Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, I will also speak to further amendments later. I just want to say thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for his kind words before he goes. My reputation is ruined, but there we go. I thank him anyway.

The government amendments in this group and the clauses to which they relate are vital in safeguarding the public from some of the gravest harms emerging from the digital age. All the amendments in this group of government amendments, starting with Amendments 295A and 295B, pertain to the introduction of a defence for authorised persons to test and investigate technologies for child sexual abuse material, extreme pornography and non-consensual intimate imagery capabilities. These are abhorrent crimes and we must ensure that our laws keep pace with them.

Noble Lords will know that the rapid advancement and prevalence of AI technologies without adequate guardrails has increased the volume of AI-generated abuse imagery circulating online. These harms fall disproportionately on women and children. We must get ahead of these risks. At present, AI developers and public safety organisations seeking to test for these risks face significant legal jeopardy from testing. These legal blocks mean that testers could be liable to prosecution if they create illegal images during testing. We want to support government and public safety organisations in their commitment to research internet safety. If we are serious about AI safety, it is essential that we support continuous and rigorous testing so that testers can be confident that models are safe to use and support our ambition to drive down CSAM online.

This defence could give a technology company the ability to understand the capabilities of its models, identify weaknesses and design out harmful outputs. Amendment 295A introduces a power by regulations to create new testing defences. The Secretary of State will authorise persons to carry out technology testing subject to rigorous conditions. I confirm that any regulations that are brought forward will be subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure and testing will be subject to rigorous oversight and strict mandatory operational safeguards. The regulation-making power will also extend to making provision for the enforcement of any breaches of conditions and may include creating criminal offences.

Amendment 295B lists the offences to which this defence applies. The Secretary of State will have the power to amend this list of offences as the law evolves. This will ensure that the defence remains fit for purpose. I hope the Committee welcomes that the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Department of Justice want this defence to be extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland. The offences listed may be amended, as appropriate, for England and Wales as well as for Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State will be required to consult Scottish Ministers and the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland before making any regulations that would affect the Scottish Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Clause 63 criminalises artificial intelligence image generators, which are used by offenders to create child sexual abuse imagery. Our law is clear that AI-generated child sexual abuse material is illegal. However, these fine-tuned models that facilitate the creation of child sexual abuse material currently are not. Therefore, the Government are making it illegal to possess, make, adapt, supply or offer to supply a child sexual abuse image generator, punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.

Government Amendments 267 and 268 ensure that we take a unified approach across the United Kingdom. This is why we are creating equivalent offences in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Clause 64 amends Section 69 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 to criminalise the possession of advice or guidance on using artificial intelligence to create child abuse imagery. Sadly, there are so-called paedophile manuals that contain guidance for offenders on how to abuse children sexually and how to create indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs—which are illegal under the existing offence in the Serious Crime Act 2015. However, this offence does not include guidance for offenders about how to use AI to create illegal images of children and is applicable only to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Amendment 269 extends the offence, as amended by Clause 64, to Scotland, ensuring that these vile manuals can be tackled across the whole of the United Kingdom. The other amendments in this group are consequential on the main amendments that I have described.

Together, these government amendments will enhance the protection of women and children, prevent criminal use of AI technologies and improve long-term safety by design and the resilience of future AI development. I commend the amendments to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, if I could intervene for a moment, the Bill is going at a fine pace through the House, but I am a little concerned about Amendment 263. The problems of modern slavery that I have raised in the House are very severe.

[A noble Baroness]

That has been debated.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

I know. I am just asking for some assistance with this—does the proposed new clause in Amendment 263 still stand?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Committee has considered that amendment. If the noble Lord wishes to write to me on any details, I will certainly write back to him, but, in the interests of progress, it would be better if that was dealt with outside the Chamber, given that we have debated those matters already.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I briefly add my support to all these amendments, particularly the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, which is fascinating. If we can get the software to do this, then why would we not? I offer a challenge to Ofcom, the Government and tech firms. If they can produce such sophisticated software that it can persuade children to kill themselves, why are BT and eBay’s chatbots so rubbish? We have to make AI a force for good, not for evil.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, having arrived in this House a very long time ago—53 years ago—I know this House works best if it treats legislation as an evolutionary process. The Online Safety Act seemed to be a very good Act when we passed it two years ago, but now we have further, drastic evidence, which we have heard in this debate. I am confident my noble friend the Minister will treat the speeches made in this debate as part of the evolutionary process which, I emphasise again, this House does best.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for bringing forward these amendments and for explaining them so clearly. The understanding of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall, is that AI chatbots do not trigger the illegal content duties since these tools are not considered to show mental intent. As a result, chatbots can generate prompts that are not classified as illegal, even though the exact same content would be illegal and subject to regulation if produced by a human. I find that quite extraordinary.

