Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not want to disappoint anybody, but I am not my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint; it would not be a very convincing impersonation, not least because he is sitting next to me. Noble Lords will all have the pleasure of hearing from him later on.

This Bill reflects not only our manifesto commitments but demonstrates the careful stocktake we have made of the important parts of our criminal justice system and our determination to improve the law where needed. It aims to keep citizens safer and more confident in the daily lives of all of us and I am proud of our proposals. They are fair, proportionate and add to the law where needed.

As part of the Bill’s driving force, which is to make people and communities safer, it will build on what we have done already in the past year to rebuild neighbourhood policing. We are restoring public trust in the criminal justice system through the delivery of our safer streets mission and aim to halve—yes, halve—knife crime and violence against women and girls in a decade.

For too long, neighbourhood policing has been neglected and downgraded. That has ended. We are already delivering on our commitments, with 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of the Parliament, backed by £200 million in new funding this year. Alongside this investment, the Bill brings in new respect orders to tackle persistent offenders who engage in the anti-social behaviour that blights our town centres. There are also enhanced powers to tackle the anti-social use of cars and off-road bikes. The police will now be able to seize these without first having to give a warning.

Everyone should feel safe when they are at work. This Bill delivers stronger action to protect shop workers. Assaulting a shop worker will be a bespoke criminal offence with a presumption that the courts will, on conviction, impose a criminal behaviour order on offenders. We are also repealing the provision that treats low-value shop theft as a minor offence. Shoplifting is not minor, and we are sending a clear message that all shop theft should be taken seriously. I know both these measures will be particularly welcomed by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.

Part 2 of the Bill brings in Ronan’s law. We are clamping down on dangerous knives and weapons on our streets by introducing a duty on retailers to report bulk sales of knives and offensive weapons, increasing the maximum penalty for offences relating to the sale of knives to children and strengthening the age-verification requirements for the online sale and delivery of bladed products and crossbows. We are also delivering on our manifesto commitment to hold senior managers of online platforms personally liable for failure to take action to remove illegal content relating to knives and offensive weapons.

I turn now to violence against women and children. The prevalence of violence and abuse against women and children defiles our society. We need more effective enforcement action against perpetrators and better protection for victims. To this end, the Bill strengthens stalking protection orders and the management of registered sex offenders, including preventing them changing their names on official identity documents where they pose a risk of sexual harm.

The Bill also creates a new offence of administering a harmful substance, including by spiking, to make it absolutely clear that such behaviour is illegal and encourage victims to report such incidents.

Recognising how dangerous online material is in perpetuating the growing epidemic of violence against women and girls, we will bring forward amendments in your Lordships’ House to criminalise pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, for her tireless work culminating in the pornography review which recommended that action be taken in this area.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation are among the most despicable crimes imaginable. It is estimated that half a million children every year experience some form of child sexual abuse. Alongside the new national inquiry recommended by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, we are pleased to be pressing ahead with the implementation of some of the key recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

As a result, the Bill creates a new duty to report child sexual abuse, backed up by strong criminal sanctions for those who seek to cover up such abuse by preventing or deterring a person from carrying out the duty. It makes grooming a statutory aggravating factor when sentencing and removes the three-year time limit for civil personal injury claims brought by victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

Part 5 of the Bill also helps to tackle the rising levels of online child sexual abuse. In particular, the Bill provides for new criminal offences to stop—and we mean stop—AI-facilitated child sexual abuse and hold accountable those who commit or enable these vile crimes. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for her earlier advocacy of the new child sexual abuse image-generator offence.

The Bill also provides enhanced protections for children and vulnerable adults against their exploitation for criminal purposes. First, it provides for a new offence of child criminal exploitation, where an adult intentionally uses a child to commit criminal activity. To complement this new offence, the Bill also provides for child criminal exploitation prevention orders to help prevent the criminal exploitation of children occurring. Secondly, the Bill introduces a new offence to tackle the practice of cuckooing, where criminals take over the home of a vulnerable person for the purpose of illegal activity, such as drug dealing. Thirdly, the Bill creates a new offence to combat coerced internal concealment, or plugging, where children or vulnerable adults are coerced into concealing drugs or other items in their body for criminal purposes, typically as part of a county lines operation.

We also recognise how dangerous online material is in perpetuating the growing epidemic of violence against women and girls. We committed in the other place to criminalising pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation in this Bill, and we will shortly bring forward an amendment to that effect.

I turn now to children who are victims of child sexual abuse. As noble Lords will be aware, 10 years ago the Street Offences Act 1959 was amended so that the offences of persistent loitering or soliciting in a public place for the purposes of prostitution no longer applied to children. Parliament was right to do that because it recognised that children, because they are children, involved in such conduct are not criminals but the victims of sexual exploitation. I am pleased to say that we will bring forward amendments in this House to introduce a new disregards and pardons scheme for anyone convicted or cautioned as a child for these offences.

I now turn to policing. We will address the need to rebuild trust in policing. In some serious and worrying cases, public confidence has been undermined by atrocious criminality and misconduct by a very small minority of officers. Deterrence and punishment of such misconduct is a priority for this Government, as it is for the police. A key strand of the Government’s safer streets mission is to increase public confidence in policing and the wider criminal justice system.

Since 2017, the College of Policing has operated a police barred list—an advisory list which ensure that those officers who are dismissed by a police force in England and Wales are prevented from just joining another force. Such individuals have no place in policing. The Bill extends this approach, ensuring that officers dismissed at disciplinary proceedings from the National Crime Agency and other specialist police forces cannot be re-employed by another force.

It is vital that the system of police accountability commands the confidence of both the public and the police. As a society we rely on the professionalism and bravery of firearms officers who put their own lives at risk to keep us all safe. Thankfully, the occasions where the police have to use lethal force in this country are few and far between. When they do so, it is entirely right that officers are accountable for their actions. But those accountability arrangements must be proportionate, timely and fair to all concerned. Regrettably, this is not currently the case. Measures proposed in the Bill will improve the timeliness and appropriateness of investigations by the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the rights of victims. That said, if firearms officers are charged with offences relating to and committed during their duties, the Bill will protect them from violent reprisals by establishing a presumption of anonymity in criminal proceedings up to the point of sentence.

The public rightly want to see crimes solved and offenders brought to justice. To do this, the police must have the necessary tools to do their job. If someone has their mobile phone stolen and the victim can trace its whereabouts, the Bill ensures that the police have the powers to enter premises quickly and, if necessary, without a warrant, to recover electronically tracked stolen goods.

It is also vital that police powers keep in step with the march of technology in other respects. Evidence of criminality is no longer routinely stored on a computer hard drive; it is instead held remotely in the cloud. The Bill clarifies the circumstances in which law enforcement agencies can access such information, subject to strong safeguards, as they investigate offences ranging from child sexual abuse to fraud and terrorism, thereby protecting the public and our borders.

The Bill also ensures that law enforcement agencies have the necessary powers to combat other forms of technology-enabled crime. We are banning the possession and supply of SIM farms, save where there are legitimate uses such as in broadcasting. We are giving the police and others the power to suspend IP addresses and domain names used to commit fraud or other serious crimes, such as the so-called pimping websites involved in commercial sexual exploitation.

I turn to protests. The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our vibrant democracy, but in facilitating peaceful protest, the police also have a duty to uphold the rights of others not to be harassed or intimidated and to go about their daily lives without serious disruption. The Bill ensures that the police have the powers they need to protect places of worship from intimidatory protests and protects specified war and other memorials, including the Cenotaph and the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, that have been the target of protest action. A new targeted offence of concealing identity at designated protests will strengthen police powers to require the removal of face coverings at protests where violence or other criminality either has occurred or is likely to occur.

The precious right to engage in peaceful protest and the equally precious entitlement to freedom of speech do not extend to threatening or abusing others, all the more so where those threatened or abused are emergency workers. The law already recognises that racially or religiously motivated threats and abuse should attract tougher penalties, but these currently do not apply where the behaviour takes place in a person’s private home. When the police, firefighters and ambulance staff attend someone’s home— for example, in response to a 999 call—they have no choice but to remain and to act. The Bill closes the loophole in the law so that anyone who threatens or abuses an emergency worker because of their race or religion within a private dwelling will be liable for the higher maximum penalties such hate crimes would attract where the conduct took place in a public place.

I now turn to counterterrorism. We must also make sure that counterterrorism powers reflect evolving threats, ensuring that operational partners have the tools they need to keep the public safe. Part 14 of the Bill delivers on several recommendations made by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC. He has identified the need for a new diversion order in response to the increasing number of young people who are the subject of counterterrorism investigations. The youth diversion order provided for in Part 14 will be a new civil order that will enable the police to intervene earlier to prevent young people engaging in terrorism and divert them from the criminal justice system.

Finally, in addition to the three new measures that the Government will seek to add to the Bill to which I have already referred, we will table amendments to apply various further provisions in the Bill to Scotland and/or Northern Ireland. These amendments are being brought forward at the request of the Scottish Government and the relevant Northern Ireland departments.

This Government were elected to deliver change: change that will reverse the decline in neighbourhood policing; change that will tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls and the epidemic of knife crime. The Bill will help deliver that change by cracking down on anti-social behaviour, making our town centres safer, building trust in the police, clearing our streets of knives, protecting our children from sexual abuse, criminal exploitation and online harms, and safeguarding women and girls from stalkers and sexual predators. These are the purposes behind this Bill. I beg to move.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, everyone is concerned about gang activity. The dark web means it has never been easier for people to source and buy drugs independently, contributing to the emergence of more loosely organised micro-gangs, as once an individual has a large supply of illicit drugs, they need to recruit others to help distribute them. I am sympathetic to the intentions behind the tabled amendments.

On Amendment 51 on graffiti, I entirely agree with some of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, that this usually relates to gangs marking territory or expressing group affiliation. It can result in public spaces feeling unsafe, and the fear is that it could fuel turf wars between rival gangs. To many it is also an unsightly nuisance, with the clean-up cost high for home owners, businesses and local authorities. However, we remain unconvinced that this amendment is the way forward.

Graffiti without the property owner’s permission is already a criminal offence, classified as vandalism or criminal damage, with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment. I am also concerned that measures such as this risk embedding racial bias in law enforcement and disproportionately affecting minority and marginalised communities. The courts have already found that using graffiti as a marker of gang identity can result in the unjust targeting of marginalised groups, especially people of colour.

In 2022 a legal ruling forced the Metropolitan Police to admit that the operation of its gangs matrix was unlawful, breached human rights and had a disproportionate impact on black people. The matrix used factors, including graffiti, to label people as gang members, leading to life-changing consequences for those who had been wrongly included. Over 1,000 individuals assessed as low risk subsequently had to be removed from the database. This demonstrates the danger of conflating graffiti, gangs and criminality. While I understand the intention behind this amendment, the risk of unintended consequences is clear.

The definition of a gang in Amendment 52 feels worryingly broad, so we cannot support it. As drafted, it raises significant concerns that outweigh its intended benefits. Prosecutors are already cautioned not to use the term “gang” without clear evidence because, used inappropriately, it can unfairly broaden liability for an individual’s offending while disproportionately affecting ethnic minorities.

This proposal also feels overly prescriptive. It is important that the courts retain discretion and the law allows for nuanced sentencing; for example, when someone was plainly being coerced, groomed or manipulated into gang activity.

On these Benches, we believe that sentencing must account for individual circumstances and be based on specific individual criminal behaviour. Simply being in with the wrong people is not the same thing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, for tabling Amendments 51 and 52. These amendments are proposed and supported by three Members of your Lordships’ House who, between them, have considerable experience in what might loosely be called the law and order space. They are, in rugby terms, a formidable front row and, as such, I have considered what they proposed with care.

I reassure the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Blencathra, and indeed your Lordships’ House, that this Government are definitely against gangs and absolutely against graffiti. That said, we do not believe that these proposals are needed, primarily because the activities criminalised in these measures are already covered by existing legislation.

The intended effect of Amendment 51 is to criminalise the kind of graffiti which gangs use to mark what they feel is their territory and/or to threaten rival groups with violence. As the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said, this criminal behaviour is already covered by the existing offence contained within Section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971. Section 1 is broad enough to cover graffiti because case law establishes that the damage does not have to be permanent, and it catches behaviour such as using water-soluble paint on a pavement or smearing mud on the walls of a police cell. In addition, Section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act has a higher maximum penalty than the proposed new offence, being punishable in the Crown Court by a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment.

Not only is the proposed offence not needed, there are very real problems with the structure of what is proposed; I will mention three, but there are others. First, this amendment creates an offence of strict liability. That means that the prosecution is not required to prove intention, recklessness or even knowledge. The result is a criminal offence which could be committed by accident. The criminal law does not like strict liability offences, and they are very rare in our jurisprudence. The reason is simple: we do not usually criminalise people who are not even aware that they were doing anything wrong.

Secondly, whatever the intention behind the drafting of this proposed criminal offence, in the way it is drafted, the definition of “gang” is so broad that it would capture both the Brownies and the Church of England, as well as football teams, drama societies and many other groups not normally regarded as criminal. I do not think that the noble Lords intend that a Christian cross chalked on a fence could potentially be prosecuted as a criminal offence.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I apologise for standing up a bit late but I want to go back to an earlier comment that graffiti could happen by accident. How on earth can graffiti artists spray a wall with gang tags by accident?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The difficulty is that if somebody were to put something on a fence, for example, and they were not aware that this was associated with a gang, they would potentially be criminalised by it.

Thirdly, the requirements of the proposed new offence mean that expert evidence would need to be adduced in order that the jury or magistrates could decide whether the prosecution had proved to the criminal standard—that is, beyond reasonable doubt—whether the graffiti is gang-related within the meaning of the section. Most judges, magistrates and juries are unlikely to understand the significance of particular names, symbols or tags—this is not just the Sharks and the Jets that we are talking about, but rather most abstruse versions. Then the requirement that a trial be fair would require that the defence would also have to be able to instruct an expert, usually at public expense. Your Lordships’ House is well aware of the difficulties the criminal courts already have with delay. The idea that these existing challenges should be added to by numerous “battle of the expert” trials about graffiti is as unpalatable as it is unnecessary, given that the conduct is already captured by the Criminal Damage Act.

Amendment 52 seeks to make gang involvement a statutory aggravating factor in the sentencing for any criminal offence; thus, it is very wide indeed. The definition of “gang” is once again so broad that it would capture a number of wholly innocuous groups, and this is not a mere drafting issue. It encapsulates the fundamental problem with this provision, which is the difficulty of defining the conduct which it seeks to condemn with sufficient precision to make it workable. Again, evidence might be needed at the sentencing stage.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled this notice of my intention to oppose the question that Clause 39 stand part of the Bill, to correct what has become serious misinformation. By way of background, Clause 39 repeals Section 22A of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980. That section was inserted into the 1980 Act by Section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Section 22A of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980 provides that where a person is charged with a shoplifting offence where the value of the stolen goods is under £200, the offence is triable only summarily. Accordingly, low-value shoplifting cases will only be heard before magistrates’ courts and will not go before the Crown Court. This alteration has become the subject of significant misinformation, largely perpetuated by the party in government. In the 2024 election manifesto, it claimed that this had created

“effective immunity for some shoplifting”

and the Government’s policy paper in the Bill, published on GOV.UK, calls it “perceived immunity”. This, of course, is absolutely false. There is no immunity in any form for any shoplifting offences. Allowing an offence to be tried only in a magistrates’ court does not give anyone immunity.

The Sentencing Council’s guidelines for sentencing a person guilty of theft from a shop state that the starting point for low-value shoplifting, with little additional harm to the victim, is a “high-level community order”, with the maximum being a 12-week custodial sentence. For low-value shoplifting, with significant additional harm to the victim, the starting point is 12 weeks’ custody and the maximum is 26 weeks’ custody. It is clear, then, that magistrates’ courts can impose community orders and terms of imprisonment on offenders found guilty of low-value shoplifting. If the Government believe that is immunity, they clearly need to have a serious rethink. I therefore ask the Minister why the Government are making this change, since there is absolutely not immunity for low-value shoplifting. What can they possibly hope that this will achieve?

The reality is that Clause 39 is purely performative. Worse than that, it is performative politics with negative ramifications. Where an offence is triable either way, it is up to the magistrates’ court and the defendant to decide which court finally hears the case. If the magistrates’ court deems itself to have sufficient powers to try the case, a defendant is able to elect the court that their case will be heard by. Are we seriously saying that we will be permitting a person charged with stealing £50-worth of chocolate to be hauled in front of a Crown Court judge and jury? In such a scenario, the most likely sentence would be a community order for a few months’ imprisonment: that sentence would likely be the same whether the case was tried in a magistrates’ court or the Crown Court.

Why enable the possibility for a person charged with low-value shoplifting to elect to go to a Crown Court, simply for them to be handed the same sentence they could have been given in the magistrates’ court? There are around 73,000 criminal cases waiting to be heard by the Crown Courts. Many people are waiting years for their case to be heard. The last thing we need now is for more minor offences to be sent to the Crown Courts, adding to their already sizable backlog. This is not a solution to shoplifting. It is simply another way for a defendant to string out their proceedings. Permitting low-value shoplifting to be tried only summarily does not give shoplifters immunity but will serve only to clog up our already stretched Crown Courts.

What does create an effective immunity for shoplifting is the Government’s Sentencing Bill. Noble Lords will know that the Bill creates the presumption that a custodial sentence of less than 12 months be suspended. Even if a person is given a custodial sentence for low-value shoplifting, they will not serve any time in prison. If that does not give would-be shoplifters more incentive to steal, I do not know what does. Clause 39 is pointless and performative, and would be damaging to the swift passage of justice.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I acknowledge the intention of the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, to oppose Clause 39 standing part of the Bill. I have listened with care to what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but we firmly believe that the inclusion of this clause is necessary. There is one thing that we can all agree on: shop theft has risen at any alarming rate in recent years. It is a blight on our society; it causes loss and distress to retailers and it undermines the safety of retail spaces.

This Government are committed to restoring confidence in the safety of retail spaces, and to protecting businesses from escalating losses. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics are stark. Shoplifting almost doubled over the past five years, increasing to 530,643 cases in 2025. While multiple factors have contributed to rising retail crime, one persistent issue is the perception in many quarters that low-value theft has no real consequences, and some regard it as having been, in effect, decriminalised.

The noble Lord is right that Section 22A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act converted theft of goods worth £200 or less from shops to being tried summarily. I completely understand that the argument of the previous Government was that this would increase efficiency by enabling the police to prosecute instances of low-value theft and keeping the cases in the magistrates’ court, but it has not worked. Instead, it is not that there is immunity, but there is a perception that those committing theft of goods worth £200 or less will escape any punishment. My noble friend Lord Hannett referred to this in relation to the previous group of amendments.

Clause 39 will rectify this, and it really matters. Evidence from the Association of Convenience Stores shows that only 36% of retail crime is even reported. Many retailers choose not to do so; they think it is a waste of time, because they believe that the police will not do anything. The underreporting masks the true scale of the problem and leaves businesses vulnerable.

We must act decisively to support retailers facing this growing challenge, and Clause 39 does exactly that. It closes a critical gap by sending a clear and unequivocal message: theft of any value is a serious criminal act and will be treated seriously. By removing the financial threshold for so-called low-value shop theft, we are sending a clear message to perpetrators and would-be perpetrators that this crime is not going to be tolerated and will be met with appropriate punishment. We are also making it clear to the retailers that we take this crime seriously, and they should feel encouraged to report it.

I acknowledge the concern raised by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that by making shop theft triable either way there is scope for some cases to end up in the Crown Court. However, there are two reasons why the noble Lord does not need to worry about this. The first is that Sir Brian Leveson highlighted in his independent review that the risk is mitigated by the existing sentencing guidelines, which provide a clear and structured framework to ensure that the penalties remain proportionate. This means that, in practice, the vast majority of such cases fall well within magistrates’ courts’ sentencing powers, meaning that they are highly unlikely to be committed to the Crown Court, for either trial or sentence. We anticipate that the effect on the backlog will be negligible. Secondly, as far as defendants electing trial in the Crown Court is concerned, they already have the ability to do this in relation to the so-called summary only offence. In practice, elections occur only in marginal numbers. There is no evidence to suggest that Clause 39 will change this.

