Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the clerks, the Whips and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, for allowing me to change my place in the running order. I declare my interest as the UK chair of Common Sense Media, a US not-for-profit that campaigns for children’s safety on the internet. I had to step out of the debate briefly because I wanted to take part in a debate on music education in the Moses Room, which allows me to continue a tradition that I have set up for myself to always shoehorn the arts into any debate that we have here.

I echo to a certain extent the excellent sentiment behind the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. There is an interesting theme developing in this debate—an undercurrent coming from many noble Lords: do we need endless pieces of criminal legislation? Do we narrowly focus on the specifics that happen to exercise the public mind—or the political mind, perhaps—today and miss the big picture? I have long campaigned on the importance of the arts in the criminal justice system and, of course, the importance of the arts in our society in helping people to find interests and ways of expressing themselves that contribute to a harmonious society. I completely agree with the noble Baroness that this is impossible to legislate for. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, does so much incredible work as Prisons Minister and, in a previous life, in promoting the use of the arts in this way.

I was very struck by the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, which set this tone about constant recourse to legislation. I was reminded that, when I first became the Arts Minister, I inherited the Digital Economy Act and the new legislation to prosecute people who downloaded illegal music. I thought then that going after teenagers in their bedrooms was a fool’s errand; there would be a technology solution. The music industry found a solution by using existing legislation; it used the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to prosecute the big websites that were ripping off music makers, and in that way we started to get things more on an even keel.

It has long been a slightly bizarre obsession of mine as to why we do not have a criminal code in this country—one piece of paper, as it were, that lists the criminal offences—which would allow the Government of the day to do exactly what my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier was speaking about: cross-reference whether the offences that they are now bringing into law already exist or whether there are existing offences that could cover the current passion. For example, I bow to no one in wanting to defend retail workers from attacks by increasingly aggressive shoplifters, but I want to prevent everyone being attacked in this way. Do we need a specific offence for retail workers, or does this merely clog up the system? Indeed, to a certain extent, legislation such as this misses the big picture. The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, referred to the merger of police forces, which is long overdue, and we have referred in this debate to clogged cases.

Having said all that, of course, let me now do a complete reverse ferret—channel my inner noble Lord, Lord Walney, if you like—and say that I also wanted to speak in this debate to offer my unequivocal support to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. She and many other noble Baronesses and noble Lords have done incredible work in bringing the criminal statute book up to date in terms of the way that technology has fundamentally changed how pornography is used and has fundamentally impacted the lives of young people. I will support anything that can make that more coherent and allow us to have greater powers to crack down on this great technological scourge.

Telecommunications Fraud: Reimbursement of Victims

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

One key area that we are focusing on in the revised fraud strategy is data sharing. I want to ensure that telecoms companies, telecommunications providers, platforms, the police and others share data where there is fraudulent activity. I hope that Members will bear with me but, when the fraud strategy comes out in due course, data sharing and how we can improve it will be one of our key aims as a Government.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad that the Minister mentioned data sharing because, obviously, a lot of scams and fraud come through nuisance calls and texts. There is a no man’s land, as it were, between Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office, so it vital that those two regulators work closely together. I hope that, as part of the fraud strategy, the Minister will illuminate how closely those two regulators are working together and perhaps commit to regular reports on how they are cracking down on nuisance calls and texts, which companies they are closing, whom they are fining and what impact they are having.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Absolutely. I am keen on having not just data sharing but data metrics and performance in the fraud strategy. The noble Lord’s point is extremely valid. There is a lot of good talk, but we need to measure action.

India and Southeast Asia: Free Trade Agreements

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Bilimoria and his focus on India, reflecting the huge amount of work that he does promoting UK-Indian relations. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Anelay on securing this debate—she obviously has a distinguished record, having served as a Minister in the Foreign Office covering south-east Asia, and knows of what she speaks.

I speak as the chair of the UK-ASEAN Business Council, a post I have been proud to hold for the last two years, having also been the trade envoy to Vietnam under the premiership of Theresa May. It is a region that I have got to know very well, and it remains a huge source of opportunity for the UK. Trade between ASEAN and the UK stands at around £50 billion a year. The UK is slightly ahead on exports against imports. On goods and services, there is roughly a 50-50 split in what we export.