By accepting these amendments, the Government would be acting decisively to address the fast-evolving threat which this year saw abusive material of sexual content for children rise by 380%. In April 2024, the Internet Watch Foundation reported that a manual circulating on the dark web, which the Minister referred to earlier, instructed paedophiles to use AI to create nude images of children, then use these to extort or coerce money or extreme material from the young victims. The charity warned that AI was generating astoundingly realistic abusive content.

Text-to-image generative AI tools and AI companion apps have proliferated, enabling abusers to create AI chatbot companions specifically to enable realistic and abusive roleplay with child avatars. Not only do they normalise child sexual abuse, but evidence shows that those who abuse virtual children are much more likely to go on to abuse real ones. Real children are also increasingly subjected to virtual rape and sexual abuse online. It is wrong to dismiss this as less traumatic simply because it happens in a digital space.

The measures in the Bill are welcome but, given the speed at which technology is moving, how easy or otherwise will it be to future-proof it in order to keep pace with technology once the Bill is enacted?

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, we on this side of the Committee are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for bringing forward this thoughtful group of amendments relating to the controls on offensive weapons. Each of these amendments raise practical questions about the application of current laws that relate to offensive weapons and seek to ensure that legislation designed to protect the public does not inadvertently criminalise legitimate, historically important or professionally supervised activities.

Amendment 211 proposes a defence where a weapon is of genuine historical importance. The reasoning behind this amendment is eminently sensible and aligns the treatment of such items with existing defences relating to antiques and curated collections. This is a meaningful distinction between dangerous modern weapons intended for misuse and historical artifacts preserved for cultural or heritage purposes. There is an important question here on proportionality and the scope of reasonable excuse. I hope the Government will reflect carefully on whether existing provisions fully address the concerns raised.

Amendments 212 and 213 relate to the traditional straight police truncheon and agricultural tools. I can tell the Committee that in my 32 years as a police officer, I did not use my truncheon on anybody, but it is very useful for silencing alarms in business premises in the middle of the night when you cannot get the keyholder out of bed. Here too, we recognise the practical issues that these amendments seek to resolve. It is not a controversial belief that items with legitimate ceremonial, historical or agricultural uses should not inadvertently fall within criminal restrictions where there is no evidence of misuse. The examples provided in support of these proposals make clear that the law must operate with fairness and precision, and I hope the Government consider them with due regard.

Amendment 214 addresses a wide range of potential exemptions for visiting forces, emergency services, theatrical and film productions, museums and antiques. These are complex areas with operational realities that deserve serious thought. The amendment raises legitimate questions about how the law accommodates professional and historical circumstances without undermining public safety. I look forward to hearing the Government’s thoughts on, and response to, this amendment.

These amendments rightly probe the intersection of criminal law with the heritage and cultural sectors. These are sectors that must be protected. We cannot allow well-meaning legislation unintentionally to criminalise legitimate historical and cultural activities. We look forward to the Minister’s response and assurances that these matters will receive the careful consideration that they merit.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I stand to ask for guidance from the Dispatch Box. When I was doing my national service in the Royal Navy in March 1957—I can date it precisely—I became a midshipman. With that ranking, I was awarded a midshipman’s dirk, which I still hold today. I cannot find that dirk falling under any of the exceptions proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. Do I therefore have to table a special amendment to make it lawful for me to continue to hold my midshipman’s dirk?

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Before the Minister replies, I will briefly respond to the very kind remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington. To continue the love-in, I say that he was not only an excellent commissioner but a superb chief constable. He was a hands-on bobby as chief constable.

