Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Debate on Amendment 370A resumed.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to this group, in particular to Amendment 372 from the Government, and Amendment 380, to which I have added my name. Before I speak to those, on Amendment 371B from the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, I have listened very carefully to the differences between “may intimidate” and “the intention to intimidate”. If I may, I think there may be a middle way through this and I hope we can use the time between Committee and Report to look at that and perhaps talk about how a reasonable person—or, for lawyers, the man on the Clapham omnibus—would see such acts. I accept that “may intimidate” may be slightly wide in terms of the purpose piece; I think it is very difficult to prove intention to intimidate, and we have seen that many times in Northern Ireland. So I make that suggestion in respect of that.

I also listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Hain—of course, a respected Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—had to say when he referred to the inalienable British right to protest. But of course he knows that, when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Parades Commission for Northern Ireland was given powers by the Government to deal with parades and protests there. That was in the wake of difficulties surrounding parades and the rights of freedom of assembly, and those in nationalist areas did not want those parades to happen in their areas.

It is no secret that many unionists, including myself, were not supportive of the Parades Commission receiving those powers: we saw it as an unaccountable body taking decisions on parades, many of which have taken place not just for decades but for hundreds of years. The situation since that legislation went through is that everybody who organises a parade or protest in Northern Ireland has to put in an 11/1 form, which has become a very famous form in Northern Ireland, to the Police Service. We have to notify the police that a parade or a protest is taking place, and we have to tell them the route, the date, the time and the organiser of the parade or the protest, so that people can be held accountable.

I do not want, in the context of this group, to speak to the merits of the existence or, indeed, the decision-making of the Parades Commission, because I probably would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on that—the noble Lord today, not when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Rather, I want to look at what the commission can consider when making its decisions on whether to place conditions or limit a parade or a protest.

I think it is instructive that, in my part of the United Kingdom, the body taking decisions on contentious parades or protests can take into account the cumulative impact that such a parade or protest would have on the community. The legislation states:

“The Commission may issue a determination in respect of a proposed protest”


or parade. The conditions

“may include conditions as to the place at which the meeting may be held, its maximum duration, or the maximum number of persons who may constitute it … In considering in any particular case”

whether a determination should happen,

“the Commission shall have regard to the guidelines”

and indeed the code of conduct. In its guidelines, which I have here, it takes into consideration

“any disruption to the life of the community which the meeting may cause”

or

“any impact which the meeting may have on relationships within the community”.

Indeed, the guidelines for the Parades Commission take into account the

“frequency of such public processions or related protests along the route”.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister and indeed the Home Office might be forgiven for wondering why Amendment 438EA was necessary. One might have taken it for granted that, on the whole, if any important event was happening, those likely to be involved in it in the community would be consulted. However, I fear the Home Office needs to think again. We have heard already about Birmingham, where one of the largest police forces in the country speaks exclusively to the mosques. When the Maccabi fans were considering whether they would come to Birmingham, the police did not talk to the churches but, rather more importantly, they did not talk to the synagogues. If one stops to think about it, it is quite extraordinary. All that I have read and heard in this House, as well as reading in the newspapers, leads one to suppose that those considering whether those Jewish fans should be allowed to come were looking exclusively from the Muslim point of view.

The Home Office should therefore consider carefully, perhaps with the College of Policing, whether, when it comes to significant and possibly controversial events—or very controversial, as the Maccabi one was likely to be—it should tell police forces that they must find what all the local people who might be interested think about it, and take some advice. I am horrified by what happened. I entirely understand why the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, should have tabled the amendment, and the Government need to consider it with extreme care.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as one of the vice-chairs of the APPG on Counter Extremism, I support the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in these amendments. He has already referenced the Time to Act publication, which was published late last year and deals with a number of statistics that are quite startling and deserve to go on the record today. It was found that one in five voters— 21%, actually—

“say that political violence in the UK is acceptable in some conditions, and 18% would consider participating in violent protests as the state of Britain declines”.

