Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I follow the noble Baroness by apologising to your Lordships that I was not here for the commencement of the Minister’s speech, but I heard the great majority of what he said, and I was also present for the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Walney and Lord Pannick.

I want to emphasise my considerable support for subsection (4) of the new clause proposed by Amendment 311, which deals directly with the concerns that I expressed in Committee and on Report. I am deeply troubled by the fact that people who are expressing support for Palestine Action in the streets of London are in fact using shorthand simply to protest at what they think is going wrong in Gaza and the West Bank. I do not think that those people should be charged with or arrested for terrorism. The proposed new subsection deals directly with that, and I think it is a very useful way forward. I very much hope that in the review, or if any amendment to the Terrorism Act is brought forward, the provisions of that subsection would be incorporated into any change of law, because that subsection makes it plain that, unless somebody is doing something which is really in furtherance of a criminal offence, they are not to be treated as a terrorist simply for demonstrating.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

Before we have any other contributions, I remind your Lordships that there is a very clear rule here, that if one is not present in the Chamber for the beginning of a group it is unacceptable to participate. Apologising and then proceeding is not the way that we do it.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, just before we progress, while the noble Lord on the Woolsack is absolutely right in what he has just argued, I have just witnessed three Members of this House not complying with the Companion. While my noble friend was wrong to do what he did, it is not for the noble Lord on the Woolsack to point out failures of procedure—it is for the Government Chief Whip or Deputy Chief Whip, who is present, to do so. If we all start not meeting our own individual responsibilities or discharging them properly, none of us is going to be complying with the Companion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I urge noble Lords to support Amendment 334 and declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union. The Minister will tell noble Lords that the amendment is unnecessary because the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council have recommended the abolition of the non-crime hate incident regime and the Government have amended the Bill to repeal the statutory NCHI code of practice.

However, we knew all this when we voted for the amendment on Report. The Minister stood where he is about to stand and said all this a few weeks ago. The amendment repealing the code of practice had already sailed through unopposed. He told us what was going to be in the joint report and, lo, that is what is in the joint report. This was all priced in when this House decided to vote for the amendment. Nothing has changed, so there is no reason why any noble Lords should change their minds about supporting it.

I have already set out the case for the amendment, which I remind noble Lords was co-sponsored by the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, a Liberal Democrat, and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, a former Metropolitan Police commissioner, so I will not waste your Lordships’ time by repeating those arguments, but I would just like to make a couple of points.

The joint report, while welcome, has left some loose ends, such as: what will become of historic non-crime hate incidents sitting on police databases? Is there a risk that they will be disclosed in enhanced criminal record checks if a person applies for a job as a teacher or carer, as there was under the old regime? I remind noble Lords that one person had a NCHI recorded against his name for whistling the theme tune to “Bob the Builder” every time he saw his neighbour. Another was recorded for someone claiming that a newly elected independent councillor cared more about the people of Gaza than the people in his ward. That comment was recorded as a non-crime hate incident. The joint report had nothing to say about what would become of these historic NCHIs, and there are still tens of thousands, if not more, sitting on police databases.

Our amendment made some very modest demands to deal with this outstanding problem. The first version, which we tabled in Committee, asked for all historic NCHIs to be deleted, but at a meeting between the co-sponsors of the amendment and Sir Andy Marsh, the CEO of the College of Policing—and I am grateful to the Minister for arranging that meeting—we were told that for the police to go through all their databases and delete historic NCHIs would be a huge administrative undertaking and a waste of the police’s time.

We accepted that and revised our amendment. The version before noble Lords and on Report asks only that any NCHIs that the police come across in the course of their work be deleted, and not all of them but just those that do not meet the new, higher recording threshold of the successor regime. It would also ensure that if a member of the public discovered that an NCHI had been recorded against them via a subject access request—I remind noble Lords that members of the public are not always informed when they have NCHIs recorded against their names—and they requested that the NCHIs be deleted, the police acted on that request, provided that the NCHIs in question did not meet the new, higher recording threshold of the successor regime. These are modest demands. The noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Strasburger, and I listened to Sir Andy Marsh, and we came up with what we believe is a reasonable compromise.

The same is true when it comes to disclosure. Originally, our amendment asked the police to stop disclosing non-crimes in enhanced DBS checks altogether. No one, we thought, should be prevented from getting a job because they have committed a non-crime. But Sir Andy Marsh persuaded us that there are some very limited circumstances in which chief constables should disclose information about non-crimes in enhanced DBS checks: things employers should know—a point also made by several noble Lords during the debate in Committee. We accepted that too. So our amendment—the one we voted for on Report and which is before this House today—seeks to limit disclosure only to those historic NCHIs that do not meet the new, higher recording threshold. It is, we think, another reasonable compromise.

We listened to the College of Policing. We listened to noble Lords who expressed reservations about our original amendment. We listened to the Minister when he made valid points in Committee. We listened, and we revised our amendment accordingly. I think the fact that what we were asking for is so modest and so reasonable is why our amendment won a Division in this House. It won not because it attracted any support from Labour or the Lib Dems but because it commanded such wide support among the Cross-Benchers and the non-affiliated, who I believe recognised the reasonableness of what we were asking for.

However, the Government have not listened. They have not tabled an amendment in lieu or offered any concessions in the run-up to this debate. They have just cast our amendment aside and have dismissed the concerns of this House as beneath consideration. They have acted, in a word, unreasonably. I think I now have no choice but to move this amendment again so that the Government will be forced to engage with our concerns and to come back with their own reasonable compromise. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, has set out his reasons for insisting on his Motion Q1, which would delete records that the police hold non-crime hate incidents in certain circumstances which he outlined, even when the police had a concern about the pattern of behaviour and that it might lead to a crime.

I take issue with the comments that the noble Lord has made in that the whole Motion talks only about this very narrow area of what should be held and reviewed. The concerns that we have from these Benches are about the repetition of proposed new subsections (1) and (2), which say that non-crime hate incidents

“must not be recognised as a category of incident by any police authority in the United Kingdom”,

and that:

“No police authority or police officer may record, retain or otherwise process any personal data relating to a NCHI”.


Noble Lords will remember that we were lucky enough to have the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, with us after the College of Policing report was published, and he pointed out that there is a balance between free speech and the targeting of vulnerable people. Other noble Lords spoke movingly about this balance too, including the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, from her and her family’s own experience. So from these Benches, we were pleased when the Government laid their amendments on Report, which set out that balance between freedom of speech, which must be protected, and threats to vulnerable people. Their proposal to use anti-social behaviour mechanisms to record in the future is understandable and appropriate, and we hope that it will work out well. We will wait and see whether it really works.

We on these Benches believe that the combination of the Government’s amendment that is now in the Bill and the new guidance in the College of Policing report provide the balance that is needed to ensure that there is freedom of speech. However, the police will have the capability under the anti-social behaviour legislation to protect the most vulnerable in our community, especially if they are targeted by someone whose behaviour is escalating and the course of that pattern of behaviour could in itself become a crime such as harassment or, even worse, just progress more severely into an actual crime.

If there was nothing on any records up to the moment that a crime was committed, the police would not have been involved. For many vulnerable people who have harassment and other things going on, waiting that long deters and delays police action. There is a difference between that and passing the information on about the files. I believe that the Government’s amendments have dealt with that. On these grounds, we will not support Motion Q1.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I add my support to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, puts her finger on it: enforcement is key here, and it is key because we all know that without serious enforcement, these companies, which will be acting in breach of the law, will simply not comply. What will make them comply are substantial fines to hit them in the pocketbook. That is the only thing that will make them comply, and that is why I support the noble Baroness, Lady Owen.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I point out briefly that the essence of where the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, is coming from is that she speaks directly from the experience of the victims who have suffered from this. It is the victims themselves who have been struggling with the existing system, often in vain and with huge amounts of frustration. It is the victims who have been looking at the Government’s well-intended amendment, and on the basis of their own experience and knowledge, bitterly won, they feel strongly that it does not go far enough. They want others who are being abused at the moment, and trying to get some sort of redress, not to go through the same agony and pain that they have. I implore the Government to listen carefully, because this is the victims speaking directly to them. It is not the regulator; these are the victims, and the victims who are coming through the pipeline should be prioritised above all.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, can I add one word? In my experience in dealing with a large number of offences where corporations were responsible, it is only fines—and fines of a substantial amount—that have any real effect. The fines in this Bill are modest, in my view. I hope everyone will realise that unless we put something by way of a fine in, we are making law without effect.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I entirely support the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on all her amendments. What I would say to the Government about their own amendment is that I have just had what I suppose is the privilege—although it sometimes seemed quite lengthy—of being a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and I can tell noble Lords that the quality of much secondary legislation is lamentable, varying by department. A lack of preparation, of any Explanatory Memorandum explaining anything relevant, and of any impact assessment whatsoever, is extremely frequent. In the last year, we have had several secondary instruments relating directly to the Online Safety Act, none of which has been particularly impressive, and some of which have been debated on the Floor of this House—my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones will be well aware of that. We have expressed our displeasure at the way in which this has been brought forward and explained.

