Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to address three issues. The first is the long-awaited duty of mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse. This is a key recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, but with a strengthened and more encompassing base, and a key issue supported by the NSPCC.

This mandatory provision is born of tragedy: it reflects too many cases where children found the courage to speak but nothing was done. But, while the principle is right, the drafting is too narrow, too timid and risks being ineffective in practice. The duty to report is triggered only when a disclosure is made or abuse is witnessed. Yet most abuse is not disclosed, and rarely is it seen first-hand. Professionals in health, education and faith settings often encounter warning signs, not confessions. The duty must extend to situations where there are reasonable grounds to suspect abuse.

Secondly, the Bill currently imposes no real sanction for failure to report, and a law without consequence is not a law that can change culture. There should be a clear offence of deliberate failure to act when a child’s disclosure is known.

Thirdly, there is a risk that the present wording could sweep in minor consensual activity between young people or undermine trust in health services. That must be corrected because the duty should target exploitation and coercion, not teenage relationships or confidential medical advice.

Fourthly, implementation matters, and we will need proper training and triage mechanisms to prevent overreporting and resources for local authorities and police to respond swiftly and sensitively.

The second issue is that we need to introduce a penalty for the intention to conceal. All too often, the orthodoxy is for individuals to feel a pressure to protect the organisation they serve—too big to fail. Individuals are too scared to report. Individuals who are protecting their institution must risk penalty.

My third issue is that when I served in the Home Office I had the privilege of introducing and funding the “ugly mugs” scheme. The principle behind it was not controversial. When a sex worker experiences violence or a threat, it enables them to report it anonymously so that others are warned. That information is their only line of defence, and since it was introduced it has saved lives, prevented repeated attacks and encouraged people who would never otherwise go near the police to start trusting them again.

New Clause 1, as tabled in the Commons, directly implicates online platforms and intermediaries that currently help sex workers publish adverts or manage listings. That is one of the main ways that the ugly mugs scheme engages—through alerts, listing of known bad actors and facilitating reporting. It has been truly successful in helping protect sex workers from dangerous clients. Whatever one’s view of prostitution, no one should be assaulted, raped or murdered for the work they do.

Ugly mugs was never about endorsing prostitution; it was about reducing harm and preventing homicide. The evidence is clear: where harm-reduction schemes exist, sex workers are better able to report violence, share intelligence and access justice. Where they are removed, people go underground. It is a dangerous illusion to think that, by abolishing the tools that keep people safe, we abolish the reality of prostitution. We do not; we simply make it more dangerous.

The duty of any Government, whatever their moral stance, is to protect life and prevent violence. Ugly mugs does precisely that, quietly and effectively, at very modest cost. Closing it would not advance women’s safety; it would imperil it.