, and many of the other tools are much more punitive in nature. We have to remember that some of these people will go on to have other relationships in the future, and we want them to stop doing this. We want to make sure that these things are effective. The use of DAPOs is being evaluated by an independent research organisation. With that in mind, this is an important change. I am grateful that it has been welcomed by your Lordships, and I commend the amendment to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

Thirdly, the Minister pointed to the 2022 Act, which makes it an aggravated offence to assault someone providing a public service or performing a public duty, and suggested that this makes the amendment unnecessary. But the fact that abuse of public-facing workers is continuing, despite the 2022 Act, shows that that measure alone has not stopped abuse and threats becoming routine for many on the front line. If we now create a stand-alone offence only for one group of public-facing workers, we risk weakening rather than reinforcing these existing protections. Safety at work goes to the heart of social cohesion, and of the basic conditions for economic growth. If we want people to keep filling these roles, we must do everything we reasonably can to protect them.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston for moving Amendment 359. I know that she has been pursuing it with tenacity. This amendment and Amendment 361 relate to the Government’s proposal to create a specific, stand-alone offence of assaulting a retail worker at work. I want to be clear from the outset that it is already an offence to assault a retail worker, because it is an offence to assault any person, full stop. That is the law. I do not believe that criminal law should treat anyone differently based simply on whether they are a retail worker. I fully recognise that retail workers face an appalling level of abuse and violence in the course of their jobs, but to say that the creation of a new, specific criminal offence of assaulting a retail worker will stop assaults on retail workers is, frankly, for the birds.

What will stop these assaults, or at least reduce them, is the police stepping up enforcement, and the Government stopping the release of criminals and handing anyone convicted of these offences suspended sentences. However, the Government clearly believe that creating this new offence will reduce violence against retail workers. If we are to take their logic to its conclusion, why would we not extend the offence to cover all public-facing workers? Does the Minister believe that transport drivers, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady Stowell and endorsed by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, are of lesser value than retail workers? If the Government believe that this new offence will work then why do they not believe it will work for other public-facing workers?

My noble friend’s amendment exposes the absurdity of the Government’s position. They argue that violence against retail workers is a significant problem that needs to be tackled, which is absolutely correct, but then propose a solution that they refuse to extend to other workers who also face significant levels of violence at work. There is simply no logic to the Government’s approach. Either they believe that creating a new offence for specific groups of people will reduce violence against them or they do not. They cannot argue both. I would prefer that we did not have any new offences that outlawed things that are already outlawed and that we did not legislate to criminalise actions towards specific groups of people but not others. That would be my preference, but if we are to do these things, then we must take them to their logical conclusion. For that reason, I support the amendments from my noble friend.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her amendment, and for the opportunity to discuss it with her and with the organisations she brought in for face-to-face discussions with us. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Hendy for his contribution and for our meeting.

I declare my membership of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, which I joined 47 years ago and which sponsored me as a Member of Parliament. I put that on the record. I must also say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, that I understand that he would prefer to have no offence. I understand that because when, as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, I tabled amendments to put these types of offences down, the then Government rejected them. I therefore understand where he is coming from, because that is consistent with the position of previous Conservative Governments.

In this case, we have a Labour manifesto commitment endorsed by the electorate. My noble friend Lady O’Grady mentioned USDAW. I pay tribute to that union, which has collected evidence and, through three general secretaries, including my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton, campaigned strongly for an offence against retail workers. The Labour Party listened to that in opposition and put in its manifesto—I cannot claim credit for this, because I was out of Parliament at the time—a commitment to legislate for that offence, which appears in the Bill before the House today.

I have heard the comments from the noble Lord, Hogan-Howe and the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, and others, and from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, on why they think that the bespoke offence against assaulting a retail worker should be extended to all public-facing workers. Along with proposing a new broader offence of assault against public-facing workers, the noble Baroness has tabled an amendment that would place a duty on courts to make a criminal order in the event of a conviction.

I hate to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, but I repeat the arguments that I put to her in Committee and elsewhere. Public-facing workers such as those mentioned by my noble friend, the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Harding, and others, are covered under existing legislation, such as the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which includes a range of violent offences, such as actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm. Further, the provisions of Section 156 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which was introduced by the previous Conservative Government, makes it a statutory aggravating factor of assault against any public-facing worker. That offence means that if someone, having been charged with the serious offence of assault and having gone through a trial, is deemed to have committed assault against public-facing workers, the court has the power to add aggravating factors to that sentence. That covers every type of worker that has been mentioned by noble Lords today. The aggravating factor applies in cases of assault where an offence is committed against those public service workers performing a public duty or providing a service to the public. That is an important factor.

Noble Lords have asked why there is a specific offence against retail workers that is additional to the aggravating offence. That is a reasonable question to ask. In clauses that have been mentioned there is provision for additional prison sentence capacity, criminal restriction orders and an unlimited fine for this stand-alone offence. Retail workers are still covered by Section 156 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, so why have we put that extra power in place?

