Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Meston Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, to avoid any later confusion or doubt, I should explain that, on behalf of the unavoidably absent noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I will be speaking to her Amendment 284 on the mandatory reporting duty. It is in a slightly different context, as it is not in the context of grooming gangs. I will not develop it at this stage but wait until that group is reached.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 247B, from the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch, seeks to advance and pre-empt the start of the work of the independent commission on grooming gangs. I would say to the noble Baroness that this process must be done properly rather than speedily, so that we can learn lessons for the future from what has happened.

To save the Minister the trouble, I will read to the noble Baroness a few morsels from the Government’s Statement, repeated here on 4 September, with which I agree:

“I know that everyone in the House and beyond wants to see the inquiry begin its work at the earliest opportunity. Colleagues will know that that requires the appointment of a chair and the agreement of terms of reference … Meaningful engagement with victims and survivors is paramount … this process must be done properly and thoroughly … three chairs were appointed and subsequently withdrew, from July 2014 onwards, prior to the eventual appointment of Professor Alexis Jay in 2016”


as the chair of IICSA—that shows how difficult it can be to get the right person—

“In line with the Inquiries Act 2025, the appointed chair will play a central role in shaping the commission’s terms of reference. These will be published and subject to consultation with stakeholders, including victims and survivors … The inquiry will begin by identifying priority areas for review … Where appropriate, the inquiry will issue recommendations at both local and national levels”.


Finally, the Minister said,

“we are determined to ensure that every survivor of grooming gangs gets the support and justice they deserve; that every perpetrator is put behind bars; that every case, historic or current, has been properly investigated; and that every person or institution who looked the other way is held accountable, as that is a stain on our society that should be finally removed for good”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/9/25; col. 162-63]

I agree with every word of that, and I hope all noble Lords do.

The Minister repeated some of those points only today, at Oral Questions. I wonder what it is that the noble Baroness does not agree with. I hope I can assume that we all have the same objective of obtaining justice for victims, and learning valuable lessons and doing it right, rather than soon.

Amendments 271B and 271C relate to the Sexual Offences Act 2003. I worked for many weeks on that Act, and I think it was comprehensive and carefully drafted in laying out the offences. I believe that there is—I have taken very senior legal advice on this—a danger in describing offences in too much minute detail. I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, will agree that it can make it more difficult to secure a conviction where a conviction should be secured, because additional elements need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. That could open defences which are not overall justified. I also cannot see how changing terminology would add to justice, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, suggests.

On Amendments 271D and 271E, from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, I refer him to other parts of the Statement repeated on 4 September. I am sure the Minister will assure him in response that the Government have outlined all the work that has already been started much earlier this year to investigate historical child abuse investigation failings. I will leave it to the Minister to do that.

I welcome the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, about the system of mandatory reporting that we are offered in the Bill as it stands; it is simply not good enough, and we will come to a very wide debate about that in group 8. I hope that she will then add her support to amendments to improve that system tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, as well as my colleagues, my noble friends Lady Featherstone and Lord Clement-Jones, and me.

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Moved by

[Lord Meston]

272: Clause 72, page 90, line 20, leave out “, they are given reason to suspect” and insert “and Wales, they know or suspect, or have reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting,”
Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to align the wording with that of the equivalent duty to report money laundering as stated in section 330(2) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and to extend the scope of the duty to cover Wales in addition to England.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson cannot be here and has asked me to speak to her amendments in this group, 12 in number, to which I had already added my name in support. I pay tribute to her dedicated campaigning on what we will now debate. All her amendments concern and seek to reinforce the Government’s decision to legislate for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse in a wide range of contexts.

My noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson’s amendments are based on her earlier Private Member’s Bill and echo amendments by her to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which was debated in June. I recall that in that debate the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to a need for a clear and comprehensive system of mandatory reporting. Following the work of IICSA, which highlighted the widespread and endemic nature of child sexual abuse, the Government’s decision to put forward the duty set out in Chapter 2 is welcome and should be supported—but I would say, only as far as it goes.

The main point of difference is that whereas the Bill does not expressly provide for sanctions for non-compliance with the duty, many of us wish the duty to be underpinned by criminal sanctions, as IICSA recommended. Quite simply, a lesser sanction such as a possible referral to a professional regulator or to the Disclosure and Barring Service is not enough to enforce the new and important duty. We will get to this shortly with Amendment 280.

