Concealed Surveillance Equipment in Government Offices and Vehicles

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

China influences our political system in many ways, and the Government will not tolerate any foreign interference from any state actor targeting the UK. We have been consistent and unambiguous in our assessment that China presents a series of threats to the UK. We have to do business with China still and recognise China, and we have to work with China on a number of areas of common interest—but, self-evidently, there are a number of significant threats that China poses. We keep those under review and, in all our dealings with the nation of China, we bear those aspects of work in mind.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

Have parliamentary Members’ offices been checked for any of these devices, in the other place and in this place? I imagine that foreign powers could be quite interested in the conversations going on in the offices of certain Members of Parliament. Is there is a usual check of our offices?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

It is an interesting and potentially helpful question. I do not have jurisdiction over this building, either in the House of Lords or in the House of Commons—that is a matter for the Speaker and the Lord Speaker, and the chief officers of both Houses. I think that they will have heard that response, and it may be possible for me to facilitate a reply on that to the noble Lord via those officers, but it is not a matter for me.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I should have preferred that this particular clause had not been passed, but it was passed and we have to accept it. Following on very closely from what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said, in my view it is time we moved on.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. We did not debate an impact assessment. We need a proper government impact assessment for this clause before it is made law. There are foreseeable consequences to taking down important guardrails within our abortion law for the sake of a relatively small number of people—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, will the noble Lord kindly give way?

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

I would prefer to get a move on so that everybody is happy that this comes to an end. Have we forgotten that hard cases make bad law and public policy should be a consideration? Knowing that she aborted a perfectly viable baby can haunt a woman for years. Even if we start and end with an individual woman, enabling her to procure her own abortion at an extremely vulnerable point in her life—the amendment points to vulnerability—without committing a crime creates a moral hazard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord did not give way, because I wanted to ask him this question. In his first sentence, he managed to speak to the amendment before us. He then went off on a tangent. In relation to impact assessment, has he, like me and many others, received hundreds of emails with countless papers and briefings about the implications of this clause? Did he observe the Second Reading debate in your Lordship’s House, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick said, and the extensive debates in Committee and on Report? The issue is whether the House has had sufficient information on which to make a judgment. My argument is that we have. We have made a judgment. This is totally unnecessary. We should move on and invite the Front Benches to now wind up.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

I am addressing the point of impact assessment, which had not been properly debated.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I also support much of this Bill. The Home Secretary introduced the Bill to drive her Government’s safer streets mission and to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, so I welcome the tightening of the law in Clauses 84 and 85 around voyeurism and criminalising exposure intended for sexual gratification or humiliation. Despite the Supreme Court disallowing biological males from using women’s changing rooms and spaces, this still happens in many contexts. Not all are motivated by voyeurism—which is already a crime—or because someone wishes to expose themselves for sexual gratification or humiliation, but we should not turn a blind eye to these possible motivations; consideration should be given to them. Can the Minister confirm that the new law will protect women and girls while everyone catches up with the Supreme Court ruling?

Clause 147, which seeks to extend polygraph testing to more offenders, including those posing a risk of committing certain sexual offences, should shore up protection against predation on women and girls. If technology helps us manage sex offenders more smartly, let us use it.

However, as we have heard much today, Clause 191 cuts across the Bill’s protections against predation. Despite risks to women, this clause, intended to transform our societal approach to abortion, was appended in a rushed, emotive way in the other House. There is a pattern here. Safe access zones around all abortion clinics were also hurriedly appended to the Public Order Act in the Commons. That was despite testimonies from women now with grown-up children whom they were very glad they decided not to terminate after talking to caring and compassionate people outside clinics. Once such measures appear in legislation, they acquire unassailability on the grounds of care and compassion for women seeking abortions.

Clause 191 repeats the same pseudo-virtuous stitch up: a short discussion in the other House on Report of a Bill that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion, with the assumption that all fair-minded people should agree to it. Those who do not can just be dismissed as reactionaries, because abortion is treated as an unlimited good in our topsy-turvy moral universe. Whatever we individually think about abortion, the laws of this land and a wide range of other considerations are being ignored or twisted out of shape to meet the insatiability of extreme bodily autonomy. Safe access zones sacrificed freedom of speech on that altar.