The reason for this—and why I declared an interest—is that USDAW has, to my knowledge, for 17 or 18 years campaigned regularly for this in the Freedom From Fear Campaign. It has done so under the three general secretaries that my noble friend Lady O’Grady mentioned, and it has done so for a purpose—one that the Government share. Retail workers are fundamentally on the front line of upholding the laws passed by both Houses of Parliament on a range of matters. It is a retail worker who stops illegal sales of cigarettes, it is a retail worker who stops illegal sales of alcohol, it is a retail worker who stops an illegal sale of a knife, it is a retail worker who stops an illegal sale of a solvent, and it is a retail worker who protects the community by upholding all the laws on those issues that we have passed in this House and in the House of Commons. That is why USDAW campaigned for the specific offence, and it is why the Labour Party in government has been pleased to support the creation of that offence by putting it in the Bill.

That goes even further to the appalling shop theft situation. I do not call it shoplifting—it is shop theft. There has been a continued rise in shop theft over many years, and it is the retail worker who is on the front line saying, “Put that back”, calling the police and taking action in the shop. The Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and a whole range of retail organisations have campaigned for this, alongside USDAW, over many years. It has been thought through and there is an evidence base. It is a manifesto commitment, and we are trying to introduce that extra offence. I do not wish to see a train operative or members of customer services, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, mentioned, attacked with a knife. This is covered by common assault legislation from 1861 and by the 2022 Act as an aggravating offence. But the Government have put forward a stand-alone offence for shop workers for the reasons I have outlined.

Does that potentially create an anomaly? Let us discuss that and reflect on that view. But the manifesto commitment is clear, and we are delivering on that manifesto commitment. This is an important issue, based on evidence and campaigning by a range of bodies—retail organisations and trade unions—and it has my support. Therefore, I cannot support the noble Baroness—I have told her that—or my noble friend.

That is not to say that the Government accept that attacks on those members of staff are a normal part of what they should face. We are committed to driving down assaults and to enforcing, with the courts, the legislation on the statute book. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, asked what the Government are doing to reduce the attacks in the first place. This Government are rebuilding the police force—13,000 neighbourhood police officers—and have put in place, with this Bill, changes in shop theft legislation. This Government are focusing on retail crime in hotspots and on making sure that we drive it down. We will ensure that the police forces have retail crime as a major priority.

In the last 14 years before July 2024, police numbers fell, neighbourhood policing fell and the focus on the high street fell. It was not a Labour Government but a Conservative Government who did that. They refused the legislation on assaults on shop workers that I proposed in the House of Commons, they refused to take action on shop theft on high streets and they refused to stand up for the workforce. With due respect, I will not take lessons today from the Conservative Front Bench.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for bringing this amendment back, because I had some thoughts on this after the debate we had in Committee. Having read English at university, I went back to the definition of “alarm” and started to look at the definition used in the Public Order Act. There are components of causing alarm, particularly in the Public Order Act, which the noble Lord wants to amend. The levels at which charging happens use different definitions of alarm, which are quite interesting for these purposes.

The definition of alarm in this context is to create a state of apprehension, fear or panic in a person, often accompanied by a sense of immediate danger or worry that something unpleasant is going to happen to them. There is a key difference in usage. Section 4A of the Public Order Act details using “threatening, abusive or insulting” conduct with

“intent to cause … harassment, alarm or distress”,

and, on likelihood, using threatening or abusive conduct that is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, without necessarily intending to.

The issue I take with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, is that he says it is all just about how you are feeling, but the point is that the definitions at the different levels within the Public Order Act, at least semantically, seem to show that it is more than that, because you need to identify what has triggered that sense of alarm. It is a range, as we have discussed in previous debates. Because his amendment wants to remove “alarm” from intentional harassment, alarm or distress, it falls at the higher level that I have just described. I wonder whether he might reconsider it in that light, because when the 1986 Act went through it was clearly very well thought through.

Interestingly, the OED definition:

“To make (a person) feel suddenly frightened or in danger; to strike or fill with fear”,


says that more recently it has been seen in a slightly weakened use. However, the WordWeb online dictionary says:

“Experiencing a sudden sense of danger”.


In a lot of dictionaries I have looked up, there is the repeated use of it as not just how you feel but a panic response to danger, a heightened level. Therefore, certainly in my books, it should stay with harassment as well, because they are both more serious than just feeling a bit worried about something, which is what the noble Lord described.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough’s amendment, which would remove the word “alarm” from the relevant sections of the Public Order Act. I entirely support his aims. Alarm is not an emotion that should be policed, if emotions should be policed at all. The Act in question has been used for the unprecedented policing of speech that we have seen recently, for which Sections 4A and 5 have been largely responsible, and any measure that weakens the effect of this law is welcome. So, although I am sceptical that he will, I hope the Minister will accept this amendment.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am afraid I cannot accept the amendment, and I will explain why to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. I am grateful to him for bringing it forward. We will therefore have another opportunity to look at the offences in the Public Order Act 1986 and to reflect on the balance we must continue to strike between free expression and ensuring public safety.

The Government remain firmly committed to protecting freedom of speech. The ability to voice strong and at times uncomfortable views is fundamental to democratic life. However, as I set out in Committee, the ability to intervene early is an important tool for police to protect both the public and those involved, a point that I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Jackson, will accept. The definitions in the 1986 Act, passed by a previous Conservative Government, including the words “alarm” and “distress”, are there so that there can be early intervention and examination, and so that people who feel “alarm” and “distress” can have that support.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, has also referred to the review of public order and hate crime legislation led by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. Government has given it the task of examining the threshold definitions of public order legislation, which are needed to protect the public, while ensuring that we do exactly what I know the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, wants to do: ensure that we do not have undue interference in freedom of expression. The review is expected to conclude in the spring—it is a flexible definition, as we know, but it will be in the spring—and the Government will carefully consider its recommendations before determining whether legislative change is necessary.