Before we move on, I would like to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, was quite correct to emphasise the wide range of situations in which abuse can occur. It is not just child grooming gangs, well-known celebrity abuse cases or cases involving institutions such as churches or schools; the reality is that the majority of child sexual abuse occurs in domestic and family situations. It is therefore welcome that this Bill will potentially cover such a wide range of scenarios.

As someone who spent much of his working life dealing with child abuse cases, I suggest that these basic points should inform the debate on this part of the Bill and the amendments to it. First, safeguarding children should be seen as the responsibility of everyone. I quote my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson:

“A well-designed mandatory reporting law is a key component of an effective safeguarding system”.—[Official Report, 17/1/25; col. 1382.]


I would add that a positive duty to report, with sanctions, is the only certain way of ensuring that steps will be promptly taken to investigate and prevent abuse when it is revealed or suspected.

Secondly, and fundamentally, doing nothing when suspicions of abuse are aroused should not be seen as an option. A failure to report is a culpable failure to protect, and it is a failure to prevent harm to the child concerned and to other children at risk. Thirdly, a child who has the courage to disclose abuse needs to be reassured that his or her anxieties will be quickly and properly dealt with. Fourthly, a strong mandatory law will convey to potential perpetrators that abuse will not be tolerated. Finally, difficult cases concerning historic sexual abuse, whether one likes that term or not, arise in all jurisdictional areas. These require courts to deal with alleged abuse that may have been undetected and/or unreported for many years. A later group of amendments will consider these. In the context of this group, I suggest that a duty to report suspicions of abuse as soon as possible should reduce the number of such historic cases, with all their evidential and emotional complexities.

I turn to the individual amendments. Amendment 272 aims to align the wording of the Bill with that of the equivalent duty to report money laundering in Section 330 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and to extend the duty to cover Wales as well as England. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, makes the point that for the past 23 years the country has protected money in ways in which it has not yet protected children. I have compared other formulations of positive duties elsewhere—for example, in the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Female Genital Mutilation Act—and submit that what the amendment here proposes is clearer and more incisive than the wording in the Bill.

Amendment 274 would ensure that any report goes to the local authority that has the duty to protect the child, investigating the child’s circumstances and putting in place therapeutic treatment as well as protective measures. The local authority already has a duty to work with the police and to pass reports on to them if there is evidence of an offence. Amendment 275 is consequential.

Amendment 276 would ensure that a report is made in cases of suspected offences occurring outside England and Wales. Amendment 277 seeks to align the duty with existing statutory guidance, which expects a report to be made as soon as practicable. If there is a risk to the life or safety of a relevant child, the guidance expects the report to be expedited rather than delayed in order to enable fast consideration of necessary intervention.

Amendment 278 would remove the scope for people not to report when they believe that someone else will do so. Experience shows—certainly this is my own experience—that that is just one of the many ways in which people with knowledge or suspicion of abuse will convince themselves that it is all right to do nothing, and to hope that the problem will go away.

Amendment 279 is intended to make it clear that the management and proprietors of a setting have the duty to report suspected abuse—for example, when suspicions are reported to management by other staff. It should not be a prerequisite to have had any direct contact with the child, nor should it be an excuse that they did not have any direct contact with the child. It is not the responsibility or function of management to consider the merits of the complaint; they have a straightforward responsibility to report concerns.

Amendment 280 would make failure to report a criminal offence, and this is perhaps the central amendment as far as we are concerned. The IICSA report made a balanced and carefully considered recommendation that it should be, providing for defences as indicated in the amendment. I suggest that criminalising a failure to report is justified in helping to reduce a significant risk of substantial harm to children. Paragraph 116 of the IICSA report states:

“Where an individual to whom mandatory reporting laws apply has witnessed or received a disclosure of child sexual abuse, it should be a criminal offence to fail to report that to the relevant local authority or police force. Such a failure would amount to a deliberate decision not to pass on information about child sexual abuse to those authorities empowered to protect children from harm and to prevent future abuse by investigating and prosecuting it when it occurs. For those who work with children or are in a position of trust to fail to facilitate that is inexcusable, and the sanction for such an omission should be commensurate”.


