Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will reply quickly to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and also the noble Viscount. I am not against sharp-edged knives. I have a very good knife that cuts through a Savoy cabbage and does a great job with everything I need in the kitchen. It is just rounded at the edge, so I cannot stab my wife with it.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, the key finding of the Clayman review was the need for better police data recording on knife crime. Officers often fail to note the specific type of knife used, with further gaps around sales and marketing. Amendment 122 recognises that, without understanding the threat, it is difficult to counter it, so the evidence base must be improved.

The amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Clement-Jones, promote a policing approach to reduce opportunities for crime through better design of our buildings, known as designing out crime. I have spoken to a number of chief police officers who have tried this, with great effect. They are very happy about how this can happen and would really like to see it rolled out. This preventive approach aligns with the Liberal Democrat position and I hope the Government will give it serious attention.

We welcome the Government’s proposals on this part of the Bill, but laws work only if they are enforceable. Again, the Clayman review said that police currently lack the training, know-how and resources to police online knife sales effectively.

Can I ask the Minister about the policing of overseas suppliers, since this is where many of these lethal weapons originate? What plans are in place to monitor imports? The Clayman review found that there is often very poor co-ordination between Border Force and police and noted the difficulty in getting data from tech and communication companies based overseas. Can the Minister mention that when he winds up, please?

Clayman also suggested an import licensing scheme to ensure that a licence is required to bring knives into the UK. He proposed revisiting the tax levy on imported knives to ensure that potential weapons brought into the country are easier to track and identify. Do the Government intend to implement either of those recommendations?

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, we on these Benches believe that this group contains sensible and prudent amendments. They require us to review the effectiveness of the Government’s measures and to consider carefully the potential implications of the new regulations around the sale of knives. They also seek to ensure that we have the necessary evidence base to improve legislation where needed. These, in our view, are good principles.

Amendment 122 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, contains both those elements. The first part of the amendment seeks a review within two years of the effectiveness of the measures in preventing the online sale of knives to persons under the age of 18. This would plainly be sensible. There is little point in legislating to prevent something if we find out that in fact that prohibition is not taking effect. We all want to stop the sale of knives to children, but we should want to do so in the most effective and proportionate manner. By reviewing the impact of the Bill, the Government would be able to make the necessary adjustments in response to the evidence. Having said that, we should listen carefully to the observations of my noble friend Lord Hailsham in this respect.

Another aspect of the question of efficacy is our obligation to the law-abiding public. It is right that we should attempt to ban children from purchasing knives. We are all aware of the severity of the knife crime epidemic and that part of the problem is the easy access to knives. But we should not pretend that the entire problem stems from their online availability. Of course, it is a factor, but children and young persons intent on committing knife crime will have plenty of other opportunities, if they are determined enough, to buy knives and to acquire them from other sources. They could use an older friend’s or family member’s identification, or indeed, they could ask them simply to make the purchase. They could steal a knife—given the current rates of shoplifting, I suspect this already happens—or they might simply go no further than their kitchen drawer and take one of the many easily accessible knives there.

By adding restrictions to online sale, the Government are merely stemming one route of access, but doing so adds an extra burden to the great majority of law-abiding citizens and retailers. As I have said, we understand why action is necessary, but, if we are to make it mandatory, we should ensure that it is genuinely effective in practice. Here, we should listen to the wise words of my noble friend Lord Blencathra. We must know, therefore, that we are not adding regulation for its own sake and that we are simultaneously taking other meaningful measures to address the wider issue. The Government should continue to explore this further.

Proposed subsections (2)(b) and (2)(c) in Amendment 122 address another aspect of the knife problem. While the first part reviews the effect of the Bill on the sale of knives, these subsections turn to the design and legality of the knives themselves.