Clause 191 shreds a woman’s criminal responsibility and, with it, a vital protection for her against a partner or family member coercing or predating on her to have a late-term abortion. Bringing about her own late-stage termination of a baby that has been kicking, hiccupping and otherwise moving in utero will leave a long tail of effects on her life. Decriminalisation is only caring and compassionate in a very narrow and short-term way. This House will discuss ramifications of allowing terminations up to birth, but the only fit place for Clause 191 is the cutting room floor.

I apologise on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, for not being here today. She will table amendments against trafficking for sexual exploitation, to outlaw lucrative UK-based pimping websites which enable traffickers to advertise their victims easily and ply this vile trade.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I want to stand back from this Bill and call out the dangers of the wider cultural drift towards hyper-individualism it epitomises. Freedom to end life on our terms—making death accessible as a personal convenience—desacralizes and cheapens death, life and humanity itself.

Professor Louis Appleby, advisory group chair of our national suicide prevention strategy, warns that our socially remarkable consensus that it is right to try to prevent all suicides will be radically altered. He also said the phrase “assisted suicide” should not be considered offensive.

At the time of Second Reading in the Commons, two of my friends who were suffering terminal conditions—one has since died—both followed the debate and news coverage and told me that the subject’s very airing made them feel that they were a burden to their loved ones.

Assisted dying is the latest blatant promotion of personal autonomy over any obligations we owe to each other as members of a shared society, and over reverence for life itself. It flouts the important “do no harm” principle underlying classical liberalism. As well as immediate harms to the disabled, those who fear becoming a burden and those vulnerable to coercion, there are long-term harms to the Bill typical of what pollster James Kanagasooriam calls “shrouded attributes” of policies: costs and liabilities, hidden at point of sale to the public, which inflict a later tail of pain.

First, there is the inevitable extension to other groups beyond those catered for in the Bill. International examples abound of legal creep, whereby mental illness, non-terminal conditions and ever-younger sufferers become eligible. Secondly, Canada has shown how palliative care withers, yet two-thirds of the public agree that Labour should prioritise sorting out palliative, social and end-of-life care before even thinking about assisted dying; less than a fifth disagree. Two-thirds of assisted dying supporters agree that our threadbare, charitably sustained hospice movement needs strengthening first, otherwise there is no genuine choice, as we have heard already in this debate.

Hospice movement founder Dame Cicely Saunders’ philosophy of palliative care was:

“You matter because you are you, and you matter to the last moment of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die”.


Helping patients live until they die is what very many doctors want to keep offering, or to offer more reliably. Fear of missing out drives calls for assisted dying: supporters are significantly more likely than opponents to believe they will be unable to fund their own end-of-life care, and that the Government will not pay for it.

Thirdly, the cheapening of life and disregard for relationships flow from outlawing physical and mental suffering, despite these being part of our universal human condition. Although those should of course be alleviated whenever possible, actively taking the escape route of death is intensely painful for many years for close family members and friends when they have had no say in the matter. When personal autonomy trumps everything, we end up, dare I say it, deifying selfishness.

A former Chief Rabbi, the late Lord Sacks—we have heard his name already today—wrote this in his last book, Morality:

“Western society has all too often been insensitive to the dimension of time. Thinking through the long-term, unintended consequences of policy changes is imperative. Beware short-term fixes to individuals’ pain which will inflict life-long pain on those near to them—and sow seeds of destruction into our society”.

King’s Speech

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, to his new role. Frankly, when I heard of the appointment, I was shocked—and delighted, actually. I thought, “Well, this is a good start”. We hope it will continue. I also welcome the experienced noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, to his role and congratulate my noble friend Lord Goodman on his excellent maiden speech.

Standing back, as we need to do at the start of a completely new Parliament with new Ministers, there is no doubt that a new approach to prisons is needed. My first question to the Minister is this: can he confirm that the prisoner-to-prisoner mentoring being pioneered, particularly in our north-eastern cluster of prisons—last week, I was at Deerbolt, which continues the good relationships revolution to reduce reoffending—will continue?

