Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Cash Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I believe—well, I hope—that there is one thing that all Members of this noble House agree upon: that none of us wish to see the rise of the far right or of any political movement that feeds upon public fear and the failures of our institutions. Yet that is precisely what is happening in the UK today.

I have come here today to address what is not in this Bill, which I believe is a missed opportunity to address some of those most significant and pressing issues of our time. The public have lost faith in the even-handedness of policing and the moral courage of those in authority. When people see double standards—or two-tier standards—resentment grows, and trust dies. This Bill is a chance to restore that trust, to ensure that the criminal justice system in Britain is not captive to ideology and not paralysed by fear any more.

I commend much in the Bill, but so far it fails to address the underlying causes of what is known by the public and by our media as two-tier policing. We are failing to confront too many uncomfortable truths, and we have seen where that fear leads. In Rotherham and Telford, thousands of children—and we are still counting, by the way—were abused while officials looked away. The Jay and Casey reviews both record that professionals were nervous about

“identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist”.

One police officer put it more bluntly—that it was “safer to do nothing”. Let me repeat that: it was safer to do nothing. That single sentence should haunt us, and I hope that that sentence will hang over this House while we scrutinise and look to close the gaps in this Bill.

What a time to have a debate about introducing a definition of “Islamophobia”. I remind noble Lords that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for her efforts, was voted “Islamophobe of the year”. It is not right that those who have the courage to address these issues are attacked and accused of being racist for that. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, will take these issues seriously, and I hope that we can work together to address them.

The same paralysis has cost lives in honour-based abuse. The murders of Banaz Mahmod and Shafilea Ahmed are just two examples. Both young women sought help and both were dismissed as family disputes—and both were killed. The Government have promised to define honour-based law, and that is welcome, but definition without duty is not protection. We will need clearly spelled-out statutory obligations to act, report, share intelligence and intervene—likewise with grooming.

I am running out of time. Even as the police have shrunk from appalling crimes, they have continued to prosecute non-crime hate incidents—I support everything that has been said on that. It is part of the same issue, and we need to show the courage that this country needs so that we do not end up driving voters into the arms of something less savoury. Why, in the current climate, would anyone do what the Casey or Jay reports urge? The very definition of two-tier policing is that fear has dictated who is protected and who is silenced.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the proposed new clauses in my Amendments 271C, 271D and 271E. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Maclean on her excellent amendments. She also has the advantage of that wonderful name of the great Highland clan the Macleans of Duart, which I used to have myself.

I was inspired to table my amendments when I read properly the brilliant but frightening report from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock. I had skim-read the media reports and the government comments on it when it was published, but it was not until recently, when I read the report properly, that I had confirmed to me the full horror of the conspiracy by those in lawful authority who had covered up child rape for the last 30 years. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, said in blunt terms what we all knew was the case but were afraid to say in case we were accused of racism or Islamophobia. We could all see from the various court convictions that 90% of the perpetrators were Pakistani Muslim males and the victims were almost exclusively young white girls.

The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, pointed out that around 500,000 children a year are likely to experience sexual abuse of some kind. The police recorded data shows just over 100,000 offences of child sexual abuse and exploitation recorded in 2024, with around 60% of these being contact offences. We know that the sex crimes reported to the police are just the tip of the iceberg. The national police data confirms that the majority of victims of child sexual exploitation are girls—78% in 2023. The most common age for victims is between 10 and 15 years-old—57% are between 10 and 15 years old, for God’s sake. Putting that together suggests that, of just those reported to the police, we have at least 60,000 little children every year being victims of contact sexual abuse—and what an intriguing term that is. Let us start calling it out for what it really is.

The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, said:

“That term ‘group-based child sexual exploitation’ is actually a sanitised version of what it is. I want to set it out in unsanitised terms: we are talking about multiple sexual assaults committed against children by multiple men on multiple occasions; beatings and gang rapes. Girls having to have abortions, contracting sexually transmitted infections, having children removed from them at birth”.