All of us on the Cross Benches remember the late, lamented Lord Igor Judge. What he would think about a Government of this political hue bringing forward Henry VIII powers, to the power of 10, I cannot even imagine. If he is up there, he will be smiling wryly but he will not be impressed.

My only other point is rather strange. His Majesty’s occasionally loyal Opposition were extremely good at bringing in a variety of legislation which had a lot of Henry VIII powers. They have suddenly had a conversion on the road to Damascus, for which we should all be grateful. However, we need to think very carefully before we give the Government Henry VIII powers in an area as sensitive as this, and that is doing much harm as we speak.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I express from these Benches our very strong support for these comprehensive amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which she has characteristically introduced so well and to which so many noble Lords have spoken so eloquently in support. I also want to express our concerns regarding the Government’s proposed alternative, Amendment 429B.

In this group, we confront digital harm that is not incidental but engineered by design. AI chatbots are no longer a futuristic curiosity but deeply embedded the lives of our children. They are designed not merely as tools but as confidantes, mentors, companions and, in some cases, explicit romantic partners. Their anthropomorphic features create dangerous emotional dependency. Without statutory safeguards, these bots can provide explicit information on how to self-harm. This is not a flaw but a design feature that drives engagement, and we cannot allow the generative power of AI to become a generator of despair.

We are not debating theoretical risks, as many noble Lords have said today. We are debating the forces that led to the tragic deaths of Sewell Setzer III, mentioned by a number of noble Lords, and Adam Raine, in the United States. Their families are pursuing legal action in the US on the basis that deceptively designed, inadequately safeguarded chatbots can be treated as defective products, and that developers should bear full legal liability when systems encourage, facilitate or fail to interrupt a user’s path to suicide.

I welcome the Government’s admission that a legal loophole exists in the UK. However, their proposed remedy, Amendment 429B, gives us a choice between the clarity of primary legislation through the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the convenience of the Executive. In contrast, the noble Baroness’s amendments provide clarity and embed safety duties in the Bill. Like my noble friend, I highlight Amendment 433, which deals with targeting the engineered features that keep children hooked. We know that bots guilt-trip users who try to end conversations. For a child, this is not a user interface quirk; it is emotional manipulation. These amendments would prohibit such coercive engagement techniques and, crucially, require bots to signpost users to help when asked about health, suicide or self-harm.

The primary legislation route offered by these amendments is the only fully viable and responsible path. If the noble Baroness wants to test the opinion of the House, we will support her in the Lobby. Should we be unable to secure her amendments, we would need to take a view on Amendment 429B. Four specific binding assurances would be required before we could consider supporting it; without them, it is nothing but a dangerous blank cheque. As changing these sections effectively rewrites the criminal threshold of the Online Safety Act, the Government must commit to the equivalent of the super-affirmative procedure for all significant policy choices, including amendments to core definitions or the expansion of duties beyond priority legal content. Standard procedures will not give this House the scrutiny needed.

Regarding mandatory supply chain transparency, we need a firm commitment that regulations will include a statutory mandate for providers to document and share their technical blueprints with Ofcom. Without this, the regulator cannot do its job. The Minister must confirm that the power will be used to tackle the issues raised by subsections (6) and (7) of Section 192 of the Online Safety Act, ensuring that chatbots cannot evade regulation simply because they lack a human mens rea. A bot does not intend harm, but it can be designed to cause it. The Minister must commit that any new regulations will explicitly disapply the requirement to prove human intent for AI-generated content. Regulations must define control across the entire AI supply chain so that accountability is not lost in a black box.

Finally, we would require a clear assurance that this power will not be used to alter the legal position of services that are not AI services. The scope of Amendment 429B must not drift beyond its stated purpose. If the Government are serious when they say that no platform gets a free pass, that must apply equally to generative AI models that, as we speak, are reshaping the childhoods of so many of our citizens. Safety by design must be the price of entry into the UK market, not an aspiration deferred to secondary legislation.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the Minister and from these Benches we support the changes set out in her Amendment 338. My Amendment 361A says that if

“there is reasonable suspicion that a death by suicide has been preceded by a history of domestic abuse committed against the person by another person, the relevant police force must investigate that suicide as if it were a potential homicide”.

My honourable friend Marie Goldman MP has talked with a number of domestic abuse campaigners who have become increasingly concerned that police and CPS procedural policy should include this presumption, because sometimes it is missed. Pragna Patel from Project Resist launched a Suicide is Homicide campaign last year, and the group Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse has been calling for this for many, many years. Frank Mullane, its chief executive, said to the Guardian that doing this would guard against evidence being destroyed or lost,

“for example where police have returned the victims’ phones and laptops”,

after an assumption of suicide has been made, thus losing key evidence that might be needed at a later date.

On Monday, the Scottish courts convicted a man of killing his wife after she took her own life. There was a history of domestic abuse right from when they first got together, which included his choking her. There was considerable evidence that he had continued to coerce and pressure her, which eventually forced her, very regrettably, to take her own life. This news from Scotland is good, and I am very grateful for the discussions with the Minister, but I hope she will look favourably on this and reassure your Lordships’ House that the Government will consider putting it into practice.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I want briefly to thank the Government for Amendment 338. I know the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and her team are extremely grateful that they have been listened to—this is something they have wanted for some time—so I would just like to say a big thank you for that. On Amendment 361A from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I understand the reasons for it, and I hope the Minister will be able to give an encouraging response. As far as Amendment 409C is concerned, I cannot see the Government accepting that. The reasoning behind it is right, but I cannot see it being practical or effective.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Government and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for their amendments in this group. I do, however, have some concerns about the Government’s Amendment 338. We on these Benches believe that domestic abuse protection orders are a very important civil tool; indeed, they were introduced under the previous Conservative Administration. However, they are not, and should never become, a substitute for proper criminal justice consequences. Amendment 338 will expand orders to include mandatory participation in assessments and activity programmes. With respect, I do not believe that the answer to domestic abuse lies in programme participation; it lies in firm sentencing and, where appropriate, immediate custody.

I raise these concerns in the wider context of the Government’s sentencing policy. During the passage of the Sentencing Bill, this House divided at Report on a Conservative amendment that sought to exempt domestic abuse offences from the new rebuttable presumption against short custodial sentences of 12 months or less. Noble Lords on these Benches, in particular my noble and learned friend Lord Keen, argued that domestic abusers should not benefit from an assumption in favour of suspension. When the issue was pressed to a vote, the Government resisted that exemption.

Noble Lords are therefore now faced with an uncomfortable contradiction. The Minister will no doubt say the Government are determined to be tough on violence against women and girls; yet, when given the opportunity to ensure that domestic abusers would not fall within an automatic presumption against immediate custody, they declined. Against that backdrop, it is difficult to accept that expanding programme requirements within civil protection orders represents a meaningful, tough stance against domestic abuse. Real deterrence requires certainty of punishment.

Turning briefly to Amendment 361A, I have sympathy with its intention. Where suicide may have followed a history of domestic abuse, investigation must be rigorous and sensitive. However, requiring all such cases to be investigated as if they were homicides raises practical and legal concerns. Police investigations must follow clear evidential thresholds, and homicide procedures carry significant procedural and resource implications. A rigid statutory instruction risks unintended consequences and may not in practice deliver better outcomes. It is for officers and detectives who arrive at the scene of a crime to determine, on the basis of the available evidence, how to investigate that death. Prescribing in law how to advance an investigation in specific circumstances is not an appropriate course of action.