Ministers also need to address the contribution that father absence makes to the level of crime and imprisonment in our society. In 2018, the US National Institutes of Health reported that research consistently finds that children raised in homes where at least one biological parent is absent are more likely to be young offenders. Fatherless children are three times more likely to be imprisoned than children raised by both parents. It is not just about money: senior police officers say that absent fathers are a major risk factor across the socioeconomic spectrum and that we do not talk enough about this issue. Criminal justice reform that ignores this is doomed to under-deliver. Adults not being responsible for their biological children is part of the deeper problem of the demoralisation of our society. The sense of right and wrong in our cultural zeitgeist has given way to expressive individualism—the socially validated priority that the great “I” must be able to express itself freely without any regard to wider social impact.

Decreasing the number of women and girls who are subject to violence and abuse, and who receive prison sentences because of their vulnerability, is an admirable policy goal. However, we treat violence towards men and boys and male incarceration completely differently. Few argue that the many men who have also been victims, as well as perpetrators, should be spared prison. The figures speak for themselves: there are fewer than 4,000 women in prison but around 85,000 men in prison, of which 25% are care experienced. We also need to hold this Government to account for their manifesto promise to ensure that young people whose parents were in prison are identified and offered support to prevent them being drawn into crime and to break the cycle.

The Government emphasise prevention in health policy. Again, UK and international research has established that safe, stable and nurturing relationships are a health asset—hence the need to do more to prevent family breakdown and to strengthen families by continuing with family hubs. As these were pioneered by many Labour-controlled local authorities, can the Minister confirm ongoing support for family hubs?

Finally, His Majesty’s gracious Speech refers to a draft Bill to ban conversion practices, yet Ministers should be aware of the danger that this can be inherently anti-family and persecutory, particularly of Christians. Activists pushing for this want to haul loving parents before the courts and social services for expressing reservations at their child’s demand for puberty blockers. They want to criminalise church leaders for discussing or praying about Christian sexual ethics with a member of their church family. The Government need to listen carefully and respectfully to voices on all sides of the debate on this issue.

A letter to the Prime Minister on his first day in office from church leaders representing hundreds of Bible-believing churches lamented

“the lack of religious literacy in British public life and the unwarranted hostility this can breed towards those in Bible-believing churches”.

They said:

“One of the major presenting issues is the way people talk about a legislative ban on so-called conversion therapy. Campaigners often imply that expressing mainstream, traditional Christian beliefs on sexuality or gender identity in pastoral conversations is, inherently, a form of ‘conversion therapy’”.


Banning conversion therapy is, for activists, a way of attacking biblically based Christianity. The Ban Conversion Therapy campaign has said that

“‘spiritual guidance’ is really just religious speak for conversion therapy”.

This is inaccurate and reveals a worrying drift towards persecuting Christians through our legal system, work- places, education, social services and other key institutions.

Rural Crime

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Well, that was more of a statement than a question and I do not think the Government have abandoned rural young people.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, Julia Mulligan, our very good North Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, brought out a report five years ago about the wide gap in support between rural and urban victims of domestic abuse. That report, Captive & Controlled, stated:

“Abuse lasts, on average, 25% longer in the most rural areas”.


Can my noble friend assure me that this gap has narrowed, and how has this been achieved?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend asks a good question, but the findings of the Captive & Controlled report are not easily replicated, so it is difficult to give him the assurance he seeks that the gap is narrowing. But teams in the Home Office and Defra have sought to understand the additional challenges that victims in rural communities face, and we have invested to help address those. That includes funding for an older persons’ rural domestic abuse practitioner in Northumberland and support for children, young people and families in rural communities in Shropshire and Devon. I would also say that the duty to collaborate we are introducing through the Victims and Prisoners Bill will further help police forces understand and commission to meet the needs of the victims in their communities.