These children were not abused by these Pakistani rape gangs. They were raped, raped and raped again by people who believed that the girls who were not Muslim were just prostitutes, deserving to be raped. Therefore, I say that “child abuse” is far too mild a term to describe the evil of what is happening. Abuse can expand over a wide range. It can be heavy smacking, not feeding a child property or failing to give love, care and attention. These things are bad in themselves, but we must make sure that we use the right terminology when talking about rape and sexual assault.

That is why I have tabled the proposed new clause in my Amendment 271C. The important words in it are “investigating authority”. Of course, after investigation, if the police find evidence of rape or sexual assault, the accused will be charged with those specific offences. The CPS will also use those correct terms. However, we have seen, time and time again, that the police, in their initial statements, say they are investigating “child abuse” and have a person or persons in custody with regard to “child abuse”. That is what the media are told and that is the message we get on our screens and in the press. By the time the police eventually say the person or persons have been charged with rape, the damage has been done. We all relax somewhat: just a bit of abuse, nothing to worry about.

The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, said:

“That is why I want the legislation on rape tightened up so that an adult having penetrative sex with a child under 16 is rape, no excuses, no defence. I believe many jaws across the country would drop if it was widely known that doing so is called anything but that”.


I am pleased to see that my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie and my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower have tabled Amendment 271B, which does exactly that. My proposed new clause is complementary, in a way: if a person is under investigation for child rape, let the police say that at the outset and not give the impression that it is something lesser.

The new clause proposed in my Amendment 271D sets out details on the full and proper investigation of historical child sexual abuse. I have used the commonly used term “historical”, but I do not like it either: it gives the impression that it is something way in the distant past, like the Battle of Waterloo. The proper terminology would be, “investigation of past child sexual abuse cases which were not properly investigated at the time”, since that is what we are talking about. It is not a very sexy title, but that is the reality.

I know that the National Crime Agency is looking at some of these past cases, and nearly 1,300 previously closed investigations involving allegations of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation are currently being reviewed in Operation Beaconport, but my proposed new clause gives them wider authority.

We have all heard about Rochdale, Rotherham, Aylesbury and Telford, but there are at least 30 local authorities where child rape by gangs took place. Apparently, 23 police forces have submitted cases to the NCA, and the Met itself is looking at 9,000 cases. However, it seems that the NCA is looking only at police forces, when the conspiracy to not investigate and to cover up was led in many cases by elected councillors, local authorities and children’s homes.

I quote the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, again:

“I met many victims of child sexual exploitation when I conducted the inspection of Rotherham Council in 2016. I was outraged, shocked and appalled at their treatment—not only at the hands of their vile abusers, but at the treatment afforded them by those who were supposedly there to help, and to be accountable, such as their police force and their council. Those responsible in Rotherham denied any wrongdoing and tried to shirk accountability”.


She went on to say that

“I assumed we would all wake up to the fact that these were abused children and it would mean that the police, councils, health and other agencies would do their damnedest to make sure these victims were given as much care, respect and chance at justice as possible”.

Note her words: she thought that not just the police but

“councils, health and other agencies would do their damnedest”

to stop it, but they did not. In fact, we have seen from many cases that councils, councillors and their staff did their damnedest to conspire with some police forces to turn a blind eye, reduce and drop charges and cover up. The excuse was not to offend community relations and prosecute the mainly Pakistani men doing the raping.

So it is essential that the NCA, since there is no one better qualified to do it, has the powers in my proposed new clause to investigate all persons in lawful authority in the organisations I list in proposed new subsections (1) and (5), not just the police. These are

“staff of local authorities of whatever rank … elected council members of local authorities … police officers of all ranks … any police support staff … owners or managers of homes for children in care”.

Of course, the proposed new clause gives the NCA powers to get all papers and emails and sets penalties for any person trying to obstruct its inquiries.

Finally, the new clause proposed in my Amendment 271E is on offences and penalties. I need not go through them all, but I have listed eight different offences, ranging from failure to investigate and dismissing charges improperly up to and including bribes or sexual favours and the conspiracy to cover everything up.