If the knives which we make harder to purchase are not the ones being used in knife crime, our efforts will be in vain. Collecting data both on knives sold and, separately, on knives used in crimes, as Amendment 194 argues for, could offer a remedy for this. It would provide the Government with the necessary data to identify which types of weapons in particular lie at the root of the problem and to take action accordingly. This principle also underlies Amendment 123—I had already noted the typo, if I can put it that way, and have marked the noble Lord’s homework accordingly. But, taking it seriously, consulting on what knives are used in offending and on the measures to be required to curb their circulation must be sensible and proportionate, and it should complement the Government’s proposals.

This is a moderate group of amendments on a subject that clearly needs further review and refinement. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on the Government’s position. At the same time, I think we need to hear carefully and take heed of what noble Lords have said in their words of caution on this topic.

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[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, briefly, I associate myself with all the sentiments that have been shared this afternoon on this matter. I think we all know what we want to try and stop with the Bill: zombie knives. There is no excuse or legitimate use at all for a zombie knife. But it is incredibly difficult to define, and legislation has attempted to do so. The points raised by my noble friend Lord Hailsham are absolutely right: we do not want to criminalise the use of everyday items or the ownership of swords. They may not be for historical purposes, but they may be of sentimental value, family heirlooms or collector’s items and may have any number of associated uses. My noble friend Lord Blencathra has put his finger on an absolute scourge which we, as parliamentarians and in co-operation with the police, really have to deal with using every tool that we have. But I also share the concern that there will be many unintended consequences if my noble friend’s amendments, as currently drafted, were included in the Bill.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak about Amendment 214B on knives in schools. It will come as no surprise to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that we on these Benches take a different view. We strongly believe that criminalising children is just not the way forward. Last year, an authoritative joint police and Ofsted report warned that serious youth violence has spread its tentacles further than many adults realise and that 11 year-olds now carry knives for protection, so there is no doubt that there is a major problem. However, the same report does not call for more punitive sanctions to deter young people from offending. Instead, it recommends a preventative, public health approach, focused on early intervention, safeguarding and partnership working. It warned that, without better co-ordination and sustained investment in prevention, efforts to tackle youth violence will fall short and the cycle of harm will continue. These warnings must be heeded.

Yet, budget pressures mean police forces are cutting safer school programmes. The Met, for example, is moving 371 officers out of schools due to funding shortfalls. Prevention has to be taken seriously and resourced properly. Public health funding per capita has fallen by 28% since 2015. That results in reactive rather than preventative policing, and nowhere is this more important than with children and knife crime.

I agree that there is no justification for a child to bring a knife into school, but we cannot support the approach of Amendment 214B. Instead, we should concentrate on the success of interventions such as Operation Divan, which involves a single, voluntary face-to-face meeting between a young person at risk and a police officer or a youth justice worker. This prioritises prevention, education and safeguarding. Early results show a 60% reduction in knife and weapon offences at a cost of only £30 to £65 per person.

I turn briefly to the noble Lord’s remaining amendments and the proposal for a special category of particularly dangerous weapons. As the noble Lord recognises, these weapons are already prohibited. In our view, creating another category risks unnecessary overlap without adding any real benefit.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for his series of interesting amendments regarding knife crime. As we have already heard, my noble friend comes to this debate with the experience of some time in the Home Office—a real experience at the sharp end. Although the rates of knife crime have fallen a little over recent years, any victim of a crime, particularly one caused by knives, is a victim too many. Just recently, we heard of the terrible incident on fireworks night a year or so ago and the trial, which finished in the Old Bailey earlier this autumn; 16 year-olds were involved, and one of them died, and it all happened very quickly. So, knives are a real problem. The Government pledged in their manifesto to halve knife crime by 2030. If they wish to make good on that premise, it is imperative that they really do something to reduce it.

My noble friend’s amendments are a welcome practical measure in that direction but are subject to a number of reservations. I begin with schools. Amendment 214B introduces an important clarification to the law in respect of defences for carrying a knife in school premises. It makes plain that the only justification for someone having a knife at school can be in relation to educational services. It is also right that, in turn, this justification should apply only to teachers or those holding a position of authority. There is no plausible reason why a student should come on to the school premises carrying a knife. We welcome the amendment as an important step to ensure that both pupils and teachers are safe from knives at school, and we hope that the Government look at this and consider the amendment seriously.