I urge the noble Lord to join us in sending this very clear message—we entirely accept it was always the intention of the previous Government not to decriminalise this—to make it clear to everybody what a serious offence this is. I hope that he is willing to withdraw his opposition to Clause 39 standing part.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I am, however, very disappointed by her continued defence of Clause 39. It is absolutely clear that the changes made by the previous Government do not create effective immunity for low-value shoplifting. All shoplifting offences are able to be tried in a magistrates’ court, where the court can impose a custodial sentence if necessary. Drink-driving offences are tried summarily only. I do not see the Government proposing to make that offence triable either way.

The fundamental point is that this change will not help anyone. It will not deter shoplifters. I hardly think a potential shoplifter will suddenly decide to stop because he might be tried in a Crown Court as opposed to a magistrates’ court. It will simply increase the Crown Court backlog without any benefit. This is a matter that I am sure we will return to on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I love that the Minister said that judges will be able to do that. Will she use the new powers, which I think the Attorney-General is taking, to overrule the Sentencing Council if it tries to dilute those powers?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

This is probably not the moment for me to embark on that one. This, of course, is simply about agreeing with the Sentencing Council’s guidelines in individual cases, not overriding them. I am confident that agreement will be reached, but, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, perhaps that is one I will deal with another day.

We are also about to expand the intensive supervision courts to deal with the root causes of these crimes by making repeat offenders come back in front of the same judge on regular occasions to see how they are doing. That is what is going to be available to judges.

Let us look at the other side of the coin for a moment. Many shoplifters have complicated backgrounds and complex needs, and sometimes electronic monitoring may not be an appropriate requirement to add to an offender’s sentence, even if this is their third or more offence. Many prolific offenders are homeless and lead chaotic lives. Even getting them to turn up to court on time can be a significant challenge. Imposing an electronic monitoring requirement in some of these cases would be setting the defendant up to fail instead of helping to improve the outcome for the perpetrators and victims of crime and the public at large. It is all entirely case specific, and the judge is the right person to make that decision.

I am proud of our judiciary, which is working hard under very difficult circumstances at the moment, and I am asking noble Lords to trust our magnificent judges, because they do understand the problems that repeat shoplifting can cause and they understand the powers available to them to sentence individual offenders appropriately. This measure would put unnecessary constraints on them and make an already difficult job harder. I can also assure noble Lords that we are continuing to work with cross-government partners and police forces to consider new ways of targeting and tackling persistent and prolific offenders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her courtesy and the depth of her reply, but I am not quite sure how we solve the £200 problem. The points she made about enforcement are very good ones, but the difficulty is this belief that if you steal something worth less than £200, nothing will happen to you; thus my parallel with San Francisco. What are we going to do about that?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The first thing we want to do is Clause 39, which, of course, was opposed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies. But in addition, this is about making it clear to everybody that it really does matter, and driving it through to the police that there should be no immunities—that there are no levels below to which this should not apply.

For all these reasons, I do believe these amendments are not required, but I would be very happy to discuss the matters further with both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, and I encourage them to speak with me if they feel there are matters that I have not fully taken into account. But, for now, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her kind offer.

The amendment of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe focuses on enforcement. If the police do not investigate theft, if they do not take measures to deter and prevent shoplifting, no amount of legislation will change that. Creating a code of practice for low-value shoplifting could be a step in the right direction. Together with my Amendment 215—and I am grateful, I think, for the implied support of the Liberal Democrats—these measures target enforcement and punishment. This is in stark contrast to what the Government are proposing in Clause 39. The effective immunity for shoplifters comes from the inability of the police to catch those who shoplift. It is an issue of enforcement and investigation, which in turn all comes back to police funding and officer numbers—a point made by the noble Baroness Lady Doocey. Better enforcement is what will drive down shoplifting offence rates, not putting those cases before Crown Court judges. But, for now, I beg leave to withdraw.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I add my voice to what has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. The fundamental principle is set out in new Section 11ZB(2): if the defendant cannot have a fair trial, the hearing cannot proceed. The gravity of the allegations and the public interest demand that there be no hearing, notwithstanding the damage that this causes to the unfortunate alleged victim. I entirely agree that new Section 11ZB(3) confuses the position; it introduces uncertain concepts and will inevitably lead to unhelpful litigation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, before I speak to Amendment 289, I thank my noble friend Lady Royall, who is not in her place today because she is ill, and Mr Stephen Bernard, both of whom met me recently. We discussed both the impact of the limitation period on victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and their concern over the test of substantial prejudice within this clause. I was moved by what Mr Bernard told me and I thank him for his courage in telling me about what happened to him.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for moving Amendment 289. I hope both my noble friend Lady Royall and the noble Lord will be reassured that I fully understand the sentiment behind the amendment. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Doocey, and the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Blencathra, for welcoming the general spirit of the clause and for their constructive comments. I make it clear that we absolutely do not want to add additional or unnecessary barriers to stop victims of child sexual abuse from proceeding with their civil claims. So I have asked my officials to look closely at the issues this amendment raises for further consideration, and I aim to provide a further update to your Lordships on Report.

Turning to the opposition of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, to Clause 82 standing part of the Bill, I think he is well known for being very expert in this area and I pay tribute to that. But Clause 82 implements important recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. The noble Lord raised concerns during Second Reading and again during this debate that the reform is unnecessary and would lead to greater uncertainty and litigation, but, with respect, I disagree. The inquiry looked at this in great detail. It found that the limitation period for civil claims itself acted as a deterrent to victims and survivors—just the very fact that it existed. The inquiry also found that it acted as a deterrent irrespective of the existence of the discretion in Section 33, and the inquiry therefore found that Section 33 did not provide sufficient protection for victims and survivors.

The inquiry found that the regime acted as a barrier to claimants at three stages: first, solicitors’ willingness to take on claims, because it can make it really hard for them to find a lawyer to represent them; secondly, the settlement and valuation of claims, because it can lead to victims accepting lower settlements because of uncertainty about the limitation issue; and, thirdly, the hearings themselves in relation to the limitation period, the effect of which on the claimants was described as “intrusive and traumatic”.

I think the noble Lord will find that it was not this Government who said they were not in favour of these recommendations; it was actually the previous Government. This Government accepted the recommendation in February of this year and are satisfied that Clause 82 is necessary and proportionate. The courts are perfectly capable, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, of deciding when a claim is inappropriate or unfair and should not succeed. This Government and my department put victims at the heart of everything we do. This is why we believe that this reform is necessary and important for victims and survivors. On that basis, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to withdraw his amendment and I hope the Committee will join me in supporting Clause 82.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

The noble Baroness is quite right that the response to IICSA came from the previous Government. It was written by the Ministry of Justice and signed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy. While not in any way undermining his contribution to whatever was produced, I suspect that it was the work of government lawyers, approved by him. It was a careful study of the law by reference to, for example, the operation of Section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980. IICSA was not a Law Commission or law reform body, and it covered a huge area of inquisition. It had to cover so many areas that many people doubted whether it had any utility. I am not suggesting that, but it was not primarily concerned with civil claims as such. What I would like to ask the noble Baroness is this: Section 33 has been in operation since 1980. I can tell her, and I am sure she will accept from me, that it is used a great deal by many claimants represented by firms of solicitors. Very often, limitation is not even considered, because as she quite rightly says, very often somebody will delay a considerable time before bringing a claim, and quite rightly so. But why, I ask, is she satisfied, given the wideness of the discretion, that Section 33 does not work as it is?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, it is no answer to say that another Government considered it carefully: different Governments have different priorities. I am not sure that that is going to come as a great surprise to the noble Lord. As for Section 33, this Government are satisfied that it does not provide sufficient protection.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be very brief in my response. As I say, this was a probing amendment, and I am grateful to those noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. I thank the Minister for her clarification. I am content with the Government’s assurances, and I therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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In conclusion, these amendments do not target free expression; they target exploitation. They would not restrict lawful adult behaviour; they would restrict the depiction and monetisation of criminal acts. They would not create new moral codes; they would simply insist that our existing laws protecting children and families apply with equal force online as they do offline. For those reasons, I support all the amendments in this group from my noble friend Lady Bertin. Having heard the support from across the House this evening, I hope the Minister will too.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, it would not be right to begin the Government’s response to this group of amendments without first thanking unequivocally the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. The whole Chamber will join me in saying that we have a great deal to thank her for. She has worked tirelessly on the independent pornography review and has long campaigned to raise awareness of the ways pornography shapes sexual behaviour. This Government share her determination to ensure that the online world is a safer place for everyone, and we are immensely grateful to her for her insights.

The motivation for these amendments is important and I make it absolutely clear that I take them seriously. I have not disagreed with a single word that has been said in the impassioned and sometimes angry contributions in this Chamber—I share that anger and outrage. The noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, is aware, following our meeting last week, of the reasons why the Government will resist her amendments at this stage. However, I look forward to continuing our discussions in greater detail over the coming weeks, including in meetings between my department, the Home Office and DSIT. I hope we will all work closely together to achieve our shared objectives.

I also take this opportunity to announce that the Government will accept, in part, one of the noble Baroness’s recommendations from her pornography review—namely, recommendation 24. The Government will review the criminal law relating to pornography, which will give us a chance to look at the law holistically and consider whether it is fit for purpose in an ever-developing online world. Importantly, the review I am announcing today will look into the effectiveness of the existing law in relation to criminalising, among other things, harmful depictions of incest and any forms of pornography that encourage child sexual abuse.

I know the noble Baroness is anxious that any review should not be used as a delaying tactic to avoid making any decisions. I hope she will take it from me that it is my wish to make sure that this takes place quickly. In addition, as I mentioned to her when we met, the Government are not completely opposed to considering swifter action where this is critically important, and I know we will discuss this further at our next meeting.

Given what I have just said, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I address Amendments 290 to 292 briefly, in the light of the fact we are proposing a review. I am very grateful for the contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Benjamin, Lady Kidron, Lady Sugg and Lady Owen, my noble friends Lady Kennedy and Lady Berger, and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Cameron of Lochiel—I hope I have mentioned everybody.

I appreciate the motivation behind these amendments, and I reassure my noble friend Lady Kennedy that the Government and I are very much in listening mode. Of course images of actual child incest or actual child sexual abuse are extremely harmful. The same is also true for intimate photos or videos shared without consent, and I note the concerns about how effectively this law is being enforced and regulated. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, that I am committed to working with her on the issues raised by these amendments and I very much look forward to meeting again to discuss them in greater detail to see where we can go with them.

Amendment 298 would criminalise the possession of nudification tools by users. Once again, I accept the intention behind this amendment and recognise the harm caused; it is horrifying. My noble friend Lady Berger spoke movingly about its impact on young women, and other noble Lords spoke strongly about this as well.

Our concern is that this amendment would not target those who provide these unpleasant tools to users in the UK. Additionally, as drafted, it would criminalise the possession of legitimate tools which are designed to create intimate images, such as those used in a medical context. I reiterate that we have significant sympathy for the amendment’s underlying objective, so we are actively considering what action is needed to ensure that any intervention in this area is effective. I assure the noble Baroness that we will reflect carefully on what she and other noble Lords—including the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron, Lady Boycott and Lady Owen, my noble friend Lady Berger, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, among others—have said in this debate. I also assure her that we aim to provide an update on this matter ahead of Report.

Finally, Amendment 314 seeks to bring regulatory parity between offline and online pornography. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for her continued advocacy on this topic over the years. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron—for whom huge respect is due, in this House and elsewhere—the noble Lords, Lord Carter of Haslemere and Lord Nash, and the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, among others, all spoke powerfully about this.

I stress once again that I do not disagree with the motivation that underlies this amendment. No one could disagree with the general principle as a matter of common sense, but extensive further work with the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, is needed to consider and define with sufficient certainty what currently legal online pornography should not be permitted. It is also important that we make a thorough exploration of the existing legislation and regulation to ensure any new offence is enforceable, protects users to the highest standard and works as intended.

Under the Video Recordings Act, the distribution of pornography on physical media formats is regulated by the BBFC, as we have heard. Obviously, the BBFC will not classify any content which breaches criminal law. Amendment 314 as drafted would create a criminal offence which would require a judgment to be made about whether the BBFC would classify content which has not been subject to the classification process. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, expressed concerns about the drafting of this amendment while supporting its underlying motivation. As I hope your Lordships will agree, creating this style of criminal offence requires a clearer and more certain definition of this pornographic content, as any individual would need to be able clearly to understand what they need to do to regulate their conduct, so as not to inadvertently commit a criminal offence.

I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, will appreciate the reasons I have set out for the Government not supporting these amendments today. That said, I hope the announcement of the review into the criminal law and the Government’s commitment to work with the noble Baroness over the coming weeks will leave her sufficiently reassured not to press her amendments at this stage.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I want to ask the Minister about the timing. Her tone is exceptionally welcome— I will leave the substance of her response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin—but I am watching facial recognition, edtech and AI being rolled out by the Government with impunity. Even earlier today, at Questions, the tool was put at a higher order than the safety. What is the timeframe for the reviews and in which we can expect these very urgent questions to be addressed? There is a Bill in front of us, but when will the next Bill come?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Can the noble Baroness imagine just how unpopular I would be if I committed to an absolute timeframe? What I can say is that I hope she will take it from me that I regard this as important. The meetings with the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, have started. This matters but we need to get it right.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

Will this review—yet another review—take place before Report? The Bill is before us, so once Report has passed, it will be too late to have the review. This is not something that we can leave until it is too late. Can we at least have an assurance that Report will be timed in a way that enables the Minister to come back and say, “This review has happened, and this is what we’re going to do”?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I entirely understand the sentiments. I cannot commit to that today, but I will take the point away.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I will give the Minister a little bit of context, because she has not been in this House very long, for which she is probably very grateful. Many of us speaking today were very involved in the genesis and ultimate passage of the Online Safety Act. That took six years to happen. When we passed that Act, we thought we were being crystal clear, in both Houses of Parliament, on what we intended to happen and what we intended the regulator to do. One of reasons why her ministerial colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, got a pretty hard time from this Committee on 27 November was that we felt there was a certain unwillingness to recognise the degree of frustration many of us feel about how the Online Safety Act is being enacted.

In particular, on 27 November, the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, told us that the Molly Rose Foundation has, in effect, given up on hoping that Ofcom will actually do its job, because Ofcom has told the foundation that its attitude and strategy in enacting the Online Safety Act, when dealing with the large platforms, is what it calls “tactical ambiguity”. If I were a lawyer for one of the large platforms, I would think that having a regulator that was applying tactical ambiguity was absolutely wonderful; it would be exactly what I would hope for. What we are looking for is action from His Majesty’s Government, and when it happens, we are not looking for any kind of ambiguity.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I have already said that I have heard, and indeed share, the anger and frustration in Committee. I may not have been in your Lordships’ House for that long, but I have not been living underneath a stone. Given my previous existence, I am acutely aware of these debates. What is obvious to us all is that, however well-intentioned past attempts have been, these things are still happening. If we want them to stop, we have to do something about them. I do not believe I can go further than I have at the moment; all I can say is that the will is there.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

During Robert Runcie’s time in the Church of England, he was exasperated that when matters became very difficult, the General Synod was called to set up a committee. He saw the setting up of committees as a postponing of a decision that ought to be taken. These inquiries keep going on and on. Given the Government’s machinery and lawyers, I do not understand why this could not be looked at before Report.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I have already answered that, I am afraid. With the greatest of respect to the noble and right reverend Lord, I cannot give that commitment today, but he has heard what I have said.

[Baroness Bertin (Con)]

My Lords, this has been humbling for me, and it is very hard to know how to respond. There are big shoes to fill after so many amazing speeches. That is what we call teamwork and showing this Chamber at its very best. I assure noble Lords that I still have plenty of petrol left in the tank on this issue. I am very grateful for the acknowledgement that it has been a gruelling piece of work, but what would damage me more is if we did not get this right. I am not prepared to look back and think that we could have done more, and I believe that many others in this Committee would agree with that.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for bringing forward this amendment today. As I have said when responding to the other amendments, I stress that I entirely understand the motivation underlying it. Victims and survivors of child sexual abuse have every right to see justice for the horrendous crimes they endured. I know perfectly well through my experience in other parts of public service, if you like, of how long it can take for victims to be able to come forward. To that extent, there is nothing between the noble Baroness and me, and indeed others who have spoken: the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. That said, I am afraid I am going to have to disappoint the noble Baroness when I say that the Government cannot accept her amendment, and I hope she will appreciate the reason for it when in a moment I explain why.

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[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Just because this is so important, and no doubt for our understanding, can I ask two questions? First, on there being no time limit, is that because there is some exception in the Magistrates’ Courts Act to the normal six-month time limit on summary conviction? Section 9(3)(a) of the Sexual Offences Act allows summary conviction, so this removal of the time bar must be somewhere either in the Sexual Offences Act or in the Magistrates’ Courts Act. My second question relates to Article 7. Of course, the prohibition on retroactive criminalisation does not apply when the crime in question would be thought of as criminal according to the laws of civilised nations. Of course, that was upheld as a principle when marital rape was finally criminalised in all these jurisdictions by the courts rather than by statute.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I will deal with my noble friend’s second point first. There are decisions of the domestic courts here that support the fact that you cannot bring prosecutions for what was the unlawful sexual intercourse offence under Section 6, nor can you even bring a prosecution for sexual assault based on the same facts, because that would transgress the prohibition in Article 7. As regards the time limit, Section 9 of the 2003 Act has no time limitations in it, which is the usual principle of criminal offences in this country, but for this tiny cohort of behaviour—it really is very small—you could not prosecute under Section 9 because of Article 7. Section 6 no longer exists, and you cannot get round it by using Section 9, but it really is a very small number of cases.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I suggest to the noble Baroness that, in addition, these offences are so serious that they would not be prosecuted in the magistrates’ court; they would be indictable offences, would they not?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite correct: this has nothing to do with magistrates’ court time limits. There was a statutory time limit contained within Section 6 of the 1956 Act that said that all prosecutions for offences under Section 6 must be brought within 12 months in any court. It is nothing to do with the time limits in the Magistrates’ Courts Act.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am so sorry to labour the point, but I think it is so important that we understand, and if it cannot be dealt with now, perhaps the Minister could write to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the Committee. I am looking at Section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act, on “Sexual activity with a child”, which I understand to be the section that the noble Baroness is seeking to amend in her amendment. Section 9(3)(a) allows summary conviction for that offence, and the maximum penalty is

“imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months”,

or the statutory maximum fine.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am of course more than happy to write to my noble friend, and it must be my fault I am not explaining this properly. There is no time limit for prosecutions brought under Section 9 generally, unless it refers to particular behaviour—so that would be an offence committed against a girl aged between 13 and 15—that took place before the repeal of the 1956 Act and the bringing into force of the 2003 Act. You could not prosecute that under Section 9 because the time limit has expired for bringing it under Section 6, in the same way that you cannot prosecute for sexual assault for the same behaviour because you cannot bring a prosecution under Section 6. I had better write, because I can see from the puzzled look on my noble friend’s face that I have not explained it very well.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Perhaps the noble Baroness could also include in that letter reference to what is either a decision of the Appellate Committee or the Supreme Court—I think it is the former—which addresses this and explains precisely why those who are alleged to have committed offences before the relevant dates are protected by the 1956 Act and continue to be so.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The noble Lord has explained it rather better than I did.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to everyone who has spoken. I am probably the only non-lawyer in this debate, and as it is my amendment I feel something of a duffer.

I am very grateful for the advice. I came to this amendment after reading the recommendations of IICSA, and what concerned me particularly was picking up that people who had come forward years afterwards were told that things were timed out—that might have been a decision by the CPS to say that it felt that it would not be effective going to trial. However, I very much appreciate the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, because I have experience of the issue of which court deals with issues through my interests in stalking and other domestic abuse cases, where often that is the place that things happen. All the description that has been given for “no time limits” has not been for the magistrates’ court, excepting the detail that the noble Baroness provided, which is way beyond my knowledge.