I did not conjure these up from thin air: all these suggested offences are based on reports of crime cases and convictions, and these were allegations made in court and accepted as truthful—but then nothing was done about them. The persons were convicted of child rape or sexual assault, but then no one investigated the police or the council officers who failed to investigate or covered it up, and we have tens of thousands of cases which never got to court because of failures of investigation and good cover-ups.

Where any of these people were acting alone, I suggest a sentence of up to 10 years. However, where there was a conspiracy, with any of these people acting in concert to commit any of the offences in my list, the only penalty, in my opinion, can be up to life imprisonment. This has to be separate from the offence of perverting the course of justice, where the maximum penalty is generally seven years. I think that the heaviest sentence ever given for perverting the course of justice was 12 years for someone who planted incriminating evidence on an innocent person.

There is already a power to remove all or part of a police officer’s pension if the officer has been sentenced for a crime. Then the Home Secretary can initiate a procedure. We need to make it clear that that power can be used against any police officers and local authority employees who may be convicted of any of the crimes I have listed.

Some, perhaps many, noble Lords and the Minister will say that these penalties are far too draconian. Of course, they are draconian, and they need to be. What we are looking at are some of the vilest crimes committed against children short of murder.

The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, said:

“When those same girls get older, they face long-term physical and mental health impacts. Sometimes they have criminal convictions for actions they took while under coercion. They have to live with fear and the constant shadow over them of an injustice which has never been righted—the shame of not being believed. And, with a criminal justice system that can re-traumatise them all over again, often over many years. With an overall system that compounds and exacerbates the damage; rarely acknowledges its failures to victims. They never get to see those people who were in positions of power and let them down be held accountable … What makes child sexual exploitation particularly reprehensible, is that is consists of both formal and informal groups of men preying on girls, coercing, manipulating and deceiving them in pursuit of sexual gratification and power”.


News reports and inquests have detailed specific instances, such as the case of Charlotte Tetley, a survivor of the Rochdale grooming scandal who, after years of mental health struggles and self-harm, took her own life as an adult. Another victim, an anonymous woman, described having

“a lot of problems in the past, suicide attempts and drinking”

due to the abuse she suffered as a vulnerable teenager. Major studies and reports consistently find that survivors of child sexual abuse are at a significantly higher risk of suicide attempts than the general population. All those abusers have escaped any investigation or sanction and are in the same vile box as the rapists who raped all those children. They need to be investigated and prosecuted and to get exemplary sentences.

I am conscious that I am exceeding the 10-minute limit, but I hope the Committee will bear with me because there a couple more minutes to go. I promise that in the next debate I will speak for less than 30 seconds.

Over the past 30 years, 60,000 girls have been raped every year. We are appalled at Ukraine, where Putin has kidnapped 20,000 people and soldiers have raped about 4,000 over the past three years.

Finally, I look forward to hearing the wise words of my noble friend Lady Cash. It was two or three years before she qualified as a barrister that we created a precedent for prosecuting and bringing to justice those who committed crimes in the past. We passed, by the Parliament Act, the War Crimes Act 1991, after this House blocked it for many good reasons. We prosecuted one person under it, a 78 year-old Belarusian SS man called Anthony Sawoniuk. He murdered 18 Jews—well, he murdered a lot more than 18 Jews, but those are the ones we got names for—and we punished him. He was convicted and given a life sentence in grade C Norwich Prison, with three meals a day and his healthcare needs taken care of, and he died peacefully at age 84. Of course, the only appropriate punishment for him would have been if he appeared at Nuremburg and was hanged with all the others. We have a precedent for going back 50 years to bring to justice a war criminal who was not even British at the time it was done, so I hope that we will accept my noble friend’s view that we need to look back at historical cases and bring them forward.

Penultimately, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, talked about taxis. I am afraid we have not got an amendment on taxis, but I want to get one. Let me conclude with these words from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey,

“one thing is abundantly clear; we as a society owe these women a debt. They should never have been allowed to have suffered the appalling abuse and violence they went through as children. This is especially so for those who were in the ‘care’ of local authorities, where the duty to protect them was left in the hands of professionals on the state’s behalf”.

