Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, given the hour, I shall be brief. I support my noble friend Lady Stowell in the two amendments that she has so ably introduced, and I have been delighted to add my name to both of them.

I have worked all my life in consumer services: for 20-odd years in retailing, but then in telecoms and in the National Health Service, and, today, in hospitality—in horse racing. I should declare my interest as the chair or senior steward of the Jockey Club, given that we have the Cheltenham Festival next week, where we will have thousands of people in front-line, consumer-facing service roles at the racecourse.

I have not engaged in the Bill until this stage, so I apologise for that, but I am speaking to and have put my name to these amendments because I am bemused by the Government’s failure to support public-facing workers in all these other industries. I grew up in retailing and I love retailing, but if you have ever sat in a GP surgery with a receptionist, as I have, and watched them do their job, you will know that it is no different from being at the customer service desk at Tesco, which I have also done, dealing with the ups and downs of everyday life with the customers, the consumers, the citizens you are serving. We should be protecting them and treating them in exactly the same way. As the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, has said, that is true for transport, finance, telecoms, energy and water. We should not exclude the hundreds of thousands, millions, of people who provide us with these essential services. We learned during Covid how important these essential front-line, customer service-facing roles are, and it breaks my heart, five years after the pandemic, to see a Government who say they support working people not supporting many front-line working people.

It is not just front-line working people who want us to protect them; their bosses do too. The CEOs of businesses in all the sectors I have just mentioned know that it is good business to protect them. Some 42% of front-line workers, according to the Institute of Customer Service, have experienced abuse in the last six months, as my noble friend Lady Stowell has said; 37% say they have considered leaving their role because of that hostility; and more than 25% have taken sick leave as a result. That costs productivity in our public services and it costs economic growth in our private sector. The chief executives of all these organisations know that, and they want us to make sure that we treat all those workers with the same respect that the Bill, at the moment, treats retail workers only, which is why I support these amendments.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment because it is trying to achieve consistency in law. At the moment, the law protects a retail worker more, when in fact those who provide services are doing exactly the same thing. Broadly, they deal with the public and they are trying to get rules enforced. They are just trying to make sure that things work well.

My reading of the present advice on providing protection to retail workers is that they are protected if they provide goods, but not if they provide services. The consequence of that is that people who, for example, work in betting shops, theatres and cinemas do not receive the same protection that they would receive if they were providing that same retail worker service and also providing goods, and that seems inconsistent. Then there is the further group of workers that the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, referred to: people who work in transport, such as taxi drivers. All of them face people who are often affected by drink or drugs, for example, and have to challenge bad behaviour, but they do not receive this protection. That seems odd. I find it odd that the Government do not want to protect that group of workers in the same way. For reasons of consistency, and because the workers I have described—those who work in betting offices, for example, where you get some pretty bad behaviour at times—deserve that protection, they ought to be included.

My final point is that although the present legislation excludes wholesale workers—should I name the companies? Perhaps not—you only get access to some of these wholesale or, I would say, retail sites by joining a club; you do not pay any money. I think we all know the ones I am talking about, where you get access to better prices merely by joining the club. Apparently, that is not retail. I think it is pretty much like retail. They still get bad behaviour on these sites. For all those reasons, I think this amendment regarding public-facing workers is a good idea and I encourage the Government to support it for the sake of consistency for those who provide services to us.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be very brief, partly to remind all noble Lords that the shop workers’ union, USDAW, under Joanne Thomas, the current leader, Paddy Lillis before her and, indeed, John Hannett—the noble Lord, Lord Hannett—has campaigned for years for freedom from fear for a predominantly female workforce facing violence at work. As we have heard, that got a lot worse through Covid. At the time, USDAW was pressing for legislation; nobody listened. I have to commend the Government for listening to the campaign from the grass roots all the way up to the top of USDAW for that protection for workers in that industry.

Having said that, I have looked at the very latest figures from the Health and Safety Executive and from the Labour Force Survey, which show that public-facing workers across a number of industries, sectors and jobs disproportionately face violence at work. More than that, I have heard it from workers themselves. Bus workers, transport workers and hospitality workers have been spat at, assaulted and threatened. I also alight on transport workers, because they too perform a significant act of public service in the work they do. They often face real threats and real assaults because of the job that they do.

I share my noble friend Lord Hendy’s hope that, even if the Government cannot support this amendment, my noble friend the Minister could at least commit to talk to colleagues in the relevant departments to get us around the table to look at a real strategy for prevention of violence and enforcement of the laws we have. Many workers still feel unsafe going to work to earn a living and no worker should face that threat at work.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

May I check whether my assertion is accurate or whether I am wrong? Would someone enforcing an age limit in a betting office not be protected by the retail workers’ protection but someone enforcing an age restriction in an off-licence would be? It seems to me that the distinction is simply between providing a service and providing a good. If I am wrong in that, I withdraw my comment, but I am not sure that the Minister has said I am.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We have clearly defined in the Bill what we believe a retail worker is. I accept that there are areas of interpretation for the courts, such as, for example—we have discussed this with colleagues outside the House—whether a post office is covered by the retail worker provision. Somebody might walk into a post office to buy Christmas cards or birthday cards and go to the post office counter—is that a retail worker? Those are areas where there may be some interpretation, but we have identified this as tightly as we can. It is a straightforward clause that defines a retail worker. I commend it, given that there has been a considerable amount of work by the Home Office in drafting the amendment, after a considerable amount of work by retail organisations and trade unions to develop the campaign.

I go back to my point that all attacks on all staff are unacceptable. Other areas are covered, but the reasons I mentioned on the specific provision of upholding legislation are why we have put in a specific offence against retail workers. That is why I commend those clauses to the House. I ask the noble Baroness—although I understand that she cannot do this—at least not to push her amendment to a vote.

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[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I rise briefly to support this amendment. This country has been good at reducing fires. It has done it by designing things and places not to burn. We have never had the same determination about designing things not to be stolen. This is all about preventing crime by design. The secondary feature is that people do not tend to steal things that have no value. There are a lot of negatives, but fundamentally, if it has value, people will steal it. They do not steal it to deprive you of it but to sell it, often to fund their drug habit. This amendment is all about taking the value out of the stolen phone.

There is some success at the moment, in that some of these phones cannot be reactivated on UK systems, but as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, they are getting activated abroad. It is hard to stop them going abroad; very small portable devices put in containers are hard to discover. Although it was mentioned that the Met and others are having good success with drones and chasing, I guarantee that one day somebody will get badly hurt—either one of the people being chased or one of the cops. Chasing is, inevitably, dangerous. This is about stopping the chase and stopping the crime.

The 70,000 crimes mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, will be a bare minimum. Many people do not bother reporting them. There is no need to report them for many people. Sometimes they lose them in embarrassing situations, and they certainly do not report it then. We are talking about a large amount of crime that can have something done to prevent it.

My final points are these. There is no incentive at the moment for the phone companies to stop this crime, because when you lose your phone or have it stolen, you buy another one from them. The £50 million-worth of phones that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, mentioned means £50 million more for the providers of the phones. So why would they stop it? All they have is more business coming through the door. The business model is not helpful to preventing crime.

It is a common-sense measure. It is well thought out. The amendment looks like it will work, given its extent and comprehensiveness, and nobody has a better idea; or, if they have, I have not heard it. This does not cost the Government anything. It will possibly cost the manufacturers, but it will be marginal to the costs and profits they have already. It is a really good idea. It helps the police a bit, but it mainly helps the victims as it reduces their number. It means that you can walk down the street, come out of the Tube, take your phone out and not have somebody whip it out of your hand.

My final point is that it is not just about theft. Often people are injured when their phone is taken—it is violence as well as theft. Particularly with vulnerable victims, nobody knows where it will end. It can end up with a murder or a very serious crime. If we can do something about this, it will have an impact. It is achievable, and I recommend that the Government, if they do not accept the amendment, try to find a way to do it in the future.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 368 from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, on which he has campaigned so strongly. It addresses a crime that has become a blight on our streets: the industrialised theft of mobile devices. We must remove the profit motive from street crime. If a phone is useless the moment it is stolen, the thefts will stop. California proved it and the technology exists; the only thing missing is the will to legislate. I urge the Minister to move beyond collaboration and accept the amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 318 I will speak to the other amendments in my name. Amendment 318 is a revised and strengthened version of a proposal that was kindly spoken to in Committee by my noble friend Lord Blencathra. It has been modified in light of comments made then, particularly from the Government Benches. It bears on disqualifying persons convicted of a serious cycling offence.

I suspect most of us, particularly those of us who spend any time in London, have experienced the enormous discomfort of being ridden past on the pavement at speed by a cyclist who has absolutely no interest in your comfort. If one has spent any time outside this Palace, one will also have noticed that the police have no interest in enforcing the law in these circumstances. It is up to us to do something to tighten the screws on cyclists like this. They make life for pedestrians extremely uncomfortable. The practice of continual and open law- breaking just brings the whole of the law into disrepute. It is really important that we tighten things up.

Amendment 319 would insert a new offence of riding or attempting to ride a cycle while disqualified. Such an offence requires accompanying sanctions. A licensing system seems to me entirely disproportionate; it would be a heavy weight of bureaucracy. I prefer the solution adopted by the Government in their approach to cycling offences in the Bill, which is to leave them to be enforced if circumstances allow—for instance, where somebody has been involved in a serious incident that the police have taken an interest in, or a member of the public makes a complaint that the police choose to follow up. That would sit easily with current policing practices. Continuing enforcement along these lines, though limited, would, if and when a prosecution or conviction was reported in the media, send a warning message to disqualified cyclists generally.

Turning turn to Amendment 321, the thrust of Clause 121 is to bring cycling offences pretty much into line with those applying to motor vehicles, but it leaves out disqualification. This is a missed opportunity to provide a substantial deterrent to offending. Proposed new subsection (9A), to be inserted by Amendment 321, prescribes that the period of obligatory disqualification for the two most serious offences of causing death or serious injury by dangerous cycling will not be less than five and two years, respectively. As for the other two offences of causing death or serious injury by careless or inconsiderate cycling, where the culpability is less, they will be subject to obligatory disqualification for not less than 12 months.

Proposed new subsection (9B) extends the definition of “disqualified” so that it can apply to cycles in a manner that is in conformity with the wording of the new cycling offences already created by the Bill. Amendments 323 to 325 add “obligatory” to the entries inserted by subsection (11) in Part I of Schedule 2; without them the amendment of Section 34 set out in Amendment 321 would be of no effect.

Amendment 333 would prescribe the penalties and mode of prosecution for the offence created by Amendment 319, and it inserts a new schedule containing minor and consequential amendments to the Road Traffic Offenders Act which is fine-tuned as it applies to persons disqualified for riding a cycle. Sections relating only to mechanically propelled vehicles are omitted.

As someone who frequently obstructs and remonstrates with pavement cyclists, I very much hope that my amendments will attract the support of the Government. I approve of the other amendments in this group and will listen to them with great interest. I beg to move.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendments I propose. There are three sets affecting two themes. Amendment 343 is about the registration scheme for cyclists, and the two other groups—Amendments 326 to 328, and Amendments 330 to 332—are about creating a system to award points for offences committed by cyclists against their driving licence. They have the same theme, which is trying to get more accountability for cyclists when they hurt people or commit offences.

I do not intend to take as much time as I did in Committee, because I think the argument is fairly straightforward and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has made it. In 2015, 444 pedestrians were injured by cyclists; in 2024, that had increased to 603 and, of that number, those seriously injured had risen from 97 to 181. These numbers are based on police reporting, where the police attended. It is clear that these are minimum numbers. As a correspondent reminded me recently, it is not a legal requirement for the police to record an accident that occurs between a cyclist and a pedestrian, because it does not involve a motor vehicle. The numbers do not include incidents where the police did not attend a collision, where the pedestrian did not need medical treatment or attend their GP or a hospital— I think we have a serious gap in that information as well, because the data is not recorded well or collected at all—or where the police were not told.