That is a very concerning thing to read. We know that there has been a nearly 600% rise in antisemitic incidents in the UK following 7 October 2023. We also know that anti-Muslim hate has doubled over this last decade. Those are statistics that cannot be ignored. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, outlined why she finds some difficulty with these amendments, but there is recognition in the report that extremism

“is one of the primary domestic security and societal threats facing the UK”.

When the noble Baroness was detailing some examples of extremism, the noble and right reverend Lord asked why people were not prosecuted. I would argue—and I know that the noble and right reverend Lord will recognise that I have an amendment later in the day—that the glorification of terrorism needs to be much more clearly defined in law. We will come to that later in the amendments. Defeating terrorism is not just about dealing with it from a military point of view but about dealing with the narrative around those terrorist organisations—“draining the swamp”, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, would put it. We are allowing glorification to continue on the streets of our country and then not recognising that extremism will grow as a result. I hope that when we come to debate that issue, there will be a good airing of the issues around the glorification of terrorism.

The first thing we need to do in this area is to recognise that there is a problem, and then to define the problem and move on to understand it and deal with it. I very much welcome these amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I share the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and indeed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, but I am very doubtful that further legislation is required. There is, as previous speakers have said, a very worrying degree of antisemitic extremist speech, particularly, I am sorry to say, in the Muslim community and not just in speeches in mosques. Opposition to the policies of the Israeli Government—opposition shared by many Jews—cannot begin to justify such speech.

The sort of people who murdered Jews in Heaton Park synagogue come from a community. They have been to school in this country. They are members of mosques. The real question is how the whole community, not only the Muslim community, is going to address this problem. I know, and the Minister will no doubt confirm, that the Government do a great deal to ensure that civic values and the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust are taught in schools, but I fear that much more needs to be done and there really is a responsibility on the leaders of the Muslim community to take further steps to ensure that those lessons are understood.

It is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, particularly poignant that this issue is raised on Holocaust Memorial Day, and sad that these matters need to be readdressed. It is a problem in our society; it needs to be dealt with, but, as I say, I am very doubtful that legislation is the answer.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am really thrilled to be supporting the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, because obviously he is so sure of everything he says that I must be doing the right thing. I will deal with Amendments 447 and 448 slightly differently, because they are different. I support Amendment 447 because it directly responds to how the law is currently interpreted by the courts. The Supreme Court has made it clear that someone can be convicted without any requirement to show that they intended to support terrorism. The offence is about the suspicion of others, not the intention of the person charged.

That might explain the law as it stands, but it also exposes the problem. Under this interpretation, people are criminalised not for what they mean to do but for how their actions might be perceived or might be used symbolically by other people. The court accepted that this interferes with freedom of expression but concluded that the interference was justified because Parliament chose to prioritise disruption and prevention. This amendment asks Parliament to look again at that choice. Criminal law normally punishes intentional recklessness. Here, however, we are dealing with offences that can be triggered by clothing, images or symbols, with no need to show encouragement, promotion or support in any real sense. That is a very wide net, and one that risks catching protest, journalism, art, research or sheer provocation.

The Supreme Court has told us plainly that if this is to change it must be done by Parliament. That is exactly what this amendment does. It ensures terrorism laws target people who genuinely seek to assist terrorism, not those whose conduct just creates an appearance or a reaction. I obviously feel very sensitive about this, being a serial protester.

On Amendment 448, the Terrorism Act gives the state some of its strongest powers, and rightly so, but with powers that strong, we should be very careful about who gets caught up in them. Amendment 448 follows directly from the same Supreme Court judgment and addresses its practical consequences. The court accepted that Section 13 interferes with freedom of expression but held that the interference was justified because the law was clear and because Parliament had chosen that. It is all our fault. That leaves people prosecuted under these provisions with very little room to explain themselves. If you carry or display something and it falls within the scope of the offence, your purpose largely does not matter.