These women are now in our care. It is our duty in this Parliament to ensure that they get justice for the appalling crimes they suffered.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, and I shall speak to the four amendments in my name. Those are in two parts. Amendments 288A and 288B are directed to the reporting of child sexual abuse and child criminal exploitation. The purpose of the amendments is to act. We have to actually do something since we have had so many reviews and inquiries.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

Ending honour-based abuse requires courage from all of us. It requires professionals who act, neighbours who refuse to look away and communities that reject violence in the name of honour. It requires survivors to be supported and to rebuild their lives with dignity. When we act together, either through prevention, protection, prosecution or partnership, we make it harder for abusers to hide and easier for victims to find safety.

[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”.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

to make the decisions about protests. There is some unease from some people about giving them that power. So I ask the Minister reflect on whether that is still the appropriate person to make the final decision, given the recent behaviour of some police officers, albeit a very small minority, and to be given total discretion on taking action?

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising the issue of Miznon and Erev in Notting Hill. There have been a number of protests outside that restaurant, which is actually on my street. The owners of the restaurant and the residents who use it, including me, have been subjected to the vilest form of antisemitism, and the police have done nothing.

So I support this and will ask the Minister a number of questions about it. It is not enough to say that the senior officer should be responsible for this; much clearer principles and rules are needed around what is and is not acceptable, if the police are evidently—based on recent events—not capable of exercising that judgment themselves. So I support this and hope that the Minister will take it seriously.

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

My Lords, I will confine what I say to a few points in response to some of the speakers we have heard from.

I found myself in considerable agreement with the general concerns about balance expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. It seems to me that, in some of the consideration of these clauses, we have lost sight of what we agreed in Committee last week. Everybody agreed that questions for the courts and others about considering breaches of public order law—as well as the introduction of new public order provisions—do raise the question of balance between, on the one hand, the right to protest and, on the other, the rights and freedoms of others.

I will resist the temptation to respond in detail to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in spite of his claim that he relished the Minister’s demolition of my arguments about stress-testing this legislation for the future and not relying on the benign intentions of this Government. I have concerns about the noble Lord’s amendments; I am sure that the Minister will deal with them. They include questions about what “serious disruption” is and what should amount to “essential services” within the meaning of the Act, as well as he whole question of cumulative disruption, to which we will turn later.

Those concerns—and the Minister’s comments in the previous group on the publication of the review of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven—raise an important issue about the timing of this legislation, compared with the timing of the noble Lord’s expected report. I share the confidence that he will consider all these issues with great care, but might it not have been better had the review come first and the introduction of this legislation and its consideration in this House come second? From what the Minister said in his speech on the previous group, I take it that it is the Government’s present intention to give further consideration to public order law in the light of the noble Lord’s expected report. If that is the case—and if that attention will be given objectively and carefully, and then lead to such legislation as is necessary—that may be the best we can do with the timing that we have now. But my comments stand about the order in which this has been done stand.

I turn to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. I do not propose to give him many hours of pleasure in listening again to arguments about balance as a matter of law; however, I do repeat the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, about how confident he is that police officers, including senior police officers, always get the balance right. That is a difficult assertion to make or defend. I am not suggesting that he went as far as that, but it is very important, not only for the Government but for us as parliamentarians, to consider the possibility that police officers sometimes fail to get the balance right.

I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made that it is often a very difficult balance to strike. We need to be very careful in commenting on how the police should strike it and not place too much confidence in the police in the future and, in particular, in the event of changes in government that, as the noble Lord recognised, might be unwelcome to many of us. Nevertheless, they could be changes of an elected Government.

That brings me to Amendment 382H, which was welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, and elegantly presented by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. I will draw the Committee’s attention to one problem. Proposed new subsection (5) is not simply definitional; it is designed to act—and would act, in some sense—as an ouster for the purposes of domestic courts of the effect of the convention rights. It uses the language of Article 11 when it states:

“For the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998, this section must be treated as necessary in a democratic society for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.