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Moved by

[Lord Hogan-Howe]

326: Clause 121, page 167, line 16, after “both”, insert “and up to 12 points on any relevant driver’s licence”

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to what the Minister said. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, is quite right that there is a need for a joined-up response, but I did not hear it. It is a fair challenge to the people who are opposing the Government to get their act together, but it is the job of the Government to deliver a strategy that might make a difference and I did not hear it. This has occurred quite a few times now. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, made the point about reduced traffic departments. She is quite right that it has nothing to do with this. The traffic departments of this country have never had much to do with cyclists. This is a problem of enforcement; it is not to do with the fact that traffic departments have reduced over time.

What am I asking for? I suppose I am asking for a protest vote. Every time I raise this issue, there is a rumble. People around me say afterwards, “I agree with you, we ought to do something”, but nobody can quite agree what. I am calling on the Members on the Government Benches and others to ignore their Whips. There will be a very marginal impact on their careers. I would never argue that my solution is the only one that will work, but the Government have a duty to do something. As we have all said, it is not just about older people like us complaining about cyclists. It is a general opinion among people whose views we represent.

I may lose, but courage is not measured by picking fights only that you are going to win. It is sometimes measured by picking those that you may subsequently discover that you do not have support on. With that in mind, I would like to divide the House on this amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right and that point was very strongly made in trenchant remarks by my noble friend about the issue in Kidlington. He is right that fly-tipping disproportionately affects farmland and farmers have, as he knows, very little legal recourse. It also affects deprived urban areas. I believe that, in bringing forward action in primary and secondary legislation, we need to stigmatise those who would despoil the land.

I am a regular cyclist, and it is quite dispiriting and depressing to cycle around the rural parts of the city of Peterborough and south Lincolnshire and see the exponential growth in piles of fly-tipped material on farmland and at the fringe of roads and waterways—the River Welland and the River Nene being two rivers in our area. It is very depressing, but it is a growing phenomenon, and it relates to the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Hailsham with regard to the availability or otherwise of municipal facilities for the disposal of often significant amounts of building material.

The other thing, of course, is that this is very much linked, increasingly, to organised crime. Criminal gangs operate illegal waste operations, undercutting legitimate licensed waste contractors. Tough sanctions, particularly those that target the proceeds of such activity and can confiscate vehicles and even imprison ringleaders, are something that we should seriously think about and that have been pursued in other jurisdictions.

To finish, I will very briefly—I know this is Report, but now we have the opportunity to talk about these issues—acquaint your Lordships’ House with the fly-tipping action plan that Keep Britain Tidy brought forward and published at the end of last year. Its recommendations for tackling waste crime are to shut down rogue operators by introducing tamper-proof licensing; to have taxi-style licence plates and a central searchable register; to strengthen enforcement, with tougher sentencing, which of course these amendments would facilitate; to support councils with intelligence-sharing platforms and stronger representation in the joint unit for waste crime; and, finally, to make it easier for the public, with a national awareness campaign and mandatory retailer take-back schemes for bulky items such as sofas and fridges. They all seem to be sensible proposals that would not necessarily cost the taxpayer a huge amount of money.

This is a very serious issue. These amendments are proportionate and sensible and would not be overly burdensome financially on the taxpayer. On that basis, I strongly support them and I hope the Minister will perhaps address some of the specific issues I have raised in his response.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, broadly, I support these amendments. I would have thought the Government would welcome all of them, because they seem quite common sense. They are quite tactical at times, and I would just say that two strategic things need to be considered. One is the charging regime for businesses attending recycling sites. If the charges are set too high, it encourages people to find alternative arrangements. We might condemn it, but it is a bit like smuggling tobacco—when we set the tax wrong, the smuggling of tobacco from France increases exponentially. Getting that balance right is not easy, but if you look at where you can get rid of a fridge and what charge you will make if you are a business, that really is the context in which these offences have been committed. I am not trying to provide a defence for the people involved; it just seems to me that that is one of the things causing it.

The second thing is that it is a business, so they are doing it for money. I know that there are later amendments about it being an organised crime, but obviously you have to go after the assets ruthlessly, so that when you get them you go after their home or the business. That really starts to make an impact when they realise that their life will not continue in the way that it has. I am not sure we collectively—I include the police and the Environment Agency—have had that determination.

On the amendments, for me, Amendments 13 and 21 are vital. It seems bizarre that the person who suffered once would suffer twice when they have to pay to remove the problem, unless of course they are being paid to store it or have not taken reasonable steps to make sure it does not continue, such as calling the police, the Environment Agency or anybody else to try to help make sure that it does not happen again. Fundamentally, it cannot be right if a victim is asked to pay to remove a problem they did not arrange. It seems to me that at the moment it is being treated as a civil wrong when in fact we all agree that it is a criminal wrong. This shift of culture is vital.

The best people to try to help clear the problem—forget about whose fault it is—are the local authorities. They are the ones with the equipment, the people who are skilled, and, frankly, the recycling places and the tips to get rid of it now. The consequences are that we are seeing around the country health hazards growing: sometimes toxic waste; sometimes just rat infestations. We are seeing these things growing very near to where people are living with children or anybody. That cannot be right. Something has to be done, in the sense that somebody has to act quickly to remove the pile of stuff and make sure, so far as possible, that it does not return.

The other two amendments that I support are Amendments 14 and 20, which are two sides of a similar coin. They propose giving points on licences to offenders or taking their vehicles. We have seen that they have been effective measures. It does not necessarily stop people driving, but it restricts their mobility for a while. They can still drive, but the police have now got an opportunity to lock them up because they are driving while disqualified, so it is starting to inhibit their mobility. The second thing is, obviously, to take the vehicles. A large vehicle can be worth £20,000, £50,000 or £100,000. This starts to make a difference in their business model and that, it seems to me, is vital. Of course, the side benefit is that, where vehicles are seized because they have no insurance, no tax or no test, the police can do one of two things: they can either crush them and sell the scrap and get back any tax that remains on the vehicle, or they can sell the vehicle itself, so, actually, the money that is taken from the offender is then applied straightaway to law enforcement.

The Government might want to consider whether money taken in this respect is applied either through the Environment Agency or through other bodies to make sure that it enhances their ability to reduce the amount of organised crime involved in this horrible thing that is causing such misery around the country. Therefore, if a vote is called, I will certainly support Amendment 13, but I also support the other amendments because I think they are things that could work.

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of these amendments. In particular, as a landowner and someone who has had fly-tipping on their property, I can say that it is extremely dangerous, even with small amounts of fly-tipping, whereby you have the fridges and the small amounts of wood or timber, particularly where you have livestock and machinery and where you have children. It brings disease and all sorts of trouble. So, there is that small level of fly-tipping, but then we also have the larger waste crimes, which are carried out by criminal gangs.

I know that, in Northern Ireland, we had a huge site at Mobuoy, outside of Londonderry. Two criminals have been prosecuted and jailed: one got 21 months and one got one year. Between them, however, their criminal gangs and their businesses are believed to have benefited to in the region of £33 million from that dumping and that waste disposal on to individual people’s land. It is absolutely criminal and we need to do more to clamp down on this, otherwise it is going to expand. Obviously, in Northern Ireland we suffer as well from cross-border fly-tipping and people coming across the border to tip their rubbish in Northern Ireland. But in general, it is something that really needs to be clamped down on, simply because there are not enough convictions and there are not enough people being caught.

National Police Service

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

It is the right time because the challenges that the police service faces on an international basis—from organised crime, from drugs, from international terrorism—are ones that need to drive forward this programme. The second really important thing is that it has the support of the police themselves, from the director-general of the National Crime Agency to the Chief Constables’ Council. Thirdly, it will happen because this Government have the political will to make it happen.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hintze (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the Cross Benches next.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support the White Paper. I think it is the right broad direction and it is decisive. As the noble Lord, Lord McCabe, indicated, it has been tried before and we did not get very far. There are a lot of questions on the detail, of course. On the commission that has been set up to recommend the number of forces, can the Minister tell us a little about the direction of travel the Government would like it to take? It could recommend anywhere between 43 and six and, of course, a figure towards 43 would probably damage the model he has described for national policing and some of the regional elements of it. Can he give us a flavour of how that model might materialise?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Government want to see a reduction in the number of police forces because that will make local policing more effective, save money and provide a better local service. We have not as yet given an indication because we have established the commission, which will report by this summer—it is very quick. We will shortly announce a chair and terms of reference. The Government intend this to be a speedy exercise that we can influence and then to bring forward legislation to make those changes as soon as parliamentary time allows.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hogan-Howe]

435: After Clause 166, insert the following new Clause—
“Police covenant: mandatory reporting on suicide and attempted suicide(1) The Secretary of State must ensure the collection and publication of data on suicide and attempted suicide among police officers and police staff for the purposes of supporting mental health and wellbeing under the police covenant (see section 1 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022).(2) Each police force in England and Wales must collect and submit annually to the Secretary of State—(a) the number of confirmed suicides by serving police officers and police staff;(b) the number of attempted suicides by serving police officers and police staff;(c) contextual information, where reasonably available, including duty status, length of service, role, rank, known occupational stressors, and access to mental health support. (3) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, and annually thereafter, lay a report before Parliament (to be known as the “Police Covenant Mental Health Report”) which must include, but is not limited to—(a) national and force-level data trends,(b) analysis of occupational contributory factors,(c) assessment of the adequacy, usage and evidence-based outcomes of mental health and suicide prevention provisions under the police covenant,(d) recommendations to address identified risks, and(e) a statement from the Chief Medical Officer for England.(4) The report under subsection (3) must—(a) be published and disseminated to all police personnel;(b) include commentary from the College of Policing on compliance, data quality and best practice at force level;(c) include contributions from staff representative bodies and trade unions.(5) Anonymised data, disaggregated by force area, must be published, subject to data protection and safeguarding.(6) Each Chief Constable must, at the end of every calendar year, provide a statement to the Secretary of State certifying that the requirements under this section have been met by their police force.(7) Where a Chief Constable fails to provide a certification under subsection (6) without reasonable excuse, the Secretary of State must notify HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.(8) The Inspectorate must have regard to a notification under subsection (7) in the course of its inspection of that police force under the police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy (PEEL) programme.(9) The Secretary of State must establish an independent advisory board, to be known as the “Police Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Advisory Board”.(10) The Board must consist of persons with expertise in clinical care, occupational health, staff representation and academic research.(11) The functions of the Board are to—(a) advise the Secretary of State on guidance relating to suicide prevention and mental health in the police workforce,(b) set standards for the collection and reporting of relevant data, and(c) review and make recommendations on force-level responses to risks identified through data and inspections.(12) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the operation of the Police Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Advisory Board, including provision about—(a) the Board’s procedures,(b) its terms of reference, and(c) its reporting duties.(13) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about—(a) data collection standards,(b) statutory guidance,(c) audit mechanisms, and(d) such further oversight as may be considered necessary.(14) In this section, “police officer” and “police staff” have the same meanings as in section 1 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.”

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[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support and move the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, to which I have added my name. I also support the other two amendments in this group. The reason for the amendments is that the Police Federation of England and Wales is concerned because it believes—but is not sure—that there is an increased rate of suicide among police officers, and it has a similar concern around police staff. For those noble Lords who do not know, about two-thirds of police work is done by police officers and about a third by employees who are police staff.

The Police Federation was concerned because it intuitively thought that the numbers were rising, so it sent out FoI requests to each of the 43 forces—in fact, there are also three non-Home Office forces. Unfortunately, it got only 34 replies, which has not helped it in determining whether there is a real problem. It could be worried for no cause, but at the moment it is struggling to establish the facts. The difficulty is that it cannot get hold of the data. I am really concerned about this, because it seems to me that it should not be that difficult.