There is the difficulty that Professor Jay reported. In two cases where I was heavily involved with the victims, decisions were made initially by the CPS and the victims were told that they had timed out. That may not have been the case, but that is what they were told. In another case, when there were three pupils from the same school all giving evidence, none of them knowing each other, the first victim was told by the judge, “Yours is over 20 years ago; you can’t possibly remember what happened and therefore it’s timed out”. That is what is happening in the practice of the courts. Professor Jay’s report spoke to the experience of the victims. We have gone into extraordinary technical detail that many victims would be completely oblivious to. I would be very grateful for a letter. If there is an easy solution, it may just be that it needs to be clarified with the police and the CPS. There are a lot of unhappy victims out there. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

294: After Clause 84, insert the following new Clause—
“Pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation: England and Wales and Northern Ireland(1) After section 67 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 insert—“67A Possession or publication of pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation(1) It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an image if—(a) the image is pornographic, within the meaning of section 63,(b) the image portrays, in an explicit and realistic way, a person strangling or suffocating another person, and(c) a reasonable person looking at the image would think that the persons were real.(2) It is an offence for a person to publish an image of the kind mentioned in subsection (1).(3) Publishing an image includes giving or making it available to another person by any means.(4) Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to excluded images, within the meaning of section 64.(5) In this section“image” has the same meaning as in section 63.(6) Proceedings for an offence under this section may not be instituted—(a) in England and Wales, except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions;(b) in Northern Ireland, except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland.67B Defences to offences under section 67A(1) Where a person is charged with an offence under section 67A(1), it is a defence for the person to prove any of the matters mentioned in subsection (2).(2) The matters are—(a) that the person had a legitimate reason for being in possession of the image concerned;(b) that the person had not seen the image concerned and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, it to be an image of the kind mentioned in section 67A(1);(c) that the person— (i) was sent the image concerned without any prior request having been made by or on behalf of the person, and(ii) did not keep it for an unreasonable time;(d) that the person directly participated in the act portrayed and the act did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual harm on any person.(3) Where a person is charged with an offence under section 67A(2), it is a defence for the person to prove any of the matters mentioned in subsection (4).(4) The matters are—(a) that the person had a legitimate reason for publishing the image concerned to the persons to whom they published it;(b) that the person had not seen the image concerned and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, it to be an image of the kind mentioned in section 67A(1);(c) that the person directly participated in the act portrayed, the act did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual harm on any person, and the person only published the image to other persons who directly participated.(5) In this section“non-consensual harm” has the same meaning as in section 66.67C Penalties for offences under section 67A(1) A person who commits an offence under section 67A(1) is liable—(a) on summary conviction in England and Wales, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);(b) on summary conviction in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine (or both);(c) on conviction on indictment in England and Wales or Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine (or both).(2) A person who commits an offence under section 67A(2) is liable—(a) on summary conviction in England and Wales, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);(b) on summary conviction in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine (or both);(c) on conviction on indictment in England and Wales or Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine (or both).67D Possession of extreme pornographic images: alternative verdict in magistrates’ courtIf on the trial of a person charged with an offence under section 63 a magistrates’ court finds the person not guilty of the offence charged, the magistrates’ court may find the person guilty of an offence under section 67A(1).”.(2) In section 68 of that Act (special rules relating to providers of information society services) for “section 63” substitute “sections 63 and 67A”.(3) In Schedule 14 to that Act (special rules relating to providers of information society services)—(a) in paragraphs 3(1), 4(2) and 5(1) after “63” insert “or 67A”;(b) in paragraph 5(2)—(i) after “possession” insert “or publication”;(ii) for “an offence under section 63” substitute “the offence in question”. (4) In Schedule 34A to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (child sex offences for purposes of section 327A), after paragraph 13 insert—“13ZA An offence under section 67A of that Act (possession or publication of pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation) in relation to an image showing a person under 18.”(5) In Schedule 7 to the Online Safety Act 2023 (priority offences), in paragraph 29—(a) for “section 63” substitute “any of the following provisions”;(b) for the words in brackets substitute—“(a) section 63 (possession of extreme pornographic images);(b) section 67A (possession or publication of pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation)”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes it an offence in England and Wales and Northern Ireland to possess or publish a pornographic image that portrays strangulation (often referred to as “choking porn”) or suffocation.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, again it would not be right to speak to this group of amendments without first thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. In her independent pornography review, the noble Baroness recommended that non-fatal strangulation pornography—commonly known as choking porn—should be illegal to possess, distribute and publish. The noble Baroness has identified, and many have already mentioned in your Lordships’ Committee as part of the debate on another group of amendments, that the prevalence of strangulation pornography is leading to this behaviour becoming more commonplace in real life. The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Evidence suggests that it is influencing what people, particularly young people, think is expected of them during sex. It is also right to point out that they are not necessarily aware of the serious harm it can cause.

In June this year, we committed to giving full effect to the noble Baroness’s recommendation. Today I am pleased to do just that. We have tabled Amendments 294, 295, 488, 494, 512, 515, 526, 548 and 555, which will criminalise the possession and publication of pornographic images that portray strangulation or suffocation—otherwise known as choking porn. These changes will extend UK-wide. The terms “strangulation” and “suffocation” are widely understood and carry their ordinary meaning. Strangulation requires the application of pressure to the neck and suffocation requires a person to be deprived of air, affecting their ability to breathe. For this offence, the strangulation or suffocation portrayed must be explicit and realistic, but it does not have to be real. For example, it can be acted or posed, or the image may be AI-generated—provided that the people in the image look real to a reasonable person.

The maximum penalty for the possession offence is imprisonment for two years. This mirrors penalties under Section 3 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. The penalty reflects that while the content is harmful, much of it will not depict an unlawful act actually taking place, depending on the circumstances. For publication of such images, the maximum penalty will be imprisonment for five years, commensurate with penalties for publication under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. This reflects the underlying aims of this amendment to restrict the availability of this type of pornography.

In addition, we are amending the Online Safety Act 2023 to ensure that the offences are listed as priority offences. This will oblige platforms to take the necessary steps to stop this harmful material appearing online. This change is a vital step towards our mission to halve violence against women and girls, and as I move these amendments today it is right that the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, is credited for this change. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bertin (Con)]

My Lords, I rightly praise the Government and the Prime Minister for making this change. It shows real leadership. I speak for so many in saying thank you for taking that recommendation on board.

This amendment to ban depictions of strangulation in pornography has raised awareness more widely of how out of control online pornography has become and how it is affecting real life behaviour. I am not easily shocked these days, but I was very shocked by the example given by my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, of how those carrying out post-mortems are now having to be trained to look for signs of strangulation. That says it all.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I thank the Minister for tabling this group of amendments, and I am happy to offer the support of these Benches. The criminalisation of strangulation in pornography is part of a wider initiative that has been championed across the House and discussed today, particularly on this side by my noble friend Lady Bertin, but by many others as well.

The prevalence of strangulation in pornography and the harm it causes are very clear. Distributing such material is already illegal offline; the fact that its online equivalent is not is a gap in the law, and these amendments correct that. They close that gap and prohibit the distribution of a practice that is both dangerous and extreme. I know that there are reports from some GPs of an exponential rise in incidents of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation among younger generations, which they largely attribute to pornography; the least we can do is to provide restrictions on dangerous content that should not be normalised. As has been said, distributing non-fatal strangulation images is unlawful offline; it makes little sense that that is not replicated in our online legislation. This group aims to correct that, and I willingly offer the support of these Benches.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords for their support for these amendments, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Bertin, Lady Gohir and Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. I also note the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, about enforcement and regulation. As I said in the debate on the second group, I am very keen to continue working with the noble Baroness on other matters related to online pornography— there is much more to be done.

I hope that, in the meantime, your Lordships will join me in supporting the important steps the Government are taking in relation to strangulation pornography. I beg to move.

Amendment 294 agreed.

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

295: After Clause 84, insert the following new Clause—
“Pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation: Scotland(1) After section 51C of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 insert— “51D Pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation(1) It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an image if—(a) the image is pornographic, within the meaning of section 51A,(b) the image depicts, in an explicit and realistic way, a person strangling or suffocating another person, and(c) a reasonable person looking at the image would think that the persons were real.(2) It is an offence for a person to publish an image of the kind mentioned in subsection (1).(3) Publishing an image includes giving or making it available to another person by any means.(4) Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to excluded images, within the meaning of section 51B.(5) In this section“image” is to be construed in accordance with section 51A.51E Defences to offences under section 51D(1) Where a person is charged with an offence under section 51D(1), it is a defence for the person to prove any of the matters mentioned in subsection (2).(2) The matters are—(a) that the person had a legitimate reason for being in possession of the image concerned;(b) that the person had not seen the image concerned and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, it to be an image of the kind mentioned in section 51D(1);(c) that the person—(i) was sent the image concerned without any prior request having been made by or on behalf of the person, and(ii) did not keep it for an unreasonable time;(d) that the person directly participated in the act depicted and the act did not actually involve strangulation or suffocation of any person.(3) Where a person is charged with an offence under section 51D(2), it is a defence for the person to prove any of the matters mentioned in subsection (4).(4) The matters are—(a) that the person had a legitimate reason for publishing the image concerned to the persons to whom they published it;(b) that the person had not seen the image concerned and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, it to be an image of the kind mentioned in section 51D(1);(c) that the person directly participated in the act depicted, the act did not actually involve strangulation or suffocation of any person, and the person only published the image to other persons who directly participated.51F Penalties for offences under section 51D(1) A person who commits an offence under section 51D(1) is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine (or both).(2) A person who commits an offence under section 51D(2) is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both); (b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine (or both).51G Possession of extreme pornographic images: alternative verdictIf on the trial of a person charged with an offence under section 51A a court finds the person not guilty of the offence charged, the court may find the person guilty of an offence under section 51D(1).”.(2) In the Extreme Pornography (Electronic Commerce Directive) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (S.S.I. 2011/137)—(a) in regulation 2(1), in the definition of “relevant offence”—(i) after “51A” insert “(extreme pornography) or 51D (pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation)”;(ii) after “Act” omit “(extreme pornography)”;(b) in regulation 3(1) and (3) for “a relevant offence” substitute “an offence under section 51A of the 1982 Act”;(c) in regulation 6(2)—(i) after “possession” insert “or publication”;(ii) for “a relevant offence” substitute “the relevant offence in question”.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment makes it an offence in Scotland to possess or publish a pornographic image that depicts strangulation (often referred to as “choking porn”) or suffocation.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge for bringing these important matters to your Lordships’ Committee and for speaking so passionately and clearly about the subject matter of her amendments. There is very little that I can add. My noble friend has an impressive track record in this area, her Private Member’s Bill being a striking example of that, and these amendments are very much in the same vein. As she made clear, we must all remember what is truly important here, and that is the victims of these events. They must be at the centre of all our debates, and today they have been.

I am very pleased that my noble friend has retabled Amendments 333 and 334, which were brought forward in the other place by my honourable friend Joe Robertson MP. The omission of recklessness as part of the offence of spiking is, as many noble Lords have said, a severe oversight by this Government; we believe that it should be rectified. My noble friend Lady Owen has our full support for this amendment and our broad support for the rest of her amendments.

Finally, I draw the Minister’s attention to my Amendment 295C, which is a probing amendment. By way of background, Schedule 9 inserts new Sections 66AA and 66AB into the Sexual Offences Act 2003. New Section 66AB contains exceptions to the new offences of taking or recording intimate photographs or films, and its subsection (3) contains an exemption for healthcare professionals who are taking intimate photos of a person who is under 16 and lacks the capacity to consent. My probing amendment would remove the provision that the person has to be under 16 for the exemption to apply. It seeks to probe the Government about a situation where, for example, a doctor has a 30 year-old patient with severe learning disabilities or an 80 year-old patient with dementia. Neither has the capacity to consent, but the doctor has to take a photo of the patient in an intimate state to show the patient’s condition to their consultant, for example. That doctor would not be included in the exemption and therefore would be liable to prosecution.

This is simply to try to understand the Government’s reasoning because, if the exemption is to apply—and it should—there should be no distinction based on age. The doctor is performing the same professional duty to a person who is 15 and cannot consent and a person who is 18 and cannot consent. I will be grateful if the noble Baroness can clarify that particular point.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I join with all other Members of your Lordships’ Committee in expressing gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for bringing forward this large group of amendments, as well as to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, for bringing forward Amendment 295C. I am also pleased to commend government Amendments 300 to 307 in my name, which make two changes to the existing intimate image abuse provisions in Clause 84 and Schedule 9.

This is an eclectic, disparate and rather large group of amendments. I will endeavour to address them in as concise a manner as I can, but it is going to take a bit of time, so I hope your Lordships will forgive me. I start by stressing that the Government are committed to tackling the complete violation that is non-consensual intimate image abuse. However, before I turn to the noble Baroness’s amendments, I want to make a few general comments that apply to many of the amendments in this group, and to some of the others that are being considered by your Lordships’ Committee today.

I start with a comment with which I am sure we can all agree: it is essential that the law is clear and easy to interpret. In that context, I make the following observation, not so much as a Minister, but drawing on my past experience as a senior prosecutor and judge. It is very tempting to add new offences to the statute book. Some of these are intended to spell out the conduct of which society disapproves, even when it is already caught by more general offences—or, some would say, to make something that is already criminal, more criminal.

It is tempting to say that, if such an additional offence makes no substantive change, then why not—the Government should simply accept it. However, such changes are not always without consequence. In my experience, it can sometimes make it harder to prosecute, and thus secure convictions, when there are a number of different offences on the statute book, all of which cover the same behaviour but often with slightly different elements or maximum penalties. I know that that is absolutely not the intended effect of many of these amendments, but I would gently suggest to your Lordships that it is worth bearing in mind that legislating for large numbers of new offences may not be without adverse consequences.

That said, I have the utmost respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. She and I share the determination to deal with some pretty repellent behaviour that has the ability to ruin victims’ lives; the question is how best to achieve it. As I said before, I want to make it absolutely clear that the Government and I are very much in listening mode. I was very pleased to meet the noble Baroness recently, and I thank her for that. I wanted to understand better the intentions underlying some of her amendments, and I look forward to working with her closely over the coming months.

I am thankful for the contributions of my noble friends Lord Hacking, Lady Curran and Lady Chakrabarti. I am afraid that I am going to have to disappoint my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti on the implementation date for the deepfake legislation, as she will probably not be surprised to hear. It will depend on a number of factors, and I cannot give her a date today. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bertin, Lady Maclean, Lady Sugg and Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who was kind enough to leave the question of the ombudsman with me. I am also thankful for the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Banner and Lord Cameron, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville.

I turn now to this group of amendments. Amendment 295BA seeks to create a reporting mechanism for non-consensual intimate images to be removed within 48 hours. The Government recognise the calls to go further than the existing protections afforded by the Online Safety Act. We share the concern that some non-consensual intimate images remain online even after requests for removal have been made by the Revenge Porn Helpline. Worse still, some remain online following a successful conviction for non-consensual intimate image offences. We absolutely acknowledge this problem. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are considering how best to tackle this issue, and I hope to be able to provide more detail on the work in this area on Report.

I turn to Amendment 295BB. As I have just said, the Government recognise the harm caused by the continued circulation of intimate images and thus share the intention underlying this amendment. There are existing mechanisms that allow the courts to deprive offenders of images once they have been convicted of intimate image abuse offences. We are already amending deprivation orders so that they can be applied to seizing intimate images and any devices containing those images, regardless of whether the device was used in the offence itself. An example would be an external hard drive: even if it was not used to perpetrate the offence, it can be seized if it has the images on it. This will significantly limit the defendant’s ability to retain or access intimate image abuse material.

That said, we recognise that these existing powers were not originally designed with intimate images in mind, and that, as a result, they currently do not extend to devices that contain images but were not directly used to commit the offence. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are taking steps to strengthen the framework.

I turn to Amendments 295BC and 295BD, which were also spoken to by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. I must say that the noble Viscount slightly lost me with some of the more technical details of what he was describing.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

Will the Minister meet with me?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am always delighted to meet with the noble Viscount.

Through these amendments, the noble Baroness wishes to create a statutory register of non-consensual intimate images and hashes. Once again, I commend the intention behind the amendments, but I believe that they will lead to duplication of work that I can confirm is already taking place. Organisations such as the Revenge Porn Helpline play a vital role in detecting and removing non-consensual intimate image abuse. That organisation has in place a database of existing hashes of non-consensual images that are shared with participating companies to detect and remove the images from circulation online.

Furthermore, in March this year, Ofcom published its first codes of practice for the Online Safety Act regulatory regime, which set out a range of measures that platforms should implement to tackle non-consensual intimate image abuse. Ofcom is currently reviewing consultation responses on new measures for the codes, which include measures for platforms to use scanning technology to detect intimate images by matching them against appropriate databases of digital fingerprints or hashes of such images. I reassure the noble Baroness that finalised measures will be published in due course.

Amendments 295BE to 295BG, 295BJ, 298A, 299A and 300B all share the purpose of expanding all intimate image offences to include real and purported audio recording of those in an intimate state. The noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, spoke powerfully about the need for this. However, the Government cannot accept these amendments for two reasons. The first is the difficulties in proving such offences, and the second is that we consider that the harm in question is covered in the main by existing offences.

As far as proof is concerned, it is a general truth that being able to identify voices is a great deal more problematic than identifying images. Awkward and possibly embarrassing though this is to be considering in your Lordships’ Committee in the middle of the working day, a few moments’ thought about the kinds of sounds recorded, given the context, will illustrate some of the difficulties. First, it would be difficult for tribunals of fact, whether magistrates, judges or juries, to determine whether the recorded audio is or purports to be that of a particular person. Secondly, the proposed definition of an intimate audio recording as one “which a reasonable person considers sexual in nature” might be hard to determine from the audio alone. In short, there are concerns about how this could be proved to the criminal standard.

In this context, I refer back to the point I made earlier: the law must be clear and enact only offences that are capable of enforcement. The Government have looked at this closely and seriously, and we have tried to identify cases where intimate audio abuse is alleged. It is our view that there does not appear to be a large number of cases where this happens in isolation. Instead, the reason for the audio abuse is usually to blackmail or harass someone. Both are criminal offences already, with blackmail carrying a significant maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment. If we are wrong about this, I know that the noble Baroness has said that she will share further evidence with me, and I am sure that this will also apply to the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir. I am happy to discuss this issue further with both of them.

Amendment 295BH seeks to define “taking” for the purposes of the new intimate image-taking offences. In our recent meeting, following the question the noble Baroness raised at Second Reading, I confirmed to her that the proposed “taking” offences as currently defined would not include screenshots, but I understand the harm that the noble Baroness seeks to prevent, and I have asked officials to look at this issue closely. I hope to provide a further update on Report.

Amendment 295C, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Cameron of Lochiel and Lord Davies of Gower, seeks to amend the base offence set out in Schedule 9. This applies where an image of a person under 16 in an intimate state is taken or recorded for the purposes of medical care or treatment. The noble Lord’s amendment recognises the need for the medical exemption, but it would remove the age restriction to prevent the criminalisation of those taking or recording intimate images of a person of any age. Section 5 to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 already provides for specific medical exemptions in cases where an intimate image is taken of someone over 16. I hope the noble Lord will agree that it is therefore unnecessary to extend the provision in this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I was spiked at the age of 16 at a dance by a cousin of the hosts where I was staying. He said afterwards, “I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t intend to hurt anyone”. So there are such situations—having listened to what the Minister said, I note that no one could prove that he had been anything other than rather silly. He was in his 20s and was probably drunk. He filled an orange juice jug with gin, and I spent two days in bed.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am extremely sorry to hear about that experience. As ever, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness, for whom the entire Committee has great respect.

As I was about to say, the Government are fortified in our belief that the concept of intention would be proved by the fact that there is case law that establishes that, where ecstasy was administered to another to “loosen them up”, that amounted to an intent to injure—intention being separate from the motive. The fact is that defendants say all sorts of things about what they did or did not mean; it will be for the tribunal of fact, looking at what happened, to see whether it can be sure that the intention was as specified in the statute.

We are confident that the types of behaviour that should be criminalised are already captured. Once again, I go back to the important point I set out at the beginning of this group: this new spiking offence aims to simplify the legal framework and to make enforcement straightforward. We do not want to do anything that risks undermining that by overcomplicating the offence.

