Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Hazarika Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Bill, especially measures to tackle anti-social behaviour and shoplifting. I thank my noble friend Lord Hanson for visiting Brixton just before the summer, where he met with local shop workers and local businesses. We were very grateful for his time.

I strongly support Clause 191, which seeks to decriminalise women who have to have an abortion. It was introduced by our colleague, Tonia Antoniazzi, who is with us in the Chamber today. It is not in the public interest for any woman to be prosecuted and given a criminal record in relation to her own body and her own abortion. In this day and age, we should not be vilifying and hounding pregnant women who often find themselves in deeply traumatic circumstances. I do not believe that any woman takes an abortion lightly, particularly at a very late stage. They need support, medical care and compassion, not the threat of prison. I will tell you what I find embarrassing: it is this conversation and the tone of this conversation; it feels like we are back in Victorian times. It is absurd and wrong that in 2025 we are arguing whether a woman should have the right or the agency to choose what she knows is best for her body and her health.

I also welcome the Government’s commitment to ending time limits on child abuse. At the moment, it is very difficult to bring a case if you are over the age of 21. This makes no sense and is a denial of justice, as it often takes many years before people who were abused as a child can speak about their abuse. However, the Government are proposing that this apply only to sexual abuse. I would ask Ministers to consider widening this to include physical and emotional abuse and neglect, which often accompany sexual abuse. This is the approach taken in Scotland, and I think it is right.

I hope that Ministers will also consult with victims of child sex abuse about how to make it easier to seek justice. We know from the grooming rape gang scandal how hard it is for young people to speak out and be believed, and of the devastating consequences of abuse. I very much agree with lots of the points raised by my noble friend Lady Royall. I also welcome what we heard from the Minister, who announced a pardon and disregard scheme for those girls caught up in the grooming-gang scandal. I know that is something that they have been pressing for, and they will very much hope that it will happen.

Finally, we know that much of the troubling increase in sexual violence and misogyny against women and girls is rooted in people, particularly young people, having unfettered access to extreme pornography. Some 90% of online porn involves acts of torture and barbarism against women. Some 44% of our children have watched rape scenes online. This is poisoning minds and leading to violence in real life.

So I very much support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, to better protect children from online pornography. I also appreciate the Government’s efforts to ban the depiction of strangulation. It is not right or normal to teach our children that sex means inflicting pain on a woman. That is what is happening, and we are allowing it to happen online, on screens that our kids have in their hands every single day. I hope Ministers can make some progress on these three issues through the passage of this Bill.