In conclusion, I am not persuaded that expanding the scope of domestic abuse protection orders is a legislative solution to the problems women and girls face daily. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I completely support my noble friend. I have worked in this area for over three decades and know the communities well. Sadly, unless it is very clear that those community members will be punished in the same way as the perpetrator—in many cases, there are many perpetrators —this will not be effective. Clarity needs to be put into legislation, so I wholeheartedly support my noble friend.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, this has echoes of previous legislation that has passed through your Lordships’ House. In the three or four years before the Domestic Abuse Act became law, if you had asked people to define domestic abuse, I think you would have had a range of interpretations, many of which would be somewhat wide of the mark compared with what is in the Act and is now generally understood by courts and police forces across the country.

We had a similar journey to go through when we talked about the appalling incidents of non-fatal strangulation, which, again, was a very strange term for many people to hear at the beginning. It takes a while for people to understand the concept and for there to be clarity on what it does and does not mean. For those who have been involved directly with honour-based abuse, including the extraordinary work that Karma Nirvana has done, and those who have been in this field for years, it is completely clear what honour-based abuse is. However, for many people who have not had direct exposure to that, including the people who may be asked to help, intervene and make judgments in these cases, it would be extraordinarily helpful for the definition to be as clear to a non-legal layman, who is trying to help and give support, as it would be to an experienced legal brain.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, first, I want tribute to my noble friend Lady Sugg, who has brilliantly led this campaign. I also pay tribute to Payzee Mahmod, who I was fortunate to hear give evidence in the House on Monday on the whole issue of honour-based abuse. I would never dream of taking issue with my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on any legal matter at all, but he talked about the issue of ambiguity and the courts deciding. Why not just get it sorted out now, so that there is no ambiguity? That is why I support my noble friend Lady Sugg in getting the words in now. From what I heard on Monday, it is clear that this would accurately reflect the multi-perpetrator dynamics of the issue. It would provide clarity to professionals and strengthen the safeguarding responses, and it would deliver on the Government’s commitment to a robust definition. Getting it right now would stop any ambiguity, so I hope that the Minister will listen carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, we covered these matters pretty thoroughly during discussion of a number of amendments in Committee. As we are now on Report, I shall get quickly to the nub of the issue that I should like to discuss, which reflects a lot of what my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Shinkwin have already said. I say at the outset that I am pro-bicycle and pro-cycling, but I am anti-law-breaking. We have a very serious situation at the moment.

I support this broad group of amendments. In particular, we have a problem with the use of illegally powerful e-bikes and those used by professional delivery companies. There are real benefits from e-bikes being used; it is much better for the environment, for all sorts of reasons, that e-bikes or bicycles are used rather than mopeds and two-stroke engines and so forth. It is a big step forward. The debate should not be characterised as anti-cycling—it is pro-cycling—but the technology has moved so fast that the general public perhaps do not always understand what is a legal or an illegal e-bike. The evidence appears to be that the police either do not spend too much time thinking about it or do not see the enforcement of the use of illegal e-bikes as a priority.

Every speech that we heard in Committee and have heard on Report was very supportive of that—very few views were expressed that did not make it feel as if there was a particular problem, apart perhaps from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Katz, when he summarised the debate on 17 December, saying:

“We of course recognise the concerns about the behaviour of delivery riders, but it is harder to find firm evidence to suggest that their behaviour is so demonstrably worse than that of other groups that it is necessary to single them out for review”.—[Official Report, 17/12/25; col. 748.]


If we took a straw poll around the Chamber right now, I am not sure that he would find a huge amount of support. If he came out with me and the noble Lords, Lord Shinkwin, Lord Blencathra, Lord Lucas, and others one evening to have a look, we might be able to provide him with evidence in person pretty quickly.

The law is being ignored. If these were mopeds without number plates, I feel that the police would intervene quickly. The vehicles used have the performance of mopeds but are not regulated in the same way—they do not carry registration—and they are used to ride the wrong way up one-way streets, for example, in a way that I fell motorcycles are not. The general public see the law being flouted, and that is being normalised, which is a difficult and dangerous situation. These riders are agents or contractors of large delivery companies, which need to take responsibility for the fact that people operating under their flag or banner and doing their business for their commercial gain are routinely breaking the law; that is being ignored by delivery companies and not pursued with vigour by the police. When we had this discussion in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Katz, was generally sympathetic but reluctant to take action.

A number of different approaches have been suggested by noble Lords, but the theme seems to be the same. Members of the House who have spoken are not saying that their particular solution is the be-all and end-all, but they recognise that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. The status quo is not working, so when the Minister comes to respond, the House would be very much in his debt if he were to give a clear indication of the degree to which he feels there is a significant problem. If he does not like the approaches being put forward in these amendments, he needs to be able to suggest what is going to change in order to give the House some comfort that the Government are actually taking this seriously.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I declare that I am a cyclist. I came in this morning and, as noble Lords can see, survived in one piece, miraculously. Secondly, I have to declare that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, saw me dismounting from my e-bike as I arrived, as he put it, prosaically, in front of our “prison gates” the other day. I actually dismounted when I was on the pavement, because I thought it was safer than doing it in the road, and he came towards me at considerable speed. I sometimes wonder if his own electric chariot is within the prescribed speed limit. One often thinks, “Is it a bird? Is it a plane?” and it is actually the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, going down one of our corridors at great speed.

I hate to interrupt this discussion because, from observation, your Lordships are most happy when discussing three particular issues: ourselves, which we enjoy enormously, and we go on at great length; potholes, which really gets your Lordships going; and dangerous cycling. At the root of this is behavioural psychology. The law is there. In repeated statements over the last 10 years, I have heard different Ministers—usually the junior ones, not the senior ones, because they get the short end of the stick—responding by saying, “Well, this is illegal; this is illegal; this is illegal”, which, of course, is a huge comfort to us all, particularly since it is clearly not actually being enforced.

I think back just a few days to the, I thought, rather good victory speech of the new Green MP, Hannah Spencer. She described the feelings of the people in the constituency that has elected her, and their experience of day-to-day life and how that made them feel, and there is an echo of that as one walks or cycles around London and sees open illegality happening everywhere we look. In large part, that is because we do not have a joined-up approach. I support the intent of all these amendments; however, we are never going to actually tackle this unless we have a joined-up approach.

I gently point out to the noble Lords who have put forward these amendments, of which there are a great many, that they might have had more power had they got together prior to Report, put their names together and tried to get some support from across the House to demonstrate the breadth and depth of feeling. When it comes to a joined-up approach, I am really saying that I hope the Government will acknowledge that there are ways of dealing with this, particularly if they look at international experience.

There are five elements, proven by international experience, to a joined-up approach to deal with the problems we are discussing. The first is clarity and adequate coverage of the rules. At the moment, we have a mixture of rules dating back many years in a variety of different laws, so it is not completely clear. The second is that detection and effective enforcement beats severity. Trying to put more rules and penalties in is not going to work if they are not enforced: it is the blind leading the blind. The third element is creating infrastructure in the right way. There is the phrase, “enforcement by design”. If you design roads, pavements, et cetera, cleverly—and some countries are rather better at that than us—you avoid a lot of this, because there is no need for it to happen; but it does require a joined-up approach.

The fourth element is operator and retailer controls. We have heard quite a lot about the operators, whether they are hire companies or food delivery companies. Again, that is not adequately covered by the hotchpotch of different laws we have. Indeed, in debate on a previous Bill, many of the Government’s own Back-Benchers, particularly those with a strong union background, were somewhat horrified to hear of the ways in which these delivery companies are able to avoid the law—by a designated driver, who is the employee or the contractor, actually asking somebody else who is not employed by the company or contracted to drive for them. If that driver is caught doing something bad, the company is not liable, because that individual is not connected to the company. That is done by most of these companies, which is clearly crazy.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Russell of Liverpool]

8: Clause 6, page 12, line 18, at end insert—
“(1A) Section 104 (review of response to complaints about anti-social behaviour) is amended as follows.(1B) In subsection (2)(b), after “published” insert “in their entirety”.(1C) After subsection (2) insert—“(2A) The relevant bodies in each local government area have a duty to promote awareness of the case review and review procedures.(2B) The relevant bodies in each local government area have a duty to publish the provision for victims dissatisfied with how the local bodies have dealt with or carried out the case review as per Schedule 4, Part 1, paragraph 3 (dissatisfaction with ASB case reviews).”(1D) In subsection (3)(b), after “area” insert “, and(c) specify the threshold for the case review including any timeframes and additional requirements which apply to that threshold.”(1E) In subsection (4)(b), omit “(or, if a different number is specified in the review procedures, at least that number of)”.(1F) In subsection (5)—(a) for “may” substitute “must”;(b) omit “any of”;(c) for “adequacy of the response to that behaviour” substitute “vulnerability of the victim(s)”.(1G) In subsection (6), after “decision” insert “, and, where the threshold is not met, they must—(a) provide that information in writing, and(b) with reference to review procedures specify the reason(s) for their determination that the threshold is not met.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment, and another in the name of Lord Russell of Liverpool, seeks to establish a statutory threshold for convening an Anti-Social Behaviour Case Review, that considers the victim’s vulnerability and removes discretion for authorities to apply additional caveats.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 8, 9 and 10 in my name, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who is outside the Chamber at the moment—I think she is talking to the other Minister—has kindly added her name. I thank the Minister and his officials for the meetings that we have had since Committee to discuss these issues.