One night, he decided to go out in a squad car in plain clothes. He was sitting in the back, and a call came in for the officers about an incident around the corner. The officers said, “You just sit there, sir, we’ll go and have a look at it”. No sooner had the officers disappeared than the back door of the car was wrenched open, and a Geordie stuck his head in and said, “It’s okay, mate, you can scarper now—the rozzers have gone”. The noble Lord did not scarper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Indeed. On reflection, I think I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, that his dirk is a dagger and therefore does not fall within the remit of the legislation proposed—I think that information was considered by my noble friend Lord Katz but it was not able to be deployed at the time. However, we can return to that at some point.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am greatly relieved.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am glad that the noble Lord is relieved about that.

The serious point here is that getting the defences and exemptions under which weapons may be legal to own, import or sell under certain limited circumstances right also requires consultation—I think the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, acknowledged that. In the absence of such consultation, I suggest that the Bill is not the right place to legislate on a specific category of knives and weapons, and we risk not taking account of some important matters if we have not consulted first.

In any event, it would be possible to give effect to these proposals for further restrictions through existing regulation-making powers provided for since the Criminal Justice Act 1988. Any such regulations would be subject to the draft affirmative procedure, so, again, they would be subject to debate in and approval by both Houses of Parliament.

We have debated the provisions in Chapter 1 of Part 2 which introduce new measures to provide the police with the power to require social media marketplaces and search services to take down online illegal content. I understand the honest, genuine motivation of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in tabling these amendments, but just a casual listen to the debate today shows that there are a number of issues that we need to consider, and I believe that the existing powers that we have, the actions that we have taken and the measures under the Bill will be sufficient. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I too agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, and I have added my name to his Amendment 12 to ask the Government to amplify the basis upon which exclusion orders might be made and the quality of the evidence required. An order excluding someone from his or her home has always to be seen as a last resort —in this context, when other less drastic restraints have not worked or are clearly not likely to work. I therefore hope that the Government can clarify the likely scenarios and the criteria that will apply when exclusion orders are sought and granted.

As I understand it, under the Bill, the application will be based on the risk assessment to be carried out under new Section J1, supplemented by guidance yet to come. The Bill does not expressly say, as far as I can see, that the risk assessment should be included with the application to be made to the court, or that it should be served on the respondent where possible. Both requirements should surely be explicit, not implicit. I suggest also that at least the risk assessment should be expected to summarise the behaviour and attitude of the respondent giving rise to the risk of harm, and specifically to the need to evict him or her from their home. In addition, and by analogy with the family jurisdiction, with which I am more familiar, it should actually state the effects of making or not making the order on other known occupants of the home, including relevant children.

Finally, the assessment, I suggest, should set out clearly the reasons to believe that making an exclusion order will actually reduce the perceived risks. Experience shows—certainly, my experience shows—that in some cases, making such an order may do no more than move the problem on somewhere else.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo a lot of the concerns that have been expressed so far in this debate. The scrutiny of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is something that I hope we will all take very careful note of.

I particularly support my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti in her first intervention. She is very experienced in social matters from her days in Liberty, and she rightly warns us that there will be a lot of problems if respect orders are brought in as they are legislated. Incidentally, respect orders cover 11 pages of the Bill, a Bill that I, for legislative complaints, described at Second Reading as “a monster”. I shall not describe these 11 pages on respect orders as being a monster, because I think the Government have been trying very hard to get it right, but they have not so far done so, and therefore the sensible thing—and this is not to criticise the Government—is for there to be a pause, and for these new respect orders not to be brought in as such in the Bill but only after we have been able to review the entirety of these orders, anti-social orders and orders to protect citizens from being badly disturbed living in their homes or walking the streets.

I urge my noble friend the Minister to move with caution and to accept that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is not a destructive amendment but a sensible amendment to achieve the one thing that we should be achieving in the Bill, which is to get it right, as right as we possibly can.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the remarks we have heard from around the Chamber, including from my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about the seriousness of anti-social behaviour and the rationale of the Government in bringing forward the measures that they have in this part of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, summed it up as the requirement for an effective and functioning system—hear, hear to that.

My concern is aligned with the sentiment, if not the letter, of Amendment 1, which would require the Government to explain why they feel that this set of measures, including respect orders, will work, when previous similar measures—ASBIs and so forth—have not worked to the extent, perhaps, that the Ministers who championed them when they were originally brought in expected. I do not believe that this is the moment for an independent review, but I think the Minister could give the Committee a detailed explanation of the specific circumstances in which he feels that these new respect orders will be deployed, why they are more likely to work than the existing arrangements and, in particular, the degree to which they will really make a difference. The Minister has brought forward these measures for the approval of Parliament, and he must be able to justify the result he expects them to have once they are implemented.