This amendment introduces a basic safeguard—a defence for those who can show that they did not mean to encourage, incite or enable terrorism. The Supreme Court emphasised foreseeability that people should be able to control their conduct if the law is clear, but foreseeability alone is not the same as fairness. A system that criminalises without regard to intent places an enormous burden on lawful expression and legitimate activity. By putting a defence on the face of the statute, Parliament would make it clear that these offences were aimed at genuine support for terrorism, not incidental, critical or contextual engagement with proscribed organisations.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Amendment 450 seeks to amend the current Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006. I declare that I am an officeholder in the APPG on Counter Extremism, a member of the APPG on Terrorism and Security and, probably most importantly, a victim of terrorism.

For 20 years this year we have had a criminal offence of glorification of terrorism, but under the current Section 1 there is a very high bar to meet, as the person making the statement of glorification has to intend that a person hearing the statement would be encouraged to emulate the terrorism being glorified. The glorification of terrorists or their organisations is certainly not confined to my part of the United Kingdom but rather is a threat to the security of the nation as a whole. Recently, on the streets of some of our major cities, we have seen proscribed organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah lauded and that has had and will continue to have its consequences, particularly around radicalisation of our young people.

As someone who has lived with and through terrorism, I am always alert to anything which would encourage it and bring back those dark days of intimidation, murder and mayhem. Unfortunately, over the years since the cessation of IRA violence, there has been a strategy from Sinn Féin to lionise and put terrorists and their actions on a pedestal. There are many examples of Sinn Féin politicians, many of them senior figures, attending commemorations and celebrations for the lives of those who sought to murder their neighbours. In the interest of time, I will not bring any examples of that, because I have done so in the past in this Chamber, but suffice to say that apart from the pain which it causes to their innocent victims, it also seeks to normalise terrorism as a legitimate way to bring about political change.

The retraumatisation of victims is unforgivable and needs to be called out on every occasion, but public acts of commemoration also send a very clear message to young republicans that what these young men—and they were usually young men, and in some cases 16-year-olds, sent out to murder—did was in some way honourable. It glamourises what they did. To young impressionable people who have little knowledge of the life experience of the brutality of the IRA, it makes them sound like heroes, which they patently were not.

The often chanted, “Ooh ah up the Ra”, is a symptom of the continuing glorification of dead terrorists. It is, to some, a cultural chant, but nothing could be further from the truth. If we allow people, including those in positions of authority, to glorify terrorism in the way which, for example, the current First Minister of Northern Ireland does, then it normalises and sanitises terrorism and, in a cyclical way, will lead to young people being radicalised again. Witness those young people on our streets supporting the actions of Hamas, for instance. Many of them know little about the Middle East but think it is very hip and trendy to support Hamas because they hate Israel.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If all you know about the IRA is that it took on the Brits and the First Minister says they were a great bunch of lads, then you can be forgiven for thinking that “Ooh ah up the Ra” is a grand wee chant. Those young people know little of the devastation, murder, intimidation and barbarity of the IRA because it is not something that is talked about by their First Minister.

As regards the current provisions, there have been no prosecutions under this section, to my knowledge, in Northern Ireland. When I asked the Minister a Written Question on this issue concerning England and Wales, he indicated on 2 December that there had been 52 prosecutions in England and Wales since 2011.

In 2023 the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, looked at this part of the legislation and decided that Section 1 did not need updating. With respect to the KC, I would argue that it needs change so that glorification of terrorism—in other words, glorifying the acts of a current proscribed terrorist organisation—in and of itself should be a criminal offence.

Mr Hall looked at this legislation in 2023, before the onslaught of support on our streets for Hamas; perhaps in this context he may need to look at this issue again. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, in his current review of public order and hate crime legislation, could also look at this issue.

In the meantime, I submit that change is needed for the following reasons. First, defeating terrorism is about not just militarily defeating the organisation but not allowing the narrative of those terrorists to be justified. Unfortunately, with the continued glorification of the IRA by senior politicians and others, there is a deliberate attempt to rewrite what happened in Northern Ireland. It was an unjustified, bloody, murderous terrorist campaign—nothing more and nothing less—and those of us who grew up with threats and the attempted murder of members of our family will not allow that to happen. We need society as a whole to recognise it as well. I urge noble Lords not to utter the phrase, “Yes, but it’s Northern Ireland and that’s all very difficult”. It is really not difficult. Whether you were a loyalist terrorist or a republican terrorist, you were a terrorist: someone who went out with the sole purpose of murder. Of course, the same is true of other shades of terrorists today.