I cannot commit to where we are on that because we have not seen the outcome of the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald. Given the circumstances —and given that the Act is now 40 years old and has stood the test of time from Mrs Thatcher’s Government to those of John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, however many Conservative Prime Ministers held the office between 2010 and 2024, and my right honourable friend the current Prime Minister—it strikes me that it is a sound piece of legislation. It has stood the test of a number of Prime Ministers and Governments. With the review pending, I hope that we can examine and look at all those issues. With those comments, I hope the noble Lord is content to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has got to the nub of an issue that seems to fall between a rock and a hard place. One of the issues that we face in terms of the crime survey, which is now being used by the Government as the primary way of deciding police resources, is fraud. Without doubt, the increasing use of digital identity will be the source of more fraud if we are not careful.

The Government seem to be in a predicament about whether to press ahead with digital ID more generally. We saw the resignation of a Minister at the weekend over their dubious ways of trying to challenge the credentials of a journalist assessing the organisation Labour Together. The Government have reappointed a Minister to undertake this task of establishing a digital identity card, which I am led to believe there will be a consultation announcement on within the next week. I hope that the Government are listening to the noble Lord by getting ahead of the issues that could come about with the mass spreading of digital identity.

I am very grateful to Nationwide, which rang to alert me to a fraud that was happening. I had used my card when I was abroad representing Parliament at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and suddenly it was being used in a number of places to secure money. That is a reminder, as we move to this digital approach to money, with cash evaporating, that the last Government did a lot to try to protect cash and to make sure that it was still being used on a widespread basis, and I appreciate that. However, it would be useful to get a sense of what the Government are doing to tackle this very real threat of digital identity theft.

This is particularly pertinent because of the 10-year NHS plan—never mind the 10-year NHS cancer plan—regarding how much is being put into the hands of government. With artificial intelligence understandably being introduced to increase productivity and the deployment of public services, somebody’s identity is precious, and the validity and protection of digital identity can become an extraordinary challenge to somebody’s integrity.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, has set out a number of issues in a great deal of detail in Amendment 366, with the proposed new subsection (2)(b) defining what “obtains” would mean. I think it would be helpful to the Committee to understand what protections are in place or being planned by the Government not to mandate the use of initial identity but regarding what their desire is. Again, I understand the desire of the use for government, but what is good for government is also good for general commercial practice.

It would be helpful to get an understanding of why the Government are resisting the amendment—if the noble Lord tests the opinion of the House, I will vote with him in that Division—and a sense of where they believe they have sufficient protections in making this case. We have discussed identity, fake imagery and deepfakes quite a lot during the passage of this Bill. I seem to recall in the last general election that the now Prime Minister was, all of a sudden, in the middle of a deepfake situation, with comments attributed to him that were not made.

We can go further with how technology has advanced in that regard, but where would this go if we started using digital identity to register for elections? Where is this going when it is about accessing cash, frankly, from the Government? I know from running the DWP for three years that, unfortunately, people seem very determined to try to commit fraud to get money to which they are not entitled. But as we continue to try to use AI as a force for good, what are the Government doing to try to stop it being used as a force for bad?

I do not wish to labour the point, but the noble Lord has really hit on something. There is a gap. There is a desire by the Government to do this good, but I think the amendment would plug the gap very well. There are so many instances in this Bill and other Bills which are coming before the House where the Government want all sorts of powers just in case. This is not a “just in case”; this is a “waiting to happen”. It is happening now, so what are we doing to address it?

I go back to the fact that 40% of crime is due to fraud. Two-thirds of that is digital, online fraud. This is affecting not just people in this Chamber but people right across this country, and that is something that I hope the Government will consider carefully. If there was a vote, I would certainly support the amendment to make sure that the Government take note and actually get something done about this. I support the noble Lord’s amendment.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for bringing back his amendment on Report. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition retain our support for his measures, and I thank him for continuing his campaign.

I understand that the Minister refrained from supporting the amendment in Committee for fear of unnecessary duplication of legislation. I gently urge him that this provides an opportunity for the opposite. It is common practice across Governments to use new legislation to amalgamate old pieces of legislation into a single draft. This seems the perfect time to do so with digital identity theft.

There is an array of Acts that creates a puzzle from which a digital identity theft offence appears, but it is somewhat distorted, if not fragmented. At least five Acts cover areas of digital identity theft; a wide purview is by no means a bad thing, but they were all designed for a different age. Just reading out the years of our primary Acts demonstrates this: 1968, 1990, 2006 and 2010. Even the Data Protection Act 2018, the most recent application, is for an era without AI.