I suspect that, even if the numbers of suicides are increasing, there are probably not going to be hundreds, even among a workforce of a quarter of a million. It is probably a relatively small number—probably tens rather than hundreds. Even for the biggest organisations, you would think that they would be able to find this data. For the smallest forces, surely they can remember the individuals. Some of the smaller forces we heard about in the police reforms announced yesterday have about 1,000 people, so there are not going to be so many that small forces could not remember whom this shocking thing had happened to. Police officers and police staff are generally relatively young people. They do not tend to die when they are in service, and when they die through suicide, it is a terrible shock for everybody involved.

There would be complications in gathering the data. As the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, proposes, it would be helpful to get the data not only about those who have committed suicide but also about those who have attempted it. Establishing whether a death is a suicide or not relies on a coroner; that is the only absolute way in which we can say that there has definitely been a suicide. Sometimes, to be fair, coroners are sympathetic. They realise that this can feel to the family like a judgment, and often they will find any way that they can, in law, to find an alternative, so getting hold of the data can be difficult.

Of course, who can say what an attempted suicide is? There is no absolute proof of that. I suspect that the occupational health units in each of the 43 forces have some data. Because that is medical data, however, they cannot always share it with the employer. If it is relevant just to that person but is not relevant to their employment; it is a confidential issue and, if the individual wants it kept secret, then that is entirely up to them, and the occupational health units might not be able to share it.

It is vital to get this data for a couple of reasons. One is to establish patterns, if there are patterns; for example, does it affect certain roles? We know already that it is an awful job for certain officers and staff who view, for example, child abuse images as part of their general work. To have to sustain that work over months and years, even with all the welfare support that they get, might make it an area that we would be worried about if we saw that there was an increase in the number of suicides; likewise, among firearms officers or dog handlers, male or female—the role does not really matter. We just need to understand what it is, obviously, to try to prevent it.

What worries me about not being able to get hold of this data—it ought to be possible to get at least some of it—is what it says about the relationship with the chief officers, the Police Federation and the unions. There is a statutory requirement for the chiefs to meet personally with the head of the federation every quarter, and to meet with the unions. I am sure my colleagues will also explain that. Beyond that formal requirement, we also meet them informally, usually about once a month. Chiefs should be meeting their federation reps at times such as bravery awards, and there are various other internal mechanisms.

If they are concerned, it is hard to imagine that they have not mentioned it. If they have mentioned it, why have they not got a response? Why has it ended up with FoI requests, three-quarters of which have been badly answered? In fact, some of those who did not reply were the biggest forces of all. Sometimes people take it that 30-odd out of 40-odd forces is three-quarters; it is three-quarters of the forces, but some of the forces are very big and some are very small, so we do not have any representative data.

My final point is for the Home Office. There are, broadly, two amendments here. One is very detailed from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, about not only how the data is gathered but what is done with it afterwards. My amendment just says that the Home Office might want to collect this data. I wonder whether the Home Office has asked for it and also been refused; perhaps the Home Office could be interested as well.

It is important for two reasons. First, when people are committing suicide in their employment, it matters that we establish whether it is their employment that is causing it, or there is something else that the employer has absolutely nothing to do with. The employer might have been able to help had they had some sensitivity to the problems that their staff are facing. Secondly, policing is about care. Those who serve must look after each other. My test is always that at 3 am, when everybody else has gone home, you cannot call the police if you have a problem, so you must rely on your colleagues.

It is vital for any employer to care for their staff because they want better performance, and to make sure that their staff can do what they are paying them a salary for. But in policing and the emergency services in particular, you must rely on each other and look after each other. If that is not done properly, or if there is anything we could do to help a person, but they then take their own life and we could have noticed, it is probably the worst example, and, surely, we would all want to do something about that. It matters for many reasons and that is why I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, and have tabled my own. I beg to move Amendment 435.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that, having heard what I have said, the noble Lord will today withdraw the amendment in Committee. Obviously, I will keep the House updated on the outcomes of the roundtable that has been organised. I will just say that the Committee amendment is helpful but the roundtable was an initiative that the Government were doing prior to this stage of the Bill and one that I know we want to see through. We want to get this right because it is important and I am grateful to noble Lords for raising the issue today. However, I ask them, at this stage at least, not to press the amendments, given what I have said.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I thank the Minister for such a constructive response and of course I thank everyone for their support. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, made a point that I had not made in my speech but that I want to amplify: in collecting the data, we should consider people for at least 12 months after retirement. He mentioned one particular case, but we can all perhaps imagine others and, if there is a link, that would be interesting to look at.

I hope we do not have to end up with legislation, because, in a way, that would be an admission of failure. There are far better ways of achieving it without that, or the bureaucracy that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, mentioned. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, for his usual powerful support for this and for saying it is common sense that this needs sorting out—there was no challenge on that from the Minister. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for their wholehearted support.

A couple of important things have through in the debate. First, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned the potential link to misconduct processes. If that is an issue, we need to understand why. We had an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, on a previous Committee day about potential deadlines or timelines for how long these things take; that cannot be unconnected. Whatever it is, we need to understand what it is about.

There is a second very important HR issue: are we recruiting people who understand the nature of the job they are about to embark on? Are we sharing the nature of the challenges? Are we supporting them at the beginning if they have things that they are not sure about? It is important, for the reasons we have all talked about, to make sure that this happens. I am really reassured about the round table. It would be really helpful if, by Report, we had a definite route forward, because I can see there are various routes.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

Can I raise one point with the noble Lord? It seems to me—certainly from reflecting on my own police service—that one of the issues regarding suicide simply was the fact that police managers were unable to identify the issues when they arose. I wonder whether he, as a former commissioner and part of the inspectorate, has a view on that.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, makes a really good point: are we training our managers and supervisors to recognise the signs? For good reasons, occupational health units keep all this data together privately. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, mentioned a referral to the medical officer to see whether there was a problem; I wonder how many referrals are coming back the other way to let the manager know that this person might have an issue, not necessary to talk about suicide but to say there is a stress issue and they may need some support. Has it become a one-way valve that protects their privacy but reduces their safety? There are many facets to it that I hope the round table might address. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment and thank the Government for their response.

Amendment 435 withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hogan-Howe]

422A: After Clause 151, insert the following new Clause—
“Scrutiny of investigation timeliness(1) The Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020 (S.I.2020/2) are amended as follows.(2) After Regulation 13 (timeliness of investigations), insert—“13A Scrutiny of investigation timeliness(1) A legally qualified person must be appointed to scrutinise any investigations of misconduct or gross misconduct which have not been completed within 12 months.(2) The legally qualified person must determine whether there is good and sufficient reason for the time already taken, and how much time is anticipated to be needed for completion of the investigation.(3) In determining whether there is good and sufficient reason, the legally qualified person may have regard to any relevant matter, and must have particular regard to—(a) whether the investigation has been efficient and effective;(b) whether there has been unnecessary or unreasonable delay, having regard to the complexity and seriousness of the case;(c) the impact upon the officer and others;(d) any anticipated further delay;(e) the public interest and effect on confidence in the police disciplinary system;(f) representations made on behalf of any person entitled to receive a copy of the information provided.(4) If the legally qualified person determines that there is good and sufficient reason to continue the investigation, then the legally qualified person must set a date for the conclusion of all proceedings. (5) Nothing in this provision shall have any effect in relation to any criminal investigation.”(3) The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020 (S.I.2020/4) are amended as follows.(4) After Regulation 19 (timeliness of investigation), insert—“19A Scrutiny of investigation timeliness(1) A legally qualified person must be appointed to scrutinise any investigations of misconduct or gross misconduct which have not been completed within 12 months.(2) The legally qualified person must determine whether there is good and sufficient reason for the time already taken, and how much time is anticipated to be needed for completion of the investigation.(3) In determining whether there is good and sufficient reason, the legally qualified person may have regard to any relevant matter, and must have particular regard to—(a) whether the investigation has been efficient and effective;(b) whether there has been unnecessary or unreasonable delay, having regard to the complexity and seriousness of the case;(c) the impact upon the officer and others;(d) any anticipated further delay;(e) the public interest and effect on confidence in the police disciplinary system;(f) representations made on behalf of any person entitled to receive a copy of the information provided.(4) If the legally qualified person determines that there is good and sufficient reason to continue the investigation, then the legally qualified person must set a date for the conclusion of all proceedings.(5) Nothing in this provision shall have any effect in relation to any criminal investigation.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment proposes a 12-month limit, unless extraordinary circumstances reviewed by a legally qualified person dictate otherwise, which would encourage forces and external bodies to complete misconduct and gross misconduct processes quicker, allowing officers to resume duties and limiting the negative impact on their health and wellbeing.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, has made a good suggestion with this amendment. He makes the broad point that the police misconduct process takes far too long, and I agree. To be fair, it is not the only misconduct process that takes a long time, but this one is particularly challenged.

I will particularly mention two things. First, time deadlines would be helpful. There are two ways to approach that. One is that there might be an absolute deadline of 12 months, as the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, suggests, and then some independent, legally qualified person looks at the case. That could work. The alternative is to set some deadlines so that, for example, 90% of cases are resolved in one year, which at least would give the system a kick. At the moment, I am afraid the system is not getting any better—rather, it is getting worse—so either something statutory or some kind of guidelines would be a good idea.

On Tuesday I raised the issue of firearms officers, a group particularly affected by this, and that is what I want to speak to here. I have argued that there should be a higher bar before they are prosecuted for murder, but the Government do not accept that at the moment. They have offered anonymity, and we are to debate that shortly.

Part of the problem, particularly for firearms officers, is the incredible length of time in some cases. There have been two cases over the last 20 years that took 10 years: the case of PC Long, who was prosecuted after a series of legal machinations only to be found not guilty 10 years later, and that of W80, where after a public inquiry—basically an inquest led by a High Court judge because intercept evidence was involved in the case—the High Court judge decided that there was no unlawful killing, the IOPC or its predecessor decided that there should be some gross misconduct, the Metropolitan Police disagreed, the Supreme Court ordered that there would be a misconduct hearing and the legally qualified chair of the independent tribunal said there was no case to answer. After consideration by the Supreme Court, an officer had been under investigation for 10 years. That cannot be right.

Some of the problems are to do with the sequential nature of the decision-making in these cases. Officers are often under jeopardy, first from the IOPC and then from the CPS. Then obviously it could go to court and there may be a finding of not guilty, but then—for firearms officers in cases where someone has died—the case can go back to a coroner’s inquest, which can find an unlawful killing verdict, at which point it goes back through the cycle again. That is one of the reasons why some of these problems are arising.

First, deadlines would be a good idea as either an advisory or a mandatory limit. Secondly, I do not understand why some of the people involved in the decision-making that I have described have to do it sequentially, not in parallel. For example, why can the CPS and the IOPC not decide together whether something is a crime or misconduct?

At the moment, not only are there many links in the chain that sometimes come to contradictory conclusions but, more importantly, it is taking too long. I argue that in all this there are two groups of people who suffer: one is firearms officers, the group whose case I am arguing, but the other is the families waiting to hear what is happening. If people have lost someone, they deserve to hear whether or not this is a crime or misconduct, but at the moment that is not happening.

This amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, is a sensible suggestion and I support it. If the Government do not, perhaps they would like to make some indication of how they intend to improve the misconduct system, particularly as it affects firearms officers in the circumstances I have described.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a short debate. I agree with many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. I find it almost extraordinary that misconduct investigations linger on for so long; it really is a disgrace for everybody involved. Police professional standards departments have for too long been seen as something of a Cinderella function within forces, chronically underprioritised, underfunded and understaffed, and now they are buckling under the surge in the volume of complaints. This is combined with a narrowing of the remit of the IOPC, which increasingly takes on only the most serious and high-profile cases, resulting in a growing backlog and indefinite drift.