We know that that Governments of all flavours—this is not a specific reflection on the current Government—tend to reach for the statute book to address knotty problems, when in fact the answer may equally lie in better execution of existing powers. That probably is the overall challenge that has been put to the Minister this afternoon. I very much look forward to his answer.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will start my remarks on this group where the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, finished, since that seems the most convenient way to do it. I will not rehearse my arguments on Amendment 26 at length because I spoke to it in Committee.

On co-operation with Europol, which is very important, I shall make two points. First, the Government’s motivation to co-operate with Europol is because they want to deal with the problem, and I do not believe that the necessity to produce a report will change that dynamic. If the Government did not want to co-operate with Europol because they did not think it was important, I do not believe that having to prepare a report would change their mind either. I do not think it will achieve very much.

Secondly, as I said in Committee, the danger is that this then skews attention towards Europol. We know that border security is not just a European problem. Obviously, the small boats issue—the visible bit of it—is a European problem, because that is where the boats are coming from, but the people in them are not all starting off from France. This is a global problem, and these organised crime groups are global in nature. If we start putting legislation in place that forces the department to start overly focusing on one area to do bureaucratic tasks, we will skew its resources. I want the Home Office and the Government to choose which agencies they partner with, and the work they do, based not on the need to produce bureaucratic documents but on the security threat to our border. That is best left to the judgment of Ministers and those in post, so I respectfully suggest that this is not a wise amendment.

I turn to Amendments 1 and 2 tabled my noble friend Lord Davies. Unfortunately, I was not in the Committee stage debate when the Minister put this forward, so I had a look at the arguments. I confess that I am not entirely clear how designating a civil servant—or, indeed, anyone with this title—makes a meaningful difference, other than perhaps presentationally, to our ability to secure the border.

I pick up the point that my noble friend made about the pace at which the Government are giving this individual powers. Having looked at the Bill again, it is noticeable that this person does not have the ability to co-ordinate. The ability to co-ordinate or direct members of the Armed Forces is excluded—that power effectively remains with Ministers. In addition, the intelligence agencies of our country are not counted as partner authorities for the purposes of the Border Security Commander either, so those responsibilities effectively remain with the Home Secretary and other Ministers.

In terms of the role, and this is why who gets the role matters, effectively strategic priorities for government departments are set not by officials—well, they should not be set by officials—but by Ministers. I understand in one way why the Government are making sure that this person is a civil servant, because they are therefore clearly being directed by Ministers, which is right. However, if they are a civil servant being directed by Ministers, giving them a fancy title is basically just window dressing; it does not have any meaningful effect. My noble friend is therefore right to argue that this does not really have a meaningful role.

If we take the Government at their word, from the way it is presented as the starting point of this Bill—in that they want this individual to have a powerful role where they can make a meaningful difference—then Amendment 2 asks some good questions about whether the type of person we want doing this role and their previous experience should be in the nature of law enforcement or military command in some way. It may be that, over time, the Government can build this role —as well as the board that the Border Security Commander would chair and the structure they will put around them—into a meaningful law enforcement and crime fighting capability.

That seems to be the Government’s ambition, in which case Amendment 2 has quite a lot of merit, but making the person a civil servant does not achieve that. Just for the avoidance of doubt, this is not in any way to denigrate civil servants; when I was in the Home Office, I was always very impressed by them. It is just making the point that in our democratic system, setting strategic priorities and co-ordinating between different agencies, some that are responsible to the Home Office and some that are not, is really a job for Ministers. In the end, the responsibility for securing the country’s border is the Home Secretary’s responsibility. You can appoint somebody with whatever title you like and whatever background you like, but, in the end, that is the fact. The strategic priorities for the department are set by the Home Secretary, and everything else flows from that.

It seems to me that the Border Security Commander as set out in the Bill is really neither one thing nor the other. Either the Border Security Commander is effectively the Home Secretary and sets clear priorities, setting a very clear direction in the department and delivering on what we are led to believe is the Government’s or the Home Secretary’s number one priority, or that is not the case, and you try to create a meaningful role that people understand has that important focus in the same way that people can see that the heads of the Armed Forces or Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police have a very important leadership role—but in which case that person probably should not be a civil servant and should come with a different type of command experience. So it seems to me that the role set out in the Bill is neither one thing or the other.