It is not worth repeating the statistics that we have heard throughout the course of the Bill. A simple fact will suffice: 60% of all fraud cases are identity fraud, and the recent increase has been driven by the internet and artificial intelligence. The Government talk about being ahead of the curve on AI safety and online regulation. That is commendable, but to claim one thing and then refuse to act on it is not. I hope the Minister can at least acknowledge the scale of digital identity theft and its growing prevalence. If he cannot support it now, I hope that he will commit to look into it in the future.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for returning to this important matter. As I set out previously, although digital identity theft is not a stand-alone offence, the behaviour the noble Lord highlights is already captured by existing legislation. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, predicted some of the response that I would give; it has not changed hugely since Committee. This includes the misuse of personal sensitive identifiable information. The Fraud Act 2006 criminalises the use of another person’s identity with the intention to gain or to cause loss. Unauthorised access to personal data, including biometric information, is covered under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

I fully recognise the concerns raised, which is why the Government are already taking clear action. The new Report Fraud service has replaced Action Fraud, giving victims improved reporting tools and providing police with stronger intelligence and better support pathways. A full review of police skills has been completed and its recommendations will be reflected in the upcoming fraud strategy, which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will be pleased to know will be published imminently.

Electronic Travel Authorisation: Dual Nationals

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, any suggestion that there have been insufficient transitional arrangements for the ETA system is surely for the sky. The scheme was introduced three years ago but was not made mandatory, to allow for people to adjust. It is absolutely right that the Government are now making this system mandatory and that dual nationals should have to enter using British passports—I am with the Minister on that. My question is: now that we have this system in place, how will the Government utilise the information for stronger immigration enforcement?

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support. As he knows, this position was introduced by the previous Government, and I am very pleased that we have been able to see it through. He asked how we will use this information for important border control. The whole purpose of the system is to have border control. As he probably knows, today we have had some new figures on immigration positions. They show that asylum hotels are at the lowest level for 18 months, which coincides with the UK Labour Government; the asylum backlog has fallen for the fourth quarter in a row to 64,426; and small boat arrivals are 9% lower than the peak in 2022. This is part of a government strategy to control our borders and ensure that they are firm. I welcome his support not just for this measure but for the wider government agenda.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s amendments in this group all relate to certain of the delegated powers in the Bill. In the main, they respond to recommendations made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee in their reports on the Bill. I am very grateful to both committees for their scrutiny of this legislation. Your Lordships’ House will be pleased to hear that I will not repeat all the arguments made by the Government. Instead, I point noble Lords to the responses to each of the committees’ reports, which are available on their respective web pages. However, let me briefly explain the various government amendments that address the committees’ concerns.

First, Amendments 15 and 25 to Clauses 9 and 24 provide that the guidance on fly-tipping enforcement and the new civil penalty regime, in respect of a failure to remove illegal online content relating to knives and offensive weapons, are subject to the negative procedure. I stress to noble Lords that the Government’s general position remains that it is not necessary or appropriate for the generality of statutory guidance to be subject to any parliamentary procedure. However, there are limited exceptions to that general rule, and we agree that the guidance provided for in Clauses 9 and 24 should be two such exceptions, as per the DPRRC’s recommendation that in both cases the guidance should be subject to the negative procedure.

Secondly, Amendment 382 to Clause 154 provides for driver information regulations to be subject to the affirmative procedure, in line with a recommendation by the Constitution Committee.

Thirdly, the amendments to Clauses 85, 129 and 134 narrow the scope of the regulation-making powers provided for in those clauses.

Fourthly, Amendments 415, 416 and 417 to Clause 196 ensure that all iterations of the guidance in respect of youth diversion orders are laid before Parliament, including in cases in which revisions are insubstantial.

Finally, Amendments 11 and 381 do not stem from a committee recommendation. Rather, they simply provide that pre-commencement consultation on the regulations relating to the provision of information about anti-social behaviour and the code of practice about access to driver licence information satisfies the requirement to consult under this clause. I beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, we have come to the first of two groups containing a large number of government amendments. I find myself having to express my strong frustration and disappointment with the number of government amendments that have been brought to this Bill on Report. As we broke up for recess, the Government tabled 243 amendments to the Bill. Then, on Monday, two days before the first day of Report, they tabled a further 73 amendments. This completely flies in the face of the accepted norms and conventions whereby the Government are supposed to table amendments a week before.

Most concerning is the introduction of entirely new amendments that have not previously been discussed, most notably the Government’s amendment relating to aggravation of offences. We will spend much time debating that amendment later, but suffice it to say that it is a very wide-ranging and incredibly worrying matter—never mind the fact that the amendment has not been debated in Committee in this House, nor in the other place, and as such will not receive the proper scrutiny it deserves.

Having said that, I do welcome some of the changes the Government are making. Amendments 15, 16, 17, 25, 26 and 267 all enhance the ability of Parliament to scrutinise some of the regulation-making powers granted to the Home Secretary. Requiring the draft guidance to be laid before Parliament for a period of 40 days is welcome and, we hope, will ensure that Parliament can diligently hold the Government to account. On Amendments 362 and 363, I am naturally cautious about the Government granting themselves more powers via secondary legislation, which in this case permits them to specify different articles that may be considered as “SIM farms”. My concern is slightly allayed by Amendments 364 and 365, which do place limitations on the Secretary of State’s power, but it would be useful to know what types of devices the Government envisage being brought into the scope of Clause 129.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful, to an extent, for the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. The vast majority of the Government amendments that have been laid before your Lordships’ House are either in response to issues raised through discussion in Committee, or subsequent to that discussion, or, as I said in my opening remarks, in response to the issues raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee. It is also important to say—and we will come to this in a large group coming up shortly—that they are large in number but they are all, in a sense, because of the nature of the legislation, making the same changes around devolution to many parts of the Bill. This is how the issues were understood and discussed. It followed discussion in Committee on that group, when the Opposition Front Bench presented their rationale for opposing this. We decided not to move the Government amendments that were tabled in Committee at that time.