Secondly, as I have already pointed out, there have been no prosecutions in Northern Ireland under the current Section 1. Why is that the case? Policing across the UK should be without fear or favour and certainly should not allow political bias or fear to enter decision-making. Unfortunately, there have recently been examples of political decision-making by police chiefs in the West Midlands and Northern Ireland.

Last week, two former chief constables of the PSNI gave evidence to the Northern Ireland Select Committee in the other place. Sir Hugh Orde and Sir George Hamilton were chief constables who took independent operational decisions. Despite policing in a very political environment, they made, as far I and many others are concerned, decisions based on policing considerations alone. They were not always popular with all the politicians, but that should never be the primary focus of a chief constable.

The two chiefs recounted instances when they had taken policing decisions and rejected attempted political interference. For Sir George, that was around the murder of Kevin McGuigan in 2015 and for Sir Hugh it was the Northern Bank robbery in 2004. On both occasions the political classes in London—and, disgracefully, Dublin—were interfering in the policing of Northern Ireland. They were trying to pressurise the two chief constables into not calling out the involvement of the IRA. They both resisted. I am very glad they did. It did not make politics in Northern Ireland any easier at that time—I remember it very well—but it was the truth. How sad then that their successor Simon Byrne decided to give in to political pressure when it was applied to him.

Unfortunately, some police chiefs do not feel strongly enough about implementing laws that may be seen as picking a side. I regret to say that some police chiefs, and indeed prosecutors, instead of applying the law without fear or favour, may be too timid and not want to rock the boat in taking a prosecution that may fail or may upset politicians or “communities”. The question is: how do you test whether all the elements of an offence are present if you are not willing to take it before the court? This amendment deals with those issues, I hope, as it removes the emulation part from the offence, and therefore makes it easier to prosecute.

Thirdly, I indicated at the start of my speech that I am an officeholder in the APPG on Counter Extremism. If we do not amend the law as this amendment seeks to do, I fear that the continued glorifying of terrorism will radicalise and lead more of our young people into terrorism. At present, there is a lack of legislation to capture extremism, but if we allow the glorification of terrorism to continue unabated, it will continue to grow, along with all the problems that it causes in our society.

Fourthly—and finally, noble Lords will be glad to hear—what sort of society do we want to live in? Do we want to allow the continued glorification of terrorism and all the inherent problems that will bring, or do we want to send a signal from Parliament that terrorism is, was and always will be wrong?

We need to stop the harmful normalisation of terrorism. I hope this amendment goes some way in doing that. Terrorism wants to put a wedge between those from different backgrounds. It wants to bring fear to ordinary citizens. In all its forms, it must be defeated. I hope that there will be support around the Committee for this amendment.

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I completely agree with those who have spoken in favour of Amendment 450 that amendment is needed. However, I am not sure that simply removing the emulation provision is the way to amend the law to produce the result that is sought by those who have spoken in favour of the amendment, however far we may—and I do—support the motivation behind it. I just urge a note of caution.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

Would it help the noble Lord if I were to indicate that if and when I bring this amendment back on Report I intend to make it clearer that it is in respect of current proscribed organisations—in other words, terrorist organisations now? I accept the noble Lords’s point about historical context—it is an important point on which I have reflected during the debate—but if the amendment is brought back on Report, we could narrow the ground in terms of glorifying the acts of current proscribed organisations.

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

I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for her intervention. That would, or could, remove my concern about the amendment about the glorification of past terrorist acts that may subsequently be seen as justified. I will certainly look at any modified amendment that the noble Baroness brings forward. Because I so strongly support everything that she and others have said in support of the spirit of Amendment 450, I would wish to support an amendment that dealt with those possibilities.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness accept that none of these things has happened in Northern Ireland? We changed the law and decriminalised abortion in Northern Ireland several years ago and literally none of the things that she is mentioning has happened there—nor in any of the other 50 countries where abortion is being decriminalised.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

If the noble Baroness will bear with me, we cannot have an intervention on an intervention. She must allow the response.

[Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. Is she aware that, despite the extreme abortion regime that was imposed on Northern Ireland by the other place, there is no telemedicine in Northern Ireland? That is one thing we do not have.

[Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest (Con)]

I received a letter from a former paediatric practitioner who is deeply concerned about this proposed legislation. She points out that when babies are legally aborted for medical reasons at over 22 weeks’ gestation, they are first euthanised by lethal injection into the heart. This is recommended by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to prevent larger sentient babies from being delivered injured but still alive. She asks what will happen if Clause 191 becomes law, this form of foeticide is not performed, abortion medication is taken and the baby is born alive.

Contrary to claims of supporters of Clause 191, women are not facing lengthy prison sentences for illegal abortions. The most high-profile case in recent years, of a woman who was 32 to 34 weeks pregnant but admitted misleading the British Pregnancy Advisory Service by telling it she was seven weeks pregnant, resulted initially in a short prison sentence that was quickly suspended on appeal. Sarah Catt was convicted in 2012 for a 39-week abortion, having been described by the chief inspector who led the investigation as “cold and calculating”. The judge in the case on appeal, Mrs Justice Rafferty, said:

“Mrs Catt caused the death of a foetus at term … She planned what she did with some care. She ensured that when she delivered the infant, it was in private. Somewhere there is a body”.


Under Clause 191, it would not even be permissible for the police to have investigated such a case. When Tonia Antoniazzi, the proposer of this clause, was interviewed by the House magazine and asked about this case, she said:

“If you can be cold and callous, you need to be helped and you need to be taken out of the criminal system”.


That opens an extraordinary vista.

A tiny proportion of the hundreds of thousands of abortions a year have resulted in women facing prosecution. The solution to these cases is not to decriminalise abortion to term for women in relation to their own pregnancies but rather to restore in-person consultations before women are able to obtain abortion pills, to enable a reliable gestational age check to take place. It is for this reason that I support Amendment 460, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Stroud.

Maya Ellis, one of the Clause 191 supporters in the other place, said that a woman should

“not be criminalised for anything to do with or within her body”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/25; col. 322.]

This is the case for absolute decriminalisation of abortion in any circumstances, and that is the true intention of the proposers of this clause, but it means that up to full term the viable unborn child would have the moral status of property, just as a slave did in the American Deep South in the 18th century. No one could be criminally liable for the destruction of their own human property. I do not consider this progressive.

We are told that Clause 191 is a moderate change to the law that would not affect the 24-week time limit. However, given that most abortions now take place outside a clinical setting and without an in-person consultation, the 24-week time limit would become redundant. Women could simply tell an abortion provider that they are below the legal limit and, in all likelihood, they would be sent the pills by post.

It is for this reason that a legal deterrent underpinning the 24-week limit is more important in the current context. Clause 191 is not moderate; it is radical. Its effect is to decriminalise abortions of babies up to birth if a woman seeks to induce a termination late in pregnancy by obtaining easily acquired pills.

The Bill is an important and lengthy piece of legislation that we have been debating in Committee over two and a half months. It was not designed, and is not an appropriate forum, to bring further widening of already highly permissive abortion laws. It is astonishing that the Committee is being asked to consider such a far-reaching law with so little prior scrutiny.

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[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I cannot speak to that sort of case, and I entirely agree that it sounds terrible. But the police are there to investigate; that is their job. They have to do it according to rules and codes of practice and, if the system works properly, that sort of case should not arise. At least in this amendment there would be a filter before any criminal prosecution could be instituted.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 460, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud—who very much regrets that she is unable to be here today—to which I am pleased to be a signatory. I acknowledge the support of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who unfortunately cannot be here this afternoon, and of course the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who will speak later.