Amendment 281 seeks to define “operators of a setting” in cases of private and corporate ownership, and Amendment 284 would clarify and describe the wide range of settings in which relevant activities covered by Clause 72 might occur. These are not exclusive lists, and I hope the Committee will recognise the wide extent of the activities that need to be covered. For example, the amendment refers outside mainstream religious organisations, to

“other organisations holding non-religious worldviews”.

That echoes cases I have dealt with involving sects and cults that are closed and secretive, and insist on loyalty.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Kennedy of Cradley) (Lab)]

Before we move on, I clarify that the lead amendment in this group, Amendment 271F, was not moved so we have moved on to Amendment 272, which has been proposed as the lead amendment, and the group will continue as normal.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

Thank you for that. I was slightly confused, because the first amendment in the group was not moved.

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, this follows on very well because I will speak to Amendment 283 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, which would insert after Clause 72 the offence of intentionally concealing child sex abuse.

There is a real problem—and it is an omission from the Bill—because leadership and supervisory roles are completely excluded from the reporting duty. The duty applies only to individuals in contact with children, but we in this House and elsewhere all know that it is not just the social workers, the medics or the police who have direct contact with the child who know that there is sexual abuse at play. It is often the leaders, the CEOs, the chairs of boards, the staff who are too scared to mention it in case of reputational damage, and those in command who suppress incidents of child sexual abuse. This confines mandated reporters to only those who have regular unsupervised contact, creating a critical gap in the Bill.

It would be absolutely unforgivable to let this Bill to protect children go through with such a glaring gap in their protection. Furthermore, there are no criminal penalties proposed for failure to report, and without sanction it lacks teeth. An additional problem is that in two of the industrial-scale institutions of child sexual abuse that we have witnessed—the health service and religious institutions—confidentiality is a kind of get-out clause. We need to overcome that.

The UK Government launched the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which was explicitly tasked with uncovering the systemic failures that allowed such abuse to flourish untrammelled. The key recommendation was that the UK must introduce a mandatory reporting law for child sexual abuse. We welcome that this is now happening, but noble Lords have all encountered or understood that, very often, the protection of an institution, a company or an entity silences many who work in that institution but know what is going on, and that takes priority. That silence—actually silencing staff or members—is commonplace.

Look at the obvious ones, such as the Catholic Church. Across multiple countries, investigations found that Church leaders reassigned accused priests, maintained secret files and prioritised avoiding scandal over reporting allegations. Church of England independent reviews found that senior clergy discouraged reporting and protected accused individuals to avoid damaging the institution’s standing. In the health service, the BBC exposure of Jimmy Savile’s years of abuse demonstrated beyond belief how many people knew but said nothing. Internal discussions showed that investigations were discouraged or blocked due to concerns about reputation, and Savile’s celebrity and connections. In private schools and boarding schools, multiple inquiries documented quiet dismissals of staff and minimised complaints to preserve reputation, funding and donor relationships. It happens in sports clubs and organisations. Various youth sports organisations protected coaches, dismissed complaints and pressurised victims to stay quiet to maintain prestige. So often companies and institutions are too big to fail. They use threats or non-disclosure agreements and so on to cover up misdeeds in fear of reputational damage. This is intentional, and that is why this amendment would put a criminal offence of intentionally concealing knowledge of child sex abuse on to the statute book.

I have personal knowledge of such a case. In this instance, it was child abuse rather than child sexual abuse. Great Ormond Street, our national treasure, suppressed a report, the Sibert-Hodes report, that it had commissioned. It showed the hospital to have responsibility for the failing clinic where baby P, Peter Connelly, was taken multiple times with multiple injuries and subsequently died, and where it had employed an underqualified doctor who failed. In that clinic there were three other doctors, none of whom was present. Two were on gardening leave and the other had left.

Cover-ups are happening all the time. The Bill is an opportunity to stop this practice, where NDAs, threats and gardening leave are all used to prevent exposure. I believe this follows on from what the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is trying to do with her amendment; it would expand it. I hope and trust that the Government understand the importance of these amendments and move urgently to fill the gaping hole in this legislation as proposed.