We also thank my noble friend for his Amendments 214C to 214E. As we have heard, these seek to create a special category of particularly dangerous weapons: machetes, zombie knives, cleavers, swords and cutlasses. The merit is in identifying particular weapons by name. That will strike a chord with the public and with those who might otherwise carry them. They will know that, if they carry one of these weapons, just having it in their possession risks a very heavy prison sentence. Just having existing powers of sentencing does not, it seems, carry that resonance with those who most need to hear it, so we have got to do something.

Given the substantial increase in the use of machetes in recent years—we heard from my noble friend about the increase in their use in particular—something has to be done which identifies them, singles them out and curbs their circulation and use. In 2024, there were 18 machete homicides, an increase from 14 in 2023. Amendments 214D and 214E similarly ensure that manufacturing, selling, ownership and possession of these dangerous weapons will be regarded as a specific new offence.

My noble friend Lord Hailsham was right to point out that the drafting causes problems, and there are people, in the countryside in particular, who may have a legitimate use for machetes. But we are not in the jungle of Belize; we are in the United Kingdom. Sickles and scythes can be used, of course, but if there is going to be a use for something such as a machete, there should be specific clarity to make sure that we do not allow it to be put forward as a specious defence.

To call these amendments bizarre would, in my submission, go too far. If we take this matter seriously, as we all should, we will know full well that this really is an important mischief which has to be addressed, named and called out. My noble friend has raised an important issue, and the Government, if they are serious about cutting knife crime—and not just knife crime but the use of these appalling tools and weapons—must work to bridge the drafting gap so that the sorts of things which we have seen and heard about in the last few years are heavily reduced and people can walk and live in safety, particularly in our big cities.

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, if I may, I will come back to the topic of this group. I too have an amendment in this group, Amendment 351. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, and indeed my noble friends. I endorse a lot of what they have said and argued.

As I said at Second Reading, I have huge sympathy for those in public-facing jobs who have been subject to abuse and violent threats at work. Aside from such threats being unacceptable, I, like the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, understand the fear that they generate. Anyone at work on the receiving end of such a threat should at least be confident that the police will respond swiftly when they are in danger, or when an actual crime starts to be committed.

My instincts have always been to support Clauses 37 and 38, as I said at Second Reading. However, I find myself somewhat conflicted. Several noble Lords argued at Second Reading that existing provisions on assault are an adequate protection in law and that a special law for assault against retail workers was not needed. I thought these arguments were somewhat convincing. Having said that, to be absolutely clear, I have no desire to remove Clauses 37 or 38 from the Bill. I will continue before everybody thinks that I am going to do something radical, which will cause all sorts of upset.

The amendments tabled by my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lord Blencathra to extend the protection to delivery drivers and some hospitality workers in some establishments highlight that, having started down the path of singling out just the retail sector, it is difficult to draw a clear boundary line. The noble Lord, Lord Hannett, has already said that he now wants to push it yet further.

As we know, the aggravated crime of assault against public-facing workers, which we added to the crime and courts Bill, included all industries and sectors. That was not focused only on the retail industry. I worry that the aggravated offence of assault, which covers everybody in public-facing work, together with this new offence of assault on retail workers, will create a somewhat confusing picture for people who are employed in public-facing roles but are not in the retail sector. I think here of people working in public transport, or in banks or post offices; there are all sorts of different categories.

This potentially confusing picture brings me back to my underlying concerns. First, we cannot afford to lose good people who are doing a good job, whether that is in shops, on public transport, or in banks or post offices, as I said. We think of the recent horrific incident on LNER the other Saturday and the railway worker who was heroic in intervening. We are very conscious now that a lot of people are in places of work where they are subject to real threats and abuse.

So I ask the Minister: what work have he and the department done to satisfy himself that any perception of two-tier protection for people in different public-facing roles will not have a detrimental effect on employees who may fear they are no longer as covered as some other people in other public-facing roles? If there has been any work on that, that would be helpful to know and understand.