The three amendments could be called the Newlove and Waxman amendments, because, in effect, they articulate the views and concerns of the late lamented Baroness Newlove and her successor as Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, about the issues that people on the ground experience in dealing with anti-social behaviour, most particularly the experience of victims.

Amendments 8 and 9 seek to improve the accessibility of the ASB case review by removing local discretion over thresholds and the definition of a qualifying complaint, which currently are creating unnecessary barriers for victims. The anti-social behaviour case review was established as a mechanism that allows victims to trigger a multi-agency resolution-focused review of their case, as in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which set out a threshold for when a case review could be activated; it said three—or a different number, as set out under local review procedures —or more qualifying complaints within a six-month period.

However, the existing framework gives local organisations enormous discretion in setting local procedures, including defining the number of ASB complaints required and what constitutes a qualifying complaint. Consequently, authorities are able to add their own caveats, which creates yet another postcode lottery for victims. It creates inconsistencies in access to support and it delays intervention in situations where harm is escalating. For example, some authorities refuse to initiate a case review while an investigation is ongoing.

Similarly, the 2025 Local Government Association survey found that 62% of respondents applied additional local caveats, such as, as I mentioned, not allowing applications while an investigation is ongoing; requiring applications to be submitted within one month of the last reported incident; refusing a case review if one has already been conducted for behaviour of a similar nature; or rejecting complaints deemed to be “frivolous”, whatever the local authority’s definition of frivolous happens to be. This range of caveats presents a serious barrier to victims being able to seek timely relief.

Conditions such as prohibiting applications during ongoing investigations, imposing narrow time limits for reporting or refusing repeat applications, even where the behaviour is continuing, place the burden on the victim rather than on the system designed to protect them. Investigations can take months, during which victims may experience continued harm without any mechanism available to them to trigger a multi-agency response. As I mentioned, “frivolous” introduces subjective judgments that risk undermining victims’ credibility and, in particular, undermining confidence in the process. Collectively, this results in inconsistent access and contributes to the postcode lottery.

The Government’s response to these amendments in Committee referenced their newly launched ASB statutory guidance. While the Home Office’s updated guidance encourages a threshold of three complaints in six months, it is not legally binding and does not prevent authorities introducing additional conditions. Therefore, without legislative change, inconsistency and local caveats will continue. These amendments are designed to close these loopholes and establish firm national standards that the system currently unfortunately lacks.

Amendment 10 seeks to support the identification of gaps and barriers that victims face in the ASB case review process by ensuring what is surely a no-brainer: the consistent collection and publication of data. In this sort of situation, data really is king. One is flying slightly blind if one tries to make judgments about what is and is not going on if the data which one is relying upon to make those judgments are themselves seriously flawed and, as we have seen, open to individual interpretation to a significant degree across multiple local authorities.

In Committee, in response to the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I put forward on anti-social behaviour, the Government said they wished to see how the new ASB guidance beds in before considering further legislation. This was the position also on the proposals to require independent chairs for case reviews and to ensure that victims are able to attend, or at least have their views represented.

We accept that the guidance needs time to take effect. Guidance is one thing, but if you do not have any meaningful way to monitor whether that guidance is being applied consistently, how it is being applied and what effect it is having then it is quite difficult to judge whether the guidance is doing what you want it to do.

Currently, data collection on the ASB case review is sparse, inconsistent and fragmented. There is a patchwork of information and no adequate national oversight. The original legislative framework for the case review requires local bodies to publish the number of case reviews they conduct and refuse each year. However, this information is somewhat meaningless if we do not know the reasons why an application for review was refused. In particular, as we have heard before, local bodies can set their own parameters for qualifying incidents and set caveats on the thresholds.

I recognise that the Government have introduced Clause 7 on the provision of information to the Secretary of State, whereby authorities may be required to provide

“reports of anti-social behaviour made to the authority … responses of the authority to anti-social behaviour, and … ASB case reviews carried out by the relevant authority”.

However, this merely outlines the types of information that the Secretary of State could require from local bodies, which, in the view of the Victims’ Commissioner, does not go far enough. Without proper data, it is not possible to assess whether the guidance is working in practice.

In responding to this group, we would be enormously grateful if the Minister could tell us whether the Government will commit to ensuring that the relevant authorities are required by regulations to collect and provide to the Secretary of State the data points as in Amendment 10. Specifically, this would mean information in relation to: first, where local bodies determine the threshold for the case review was not met, by reference to the local review procedures, and the reasons why they made that determination; secondly, the number of case reviews carried out that were chaired by an independent person; thirdly, the number of reviews where the victim or their representative was given the opportunity to attend; and, finally, the number of reviews carried out where the victim or their representative attended the review in person.

I hope that we will have a positive response from the Government. I know that the Minister is sympathetic to this. I know that everything cannot be done simultaneously, but the case for more consistency, as required in the first two amendments, and for providing meaningful, useful data to judge whether the new guidance is working is important enough that I hope the Government will give this some serious attention. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I signed the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell. He spoke eloquently to the detail and, indeed, during the debate that we had in Committee on them. I want just to summarise the key reasons.

We understand why the Government want to see their guidance bed in, but we are already picking up concerns about some of the detail. The point of these three amendments is to set very clear ground rules for each of the stages, partly to make the data reliable but also partly to give absolute clarity about what happens at each stage of the review.

The first amendment is about the threshold for the case review, the second is about the nature of the ASB and whether that is a qualifying complaint, and the final one concerns collection and review of the data. The first two are important because we have already heard that local authorities respond very differently. Finally, as the noble Lord said, data is vital. If certain characteristics about each case review are published, having that collection of data would be extremely helpful. Then, by reviewing the data by authority and elsewhere, it would become very easy to see how the case reviews are happening nationally.

--- Later in debate ---

We are doing that for a purpose, and the purpose is, as the noble Lord rightly says, to know what is going on on the ground. I say to him, as I did in Committee and as I have tried to say privately—I make the same comments to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton—that under Clause 7 we have provided for that information. We have the statutory guidance issued in September, and I argue to the House today that the updated statutory guidance, coupled with the provisions in the Bill, covers the issues that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness raise. We need to assess the impact of the changes that we have made or are going to make before we further look at legislative provisions. On that basis, I hope the noble Lord will consider withdrawing his amendment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his response, which was much as anticipated—so no surprises. I think we all understand the underlying issues and some of the bad things that victims are currently experiencing.

These three amendments come from a period during which the Victims’ Commissioner office has been scrutinising in detail the new guidance delivered last September. They were brought forward in the direct light of and in response to that new guidance. That is not to say that the new guidance is not welcome, but the experience of the Victims’ Commissioner and her office is that to understand whether the guidance is working as intended requires a level of data that is deeper and more detailed than is currently outlined in what the Government intend to get and what is covered in Clause 7. The concern is that while the guidance is very welcome, we will be unable to understand how effectively it is working to the level of detail that will be helpful to the Victims’ Commissioner, to victims and, thirdly, to the Government themselves.

After the Bill is enacted, it is certain that there will be meetings in the diary with the Victims’ Commissioner and her team, and they will be scrutinising the effects of the new guidance and the degree to which, from their observations, it is being implemented. I ask that the Government are open to having a constructive, interactive dialogue if the data raises more questions than it answers—which is, I think, what the Victims’ Commissioner anticipates may be the case—and that, if need be, they listen and adjust if the data is not telling us what we need.