My noble friend’s amendments test that point, and I would certainly like to hear from the Minister about which direction this role is going to go in. Is it effectively just going to be working for the Home Secretary, which is perfectly fine, in which case a lot of this is just window dressing, or is it really intended to make it a meaningful, authoritative, powerful role in Whitehall, in which case the person’s qualities need to be somewhat different than is set out by making them a career civil servant?

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not quite sure where the noble Lord, Lord Harper, is ending up in his consideration of Amendments 1 and 2. On any view, the crisis has got worse and worse with regard to the arrival of masses more immigrants coming across in small boats and the inability to identify and arrest these criminal people-smugglers. I am afraid I cannot give examples because I have not had time to think about it, but I do recognise one example: the modern slavery commissioner is completely free from the Civil Service, as indeed was her predecessor. This suggestion advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, seems sensible, and therefore I want to hear what my noble friend the Minister has to say about it.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I will first address Amendment 26. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, I would say that the reason we have this particular amendment before us is because of the harness which was left by the Conservative Government in the arrangements that they made with Europe in the TCA relating to Europol. I do not want to go through the five or six pages in that heavy white tome—I photocopied those pages to make it lighter to carry—but in the whole remit of the way in which the relationship with Europol is stated it is quite clear that we “should” do something and the European Union, through Europol, “may” do something. I think we are trying to address that sort of relationship.

The core objective of the Bill, which I think unites the House, is clear. We must strengthen our borders and effectively identify, disrupt and dismantle the criminal gangs engaged in people-smuggling and human trafficking. To achieve this, international co-operation is paramount, especially in addressing the complex international and cross-border nature of these challenges.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, in seeking to intervene in the gap, my intention is to bring about the minimum of delay as we reach the most important stage of Second Reading, namely the winding-up speeches. I unhesitatingly begin by entirely endorsing the words of my new noble friend Lady Levitt—to whom much welcome—when opening this debate. Yes, neighbourhood policing has been neglected. Yes, we need to pay much more attention, for example, to the awful offence of child sexual abuse. But, in the steps of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, although in rather stronger language, I have to say that this Bill is a monster.

Indeed, I am holding it in my hand and I have to put it down because it is going to crash any moment and it is causing all my notes to go in a mess. In its 422 pages it seeks, if my arithmetic is correct, to amend no less than 44 previous statutes going back to the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the Limitation Act 1980. In some cases, the amendments are extensive. For example, for the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, if you look at Schedule 16 to the Bill and pages 316 to 323, you will see no less than seven pages of amendments. We cannot change this in this Bill, but we should be aware of what we are doing. Not only are we imposing on ourselves in Committee, doing our job properly, the task of putting in front of ourselves all 44 of these statutes while seeking to amend them, but what about this Bill becoming law? How are the police and everybody else involved in enforcement going to cope? When in Committee, we must do our duty, however long it takes. Fortunately, we have in my noble friend Lord Hanson the nicest of Ministers who has ever-enduring patience—but he is going to be tried out.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, my phone is ringing—I have to sling it away from me. This is very embarrassing—I am so sorry. I will start again; can the clock start again? I have lost 12 seconds to that intrusion.

As with my noble friend Lord Rees and as with many Peers in this Chamber, I have received lots of communications on the Bill, both in the post and by email. In my case, every one of these communications—except the paper by the sponsors of this Bill, which I hold in my hand—was against the Bill. I did not count them all, but there must be up to 50. Although we are an unelected Chamber, I believe we should take note of these representations that we have received.

I therefore thought that I should give the Bill careful study. I found it thoughtful and well drafted. It is readable and comprehensible—quite a change from every other Bill that is now descending on this House. It provides safeguards on the proposed assisted dying. There is also the appointment of the assisted dying commissioner and the assisted dying review panels. It carries a number of helpful stipulations and goes right to what should be discussed with the patient, and it deals with other safeguards. Importantly, it defines who is entitled to apply for assisted dying. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer covered this in his opening remarks, and I therefore draw attention only to the crucial one, which is that the patient has to be terminally ill, with the prospect of death within six months.