This is an iterative process. I think it fair to point out that the point of Committee is for the Government to hear concerns and to be able to respond to them. I think there will be many areas where we will table Government amendments throughout Report stage of the Bill, not least the ones we are discussing in this group right now. I am grateful for the words of welcome for these Government amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. Concerns were raised by both committees about our approach to statutory guidance and secondary legislation, so we have responded to them.

The Government’s new clause on aggravated offences, which the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, referred to, as well as delivering on a manifesto commitment, responds directly to the debate on the issue in the other place. It was touched on in your Lordships’ House at Second Reading and in Committee, where we reiterated the Government’s intention to bring forward an amendment on Report. Moreover, the issues raised in the Government’s new clauses do cross over to those raised in what are now Clauses 122 to 124, which were thoroughly debated in Committee. I would be happy, in addition to this, to carry on the conversation, if the noble Lord is happy to do so, by writing to him on the specifics he raised concerning Clause 129. But, given that explanation, I reiterate my moving of Government Amendment 11.

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

13: Clause 9, page 17, line 27, at end insert—
“(1A) The guidance issued about the enforcement of offences under section 33 must ensure that, where a person is convicted of a relevant offence, they are liable for the costs incurred through loss or damage resulting from the offence.(1B) The guidance must also ensure that it requires the waste regulation authority to engage with the local police force to take all reasonable measures to ensure that the landowner, or community, responsible for the land upon which the relevant offence occurs, is not liable for the costs incurred resulting from the offence.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure the Secretary of State’s guidance on fly-tipping makes the person responsible for fly-tipping, rather than the landowner or community, liable for the costs of cleaning up.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment in my name relates to fly-tipping and measures that can and should be taken to combat it. Fly-tipping is a serious and growing blight on society. In 2023-24 local authorities in England had to contend with approximately 1.15 million fly-tipping and litter incidents, an increase of 6% on the previous year. It is even worse in rural areas. Rural fly-tipping has increased by 9% over the past year, with one farmer saying that relentless fly-tipping happens almost every week. Last week it was reported that an elderly Hertfordshire farmer was facing a £40,000 clean-up bill after almost 200 tonnes of waste was fly-tipped on his land.

There is a significant disparity between the offences and the enforcement, which sends the signal to offenders that they are unlikely to face any consequences of their actions. Amendment 13 would seek to address this inequity. The Government propose to issue guidance relating to fly-tipping. Our amendment would ensure that guidance makes it clear that where a person is convicted of fly-tipping, they, not the victims, are liable for the costs incurred as a result of their offence. It would further require engagement between waste authorities and the police to ensure that the landowner or community upon whose land the dumping occurred is not left footing the bill.

Amendment 19, also in my name, proposes that a person convicted of fly-tipping should receive three penalty points on their driving licence for their offence. It seems self-evident to say that much fly-tipping is vehicle-enabled. Vans and cars are used to transport waste far from the original site and dump it illegally. For many offenders, particularly those operating for attractive profit margins, a fine alone may be viewed as a calculated business risk, and a price worth paying. The prospect of licence endorsement, however, introduces a personal and escalating consequence.

Amendment 20, which has been signed by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough, would add fly-tipping to the list of offences for which vehicles may be seized under Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002. If a vehicle is reasonably believed to have been used in connection with fly-tipping, the police should have the powers to act decisively. Removing the instrument of the crime is one of the most effective deterrents available, and this amendment would disrupt organised dumping activity and reinforce the seriousness with which we should treat environmental crime. I hope the Minister is listening, and I have to say to the House that if he will not accept my amendments in this group, or give assurances as to the Government’s intent, I may well seek to divide the House.

Amendment 14 (to Amendment 13)

Tabled by

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 14 (to Amendment 13) not moved.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate; I hope they will not be offended if I do not name them personally. However, I want to single out the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, for his example of what amounts to, as he said, rural crime. I was somewhat disappointed in the Liberal Democrat response. In particular, I thought that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, was somewhat contradictory in his response to Amendment 13.

I thank the Minister for what he said. I am not entirely sure that a press notice will address this situation, nor am I convinced that the long-winded process of convicting somebody and then pursuing them for costs is satisfactory as it stands. I do not need to reiterate the appalling impact that fly-tipping has on communities, in particular rural communities up and down the country. The only measure in the Bill related to fly-tipping is the Secretary of State’s guidance to be issued under Clause 9. That is not good enough. The British people are tired of seeing verges, lay-bys, farmland and residential streets turned into dumping grounds. If we are truly serious about tackling fly-tipping, we must ensure that enforcement is credible and that the costs of criminality fall where they belong: on the perpetrator. If the Government are unwilling to take the necessary action to tackle this scourge, I am afraid I have to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

19: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Points on driving licence for fly tippingIn section 33(8) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (unauthorised disposal of waste: offence), at the end insert—“and in either case is also liable to the endorsement of their driving record with 3 penalty points.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to add penalty points to the driving licence of a person convicted of a fly-tipping offence.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether I am in order. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Katz, who is nodding, which is good news. I thank him; it is much appreciated. There is nothing worse than writing a speech and being unable to deliver it.