I again thank the Minister and her team. I forgot to mention Andy Prophet, the ASB lead for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, who has been extremely helpful and supportive. His successor, Cath Akehurst, who I think takes over next week, is also very actively involved in this. We are trying to work with the police, the Victims’ Commissioner, the ASB charities and the Local Government Association to come up with solutions that work for victims and are enactable and enforceable in law and guidance. In that spirit, I withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

Computer-generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Ofcom has the confidence of the legislation that both Houses of Parliament passed, was commenced under the previous Government and is to be implemented in full by this Government. It has cross-party support to take action to ensure that illegal content online is taken down and if companies do not do so, there is a mechanism to ensure that significant fines are potentially levied on those companies that do not take action.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister is again experiencing what happened during the stages of the Crime and Policing Bill when we discussed this subject, because of the strength of feeling right across the House about this. What really shocked me in the briefing for this Question is the fact that while we know child sexual abuse material is increasing exponentially, largely through AI, 91% of that material is actually being produced by children themselves, astonishingly. Can I appeal to the Minister to work closely with his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on Report on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and to think about what we can do to try to face up to this unfortunate fact and do something about it?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very valid point and obviously I will discuss these matters with my noble friend Lady Smith. That goes to the heart of education and confidence-building, particularly for young boys, to ensure that they do not stray into the type of activity that leads to adult misbehaviour as well. It is really important that we focus on that. I will take the noble Lord’s point and discuss it with my noble friend.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this important group. I am conscious of time, and it is late, but I really wanted to come back to a few things that the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, said. I hope that I have not misunderstood, but I confess to feeling a little confused.

It is very clear in the history of our criminal legislation in this country that introducing previous offences regarding violence against women and girls has had a significant impact and made a difference—for example, coercive and controlling behaviour; stalking, which, of course, does not apply just to women or girls; and female genital mutilation. In all cases, reporting, prosecutions and convictions increased, so the protections have been manifest.

The same applies here. I support wholeheartedly this group of amendments and am very grateful for the indication from the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, that there have been conversations. I trust that we are pushing at an open door on this. I declare an interest: as well as being a barrister, I spent many years running a behavioural science business. The naming of offences is extremely important in order for people to feel able to come forward. There is a wealth of behavioural science. I hope that a few of my points will reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, on some of the points she mentioned around the definition, because the reasons why we introduce these offences matter so very much. Honour abuse is so often defined as a family dispute, a cultural issue or something that is too sensitive for others to name. It does not matter which culture we are talking about or which motivation. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about that.

Something in behavioural science tells us, as we know from a wealth of research, that the cognitive availability, the salience of being able to name something, changes the outcome. Kahneman, Cialdini and others talk about how we need injunctive norms in society. It is why the criminal justice system operates so effectively. It tells communities and individuals, “This behaviour is not tolerated”. In the United Kingdom, domestic abuse reforms have consistently shown that explicitly naming conduct, whether it is coercive control, stalking or honour-based abuse—or, as it should really be called, honour-based excuse—shifts police practice, community practice and public understanding. It does not legitimise it. On the contrary, it shows that naming it in a prohibitive framework delegitimises it, collapses ambiguity and increases protection from all parts of the community around those victims. Public health research also shows that people seek help much more readily and quickly when they know that their experience matches a recognised category in law. The stigma is reduced and having recognition and validation of harm increases disclosure.

Naming something operates as a community-level intervention as well. We break pluralistic ignorance when we name a phenomenon such as honour-based abuse. Some noble Lords may know about a study carried out at Harvard University by the famous psychologists Prentice and Miller, who looked at students’ attitudes towards a culture of drinking. They all thought it was accepted by everyone else. The majority did not like it. They continued to go along with it because they did not realise that others felt the same as they did and that the majority view was not to support it. By doing that study and revealing that, Prentice and Miller empowered the students to take a stance and change their own behaviours. That is now well-established psychological research. That is why communities and individuals such as the very tragic victims that we have heard about today and their families, who continue to work, need this legislation and these offences to be named in the way that we are seeking.

It also increases bystander activation. People will get more involved and will understand that there is safety and support around them when they intervene as third parties. People are much more likely to act when they can say, “This is illegal, this feels wrong, this is wrong”. Teachers, GPs, neighbours and extended family members then all have the infrastructure within which to act.

The law functions in a very important way—sometimes, it feels, almost in a magical way. Maybe as a lawyer I would say that, but it does signal to everyone a focal point. It creates a place around which we can all convene and focus. It co-ordinates action where previously things might have gone unsaid and there may have been fear about raising an issue and talking about it. Families and professionals often know that something is wrong but fear acting alone. A statutory definition removes that hesitation and makes it clear where the authority and the power lie.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise, mercifully briefly, to come at this from a slightly different direction. Four years ago, when I was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, we had a debate in the assembly specifically about honour-based abuse in the part-session in September 2021. The point I want to raise is that this is not a UK-only phenomenon but an international phenomenon, and I am putting forward the idea that there is something to be gained from looking at the experience and examples of attempts to deal with honour-based abuse in different jurisdictions. The report that the debate was about looked at the incidence of honour-based abuse and how it is being dealt with in countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands. That was four years ago, so I suspect things have moved on since then. All I ask is that the Government are conscious of that when they are looking at the current state of international knowledge and the degree to which we can benefit from that.

Honour-based abuse comes underneath the Istanbul convention, which we have finally signed up to. Within that, there is an organisation called the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, which has the acronym GREVIO. It has been in existence for about 15 years. I have just checked, and I am ashamed to say that, at the moment, while there is a lot of international representation on this body, there is not a single UK representative, nor has there ever been. I suggest that looking at what this committee does—because it focuses very much on this area—and seeing whether we could not potentially nominate somebody who could go and participate in that and learn from it would be a very good idea.

The only other thing I would say is in the context of the research that the rapporteur for this, who was a representative from Monaco, did. She spoke quite extensively to Nazir Afzal—somebody who I suspect the Minister knows—a prosecutor from the north of England who has been particularly heavily involved in this. One of the things he said really struck me. The report says:

“The crimes were strongly linked to cultural factors”,


particularly factors

“which strengthened … male power and aimed to prevent women from making choices”.

What really struck me was this:

“A 21-year-old man born and raised in England had told him that a man was like a piece of gold which you could clean if you dropped it in the mud, whereas a woman was like a piece of silk, which would be stained forever”.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 356, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. First, I would like to apologise for my intervention earlier. I am afraid I am getting very grumpy, and the Christmas Recess has arrived just in time.

All the amendments in this group have validity, and it might be worth trying to combine them on Report, because this is such an important issue. When serious crimes are committed in the name of so-called honour, the law should recognise that for what it is: a particularly severe and controlling form of abuse. This amendment is to ensure that our justice system understands the dynamics at play in so-called honour-based abuse—abuse that is often collective, prolonged and enforced through fear and the threat of extreme violence.

The case of Banaz Mahmod illustrates this with devastating clarity. Despite reporting rape, violence and repeated threats to her life, and naming those responsible, she was not protected. After her murder, a police watchdog investigation found serious institutional failings, including a failure to grasp the specific risks posed by so-called honour-based abuse.

This amendment reflects the Women and Equalities Committee’s recommendation to explicitly recognise so-called honour in sentencing guidelines to ensure an understanding of such abuse. Recognising so-called honour as an aggravating factor in sentencing would send a clear and necessary signal that crimes motivated by perceived shame or dishonour are deliberate acts of gender-based violence.

This amendment is also supported by victims, survivors, specialist organisations, including Southall Black Sisters, and Banaz’s sister, who has campaigned tirelessly and at huge personal risk. However, there is one thing about all these amendments that I feel is totally wrong and we need to rethink, and that is the fact that I have been saying “so-called honour”. This has nothing to do with honour. This is dishonour, and that is what we should call it.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 348 and 349, in my name. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Hendy, for adding their names. These amendments seek to tackle one of the most pressing issues in our society, gender-based violence and harassment, with a clear focus on workplaces. As I open this debate, I look forward to hearing contributions from across the Committee on how we can strengthen protections for workers and make our workplaces truly safe.

Amendments 348 and 349 would establish a health and safety framework to address violence against women and girls in the workplace and create a new duty on employers to prevent violence and harassment by amending Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act. This is not the first time I have brought this proposal before noble Lords. During the passage of the Employment Rights Bill, we had a constructive debate on the proposal. Since then, support has grown both inside and outside Parliament. Just last month, the End Not Defend campaign held an event here in Parliament attended by Peers and Members of the other place. Survivors shared harrowing experiences of how the law is failing them. Trade unions, specialist organisations and survivors themselves are calling for action. Their courage in sharing their experiences demands a response from us.