Amendment 422A confronts this head on. Such independent legal oversight could act as a checkpoint, strengthening individual case oversights and extracting timely lessons from failures. Criminal investigations would stay exempt, protecting the pursuit of serious crime.

There are risks in setting time targets for investigations—there is no question about that—not least the incentive for officers to delay co-operation if the clock is ticking. We have concerns that a rigid cap could risk corner-cutting on complex investigations. At the very least, stronger guidance on the expected length of inquiries is now required, as well as real scrutiny when these expectations are missed.

There also needs to be a much sharper focus on leadership and case management. Complainants should not face long waits, especially knowing time will diminish the strength of their evidence; neither should innocent officers endure years in limbo, with their careers stalled and well-being eroded. Taxpayers should not bear the rising cost of suspensions while losing front-line capacity at the same time.

Amendment 422A would restore some balance by prioritising fairness to officers, closure for victims and credibility for policing. We are happy to support it, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

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There is a point in the general thrust of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington. There is a problem that needs to be resolved, but I suggest that the Government can resolve it without the legislative proposal before the Committee. I ask the noble Lord, who nobly volunteered to move the amendment, to now nobly volunteer to withdraw it.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

It is certainly a first for me.

I thank the Minister for his reply and other people for their comments. I thought I might make only a couple of points in response. I indicated that although the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, suggests a mandatory limit, there may be difficulties with that. I wonder whether the Government, might consider three things in their review, which the Minister mentioned. First, they could set an expectation so that, for example, cases should be completed within 12 months unless, for example, the director-general of the IOPC or some arbiter concludes otherwise. Secondly, I raised the sequential nature of the decision-making. That compound effect gives a longer time than I regard as necessary.

I am trying to work out now whether I should let the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, speak—

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

The noble Lord was not here for the start of the group, so I am afraid that he cannot contribute.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I will conclude. I wonder whether, in the review, the Government could consider this sequential decision-making, which I do not think helps speed. Thirdly, if they are really adventurous they could look at whether police officers should be employees, because then you would get lawyers out of the system—I sit surrounded by them, but they never make it quicker or cheaper. Everyone else who is an employee can go to the employment tribunal, but officers cannot; it is on these grounds that lawyers get involved. I am afraid that is one of the major factors in why this takes so long and is expensive. I have taken my life in my hands, so I will sit down and withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 422A withdrawn.

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[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I share with the noble Lord, Lord Carter, concern and admiration for our firearms officers and officers generally, who have a very difficult job. I declare an interest having acted for police forces in cases involving the use of firearms. However, I do not share his conclusions about these provisions.

I should also declare an interest as the chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which regulates the press or those bodies that choose to be regulated by it. I hope that has given me some indication of some of the challenges that journalists face, particularly in reporting court proceedings. Very often, they struggle to cover court cases because of the reduced number of journalists and the general facilities available to newspapers. Were this provision to become law, they would be faced with a presumption that changes the balance and represents, on the face of it, a challenge to our principles of open justice.

Given that there is already a discretion available to the courts on anonymity, I ask the Minister this: what is wrong with the existing law, which provides that there is such a balance to be exercised by the judge? If there is nothing wrong with the law, there is no need to change it. This is a significant change, and the Government must have some very clear thoughts as to why they are making it. What is the situation that now persists which requires a fundamental change in questions of reporting and free speech?

Supposing it is possible to persuade a judge to rebut the presumption which will now exist in these provisions, what would be a good reason for lifting the anonymity which prima facie is going to be imposed by them? It is important, before we make such a significant change in the law, that the rationale is clearly understood.

While not in any way undermining or questioning the importance of protecting officers in appropriate circumstances, I say that the balance is a very subtle one, and that balance should not be disturbed by these provisions. I do not think we even need to consider the European Court of Human Rights’ position. This is an ancient tradition of open justice, and it is one which is, I am afraid to say, threatened by these provisions.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I oppose the stand part notices and support the Government in their clauses. I have heard the proposers of the stand part notices make much of what is a relatively weak argument, suggesting that this is a constitutional outrage, when all that is happening is a change in the assumption about anonymity. Anonymity is already available; this is just about who has to prove whether it should be granted. A lot of hyperbole has been used about this. I accept that the media will make this argument; I do not deny that. I agree that the police should be held accountable; that is not the issue. It is about a very small group of people. I will try to address the point about evidence. A point was made about what evidence had been advanced; I will try to address at least two things.

First, of course, this was built on the Chris Kaba case. Frankly, I think the judge made the wrong decision about anonymity. I believe that because Mr Kaba was arrested having been connected to two shootings and linked to an organised crime gang who had access to firearms. Naming the officer put him at risk of attacks by connected people. Bear in mind that, three years later, within three hours a jury found him not guilty. It was never a very strong case, but why did the judge order the anonymity order to be lifted in those circumstances?

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[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for reminding us of his late-night work the other night, and I look forward to discussing that subject when we come back to it on Report. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for bringing a practical police view to this very difficult debate. I come at this from a position essentially in favour of these clauses not standing part, for the reasons so far advanced by my noble friends Lady Cash and Lord Black, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks.

This is a difficult question. Unquestionably, it is a difficult question. If it were not, we would not be here. We have, as parliamentarians, as legislators, to work out where the balance should lie between the desire for anonymity for police officers in these circumstances and the desire for openness, open justice and the ability of the public—not just the press but the public as a whole—to see what is being done in their name in the court system.

I hope I shall not go on too long merely repeating what others have already said, but it is worth reminding ourselves that the courts work on the basis of open justice. The public are entitled to watch, to read and to comment about trials, and to know who has been charged and prosecuted and with what result. There are exceptions to protect national security, vulnerable witnesses, victims of sexual offences and children. We have a regime for, first of all, providing for reporting restrictions; secondly, for restricting public access to the courtroom and for holding all or part of some trials in private; and, thirdly, for withholding the name of witnesses—for example, under a witness order under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. But a witness order under that provision is a special measure of the last practical resort, and requires the court to be vigorous in its consideration of the statutory hurdles that have to be overcome and to ensure that the defendant is not irreparably disadvantaged or denied a fair trial. Fourthly, we have within that regime provision for anonymity in investigations—for example, when considering fatal gang crimes involving the use of guns and knives by those aged 11 to 30.

Police officers are human—I underline the word “human”. They are a human example of state power—and I underline the word “state”. We respect and we admire them for their often dangerous and selfless work. We know from our own work here in Parliament how vital police officers are for our own protection. I was not far away from the scene of PC Palmer’s murder in March 2017. He was unarmed and later awarded a posthumous George Medal, but there were armed officers there who had to kill PC Palmer’s murderer. I heard those shots as I walked along the colonnade in New Palace Yard from my office in Portcullis House to take part in a Division in the other place. The noble Lord, Lord Hanson, may well have gone through the same experience. I was grateful then, as I am to this day, to the police men and women on duty that day who ushered me and other Members of the other place to safety, regardless of their own.

But it is, in the final analysis, a matter of judgment on which side of this argument we need to come down—on the side of anonymity or on that of open justice. I bear in mind the need for armed police officers and their families to be protected from reprisals, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, mentioned. I bear in mind the operational need not to discourage volunteers suitably qualified to become armed response officers or armed officers. We have been reminded this morning of the case of Martyn Blake, which created, I think, the genesis of these clauses.

However, I also bear in mind the constitutional and public policy demands. I would not describe this as a constitutional outrage; it is a perfectly rational debate about which side of a difficult line one wishes to land. It is not a constitutional outrage to do one thing or the other. It is just advancing an argument. But I bear in mind the constitutional and public policy demands for open justice, for public trust and for transparency in a justice system that applies to us all without creating different categories of defendant as a question of blanket rule. Blanket rules of the sort envisaged by Clauses 152 to 155 are, I suggest, best avoided where a stronger, focused case-by-case approval approach can be achieved—and it is, in my experience, already achieved under our current system.

In the last few days, we have seen the ICE officer shoot that woman driving her car in Minnesota. Of course I have only seen the news footage, but I suggest that, here, that ICE officer would be prosecuted for murder, subject to any defence he could advance. That case aside, we face the problem of some lawyers and campaigners using every police shooting as the basis of an anti-police pile-on, or for some other political campaign that they happen to support. In short, if we are, as I hope we will be, sceptical about Clauses 152 to 155 standing part of the Bill, we must prevent the appalling hunting parties against the police. Let us then pause and reflect before agreeing to these clauses.

I dare say we will not make a decision today, other than that the issue advanced by my noble friend Lord Black will be withdrawn. But we all have a little time between now and Report—we come here with the best of intentions and good will—to think a little more carefully about the practical solution to this, and whether we need to use the blunderbuss of legislation or whether we can still rely on judicial discretion, vigorously applied and well argued for in each separate case, to see where justice can be found.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

Before the noble and learned Lord sits down, may I ask him this? I respect his opinion, for obvious reasons, but one issue he did not address—it was one of my arguments for why these clauses should stand part—is the difficulty of proving the threat at the beginning of an investigation. It is not straightforward. We have to say that someone out there is going to kill this officer or try to attack them—that there is a threat to them in some way. Of course we all make our best attempts to assess whether that is accurate or not. He describes the present system as a blanket arrangement, but actually there is only an assumption, which can be removed, and in the Kaba case was removed. That leaves the officer at risk of that decision being automatic—that is, to be named if they cannot prove otherwise. Why should they bear the risk of being named, when the reverse could allow, first, an assumption they would not be named, and if later that changed, they could be named. What we can never do is name someone, then introduce anonymity—so it is a one-way valve that surely the law might help to respect.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

The matter that the noble Lord is bringing up is the very sort of discussion that ought to be had in front of the judge. Presumably, no prosecutor, and no one acting on behalf of a police officer who wished to maintain his anonymity, would advance an argument unless there were some basis for it. If someone went in front of the judge and said, “I’m generally fearful that, just because he’s a police officer who bears arms, he is likely to be the victim of reprisal”, I think they would probably need to do a bit better than that. I suspect nobody would go in front of the judge and make that argument unless they had something better than that.

I suspect that, in the usual run of things, there will be information. It may not be information that the court would wish the world at large to know about. It could be intelligence evidence. It could be other information that both the applicant—the applicant police officer or the applicant prosecutor—and the judge would agree should be kept private. That surely can be done now. We have all sorts of national security cases where evidence is not disclosed to the world at large. All I ask is: let us just think a little bit further. It may well be that, at the end of the day, we shall come to the same conclusion as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and as the Government do in their clauses. But I have yet to be persuaded that we have got to the right answer today.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

My main purpose is to take the opportunity of this Bill to aid better enforcement of the law by the police. My amendment would allow the police actively to identify those committing crimes such as phone theft, delivering drugs, harassing and intimidating the young or the old, including riding dangerously past my house on the pavement at very high speed. The Minister promised to look into the matter for me and to consider my amendment. We share the same objective and I hope he will agree to this modest amendment to make it easier for the police to do their excellent work. I beg to move.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I am generally with the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and we have done an awful lot together to look at cyclists being held more accountable. On this, however, I am probably going to suggest an amendment to her amendment. As it stands, the problem with her amendment is that the police currently have the power to stop any vehicle on the road without reason. They can stop somebody with or without a mask, or for no reason at all. This power would therefore not add anything, given that the police already have the power to stop any vehicle.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, acknowledged, whether it be in the cool of the winter, or even sometimes on a cool summer’s day, there is a reason to wear a mask or a face covering if you are cycling, because it gets cold. We have probably all been there. However, something to look at in the future—perhaps on Report—is whether someone, having been stopped, can be ordered to remove their face mask. There is not an awful lot of point in stopping them and they can keep their face mask on if their identity is in question. That is also true for motorcyclists, who wear helmets. Their faces are obviously encased in a helmet and there is no power to ask them to remove the helmet. Most of them do, because it gets pretty uncomfortable after a few minutes—in fact, if you prolong the conversation long enough, they always take it off—but there is no power to compel them to do it. That may be something that could be considered in the future.

