Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Acton and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 370A, which seeks to grant the Secretary of State the power to designate and restrict extreme criminal protest groups—and I declare an interest as the director of the Free Speech Union.

Last Monday, the Free Speech Union was the victim of an attack by a group that meets the definition in this amendment of an extreme criminal protest group. It is a group called Bash Back, which is a militant pro-trans group; it broke into the website of the Free Speech Union, stole confidential information about some of our donors and then published that information on its website and its social media accounts. To get that information removed, we had to apply for an emergency injunction; we then had to go back to court to put that injunction on a firmer footing; and there will be a third hearing or trial at which we try to make that injunction permanent. In the meantime, even though the information has been removed from the group’s website and social media accounts, that website and those social media accounts are still up. It has been extremely traumatic and disruptive—our website is still down. Applying for emergency injunctions and seeing that process through is by no means cheap; it is not entirely covered by our insurance.

One of the arguments we have heard this evening as to why the Secretary of State should not be granted this power is that the existing criminal law framework is adequate to deal with extreme criminal protest groups. I am glad to say that the Metropolitan Police does appear to be taking seriously what is a criminal offence—the data breach and the publication of that confidential data, in our case. The pro-trans group Bash Back has been active for at least six months and the criminal law as it stands has not been adequate to restrain it. This group took responsibility for vandalising the constituency office of Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health. In addition to smashing up his constituency office in Ilford North, it daubed the words “Child Killer” on the wall of his office because he said that he does not want the NHS to prescribe puberty blockers any longer. No one, as far as I know, has been interviewed by the police in connection with that violent assault on the offices of a Member of Parliament: certainly, no one has been arrested. The group followed up with an attack on a feminist conference in Brighton, and the threats and intimidation meant that that conference could not take place.

More recently, the group launched a violent attack on the offices of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, presumably because of the guidance note that the commission submitted to the Government about how to interpret the Supreme Court’s judgment about the meaning of the word “sex” in the Equality Act, which presumably the group does not agree with. It daubed graffiti on the walls of the office and used hammers to smash the glass on the office’s front. I do not suppose that I need to remind noble Lords that the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission at the time was the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and one of the commissioners at the time was my noble friend Lady Cash. This is an extreme criminal protest group which has seemingly been allowed to operate with impunity because the existing—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

Forgive me for interrupting—and I have hiccups, which is why I am trying not to interrupt—but the more important point about the attack on the EHRC’s London offices is that it is in a large building shared by several other organisations. Not only were the staff of the EHRC threatened by the very act of the attack, but the other organisations that use the building were also extremely disturbed by what happened, and there have been repercussions for the EHRC as a consequence as a tenant. I cannot say any more than that, but I wanted to make that point.