Amendment 356B, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, proposes to expand the scope of prohibited conduct under domestic abuse protection orders. Although I appreciate the motive underpinning this amendment, these orders already allow courts to impose any conditions that they consider both necessary and proportionate to protect victims from domestic abuse. Put simply, setting out a prescriptive list risks narrowing the flexibility and discouraging conditions that are tailored to the conditions of the offender. The police statutory guidance already includes examples, such as prohibiting direct or indirect contact and restricting online harassment, but we are happy to update this guidance to include the additional behaviours mentioned.

This has been a long speech, and I hope your Lordships will forgive me. My intention has been to explain to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and all other noble Lords, for whom I have great regard, why the Government cannot support these amendments today. For the reasons I have set out, I invite them not to press their amendments, but I hope they will join me in supporting government Amendments 300 to 307, which I commend to the Committee.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, can I just check something? On Amendment 299B, she knows that my intention is not to create something that is too broad but to tackle the very real and rapidly proliferating problem of semen images. It would be helpful to get clarification that the Government understand this to be an issue and are willing to work with me so that we can bring back an amendment on Report. Further, on Amendment 295BB, the Minister spoke about physical devices, but I am keen to know how the Government will tackle images shared on the cloud, because this is the real problem. Finally, on Amendment 295BA, the Minister said that more detail would be given. I just want to know whether that will be on Report or between now and Report, so that we can bring back something about the 48-hour takedown on Report. America has already won the battle on this.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

As far as the revolting practice of semen images is concerned—and I do not think anybody in your Lordships’ House would think it was anything other than that—if an offence can be drafted that is sufficiently specific, then of course we will consider it. Our concern is that the drafting of the proposed amended offence is so wide that it would capture a lot of behaviour that should not be criminalised. As for the other two matters raised by the noble Baroness, please may we discuss them?

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

I am sorry, I realise that people want to get to the dinner break, but will the noble Baroness commit to meeting me, the noble Viscount and the Revenge Porn Helpline on Amendments 295BC and 295BD? She spoke about duplication. These amendments are suggested by the Revenge Porn Helpline; therefore, I do not believe that it believes it duplicates its work. It would be very helpful for us to meet and clarify that.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The answer to that is a short one: of course.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her responses. I am grateful for the engagement so far with her and Minister Davies-Jones, and I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I am going to take these points away for further considerations, and I look forward to the meetings that we are going to have, but for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

300: Schedule 9, page 275, line 38, at end insert—
“6A In section 66H (time limits for prosecuting summary offences)—(a) in subsection (1), for “under section 66E or 66F” substitute “to which this section applies”;(b) after subsection (1) insert—“(1A) This section applies to offences under—(a) section 66AA(1);(b) section 66AC(1);(c) section 66B(1);(d) section 66E;(e) section 66F.”;(c) for the heading substitute “Intimate images: time limit for prosecution of summary offences”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment extends the time limit for prosecuting the summary only offences in existing section 66B(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and new sections 66AA(1) and 66AC(1) (added by Schedule 9 to the Bill).

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

301: Schedule 9, page 278, line 24, leave out sub-paragraph (2)
Member’s explanatory statement
My amendments to Schedule 9 paragraph 18 amend section 177DA of the Armed Forces Act to add the provision the Bill currently inserts as section 177DZA. They also provide for images of breastfeeding recorded in circumstances which constitute an offence under section 67A(2B) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to be subject to deprivation orders.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

To conclude, we are all in agreement on the need for more measures to reduce the suffering of animals. I hope that the Minister will reflect on all the speeches in this debate. It is an argument that holds up both morally and practically and is driven by an extensive amount of research and data. I look forward to hearing what she has to say.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not think anyone could disagree that this is a deeply troubling and uncomfortable issue. I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Black, for moving his amendment, and the noble Lords, Lord Goddard and Lord Cameron, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for their contributions. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Black, for sharing a copy of his speech with me yesterday—it was helpful and informative.

The Government are committed to protecting animals and holding to account those who abuse animals. I listened with care to the concerns raised by the noble Lord. These are horrible offences. That said, we believe that the criminal law as a whole already provides sufficient powers to tackle the sexual abuse of animals as well as the robust offences to tackle child sexual abuse and domestic abuse.

I pause here to say that while this is not a laughing matter in any way at all, I shall long remember the striking description of the Kama Sutra of sexual offences against animals given by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I will have to write to him about the sentences imposed for animal abuse, although I am rather minded to agree with those noble Lords who spoke about the fact that there are pathetic individuals but there are also some really wicked ones out there as well.

As the noble Lord, Lord Black, has said, sexual abuse of animals causes them suffering. It is therefore possible to prosecute sexual acts involving animals under broader animal cruelty offences, which bring with them additional powers for the courts to impose orders on offenders.

As the noble Lord said, this is in addition to Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. The latter two offences are listed in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003, meaning that if convicted, individuals are automatically subject to the notification requirements, which is colloquially known as being on the sex offenders register.

We acknowledge that the law in this area is set out across a number of different offences. However, we believe that, taken together, these offences ensure that there is sufficient coverage of the sexual abuse of animals in criminal law. We are not persuaded at present that these amendments would substantially increase protection for animals or for people who are victims of sexual abuse. There is plainly coexistence of the two groups of offences. We are less sure that there is evidence for a causative link between the two.

Having said that, I welcome the evidence that the noble Lord shared in his speech. To that end, I would welcome a discussion with him in the coming weeks to look at the issues he has raised; first, in relation to the need for specific further offences and, secondly, the evidence in relation to the possible causative links between the two groups of offending.

My notes say that I will now turn to Amendments 316ZA to 316ZE, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but I shall not turn to those, as the noble Lord does not intend to press them. I am grateful to him for his temperate and constructive comments on this issue.

I was going to say that I would be happy to meet with either or both of the noble Lords to discuss any evidence suggesting that there are gaps in the law. That offer still holds good. In the meantime, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Black—

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I am grateful to the Minister. Does she not agree, however, that it is arbitrary in the extreme that Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 addresses sex with animals, but that it covers only specific, very limited forms of sexual activity? If you are going to have a specific offence, surely it should cover a wider range of sexual activity with animals, not just the limited categories that we have discussed.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The Government are satisfied that, when looked at as a whole, all the possible offences here cover the conduct complained of. However, I am conscious that there are ways of committing sexual offences that have not necessarily occurred to the draftsmen of earlier legislation. The best that I can offer the noble Lord is that I will reflect on the matter. I invite the noble Lord, Lord Black, to withdraw his amendment.

Amendment 316ZA (to Amendment 316) withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I fully appreciate the general principle behind these proposals. This is an incredibly serious subject, and I appreciate the sincerity with which the noble Baronesses have approached the debate.

On the amendment in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Blower, everyone wants to reach a scenario where all possibilities are accounted for, and there are no loopholes through which those who either encourage or abet self-harm can jump. It is for that reason that I cannot offer my support for proposed subsection (6) in the noble Baronesses’ amendment. First, I am sceptical of the need for more aggravating factors. The general offences that fall under loosely defined so-called honour-based abuse are crimes themselves, so I am unsure why there is a need to create an aggravating offence when a criminal will already be able to be tried for those offences individually.

Primarily, though, I do not think this is the right time to be incorporating new definitions into our legal framework. There is guidance for Crown prosecutors as to what might fall under honour-based abuse and examples as to how that might look, but it is yet to be enshrined in law and it is a rather broad and non-exclusive term within our law. That is not to say that it is not easy to spot—it often is—but it should have its own delineated legal definition before it is made an aggravating factor. I agree with the noble Baroness that honour-based abuse is an increasing issue that we must tackle head on, but that cannot be done with a single amendment. However, I offer my support to the principle behind proposed subsection (6)(b).

I welcome the sentiment behind Amendment 335 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. Policy rooted in pragmatism is crucial, and consultation and guidance are one of the primary ways to achieve that. The Government should base all the policy that they bring forward on the testimonies of people who dedicate their lives to the subjects that we legislate on, and that it is especially important for a policy in such a sensitive area as this. I hope the Minister agrees, and I look forward to her response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for tabling Amendments 334A and 335 respectively.

I am aware of the cases that have motivated the desire to have an amendment such as Amendment 334A, and I completely understand; the stories that the noble Baroness outlined cannot fail to move anyone listening to them. Having said that, the Government will not be supporting either of these amendments today, for the following reasons.

I shall deal first with the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. When a defendant has previous convictions, including those relating to a history of domestic abuse, that is already recognised as a statutory aggravating factor in sentencing. In addition, aggravating factors that are associated with honour-based abuse, such as abuse of trust or targeting vulnerable victims, are already covered in the domestic abuse guidelines. The presence of aggravating factors such as these should therefore already result in the sentence reflecting those factors, and in my experience it always would. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, about not adding an ever-increasing list of statutory aggravating factors. This is certainly the third group of amendments that I have dealt with that has proposed different forms of offences.

On the second aspect of the amendment, proposed subsection (6)(b) raises a sensitive and important issue. The Government wholeheartedly agree that, when it can be proved that suicide was the result of abuse or encouragement, the abuser should be held accountable. There are existing offences that cover this situation, such as manslaughter or encouraging or assisting suicide offences, which have maximum penalties of life imprisonment and 14 years’ imprisonment respectively. However, imposing a requirement for the court to sentence the defendant in those circumstances as though they had been convicted of murder, when in fact they have not been convicted of murder, would be at odds not only with the current sentencing approach but with the principle that people are sentenced only for matters that have been proved to the satisfaction of the court. I also make the perhaps obvious comment that there is no range of sentences for murder; there is only one sentence, which is life imprisonment. For those reasons, amending Clause 102 in this way would not be appropriate.

However, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that the Law Commission is currently undertaking a review of homicide offences and of sentencing for murder, and this will include a review of the use of, and the obstacles to using, manslaughter offences where abuse may have driven someone to suicide. I hope that the noble Baroness will understand why the Government are reluctant to make any piecemeal amendments in advance of the Law Commission reporting.

I turn to Amendment 335, from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I thank the noble Lord for his welcome of the offence. As to the guidance that he proposes in the consultation, as many in this Committee are aware, I was principal legal adviser to a rather well-known former Director of Public Prosecutions—I spent five years working for the Crown Process Service—so it is important to me to emphasise that it is in fact for the independent Crown Prosecution Service to update guidance on prosecuting offences under this new provision. It may well be that many noble Lords know this but, while the statutory Code for Crown Prosecutors governs in general terms how prosecutors make decisions on which cases to prosecute and which not, sitting underneath that is a raft of legal guidance that is published and publicly available. It exists for two reasons: the first is so that members of the public can see the basis on which the CPS makes its decisions, but the second is so that the CPS can be held to account. If it fails to follow its own guidance, that will often provide a ground for challenging the decision made.

I understand that the noble Lord’s amendment aims to ensure that legitimate support or therapeutic activity is not criminalised, so I reassure him that the offence has been carefully drafted to avoid capturing vulnerable individuals or those providing mental health support. The offence as drafted in the Bill was recommended by the Law Commission in its 2021 malicious communications report and contains two key safeguards: first, that the person must intend to encourage or assist serious self-harm and without such intent no offence would be committed; and, secondly, that serious self-harm is defined as harm amounting to grievous bodily harm. These safeguards ensure that the offence targets only the most serious and culpable behaviour and protects those who are, for example, sharing personal experience or discussing self-harm but not encouraging it.

The offence also does not cover the glorification or glamorisation of self-harm. The Law Commission found that that was too broad and would potentially capture vulnerable people who might then be exposed to prosecution: so, taking on board the commission’s comments, the Government have not included that.

In our view, this approach ensures that the offence is necessary, proportionate and focused on genuinely harmful acts. There is also a further protection for the vulnerable, which is provided by the public interest stage of the full code test. This requires that, even where there is sufficient evidence, prosecutors must consider whether or not a prosecution is required in the public interest, and plainly the vulnerabilities of the potential defendant would come into play at that stage.

I hope that the reasons I have provided clearly set out why the Government do not support either of these amendments today, and I ask that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, do not press their respective amendments.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I thank the Minister, who has carefully taken us through three limbs, as far as I tell: first, there will be CPS guidance in terms of the specific offence, in the way that it decides whether or not to prosecute; secondly, the way that the offence itself has been drafted; and, thirdly, the public interest test. However, will she engage with the organisations that are concerned about the offences? I think I understand what she is saying about intent, grievous bodily harm and the other limbs that mean we will not see the kinds of prosecutions that people are concerned about, but will the MoJ engage with the organisations that have concerns?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. As far as the first of the three protections is concerned, obviously I cannot bind the Crown Prosecution Service—the whole point about it is that it is independent of government. However, based on my own experiences, where there are areas of the law that plainly need clarification as to when the Crown Prosecution Service would prosecute and when it would not, it usually issues guidance. As regards engaging with the organisations, of course, it is sometimes not easy to explain the law and the thinking behind it. It is in everyone’s interests that the organisations which are concerned for vulnerable people understand that the Government have those interests very much at heart. I would welcome the opportunity to explain to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the amendments in this group concerning the important issue of child abduction. I am very grateful to noble Lords for their contributions this evening. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for bringing forward Amendments 335A and 335B, which raise important questions about the interaction between Clause 104 and the lived reality of victims of domestic abuse. The amendments probe how the new offence will operate where a parent has acted out of fear for their own safety or that of their child, and they touch on the wider issue of how the criminal law recognises coercive, controlling and violent relationships.

We very much support the principle behind the noble Baroness’s amendments and the safeguarding concerns that they highlight. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how the Government intend to ensure that the operation of Clause 104 does not inadvertently criminalise vulnerable parents acting in desperation to protect themselves or their children.

Government Amendments 336, 496, 521 and 549, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, create and support a parallel offence in Northern Ireland relating to the detention of a child overseas without consent. I recognise the importance of maintaining consistency across jurisdictions and ensuring that children in Northern Ireland benefit from equivalent protections. I would be grateful if the Minister can set out how the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland intends to exercise the new regulation-making and commencement powers. What discussions have taken place with relevant agencies to ensure that the offence can operate effectively in practice? I look forward to the Government’s response on these points.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for tabling Amendments 335A and 335B. Her amendments have been grouped with the modest collection of government amendments—336, 496, 521 and 549—tabled in my name, which extend the provisions contained in Clause 104 to Northern Ireland.

I note the concern raised by the noble Baroness and the noble Lords, Lord Meston and Lord Davies, my noble friend Lord Hacking and the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, that Clause 104 will criminalise parents who are fleeing domestic abuse where the detention of the child is primarily motivated by the intention of keeping themselves and/or the child safe. I reassure your Lordships that this absolutely is not the intention of the existing Clause 104. Indeed, in developing the provisions, very careful consideration was given to the implications of potentially criminalising a parent who has detained their child abroad.

Before I turn to the reasons why the Government will not be supporting these amendments today, I want to explain a little more about the purpose of Clause 104’s inclusion in the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her clear and even-handed explanation of her understanding of the reason why the Government included it in the first place. The clause seeks to implement the Law Commission’s 2014 recommendation that the Government should close a small gap in the law by making it a criminal offence for a parent, or person with similar responsibility to a parent, to detain a child abroad without appropriate consent, once the original consent has expired.

I am sure that I do not need to explain to anyone that the abduction of a child by a parent is an extremely distressing experience for everyone involved. For any Government, the aim is to safeguard children from abduction by preventing the unlawful removal of a child, ensuring their swift and safe return when they have been taken and upholding custody rights through international co-operation and legal enforcement. The new measure is intended to be consistent with the existing criminal framework, to stand as a deterrent and a backstop where we know that a gap in the law is being exploited, even if by very few people. Some of those who have not returned a child are themselves abusers; they are abusive parents seeking to evade the law. We cannot leave that gap unclosed.

However, I have listened very carefully to the concerns raised by your Lordships this evening, and to some sent to me by organisations with an interest in this area. I remain satisfied that there is no risk of vulnerable parents who have been victims of domestic abuse being criminalised. I hope I shall be forgiven for setting out my reasons in a little more detail; I alluded to them earlier in relation to an amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, but that was in a slightly different context, and I think I need to give more detail.

Many of your Lordships will be aware that there is a two-stage test for the Crown Prosecution Service to apply when deciding whether a prosecution should be brought. The first is an “evidential sufficiency” test but, even if that stage is passed and it is felt that there is sufficient evidence to bring a prosecution, that is not the end of the matter. The second stage is the “public interest” test, which asks whether the public interest requires a prosecution to be brought. It is this stage of the test that is often applied in, for example, assisted dying cases. This is important, including in a domestic abuse context, because it means that prosecutors must consider the background, including whether the alleged offender was acting from benign motives or was themselves a victim of domestic abuse, before deciding whether a prosecution is required in the public interest. Additionally, and importantly, a third test applies for the new offence in Clause 104 which adds an additional safeguard: that the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions is required for a case to proceed.

Prosecutorial discretion remains a key safeguard, and evidence of domestic abuse would be a highly relevant factor in any decision to prosecute, or in whether the Director of Public Prosecutions would give his consent in addition. Factors that are relevant to the public interest do not require proof to the criminal standard. It is a much more “in the round” assessment than would be required if bringing some kind of criminal proceedings.

To be clear, in answer to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, the Government continue to believe that the civil courts remain best placed to deal with child abduction cases. That is why we support international co-operation and recourse to the 1980 Hague convention as a civil mechanism for facilitating the safe return of children. The UK continues to work with other state parties and the Hague Conference, especially in cases involving domestic abuse, to ensure that the convention operates effectively. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, in effect agreed, that this prosecution should be the act of last resort. We agree. We are conscious, however, that criminal proceedings may be needed in some cases. It has been suggested that some parents see detaining a child abroad following any earlier consent as an easier route to keeping their child permanently outside the UK with no criminal charges or police involvement. That clearly circumvents the law. This change to the criminal law is intended to sit alongside and supplement existing civil remedies, rather than filling the courts with people who have retained their child abroad.

The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asks whether the Government would be prepared to add a domestic abuse defence, in effect. The law on defences, including those relevant to domestic abuse, is highly complex. It requires definitions and decisions about where the burden of proof lies and what the standard of proof will be. It is precisely because of this complexity that the Law Commission is currently reviewing defences in domestic abuse cases as part of its wider project on homicide and sentencing. While the primary focus of its review is on homicide, the findings are likely to have broader implications for how defences operate in domestic abuse contexts and could be relevant across a broader range of offences. A bespoke defence of domestic abuse in the offence created by Clause 104 could have implications far beyond the child abduction framework.

I hope that the noble Baroness will accept from me that the Law Commission’s findings will be carefully reviewed before any changes to the law are considered, in order to ensure that any legislative changes are informed by evidence. In the meantime, we are exploring ways to strengthen our understanding of how defences operate in non-homicide cases by gathering more robust data. For these reasons, it would be premature to legislate before the Law Commission has completed its work, but I take the point about the equality impact assessment and the gendered nature of some of these offences. I will, if I may, write to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and, obviously, to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, as well.

I turn very briefly to government Amendments 336, 496, 521 and 549. Until now, the provisions in Clause 104 extended to England and Wales only. However, at the request of the Northern Ireland Executive, these provisions will now also apply to Northern Ireland. I note the concerns raised by the two amendments brought forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but I hope that, for the reasons I have set out, the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment at this stage. I hope your Lordships will join me in supporting the government amendments in this group.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to all those who have spoken. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Hacking and Lord Davies, for their implied support. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for their detailed responses to the amendment and the debate we are having. They rightly confirmed that criminal proceedings must be a last resort, and that we should always aim for these cases to be settled via the family court and through the Hague process.

I am particularly grateful to the Minister for her detailed response on the two-stage test, especially the public interest test. If that is where domestic abuse issues can be assessed, that is good. I am also grateful that she has repeated that the consent of the DPP must be obtained, and that this is not up to the criminal standard. That is very reassuring.