This Bill already introduces a new offence to protect retail workers. It is a welcome step, but why stop there? Violence and harassment affect workers across all sectors. If we are serious about halving violence against women and girls within the next decade, as His Majesty’s Government have pledged, we need a cross-departmental approach that moves beyond a sole focus on criminalisation to prevention and tackling the root causes. Leveraging health and safety law is one way to achieve this. It would make VAWG prevention everybody’s business. These amendments were co-written with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and Rights of Women—organisations with decades of experience in supporting victims. The amendments’ aims are also supported by several workers unions.

Current legislation falls short. The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 introduced a preventive duty on sexual harassment, but in practice enforcement occurs only after harm has happened. The Employment Rights Bill will strengthen this requirement when it introduces protections around third-party harassment. However, enforcement can occur only after sexual harassment has been experienced, limiting its preventive function. It also excludes other forms of violence against women and girls in the workplace, such as other forms of harassment and all forms of violence, including physical, psychological and emotional abuse.

The UK ratified ILO Convention No. 190, which requires a gender-responsive approach to workplace safety, yet our laws do not reflect this obligation. Recent cases show the urgency of this, including the tragic murder of Gracie Spinks by a colleague who stalked her, despite repeated reports. Female NHS surgeons report harassment and even rape in operating theatres, described as “surgery’s open secret”. Royal Artillery Gunner Jaysley Beck took her own life after relentless harassment by her superior. There have been reports of sexual assault and rape at Harrods, the CBI, the BBC and McDonald’s.

The Harrods case was not a failure of individual courage; it was a failure of structural responsibility. Multiple institutions had sight of risk, but none had a duty to prevent it. Harrods looked like a modern employer, but it functioned as a closed environment in which power went unchecked and young women were left unprotected. These amendments would have required the risk assessments that never happened. Survivors of al-Fayed’s abuse, represented by no one above, say the same thing again and again: no one stopped him. Legislators must ensure that no workplace in the UK can ever operate with that level of impunity again. Where accountability is optional, exploitation becomes operational. The Harrods redress scheme shows exactly why voluntary arrangements cannot substitute for enforceable duties on employers.

These are not isolated incidents. Rights of Women reports that 56% of calls to its advice line involve harassment or violence from colleagues. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust found that women are eight times more likely than men to experience sexual misconduct at work, yet there is no government data collection, no reporting requirement, and outdated attitudes persist that VAWG is a private matter.

I would like to illustrate the lack of regulation for VAWG in the workplace and why these amendments are necessary. The Equality Act addresses sexual harassment as discrimination but excludes other forms of VAWG, leaving significant safety issues unregulated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Employers can adopt domestic abuse policies voluntarily, as recommended by the EHRC in guidance to employers on domestic abuse—although the Welsh version is actually over a decade old. However, much of the currently available guidance assumes domestic abuse occurs outside the workplace and outside the remit of the employer’s liability. This does not align with the statutory guidance to employers in the Domestic Abuse Act, which states that employers should consider the impact of domestic abuse on their employees as part of their duty of care under health and safety law, as regulated by the Health and Safety Executive.

Despite the growing evidence that gender-based violence and harassment harm workers’ health and safety, the Health and Safety Executive does not recognise gender-based violence as a workplace hazard. In its evidence to the Women and Equalities Select Committee 2018 inquiry on sexual harassment, the Health and Safety Executive stated clearly that it has a policy of not applying the Health and Safety at Work Act when it deems that other agencies or regulators have more specific responsibilities. The Health and Safety Executive is currently advising workers to report harassment to bodies that lack enforcement powers. This must change, and harassment and violence in the workplace should be recognised as a health and safety at work matter.

Health and safety frameworks provide a structured, enforceable approach. Updating them to include VAWG would ensure employers have a positive duty to prevent harm, not just to respond after an incident. As with existing health and safety duties, this would be proportionate. These amendments are practical and scalable. They would require risk assessment, clear policies, training, and confidential reporting mechanisms—all proportionate to the size and risk profile of the workplace and consistent with the existing health and safety frameworks.

Amendments 348 and 349 prioritise prevention and victim protection. They reflect expert advice and growing public demand. They align with the Government’s own commitment to halving violence against women and girls within the next decade. Tomorrow, the VAWG strategy will be published. The Safeguarding Minister in the other place said on Monday that

“the strategy has to be for everybody … It has to be for employers as well. It is for businesses, charities—everybody in society”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/12/25; col. 651.]

I hope that these amendments are viewed as one way to make that vision a reality.

We know what happens when accountability is optional. We have seen it in shops, in hospitals, in the Armed Forces, and we owe it to those who have spoken up and to those who still feel unable to, to act. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope His Majesty’s Government will consider these arguments as the Crime and Policing Bill progresses through this House. I beg to move.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I was happy once again to add my name to these two amendments from the noble Baroness, because we had a very similar debate on 21 May during the passage of the Employment Rights Bill. On 11 July, the noble Baroness followed up with a letter to the then Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—laying out the case very clearly.

The Government have the laudable intention of trying to reduce violence against women and girls by 50%, but there is a strange incongruence in respect of that ambition. I wonder if noble Lords are aware of how much time people, if they are fortunate enough to be employed, spend in the workplace during an average year? It is 52% of the year. In a year, more than half of an average employee’s time is spent in and around the workplace. Therefore, when one is putting together a comprehensive strategy to try and reduce violence against women and girls, excluding the workplace from close scrutiny and oversight seems somewhat of an oversight. What the noble Baroness is suggesting in these two amendments therefore seems eminently sensible. Without looking at this very carefully and ensuring that it is effectively included within the strategy in some way, shape or form, the strategy will be fundamentally flawed from the start.

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, which is often cited by Governments of whatever persuasion as being the bedrock of trying to ensure rights in the workplace, is now exactly 51 years old. I am sure the Government will wheel out, as they have on previous occasions, the many other Acts and regulations that have been put on the statute book at various points over the past 51 years. However, during the last 51 years, for better or worse—I think for worse—the situation in the workplace, for women and girls in particular but also for men, has fundamentally changed, and the regulations and legislation have not kept up. There is clearly an imbalance.

One need only look at the range of organisations that have suffered quite a lot of reputational damage as a result of not trying to put in place regulations and rules and of not instilling, primarily through leadership, a culture to ensure that the sort of behaviour that we are talking about and trying to stop is called out. I could go through an exhaustive list, but we can look at the embarrassment that various police forces have had to endure in the last few years. We can also look at the embarrassment that the Church of England has had to face and is still facing; that is an institution that not only finds it extraordinarily difficult to acknowledge the existence of that sort of behaviour within its ranks but has the strange anomaly that it is an organisation part of whose purpose in life is to forgive. However, it is not enough to forgive things going wrong if you are not prioritising the needs of those who are being wronged, and that is unfortunately the case in the Church of England and, of course, in the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world, as is very well known.

The military is also an embarrassing example. To have lost a First Sea Lord through impropriety at work is not exactly an example of stellar leadership. It makes one wonder how it was possible for an individual to reach that level of rank—with fundamental and comprehensive reviews and training taking place, in theory, right the way through their career—and to arrive at the pinnacle of their military profession only then to be publicly found very wanting. Clearly, there was something fundamentally wrong with the culture there. We have also had Cabinet Ministers who have had to resign on the basis of inappropriate behaviour in the workplace, particularly harassment and bullying. This is a problem that is endemic; to ignore it is simply not acceptable.

I hope and expect that the Minister’s reply will not be a carbon copy of the answer that the noble Lord, Lord Leong, gave in the debate on the 21 May. That answer was, in effect, a list of all the various regulations and legislation that, in theory, are meant to enable one to address and stop this, but which clearly are not working. To try and defend it, when clearly it is not working, makes one feel that the Minister, if he does do that, is unfortunately taking King Canute as a role model. It is simply not acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I first seek clarification from the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, on his sums. I do not do sums either but, if I heard him correctly, he said that a worker spends 50% of his life at work. If that is what I heard correctly, that is 84 hours a week.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

What I said was that a person fortunate enough to be employed spends on average 52% of one year in and around the workplace.