Secondly, and in my view just as importantly, if not more so, noble Lords who were in the Chamber at Second Reading may have heard me argue then that one of the things that I feel are needed is for workers who are in charge of public spaces or places, whether they be commercial or public sector spaces, to be encouraged to be more active in upholding common standards of conduct that we should all have a right to expect of each other in public, the breakdown of which is adding to people’s despair. The sorts of things I am talking about here are litter dropping, feet on seats, watching videos or listening to music on phones without headphones, and queue jumping. That is the kind of activity that comes before we get to actual offences that sometimes are happening now, such as fare dodging, smoking or drinking alcohol on public transport where they are not meant to be, or even defecating in public. We need workers to have delegated authority, from their employer or their union, and from all of us in leadership positions, and have confidence that, along with them, we will do the same in upholding these important standards in public places. We need a collective effort to tackle what I see as a broken windows type of activity. If we keep allowing this kind of activity to be ignored, we are allowing the risk of escalated bad behaviour to continue, which could then lead to actual serious crimes.

While the various trade bodies are coming at this from their perspectives with a desire to protect their staff, and rightly so, we need to look at this through a much wider lens and see the bigger picture. As a consequence of that, it might be that the price we need to pay is expanding what some believe is an unnecessary new crime in the Bill, to include other workers and to match the terms of the aggravated offence in the Crime and Courts Bill.

As I say, this was a probing amendment—this is not me trying to introduce a new law—but I would like it if the Minister agreed to meet me, perhaps with my noble friend Lord Davies, to talk about this some more. I genuinely think there are potential unintended consequences to this that we need at least to be alive to. We should consider what more is needed to ensure that everyone who is in a public-facing role feels sufficiently protected, but also, if we are to tackle the behaviour that is leading some to feel that they can do things with impunity, and that then gives them the courage and confidence to go on to commit more serious offences, we need to be thinking about this in a very different and more innovative way.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy with many of the points made. First, we welcome the new protections introduced by Clauses 37 and 38. As legislators, we cannot stand by while so many people turn up to work every day expecting to face potentially terrifying abuse, threats and physical violence. This was brought home to me recently when a friend of mine went into our local Boots the chemist earlier this week in order to buy some headache tablets, only to find that practically every shelf in the shop was completely empty. When she spoke to the staff, they said, “Oh, it happens on a daily basis”, and they are so terrified that they just stand by and do nothing, because they are petrified that if they do anything or say anything they could be knifed. That is not in an area that is known for, to use the noble Baroness’s expression, “baddies”. It is in an area of London that is very safe. So that is really worrying.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 216 in my name. I look forward very much to hearing the Minister’s response to the proposal from my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower for tougher community treatment of repeat offenders. As it is focused on the community and on suspended sentence orders, it seems to fit in very well with the spirit of the Sentencing Bill, which we will no doubt be debating on a number of further days.

As the Minister the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, has already acknowledged, and as the recent Crime Survey shows, shoplifting has risen very significantly in recent years, especially since Covid. Indeed, we heard on the “Today” programme this morning that the average number of days it takes to deal with shoplifting cases has increased by 80% in the last decade.

My own experience has taught me something else: the biggest problem with shoplifting is not so much the law as the patchy and sometimes non-existent nature of police enforcement in relation to shoplifting and associated misdemeanours. The general acceptance that thefts worth less than £200—the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, was the first to mention that minimum—do not matter to the authorities is a particular bugbear of mine and of others who care about decency and limiting neighbourhood crime and its distressing effects.

That issue lies behind my Amendment 216, which would reverse that deplorable trend. My amendment would require the College of Policing to issue a code of practice to ensure that police forces also investigate shoplifting where the value of goods is less than £200. Letting people walk into shops, steal things and get away scot free eats at the heart of a civilised society, as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, explained earlier. You only need to visit San Francisco in recent years to see the awful effects on its once golden streets. However, there is hope there: a Democratic mayor is at last seeing good sense. I hope the Government will follow that lead and consider my amendment this evening.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s Amendment 215, I have great sympathy for its suggestions. Electronic monitoring can certainly play a useful role, although there is mixed evidence of its ability to reduce reoffending. However, there are multiple challenges in implementation, including inconsistent use by probation services, delays in procuring new GPS tags and gaps in responding promptly to breaches. However, my main problem is that, from a policing perspective, I worry there is no slack available in police time to monitor curfews, exclusion orders or electronic tagging. I fear it may be counterproductive to give the police yet more work when they are having great difficulty coping with what they already have.