It is always difficult when the Law Commission is working on something, because one cannot say “When is it going to be done?” I hope that it will not be too long. If issues remain after the Law Commission reports, I hope that the Government, or a future Government, will be prepared to discuss this at that point. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

336: After Clause 104, insert the following new Clause—
“Child abduction: Northern Ireland(1) The Child Abduction (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 (S.I. 1985/1638 (N.I. 17)) is amended as set out in subsections (2) and (3).(2) In Article 3 (offence of abduction of child by parent etc)—(a) after paragraph (1) insert—“(1A) Subject to paragraphs (2A) to (3A) and (7), a person connected with a child under the age of 16 commits an offence if—(a) the child is taken or sent out of the United Kingdom with the appropriate consent, and(b) at any time after the child is taken or sent, the person detains the child outside the United Kingdom without the appropriate consent.”;(b) in paragraph (2A)—(i) in the words before sub-paragraph (a), after “United Kingdom” insert “, or by detaining a child outside the United Kingdom,”;(ii) in sub-paragraph (b) (before its substitution by paragraph 4(3) of Schedule 3 to the 2022 Act), after “United Kingdom” insert “, or detains the child outside the United Kingdom,”;(iii) in each of sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) (as substituted by paragraph 4(3) of Schedule 3 to the 2022 Act), after “United Kingdom” insert “, or detains the child outside the United Kingdom,”;(c) in paragraph (2B), after “United Kingdom” insert “, or detaining the child outside the United Kingdom,”;(d) in paragraph (3A), in paragraph (b) after “out of the United Kingdom” insert “, or detaining the child outside the United Kingdom,”. (3) In the Schedule (modifications of Article 3 for children in certain cases), in each of the following provisions after “paragraph (1)” insert “or (1A)”—(a) paragraph 1(2)(a);(b) paragraph 3(2)(a) (before its substitution by paragraph 5(2) of Schedule 3 to the 2022 Act);(c) paragraph 3(2)(a) (as substituted by paragraph 5(2) of Schedule 3 to the 2022 Act);(d) paragraph 4(2)(a).(4) The amendments made by this section apply only in cases where the taking or sending of the child out of the United Kingdom takes place on or after the date on which this section comes into force.(5) In this section “the 2022 Act” means the Adoption and Children Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 (c. 18 (N.I.)).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes it an offence in Northern Ireland for a parent etc to detain a child under 16 outside the UK without appropriate consent.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Sugg and Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for tabling Amendments 353, 354, 355, 355A and 356. I thank all noble Lords for what has been a powerful, moving and interesting debate on this subject. Honour-based abuse is a dreadful thing. I add my voice to those who want to thank all the survivors for their courage and determination in speaking out.

I remember that, when I received judicial training, we were told that we as judges should refer to these horrible crimes as so-called honour-based abuse to make it clear—as was noted by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—that there is nothing to do with honour about them. That said, the Government have listened to the preferences of survivors and the specialist sector, and for this reason I will refer to it only as honour-based abuse. I can see the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, nodding her head.

The amendments seek to ensure that front-line professionals such as the police, social workers and teachers properly understand and spot this abuse and accurately record and store this information. We absolutely share that objective. As your Lordships will be aware, the Government have already committed, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has reminded us, to introducing multi-agency statutory guidance on honour-based abuse, alongside a statutory definition. We recognise that doing so is a vital step towards providing a clear framework for professionals with statutory safeguarding responsibilities as to how they should identify honour-based abuse. To that end, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for meeting me last week to discuss Amendments 353 and 355. I thank Natasha Rattu of Karma Nirvana, whom I met this morning.

I congratulate your Lordships on the strength of feeling about getting this measure on the statute book as soon as possible. The Government agree that swift action is needed to ensure that professionals have a strong foundation for tackling honour-based abuse, but I would just say that this is an extremely nuanced and complex form of abuse. We need to ensure that the range of abuse experienced is captured and that we do not build in any unintended consequences, to use the phrase used powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. To that extent, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, and we are happy to work with her to ensure that we have covered all eventualities.

We must do this once and we must get it right. We owe that to the victims and survivors who have suffered. I am not able today to give a timeline for this commitment or say whether this Bill will be used as a suitable legislative vehicle, but I assure your Lordships that we are getting on with this work and are doing so quickly. My speaking note said “at pace”, but I asked the officials to take it out because it tends not to gain favour in this House. We are doing it quickly, and I can confidently commit to the Government updating the noble Baronesses and the noble Lord on the progress of this work ahead of Report. I hope that provides reassurance to various Members who raised the question of timeliness.

I now turn to Amendment 355A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which makes the important point that we need to ensure that data collection and storage by statutory agencies is consistent and accurate. The Home Office already requires all police forces to share data on criminal offences that have been flagged as related to honour-based abuse. This is published annually. But I agree with the sentiment of his amendment and can confirm that, in developing the multi-agency statutory guidance, the Government will consider how to ensure that data in relation to suspected and confirmed criminal offences related to honour-based abuse is properly recorded and stored by front-line agencies.

Amendments 354 and 356 seek to add honour-based abuse as a statutory aggravating factor. As your Lordships are aware, doing so would require courts to treat such offences as having increased seriousness because of the presence of this factor. We completely agree that in principle this is a good thing but, as both noble Baronesses correctly anticipated, we do not believe that creating a statutory aggravating factor is either necessary or desirable.

The reason we think it is not necessary is that the specific elements that make honour-based abuse so serious are already covered in the sentencing guidelines. Judges are already required to treat the fact that an offence involved an abuse of trust or that the victim was vulnerable as aggravating factors. In cases where the abuse is part of a domestic relationship, there is the entire overarching guideline specifying additional factors, which explicitly mentions honour-based abuse. These amendments would therefore unnecessarily duplicate existing guidelines, which the courts are required by law to follow.

I said it was neither necessary nor desirable; I turn now to why it is not desirable. I also speak from experience when I say that the workload of a Crown Court judge is an extremely heavy one, in large part due to the backlog in the Crown Courts inherited by this Government. Adding to the list of statutory aggravating factors significantly adds to the workload of judges when sentencing. For every new aggravating factor, the list of items that a judge needs to state that they have considered, and their sentencing remarks, get longer and longer. I therefore feel strongly that we ought not continually to increase this list, especially when existing guidelines already apply.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, alluded to the fact that I had said this in relation to another group of amendments earlier in the week. These two proposed aggravating factors are the sixth and seventh time that new aggravating factors have been debated in this Committee so far, and I know that there are more proposals for different aggravating factors yet to come. As I hope your Lordships will appreciate, our judges already have a huge undertaking as part of the sentencing process. We wish to avoid unnecessarily burdening them or the process any further, because to do so would risk lengthening individual sentencing hearings, just at the time when we are trying to reduce the backlog in the interests of the very victims we are discussing, among others.

That said, the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, makes a powerful case and I would welcome further discussion with her as to how we can achieve the objectives, even if not necessarily by adding a further statutory factor—I mention both noble Baronesses in that context. This Government’s priority is to strengthen identification and response through robust statutory guidance and a clear definition, ensuring that professionals have the tools they need to tackle this complex form of abuse effectively. So, on the understanding that we will consider Amendments 353 and 355, which I know are the top priority for the key stakeholders, ahead of Report, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this debate. As I said, it is slightly later than hoped but really is much appreciated. I am grateful for the Minister’s reply and, as I said earlier, her openness to engage on these issues.

On the aggravating factor, I will consider carefully what the Minister had to say and look forward to having ongoing conversations on that. On the definition and statutory guidance, I very much agree that we must ensure that it is fit for prosecution, but we also need to make sure it works for interventions to protect earlier, ideally before any crime is committed. The definition really needs to be survivor-grounded: it needs to reflect their lived experiences and must recognise the impact of multiple perpetrators, the presence of community dynamics, layered coercion and collective control.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, for her contribution. I know that everyone involved in developing the definition and, crucially, survivors themselves are very keen to engage directly with her.

We have been discussing this for many years. The definition and the guidance are the crucial amendments, as they would act as the foundation for the systemic changes we need to see, and this Bill really is the right place to do that. I very much hope that the Government will bring back a revised definition and guidance amendment on Report that is agreed by the sector and survivors. I will do all I can to help on that. If that is not the case, I reserve the right to return to this again, but, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, for his Amendment 420. In general, of course, these Benches abide by the notion that policy and practice should be guided by the feedback of evidence and outcomes, and the amendment would support that objective with regard to childhood convictions and cautions. I believe the data that currently exists on this would have to be thoroughly analysed to determine whether the measure is necessary, and I hope the Minister can shed some light on that existing evidence in her response.

We have great sympathy with the general thrust of Amendments 476 to 478. I have some reservations about Amendment 476, in that we have already removed the automatic disclosure of youth cautions on DBS certificates and I am unsure whether that should be extended now to the more serious youth conditional cautions, which of course include duties alongside the original caution. But I completely understand the principle behind Amendment 477, in the name of the same noble Lords, and why the legislation as currently drafted may lead to individuals being treated as adults when they commit an offence as a juvenile—all the more so given the backlog that the courts are currently suffering and delays in the court system, as the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, pointed out. Likewise, I see the rationale behind Amendment 478, which seeks to ensure that custodial sentences received by youths are removed from their criminal records after five and a half years.

On Amendment 486D in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, as others have said, children of course make mistakes, and there is a spectrum of offences, where avoiding a fare payment and travelling without a ticket is certainly on the less severe end. There is plainly a case that, as first-time offences, these do not warrant a criminal conviction certificate being issued.

My only point in conclusion is to echo what my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington said: we have to be a little careful not to increase the incentives for petty crime. As he pointed out, that can perhaps lead—especially with regard to criminal gangs—to a potential for danger. With that said, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Carter of Haslemere, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede for tabling Amendments 420, 476 to 478 and 486D. They form a formidable trio in terms of not just their expertise but the respect that they rightly command in your Lordships’ House.

A number of noble Lords have raised the question of the age of criminal responsibility. I hope I will be forgiven for not addressing that now; I know for certain that we will be addressing it at least twice in the days and weeks to come.

The Government acknowledge the principle that underpins these amendments—namely, that having a criminal record will have a significant impact on children and that such a record can, in some circumstances, follow them into later life as adults, again with profound consequences. That said, as I think all noble Lords agreed, it is critical that our criminal records disclosure regime strikes the right balance. On the one hand, we want to support people who have committed criminal offences, either some time ago or when they were very young, to be able to move on with their lives. But there is also a need for appropriate risk management in the public interest, as well as to safeguard the most vulnerable.

I will deal first with Amendments 420 and 476 to 478. The existing regime helps employers make informed recruitment decisions through the disclosure of appropriate and relevant information. This will mean that some serious offences, even when committed as a child, will always need to be disclosed, particularly where a person is applying to work with children or vulnerable adults. As some of your Lordships will be aware, in his recent independent review of the criminal courts, Sir Brian Leveson recommended that the Government review the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. In the Statement I made to your Lordships’ House on 2 December, I said that we will consider opportunities to simplify the criminal records regime to ensure that it is both clear and proportionate, particularly in relation to childhood offences.

I would be very happy to meet with any of your Lordships over the coming weeks to discuss this in more detail. It is of the utmost importance to the Government that we work together to ensure that we get this right. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I was very struck by the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, that this is not always as straightforward as it might appear, hence the need to make sure that we do this carefully, in a structured and thoughtful way. As I said, I would be delighted to see any of your Lordships. Given the offer made by my noble friend Lord Hanson in the previous group, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and I may be seeing rather more of each other than perhaps he had intended—but it is always a pleasure on my part.

Turning to Amendment 486D, I am very surprised to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Carter, says because the Government’s view echoes what my noble friend Lord Ponsonby said: children are generally treated leniently when fare evasion occurs. This offence is most commonly dealt with by transport staff, so usually no question arises of a child acquiring a criminal record for fare evasion and similar offences. The police usually become involved only in cases of a refusal to pay for a ticket, for repeat offences or because of some other complicating factor. Even when the police become involved, this does not usually result in a prosecution taking place because the Code for Crown Prosecutors requires prosecutors to consider, as a specific public interest factor tending against prosecution, where a child is young or where it is a first offence.

Police officers can give out-of-court disposals, which allow them to respond to low-level offending proportionately and effectively. These out-of-court disposals, of which there are a variety, provide opportunities for children to make reparation and restoration to victims, and to be diverted into courses or services which can help to change their offending behaviour. Most types of out-of-court disposals are not automatically disclosed on criminal record certificates.

The Government believe that it would be very unusual for a child or young person to get a criminal conviction for this type of offence but, were that to happen, the disclosure time limits under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act are very different from those that affect adults. Rehabilitation periods for children are typically half the length of those for an adult. For example, if a court were to impose a fine for fare evasion, there would usually be a requirement that the child disclose their conviction for only six months, as opposed to the case of an adult, who would have to disclose it for a year.

For all these reasons, under the existing legislation, the Government’s view is that there is a very small chance of a child who is a first-time offender getting a criminal record for a fare evasion offence in the first place, and an equally small chance of such a conviction following them into adult life. I will, however, make inquiries and write to the noble Lord giving such statistics as I am able to find.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I am extremely grateful. To some extent mine is a probing amendment—I need more facts and evidence around this—but the Minister referred to the Code for Crown Prosecutors. The cases I spoke about were prosecuted by the train operating company. I am not really convinced that it had even heard of the Code for Crown Prosecutors; judging from all the correspondence I had with it, I do not think it had, to be honest. I believe there is something there to be investigated more closely, because I saw the evidence with my own eyes.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I do not think that I can improve on what I have said. I will make inquiries into the statistical evidence that we hold and write to the noble Lord.

I reiterate that I am very happy to meet any of your Lordships, including, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, ahead of Report to discuss these issues in more detail. In the meantime, I hope that the noble Lord will be content to withdraw his amendment.

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

My Lords, I am very grateful for the support that I have had from across the Committee, and for the very detailed and helpful response from the Minister. I will gladly take up her invitation to have a discussion. It is important that the Government intend to review this area, at least in part. If we can commission a review of the sort that I have suggested, I would be very pleased to help with that. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my colleagues in the Commons very much supported Helen Grant in her campaign for this amendment. I pay particular tribute to Jess Brown-Fuller MP. It is very helpful that it has been directed to this Bill, and we on these Benches are very pleased that the Opposition have laid the amendment to this Bill.

It is getting late, and I will not speak for very long. The only other people we need to credit are Tony Hudgell and his parents. After being taken away from his birth parents, he has lived for many years with his foster parents, who he describes as his parents. He has endured 23 operations after injuries that resulted in him losing both legs when he was a toddler. That is the sort of cruelty—although unusually bad in this case—that the amendment is intended to address. For all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, outlined, we absolutely support the progress of this amendment, and we hope that the Government will look favourably on it.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, notification requirements received attention during the passage of the Government’s Sentencing Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for ensuring this important matter remains firmly on our agenda. I join the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in paying tribute to Helen Grant MP and to Paula Hudgell, both of whose tireless campaigning has done so much to advance the protection of children. As my noble friend Lord Timpson set out in Committee on the Sentencing Bill, this Government are committed to safeguarding children and ensuring robust measures are in place to protect them from those who seek to cause them harm. We are working hard to consider the best way to manage such offenders effectively.

We are unable to support the amendment at present, as further work is needed to determine the most effective way to strengthen offender management. We need to consider fully all aspects of implementation when it comes to adding notification requirements to a new cohort of offenders, particularly in light of the Government’s recently published violence against women and girls strategy, which sets out significant reforms to offender management.

It is right that we take the time to understand the potential impact of these proposals. One of the issues is that adding notification requirements to a new cohort of offenders would involve significant costs for policing. For example, notification duties such as taking biometric data, verifying personal details, recording changes, conducting compliance visits and managing ViSOR data must all be absorbed into the general workload of the police. One of the tasks for the Government is to reflect that this could mean shifting resource from other important areas of police work.

I can reassure noble Lords, however, that since December, Home Office and Justice Ministers have met regularly to discuss options in this space and have held initial discussions with national policing representatives. So, I can add my reassurances to those already given by my noble friend Lord Timpson: Ministers will continue to pursue this issue with vigour. With these reassurances, I hope that at this stage the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful both to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and to the Minister for their contributions. I think we can all agree that child protection should be a priority for any Government and that we must ensure that any gaps in the law are plugged with immediate effect.

This amendment, unlike many in this Bill, is not about creating a new category of offender or about an expansion of the criminal law; it simply reflects and seeks to fix the troubling reality that individuals who commit acts of cruelty or violence or neglect do not have a monitoring regime upon leaving custody. That is what we believe needs to be corrected. We already accept, as a matter of principle, that where an offence demonstrates a clear and ongoing risk to children, the state has a responsibility to ensure appropriate oversight in the community, and that is why notification requirements exist for child sex offenders. This amendment merely extends the same logic to offences that, while different in nature, can be as devastating in their consequences and no less indicative of future risk.

I am grateful to the Government for acknowledging the need and the advantages of this amendment both inside and outside of this Chamber. I am grateful for the Minister’s words of support tonight, and I understand the point she made about considering this properly, but the rise in child cruelty offences demands action rather than any kind of delay. Every year that passes without a mechanism of this kind leaves children unnecessarily exposed to harm. Therefore, I want to give, with the greatest of respect, notice to the Minister that unless there is an amendment from the Government on Report that supports the substance of this amendment, it is likely that I would want to bring it back. I re-emphasise my gratitude for the Government’s co-operation on this point, but for present purposes I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

The point I was making is that the prospect of a murder conviction may have an effect on an officer if they feared that an error that they made may result in a murder charge. On the noble Lord’s own amendment, as I said, I listened with sympathy to it, and I await the Government’s response on it and, indeed, all the amendments in this group.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard during this short but important debate, these amendments all relate to the same matter of principle—namely, the legal standard by which an authorised firearms officer should be judged on the thankfully rare occasions when they discharge a firearm.

The Government pay tribute to our armed officers. Theirs is a difficult, dangerous and stressful job. They do it to keep us all safe, and we have a great deal for which to thank them. Of course we recognise that they often find themselves in exceptionally difficult circumstances, having to make life and death decisions in an instant. That said, there is the matter of public confidence in the police. I do not think that any of your Lordships would disagree that confidence in the police is of equal importance. I would not be doing justice to this debate if I did not recognise and mark the fact that some of our citizens feel great anxiety about the accountability of firearms officers. In the past, when there have been high-profile fatal shootings by the police, this anxiety has boiled over into anger and social unrest.

The Government’s job is to balance these factors. We must ensure that the law offers protection to our brave police officers while at the same time providing reassurance to our fellow citizens that, if officers do fire their weapons, their conduct will be rigorously scrutinised. It is only right that the public should have confidence that any officer whose actions fall below the high standards we rightly expect will be held to account in the public interest.

Our conclusion is that we should not create a two-tier justice system where police officers who kill or injure in the course of their duties are judged by a more lenient standard than applies to the rest of the population. Our reason is this: we are confident that the criminal law which covers self-defence, defence of others and the use of force in the prevention of crime already provides sufficient protection for police officers. Because of the lateness of the hour, I am not going to go through the details of this, which I had intended to do, but will move straight to the amendments.

Amendment 423, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, would change the law so that an authorised firearms officer who acts with disproportionate—in other words, unreasonable—force would still be guilty of an offence, but it would be manslaughter, not murder.

I want to say a few words about what the law says about how a jury must consider whether the amount of force used by the officer was reasonable, sometimes described as proportionate. While this is an objective test, if the jury is told that what the officer did in the heat of the moment, when fine judgments are difficult, was no more than they genuinely believed was necessary, even if they were mistaken in that belief, that would be strong evidence that what they did was reasonable. If the jury also considers that the officer may have done no more than was reasonable in the light of what they believed to be happening, they are not guilty of anything. In other words, the law provides a full defence.

It is unclear whether Amendment 423 is intended to replace this full defence with a partial one, or whether, as I think is the case, it is intended to work alongside it in some way. If the noble Lord’s intention is to create a partial defence, then what he is saying is that officers who use unreasonable or excessive force should be held to a different standard from the rest of the population. We cannot accept this because the Government believe that to do so would fundamentally damage confidence in the police and in the justice system.

I turn to Amendment 423A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, which seeks to amend Section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. As your Lordships have heard, Section 76 deals with householder cases. The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to make authorised firearms officers subject to the same standard as the householder confronted by an intruder. The amendment attempts to raise the threshold for when force becomes unreasonable from disproportionate to grossly disproportionate for firearms officers. In effect, this means that firearms officers could rely on the defences of self-defence, preventing crime or making a lawful arrest if they used force that was disproportionate in the circumstances, provided it was not grossly disproportionate.