While I am on my feet, I will speak to Amendment 287 in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, about training for those subject to the mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse. I am indebted to the NSPCC for its help on this vital aspect of this new duty. In this amendment we are seeking to make mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse a reality, because without training—proper training, probably expensive training—it will not happen as intended in the Bill. It is vital that all those responsible for reporting under the new duty be trained effectively so that they feel supported and able, and are effectively trained to a high standard on their obligations.

The new mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse has the potential to ensure that anyone working or volunteering with children knows that the sexual abuse of children cannot be tolerated or ignored. It will be illegal to tolerate or ignore it, and proper implementation must be embedded from the very start. Those who are responsible for reporting child sexual abuse must be properly trained to know what, how and where to report. The onus for ensuring this cannot rely solely on individual organisations. If this duty is to have a widespread impact, we need cross-sector, cross-government buy-in so that all reporters, no matter what organisation, community or area they come from, are empowered to protect children.

That is why this amendment is so vital: to ensure effective training for all mandated reporters within the mandatory reporting duty. Recognising, reporting and, crucially, responding to child sexual abuse is not easy or straightforward, because we know that disclosures from children do not usually happen in one conversation. They can happen in many forms, verbally or non-verbally, and emerge over a long period of time. They will often be the result of consistent and skilled engagement from a trusted adult that helps the child feel safe and ready to share their experiences.

Reporters may also struggle to decipher whether what they have seen is indeed child sexual abuse—such as if they came across child sexual abuse material online but were unsure of the age of the victim—particularly if they are not already trained to identify recognised signs and indicators of abuse. Their responsibility to the child cannot stop at disclosure or witnessing abuse. It is vital that any child who discloses their experience of abuse is met with an effective response.

We know that there is already a significant need for greater training and support for skilled professionals to improve their response to child sexual abuse, as detailed in the recent reports from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and the review into child exploitation of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. This is a gap in our child protection system that must be closed to better protect children, and this duty provides us with both the impetus and the opportunity to do so by taking a whole-system approach to embedding the duty. Therefore, those who are responsible for reporting on abuse and disclosures such as these must be trained not only in how to identify what child sexual abuse is, what a disclosure is and where to report it, but also in how to provide vital support to a child all the way through to after the report has been made and beyond.

This duty will apply not only to safeguarding professionals but to volunteers, sports coaches, youth club leaders and faith leaders, to name but a few. We cannot assume that all mandated reporters will already have the necessary understanding of child protection required to carry out their responsibilities under this really serious duty. This is essential, not only on the practical level of understanding the duty itself but, arguably more importantly, in providing this sensitive support to children in a way that does not put them at risk. My amendment seeks to ensure that an understanding of child protection is intrinsic to the duty, guaranteeing that all those with responsibility as a mandated reporter receive, at a minimum, initial and ongoing training—essential elements of their new responsibilities.

In conclusion, from how to recognise signs and indicators to judging when reporting should be delayed for the safety of the child, reporters must be supported. Otherwise, we risk putting children in danger of being harmed by the reporting process, in addition to the hurt they have already received. By baking this guarantee into primary legislation, the Government can be confident that their duty will be implemented and regulated consistently across different sectors. It would also reassure reporters that they will not face sanctions because the organisation they work or volunteer for cannot afford to resource and train them appropriately. We owe it to all the victims and survivors who have bravely called for a mandatory reporting duty over so many years to ensure that it is done properly.

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I suspect our debate today will not have resolved the long-standing disagreements over the duty’s design. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for moving the amendments. We have had a lot of discussion with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, both on her original Bill and on her amendments and outside the Committee, and I have discussed that in wide terms. We will reflect on all the debates and discussions that have been had today. I believe that the Government have a duty to get this right, and, as we plan ahead for implementation, I will be happy to arrange further meetings with any noble Lord or noble Baroness who has spoken today to ensure we are not losing sight of the valuable questions raised in this debate. But I cannot accept the amendments today, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, will withdraw his amendment. Obviously, we may return to this on Report, and the door is open to have further discussions on these matters.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, it is now appropriate for me to beg leave to withdraw Amendment 272, reserving our right to return to it, and others not moved, after proper discussion with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, when she has seen our debate—and read and marked my homework.

Amendment 272 withdrawn.