Knife Crime: Violence Reduction Units

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £43 million to develop and run London’s violence reduction unit, which includes an investment of £9.5 million in 2023-24. As part of their funding terms, all VRUs are required to deliver evidence-based approaches that are shown to deliver the most impact in steering young people away from violence. In London, the various interventions being delivered include those that the independent youth endowment fund has found to be capable of delivering the highest impact. That includes the delivery of specialist support for young people affected by violence on admission to A&E or custody suites, as well as personal support such as mentoring programmes, where sport is used as a hook to attract participation.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, a major risk factor for young people’s involvement in violent gangs is the lack of a father at home, so what are the violence reduction units doing to make absent fathers part of the solution? Many are still very present in their children’s minds, and being estranged from ex-partners does not automatically mean they have no sense of responsibility towards the children who have gone astray. How are VRUs harnessing and encouraging that responsibility?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the violence reduction units deliver a range of preventive work with and for communities, as I outlined in the previous two answers to my noble friend Lord Bailey. That can include families, which of course obviously involves fathers as well as young people, and includes a wide range of approaches, including mentoring and trusted adult programmes or intensive behavioural therapies and, as I mentioned earlier, sports-based diversionary activities. In London in particular, the VRU’s My Ends programme provides community leaders with resources to enhance violence prevention measures in their areas. In addition, the Young People’s Action Group, which is made up of young people from across London, works alongside the VRU to ensure that the voices of young people influence policy and funding decisions.

Net Migration

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have enormous respect for the noble Lord, but these asylum seekers are illegal migrants. They arrive here by methods that facilitate the activities of criminal gangs, they place their own lives and the lives of others at risk while they are in the English Channel, they impose themselves on the generosity of the British taxpayer, and they are jumping the queue of legal migrants. I think there are principles at stake.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, last week it was reported that the Government will likely breach their own welfare spending cap for the fourth time since its introduction. Some 18% of Manchester is on out-of-work benefits, 20% of Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool, 23% of Middlesbrough and 25% of Blackpool. Where mass migration facilitates and is even required by this, porous borders are not progressive. What are the Government doing to get native Britons working again?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend asks a good question. The Government are encouraging all sectors to adapt, to make employment more attractive to UK domestic workers by offering training, career options and wage increases, and to invest in increased automation technology. Supporting individuals to move into and progress in work is one of the DWP’s core strategic objectives. The Government are committed to supporting individuals who are stuck in low-paid work to progress, helping them to increase their earnings and move into better-paid quality jobs. The Government are extending the support that Jobcentre Plus provides to people in work and on low incomes to help them to increase their earnings and move into better-paid quality jobs. I alert my noble friend to the back to work plan published on 16 November—a plan to get 1.1 million people back into work—and refer him to the Chancellor’s recent Statement which, while raising benefits, also referred to getting people back into work.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 10th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the wisdom of my noble friend Lord Balfe.

Defence of the realm is the first duty of government, so this Bill is essential if unpalatable. Without control over our own borders, Parliament, lawmaking and evidence-based policy become side-shows. It is not dehumanising for our Government to strain every sinew to stop the boats; we do not want anyone else dying in a flimsy boat in our waters. This trade is doing untold harm to our country as well as to those putting family fortunes and precious lives into the hands of people smugglers. What is being traded is not simply money for unsafe passage; it is also our physical and social infrastructure.

Many speaking against today’s Bill habitually, and rightly, hold this Government to account for lack of housing and access to essential services—particularly children’s social care but also family doctors, education and everything else our people rely on for quality of life. Can I ask my noble friend the Minister if he can provide any detail as to the current strain on children’s social services? Are there any projections of how this could worsen without action?

One of the first rules of economics is that wants are unlimited but resources to satisfy them are limited. The basic instinct of many here is to scoop up the dispossessed, especially vulnerable children, and give them the benefits of living in Britain. However, whilst we might want to do that, we need to pay attention to the electorate. It is not pandering to ask what people who voted for this Government want Ministers to prioritise; over two-fifths said their second-greatest concern, after the cost of living, is illegal migration routes such as small boats; more than those who said NHS waiting lists.

We are heading in the right direction in an incredibly difficult area of social policy, but we cannot be half-hearted. The small boats’ business model is ruthlessly pursued; therefore, this Bill must not be so watered down that the loopholes are big enough to drive an armada through.

The electorate are not closet little Englanders—and I choose my words carefully. Scotland has taken a disproportionately low number of asylum seekers, while England has stepped up to accept most of those entering through safe and legal global routes, on which we have a proud recent record.