For the reasons I have already given, the Government are of the strong belief that it would be wrong in principle to authorise the police to use excessive force and that this would be extremely damaging to public confidence. In any event, we do not think there is a proper comparison to be made between householders facing an unexpected intruder and trained firearms officers. The threshold was raised in householder cases to recognise the exceptional nature of being unexpectedly confronted by an intruder in one’s home. The unique stress and shock of a home invasion justifies greater legal protection, allowing a higher level of force than in other self-defence contexts. The same logic does not apply to firearms officers, who are trained and equipped to use lethal force and are deployed only in the most high-risk situations. They are subject to strict command, control and training protocols to ensure that lethal force is used only when necessary and in accordance with the current legal framework.

I turn finally to Amendment 422, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. As the noble Baroness has explained during the debate, her amendment deals not with criminal trials but with police conduct hearings. The previous Home Secretary commissioned Timothy Godwin and Sir Adrian Fulford to carry out an independent police accountability rapid review because it was recognised that there was ongoing complexity and confusion, and that there were concerns that this was having an impact on recruitment and retention of these essential and much valued officers. Sir Adrian and Mr Godwin examined the matter thoroughly and heard evidence from a wide range of stakeholders. Their conclusions and recommendations, published in October 2025, were clear that the Government should change the legal test for use of force in police misconduct cases from the civil to the criminal law test.

The reviewers found that police officers need confidence and greater consistency in the disciplinary system and that this would improve fairness and public confidence. The Government have taken on board that recommendation and we are in the process of making the necessary changes to The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020. Our intention is that these changes will come into force in the spring. We accept that the amendment is well intended, but I hope that the noble Baroness will understand why the Government cannot support it and, for the reasons I have given, I invite her to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and everyone who has spoken. There is a major issue of public trust in policing which has yet to be fully explored, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for giving notice of his opposition that Clauses 152 to 155 stand part of the Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, for introducing the clause stand part debate and allowing this important and interesting discussion. I acknowledge from the outset that the Government agree these are not easy issues.

Clauses 152 to 155 largely stand or fall together, creating a bespoke system for a very small and discrete category of defendants in criminal trials; namely, authorised firearms officers charged with offences arising from the discharge of their weapon during the course of their official duties.

Notwithstanding the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, about lawyers—of which, of course, I am one—made during the course of the debate on the last group, I agree with much of what he has said. The starting point for the Government is that armed police officers perform a unique and high-risk role. They are trained to use lethal force, on behalf of the state, to protect the public, often in fast-moving and dangerous situations. This puts them personally at risk of death or serious injury every day in the course of their duties. They deserve our thanks and admiration for putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the public—and that, a point made by many of your Lordships, includes you and me. Because many of those with whom they engage are involved in serious crime, it exposes them and their families to the risk of retribution. That is the Government’s starting point.

There is another equally important principle in play: we do not have secret trials in this country. The principles of open justice and the ability for the press to report on cases continues to be one of our proudest and most carefully and jealously guarded traditions. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, for whom I have the utmost respect, for putting in impassioned terms the importance of freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

So why then have the Government decided to introduce a presumption of anonymity in trials for authorised firearms officers? This limited presumption is being introduced due to the unique nature of firearms officers’ roles and the risks that arise from them being identified during court proceedings. What marks them out from other categories of defendant is that these are not risks merely to their reputation but to their lives. These are not theoretical risks. Firearms officers who have been charged with an offence can face serious death threats and other forms of intimidation. The threats do not stop with them but extend to their families as well. The real and present nature of this danger cannot be ignored.

I want to give two illustrations of incidents which demonstrate how extreme the consequences can be for those who serve as firearms officers. In one case, a contract for murder was issued against an officer who had acted in the line of duty and who was later found to have acted entirely within the law. In another, a bounty was placed on an officer who, as things turned out, had been lawfully carrying out their responsibilities. The threat is not theoretical; it is a stark reality. The safety of our officers and those they love must not be compromised. Some of these officers may later be found not guilty by a jury, but if they and their families have faced real and credible threats, by then the damage is done.

The time has come for action to be taken. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has said that firearms officers are fearful of the consequences and processes for them if they are involved in a death or serious injury case because of what has happened to colleagues, mostly so because of how it has played out in the media.

The noble Lord, Lord Black, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, made the point that the courts already have the power to order reporting restrictions in a case where the court judges that disclosure of a defendant’s identity would give rise to a real and immediate risk to life, and asked why a presumption is necessary. Our answer is this. It must be remembered, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, pointed out, that police officers volunteer for armed roles and they are not compelled to undertake such duties, nor are they paid more to do so. Data from armed policing shows the start of a slow decline in the number of those wishing to serve as armed officers. The armed policing attrition and retention document records that, since 2019, there has been a loss of 583 armed officers. That is an 8.8% reduction. Everyone hearing this should be worried. We rely on these officers to keep us and those we love, as well as our fellow citizens, safe. We, a Labour Government, are persuaded and have decided to act.

We have concluded that we need to strike a balance between the safety and security of our brave firearms officers, who are presumed innocent unless or until convicted by a court of law, and their families and our inviolable principles of open justice and freedom of the press. I venture to suggest that this is what these provisions achieve. The most important things to note are that these. First, once a jury has decided that the defendant is guilty then of course their identity will be made public. Secondly, these provisions establish only a presumption of anonymity during the trial. The judge at any stage has the ability to order that part or all of the defendant’s identifying characteristics should be revealed. It changes only where we start, not necessarily where we end up. Thirdly, the media and others will be informed, as is usual, of cases where there is a reporting restriction in place. Journalists and others will be able to make representations to the judge as to why they say that the identity should be known at an early stage, to help the judge decide where the balance should be struck in any individual case.

I remind your Lordships of the old truism about the difference between what is in the public interest and matters in which the public are interested. It is judges who make decisions of this kind every day and are best placed to do so. I add the reassurance that, where a judge concludes that narrower steps will suffice, the court will order only the minimum necessary. I can say to your Lordships from my own experience, and knowing my former judicial colleagues as I do, that they take the freedom of the press to report trials very seriously indeed. I venture to say that the two distinguished former judges who have spoken in this debate—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—have shown just that.

Open justice remains the starting point. This measure introduces a narrow, rebuttable presumption for a small, clearly defined cohort. Proceedings will remain public, evidence will be tested in open court, and judicial reasons are given. Only the defendant’s details may be withheld, where necessary, until the point of conviction. It expressly allows the court to lift anonymity wherever it would be

“contrary to the interests of justice”

for the anonymity to remain.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, that this is a difficult issue that needs to be approached with care and that everyone should be moderate in the way they approach it. However, this measure does not compromise transparency or judicial independence. All it does it ensure that officers are not exposed to undue risk before the facts have been tested and decided upon by a court. It is about fairness, safety, and maintaining confidence in policing and justice.

I hope that my explanation of these clauses has gone some way to reassuring your Lordships. It would, as always, be a pleasure to meet the noble Lords, Lord Black and Lord Faulks, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, again—I think this is the third time in 48 hours that I have offered to meet him—as well as representatives of the News Media Association, who have written to me at least twice on this important topic. I would be more than happy to discuss all of their concerns. In the meantime, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Black, to withdraw his opposition to the clause standing part.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

I thank the Minister very much for her comments and the offer to meet. I suspect she is involved in a large number of meetings at the moment, and we will try not to add too much to the burden.

This has been a very good debate on a difficult subject, but one, as we have heard from a number of people, that is of profound importance. We have to get the balance right, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said, and that is what this debate has shown.

I will make three quick points, if I may. First, to underline what we heard a number of times in this debate, of course we all have huge admiration and respect for firearms officers. They are a very brave group of people who do a great deal here to protect us, and we are in their debt. They deserve protection. The points we have tried to make are that they have it at the moment. The difficulty with these clauses is that it is made automatic. That means, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said, it is not always going to be easy to rebut.

There is an issue, as far as the media is concerned, that a presumption of anonymity could mean that the media is not put on proper notice and therefore is unable to challenge the presumption, if indeed those media outlets possess the resources to do so. If it is left to potluck that reporters become aware then open justice erodes, because the media has not got a chance to consider whether it should contest the presumption.

Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and others have said that, thankfully, it is a very small number of cases such as this that ever come to court. It is not about that; this is a matter, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, of high principle. In my experience, open justice and press freedom do not perish because of obvious assaults against them but because of apparently innocuous incremental changes such as this and the provision of special cases. The point, as my noble friend Lady Cash said, is that if anonymity becomes the default, openness has to be justified. That is the end of a very slippery slope, which is one of the things the Minister and I can talk about when we meet.

Finally, to echo a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, made, at the end of the day, this is about state power and the exercise of state power. We chip away at the scrutiny of that at our peril. To do so, we should have overwhelming evidence. I appreciate what the Minister said in summing up, but I still do not believe that the case has been made. A number of noble Lords have said that we have time before Report to consider this further. It is a matter of huge importance, so let us take the time before Report to do so. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my opposition to the clause.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for tabling these amendments and I thank her and many others in the Committee who have given cogent and compelling arguments for their inclusion in the Bill.

It does indeed feel like the dial is starting to shift with regard to the protection of our children from online harms. I am very pleased, for instance, that your Lordships’ House supported my noble friend Lord Nash’s amendment last week in voting to ban under-16s from social media. The amendments before us today are in many ways an extension of that argument—that social media is not appropriate for children, it is causing irreparable harm and, in the most severe cases, as we have heard today, is leading to death. As the father of teenage children who, like so many other children, face a world of online temptation, pressure and influence, these issues are very personal. There is a lot to be said for creating further duties when there is the death of a child.

As has been said, the issue was in live consideration in the previous Government’s legislation, which included a clause that created a data preservation process. I am aware that the text of Amendment 474 is different, but the fundamental issue is the same: at their heart, these amendments contain the simple objective to ensure that coroners can access the social media data or the wider online activity of a deceased child where the death is suspected to be linked to that activity. In that scenario, it is plainly sensible to ensure that that data is not destroyed, so that coroners can access it for the purposes of investigations.

I have nothing further to add, given what has already been said. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will all agree that we have a great deal for which to be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and her work in relation to the online space and its regulation when it comes to our most vulnerable citizens. It is so obvious that all child deaths are harrowing and deeply distressing for bereaved families that to say so seems almost trite. However that may be, I start my remarks by acknowledging this to make the point that the Government have this both front and centre. Anything I say this afternoon should be seen in that context.

I pay tribute to every brave family who fought to understand the circumstances that led to the death of their own child. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for telling me that some of the families are in the Gallery; I have not had an opportunity to meet them yet, but I extend the invitation to do so now. I also understand that for most, if not all, of them, this is not just about the circumstances of their own child’s death but about trying to ensure that this does not happen to other families.

We know that the data preservation provisions in Section 101 of the Online Safety Act continue to be a focus, both for bereaved families and parliamentarians who do not think that the process is quick enough to stop services deleting relevant data as part of their normal business practices. We agree that it is a proper and urgent objective to make sure that Ofcom has the powers to require, retain and provide information.

Section 101 was originally introduced following the campaign and amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, during the Bill’s passage through Parliament. In order to support both coroners and services, in September, both the Chief Coroner and Ofcom published guidance on this new provision. Ofcom consulted on the draft guidance in parallel and published its finalised guidance in December 2025. The Chief Coroner’s guidance encourages coroners to consider requesting a data preservation notice early in the investigation if the relevance of social media or another in-scope service cannot be ruled out. This should safeguard against automatic deletion of the data by service providers due to routine processes.

The Government brought forward the commencement of data preservation notices, which came into force on 30 September 2025. Since then, Ofcom has issued at least 12 data preservation notices. On 15 December 2025, the guidance for Ofcom was updated in relation to information-gathering powers, including new guidance on data preservation notices themselves. The Government are therefore working closely with Ofcom and the Office of the Chief Coroner to understand how effectively these are working in practice, but we have heard the concerns about the speed and efficiency of this process.

Against this background, I begin with Amendments 438ED and 438EE. The police themselves accept that there should be better guidance for the application of powers to preserve and access digital evidence in investigations of child deaths in order to ensure consistency across forces. Forgive me, I have a bad cough.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

The Home Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are already working with the police and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to create guidance to raise awareness of and promote the consistent use of powers available to the police to preserve and access data following the suspicious death of a child. Officials in the Home Office have been supporting this work where appropriate. That said, we can see why the noble Baroness’s idea of updating statutory guidance is attractive.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I can start again; I am very grateful to my noble friend for taking over. I say now that I would welcome a conversation with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, as she and I discussed when we met briefly the other day. The Government do have concerns that being too prescriptive in legislation may create more problems than it solves because the legislation would need to be amended every time there were changes in technology or in operational practices. Your Lordships will be well aware, given our many late nights spent scrutinising primary legislation, of which tonight may be another, how clunky, cumbersome and time-consuming it can be to keep amending primary legislation.

For this reason, it is the Government’s view that our shared objective can be achieved using non-statutory guidance. Police forces are well used to applying and following guidance in a range of areas, from missing people to information sharing. Having said that, I make the point that I would welcome a conversation with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, to see whether we can find a way through this by working together to do so.

I turn to Amendments 474 and 475. Again, this is an issue that the Government take very seriously. I reassure your Lordships that we are carefully considering the issues that these amendments raise and are grateful for the continued engagement of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the bereaved families. Taken together, these amendments would require coroners to notify Ofcom within five days of a child’s death, triggering a standard form to request data preservation.

Once again, we can see the appeal of such a requirement. The problem is that it would apply to all cases of deaths in the over-fives, regardless of whether social media may be relevant to their death. So, for example, where a child died as a result of a road traffic collision or of cancer, it is unlikely in most cases that social media retention would be of use to the police or the coroner. Therefore, while the Government are sympathetic to the aims of these amendments, it is our view that we need carefully to consider any possible unintended consequences.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

On that point, does the Minister have the number of children over five who die in other ways, just so the Committee can understand how much of a burden that might be?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I cannot give the noble Baroness the answer now, but I can write to her with that data.

Our view is that we need carefully to consider any possible unintended consequences; the need not to place a disproportionate burden on those investigating; and how such a provision might be drafted so as not to capture deaths which are outwith the scope of the amendment.

To conclude, we are not saying no. What I am saying is that I understand the noble Baroness’s concern that the existing statutory provision for the preservation of a deceased child’s social media data should operate as effectively as possible and we will consider carefully what further steps could be taken. As I have just mentioned, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I spoke briefly and agreed to meet, and I am happy to extend that to include Ministers from both the Home Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

I look forward to updating the House on Report on this important topic. I cannot update the Committee in relation to the issues with the United States now, but I will write to the noble Baroness in relation to that. In the meantime, I hope she will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I start by accepting all the various offers to meet the Minister and thank her for her tone in her response and for expanding it to the other departments as necessary. Before I withdraw the amendment, however, I want to make a couple of things very clear.

First, this sits in the broader issue of failure to have the Online Safety Act implemented properly. It sits in the broader issue of why children are dying at all. Moreover—I think I have to say this both on my own behalf and on behalf of the bereaved parents—I am very grateful for everybody’s gratitude, but we do not want gratitude; we want action. I am sorry, but on the actual points—six months, the same letter about the guidance that never comes—I do not accept that there cannot be a way of exempting sick children, and I would like to know how many children died in car crashes because someone was on the phone.

I do not think it is an excuse, and I really feel at this point that officials and Ministers are way too comfortable with unintended consequences. How about the House starts with dealing with the intended consequences of its legislation that are not being properly implemented? With that, and the promise to come back on Report, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for tabling this amendment and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I also express my thanks for the diligent work of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. Its report into the vulnerabilities of our undersea cables is a brilliant piece of work and makes for sobering reading.

As the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said, these are perilous times and there never has been a more important time to consider the measure proposed, given that cables are the invisible backbone of much of our economy, security and everyday life. As we have heard, they carry the vast majority of international data traffic, underpin financial transactions, connect critical services and link the UK to our international partners.

The committee’s report underlined that while the UK has plenty of cable routes and good repair processes for what it phrased as “business-as-usual breakages”, there are distinct vulnerabilities particularly where multiple cables cluster, or connect to key landing stations, and in the links servicing our outlying islands. I represented the Highlands and Islands region in the Scottish Parliament for eight years or so, and that last point is very real to me on a personal level because these are not abstract concerns. They are very real. Damage to a cable connecting the Shetland Islands in 2022 disrupted mobile, landline and payment services for days.

As we have heard, despite these vulnerabilities, the legal framework has not kept pace with the security environment. The principal instrument remains the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885. The deterrent effect of criminal sanctions matters. As the committee observed, the UK cannot simply assume that hostile actors would refrain from targeting these cables in a future crisis, and the Government have to be prepared for the reality that hostile states or proxy actors may exploit these vulnerabilities deliberately.

In conclusion, I add that increasing penalties is certainly not the only measure the Government should be taking. The threats we face are far more wide ranging than simple criminality. There is a need for a whole of government approach to protecting critical infrastructure such as submarine telecommunications—that would involve the MoD, DBT, DESNZ and the Home Office. But this amendment is a start, and I hope that the Minister will listen and take action.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government take the security of our subsea cables extremely seriously. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for raising this issue. It is crucially important and right that it is debated and achieves the attention it deserves.

As the noble Baroness said, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy recently conducted a public inquiry into the security of the UK’s subsea cables, and it shone a spotlight on this issue. Following that inquiry, in November 2025 the Government formally committed to increasing penalties for those who damage subsea cables where the activity cannot be linked to a hostile state. As the noble Baroness rightly says, where it can be linked to a hostile state, a life sentence is available through the National Security Act.

I hope that the noble Baroness, for whom I have a great deal of respect, will understand why the Government are not able to support her amendment today. I am sure she will readily agree that penalties are not the only issue here. It is essential that any strengthening of the law is done carefully and not piecemeal, with full consideration for our fishing and wider maritime sectors. Any potential changes would need to be proportionate and workable for those sectors, and that requires proper consultation.

One further aspect about the non-criminal elements of this that may reassure your Lordships’ Committee is that cable breaks happen regularly in UK waters, given the busy nature of our shallow seas. But the UK’s international connectivity is highly resilient, and we have a well-developed system of civil litigation that ensures that cable owners are reimbursed when a break occurs. I hope that, for all these reasons, the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is late, but I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and my noble friend the opposition spokesman Lord Cameron of Lochiel, with his compelling Scottish perspective.

Given the vulnerabilities that have been identified, and identified successively, most recently by the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy’s report—which nobody is disagreeing with—it is important that something is done. The Minister rightly refers to the possibility of civil litigation. However, for something of this seriousness, given the scale of the threat that we now have in the waters around our country, that is not good enough.

I will reflect, but I hope the Government will take this away and perhaps come forward with their own amendment. That would obviously be ideal. Perhaps we can have some further discussions about how we solve this problem sooner rather than later. I note the point that the Minister made about fisheries and so on, but that feels like an excuse. I have been a Security Minister and, normally, when you have a big security issue, you try to take steps to mend matters as quickly as you can, as has been done with previous legislation. For today, I will beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I might come back to this on Report.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I do not think I suggested that for a moment—I do not accept that at all. I am pointing to the fact that this is a government Bill. It may not be the Government’s place to take a view on issues of conscience such as this, but it is their role and duty to ensure the coherence of the statute book and general good governance, and, of course, to implement the law of the land. I therefore have a couple of questions for the Minister. Are the Government satisfied with the process by which Clause 191 has been included in their Bill, and, if not, do they have any concerns whatever about that process? Further, the Government now face a binary choice: either they want the clause to remain in the Bill or they do not. It is not enough, with the greatest respect, for the Government to sit on the fence. I ask the Minister to answer that question as well.

In conclusion, on behalf of the Official Opposition, we take no view on the substantive issues of conscience here, but we have concerns about the process. This reform should have been subject to the usual consultations. It is a hugely complex, controversial, intricate area of policy-making, which deserves the fullest legislative process possible, and it has not had the usual procedures and rigorous scrutiny from start to finish of the legislative process. That is a matter of very great regret.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government recognise that there are strongly held views across your Lordships’ Committee on this very sensitive issue. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, is of course correct that the Government maintain a neutral stance on abortion in England and Wales. We remain of the view that it is for Parliament to decide whether it is in favour of this or not. That is not sitting on the fence—that is actually deferring to the will of Parliament. It is for Parliament to decide the circumstances under which abortion should take place, allowing your Lordships to vote according to conscience. The Government will not stand in the way of change, if that is what Parliament decides.