On the police needing powers to stop cyclists, there is no power to stop an e-scooter, but any vehicle on the road can be stopped by an officer for any reason—not the least of which is that the police are expected to direct traffic. That is one of the reasons that they are given the power to either redirect or stop vehicles. So, as it stands, I am not sure about this amendment.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support the excellent and tightly drafted amendment from my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. I say that it is tightly drawn because proposed new subsection (2) is about concealing one’s identity, not about wearing the clothes themselves: the scarf or the hat. I speak as a cyclist who frequently cycles in the winter, when of course you need to wear protective clothing to keep you warm. However, this is about allowing a police officer, or another person who is entitled to know your identity, to know your identity, and it is about failing to stop when required to do so by a constable.

I am glad that my noble friend mentioned the issue of live facial recognition. I am just about to finish my four-year term on the British Transport Police Authority. In terms of clear-up rates, one of the issues we have in unfortunately failing to tackle violence against women and girls—which, of course, is a government priority and a priority of the Department for Transport—is that we have way too many persistent, repeat offenders on bail who are travelling on the rail network and who are able to enter stations and get on trains. Live facial recognition, were it to be rolled out for a good reason, with proper checks and balances, would significantly reduce the incidence of those people being able to get on trains and Tubes and assault women and girls, and others. Live facial recognition is important because, if people are going to be wearing face coverings, that will naturally circumscribe the powers used in live facial recognition.

Rates of crime on bikes and scooters have gone up. Many people who are committing those crimes are hiding their identity and I believe that, in most cases, there is a legitimate reason for the police to stop them. In 2024, Sky News received figures from FoI requests that showed that crimes involving e-bikes and e-scooters had risen by more than 730% in the preceding five years. These crimes included theft, robbery, burglary, drug trafficking, stalking, rape, violent crimes and weapons offences. In 2023-24, 11,266 crimes were recorded that mentioned an e-bike or e-scooter—up from just 1,354 in 2019-20. These figures do not include data from the Metropolitan Police and the West Midlands Police—I know that West Midlands Police have been busy doing other things, not always to their great credit —so the actual numbers were likely higher.

On 30 December 2025, the Metropolitan Police reported that it had seized 37 e-bikes and scooters in an attempt to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. That resulted in 52 arrests and weapons being seized. Between January and December 2025, Merseyside Police seized 1,000 unregistered vehicles, e-bikes, e-scooters and scramblers. It launched Operation Gears in July 2024 to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour linked specifically to bikes and scooters. In its words, two-wheeled vehicles

“are increasingly linked to serious criminal activity, including violence, robberies, and serious organised crime (SOC) offences”.

The Metropolitan Police has also produced reasonably new data—up to the end of 2023. They show that there were 4,985 cases of robbery and theft of a mobile phone in London using a motorcycle or an e-bike in 2023, and a face covering was worn in over 1,000 of those. These statistics demonstrate that it is legitimate to link bikes and scooters to crimes. Therefore, if someone is covering their face specifically to avoid identity while using these vehicles, it does raise suspicion, and it most emphatically gives police a legitimate reason to exercise their due and proper powers. On that basis, I support my noble friend’s amendment.

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[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union, which has been campaigning against non-crime hate incidents for at least five years.

I thought it might be helpful to begin with a definition of what an NCHI is. The amendment itself says that it is

“any incident or alleged incident which does not constitute a criminal offence, but is perceived, by any person, to have been motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility or prejudice towards a person or group on the grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity”.

How many of these incidents have been recorded by the police since the concept of NCHIs was introduced by the College of Policing in 2014? The Telegraph submitted an FoI request to all 43 police forces in England and Wales in early 2020, and 34 of the 43 —about three-quarters of the police forces in England and Wales—responded and disclosed that 119,934 NCHIs had been recorded in England and Wales in the five years from 2014 to 2019. By my calculation, that is an average of 65 a day—and remember, that that is just in England and Wales, and just three-quarters of the real total. There is no reason to think that the number being recorded every day by police forces in England and Wales has declined from that average of 65 since then, in the subsequent six years.

How long does it take the police? How many police hours are spent recording NCHIs? Policy Exchange published a report last November in which it concluded that the police spend 60,000 hours a year—again, that is just the police in England and Wales—investigating and recording non-crime hate incidents. If you factor in that they have been around since 2014, that means the police have spent at least 660,000 hours investigating and recording non-crimes since 2014.

What sort of incidents are we talking about? “Non-crime hate incident” sounds quite serious. I will give just a handful of examples. A man had an NCHI recorded against him after a neighbour complained that his whistling the theme tune to “Bob the Builder” was racist. A woman had an NCHI recorded against her name because she posted on X that she thought her cat was a Methodist. A nine year-old girl had an NCHI recorded against her because she called another girl in the school playground a “retard”. Two secondary school pupils had NCHIs recorded against them for saying about another girl, again in the school playground, that she smelled like fish. This is the kind of thing that the police have been spending 660,000 hours investigating and recording since 2014.

Incidentally, I know of at least one Member of this House who has had an NCHI recorded against her, and a Conservative Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, had an NCHI recorded against her because of a complaint made about the contents of her speech at a Conservative Party conference that she was addressed in her capacity as Home Secretary.

So it seems that it is not terribly difficult to make the argument that the police have been wasting a huge amount of time investigating and recording relatively trivial incidents. Again, I stress that the definition says that if it is merely “perceived”, not just by the “victim” but by any person, as being motivated by hostility or prejudice towards the “victim’s” protected characteristics, it can be recorded as an NCHI. Sometimes, when NCHIs are recorded, the person against whom the NCHI is recorded is not informed—so you might well have an NCHI recorded against you without knowing it.

All this sounds quite trivial, but having an NCHI recorded against your name can be quite serious, because chief constables, at their discretion, can disclose the fact that an NCHI has been recorded against a person when they apply for a job that requires them to do an enhanced DBS check. So, you can end up not getting a job as a teacher or a carer, or a voluntary position with a charity such as the Samaritans, because you have an NCHI recorded against your name.

I will just point out one more, I think unintended, consequence of the NCHI regime, which is that records are deleted after six years. So if you have an NCHI recorded against you at the age of 17, it remains on what is in effect your criminal record until you are 23, whereas quite serious criminal offences, if you are convicted, are spent when you reach the age of majority. The fact that you have committed a non-crime can hang about your neck like a bad smell long after you have reached the age of majority, even if it was recorded against you when you were a child. So, in some senses, not committing a crime and having that recorded against you can have more serious consequences than committing quite a serious crime and being convicted of it.

I believe that I am pushing at an open door. A report on NCHIs has been commissioned by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council. They have published a provisional version of the report, in which they declare the NCHI regime unfit for purpose. I do not think that they have submitted the final report to the Home Secretary yet, but I know that, when they do, the Home Secretary is likely to take up the recommendations, and I think we will see the end of the NCHI regime.

I have four issues on which I hope the Minister can provide some reassurance. The first is that, as I understand it, the new regime will be that incidents are no longer recorded as non-crime hate incidents; some cases will be recorded as anti-social behaviour incidents, but they will not be logged on the police national database. I ask for the Minister’s assurance that anti-social behaviour incidents that would have been recorded as NCHIs under the old regime will not, unlike NCHIs, be recorded on the police national database.

I also ask for the Minister’s assurance that, once the new regime is in place, previous NCHIs recorded under the old regime will be deleted and will not hang around for six years as they do currently, given that there is acceptance that the regime is not fit for purpose. If the regime is not fit for purpose, I hope the Minister can assure us that existing NCHIs—it is not inconceivable that they number in the hundreds of thousands—will be deleted. Finally, I seek reassurance that these anti-social behaviour incidents will not be disclosed in enhanced DBS checks.

I hope that the review by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council will be submitted and digested in time for the new regime to be put in place on Report. I beg to move.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment because we need to move on from the recording of non-crime hate incidents by removing them altogether from police systems.

Non-crime hate recording had an honourable start, following on from the Macpherson inquiry. There were two problems at the time. The first was that recordable crime was lower than it should have been because it was not being recorded accurately, due to misrecording and it sometimes not being recorded at all. This was linked to police performance being measured by the amount of crime in society. Therefore, the police service was incentivised to record less rather than more crime, thereby, ironically, undermining its own bid for more resourcing.

The murder of Stephen Lawrence showed us that, sometimes, before a crime is committed, there are signals that someone may be a racist, for example, and that, if we take the right action, we could prevent those crimes occurring and someone getting hurt or any other crime being committed. That system worked well at the start, because it allowed the police to collect intelligence and spot patterns—for example, by geography, suspect or victims. That relied on the basic repeat offender victim location theory, which shows that 10% of repeat offenders can account for over half of some crimes.

The problem is that the same system is now being used to police the social harms caused by causing offence. Causing offence is not a crime. The internet amplifies the problem—first, because it has a permanent record of the offensive but not criminal behaviour, and, secondly, because it allows millions of people, sometimes worldwide, to see the communication. For everybody involved, it is then very hard to ignore. This has led to some bizarre police interventions—the noble Lord, Lord Young, has already mentioned some—on issues that are not crimes or even non-crime hate. The public have juxtaposed these with significant complaints—such as shoplifting, car theft and other serious crimes—that, meanwhile, the police say they are too busy to deal with, even when a suspect is available to arrest. The two issues do not sit well together.

There is a need to record intelligence about incidents that may later become significant if crimes are committed. This can be on the police command and control log, where the incident can be given an anti-social behaviour coding, or on the criminal intelligence system. The problem arises if the name of a person who is said to have caused offence is recorded. In my view, if the police say that they will record what is being alleged because someone has called the control room and they need to log all calls—the police later denying that a call had come in would not be sensible—then it is necessary to record those incidents in the control room. However, if, on the face of what a person tells the police, they see no crime or incident, they will not investigate and will not record the name of the person the caller says has offended them.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in the nicest possible way, that my noble and learned friend Lord Hermer has given strict instructions to Government Ministers on Henry VIII clauses, and the various statutory instrument committees in this House and in the House of Commons have also expressed a grave view on them.

I put it to the Committee—and I hope that the Committee will accept this in good faith, as I am trying to do it in good faith—that the Government have recognised that there is a problem, and the Government have asked the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to examine that problem. The Government have received an interim report, which the noble Lord, Lord Herbert of South Downs, referred to at Second Reading. The Government are awaiting the final report, which the noble Lord has said is coming shortly. I have not seen the final report. There may be things in it that maintain, change or revoke altogether the issues that have, quite rightly, been raised. But, if the Government had not realised that there was a problem, we would not have asked for solutions to be brought forward.

I know that I occasionally say, “Something will be happening very shortly”, but I say, in genuine help and support for the Committee, that we know that there is a problem. We want to change that problem, but we are trying to make sure that we get sufficiently robust professional advice to be able to make some political decisions based on the advice that we receive. With that, I have tried to help the noble Lord and I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minster as he was getting towards the end of his speech. I have just one point: whatever advice the college gives, there will need to be a litmus test for whether the Government will support it. Whatever advice is given, I encourage the Government to make sure that it is clear, so that officers on the street understand it. If we end up with another series of 20 conditions, that will not simplify things. We must have a litmus test. For me, it might be, “If the officer acted in good faith and within the law as they believed it, we will support them”. I am not saying that that is the answer in this case, but it should be something simple.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, my amendments seek to improve Clause 124. It is worth reminding ourselves that this clause seeks to amend Section 12 of the Public Order Act 1986. Curiously, that section was itself amended in 2022 to allow the senior police officer to impose conditions on a march if it resulted in

“serious disruption to the life of the community”,

in particular where it results in

“a significant delay to the delivery of a time-sensitive product to consumers”,

or

“disruption of access to any essential goods”

or services to be delivered to places of worship. It is somewhat strange that the Act was amended to allow goods and services to be delivered, but did not mention disruption to the services themselves, so Clause 124 is a great improvement and a great help.