--- Later in debate ---

They talked about one of their members, Jennifer Melle, a 40 year-old NHS nurse with 12 years of unblemished service in a hospital in Surrey. I thought it was worth using this illustration because the Minister was very passionate earlier, and rightly so, about emergency workers who have to suffer racial abuse. Jennifer Melle’s story is important because she is a black nurse who was dealing with a patient who happened to be a convicted male paedophile in a hospital in Surrey. Nurse Melle phoned the neurologist and referred to this patient as “he” and “Mr” while talking to the neurologist on the phone. The patient became very aggressive, started shouting racist abuse, used the most vile racial slurs and lunged at nurse Jennifer Melle, which was a terrible thing to happen. You would have expected her employers to protect her from that. It was racial, in that instance, towards a female front-line worker. What actually happened—

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is repeating, to some extent, some of the perfectly sensible points that she made in the debate earlier in the year. I just point out that, in Committee, these are probing amendments: no more, no less. It is accepted from the get-go that they could be improved, and what I think would be helpful for the Committee is not a long list of the things that are wrong with the amendment—we accept that there may be some things that are wrong with it—but some suggestions, if the noble Baroness is unhappy with the wording, as to what might be put in its place if, as I think is the case, she acknowledges that there is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

That is a fair comment. The point that I was going on to make was that she was suspended for misgendering using a gender-inclusive policy similar to that advocated in this amendment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

What would the noble Baroness use instead?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I suggested then that I was not happy with the wording of an amendment, and it has simply been repeated. I made a speech that I thought was reasonable at the time. This is actually not the same speech, but I am raising some of the issues. I ask, as I asked earlier, why would we use that approach to protecting women and girls when women in the workplace are at present actually the victims of some of these gender-related policies? Therefore, if the amendment comes back as a more straightforward, narrowly defined amendment about sexual harassment at work, I would be much more interested in hearing about it. It is the amendment that is repeated, not just my speech. It is exactly the same wording that I objected to before. No account has been taken of any of the criticisms made in Committee, at the probing stage, so I think I can reasonably say that I would like us all to not repeat ourselves, including with this amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 346A and 346B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who has just spoken, as I have added my name to them. I support the other amendments in this group in general terms. There is a lot of dissatisfaction about the arrangements for cycles, e-bikes and e-scooters, and with the never-ending nature of e-scooter pilot schemes, which my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering has rightly condemned.

I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the new offences in Clause 106 to put cyclists on an equal footing with car drivers if they cause death or serious injury by dangerous or careless cycling. I am grateful to him for generously giving up time to meet me, with his officials, to discuss my various amendments to this Bill.

The truth is that, like others who have spoken, I do not believe that the Government’s proposals go far enough. I have been campaigning on the issue of the dangers of e-scooters and e-bikes for some years. It is a bit like online harm to children: you could see the matter getting worse day by day. We needed to take early action, yet nothing was done. I mainly blame the Department for Transport or its Ministers for this. They have a history of making the wrong judgment on important matters: investing in roads not railways in the 1950s and 1960s; pursuing HS2 rather than upgrading the existing railways, particularly in the north of England; and now prioritising cycling and e-scooters over pedestrians.

We have a Wild West. As a pedestrian, particularly in central London, you take your life in your hands every day. Scooters and cycles regularly ride on pavements and, because of electrification, they can go at high speeds—up to 70 miles per hour, according to the Sunday Telegraph. They cannot be heard and they steal up behind you, or approach at speed, making the pavement potentially as dangerous as the road. Those good enough to use the road or the huge number of cycle lanes that now pepper our capital have no compunction—they jump lights all the time. There is an arrogant culture of non-compliance with the law, made worse by recent legislation to give cycles priority. Both my husband and I have been knocked over.

The behaviour of cyclists and of some of those on scooters makes it dangerous to walk, particularly in the rush hour. Hired e-scooters are dumped on pavements, posing a hazard to walkers. If I was disabled, like my noble friend Lord Shinkwin, who has an amendment in a later group, I would now be extremely nervous about walking around town at all. The problem is relevant to everyone, not just those unlucky enough to be involved in a serious incident, so what can be done?

There has to be a major change in enforcement, since riding on pavements and through traffic lights is already illegal. I was glad to hear of the work by the City of London Police, and to read in the Metro last week that the Met have been having a bit of a crackdown, but these initiatives are, I fear, a drop in the ocean. I would add that some riders are criminals, out to steal your phone or your handbag, transporting drugs or riding bikes that have themselves been stolen. Three members of my family have had their bikes stolen in recent years.

The indulgent culture that I have described is fuelled by Department for Transport neglect and police failure to give this area of lawlessness any priority, although it actually represents a crime wave. It reminds me of those mopeds stealing handbags in Italy—that beloved country—when I was young, but experience here is now far worse. Who would have thought that this would happen in England?

The accident and fatality statistics are chilling. As we have heard, 603 pedestrians were struck by bikes in 2024, with one fatality; in 2023, four accidents were fatal and 188 people suffered broken bones. We have also heard from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, about the increase in lower leg injuries caused by Lime-style bikes, because they are so heavy. My conclusion is that there is a case for much stronger action, both from the perspective of neighbourhood safety and local crime prevention and as a contribution to reducing serious crime.

With his long experience at the Home Office, I know that the Minister is keen to take measures that work, so I would like him to make three changes. First, we need a national initiative to give scooter and cycle crime priority in enforcement by the police. I remember the Met’s Operation Bumblebee in the 1990s having a huge impact on burglary and its acceptability.

Secondly, we need to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, with his knowledge, experience and common sense. We should agree to his proposal for a registration system, which, in an era of CCTV cameras, would hugely aid enforcement and be popular with every honest cycle or scooter owner, because it would make it easier for them to get stolen bikes back and deter the gangs from seizing banks of bikes for resale.

Thirdly, we should accept the noble Lord’s amendment to treat bikes and scooters that go more than 15.5 miles per hour like motorbikes or mopeds. They would need number plates and insurance, and riders would wear helmets, limiting head injuries and freeing up time in A&E. If riders cannot be shamed into keeping off pavements, the risk of being booked—what the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, described as the “risk of detection”—should be restored, at least for these ultra dangerous vehicles. It may help to persuade the Minister that New York, in the land of the free, has already imposed a 15 miles per hour limit on e-bikes. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh also mentioned the benefits that insurance would bring. I realise that it does not seem to be in scope and, although everything they said is valid, I do not want that to be used as another excuse for delay.

I look forward to hearing from the Minister. This is his Bill, not the Department for Transport’s, and I hope he will be brave. For years, the department has done nothing to tackle this dreadful issue, having been persuaded by e-scooter and cycle lobbyists and, in his time, by Boris Johnson. As in other walks of life, and in the words of John F Kennedy, we pay a heavy price for allowing a problem to go unsolved.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise with a degree of trepidation after the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I declare an interest in that I am a regular cyclist on both a normal road bike and an e-bike.

What we have going on in the world of cycling and e-scooters has some parallels with your Lordships’ House, in the sense that it is a giant experiment in self-regulation. As we know from your Lordships’ House, particularly from some recent arrivals, the individually subjective interpretation of “self-regulation” can mean, on the one hand, regulation that suits oneself or, on the other hand, regulation that thinks about everybody else. I will say no more on that subject.

We have made a huge strategic mistake alongside a great success. We have been very successful, more than we ever imagined, in encouraging cycling across this country. But, while we have successfully encouraged cycling and put cycling infrastructure in place, the element we have completely ignored is how to do it safely, and how to enforce rules and laws. With the benefit of hindsight, to do the one without the other is blindingly stupid. The results are all around us—I see them every day when the weather is nice enough for me to bicycle here. There is virtually no policing at all. The chances of you being caught are non-existent.

I recall, about 14 years ago, a fatal accident not far from where I live in Fulham. For a period of about a week, there was a very heavy and visible police presence in the area where there had been the accident. Your Lordships will be aware that at every major traffic light junction, there is an area in front of where the cars are meant to stop, which is a box with a bicycle logo inside it that is meant only for bicyclists. Noble Lords will be aware, if they are observant, that not only is that box usually full of moped delivery drivers trying to get ahead and go as fast as they can but, in many cases, it is also full of motorists, many of whom I suspect have no idea what that box is there for. That happens every day.