Amendment 460 would reintroduce mandatory in-person consultations with a medical professional before abortion pills can be prescribed. It is a common-sense amendment that would protect women and ensure good practice. Amendment 460 would also offer a more satisfactory solution to the supposed problem that we are told lies behind Clause 191—the small number of prosecutions in recent years of women who have induced their own abortions beyond the statutory time limit. These prosecutions have taken place because abortion providers have been able to send abortion pills to women by post without reliably assessing their gestational age. This includes those who claimed to be under the legal limit of 24 weeks but who, in reality, were not.

Indeed, the two most high-profile cases highlighted by supporters of Clause 191 would not have been able to take place if gestational age had been properly assessed in a face-to-face consultation. Carla Foster was found guilty of an illegal abortion at 32 to 34 weeks’ gestation after admitting to deliberately misleading the UK’s largest abortion provider, BPAS, about her gestational age, telling it she was seven weeks pregnant.

Nicola Packer was charged with an illegal abortion after the UK’s second-largest abortion provider, Marie Stopes, sent her pills even though she was over the legal limit. She was acquitted after telling the court that she was unaware of how far through her pregnancy she was. It is remarkable that one of our leading abortion providers should respond to its own mistakes—sending pills to women beyond the legal limit through a scheme for which it lobbied and from which it benefits—by trying to push for even more radical laws that minimise accountability.

The solution to such cases is not to decriminalise self-administered abortions up to birth, as Clause 191 proposes, which endangers women and renders the 24-week time limit largely toothless. Such a course would be irresponsible and widely out of step with public opinion. Polling has found that only 16% of the public support the removal of offences that make it illegal for women to induce their own abortions after the legal time limit, with a clear majority supporting the current legal deterrent. For that reason, I support the stand part notice opposing Clause 191 from the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton.

The obvious better solution to all this is to restore in-person appointments before women can obtain abortion pills. Such appointments were the norm before the Covid pandemic but, in response to campaigning from the same groups behind Clause 191, the pills by post scheme was introduced when the pandemic began. Although many had significant misgivings—based on concerns that later proved prescient—about how this was rushed through without due process, and suspected that it was a thinly disguised ruse to bring in such a scheme permanently, one could perhaps at least understand the logic during a pandemic.

However, it was never the intention that pills by post abortions would be permanent, and in February 2022 the Government announced that the scheme would end after 70% of respondents to a public consultation called for its immediate end. However, amid late-night machinations in this House—not too dissimilar from the way in which Clause 191 was added to the Bill in the other place—an amendment was tacked on to the Health and Care Bill at the 11th hour, making the scheme permanent for England and Wales.

Shortly afterwards, stories started emerging of exactly the kind of incidents that many of us were so concerned about, demonstrating how pills by post endangers women and weakens the safeguards in our abortion laws. Amendment 460 offers the Committee a chance to undo a critical aspect of this law change. Under the amendment, women would still be able to take pills at home, should they wish, but not without the safeguard of a prior face-to-face consultation with a medical professional.

There are three principal reasons why restoring this safeguard—or, should I say, returning to former best practice—is essential. First, it would enable reliable gestational age checks before at-home abortions can take place. This is the primary reason why recent court cases have happened. An accurate gestational age check ought to be the bare minimum that we expect of abortion providers, which receive, on average, a reported £580 of taxpayers’ money per abortion—an increase of 42% in the five years since the pills by post scheme came in—even though their costs have been slashed by the removal of in-person appointments. In-person gestational age checks would not only prevent women wilfully misleading providers about their gestation but protect women who may mistakenly believe that they are in the early stages of pregnancy but who are actually further along.

Secondly, reinstating the in-person appointments would protect women from the significant health risks that accompany taking abortion pills beyond the legal limit. Reliable gestational age checks protect women, since at-home abortions are permitted only up to 10 weeks’ gestation because of the increased dangers to women of taking pills beyond the early weeks of pregnancy.

Indeed, the introduction of pills by post has led to a significant spike in medical complications. The Express newspaper reported a study based on FOI requests to NHS trusts that suggests that more than 10,000 women—that is one in 17 women who took pills—had to receive hospital treatment following the use of abortion pills in England between April 2020 and September 2021, which was after the pills by post scheme was introduced.