I welcome the government amendments in this group, brought forward by the Minister, concerning the remote sale and delivery of knives and bladed articles. As I noted in Committee, we on these Benches fully support the intent behind the Government’s measures in this area. We must strengthen accountability for businesses and sellers in tackling online knife sales. We welcome the robust two-step age-verification checks being implemented. It is entirely right that we ensure a consistent UK-wide approach by extending these provisions, including those relating to crossbows, to Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is vital that the law across the home nations is exactly on the same footing, so that criminals cannot exploit cross-border differences to acquire lethal weapons.

I also welcome the amendments that clarify the rules around identity documents. The requirement for a physical identity document to be shown upon the delivery of a bladed product provides a necessary safeguard. Furthermore, we acknowledge the provisions allowing the Secretary of State to prescribe alternative age-verification steps such as digital ID.

As I made clear to the Minister previously, there is no Bench more strongly against compulsory digital ID than the Liberal Democrats’, so we remain highly supportive of the assurance that analogue physical forms of identity will continue to be accepted alongside any new digital alternatives. Embedded among these amendments, however, is our Amendment 177, referred to by the Minister, on the remote sale of knives. This amendment requires that regulations mandate the reporting of bulk knife sales to the police

“in real time, or as soon as is reasonably practicable”.

In Committee, the Minister stated that he was sympathetic to the overall aim of this amendment but argued that the current duty in Clause 36 was sufficient and that exact timeframes would be handled later in regulations, following consultation. Sympathy does not intervene in a crime. We have seen cases where young people effectively act as arms traders, buying huge numbers of illegal weapons online for community distribution. If the police are to effectively track and intercept these bulk purchases, they need that intelligence immediately, not days or weeks later when the weapons are already on the streets. Amendment 177 would ensure that operational effectiveness is guaranteed in the Bill, turning bureaucratic compliance into actionable, life-saving intelligence.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, in Committee, I asked the Government to withdraw their amendments that permitted them to require by regulations the use of digital ID for age verification for the online sale of knives and crossbows. My concern was that permitting this would be the first legislative step towards mandating digital IDs. Since then, of course, the Government have conceded that digital IDs will not be made mandatory and, while I still harbour some reservations, I am now content for the amendments to be made to the Bill.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. If I may, I will address the points from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and thank him for returning to the issue of fixed-penalty notices with his Amendment 177.

We are clear that, in order for the reports on bulk sales of knives or other bladed articles to be a useful tool for the police to prevent knife crime, they must be sent to the police in a timely manner. I say to the noble Lord that we are working with the police on the details of a reporting system, and I want to reassure him that the points he has raised both in Committee and in his amendment, and during the debate today, will be taken into account when drafting the regulations. I do not believe there is any difference of substance between us on that; it is just that we are of the view that the timeliness of reports is best left to regulations, rather than primary legislation. We will be bringing those regulations forward, and I hope he will be able to support, comment upon and discuss them at that time. I hope the noble Lord will be content not to move his amendment.

Before I finish on this it is worthwhile, both in the context of this debate and the previous group, to place on record that while overall knife crime was previously climbing, since the start of this Parliament knife homicides have fallen by 27% and knife-enabled offences have recorded an 8% decrease. The latest admissions data for NHS hospitals in England and Wales also shows a 10% fall in admissions for knife assaults. Now, I am not complacent and will not stop pressing on this, but those results demonstrate progress. Given the measures in this Bill, and the measures we may have on digital and non-digital ID two-step verification, I hope we will further reduce those figures in the coming months. In the meantime, having moved my Amendment 28, I will beg to move the other amendments and hope that the noble Lord will be content not to move his.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the Government’s amendments in this group, which deliver on the commitments made by the Minister during our debate in Committee. As I noted at the time, townies such as myself were being educated during the passage of the Bill on what these items were. However, the logic of this measure was immediately clear when the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham, introduced his amendments, and we were very pleased to support them when he first championed the cause. We are delighted that the Government have accepted his amendments.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for bringing forward these amendments. These measures were rightly pressed for in Committee by my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham, so I am glad the Government have taken his points on board and are now implementing them. These amendments will remove an administrative burden currently placed on the police—something we all support—and will pose no threat to the public. They are wholly reasonable, and we support them.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, it is very rare to have both unanimity and common sense break out across the Chamber. I thank all noble Lords for their comments, including those among townies—I associate myself with the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, as a fellow townie. It was an education and I have learned an awful lot. I thank everyone for their support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for tabling these amendments. We wholly support the intention of Clause 41, which introduces the offence of child criminal exploitation, but I have several concerns regarding the amendments, which I hope he will be able to allay.

First, is the original crime being brought forward to highlight and punish exploitative behaviour? An adult will perhaps get a 12 year-old to shoplift or deal drugs because they are less conspicuous and have less chance of being caught. That type of coercion is what is being targeted here. I am not so sure that this is always the case when it comes to older teenagers. When the child is 16 or 17, it is often far more of a voluntary decision, based on a mutual understanding, to commit a crime. While there may be exploitation, the offender may not be enticing them towards crime because they are a child. That is a subtle but important difference in intention. Introducing strict liability up to 18 removes the discretion that courts often exist to provide.