However, I wish to draw to the attention of the Ministers, the noble Lords, Lord Hanson and Lord Katz, that Section 12 is dependent upon the actions of a “senior police officer”, who “may”—the Act is specific on that word—decide to take action. I guess that he may not, as he is not required so to do. The Home Office will still be totally and solely reliant on the decisions of the senior police officer being put into action. There is no override envisaged that the Home Office can apply.

While I am on my feet, I believe that exactly the same point applies to Amendment 372 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hanson; again, it says that a senior police officer may choose to do this. I suggest that does not deal with the problem that when complaints are made by members of the public, politicians currently simply put their hands up and say, “It’s nothing to do with us; this is a police matter”. As we have seen in the West Midlands, we cannot rely on the police in every instance to do their duty and act fairly.

At the risk of repeating myself, this is the third time I have raised this point in debates on this Bill. In the previous two discussions, I have not really had an answer from the Ministers. In fact, I am not expecting them to answer it right now. What I am asking is for a commitment to consider this point, reflect on it and possibly meet those with an interest in the matter, and for it to be addressed by the time of Report.

My amendments are needed so that we can be sure that if protesters are banned from being near synagogues, they are stopped from simply heading towards Jewish faith schools and Jewish community centres. Of course, if my amendments protect schools and community centres of other faiths then I would be absolutely delighted, so I hope that these amendments will receive support from all sides of the House. Disappointingly, there is not a Bishop on their Bench, because, in my view, places of worship of all denominations need to be addressed by the Bill.

Make no mistake: Jewish people are leaving the UK as they no longer feel safe, particularly with the marches threatening to come back. I was in Israel last week on a parliamentary Conservative Friends of Israel trip, and Israelis were asking me, “Is it safe to be in London or Manchester any more?”. Businesspeople, academics, scientists, tourists and clerics are all nervous about coming to the UK. As we know, by the way, the marches in Westcliff-on-Sea led to synagogue attendance falling, which cannot be acceptable. We now need to be ahead of the protesters, not behind them. We need to protect faith schools and community centres.

Indeed, there have already been protests outside a Jewish community centre; there is one called JW3, which I support. When protesters were outside it on 27 October, there were unpleasant and aggressive slogans, and the police were powerless to move them on. Ironically, they were protesting at an event which was a conference to talk about future peace progress, with Palestinian representatives speaking.

My amendments attempt to pre-empt what we fear will happen after Clause 124 is passed. I have the support of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, of the Jewish Leadership Council—I declare that I serve as a vice-president—and of the Community Security Trust. All these organisations urge that my amendments be passed. As the noble Lord, Lord Walney, said the other day, these proposals do not conflict with anything the Macdonald review might say. The Government need no persuasion of this, because they themselves have proposed Clause 124 and Amendment 372, both of which would ordinarily be covered by the Macdonald review. There is no reason, then, to wait for his report to put through the proposed amendments.

I hope that by Report, the Minister will be able to signal his acceptance of these amendments, because we will keep pressing them. I am sure that the Government will want to play their part in trying to dial down the anti-Israel, and consequently antisemitic, febrile activities and mood. In my opinion, it is most unfortunate that the Government chose to recognise the State of Palestine when they did. This risked giving the organisations of protest the message that their aggressive and unpleasant actions were being rewarded. The Government now have an opportunity to try to show some even-handedness. I beg to move.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support these amendments for the reasons that have been mentioned. Lists are always difficult, because wherever you draw the line, there may be another group to be added, but this is a sensible pair of additions to the definition as applied in the Bill. It is difficult, not least because this week we have seen complaints about what is happening in Notting Hill, where an Israeli restaurant seems to have had a protest directly outside it for no other reason than that it happens to be Israeli. This does not seem to have anything to do with the people attending or running the place, other than the connection to Israel. No matter where we draw the line on the list, there may always be others to add. But if we cannot protect children, and we cannot protect where minority and faith groups gather to share their faith, then our society will probably be worse for it. Providing this definition will make the police’s job easier. While others may argue for more to be added to the list, these are two reasonable, well-founded additions.

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

My Lords, I share the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, that senior police officers do not always act as they should. On Tuesday in particular, I expressed that concern in these proceedings and was rather rebuffed by the Minister. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that I do not believe that senior police officers in particular cannot generally be relied upon to act in the best interests of their community, but I urge the Government to beware of legislating in the confident expectation that they always will. The reservations of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, are justified. As he explained, Clause 124, if unamended, will permit a senior police officer to impose restrictions where processions or protests are

“in the vicinity of a place of worship and may intimidate persons of reasonable firmness”,

and deter them from attending

“a place of worship for the purpose of carrying out religious activities”,

or from actually carrying out such activities. As the noble Lord has explained, the amendments would add faith schools and faith community centres to list of institutions where conditions might be imposed.

On Tuesday, we went through considerable argument about the purposes of Clause 124. There was a great deal of discussion about protecting synagogues on successive Saturdays, and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has raised the important point that communities gather together, worship or carry out religious activities and celebrations in areas quite apart from synagogues. Bondi Beach, after all, is not a synagogue: it is a public beach where Hanukkah celebrations had been organised and were being attended by Jewish communities.

I add my voice to those of the noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe, and Lord Leigh of Hurley: our faith communities need protecting wherever they are gathering for the purposes of their faith. That said, I certainly agree, as does the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, with the extension of this power to cover religious activities at faith schools and faith community centres. That would be a proportionate protection, and well defined. Faith schools are a particular sensitivity, because they are principally for young people of given faiths, who may be damaged psychologically for life by being attacked in or in the vicinity of those schools. The same goes for faith community centres, where Sunday school activities or religious education may be taking place. Of course, this is of particular importance to the Jewish community in the present climate, in the light of the horrific attacks that have taken place, about which we have heard a great deal. But it is also very important that Muslim faith schools and community centres should be protected too in the presence of considerable xenophobia and Islamophobia.

We need these protections; we need to combat the fear that is now beginning to permeate the whole of our national life, and which has a really unpleasant and damaging effect. It destroys community cohesion, national spirit and the tolerance for which this country has long been famous.

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We cannot uninvent facial recognition technology, and nor should we want to. It is already here and we cannot turn back the clock. However, we can set legal limits on how it is used and what happens to the mass of data it collects about innocent citizens. That is what we have done for decades with fingerprints and DNA. At long last, just before Christmas, this Government, to their credit, launched a consultation on facial recognition technology, which might or might not lead to legislation sometime in the future. In the meantime, Amendment 379 would put a hold on using facial recognition technology for the mass surveillance of protesters until the essential statutory rules and oversight are in place. For that reason, I commend it wholeheartedly to the House.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I agree and disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, in equal measure, which may surprise him. On the protest point, he reaffirmed what I tried to say the other day, which is that the ECHR does not give the term “facilitation of protest”, but the police have given that term and put that sobriquet over the articles. The danger is—and I am afraid it is what materialised—that it has been interpreted as almost arranging some of the protests rather than the simplistic expression of “facilitation”. I do not think that we are a mile apart on it, but I come at it from a slightly different angle.

I think that facial recognition is an incredibly good thing. People during the debate have agreed that it has a value. It has two purposes: one is to try retrospectively to match a crime scene suspect with the database that the police hold of convicted people; and the other one, which has caused more concern and on which there may be common ground, is about the live use of it.

One thing that I think needs to be amplified—the Minister may mention it when he responds—is that the Court of Appeal has decided that the police use of facial recognition is legal. However, it did raise concerns—this is where I certainly agree with the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Doocey, who already made this point—that it needs to treat all people equally. It is not okay to have a high failure rate against one group by race and a different success rate against another race. That is not acceptable. I was surprised, as I know the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, was, when this had not been made public and was discovered in whatever way it was discovered. That needs to be got right. There is no justification for that error rate, and it must be resolved.

Secondly, this may surprise the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, but I agree that there should be more regulation of its use, and that it should be regulation by Parliament, not by the police. Where I disagree is on whether this Act, and this proposed amendment, is the right way to do it. We are going to have to learn, first, how the technology works, how it is applied by the police, where its benefits are and where its risks are. I also agree that there ought to be independent oversight of it and that anybody who is offended by its use should have the opportunity to get someone to check into it to see whether it has been misused. They should also be provided with a remedy. A remedy may be financial compensation, but I would argue that it is probably better that something happens to the database to make it less likely to be ineffective in the future. There needs to be some reassurance that somebody is improving this system rather than not. I am for facial recognition, but there should be regulation and I do not think that this Act is the right time. As has already been said, the consultation that started just before Christmas and concludes, I think, in February will give us a good way forward, but it will need a bit more thought than this Bill, when it becomes an Act, might offer us.

Finally, there are an awful lot of regulators out there, and we all pay for them. There are surveillance commissioners, intrusive surveillance commissioners and biometric commissioners. They are all examining the same area—if they ever get together and decide to have one commissioner to look at the lot, we would probably save quite a lot of money. This is an area in which the existing commissioners probably could do two things. One is to regulate and the other, potentially, is to approve, either in retrospect or prospectively depending on the emergency or the urgency with which it should be used. There is therefore some need for help but, for me, I do not think that this Bill is the right opportunity.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have signed this amendment because I think it is very sensible and covers some ground that really needs tackling. It would ensure that the police could not use live facial recognition technology when imposing conditions on public assemblies or processions under Sections 12 or 14 unless a new specific code of practice governing its use in public spaces has first been formally approved by both Houses of Parliament—that sounds quite democratic, does it not? It is intended to safeguard public privacy and civil liberties by requiring democratic oversight before this surveillance technology is deployed in such contexts.

It is always interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, former Met Commissioner, on the tiny little areas where we do overlap in agreement; I think it is very healthy. However, I disagree deeply when he says this is not the legislation and it should be something else. We keep hearing that. I cannot tell noble Lords how many times I, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, have raised this issue here in Parliament and in other places. The noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, asked a quite interesting question: why should we care? Quite honestly, I care because I believe in justice and in fairness, and I want those in society. As I pointed out yesterday, I am a highly privileged white female; I have been arrested, but I was de-arrested almost immediately by the Met Police when all the surrounding people started saying, “Do you know who she is?” and they immediately took the handcuffs off.

At some point we have to accept that this needs regulation. We cannot accept that the police constantly mark their own homework. We were reassured that all the flaws in the algorithm and so on had been fixed, but clearly we cannot be sure of that because we do not have any way of knowing exactly what the flaws were and who has fixed them. Live facial recognition represents a huge departure from long-established principles of British policing. In this country, people are not required to identify themselves to the police unless they are suspected of wrongdoing. Live facial recognition turns that principle on its head by subjecting everyone in range of a camera to an automated identity check. It treats innocent members of the public as potential suspects and undermines the presumption of innocence.

I disagree deeply with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, when he says that it is not a blanket surveillance tool—of course it is. It is a blanket surveillance tool and is highly dangerous from that point of view. It is a mass biometric surveillance tool. It scans faces in real time, retains images of those flagged by the system and does so without individuals’ knowledge or consent.

If the police randomly stopped people in the street to check their fingerprints against a database, for example, we would rightly be alarmed. Live facial recognition performs the same function, only invisibly and at scale. Its use in the context of protest is a dangerous crossing of a constitutional line. We already have evidence that facial recognition has been deployed at demos and major public events, with a chilling effect on lawful protest. People will not go to these protests because they feel vulnerable. They are deterred from exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly because they fear being identified, tracked or wrongly stopped. While this amendment proposes a safeguard through parliamentary approval of a statutory code, we should not allow that to imply acceptance of live facial recognition at protests in principle. In my view, this technology has absolutely no place in the policing of democratic dissent.