We are certainly not ducking out of the United Nations refugee convention and the UK’s international responsibilities. As we have heard, our country-specific routes have provided refuge for 150,000 people from Hong Kong, 160,000 Ukrainians and 25,000 Afghans forced to flee the Taliban. Another 50,000 people have come to the UK via non-specific country routes, including through the family reunion route for those with a qualifying family member in the UK. Yet, as we have heard, 74% of illegal arrivals are adult males, many of whom came directly from safe countries such as Albania, and all travelled through safe countries such as France where they should have claimed asylum.

Neither are the electorate heartless, but they are concerned about the £6 million daily cost of housing illegal migrants, and other expenses like the manpower needed to deal with them. I am in and out of prisons, and one reason they find it hard to maintain staffing levels is that Border Force absorbs so many of their trained officers.

As mentioned earlier, people are particularly concerned about the already stretched social services backdrop for British children, such as the lack of foster carers and other pressures, which mean that many are placed far from home in residential settings. Those who argue that unaccompanied children should automatically become looked after by local authorities and certainly not be sent back need to be wide-eyed about the knock-on effect this is already having. Children who are sent on ahead to benefit from the British system further strain our social care infrastructure and make it even harder to address current failings.

Commons amendments mean that return happens only if unaccompanied children’s countries of origin are safe, or they are to be reunited with their parents. Putting it bluntly, if parents are not dissuaded from sending their unaccompanied children on these boats, smugglers will likely focus their trade on this new area of weakness. The vast majority of illegal migrants are not pregnant women and children, but that could change if we do anything to provide a magnet to attract them; we cannot tread so timidly as to be ineffectual.

Every day, people on the coast are dealing directly with this growing problem of illegal migrants, who have to be housed and medically treated, sometimes as a result of their perilous journey. I am sure this Bill will attract an abundance of amendments, but these should not be laid cynically to prevent progress on small boats before the next election. We, and the electorate, need action this day.

Public Order Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 44, supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox of Buckley and Lady Hoey. I found the speech from my noble friend Lady Morrissey very interesting, and I shall refer to it shortly.

Fundamentally, with regard to the current Clause 9, calling for a 150-metre buffer zone—or safe access zone, as I think it is now being called—it is not supported by the necessary evidence and research data to justify placing on the statute book such a law, which would be a substantial incursion into the freedom rights of the individual. My amendment is not about abortion or abortion clinics per se; it is about good law or bad law. We have heard much at Second Reading and in Committee about the 2018 Home Office review on this matter and its judgment word, “disproportionate.” At this time, we do not have the evidence that such a clause as it currently stands is a proportionate response to activities nationwide around abortion clinics. Therefore, we need a review, to establish the facts about what is going on and respond accordingly.

After all, again as has been mentioned previously, we do have laws, including PSPOs, which are available for dealing with egregious practices. Buffer zones can be imposed by local councils when deemed necessary, and Bournemouth, Birmingham and Ealing are examples. The only activity currently being reported by the media that I am aware of is the arrest of two women for praying, and the fining of a veteran who paid for his girlfriend to have an abortion 22 years ago, for the same reason—praying.

I disagree that the Supreme Court judgment on Northern Ireland justifies this law on our statute books, for three reasons. First, we have had abortion for over 55 years, whereas in Northern Ireland this option has been legally available for less than four years. Moreover, secondly, it was made so in circumstances which in themselves have provoked much anger. Finally, with respect to Northern Ireland, key to the Supreme Court’s reasoning was the evidence which the Northern Ireland Assembly considered before passing the legislation. Those resting their arguments on what has transpired there actually strengthen my argument that a review should come first before we even craft legislation here. Similarly, we are not the US and should not be making pre-emptive legal strikes in response to changes there without the evidence from our own jurisdiction—albeit that there has been a dramatic US response to the decision of its Supreme Court on Roe v Wade.

Having read my noble friend Lady Sugg’s amendment, I should add that she has clearly thought long and hard after listening to opposing views during the passage of the Bill. I can see how hard she has worked to refine what was referred to by one of the amendment’s authors in the Commons as a “blunt instrument”. Similarly, I sympathise with the sentiment that we need to respect the will of the Commons. However, confusion was unnecessarily caused by making this a conscience vote in the other place, as I said at earlier stages. Voting for buffer zones should not be identified with voting for women’s rights to access abortion. That is not what is at stake here. We can respect the will of the Commons but still require it to think again about immediate nationwide restrictions on access to public space.