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[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I support the thrust of a number of the amendments that appear in this very broad group. Undoubtedly, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, told us, we have a significant problem, particularly in London. My own anecdotal experience is of cyclists and e-cyclists totally flouting the law, riding on the pavement and riding the wrong way down one-way streets. This is particularly prevalent among delivery riders.

I tend to walk around London—probably a couple of miles a day; most days around the West End and to and fro your Lordships’ House—and I can confidently say that I have never once seen a cyclist or an e-cyclist stopped for any very overt offences. The noble Lord suggests that he has been stopped.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I thought the noble Viscount was going to say “red light”.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

Perhaps so. It is not a question of having ineffective enforcement; I would say that we have no enforcement whatever—at least none that I have ever seen. If you have a law that is not enforced at all and is defined by people ignoring it, you have a serious problem. We should not be making additional laws on the subject if we do not have a high degree of confidence that they will be enforced, or else we are wasting everybody’s time here.

I invite the Minister, in the context of all the amendments in this big group, to give us a broad overview of what the Government are going to do about enforcement. I know there are other amendments later also talking about enforcement, but unless he can convince us about that, I suggest that there is not much point to many of the provisions in this part of the Bill.

I note that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, with whom I agree on many aspects of this and other Bills, knocks the ball into the Government’s court to come up with a registration scheme for cycles. This causes me some reflection. I think it would be extremely difficult to do and would be a very large step indeed, so my preference would be for more enforcement—in essence, people being stopped for those offences—rather than the amount of complication that such a scheme would generate. Children riding cycles on their way to school, for example, cannot have points because they do not have licences. I can imagine any number of unintended consequences. However, we need to do something, and if it is a licensing scheme for the heavier, faster e-bikes, maybe that is what has to happen, and I think the Government need to grasp that.

I was very taken with my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s Amendment 337E. Stating for the avoidance of doubt that if you cycle on a pavement, you are by definition cycling without due care and attention seems eminently sensible, just to make the law a bit clearer. Amendment 346B on e-bikes in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, is very important. I should declare an interest in that I have a mountain bike and an e-bike. I have two, as it happens, and I use them occasionally—not at the same time, I have to say; that would be too difficult.

People who want to move around London quickly have a choice. Either they buy a motorcycle and pass a complicated series of tests to get that motorcycle licence—if they go for the full licence; it is a lesser standard for smaller machines. They need to tax the vehicle; they need to insure it; and they need an MoT if it is of that age. Or they could ignore all that and get an illegal electric cycle with comparable performance to a moped, and no one seems to be stopping them, as far as I can see. They have no insurance, no tax, no registration and, happy days, no one is stopping them for any offences whatever.

There are, of course, proper electric motorbikes where you have to wear a helmet, have a registration and so forth—indeed, I think there are a few Peers who come to your Lordships’ House on such machines. We have a very broad spectrum, but at the moment a lot of people, particularly delivery drivers, are riding vehicles that are not being pedalled; they are just pushing an electric throttle, in essence. These are obviously illegal: even as an amateur, I can see that a policeman would have every right to stop them and impound that vehicle, so I think we have to make that clearer. I think by 15.5 miles an hour, we mean a maximum powered speed, because of course if you head downhill, you will go much faster, as with a conventional cycle. However, I think we have to say, for the avoidance of doubt, “That is a motorcycle”, if it does not meet the criteria, “and if you ride that without tax, registration, insurance and so forth, you are committing a series of significant offences, and you will be arrested and prosecuted for such”.

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There is still a core problem with using stalking law created in 2012. As I said, the CPS often charges using harassment crimes rather than specific stalking crimes. This has key consequences. First, the victims feel let down and feel that justice has let them down. If their stalker is a fixated and manipulative perpetrator, it tells the perpetrator that what they have done is not serious; that is why Amendment 332 was tabled. Despite the good news from Richard Wright’s review, it is rightly important that Parliament is reassured that there is a full assessment of why stalking legislation is not used by the CPS, even with repeat stalkers. The review should be about not just the new cyber and other important forms of stalking but the old ones, which we are still trying to get right.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I was very happy to add my name to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I arrived slightly later to the party than the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Brinton, because I was not around when they nobly started tackling this difficult subject. However, once I arrived, I was happy to try to help in whatever way I could.

The amendments in this group are interwoven with an awful lot of other legislation that we have passed in recent years and are discussing today because many of the same traits, particularly behavioural traits, are still there, together with some of the challenges that the different authorities have in trying both to understand this behaviour and to do something about it. The parallel drawn in Amendment 330A between the DAPO, to which domestic abuse perpetrators are subject, and the stalking protection order, which has nothing like the same power or speed, is a good analogy. I ask the Government to look at and consider that very carefully. If the Government were to talk with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, they would find, I suspect, that Dame Nicole Jacobs—a dame as of last week—would be very interested in discussing it further with them and would argue the case for that.

Amendments 330AZA and 356E, which deal with the ingenuity, frankly, of perpetrators in using online means to find different ways to get at their victims, has many parallels with what we look at in many areas that deal with online abuse. I appeal to the Government that we be joined up, in terms of the experience that different departments and specialist teams are gaining through the different pieces of legislation and guidance that we are enacting, so that we are learning from one another and not operating in silos, which, I fear, we sometimes do.

Amendment 330AA, which would remove the excuse of one’s religion or the need to be in an educational establishment—again, another ingenious excuse for finding a way to get to the perpetrator—is a loophole that I hope the Government will look at very carefully.

A stalking protection notice to accelerate and streamline the process would be extremely valuable. I am sure that, if the Minister and his team were to talk about this with some of the most advanced areas of the country and police forces—in particular, the county of Cheshire, which has five gold stars for doing this really well—and to ask whether they would find a stalking protection notice useful in order to move quickly, the answer would, I suspect, be a resounding yes. Going to talk to the people who are on the front line in dealing with this day in, day out would be a very useful use of time.

On Amendment 330C, of course the Secretary of State should have the power to issue stalking guidance, not least because, as stalkers get more and more ingenious and devious in some of the ways they find to make their victims’ lives horrible, it is important that the guidance keeps up. It is often two steps behind. The people who suffer because of that are the victims and the people who gain are the perpetrators, because it gives them the breathing room to do what they do and the law is quite slow to catch up.

I am broadly in sympathy with all these amendments. Stalking is one of the main causes of distress to victims in this country, alongside domestic abuse and anti-social behaviour. They are the unholy trinity and the largest volume affecting people, predominantly women. The ways perpetrators pursue their victims are often quite complex. These are quite devious and often quite intelligent individuals. We need an intelligent response in order to do something about it.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, this debate has underlined that stalking is not an occasional nuisance but a pattern of behaviour that our systems still struggle to recognise and act on early enough. The debate shows a familiar picture: warning signs are missed, threats are minimised and tools that Parliament has already provided are used patchily, if at all.

These amendments point towards a more joined-up and confident response, in which the police, prosecutors and other agencies share information, understand the particular dynamics of stalking and intervene at a much earlier stage, including online, before behaviour escalates into something far more dangerous. Looking ahead, there is now a real opportunity to embed that approach in the forthcoming review and in the VAWG strategy. Many of the ideas we have discussed—stronger use of stalking protection orders and notices, better guidance and training, and clearer expectations of consistency across forces—could and should be reflected on here.

The underlying purpose of these amendments is surely uncontroversial: to ensure that the law and practice keep pace with the reality of stalking and to give victims a response that matches the seriousness of the threat they face, so that this debate becomes a turning point rather than a missed opportunity.

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My noble friend Lady Royall has Amendments 330AZA and 356E, to which other Members have spoken, which seek to list explicitly certain conditions that may be included in a stalking protection order or a domestic abuse protection order. The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, spoke in favour of them. We believe that the behaviours listed in these amendments are already covered under existing legislation that allows the courts to impose any prohibitions or requirements they consider necessary and proportionate to protect the victim. I argue—but again it is for noble Lords and my noble friend to consider this—that listing specific conditions in the legislation would risk leading the police and courts to rely only on prescribed examples rather than tailoring orders to individual circumstances.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I understand that point of not wanting it to go into primary legislation, but given the way in which it is possible to use the online world to find all sorts of ways that circumvent the conventional ways in which one would try to intimidate someone, could one not have a look at the guidance to ensure that it includes descriptions of the slightly innovative ways in which perpetrators are using it to make those charged with policing this more aware of it?