We should reflect on the broader direction of travel. Live facial recognition is most enthusiastically embraced by authoritarian regimes, while a number of democratic countries have moved to restrict or even prohibit its use. That alone should surely give this Government pause to reflect on whether this is the right legislation to bring in. Independent observers have witnessed cases in which live facial recognition has misidentified children in school uniform, leading to lengthy and very distressing police stops. In some instances, those wrongly flagged were young black children, subjected to aggressive questioning and fingerprinting despite having done nothing wrong. What safeguards are in place to prevent misidentification, particularly of children and people from UK minority-ethnic communities? That is a basic question that we should be asking before we pass this legislation. I support the amendment as an essential check, but I hope that this debate sends a wider message that Parliament will not allow the routine use of intrusive biometric surveillance to become the price of exercising fundamental democratic rights.

I want to pick up something that the Minister said on Tuesday. He directed the Committee to the front page of the Bill and said that, in his view, the Bill was compliant with the ECHR. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, pointed out, that is his belief and his view. It is absolutely not a certificate of accuracy. I am not suggesting for one moment that there is any intent to deceive; I am merely saying that it is not a certificate of truth. With claims about seemingly authoritarian laws being compliant with human rights, that assessment can be challenged and should be challenged as much as possible. It remains subjective and is challenged by the organisation Justice, for example. We are clearly going to disagree about a lot in this Bill, but we are trying our best over here to make the law fair and representative of a justice that we think should exist here in Britain.

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[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

Before the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, sits down, can he address an issue that none of us has addressed yet? These amendments concern the state’s use of facial recognition, for all the reasons that we have talked about. But the private sector is far in advance of this. Some 12 or 13 years ago, it was using a product called Facewatch, which was started at Gordon’s Wine Bar because Gordon was sick of people walking into the bar and either violently assaulting his patrons or stealing things. He put a clever camera on the door and patrons did not get into the bar if they had been accused of something in the past. That product has moved right around the world, and certainly it is extensively used in the UK in different settings.

I am not arguing that that is good or bad; I merely observe that, if we end up in a position where the police have less access to something that can be a good technology, and private commerce is getting benefits that presumably it is able to justify, that inequality of arms does not benefit anyone. It should at least be considered in the consultation that the Government started, which is particularly focused on the police. But as well as the police, we should consider airports, railway stations, et cetera.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Very briefly, I do not think that the noble Lord is making a bad case at all. Live facial recognition, whether in the hands of the public sector or the private sector, needs a proper legal framework: there is no doubt about that. My noble friend made it clear that we believe it is a useful technology, but, the more useful it is, the more we need to make sure that it is under proper control.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I am quite open- minded about the clause on face coverings and whether it is a good or bad thing to have face coverings at protests. I have just a couple of points for the Government in considering whether to change the provisions in any way.

First, imposing more conditions, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, suggested, to narrow the provisions might be laudable but will make them harder and harder to enforce. The officers on the street can take action only on what they see, and if the person alleges that they have a member of their family in Iran, or wherever it happens to be, it will be quite hard for the officer on the street, so it may make no difference at all to the initial action. At the ongoing investigation and prosecution that might follow, they may then want to rebut—if they intend to—the claim that that defence is available. It will impose more burden on the prosecution, so we must be very careful about the conditions that we impose on it.

Secondly, although we tend to think about face masks being worn by only some people in the crowd, we could anticipate that everybody in the crowd wears a mask. If that is the case, it can be quite intimidating, and it makes normal policing quite difficult to embark on. For example, one way in which you would notice if someone has a bail condition that they should not attend a protest is whether you can recognise them. In terms of general investigation, if everybody has a mask, it is quite difficult to distinguish one person from another. We might anticipate some of the things that we saw in the 1930s. We have the Public Order Act 1936, which was intended to stop people from wearing uniforms. It could become a kind of uniform, or at least an aspect of a uniform, to signify support for a political purpose.

This clause needs some thought if it is to go forward. I ask for as much consideration as possible for the enforcers, who will be criticised if they get it wrong, but we can anticipate now whether they might be left in an invidious position.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I rather agree with the noble Lord’s concern about how ever more protest laws are to be operated in practice by police officers, who are dealing with a growing and ever more complex statute book. But I wonder what he thinks about the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, that the powers already exist to require and direct people to remove a mask, which could be done to individuals. In the hypothetical situation that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, gives of everyone wearing a mask as a form of intimidatory uniform, what does he think about the fact that the power already exists? What is an officer to do, faced with those duplicative powers and offences?

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

It is a fair question. I would only say that, generally speaking, if you have a large crowd and a significant number within it wearing masks, the chances of you telling them all to take them off are very limited. If I understand the proposal, it is to prevent people arriving at the march with a mask rather than having to deal with it once they arrive. If you have to deal with it, you will have to deal with it. That is the only thing I would say: having allowed people to mask up, you cannot then expect officers to deal with a crowd of 5,000 or 6,000—it is just impractical. That is the argument against it, but I understand why the argument is made.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I broadly agree with the excellent comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, in moving this, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. I was reminded, when the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, reminded us of the exemptions, that retrospectively, having been arrested or having had your mask removed, or what have you, you can say, “I was wearing this mask for health reasons”, or for work reasons, or for religious observance. The fact that there are exemptions for those reasons and not for others indicates what a ridiculous situation it is. Why have those three things only as reasons why you are allowed to wear masks? Let us just think about it. At what work would you be allowed to wear a mask? Could you say, “Well, I deliver pizzas so I have a helmet on”? Everyone could then turn up wearing a helmet saying that it was to do with their work. That just does not make any sense.

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[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I happen to support these clauses, but I have the same concern as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that this has been drawn rather too narrowly and there may be areas that may have to be considered.

Secondly, the noble Lord is quite right: the clauses give this power to the police to prevent crimes being committed. What happens if the police get it wrong? We all know what happened with the sus law and reasonable grounds to suspect: they suspected and stopped people again and again, and nothing was actually worth suspecting. I do not want an answer; I want the possibility of considering what will happen if the police get it wrong. We have the Birmingham question still; I do not want to talk about it, because there are inquiries going on. What measures does the noble Lord want to address the particular conundrum that is there?

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I add this, to save time. I know people are trying to expand the number of conditions, but I would like us not to run away with the assumption that the work face mask makes sense. Intuitively, it does, but I do not understand the paint sprayer who is at a protest wearing their mask. They are either at the protest or at work; I am not sure why they are wearing the mask at the protest. I do not understand that juxtaposition, and it may be for the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, to consider as well.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, time is pressing for the response, but that is largely due to interventions. I say to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, that the main objective of the police in this process will be to ensure that there is a peaceful demonstration, with no trouble for the community at large. If the police overpolice an issue, that is potentially an area where trouble can commence. So I give the judgment to the police to do this in a proper and effective way.

A number of comments have been made, and we will always reflect on those comments, but I stick, particularly because of time, to the contention that the clauses should stand part of the Bill.

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[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I have a couple of amendments in this group. First, I say to the right reverend Prelate that the peaceful religious processions that he had in mind, such as those at Easter, were not the sort of processions that the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police had in mind when he recently said something to the effect of him having seen an appalling increase in aggro and violence in demonstrations, and that:

“The intolerable has become normalised”.


That is quite different from the peaceful processions that the right reverend Prelate had in mind.

Before I turn to my amendments, I want to say how much I enjoyed the Minister’s winding-up speech in the previous debate. He was in absolutely top form, especially in his demolition of the noble Lord, Lord Marks. I suspect that most of the best bits in his speech were not written by his officials; I shall treasure them. I hope that I do not become a victim of such a wonderful oration against me.

I have two amendments in this group. The first is quite small, simple and titchy, and the second is slightly more complicated.

Clause 122(2) says:

“It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they—


(a) had a good reason for climbing on the specified memorial,


(b) were the owner or occupier of the specified memorial, or


(c) had the consent of the owner or occupier”


to do so. My first amendment would delete the general excuse of having a “good reason”. The only defences left for a person charged with an offence under Clause 122 would be that they were the owner or occupier of the memorial or had the consent of the owner or occupier to climb on it. I wonder about “occupier”; I presume that that is to cover memorials that are not just statues but buildings, such as the Hall of Memory in Birmingham. I would be grateful for a slight elucidation on what is meant by the occupier of a memorial.

I turn to the proposed new clause in my Amendment 378B. It is simple in principle but looks a bit complicated. It simply reproduces the operative test, as well as the definition of “community”, in the Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023 and would put them in the Bill, giving them primary law status. This would improve legal certainty and parliamentary scrutiny.

Many clauses in the Bill, and many of the amendments, speak of

“serious disruption to the life of the community”.

We may conclude from this that the disruption must be pretty serious indeed to qualify as “serious”. However, that is not the case since the previous Government passed the 2023 regulations, which defined and, some commentators would say, diluted the concept of serious disruption.

In plain terms, my proposed new clause would place in the Bill all the illustrative examples and interpretive tests introduced in the Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations. As I suggested, those regulations make amendments to provisions in the Public Order Act 1986 concerning the meaning of the expression

“serious disruption to the life of the community”.

Section 12 of the Act gives the police the power to impose conditions on people organising and taking part in public processions. A senior police officer can exercise this power if they reasonably believe that a procession may result in

“serious disruption to the life of the community”.

Serious disruption to the life of the community is not defined in the Act itself, but Section 12(2A) sets out a non-exhaustive list of examples that may constitute serious disruption.

The 2023 regulations refine that list. The amendments to Section 12(2A) and (2B) of the Act also provide that, when considering whether a public procession in England and Wales may result in serious disruption, a senior police officer must take into account the disruption that may occur regardless of whether the procession is held, as well as the disruption that may result from the procession, and may take into account the cumulative disruption that may be caused by more than one public procession or public assembly in the same area. The amendments also provide that the term “community” extends to anyone who may be affected by the public procession regardless of whether they live or work in the vicinity of the procession. They state that “disruption” is anything

“that is more than minor”,

in particular to

“the making of a journey”

or access to goods and services. The regulations define this as

“access to any essential goods or any essential service”,

including access to

“the supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel … a system of communication … a place of worship … a transport facility … an educational institution, or … a service relating to health”.

That is what the regulations say in redefining

“serious disruption to the life of the community”

in the Act. Although my amendment looks complicated, it simply suggests that those regulations should be incorporated into the Bill as primary legislation. Transferring the regulations into the Bill would bring legal clarity—the police, courts and organisers would read the statutory test directly from the Act rather than a separate statutory instrument, reducing uncertainty about where the operative tests are located. It would mirror the stated purposes of the 2023 regulations to provide greater clarity. It would bring consistency of application—putting the tests in primary legislation would reduce the risk of interpretive divergence between different SIs or guidance and make the threshold for imposing conditions more visible to Parliament and the public. The cumulative effects would be preserved—the clause could, and should, reproduce the regulations’ treatment of cumulative effects so that multiple impacts are properly captured, as the regulations already contemplate cumulative assessment.

Of course, the Minister will say that embedding illustrative examples in primary law makes future policy adjustments harder and might require primary legislation and time to respond to unforeseen operational guidance. However, I suggest that retaining my proposed new clause, to secure clarity and parliamentary oversight but add a short delegated powers safeguard—a power to change it in future by regulations—would be perfectly okay.

I support Amendment 369A on pyrotechnics at protests tabled by my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower on the Front Bench, but it does not go far enough. I cannot think of any lawful excuse for possessing pyrotechnic articles while taking part in a protest. Protests are a vital part of our democratic life. They are a place for voices to be heard, grievances to be aired and change to be sought. But they are not a place for devices that can cause panic, injury or irreversible escalation. Pyrotechnics are designed to startle, burn, explode and smoke; they are not tools of peaceful persuasion. To allow a defence based on an honestly held political belief risks turning lawful protest into a dangerous theatre of risk and fear. Public safety must be paramount.