If we go through the members of the UK-ASEAN Business Council, it will give a flavour of where those opportunities lie, with professional service companies, financial services companies, universities and education companies. We recently had the Premier League join us, which reflects, as it were, the new economy and the new businesses, especially the tech businesses, that can make huge inroads in this area.

Noble Lords do not need reminding that we have fantastic ties in the region. Malaysia and Singapore are both Commonwealth nations, with very visible investment in the UK—you have only to look across the river to see the incredible regeneration of Battersea Power Station. Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam are also huge and growing economies where we do a lot of business. There is prominent investment from Thailand. My noble friend Lady Anelay mentioned her visit to Indonesia. I was lucky to sit down with the President of Indonesia when he visited the UK recently as well as the Prime Minister of Malaysia, who was also in the country recently. We are constantly visited by high-level politicians from all those countries, all of whom want to engage with us.

We are very lucky to have some first-class officials based in the region, not least Martin Kent, our trade commissioner, and Sarah Tiffin, our ASEAN ambassador. There is everything to play for. We have a free trade deal with Singapore, as well as a digital economy agreement. We have a free trade deal with Vietnam; we piggybacked on the EU deal. Minister Alexander negotiated an enhanced trade partnership with Thailand, which we signed in September. We have an economic growth partnership with Indonesia. They are not very sexy names, but they are important agreements.

We are the first dialogue partner with ASEAN for 25 years. Of course, we are members of the CPTPP, which includes four ASEAN members, with three more knocking on the door. The CPTPP is already delivering significant benefits—we can now of course export chocolate to Malaysia without paying any tariffs. The CPTPP has given us, in effect, a free trade agreement with Malaysia by the back door.

I conclude simply with two to-do points for the Minister. First, Malaysia is currently the chair of ASEAN. I cannot emphasise enough how engaged Malaysia is with the digital agenda and how much it seeks to engage with the UK on digital, not least on artificial intelligence. Many new institutions have been established in Malaysia which quite openly mimic ours, with imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. They look to us for guidance—not in a patronising sense—on how they should develop their tech policy and tech infrastructure. Secondly, I was flattered to be asked to the Indonesian embassy to meet the Minister for Eurasian affairs, who simply put his cards on the table and said: “We are very keen to have a free trade agreement with the UK”. It is sitting on the table. I do not know if it is quite oven ready, but we have an enthusiastic partner in Indonesia. We recognise that the Government have priorities in terms of their free trade deals, not least with India, but Indonesia is a very willing partner.

Emergency Service Network Programme

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, who will be aware that I can be responsible only for activity post 4 July 2024. There was significant time and money overspend under the previous Government. However, he is right that the service will provide for 300,000 users across Britain, 107 emergency services, 44 police forces, 50 fire and rescue services and 13 ambulance trusts, as well as 300 other organisations that use Airwave for this important purpose. I hear what he says, but we have set a course of action and a direction of travel. He will no doubt monitor that, and I want to ensure that the switchover from Airwave to the new emergency service network happens as quickly as possible. As he knows, it will take some time to bed in following the ending of the previous contract and the beginning of this contract. I hope that the House will bear with me on that delivery in due course.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, this saga goes back so far that I was the telecoms Minister when this was first being discussed, in 2015. I am glad that progress has been made, but with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, setting a new course of action at this late stage would not necessarily be the right thing to do. The fundamental point is that the Home Office should not be building or contracting a mobile phone network, and I am glad that BT/EE is in charge of it. What worried me was reading that the Home Office itself is planning to build 300 masts. How does this programme correspond with the DCMS’s programme for a rural network shared between the mobile operators? It seems that the left hand and the right hand may each not know what the other is doing.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Given the overspend, I do not know whether the noble Lord was the left hand or the right hand in the previous Government. But whichever he was, I declare an interest: I was the Police Minister in 2009-10, and this had not started then. The delay, obfuscation, overspend and costs happened entirely on the previous Government’s watch. However, let us put that to one side. The key thing is ensuring that our police forces, fire services and others have appropriate services. The Home Office will provide some masts because there are some security implications, which we need to examine and deliver on. I hope that I can reassure the noble Lord, and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that the Home Office will have a grip on this and will deliver, and that it has a three to five-year plan to get the basics in place, with a handover as soon as possible.