Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

I invite the Minister to please consider these amendments in the spirit in which they were tabled. I hope to be able to work with him and his colleagues between now and Report to see whether we can insert some additional elements into the Bill that will give victims real hope—and give hope to the exponents of best practice in tackling ASB, who are keen to share their expertise and insights. I beg to move.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 27 to 31. I declare my interest as a secondary school teacher.

These amendments from the Victims’ Commissioner have been ably introduced by my noble friend Lord Russell of Liverpool, so the Committee does not need to hear much from me. We are told that data is the new gold. In teaching, with safeguarding we are told to report every slight suspicion because it can form part of a jigsaw that can show that abuse is happening. The Victims’ Commissioner calls it missed patterns and missed victims. These sensible amendments would give victims of anti-social behaviour a route to support and a strong voice in anti-social behaviour case reviews. As the Victims’ Commissioner’s office says, this would deliver real change for victims. Victims of persistent ASB must be swiftly identified, consistently supported and given access to resolution processes that deliver effective outcomes. These amendments would do just that.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Russell.

Amendment 27 asks for a statute of requirement for police officers to undertake an anti-social behaviour impact assessment when a victim reports three incidents of anti-social behaviour in a six-month period. This would enable agencies to understand the level of harm that is being caused, so that victims are given access to the appropriate support.

Victims have cited several barriers to utilising the anti-social behaviour case review. A key barrier was a lack of knowledge and awareness about the case review among staff at key agencies with a responsibility to resolve anti-social behaviour. For many victims, this lack of knowledge prevented them being signposted promptly, if at all, to the case review mechanism. This posed additional barriers to them being able to successfully activate the case review process and get the anti-social behaviour resolved. This ultimately prolonged victims’ suffering—and none of us wants that. I ask the Minister to seriously consider this.

Amendments 28 and 31 ask for a statutory threshold for triggering an anti-social behaviour case review that removes any discretion for authorities to insert additional caveats which serve as a barrier to victims getting their cases reviewed. To ensure consistent access to anti-social behaviour case reviews, we are recommending the Home Office consults on the need to legislate to standardise the threshold for anti-social behaviour case reviews by placing it in statute as opposed to just guidance. This would prevent local authorities unilaterally adding caveats which make it more difficult for the victim to make a successful application. This consultation, we recommend, should look at mandating access to case review applications via a range of options, including but not limited to paper, online and telephone applications.

Amendment 29, which has already been outlined, would give victims a voice and enable them to explain the impact that the behaviour is having on them and their families, which is critical. To strengthen victim participation and ensure their voices are central to the process, we recommend the Home Office consults on the need to introduce legislation which guarantees victims the right to choose their level of participation in a way that best suits their needs. It might include attending a case review meeting in person, participating virtually or submitting a written impact statement detailing the anti-social behaviour effects, or being represented at the case review by a chosen individual to ensure their perspective is effectively communicated. We want them to have the right to choose the method in which this happens. There should be a statutory requirement that anti-social behaviour case reviews are chaired by an independent person—this is not an unreasonable request. Very often, when there is somebody independent who can see things that other people have not seen and bring it to people’s attention, fairness and confidence in a system is absolutely strengthened.

Amendment 30 seeks that local bodies should be compelled to publish data on the reasons an anti-social behaviour case review was denied to enable better overall scrutiny and an understanding of how effective and consistent the process is across England and Wales. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, stated, data is king, and we do not think this is an unreasonable request at all.

I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to these amendments and, if they cannot be accepted, he will explain in detail why.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a teacher in a state secondary school in Hackney—a place that my noble friend Lord Birt was rather unfair about earlier.

This is an extensive and wide-ranging Bill—you know you are in trouble when they have to treasury tag it rather than bind it—but there are many good things about it, including Clause 191. As Professor Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said:

“Abortion is an essential form of healthcare and should be subject to regulatory and professional standards like other medical procedures, not criminal sanctions”.


Clause 78 is also good, as it seeks to preserve the right of child confidentiality in some circumstances. Barnardo’s and the NSPCC, among others, stress its importance for services such as Childline. Many noble Lords have talked about making illegal the AI image generators used to produce child abuse material.

But there are issues. The Children’s Society feels that the offence of child criminal exploitation does not go far enough. Any child can be at risk of exploitation. Indeed, perpetrators are now looking for so-called “clean skins”: children who are not known to the police or involved with the local authorities, so the exploitation can go undetected. Many of these young people are from affluent backgrounds. The Children’s Commissioner has concerns about parts of Clause 40. She states clearly:

“When an adult exploits any child”


to engage in criminal activity,

“that should always be a mandatory criminal offence, regardless of the child’s perceived age”.

I welcome the Government’s mission to halve knife crime and get knives off our streets, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon, so movingly spoke about. The Ben Kinsella Trust reports an 81% increase in police-recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument in the 10 years to March 2025. Our school lost a child, who was killed in a knife attack last year. Do we need zombie hunting knives and other overly aggressive styles of knives? Surely some are just too dangerous.

According to the Youth Endowment Fund, in 2024, 50% of murders that were carried out with a blade used a pointed kitchen knife. The organisation calls for a ban on pointed knives altogether. The catering fraternity might object, although studies have shown that there is no culinary effect of a knife having a point. Would the Minister support such a ban?

We also get to equal protection. Does it go in this Bill or should we try to get it in the children’s well-being Bill? With over 65 countries, including Wales and Scotland, already having legislated to protect children from physical punishment, how much longer can England justify standing still? The NSPCC does not describe this as a “smacking ban” but talks about “equal protection”. This is not a call for the creation of a new offence, just for the removal of a legal defence in order to make equal the law of assault for both children and adults. This is about giving children the best possible start in life, not criminalising parents. Deliberately causing pain to a child, for whatever reason, has to belong to the last century. There are much better and safer ways to respond to a child’s behaviour than the use of physical force, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on that.

Guns Manufactured by 3D Printers

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Absolutely. Again, I am in danger of repeating myself to the House. Those matters are under consideration. The Government will review all legislation. Again, the Government’s main aim is to strengthen what we already have: a penalty of life imprisonment for the illegal manufacture and distribution of weapons, and a penalty of five to 10 years for the holding of an illegal weapon. We are keeping these matters under review. I hope the House can hear what I say and understand the consideration that we are making.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, as a design and technology teacher with four 3D printers in his department, I am fully aware of the advantages and limitations of 3D printing. Does the Minister agree with me that, rather than concentrating on a tiny number of potential weapons, it would be better to look at hunting knives on the streets as a far more dangerous thing?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

In proposed legislation in the King’s Speech, the Government are looking at how we can tackle the whole issue of knife crime. Again, there is a range of options for potential action by government there, which will be outlined by the Government in the coming months. I will take what the noble Lord has said as another representation on that, but I hope the House will understand that knife crime is central to the Government’s plans for the reduction of crime and of young, innocent deaths.

It is also important that we reflect on matters that have been raised about the potential manifestation of different types of firearm. I have said that it is illegal currently, that we will reflect on legislation in the House of Commons and that there will be opportunities in legislation later this year, in this Session, to examine those matters accordingly. I hope that noble Lords can hear what I have said.