I turn very briefly to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Morrissey. Again, I respect her efforts to craft a clause that is more human rights-compliant and otherwise fit for purpose. However, neither she nor my noble friend Lady Sugg deal with the substantive underlying principle of the need for a body of conclusive evidence before bringing a bespoke criminal regime into force for activities outside abortion centres.

Her amendments, as we have heard, are closely derived from legislation from Victoria, Australia, cited by the Supreme Court with regard to Northern Ireland. But, again, paragraph 151 of the Supreme Court judgment refers to evidential claims that were available to point to, to legitimise drawing on the Victorian situation. Our Parliament does not yet have that evidence, and this is why I will be unable to vote for my noble friend’s amendments.

My amendment takes seriously the possibility that legislation might be needed, but it gives the Commons a proper opportunity to debate how the proportionality of such restrictions can be established through the same evidence-based process typically required in every other area, and which other jurisdictions have drawn on in this area. So I ask your Lordships: why the rush?

Clause 9, and the process that led to its being added to the Bill in the other place, has many of the hallmarks of emergency legislation. Adam Wagner’s book Emergency State, which details flaws in the emergency Covid laws, provides salutary warnings about proceeding too hastily. He makes the point that

“the brute force of emergency law-making does damage and we need to avoid making the same mistakes again.”

Emergency states are ignorant, says Wagner. He adds:

“Decision-makers have to rely on limited and potentially unreliable information ... little scrutiny can lead to ignorant decision-making and corruption. It results in many hidden injustices, which may never come to light, or at least not until much later. And the vast powers can well outlast the emergency which was used to justify them.”


There is not even the need for emergency legislation here, as there was with the Covid outbreak. Surely a review, as detailed in my amendment, to be completed within a year, would provide Parliament with the evidence to produce a considered response to what is actually going on near abortion facilities. We are all aware that abortion is a contested, ideological issue. The two opposing sides hold different views that are legally allowed to be held and expressed.

However, I return to my point that the Bill is not about the rights and wrongs of abortion. It is the Public Order Bill and, as such, is how Clause 9 should be viewed. Is there sufficient public disorder to warrant such an incursion into citizens’ civil liberties? The answer is that we do not know. Therefore, we need a review. I commend my amendment for your Lordships’ consideration and beg to move.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 45, which I have co-signed, and to other amendments in this group.

The original Clause 9 was inserted in the Commons and is designed to bring in safe access zones around abortion clinics without delay and ensure that women can safely access their legal right to healthcare. We had extensive debates on the necessity for Clause 9 at earlier stages of the Bill. I will not repeat arguments and shall aim to be brief.

It is clear that revision was needed to Clause 9 as we received it from the Commons. The Government were not able to make a Section 19(1)(a) statement that the original clause was compliant with human rights, and noble Lords raised a number of other issues at earlier stages. I have co-signed Amendment 45, to be considered by your Lordships as an alternative to the existing Clause 9. This is a cross-party proposal based on debate and amendments at earlier stages, and is an alternative that I hope your Lordships will agree is an improved and now legally robust and compliant amendment, fulfilling our duty as a scrutinising, revising and improving House, while keeping the intent of this clause, as voted for by a Commons majority on a free vote. We have worked to ensure that this amendment is compatible with the Human Rights Act 1988 and we have been told that it does now meet the threshold for a Section 19(1)(a) statement. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister would confirm this from the Dispatch Box.

Amendment 45 also makes changes responding to other concerns raised by noble Lords at earlier stages. We have removed custodial sentences from the clause; private dwellings and places of worship have been exempted, as long as activity there is not designed to impact women outside that space trying to access healthcare; and we have included an exemption for those “accompanying, with consent”, to ensure that conversations that women wish to have will not be captured. The amended clause still contains the word “influence”, as referred to by my noble friend Lady Morrissey. It is a word in the original clause that was subject to some debate in Committee. This wording is also used in existing UK legislation for safe access zones in Northern Ireland, also referred to by my noble friend. That legislation was, indeed, upheld in December last year by the Supreme Court.

