Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, a lot of today’s speeches have been on abortion, which is weird in a Bill boasting that its aim is to make our streets safer. I support Clause 191’s aim of disapplying the criminal law for women acting in relation to their own pregnancies, but I do not think this Bill was the right vehicle for such an important law change. I have some sympathy with the public backlash about a lack of debate on the issue. You can see how it happened: the Bill is so disparate and unfocused that even the Government keep adding to it. Ministers introduced 90 amendments, 66 new clauses and four new schedules at Committee and on Report in the other place, and apparently there is more to come here. But where does all this chopping and changing leave us? Recent tensions over our scrutinising role have led to accusations of filibuster and time-wasting, but how can we keep on top of what the Government intend when it is so scattergun and expansive? As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, explained so well, the Bill exemplifies the trend of excessive lawmaking as a substitute for enforcing laws that we already have.

We have heard a lot today about the Bill creating a specific offence of assaulting retail workers. Well, call me old-fashioned, but I have always been opposed to assaulting retail workers—as far as I knew, it was against the law. Now we are creating a new law which avoids crucial questions: why has there been a shocking increase in attacks on shop workers, often accompanied by mass shoplifting, and why has this not been dealt with by the police? Inevitably, other workers say, “What about us?” For example, in an unlikely outbreak of consensus, the RMT, National Rail and the Rail Delivery Group are united in demanding that there should be a specific offence of assaulting or abusing transport workers. To counter lots more special pleading, perhaps the Government should use their energy in ensuring that assault laws lead to prosecutions.

Another worry is that the public’s civil liberties and free speech are being carelessly jeopardised by this trend of criminalising ever more aspects of everyday life. For example, in relation to Clause 118, the Joint Committee on Human Rights warns that criminalising all forms of identity concealment could unjustifiably interfere in the right to protest. Yet again, the police already have powers to require individuals to remove such face coverings. Maybe the Government should investigate why the police do not use that power when, for example, dealing with pro-Palestinian marchers chanting Jew hatred behind their keffiyehs and balaclavas. No, it is far easier to ban all face coverings instead. As Big Brother Watch notes, there are many law-abiding individuals who might want to conceal their identities on demos. Topically, why do we think Hong Kong dissidents cover their faces on protests? Here is a hint: their own authoritarian government agents are watching. These proposals are made against a backdrop of other attacks on privacy, from facial recognition technology to digital ID.

Then there is Clause 4, which many civil libertarians are concerned about. First are those much-vaunted respect orders. It seems the epitome of technocratic governance to imagine you can tackle the breakdown of social respect, so well described by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, by creating a new civil order called a respect order. These are almost a duplicate of the overused, discredited and ineffective anti-social behaviour injunctions, which will continue, but respect orders will have criminal sanctions of up to two years in prison but only use the lower civil standard of proof, and recipients will not even be told when they are put on an order. Meanwhile, the proposed increases in penalties for breaching the misnamed public spaces protection orders and CPNs from £100 to £500 is pettily punitive but, outrageously, they are predominantly issued by private enforcement agencies which are paid by the state per fine.

I am afraid too much of the Bill will continue this trend of eroding our everyday liberties. I will be working with groups such as Manifesto Club and Justice to ensure that we focus on keeping our streets safe, but what are not safe with this Bill are our civil liberties and our free speech.