Article 11 requires that the rights that are respected

“are necessary in a democratic society … for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.

If Parliament legislates that a section must be treated as necessary, it precludes within this jurisdiction any testing of the proposition that such provisions, as interpreted, are necessary in a democratic society for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. That is the province of the European Court of Human Rights to consider. It is a requirement of the Human Rights Act that domestic courts here give effect to the European convention and interpret legislation, where they can, as compatible with the convention.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

The protesters are at a different level from those we are used to in the UK, and certainly those we had in mind when creating the Public Order Act 1986. Therefore, we need special and specific action to deal with their vile antisemitism and their determination to create an atmosphere of fear and aggression to Jewish people. They marched again straight after the Manchester killings. What sort of people are they? They are clearly not people we can trust or welcome to our streets. We need Clause 124 and Amendment 372.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, mindful of time, I will limit my comments to the first amendment of the group, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, and spoken to by my noble friend Lord Young.

A few people have mentioned that laws already cover the incidents referred to by groups such as Bash Back; I will focus on Bash Back because, as my noble friend Lord Young referenced, I was a commissioner at the EHRC at the time of that attack. There are laws that currently cover those incidents. There are criminal laws: there is aiding and abetting, criminal damage, attempted criminal damage, intimidation, harassment—all sorts of laws cover those attacks. But they are not implemented, and that is the second point I will come to in a moment: the behaviour of the police currently.

At the moment, when you have an organisation such as Bash Back advertising, encouraging, boasting about and celebrating criminal plans and then executed criminal acts, the police have a mountain to climb in order to identify all the individuals, all the individual offences, and the means by which to prosecute each one. I support this amendment because the noble Lord, Lord Walney, has very thoughtfully set out a means by which, when a group is advertising and encouraging criminal behaviour, and when a group—let us be honest—is seeking not to express an opinion but to close down the opinions of others using criminal behaviour, we have a means of addressing that, and doing so early, facilitating a way of managing the safety of the others.

I will just add that, for the individual members of staff in the building, and within the EHRC, in the particular incident of violence referenced by my noble friend Lord Young, all the windows were smashed in what was quite a large building owned by other people. It was really very frightening for the mostly young people who were there. I cannot say more than that at this time, but it was frightening. My noble friend Lord Young and I are both quite tough cookies, so for us it was probably easier to manage, but for the individual young people who experienced that, it was quite something, and it leads them to a situation where they have to question where they are working, what they are doing, how they are going to behave, and how they are going to express themselves in their workplace.

At the moment, although laws exist to address those individual events, they do not assist the police in the way that they need to be assisted, and nor do they assist the Government in the way they needed to be assisted to address Palestine Action. This is a step in between which would assist greatly, whether with Bash Back, Extinction Rebellion or any of the other groups that deploy criminal activity.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I wonder if I might interject. The noble Baroness has raised Bash Back, as did the noble Lord, Lord Young. In its advertising, it makes a great deal of face coverings—which we discussed earlier today in the debate on whether Clause 118 stand part of the Bill—and the fact that no one needs to worry about being detected for this criminal damage because they can wear face coverings.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

I am grateful for that reminder. It is another point in support of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. The overall position of the group is much more easily managed by the police when there are deliberate attempts to evade any type of prosecution.

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

My Lords, we have had a difficult and long debate on a major group on public order. Because it is so late and because there have been some central points, I shall confine what I say to a few of those.

I turn first, if I may, to Amendment 370A, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, on extreme criminal protest groups. I accept, and indeed agree, that, at first consideration, it appears beneficial to have an alternative to proscription that does not involve the Terrorism Act and does not involve branding peaceful protest as an offence of terrorism. That would, of course, be the effect of Amendment 370A. I note that, in answer to an intervention from the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, the noble Lord, Lord Walney, confirmed that it was his clear view that that would be the position. Indeed, I have spoken on a number of occasions against the use of the Terrorism Act to make any support for a proscribed organisation, however peaceable, an offence under the Terrorism Act.