That brings me to my second concern, which is that this may end up being used to absolve fully complicit young offenders of criminal responsibility. The Government have made it clear that they see 16 to 18 year-olds as adults, and the law already provides them with many legal rights that 15 year-olds do not have. The Government will soon give them the right to vote. Is the Minister really arguing that personal volition never plays a part in crimes committed by young people? Of course there will be cases of exploitation, but I am sure that your Lordships’ House will agree that there will also be cases where that is not the case. Introducing strict liability will open the door to others already implicated in the crimes committed by the teenager being rendered wholly liable for a crime that somebody else was a part of.

I understand the Government’s intentions with this updated measure. It involves a different principle from child sexual assault, but just as that crime includes a condition that factors in intent, so should this crime, on the part of those under-18. Obviously, there should be an arbitrary cut-off, as the original measure suggests, but we have a criminal age of responsibility of 10 and we are giving 16 year-olds the vote; to suggest that 16 to 17-year olds involved in a crime with an adult can always claim that they were exploited and coerced is not consistent. I hope that the Minister will be able to address these points.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. I was just checking with another Member of your Lordships’ House before I started my winding-up speech. My apologies for not attracting his attention.

We welcome the Government’s decision to address child criminal exploitation. The range of measures in the Bill are certainly a start and address the growing concern about children being exploited into criminality. I particularly welcome the Minister’s letter, dated a couple of weeks ago—about 15 February—explaining that the amendments laid address a highly specific concern about the requirement for the prosecution to prove that the perpetrator did not reasonably believe the child was aged 18 or over, if the child was aged 13 or over. We thank him for that.

However, from these Benches we urge the Government to go further in the longer term in ensuring that all children are safeguarded from exploitation. This needs to be recognised as a form of exploitation. Along with a number of organisations, we think that this should be done through a statutory definition in Parliament, partly because that will guide the services but also because it would make it very clear where the boundaries are on CCE.

Hand in hand with this is the whole issue of cuckooing, which we will come to in the next group. That is equally important. It is one of the newer, more virulent ways of coercively controlling children. We welcome the amendment, wish it had gone further, and look forward to discussions in the longer term about how that can be remedied.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords and will try to respond briefly. I remind the House that we are responding to requests from noble Lords, and in addition from partners in children’s charities, law enforcement and Members of the House of Commons, to make a change to ensure that the child criminal exploitation offence works as intended to protect the children most at risk of being targeted.

As both the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, have said, boys aged between 15 and 17 and, very often, Black and other minority children are commonly overrepresented in those figures. They are the same children at risk of being wrongly perceived as being older, and therefore not protected. We have tried to ensure that we place the responsibility for any criminal activity firmly where it belongs in this case, which is with the adult who is effectively trying to groom, encourage, lead—however we wish to describe it—the child under the age of 18. For the purposes of this legislation, a child is dealt with as being under the age of 18.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, raised again his concerns about voting at 16. That is an issue for debate, and it is a Labour manifesto commitment, but it is not an issue for debate today.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

It is a comparison.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord says it is a comparison. I accept that, but for the purposes of this legislation, we are saying that individuals aged 15 to 17, particularly, are vulnerable. This goes to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Requiring the courts to consider what age the perpetrator reasonably believed the child to be by reference to their appearance or behaviour risks, in my view, reinforcing the injustices we have and risks somebody who has undertaken child criminal exploitation getting off because they believed that that person was older than they actually were.

That is a line we have drawn and an argument we have made, and it is in the legislation. I am not the Minister responsible for this, but I would still be happy to have a discussion with the noble Lord at some point about why votes at 16 is important. If he wants to do that, we will find an opportunity, I am sure, if it relates to a Home Office Bill at any time in the future.

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It would be useful to know if the Government are thinking in the longer term about whether they could strengthen the rules that they are laying down. The charities’ concern is that they are not strong enough, and they believe that the guidance that they suggest would be a very good way of strengthening them without necessarily needing the detail on the face of the Bill.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for tabling these amendments, and I fully appreciate that they are concerned with the protection of children and young people. The amendments would restrict the new offences of cuckooing and coerced internal concealment so that they applied only to those aged 18 and over, and they would require the Secretary of State to issue statutory safeguarding guidance in connection with these provisions.

Let me say at the outset that we all recognise the deeply exploitative nature of cuckooing and forcing or coercing individuals, particularly vulnerable people, into internally concealing drugs or other items. The purpose of these new offences in the Bill is precisely to target that exploitation, and we on these Benches have a lot of sympathy for that principle. The clauses are designed to disrupt organised criminal activity that so often preys on the vulnerable.

However, we cannot support the amendments in this group. They would, in effect, create a blanket exemption for 16 and 17 year-olds from criminal liability for these offences. In this country, the age of criminal responsibility is 10. Parliament has long accepted that young people under 18 can, in appropriate circumstances, be held criminally responsible for serious criminal conduct. To carve out a specific exemption here would create inconsistency in law and risk signalling that certain forms of serious exploitation-related offending are less culpable when committed by older teenagers.

That is not to deny that many young people involved in such activities are themselves victims. The courts already have extensive powers to take age, maturity, coercion and vulnerability into account at charging and sentencing. Prosecutorial direction and the youth justice framework provide mechanisms to distinguish between a hardened exploiter and a child groomed into criminality; a blanket statutory exclusion would go too far.