There are a few other things I could say about pyrotechnics at protests, but I will cut short my remarks in the interests of time. I see no justification whatever for anyone to have pyrotechnics at any protest or for there to be a lawful defence for it.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support and have added my name to Amendment 382H. I also support the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. My support is based on the concerns over and consequences of the Ziegler case. Noble Lords have said today that it was wrong in law, but that is not for me to say. The policy consequences for policing the streets of this country have been profound and negative, particularly in the area of public protest and disorder policing.

The Ziegler case was one of the simplest offences to prove in the criminal law. It was an offence of wilful obstruction of the highway. There were only three parts to prove; it was wilful, it was obstruction and they were on a highway. That was the offence, and it is one of the simplest we have policed over the years. It became complex only when people alleged that there was a reasonable excuse—for which read “a political purpose”—for their obstruction of the highway.

In the past, all the police needed to prove was that it was a highway—which is well established in law—that it had been obstructed and, usually, that they had asked someone to move on and they had either returned or not moved. That was about as complicated as it was. But as soon as you have to import intent, recklessness or reasonable excuse, the offence starts to become more complex and the police have to think carefully before intervening. I know that in this House people sometimes talk about the police being careless with the law, reactive and reactionary—I am not talking about any individual; I am just saying, as a general comment, that it has been said—but my experience is that, on the whole, they try to get it right and to balance everybody’s rights, often in very difficult circumstances.

My reading of Ziegler is that the Supreme Court seemed to say that dealing with obstruction of the highway is far too simple when dealing with protesters—that it is okay for everybody else but for protesters it gets a little more complicated. The Supreme Court ruled that the exercise of the convention rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association, sometimes grouped together as the right to protest, constituted a lawful excuse, which means that before a person can be convicted for obstructing the highway, the prosecution must prove that a conviction would be a proportionate, and thus justified, interference with that person’s convention rights. The Ziegler judgment has caused very real difficulties for police in dealing with environmental and many other protests and, I argue, for judges in attempting to run trials fairly and efficiently and instruct juries about what must be proved.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I have had 30 years in Parliament, not all in this House, and I have used it occasionally and had it used against me occasionally. It is unnecessary given that we have had the legislation on the statute book to date. The noble Earl asks the quite reasonable question of how the M25 gets blocked. I put it to him that this House, this Government, this Parliament and any other parliament passes legislation. It is not for Ministers to implement that: it is for the local police, at a local level, to take a judgment on the legislation at that time. In the cases where there is legislation on the statute book, the police could exercise that legislation. They may or may not choose to do so, because it may inflame the situation or not. It is a matter for judgment by the local police. I simply say to him that the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, are already in place. For that reason, I ask him to not to press them.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, raised the issue of facilitating protest, which is often cited. It made me think, “I don’t know where that is”. I have just had a quick look, and I do not think it exists. I think Article 11 of the ECHR suggests that the police should not inhibit public protests and certainly should not try to intimidate protesters; that is different from making it sound as though they are there to market protest or to be the arrangers of protests so that they achieve their aim. The trouble is that the police have got into that mindset. They would have to do everything to protect the protester and, if they are not careful, forget the rest. That is why I challenge the Minister, not because I think it is badly intended but because I do not think it is accurate in terms of the ECHR.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will take that as a comment for me and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, to reflect on, but I maintain the position. The police have a difficult job. Legislation is in place currently, and the proposals brought forward would replicate that. I am trying to sit down, but I see the noble Lord, Lord Harper, so once again I will take an intervention.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

Not so far as I know.

It was absolutely farcical, but not very funny, when you consider that the hundreds of police officers involved had far more useful things that they could have been doing. But it seems even that was not enough for the Government. Through this Bill, they are attempting to introduce a raft of further constraints on the right of the British people to express themselves via peaceful street demonstrations.

The law surrounding protest is in a complete mess. Recent legislation has been knee-jerk and reactionary, leaving the legal landscape a complete muddle. Police often struggle to know how to police demonstrations properly, which usually leads to excessive heavy-handed policing and people being charged with all sorts of offences when they may not have been. This has also made the law extremely unpredictable: the mission creep of legislation and case law over recent years has meant that there is now a raft of serious criminal offences —that is, indictable offences—tried in the Crown Court that are no doubt adding to the unacceptable backlog in the courts. It is very easy for someone to attend a peaceful demonstration and inadvertently commit an offence or a more serious offence than they would have reasonably expected their conduct to amount to.

For example, a protester who temporarily blocks a road—as many do—would historically have been charged with wilful obstruction of the highway under Section 137 of the Highways Act. This was a summary-only offence, which used to have a maximum sentence of a fine, although this was increased to six months’ custody in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023 introduced a new offence of interfering with national infrastructure, which includes all A and B roads, with a maximum sentence of 12 months’ custody. Section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 also created a new statutory offence of public nuisance, which only requires the doing of an act that obstructs a public right. This is far wider than the old common-law offence that required the obstruction to be “significant”. The effect of all the above, as an illustration, is that someone who stands or sits in a road, as part of a protest, could be charged with any of the four offences that I have just mentioned. There is no real consistency in the charging decisions between different police forces or different CPS regions, meaning that people are often charged with very serious offences for minor conduct. There have even been cases in which different people are charged with different offences arising from identical conduct at the same protest.

The various laws about protest overlap with each other and have not been developed as a coherent framework. Protesters and police are unsure about which laws apply in particular situations. This results in inadvertently heavy-handed policing, inconsistent prosecution, miscarriages of justice, waste of the public purse and clogging up the courts. More importantly, it results in a cumulative chilling effect on our democracy and a stifling of debate. It is high time that the disorganised and disjointed framework of statutes covering the democratically vital activity of protest is subject to a root-and-branch review—one that is truly independent and thorough—and that is precisely what Amendment 371 calls for.

However, since Amendment 371 was laid, the Government have announced a review of public order and hate crime legislation. It is being chaired by the noble Lord, Macdonald of River Glaven, for whom I have the greatest respect. But the terms of reference for the review seem to be focused rather narrowly and do not appear to cover the matters I have just raised—namely, the unco-ordinated and overlapping legislation on protests. I doubt that, in the short period until the review reports next month, the noble Lord will be able to examine the different approaches to arresting and charging between the different police forces. Perhaps the Minister can reassure the Committee that the current review will be broad enough to cover all the shortfalls in the existing regime I have outlined. If he cannot give that assurance, Amendment 371 will need to be passed on Report to generate the full review that is needed.

Amendment 369, if passed, will hopefully prevent future Governments cumulatively eroding protest rights, as has been customary for the last few years.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I would vote against Amendment 371. It is a difficult area and there has to be balance. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, put it very well. We get more disruption from Remembrance Day every year across the country because roads are closed and people cannot do what they want to do. There are many times in society when we do things which cause disruption to others, but, if pushed, I would be more towards the position of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, than I would Amendment 371.

I have three points to make on Amendment 371. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, it duplicates what is already in the convention rights, and I cannot see the purpose of that. Secondly, it says nothing about the basic dilemma, which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, demonstrated very well: most protest is intended to cause disruption in order to attract attention. People say that causing disruption is a right in a democracy, and I agree with that entirely, but I have to say that it is one of the most inefficient mechanisms for getting an argument over. A guy shouted about Brexit outside my office for about three years. All I could hear was one word about not liking Brexit; I never heard what his argument was. I am not sure a protest ever does any of that. It just attracts attention.

Disruption does cause that attention, but making Amendment 371 the only reason why the police would have to decide whether a march went ahead and if conditions were to be imposed would not address that basic dilemma. Nor would it address the dilemma that mass disobedience has, as the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, said, achieved far more in the way of democratic change than many forms of parliamentary intervention. It is a mechanism, but a balance has to be struck. Individuals have a right, in addition to the police allowing them to do so, to make sure they can get to a hospital or that a fire engine can get through when it needs to, rather than simply when someone concludes that they will let it through.

Thirdly, the criminal law is the wrong place to state convention rights. If you are going to state them, there may be a place in law, but the criminal law is for declaring offences. If you want to start declaring rights, you might want to start declaring human responsibilities. The start of the Human Rights Act talks about human responsibilities but never got around to providing any enforcement mechanisms. All those things we ought to have as duties towards each other are articulated nowhere. Protestors can have their right to protest, but they do not have to worry about the rights of the poor child who cannot get to school or people who are trying to attend a place of worship. They have rights too, but the protestor apparently does not have to balance their rights when considering exercising his or her own.

My final point is a direct challenge to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, who I really like and respect, and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, was quite right: it is quite unfair to criticise the police for arresting people at marches who are supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation. You may not like the proscription, but this place passed the legislation. We also passed legislation saying that it is an offence to support a proscribed organisation. Therefore, if you start waving banners about and saying you support these organisations, there will be a consequence. I do not see how it is okay to argue that the police, in taking action on the laws we passed, are doing something wrong. You may not agree with the law, but it is not right to blame the police for exercising it. That is a confusion that has arisen over the last few months, and it is one we can put right.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

The objection was to the way that terrorism legislation was misused to, in effect, suppress protest. It was misused by combining as a group Palestine Action with two other desperately terrorist organisations, so that MPs and Peers had no opportunity to decide on one and not the other two. It was a bit of a fix.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I understand the point from the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. My only challenge is that I do not think it is fair or accurate to blame the police for that confusion. I would stand up for the police, of course, but it would be better of this place to acknowledge that dilemma without blaming them for exercising the powers that we gave them.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, the hour is late, so I will resist the temptation to go further into the rights and wrongs and logical inconsistencies of some noble Lords’ views on the proscription of Palestine Action.

I hope that I offer the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lords Strasburger, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, some reassurance that, in my view, they do not necessarily need to put Amendment 371 on the statute book or even wait for the review lead by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald. There is an excellent review into protest law, Protecting our Democracy from Coercion, which I was privileged to lay before the House in my then role as the Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption. The review covers this whole area. I am pleased that the last Government enacted some of its recommendations, and I am still urging this Government to go somewhat further. It may not strike quite the same chord, but it is there, and it has been done. Some of the recommendations from that review are related to this topic, but they will come in later groupings, so we will get to them when we do.

I will offer a couple of brief thoughts on these fascinating amendments. Many noble Lords have mentioned the balance here, and clearly there is one. It is probably true that the amendments from noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, take a maximalist approach. I am not sure that even I would go that far, and it might well prove to be unworkable. However, it is important for any legislator looking at this area to understand where the public are on this. If we talk about defending democracy, but so gratuitously ignore and act against the very strongly held views of the public on this, then we are getting ourselves into a very difficult place.

None of this detracts from the right to protest. I mentioned my own review, which was published last year. In that review there is polling, which accords with a great deal of polling done by other sources, that shows just how strongly the public object to and oppose disruptive protests. Big majorities of the public are in favour of the right to protest, which is reassuring, but, as soon as it becomes disruptive, they oppose it by a margin of about nine to one.

The proposed new clause in Amendment 369 raises an interesting challenge by explicitly stating the right to protest. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is, of course, right that this is unnecessary, in the sense that the right is already enshrined in other areas. Further, where the proposers of this amendment seek to draw the balance glaringly omits the issue of disruption—it completely omits it.

The prospect of avoiding all disruption in protests is clearly not realistic and would go against the point. But we are in an era when much protest is increasingly organised and designed to cause significant economic damage through the disruption of people’s daily lives, often preventing working people from getting to work. I am seeing senior trade unionists scowl at me for making this point, but I would just ask those who have been in trade unions to consider what it feels like for working people to be stopped from being able to go to their workplace and contribute fairly, and being intimidated and shouted at as they go through the doors of their factory or try to go through them and are blocked.

Any attempt to place a balance, whether it is on the statute book, or in an attempt to create new laws, or to shift that balance, which does not acknowledge the harmful effect of disruptive protests on the economy or acknowledge that these things need to be properly balanced, is destined to make very bad law and be intensely unpopular with the public.