The noble Lords, Lord Bailey and Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, asked what the Government intend to do in certain situations. I remind your Lordships that this was not a government amendment, and therefore it is a matter for your Lordships. If this is the will of Parliament, the Government will ensure that the law is enacted.

That said, the Government must of course comment on the practical effects, workability and coherence with the statute book of any proposed legislative amendments. On 17 June last year, the Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls set out in the other place observations on what is now Clause 191. As this is already a matter of public record, I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for not repeating what she said, save that I have been asked the specific question by the noble Baronesses, Lady Ludford and Lady Falkner, about the effect of Clause 191 on the Abortion Act in how it deals with offences. The legal position is that the Abortion Act is unaffected by Clause 191. What Clause 191 does is to disapply the offences created by Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, but only for a woman who acts in relation to her own pregnancy. The offences still apply to third parties. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that any man behaving in the way she described would still be potentially committing an offence.

In order to avoid repeating myself later in this debate, I reiterate that the Government’s neutral position means that I will not be commenting beyond matters of workability and practical effect. As a shorthand, I am going to refer to conduct that could come within Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act as abortion offences. I do not intend to address all amendments. There are some, such as Amendment 455 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, where we do not consider there to be significant workability concerns, particular operational implications or unintended consequences that your Lordships may wish to consider: it is a simple policy decision to be made. If I do not refer to any particular amendment, your Lordships may safely assume that that is because the Government regard it as a policy decision for your Lordships’ House without any operational or other matters to be considered. Finally, because this is a large group of amendments, I have tried to shorten my remarks to only the parts that I regard as being essential to bring to your Lordships’ attention. If anything is unclear, I encourage any of your Lordships to write to me so that I can provide a fuller explanation.

I begin with Amendment 456 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame. It may be helpful for your Lordships to be aware of the usual circumstances in which certain offences require that the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, more usually, or that of the Attorney-General, more rarely, is required before criminal proceedings can be instituted. Generally, the concern to the DPP will be appropriate where either it is very likely that a defendant will reasonably contend that a prosecution for the offence would violate their convention rights or where there is a high risk that the right to bring a private prosecution might be abused and, if so, the institution of proceedings would cause the defendant irreparable harm. In general, prohibiting private prosecutions and ensuring that only the Crown Prosecution Service can prosecute is the check and balance used to mitigate these risks. If an offence involves national security or has an international element, the consent of the Attorney-General may be more appropriate. In response to the question asked by the noble Lords, Lord Verdirame and Lord Bailey, as to the statistics being relied on, it is not clear to me whether the data requested is collected, but I will make inquiries and write to the noble Lord.

I turn to Amendment 459 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. I can reassure the noble Baroness that the Government are clear that the law is also clear: sex is not itself a lawful ground for termination of pregnancy under the Abortion Act 1967. I can also reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, on the same point. Accordingly, any third party, including registered medical practitioners, who terminates a pregnancy on the basis of the sex of the foetus alone would also be liable to prosecution under the relevant offences relating to abortion.

Turning to Amendments 459B and 502A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, it is worth noting that, as currently drafted, the deadline for the Secretary of State to lay the draft regulations and the deadline for Parliament to approve those regulations is the same in this amendment. Practically, then, the effect might be that, if the Secretary of State lays the regulations on the final day permitted, Parliament would not then have sufficient time to approve them before the deadline. As a result, Clause 191 would automatically cease to have effect, even though the Minister had complied with the requirement to lay the regulations. It is unclear from the amendment as drafted whether that is the noble Baroness’s intention or whether she intends to give sufficient time for both these processes to take place.

Amendment 460 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, who is no longer in her place, would mean that women would no longer be able to have a consultation over the phone or by other electronic means before being able to self-administer medicine for early medical abortion at home, as is current practice. Instead, women would be required to attend an in-person consultation first before being able to take pills at home. The Committee may wish to note that the overall effect of this new clause would be to limit access to home use of early medical abortion pills because of lack of resources for abortion providers to hold in-person consultations. It could also reduce women’s access to early medical abortion due to travel distances, if they live in remote areas, or if they have difficulties attending a clinic for different reasons—for example, vulnerable women, women from more deprived backgrounds or women subject to coercion. The Government wish your Lordships to be aware that, given that the majority of abortions take place via this method, this new clause is likely to have a significant operational impact on access to abortions. That said, this is, of course, a matter of policy for Parliament.

Amendment 461H in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, is similar to Amendment 460 in that it seeks to introduce a requirement for an in-person consultation before medication to terminate a pregnancy may be lawfully prescribed. In addition, Amendment 461H would also require a scan, or what is described as a “clinically equivalent” alternative, to be conducted for all women to determine gestation before being able to take pills at home, whereas the current process is that an ultrasound scan is provided only in certain conditions where there is any uncertainty about gestation or where there is clinical need.

As drafted, it is unclear what is meant by “other clinically equivalent means” when determining the pregnancy’s gestation. Your Lordships may also wish to consider the likelihood that Amendment 461H would also result in additional costs being incurred because of either additional machines having to be bought and staff trained to provide an ultrasound for every woman seeking an early medical abortion, or the alternative, which would be to remove scanning capacity from the provision for other needs. Operationally, the requirement to have a face-to-face appointment and scan may also introduce additional waiting times for abortion care. This would have a particularly negative impact on those awaiting early medical abortion, but it might also have an impact on abortions at a later stage because of loss of system capacity. This could have the effect—unintended, we presume—of more abortions taking place later on. As with Amendment 460, the overall effect of this new clause would be to limit access to home use of early medical abortion pills because of resource issues in relation to the requirement in every case to hold in-person consultations and offer scans.

Amendment 461A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to apply the criminal standard of proof to medical assessments and decision-making. Your Lordships may wish to note that the operational effect of this additional burden of proof is that it is likely that women would no longer have a consultation over the telephone or by other electronic means before being prescribed medicine for early medical abortion at home, as is the current practice. Instead, women would need to attend an in-person consultation and have an ultrasound. So, for similar reasons to those I have already given in relation to Amendments 460 and 461H, Amendment 461A is likely to limit access to home use of early medical abortion pills and thus result in more abortions being undertaken at later gestation.

Amendment 461, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, seeks to create a new offence of intentionally encouraging or assisting a termination that is contrary to the Abortion Act 1967. We understand the noble Baroness’s amendment to be intended to work in the following way: a person would be guilty of committing such an offence whether or not a successful termination occurs and the amendment would also require the Secretary of State to issue guidance on the offence following consultation with appropriate stakeholders.

Clause 191 provides that a pregnant woman cannot commit an abortion offence in relation to her own pregnancy, meaning such terminations would no longer be considered unlawful under the Abortion Act 1967. As a result, Amendment 461 would apply only where a third party encourages or assists someone other than the pregnant woman. Your Lordships should be aware that this is already captured by existing encouraging or assisting offences under the Serious Crime Act 2015. Therefore, Amendment 461 would create an overlapping offence. Additionally, your Lordships may wish to note that, in any event, third parties can also still be prosecuted at the moment under primary offences such as Sections 58 or 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 or the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929.

I turn now to Amendment 461B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington. Safeguarding is an essential aspect of abortion care and all abortion providers are already required to have effective arrangements in place to safeguard children and vulnerable adults in compliance with the department’s required standard operating procedures for the approval of independent sector places for termination of pregnancy in England. Your Lordships may wish to consider that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has published national safeguarding guidance for under-18s accessing early medical abortion services, which seeks to ensure that all abortion providers have robust safeguarding in place. We expect all providers to have due regard to this safeguarding guidance.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am saying that this amendment as drafted would criminalise those who receive that drug by post if they are using it for some purpose other than abortion. It may also be helpful for your Lordships to be aware that this amendment as drafted would make it an offence for a business such as a pharmacy or an abortion clinic to receive these drugs by post.

On Amendment 461G, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, your Lordships may wish to note that not all the information required under this amendment may be readily available. For example, it may not exist, it might require additional collection, or it may be held across different systems. It is unclear how there could be an accurate estimate of those who have illegally acquired abortifacients or the data that this estimate would be based on. Producing this annual report would therefore require the Ministry of Justice and other public bodies to take on additional responsibilities with associated costs.

On Amendment 461F in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, the Government remain neutral on changing the criminal law related to abortion, but it is important to note that Clause 191 does not decriminalise other offences such as manslaughter, murder or infanticide. These offences will continue to be investigated and prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service where the legal test is met. In addition, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are operationally independent of government, and it would therefore not be appropriate for a Secretary of State to issue guidance. Similarly, the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council are also responsible for guidance on investigations for policing.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 461J, tabled by my noble friend Lady Thornton. It is important to note that a pardon does not quash a conviction or a caution; what it does is remove the legal consequences that would otherwise attach to it. As with any pardon or expungement scheme, consideration would need to be given to how such a scheme would operate in practice; for example, how those individuals would be identified. There is no single centrally held record of all cases that may fall within scope of this amendment, so it has implications for how and when the duty to direct deletion would be triggered.

In addition, given the breadth of the amendment, which extends to any record of an arrest or investigation, the scale of the records potentially in scope is uncertain. Also, because the amendment is not time-limited, it would thus apply to dead women as well. Taken together, these factors may mean that implementing such a duty as drafted would carry substantial operational and resource implications for policing, His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service and those responsible for maintaining national databases. The scale of the work required cannot be reliably estimated at this stage but it could be considerable.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken today. I particularly welcome and support the speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Monckton, Lady O’Loan and Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, and so many others who spoke so eloquently and passionately.

It has been a very useful debate, which also highlighted how little scrutiny Clause 191 has received and how significant its potential effects could be—legally, socially and morally. At times, the debate revealed that we were speaking at cross-purposes: balancing the rights of women and the rights or non-rights of viable babies; balancing the rights of vulnerable women versus those who abort for personal or blunt, selfish reasons. We have all heard of women who aborted their child because they were afraid that a pregnancy would ruin their figure.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, hit the nail on the head. If I may paraphrase badly, it went something like this: Clause 191 risks decriminalising abortions undertaken for personal reasons while failing to guarantee the protection of women who have been a victim of abuse or coercion. This is an issue of such importance that I feel it merits much further consideration and, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, highlighted, ultimately it should not be part of the Bill.

I personally remain concerned that Clause 191 could have tragic unintended consequences both for women and for babies able to survive outside the womb. I do not see this as a right to abort, but rather how we as legislators can better protect the vulnerable—vulnerable women and the unborn child. This is why I continue to support the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, in proposing that this clause should not stand part of the Bill. But, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in this debate, and my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough for tabling these amendments. I have already set out at length the view of the official Opposition on what we see as the procedural issues with Clause 191 in my response to the previous group. I will not repeat myself, but simply refer your Lordships to my previous comments.

My noble friend’s amendments relate to the provision of information and statistics relating to abortions and complications arising from abortions. As has been highlighted by my noble friend Lord Moylan in his Private Member’s Bill on this topic, there is an issue with the collection of data for complications from abortions. To conclude, I hope the Minister will be able to set out what action the Government are taking to improve the collection of data for such complications.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group all relate to reporting requirements and monitoring abortion services. It is important to say again that the Government are neutral on this. My remarks are limited to workability, operational concerns or possible unintended consequences. I am not going to speak to all the amendments, only those where there are particular issues that should be brought to the attention of the Committee.

Amendment 457, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, as currently drafted means that parts of the information that would be required are broad and the exact meaning is not always clear, raising practical workability issues. Not all the information required may be readily available, and producing an annual report would require the Department of Health and Social Care to take on additional reporting responsibilities, with associated costs.

Amendment 458, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, seeks to require the Secretary of State to produce an annual report detailing complications from abortions procured contrary to the Abortion Act. Determining whether specific cases fall within the report’s remit would require investigations to determine whether they could be considered to be contrary to the Abortion Act. This could necessitate involvement from medical professionals or other public bodies to review individual circumstances.

Further, as I have just said in relation to Amendment 457, as currently drafted parts of the information required are broad and the exact meaning is unclear, raising questions about practical workability. Not all the information required may be readily available; for example, it may not exist, it may require additional collection or it may be held across different systems, including the abortion notification system held by DHSC and patient records within the NHS.

Your Lordships may also wish to note that producing this annual report would require additional responsibilities with significant associated costs to the Department of Health and Social Care and other public bodies.

Amendment 461C would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual report disclosing data collected as required under Section 2 of the Abortion Act. I can confirm what has been said by my noble friend Lady Thornton: the Department of Health and Social Care’s abortion notification system already collects data on the self-reported ethnicity of the woman, when known, and complications that occur up until the time of discharge for all abortions. This data is published in the annual abortion statistics publication for England and Wales. However, as my noble friend Lady Thornton also commented, the abortion notification system does not currently collect information on the sex of the foetus, as most abortions are performed at an early gestation when the sex of the foetus will not usually be known.

On two further matters, the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, is correct: there has been a delay in the publication of the abortion statistics, but not for policy reasons. These are operational issues, which include moving to a new data processing system. We will announce dates for the publication of the 2024 data in due course.

Finally, on the question of sex ratios at birth, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, the Department of Health and Social Care remains committed to publishing these statistics, and the publication dates for sex ratios at birth in the United Kingdom from 2018-22 and 2019-23 will be announced in due course.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the debate, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Barker, in particular, my noble friend Lord Cameron and the Government Whip, who is always very strict in the House, perhaps for the right reason.

It has been a good, lively debate. If I may press the Minister, and if she would perhaps be so good as to write to me on this, I have never had a satisfactory answer on the point I made earlier, about the use of the HSA4 form and why complications arising from terminations when a woman has left the clinical setting are not collected. It may not be hundreds of thousands, but it is a significant cost in terms of health outcomes and trauma for that woman, and cost for the NHS and private providers. We still need to know why that is not captured, because it does not provide the whole picture.

Nevertheless, with the proviso that we will return to this issue of data collection and empirical data that informs policy decisions, I seek the leave of the Committee to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough for tabling these amendments. Again, I refer to comments that I made in the earlier group about procedure, during which I noted the absence of an impact assessment and consultation. My noble friend’s amendments attempt to insert those processes later on in the legislative stages, and reflect in some way what I said on that earlier group. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, your Lordships have heard me say now on at least two occasions that the Government are neutral, and therefore my only observations are about workability and operational issues.

I can respond to the amendments in this group in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, very briefly. It is unclear whether Amendment 563 is intended as an alternative to Amendment 562. If it is not, they would create two parallel commencement powers for Clause 191, each imposing slightly different and conflicting obligations on the Secretary of State.

In any event, your Lordships may wish to consider that not all the information required to produce the report as described in the amendment may be readily available within the timeframe, and some of the areas to be considered—for example, standards of clinical oversight—are broad. Although the amendment does not specify the consequences of failing to meet the specified deadlines for consultation or reporting, its effect would be that missing these deadlines would prevent Clause 191 coming into force.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, that is a very brief response from the Minister. I do not think the two amendments that I put to the Committee at this late hour are mutually exclusive—they are complementary. One is about a public consultation exercise and one is about a report to be prepared by the Government using secondary legislation. I accept that there would be an element of discretion for the Government. Obviously, this would be primary legislation in the Bill, but it would be largely facilitated—as the Minister knows, being a very eminent lawyer—by secondary legislation.

I finish very briefly with one thought. To a certain extent, the situation with this clause, and how the Government have handled it, is if not quite novel then constitutionally unusual, because the Minister is not in a position to answer detailed questions. She has undertaken to write and we take her at her word.

The clause is a cuckoo in the nest, really. The Government are, in effect, saying that they do not support it and they do not oppose it but it is in the Bill. I do not always praise the leader of my own party, but I will on this occasion. She had the courage of her convictions to whip in the other place against the whole Bill, even though it is largely a very good Bill, because of the inclusion of Clause 191. The Government should resolve this constitutional novelty and the odd situation arising from the fact that they did not have the moral courage to push back against the Member for Gower, which they should have done, and say that Clause 191 is too extreme and does not have a place. The Government should have said that this clause should be put it in a Private Member’s Bill, or that the Member should lobby Government Ministers to bring it forward as government legislation. But they did not do that; they put it in the Bill. They are therefore going to need to give better answers by the time it gets to Report.

For all that, I appreciate the Minister’s efforts to answer some questions and to undertake to write. On that basis, looking forward to further discussions on Report, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I cannot confirm that, but I will certainly have a look at it.

The question is not whether children should be protected but whether removing the ability to intervene criminally until 14 years old would make children, victims or communities safer. I do not believe that it would. The current system already prioritises proportionality and rehabilitation, while retaining the capacity to act when it is absolutely necessary. For those reasons, I cannot support this amendment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti has a long and honourable record of raising issues on behalf of some of the most vulnerable in society. She and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, make a formidable team when moving this amendment. I am very grateful to them for ensuring that this important issue remains at the forefront of every Government’s mind, including this one.

It was about a fortnight ago that your Lordships’ House debated this issue in response to my noble friend’s Oral Question. I said at the time, and repeat today, that the age of criminal responsibility is a complex and sensitive issue. I want to take this opportunity to set out in a bit more detail than the Oral Questions format allows why the Government believe that we should keep the age of criminal responsibility at 10 years old.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 486 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, raises an issue that has long troubled the criminal justice system. I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for giving me sight of his speech in advance.

The criminal liability of secondary parties is an important but sometimes controversial concept in the law, and the Government acknowledge the anxiety over the consequences for those prosecuted and convicted as a result of the application of the rule. On the one hand, there are very real and understandable concerns. First, we recognise the anxiety that this has a disproportionate effect on young people and on those from certain ethnic groups. Secondly, it is a matter of serious concern that the law is widely misunderstood. For example, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, in relation to her powerful speech, but in fact she said several things that were not quite right. For example, we have no law of collective responsibility, and mere presence without more is never enough to convict. Even lawyers and judges sometimes struggle with the application of this concept, as any of your Lordships who attempted to follow the limpid explanation of the law in this area from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, may well understand.

On the other hand, and seriously, it must be remembered that the reason why the rule exists is to ensure that it is possible to prosecute those who take part in group crimes—often, but not always, crimes of violence. Please remember that if your son or daughter was attacked by a large group, one of whom may have held the weapon, but others of whom were assisting and encouraging, you would want the entire group to face justice—more so if, because it was not possible to distinguish which of the many feet was kicking the victim, you could not prosecute any of them because you could not show which foot in fact delivered the fatal blow among the others which contributed to it. This is what, among other things, the doctrine of joint enterprise is there to cover.

I appreciate that the noble and learned Lord’s amendment is intended to probe the Government’s position. While the intention behind the amendment is understandable, as drafted, we believe that there are flaws in it which mean that it is not acceptable and would cause more difficulties than it solved for the courts which have to apply it. The issues about which the Government have concerns include the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, about what would count as “significant”. For example, is purchasing the weapon or acting as a lookout significant? What about shouting encouragement or driving the getaway car? You could not just leave this to a jury to decide, because then there would be a real risk of unacceptable disparities in decisions made on the same facts. In one part of the country, acting as a lookout could mean you were guilty of murder, but in another part, on the same facts, you would be acquitted. You could even get those results in courtrooms next door to each other in the same building. Such uncertainty would make prosecutions in group violence cases pretty much impossible, as well as leading to verdicts which would not command public confidence.

There are further issues, one of which has been identified by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, in relation to the magistrates’ court, but the amendment does not apply to the full range of offences because it does not address how it interacts with other forms of secondary liability, such as encouraging or assisting a crime under the Serious Crime Act 2007. The noble and learned Lord’s summary of the development of the law pre and post the landmark case of Jogee in 2016 illustrates, I venture to say, the great complexity of this area, but I reassure your Lordships that the Government are listening.

Mention has been made of the few important pieces of work that are going on in this area. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, has said, the Law Commission’s review of homicide offences and sentencing for murder is considering the implications of the current law on joint enterprise. I note the noble and learned Lord’s concerns about the length of time, but I should make it clear that the Law Commission is an independent body—in a sense, that is part of the point of it—which decides how to run its projects. It is not looking at joint enterprise on its own but at how joint enterprise is related to homicide offences and sentencing. One of the things it is considering is whether we should adopt a first and second degree murder to reflect the different roles played in sentencing, if not necessarily in conviction for a particular offence. As the noble and learned Lord will know, there is a significant interaction between the categorisation of homicide offences, the impact of partial defences and mandatory sentencing requirements, which makes separating out of these aspects of the report more complex.