The designation provision in the proposed new clause from the noble Lord, Lord Walney—designation as an extreme criminal protest group—is not the problem, because there is a condition in proposed new paragraph (a) that

“the group has as its purpose, object or practice the deliberate commission of imprisonable offences, including but not limited to sabotage, criminal damage, obstruction of critical national infrastructure, or serious public order offences”.

At proposed new paragraphs (b) and (c), it refers to

“the intention of influencing public policy”,

and “democratic functions” and

“a risk of serious harm to public safety”.

The effect is the concern, not the designation as an extreme criminal protest group. The effect would be to criminalise extreme criminal protest groups’ activities to include in the formulation of offences under the proposed new clause, particularly at paragraph (b), public advocacy or the dissemination of groups’ materials, and those are offences that would be similar to the offence of support for a proscribed organisation under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000, or offences of being a supporter, which can be proved by suspicion.

Amendment 370A would, I suggest, constitute a curb on free speech and on the legitimate freedom of expression, and would therefore run the same risks as the Terrorism Act of prosecutions of peaceful protesters. I am afraid I question the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, that criminal behaviour of the kinds that he described is not covered by other criminal legislation. I note the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that other legislation may cover such behaviours but may not be implemented by the police. That may highlight a need for an alternative approach to policing, rather than for new legislation of the kind advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Walney.

Although I understand and applaud the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Walney, for a less serious alternative to the Terrorism Act, also advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, in practice, I doubt that it would be an attractive alternative to proscription under the Terrorism Act. Indeed, I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, had an answer to the intervention by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on the chilling effect of limiting freedom of expression with the criminal law. I doubt that the amendment would have the effect that the noble Lord, Lord Walney, seeks, so I do not support it.

The second area of concern that I would like to cover today is Clause 124 and the amendments to that clause—Amendments 371A to 371F—persuasively spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I support the analysis of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, of the word “vicinity”, also supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady O’Grady. It is quite simply too vague. For my part, I am not convinced, for a number of reasons, that a 50-metre limit would produce the intended result either, so I agree with the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, on that.

As I understood it—I will be corrected if I am wrong, and I invite the Minister to comment on this—the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, contended that the words “may intimidate” should be changed to,

“has the purpose of intimidating individuals accessing that place of worship … and would intimidate”.

I suggest that that may not be right. This part of the clause may be saved by the words in subsection (2)(c). Again, this is a point I would like the Minister to consider, because the clause requires that for an offence to be committed it must be

“in the vicinity of a place of worship and may intimidate persons of reasonable firmness with the result that those persons are deterred from … accessing that place of worship for the purpose of carrying out religious activities”.

The result has to be achieved before the offence is committed.

However, it is quite clear, as my noble friend Lord Strasburger said, that it is completely right to protect the rights of worshippers to worship at their synagogues, mosques or other places of worship—although as my noble friend pointed out, Clause 124 may be unnecessary in view of other legislation. But subject to clarification and limitation, the purposes of Clause 124 seem to me to be right.

The third argument that I wish to consider concerns government Amendment 372 and the whole question of cumulative disruption. For my part, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that the principal object appears to be a legitimate one to avoid repeated disruption on successive occasions of particular areas where there are places of worship, as in the streets around synagogues. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, mentioned protests and assemblies on repeated Sabbath days in the vicinity of synagogues.