However, these provisions do not cover those with neurological disorders. I refer to multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease, muscular dystrophy and advanced Parkinson’s. These are all terrible diseases, where the patient loses all control of their body movement, but they have no direct expectation of death. I could also refer, like the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, to those who have severe spinal injury. One of my sons received a very serious spinal injury and went to Stoke Mandeville. There I met a rugby player—he must have been 18 or 20 years old—who had quadriplegic injury right up to his neck, with no movement of his body. I am told that he wanted to go to Dignitas in Switzerland. I do not know whether he ever went there, but I can say that he felt he had no future in life.

My concern about the Bill, if passed, is that inevitably its terms will be extended. That is exactly what has happened in Belgium, the Netherlands and the US state of Oregon, all of which have had assisting dying legislation for over 20 years. One can expect the lowering of the age from 18 years and the inclusion of many more who do not have terminal illness. The prospects for extending this Bill are never-ending.

This brings me to a moral position and a practical position. The moral position is that no doctor should ever be asked to kill his patient. The practical position relates to palliative care: the Bill overrides the wonderful work of palliative care in providing every help to a dying patient. That brings me to oppose the Bill.

Retail Crime: Effects

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

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

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, said, there is unanimity on the approach to the issue of shop theft, as has been eloquently outlined by my noble friend Lord Hannett. I thank him for securing this timely debate, and all who have spoken in it. My noble friend brings to his role in your Lordships’ House a wealth of experience in standing up for shop workers in his work for USDAW. He is continuing that work in conjunction with his colleague Paddy Lillis, who is the general secretary of USDAW. Most importantly, my noble friend brings the life experience of thousands of members in shops and stores across the United Kingdom, who have contributed to developing USDAW’s policy and, in doing so, the policy of the Labour Party and this Labour Government. They contributed too to the pressure that was put on the previous Conservative Government to take action.

I declare an interest: I have been a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers for 44 years. I have stacked shelves, worked the tills and delivered to people’s doors, so I know the pressures in retail. The noble Baroness may be interested to know that I did this for Tesco, and later the Co-op.

The important thing is that there is unanimity here today. We need to change the tenor of the debate on shop theft and the protection of shop workers. We have seen today that there is unanimity in this debate: it is not acceptable in our society to steal from shops; it is not acceptable to attack shop workers in the course of their duty; and it is not acceptable to undertake ram raids or organise crime raids on shops and outlets. This is not a victimless crime; it adds money to everybody’s bills and to the cost of strengthening security for staff, and this Government are committed to taking action on it.

We do so for the reasons that have been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham, in a very powerful speech, and my noble friends Lord Monks and Lady Crawley and many others, who indicated that there is an unacceptable rise in the level of shop theft.

I particularly welcome the committee report that was produced. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, was a key member of the committee, along with my noble friend Lord Dubs—who, I must say, on his 92nd birthday is arguing in this Chamber for protection for shop staff and against shop theft. That shows the commitment that he has to his party and his cause but also to the good of the country at large. I wish him a very happy birthday.

Shop theft is up 29% in the year to June 2024 compared with the previous year. The British Retail Consortium crime survey has shown that around 475,000 incidents of violence occur each year. My noble friends Lord Monks, Lady Crawley and Lady Hazarika all mentioned the importance of tackling that crime. Whether it is on Lambeth High Street, in Brixton or in north Wales, where I am heading back this evening, there will be a concerted effort to ensure that we reduce the number of crimes that occur in shops. However, it is not just about the shoplifting; it is unacceptable to have 1,300 incidents of violence against staff in our communities at large.

It is not easy for this Government, and it will never be easy. But the points that the noble Lord, Lord Godson, and other Members of this House made today are extremely important. That is why the Government have a plan for action to both mirror some of the recommendations made by the Home Affairs Committee and Justice Committee of this House, and to commit to a range of things.