I have a similar reservation about Amendment 216, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. In principle, I would support a code of practice to improve enforcement. However, in the absence of more police resources, the danger is that this would only exacerbate the current situation, where chief constables are faced with having to rob Peter to pay Paul in other areas of policing, and victims of other crimes would likely suffer as a consequence.

I would stress prevention over cure. I draw the Committee’s and the Minister’s attention to a West Midlands Police programme that diverts repeat low-level shoplifters into services like drug rehabilitation. Since its pilot in 2018, it has been credited with saving local businesses an estimated £2.3 million through reduced shoplifting. Surely this is something we ought at least to investigate.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for tabling Amendments 215 and 216 respectively. I have great respect for both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. The noble Baroness’s background means that she knows more than most about the corrosive experience of shoplifting and the effect it can have on those working in the retail industry. The noble Lord’s distinguished career as a police officer gives him great authority to speak about the challenges to police forces and their obligations to society that they should be fulfilling. I reassure both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness that we are all on the same side on this. This is one of these situations where I am very keen to work with Members from all sides of your Lordships’ Committee to ensure that we deal with this social and economic menace efficiently and effectively.

On Amendment 215, I will repeat what I said a few moments ago: this Government take repeat and prolific offending extremely seriously. However, sentencing in individual cases must be a matter for our independent judiciary, and it must take into account all the circumstances of the offence and the offender, as well as the statutory purposes of sentencing. Your Lordships will, of course, be aware that the courts have a broad range of sentencing powers to deal effectively and appropriately with offenders.

As some of your Lordships may be aware, until relatively recently I was a judge in the Crown Court, and I sentenced my fair share of shoplifters. There was a complete spectrum of those offenders, from the destitute, homeless young mother stealing nappies for her baby at one end to the shameless, organised shoplifting gangs who terrify and terrorise shop workers. As the sentencing judge, there was a toolbox of disposals of increasing seriousness available to me, so that I could match the appropriate sentence to the offender on a case-by-case basis. These included discharges, fines, community sentences, suspended sentences with requirements and custodial sentences where appropriate.

Previous convictions are already a statutory aggravating factor, with the sentencing guidelines making it clear that, when determining the sentence, sentencers must consider the nature and relevance of previous convictions and the time elapsed since the previous conviction. But that repeats what is, in fact, common sense and what every sentencer knows. From my own experience, I can tell the Committee that the more frequently a defendant appears before the court, having gone out and done exactly the same thing that he or she had just been sentenced for, the more exasperated the judge becomes, who then starts imposing tougher and tougher sentences.

Despite the popular caricatures, judges do live in the real world. While sentencing a shoplifter to prison as a standard proposition will seem harsh, it can and does happen if the court concludes that there is no other way of stopping them. Importantly, this Government will introduce a whole range of options that will ramp up the community and suspended sentence powers for judges. In other words, the toolbox is getting fancier and more extensive.

As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has said, sentencers are already able to impose a robust range of electronic monitoring requirements on anyone serving their sentence in the community. Where the court imposes curfews, exclusion zones and/or an alcohol ban, offenders must be electronically monitored, subject to individual suitability. I note the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, about the effect on police resources. However, quite a lot of the monitoring is done by the Probation Service. As the noble Baroness is probably aware, the Government are putting a lot of additional resources back into the Probation Service to enable it to do this.

Soon judges will be able to add driving bans and bans on offenders attending pubs, bars, clubs and desirable social activities like sports and concerts, as well as some tough new geographical restriction zones, to the existing tools.