As for the proposed requirement for additional statutory guidance, safeguarding responsibilities are already embedded in existing legislation. Public authorities with safeguarding duties are well aware of their obligations, and we should be cautious about layering further statutory guidance unnecessarily. We must ensure that exploiters are prosecuted, victims are protected and the law remains coherent. For those reasons, while I very much respect the intentions behind these amendments, I cannot support them.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this debate. I start with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb—and I start by welcoming her genuine recognition of the progress that we are making through this legislation by introducing the new child criminal exploitation and cuckooing offences in this Bill. We are grateful for that. As she explained, her Amendments 195 to 197 seek to restrict those who commit the cuckooing and internal concealment offences to those aged 18 or over.

The Government fully recognise that children, particularly those exploited by county lines gangs, are often used to carry out cuckooing activity or to persuade others to internally conceal items such as drugs for a criminal purpose. The act of turning these children into exploiters themselves is particularly appalling and is why this Government’s work to target child criminal exploitation is so important. I think that everyone across your Lordships’ House recognises that. While I appreciate the spirit of these amendments and believe that it is absolutely right that children, when they have been exploited and groomed into criminality, should be protected as victims, this does not in itself override the age of criminal responsibility, where the law holds children over a certain age responsible for their actions. It is possible for a child to commit cuckooing or internal concealment without having been exploited to do so.

Let us be clear that decisions as to whether to charge someone should be taken on a case-by-case basis. As with all offences, the police exercise operational judgment when investigating and gathering evidence to establish the facts of a case, and the Crown Prosecution Service’s public interest test will of course apply. This includes consideration of the child’s culpability and whether they have been compelled, coerced or exploited to commit any potential crime of cuckooing or internal concealment. We will also issue statutory guidance to support implementation of the cuckooing and internal concealment offences, including on how the police should respond and identify exploitation when children are found in connection with cuckooing or internal concealment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, posed the question why we are not creating a statutory defence for children against their prosecution for crimes, including cuckooing and internal concealment, committed as a result of effectively being a victim of child criminal exploitation. When a victim of proposed child criminal exploitation offences also meets the definition of a victim of modern slavery, they may retain access to the statutory defence contained in Section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Many victims of CCE will continue to be able to access the Section 45 defence, as they do now. However, we consider that creating an additional stand-alone statutory defence for victims of child criminal exploitation beyond that which already exists in Section 45 of the 2015 Act for victims who are also victims of modern slavery and/or human trafficking could have unintended consequences, given the breadth of the proposed offence. The child criminal exploitation offence is to address the imbalance between children and those individuals who criminally exploit them.

I add that we are working with partners in the criminal justice system to improve awareness and understanding of the Section 45 defence, which will support the early identification of potential victims of modern slavery and prevent criminal proceedings being brought against victims. It is intended that guidance on the potential availability of the Section 45 defence under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 for victims of child criminal exploitation will be included in the statutory guidance that will accompany the new offence.

I turn to Amendment 198. We similarly sympathise with the intention behind the amendment to introduce statutory guidance for multi-agency partners. It is essential that agencies work together to safeguard and protect children and vulnerable adults from criminal exploitation. However, statutory safeguarding responsibilities are already set out in statutory guidance, principally in Working Together to Safeguard Children, which includes guidance on child criminal exploitation. To supplement this, we will issue non-statutory guidance for partner agencies on the child criminal exploitation offence and orders and on cuckooing and internal concealment to support them to identify these harms and recognise how their statutory responsibilities apply. Issuing separate statutory guidance with additional legal burdens for safeguarding partners on these specific crime types alone risks duplication and a siloed approach to protecting children and vulnerable adults—something that I am sure we would all wish to avoid happening.

More broadly, the Government are taking a range of actions to strengthen child protection through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will introduce new multi-agency child protection teams in every local authority in England. This will ensure stronger join-up between police, health, education and children’s social care when responding to harms such as child criminal exploitation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned stalking offences, which are committed mainly against adults, so it is appropriate to have bespoke guidance. Here we are talking about safeguarding children where the DfE guidance will apply, so it is appropriate that we take this approach, given the range of agencies involved for children. I hope that, given those assurances, the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.

Life Sciences: Beagles

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is a long way from animal testing but I will give the noble Baroness a straight answer on it anyway. I personally voted to ban fox hunting on every occasion in the House of Commons when I was a Member of Parliament. I personally support the Government’s intention to stop trail hunting. Those are matters of management and political decision. That is what the Government will do, and I hope the noble Baroness will continue to raise those issues. We will look at the consequences, but ultimately it is the right thing to do.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, having recently debated the life sciences sector and being aware of how crucial it is, not only for our economy but for our national security, we know that much of the research conducted in Britain is increasingly at risk from espionage, cyber attack and theft, most notably from China. What steps, in addition to the legislation, have the Government taken to robustly disrupt such efforts by our adversaries and protect the British life sciences sector?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is an important point. We have to ensure that the sector operates properly and effectively and is not damaged by foreign state actors or any other criminal elements. That is why we put in place the measures in relation to protests, which we debated in this House last week. The Government will continue to ensure that robust measures, about which it would not be appropriate to talk in this Chamber, are put in place to protect all sectors of our industrial society.