On a personal basis, having campaigned for some of these things for the best part of 20 years, I am absolutely delighted to stand at this Dispatch Box and to be able to put action in place, because we have a Government who have committed to do that. Among the actions that we will bring forward and put in place is a specific offence of attacking shop workers, which USDAW—which I am a proud member of—has campaigned for since 2003. Freedom from fear is an absolutely important issue. Shop staff are not just serving us but are upholding the law on alcohol, knife, solvent and tobacco sales. When they find themselves facing threats because of that, they deserve our support and our encouragement. That is why the Government will in due course, as a manifesto commitment, bring forward a specific offence of assaulting shop workers.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that the £200 threshold did not change the law but it sent a signal to the police that shoplifting under £200 was not an important issue. I recognised that in 2014 and I led the opposition to that. We forced a vote on that clause then because we thought it would downgrade the importance of shop theft, which, as a whole, it did. We will repeal that in due course and will make sure that the police have proper guidance on those issues.

We will, as a number of my noble friends mentioned, increase the number of neighbourhood police and PCSOs to 13,000, to have a named officer in each community who will work with the local community and look at the very issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, mentioned as well—community intelligence-gathering and community support. Through work we are doing now, which is a continuation of the previous Government’s work, we will look at Opal and Project Pegasus to co-ordinate action on gangs, tackling crime across borders and across police authorities.

There were points made in the debate which I will certainly reflect on, as well as the issue of drug and alcohol treatment orders and on technology, ensuring that we look at facial technology issues as a whole. We will reflect on those issues in due course, and when legislation on these issues comes before this House, which it will in relatively short order, we will be able to deal with those issues as a whole. We keep new technologies under review, and we will keep those technologies under review in the future.

I noticed a small frisson of concern from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, about the Labour Government’s Budget, which I will return to briefly in a moment. As my noble friend Lord Hannett said, it provided £100,000 for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, £5 million over the next three years to develop Operation Opal and £2 million over the next three years to build the National Business Crime Centre. If the noble Baroness looks at the detail in the Budget, she will see that there are proposals on business rates and on strengthening and revitalising the high street. I have campaigned for these issues over the last 10 to 20 years and I am more than proud to stand here today and say that this Government will take action on shop theft and assaults on retail workers in due course.

The facial recognition technology mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Kirkham and Lord Davies, is a very powerful tool and has huge potential to keep our streets safe. This gives us an opportunity to look at how we operate it. We particularly want to look at how we can put that on a firm footing to make our streets safe. In answer to their specific point, we want to ensure that we look at the legal framework and discuss that issue with the public over the coming months.

I am acutely aware that this House has been united today. There are no political differences. There may be differences over pressure, time and the things we have done, but there is unanimity that Parliament and Government should take action on these issues. A number of detailed issues were mentioned. I could go through them, but that would take time. I hope that the emphasis I have put on the measures the Government intend to bring forward give reassurance to all Members of this House that this Government are committed to the issue of shop theft.

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, summed up the importance of this issue and how we need to focus on the staff. Shop workers will be on the train with me tonight. They will be on the bus going home. They will be walking the streets around you. They are the people who serve you and they deserve our support. The customers are there to support the staff and we need to make a stand to say that, although we will never eradicate shop theft or violence, it is a priority for the Government, the police and Parliament that, between us, we will help reduce crime, shoplifting and violence over the course of this Parliament.

I commend the measures that my noble friend Lord Hannett has proposed. We will hopefully find widespread support in due course for the measures that this Parliament will face when the Government bring them forward.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

Does my noble friend agree that the most shocking account in this debate was given by our noble friend Lady Hazarika who was in a shop when a rogue came in and stole two bottles of alcohol? He was known as a repeat offender and his identity was known. Would my noble friend agree that that is a most shocking account for this framework to improve the law?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his intervention after I thought I had finished. Repeat offenders are part of a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. Part of that is due to alcohol or drug dependence and part of it is due to interventions in alcohol and drug dependence. That is part of the focus of the Ministry of Justice. The MoJ will look at many measures in relation to how we better tag, control and monitor offenders and what interventions we make to reduce their dependence on alcohol and drugs.

It is important that the revolving door of prison sentences—the cycle of people going into prison for six months, coming out, committing the offences that my noble friend Lady Hazarika mentioned, going back to prison, coming out again and then finding themselves homeless—needs to be broken. I know that my noble friend Lord Timpson, who is accountable to this House, is very exercised by those issues and will bring forward a number of measures to try to improve how we deal with offenders who have a persistent offending behaviour. Overall, the issues of tolerance are still there. We should not tolerate shoplifting, attacks on shop staff or organised crime gangs, and we should look collectively at what measures we can bring. I hope that I have given some indication to the House of how we can do that.