Of course, Northern Ireland is a different jurisdiction, and abortion is provided there in a very different way from that in England and Wales. I am not making the case that this legislation we are putting forward is identical to that in Northern Ireland: it is not, and nor should it be. This amendment reflects the needs of clinics and hospitals here in England and Wales, but it is important to note, because we all want to get the balance of this right, that the Supreme Court, in its ruling of 7 December last year, ruled that the use of the term “influence” was not only relevant but necessary to deliver on the introduction of safe access zones. It specifically stated that its removal and a sole reliance on “harassment, alarm and distress” or “impeding” provisions would leave women in Northern Ireland open to continued breaches of their rights, which is certainly not something we want. Again, recognising concerns about this wording in Committee, the offence is now one of strict liability in the new clause proposed by Amendment 45.

I will not support other amendments in this group if they are pressed to a vote. Amendment 41, which would put in some protection, does not actually go as far as Amendment 45, which exempts all private dwellings and places of worship within the zone. On Amendment 43, my noble friend Lady Morrissey criticised the level of the fine in Amendment 45, but I believe that her Amendment 43 puts forward exactly the same level of fine that we have put forward in Amendment 45. On Amendment 42, the use of Australian legislation in the proposed new clause was carefully considered and discussed with the Home Office at an earlier stage, a good few months ago now. It was decided that it would be better to base our new law on existing UK law, rather than on Australian law. Of course, as with Northern Ireland, there is a very different system for the provision of abortion, and a very different rights framework, and we now have the UK Supreme Court judgment.

I do not believe that these amendments fully address all the other concerns I have discussed, which noble Lords raised at earlier stages, and I think that Amendment 45 is more legally robust than the original, even with these amendments. I will leave it to other noble Lords to put forward the views they expressed in earlier debates. Lastly, my noble friend Lady Morrissey mentioned MSI. She is absolutely correct that MSI Australia is supportive of the legislation within Australia; however, MSI UK is very clear that it strongly believes that Amendment 45 is the right option for England and Wales.

On Amendment 44, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Farmer for his courteous words as ever, and I share his desire to get this right, but I do not support another review by the Home Office. I wish this legislation was not necessary, but every week around 2,000 women use abortion clinics that are now regularly targeted by protesters. This activity is on the rise and much of it is organised and funded by groups from the United States. Action is needed to ensure that we do not allow this activity to escalate here in the UK. We are seeing these zones introduced in France, Spain, Canada, Australia, Northern Ireland and soon in Scotland as well. It is really important that we give women in England and Wales the same protection that women are getting in those jurisdictions. Patients, women’s groups, providers, medical practitioners and MPs are clear that we ought to take action now.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Farmer]

44: Leave out Clause 9 and insert the following new Clause—
“Review into certain activities taking place outside abortion clinics in England and Wales(1) The Secretary of State must arrange for the carrying out of a review into activities taking place in the vicinity of abortion clinics in England and Wales which could influence any person’s decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services.(2) The review must include evidence from and consultation with the following—(a) the operators of abortion providers,(b) owners and occupiers of the land within proposed buffer zones,(c) the National Police Chiefs Council,(d) individuals, charities, and organisations impacted by proposed buffer zones,(e) the relevant local authorities, (f) the public, and(g) such other persons or organisations as appropriate.(3) The review must consider the effectiveness of existing relevant powers including, but not limited to, the power under section 59 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (power to make public spaces protection orders).(4) The review must assess the necessity of further legislation in this area, and whether legislating further would be proportionate.(5) The Secretary of State must publish and lay before each House of Parliament a report on the outcome of the review before the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which this section comes into force.”

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I agree that it has been a very wide-ranging debate, with passion on both sides. I come back to the point of evidence and I start with the fact that I do not think a review was debated in the Commons. The circumstances under which this clause was attached to the Bill in the Commons were all a bit confused. At one stage, the Government had said it would be whipped, because it was a conscience vote, and then they allowed it to be a free vote with, I think, an hour’s notice. Within an hour, they had a big majority. Well, it is about abortion; it is an emotive subject. As I say, there was no debate about the evidence-gathering and it came to us, as we see, as a blunted instrument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Noble Lords]

No.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is gone 10 pm now, but I wish to test the opinion of the House.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees decided on a show of voices that Amendment 44 was disagreed.