Weighing the right to protest in balance against the interference with the rights and freedoms of others, as we all agree that we must, it is plainly right that the freedom of Jewish people to go to synagogue on successive Saturdays without repeated protests amounting to harassment of them should be protected. If that is what cumulative disruption is to mean then it is plainly right to take account of it. However, the use of the word “area” is, I suggest, subject to the same flaw of imprecision as the word “vicinity” that we considered earlier. I invite the Minister to consider between now and Report whether the use of the word “area” is appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

There are already offences that deal with groups that aim to commit serious crimes to influence public policy. For example, in England and Wales, these include the offences of damaging or threatening to damage property, as well as conspiracy and encouraging and assisting crime. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, about the specific issue around the group Bash Back. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, recognised the important point that criminal law is already in place. Therefore, the solution is not necessarily to add new laws. Issues and evidential thresholds will apply, whatever the offence.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

I am sorry to intervene, particularly because of the time, but to clarify, I said that there are many individual laws that one could use to pursue individuals. It is incredibly difficult for the police to do that. They exist, but they are not applied in the way that we need them to, hence the need for the amendment.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I appreciate that clarification. Considering the time, I say to the noble Baroness that the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, is forthcoming. I dare say he will be reading this debate in Hansard with some interest.

Amendment 380, from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, seeks to apply the changes made by government Amendment 372 to Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act to the provisions of Section 13 of the Act. I simply say that, in a democratic society, the threshold for banning a protest should always be markedly higher than that of imposing conditions on a protest. That is why, sadly, we will resist his amendment.

Amendment 382E, from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, similarly touches on one of the guiding principles of the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald—namely, whether our public order legislation strikes a fair balance between freedom of expression and the right to protest with the need to prevent disorder and keep communities safe. The ability to impose conditions on, or indeed ban, a protest based on the cumulative impact of protests on policing resources goes to the very heart of how we strike that balance.

Finally, Amendment 486B, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, is concerned with access to public funds for organisations promoting or supporting criminal conduct. I understand from what he said that this amendment may stem from comments made by the Irish hip-hop group Kneecap, which previously received funding from the Government through the music export growth scheme. I want to make it clear that I unequivocally condemn the comments that were made, which the noble Lord, Lord Polak, and others mentioned. In the light of that case, DCMS has made changes to the scheme, including requiring applicants to declare activity that may bring the scheme into disrepute, introducing further due diligence processes, adding a clawback clause to the grant agreement, and, where concerns are raised, escalating decisions to Ministers.

This has been a wide-ranging and thoughtful debate. We recognise the vital part played by peaceful protest in the functioning of our democracy. For the Government’s part, the measures in Part 9, together with Amendments 372 and 381, address gaps that we and the police have identified in the current legislative framework. We stand ready to address other operational gaps in the law, but before doing so we should await the outcome of the review by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald. I hope that that addresses all the questions that have been posed tonight. We will of course review Hansard and write if we need to. In response to the specific request from my noble friend Lady Blower, we are of course always keen to have conversations, and we can take that offline outside the Chamber.

We all have a part to play here and I observe that those organising, stewarding and attending protests, as well as having a right to protest, have a responsibility to ensure that what they chant and the placards they wave are not racist and do not threaten communities or intimidate fellow citizens. Sadly, that has not always been the case. With that, I commend the government amendments to the Committee.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I support the stand part notices tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood. Clauses 152 to 155 should be removed from the Bill in their entirety.

Before I begin, I want to make absolutely clear to the Committee that there is no question of whether authorised firearms officers encounter danger, because of course they do. I pay tribute to them and their families for the risks they assume in the course of their daily lives to protect us all. Nor is this about whether the court should protect individuals where there is a real and immediate risk to life or safety, because that already exists. I spent 15 years in chambers as a libel and media barrister with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, defending freedom of expression with great passion against the imposition of reporting restrictions. It is that defence that I am here to speak about today, because these clauses would see a constitutional cornerstone of our democracy overturned.

Open justice is not a concession to the media; it is about the public. It is about understanding what is going on in our criminal justice system. It protects the very sacred principle in this country of policing by consent, in which we rely on the public’s confidence and belief in transparency. It maintains confidence in the legitimacy of criminal proceedings. When, tragically—let us be realistic, it is what we are talking here—the state, represented by a fire officer, has killed or maimed someone by the use of force, open justice provides accountability to the public, and the public should have that accountability. That is why anonymity has always been exceptional. It is justified only on evidence and where strictly necessary. Even in cases of national security and terrorism, that remains the case.