Secondly, the Law Commission’s review of criminal appeals is examining if or how historic convictions are considered, which is a key area of concern for many people. Thirdly, the CPS has been consulting on its policies on gang-related prosecutions. This includes the controversial use of drill and rap music as evidence. It is also improving data collection on joint enterprise cases. As a number of your Lordships have referred to, last September, the CPS published its first annual data report on joint enterprise homicide and attempted homicide cases. The Government also recognise the important work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Miscarriages of Justice and the Westminster Commission, in which the noble and learned Lord is involved. I need not remind him that it is in the process of taking evidence and considering reform of joint enterprise, and we look forward to its report.

So, while the Government recognise the concerns about joint enterprise, and work is under way to address these issues, we cannot support this amendment today for the reasons I have given, and I invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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

Can I just ask the Minister to reconsider, or at least explain, her argument that it is significant in this regard that different juries might come to different conclusions on the same or similar facts in different parts of the country, on one day or another? Is not her experience as a judge that that is an everyday event? Does she not consider that that is one reason why juries do not give reasons and are not asked for their reasons for any given decision that they make? Because it is a fact of life that we all accept.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Not giving reasons is of course one of the criticisms that is sometimes made of jury trials. In the Government’s view, the wider and broader concept in the current law of an act of assistance or encouragement, combined with the intention to assist or encourage, gives a broad enough scope to allow juries to look at the conditions in every different case—whereas, when you are saying a “significant contribution”, it would be a matter of value judgment for particular juries as to whether they thought that a lookout was a significant contribution or not. For that reason, we think it would introduce significant uncertainty and significant risk of disparity in verdicts.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been, for me, an interesting and educational 55 minutes and I hope that the Government will have found it so as well. Although the Law Commission is of course an independent body, I dare say it might be sent a copy of this evening’s debate, which might encourage it to accelerate the way in which it is looking at this admittedly difficult and complicated question. I do not think that any of us who have spoken this evening thinks it is an easy question.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby and Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Brinton, and my noble friend on the Front Bench Lord Davies of Gower for their thoughtful and useful—I do not say “useful” in a demeaning way; I genuinely mean it—contributions to this debate, because it is, as I have said, difficult. The Minister was the first to accept that. She and I—and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and others—will have summed up to juries and directed juries on the question of joint enterprise in one case or another. I dare say, at Snaresbrook Crown Court, there were probably quite a lot of difficult cases that had to be dealt with. However, I do not accept the Minister’s suggestion that juries would find it difficult, or that it would create other sorts of difficulties, to work out what “significant contribution” means.

Juries can work out, following proper direction from the judge, how to deal with actions taken in self-defence. You could get a different set of facts which would allow the defence to run, whereas, in other cases, it would not. Significant contribution is not a difficult concept, and it is not one that 12 members of a jury, when properly directed by the judge and having heard arguments from the lawyers for the respective parties, the prosecution and the defence, could not grapple with. They could. One has to think not just about “significant contribution”: let us work out what “no contribution” means. What does “insignificant contribution” mean? It strikes me that by simply posing those questions, one should not be frightened of the “significant contribution” question.

As I say, I understand the public policy, I understand the politics and I understand that my Government in the past, and now this Government, are worried about being seen to be weak on crime. For goodness’ sake, we have heard that record played year in, year out. But I hope that this evening’s short discussion will encourage others outside Parliament to keep pressing their arguments, both in court and academically. I hope that those who have taken part in this debate will continue to press for reform in this area. And I hope that the Law Commission, if it is listening, will accelerate its process.

It is now nearly 7.15 pm on a Thursday and it is almost a capital offence to talk in Committee stage on a Thursday at this hour. So I will bring my remarks to a conclusion by finally repeating my thanks to all those who have taken part. I beg the leave of the Committee to withdraw my amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, as in Committee, these Benches oppose Clause 40 standing part of the Bill. I will briefly remind the House of the background. Clause 40 repeals Section 22A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, which was inserted into that Act in 2014. Section 22A of the Magistrates’ Court Act provides that, where a person is charged with a shoplifting offence but the value of the stolen goods is under £200, the offence is triable only summarily. Accordingly, low-value shoplifting cases will be heard only before a magistrates’ court and will not go before the Crown Court. That is the current position.

The Government now propose to do away with this and make low-value shoplifting triable either way. In its criticisms of the status quo before the general election in 2024, the Labour Party suggested that the status quo had created,

“effective immunity for some shoplifting”.

That was the wording in the Government’s manifesto.

As I have said previously, this is incorrect. There never has been effective immunity for any shoplifting offences. If making an offence a summary offence is akin to granting immunity, then it follows that we have given immunity to anyone who commits common assault, battery, theft of a car, drunk driving, dangerous cycling, being drunk and disorderly, and harassment, to name but a few offences. The truth is that there are hundreds of summary-only offences. Do the Government think that they create immunity and should become triable either way too?

There are two other matters that demonstrate further the contradictory and, indeed, damaging consequences of this clause. Essentially, the question hinges on the interaction between this clause and two other measures that this Government are pursuing with perplexing enthusiasm: their Sentencing Act and their proposed court reforms.

In the Sentencing Act, the Government have introduced a presumption of a suspended sentence where the sentence is less than 12 months. I know that the Government do not like these Benches making an ongoing critique of their sentencing reforms but, given their negative future impact, we shall continue to do so.

The average custodial sentence for shop theft is two months, meaning that, in future, it is likely that all shoplifters will be spared prison time. If you wanted to look for effective immunity, this is where you will find it. Permitting those charged with low-value shoplifting to seek a Crown Court trial may very well lead to a collapse in the prosecution of those offences, as the CPS will determine that prosecution is simply not worth it.

Coupled with the presumption of a suspended sentence order for all sentences under 12 months, there is a significant likelihood that, under this Government, the vast majority of shoplifters will avoid prison entirely. Furthermore, the Government’s court reforms will see more cases moved away from the Crown Courts, the curtailing of jury trials and an increase in the sentencing powers of magistrates’ courts.

The Government say that this is necessary to tackle the backlog. They have argued that offenders are trying to game the system by electing for Crown Court trials, knowing that they will take longer to go to trial and that the case may collapse. So, on the one hand, they are reducing the number of either-way offences because the Crown Courts are overwhelmed and yet, on the other hand, they are making low-value shoplifting triable either way. This makes no sense whatever.

If the Minister will not listen to my arguments, she might perhaps listen to those of her own colleague, Sarah Sackman, the Courts Minister, who is quoted in a Guardian article as asking:

“Do we think that someone who has stolen a bottle of whisky from a minimart should receive the right to trial by jury?”


I quite agree with Sarah Sackman. I do not think that a person who steals a bottle of whisky should go before the Crown Court, but that is exactly what could happen if Clause 40 becomes law.

For all these reasons and, essentially, because in our view the Government’s position here is completely contradictory, I beg to move.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, Clause 40 delivers on a manifesto commitment made by this Government. I am very happy to note that I and the noble Lords, Lord Cameron of Lochiel and Lord Davies of Gower, share the same overall objective: to reduce the backlog in the Crown Court by reserving jury trials for the most serious cases. I am delighted to hear that they agree with the Government, so I look forward to their support for our proposals to do exactly this when your Lordships’ House considers the Courts and Tribunals Bill, which was introduced in the other place earlier today.

The low-value shoplifting provision was always a curious beast and quite unlike other criminal offences because shoplifting was, and still is, charged as theft, which is always a “triable either way” offence. This meant that, although there was a presumption that if the goods were valued at less than £200 the case would remain in the magistrates’ court, a defendant who wanted a jury trial could still choose—or “elect”, to use the formal term—trial in the Crown Court. It is nonsense to say that this keeps it in the magistrates’ court, because Section 22A still allows defendants to elect trial in the Crown Court if they want to do so. The reality is that hardly any of them did; I will return to this shortly.

This was an administrative provision designed to reduce the burden on the Crown Court. In reality it had very little impact on that, but it did have a very undesirable effect that was entirely unintended. Although multiple factors have contributed to rising retail crime, one persistent issue is the perception in many quarters that low-value theft has no real consequences. Some regard it as having been, in effect, decriminalised. It does not matter whether that is in fact true; it is the perception that is damaging.

Section 22A created the perception that those committing theft of goods worth £200 or less will escape any punishment. Clause 40 rectifies that—and it really matters. Evidence from the Association of Convenience Stores shows that only 36% of retail crime is even reported. Many retailers choose not to do so because they think it is a waste of time; they believe that the police will not do anything. Once again, it does not really matter whether they are right about that; that is what they believe.

This underreporting masks the true scale of the problem and leaves businesses vulnerable. We must act decisively to support retailers facing this growing challenge and scourge of shoplifting. Clause 40 does exactly that. It closes a critical gap by sending a clear and unequivocal message: theft of any value is a serious criminal act and will be treated seriously.

I hope noble Lords will accept that probably no one is more concerned than I am—as one of the only people who has actually lived through what it has meant in practice, when I sat as a circuit judge—about remedying the position of the backlog in the Crown Court. As I have already said, jury trials for these cases are a very small proportion of the Crown Court’s workload. In the year ending in September 2025, almost 50,000 defendants were prosecuted for shoplifting goods valued at £200 or less, but only 1.3% of those cases were committed for jury trial in the Crown Court. The vast majority of them had been sent there by the magistrates, with only a very small proportion of defendants electing trial themselves.

Returning the situation to the previous law, where the offence is triable either way, therefore carries no greater risk to the Crown Court than already exists under the existing provision. But it sends a clear message to perpetrators and would-be perpetrators: this crime will not be tolerated and will be met with appropriate punishment. We are signalling to retailers that we take this crime seriously, that they are encouraged to report it and that the police will take it seriously.

The happy news for the noble Lords who tabled this amendment, and any others concerned about the backlog in the Crown Court, is that once we pass the Courts and Tribunals Bill, low-value shoplifters will no longer be able to game the system by choosing jury trial because in all cases the decision on venue will be made by the magistrates’ court, not by defendants. As I have already said, I look forward to the noble Lord’s support on this. In the meantime, given that this is a manifesto commitment, I make it absolutely clear that the Government are determined that it shall pass. I hope I have been able to persuade the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, but I am afraid I am not quite persuaded. The Government have been attempting to appear tough in a so far unsuccessful attempt to demonstrate that they are cracking down on crime. Yet, as we know from the latest crime statistics, in the year ending September 2025 there were 519,381 recorded incidents of shoplifting, which is a 10% increase on the previous year. To make matters worse, they are now proposing measures that will not see a soul go to prison for shoplifting and, via Clause 40, will allow offenders to string out their trials through the Crown Court, all while they pursue the polar opposite outcome for other offences through their court reforms. If this is the policy of a Government who are serious about tackling shoplifting, they have a strange way of showing it. We are not prepared to allow shoplifters to go unpunished, and I therefore have no option but to test the opinion of the House.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 2nd March 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

234: Schedule 9, page 315, line 33, at end insert—
“(ia) sections 8A to 8C (rape and other offences against children under 16);”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my new clause (Sexual offences against children under 16), inserted after clause 73.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to government Amendments 234, 235, 237, 249, 250, 448 and 467, which will give effect to recommendation 1 of the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. She recommended that the law should be changed so that an adult who engages in penetrative sexual activity with a child who is under 16 is charged with rape. I thank the noble Baroness for the audit. She worked closely with us as we developed these offences, and it was important to us to ensure that we met her objectives. I thank her for her strong support of the Government’s proposals.

We are taking a two-stage approach, starting with the amendments being debated today. These will create new offences covering rape and other penetrative sexual activity with a child who is under 16 by an adult. The important thing to note is that the prosecution does not have to prove that the child did not consent, so ostensible or purported consent or reasonable belief in consent is completely irrelevant. This eliminates any question of whether an under-16 seemed to have consented. All that matters is the age of the child. If the child is under 13, the defendant’s belief about their age is irrelevant. If the child is aged 13 to 15, an adult who believed that the child was aged 16 or over would not be guilty, but only if that belief was reasonably held. This mirrors the existing approach to sexual offences committed against children.

The maximum penalty for these offences will be life imprisonment, and these offences will sit alongside existing ones in relation to sexual activity with and towards children. The Crown Prosecution Service will therefore retain discretion to charge the full range of child sex offences where appropriate, though we expect that the use of other offences will be very limited. As with existing offences against children under 13, the CPS will prioritise the more serious charges. We are also tabling the necessary consequential amendments, such as ensuring that where the relevant criteria are met, offenders will be eligible for extended determinate sentences.

This brings me to the second stage. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, was clear in her audit that the law in this area needs to be changed to ensure that children are treated as children. Alongside our new offences, we are committed to doing two things. We are going to carry out a public consultation to look at how to treat what are known as “close-in-age relationships” within the cohort of relevant child sexual offences. This responds to the noble Baroness’s recommendation that the Government should consider a close-in-age exemption to prevent the criminalisation of teenagers who are in relationships with each other.

We will also conduct a post-implementation review of the new offences to test the impact they are having. We know that there are some concerns about the element of reasonable belief in age, and this review will look closely at how that works in practice. I assure the House that the Government will continue to progress this work as a matter of priority to ensure that we get the law right in the long term. I beg to move.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, we believe that Amendment 235 delivers on the crucial recommendation from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, in her national audit. By creating these strict liability offences where consent is rightly irrelevant and the offence of reasonable belief in age cannot apply, these clauses send an important signal making it unambiguously clear that no adult can claim ignorance or excuse when preying on the young and vulnerable.

The audit explained how grooming gangs repeatedly evaded rape charges for penetrative sex with 13 to 15 year-olds. Cases were downgraded or dropped because victims were misperceived as having consented or been in love with abusers, despite children under 16 being legally incapable of consent. Perpetrators avoided accountability by claiming it was reasonable to believe their victims were older than 16, perhaps due to their demeanour or because they had fake ID. These clauses strip away both loopholes for good, and on these Benches we give them our full support.

The intent of Amendment 236 to elevate penetrative offences against young teens to rape is laudable, but, as we signalled in Committee, we have several concerns. Mandating rape charges for every act of intercourse with a child under 16 may sound resolute, but it introduces unnecessary evidential hurdles and extra elements that must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, which could result in guilty offenders walking free. Forcing every case into a life sentence framework risks deterring pleas from defendants and unnerving juries, driving up acquittals on technicalities. Amendment 236 also retains the “reasonable belief in age” defence, which—as the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, highlighted—offenders have exploited to evade justice. We believe the Government’s approach offers a surer path to protecting vulnerable children, and it has our support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the acknowledgement by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, that, in essence, Amendment 236 covers the same ground as the government amendments. I commend the noble Lords for bringing forward their amendment and making sure that it is on everybody’s radar. As the noble Lord said, the Government’s amendments go further than Amendment 236 was intended to, in that it covers all penetrative activity, not just penile penetration, and it is accompanied by all the necessary consequential amendments, such as ensuring, when relevant criteria are met, that offenders are eligible for extended determinate sentences.

We are indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for her work and bringing about this important change. It makes it absolutely clear that penetrative sexual activity between adults and children under 16 is fundamentally wrong, cannot be excused by any suggestions about consent and will be treated with the utmost seriousness.

Amendment 234 agreed.

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

235: After Clause 73, insert the following new Clause—
“Sexual offences against children under 16(1) The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is amended as follows.(2) After section 8 insert—“Rape and other offences against children under 16
8A Rape of a child under 16(1) A person aged 18 or over (A) commits an offence if—(a) A intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with A’s penis, and(b) either—(i) B is under 16 and A does not reasonably believe that B is 16 or over, or(ii) B is under 13.(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.8B Assault of a child under 16 by penetration(1) A person aged 18 or over (A) commits an offence if—(a) A intentionally penetrates the vagina or anus of another person (B) with a part of A’s body or anything else,(b) the penetration is sexual, and(c) either—(i) B is under 16 and A does not reasonably believe that B is 16 or over, or(ii) B is under 13. (2) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.8C Causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration(1) A person aged 18 or over (A) commits an offence if—(a) A intentionally causes or incites another person (B) to engage in an activity within subsection (2),(b) the activity is sexual, and(c) either—(i) B is under 16 and A does not reasonably believe that B is 16 or over, or(ii) B is under 13.(2) An activity is within this subsection if it involves—(a) penetration of B’s anus or vagina,(b) penetration of B’s mouth with a person’s penis,(c) penetration of a person’s anus or vagina with a part of B’s body or by B with anything else, or(d) penetration of a person’s mouth with B’s penis.(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.”(3) In section 73(2) (exceptions to aiding, abetting and counselling) after paragraph (a) insert—“(aa) an offence under section 8A or 8B (offences against children under 16);”.(4) Schedule (Sexual offences against children under 16: consequential amendments) contains minor and consequential amendments.”Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause creates new offences of rape, assault by penetration, and causing or inciting a sexual activity involving penetration, in relation to children under 16.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

237: Clause 75, page 102, line 9, at end insert—
“(ca) an offence under any of sections 8A to 8C of that Act (rape and other offences against children under 16),”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my new clause (Sexual offences against children under 16), inserted after clause 73.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

249: Before Schedule 10, insert the following new Schedule—
“ScheduleSexual offences against children under 16: consequential amendmentsFirearms Act 1968 (c.27)
1 (1) Paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Firearms Act 1968 (offences to which section 17(2) applies) is amended as follows.(2) In paragraph (f), for “(3)(a) to (d)” substitute “(2)(a) to (d)”.(3) After paragraph (f) insert—“(fa) section 8A (rape of a child under 16);(fb) section 8B (assault of a child under 16 by penetration);(fc) section 8C (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration), where the activity was caused;”.Internationally Protected Persons Act 1978 (c.17)
2 (1) Section 1(1A) of the Internationally Protected Persons Act 1978 (offences for purposes of section 1) is amended as follows.(2) In paragraph (e), for “(3)(a) to (d)” substitute “(2)(a) to (d)”.(3) After paragraph (e) insert—“(ea) an offence under section 8A or 8B of that Act;(eb) an offence under section 8C of that Act, where the activity involving penetration was caused;”.Suppression of Terrorism Act 1978 (c.26)
3 (1) Paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 to the Suppression of Terrorism Act 1978 is amended as follows.(2) In paragraph (d), for “(3)(a) to (d)” substitute “(2)(a) to (d)”.(3) After paragraph (d) insert—“(da) section 8A or 8B (rape of a child under 16; assault of a child under 16 by penetration);(db) section 8C (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration), where the activity was caused;”.Criminal Justice Act 1982 (c. 48)
4 (1) Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the Criminal Justice Act 1982 (early release of prisoners: excluded offences) is amended as follows.(2) In the entry for section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, for “(3)(a) to (d)” substitute “(2)(a) to (d)”.(3) After the entry for section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 insert— “Section 8A (rape of a child under 16).Section 8B (assault of a child under 16 by penetration).Section 8C (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration), where the activity was caused.”Children Act 1989 (c. 41)
5 In Schedule ZA1 to the Children Act 1989 (serious sexual offences for the purposes of section 10C), in paragraph 3 after paragraph (h) insert—“(ha) section 8A (rape of a child under 16);(hb) section 8B (assault of a child under 16 by penetration);(hc) section 8C (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration);”.Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c. 33)
6 (1) Section 25(2) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (offences to which bail restrictions apply) is amended as follows.(2) In paragraph (k), for “(3)(a) to (d)” substitute “(2)(a) to (d)”.(3) After paragraph (k) insert—“(ka) an offence under section 8A of that Act (rape of a child under 16);(kb) an offence under section 8B of that Act (assault of a child under 16 by penetration);(kc) an offence under section 8C of that Act (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration), where the activity was caused;”.Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995 (c. 53)
7 In section 11(9) of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995 (definition of “rape”), for “or 5” substitute “, 5 or 8A”.Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 (c. 43)
8 In section 32ZAB(1) of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 (specified offences for purposes of section 32ZAA), after paragraph (f) insert—“(fa) an offence under section 8A of that Act (rape of a child under 16);”.Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44)
9 (1) The Criminal Justice Act 2003 is amended as follows.(2) In section 256AZBB(1) (specified offences for purposes of section 256AZBA), after paragraph (e) insert—“(ea) an offence under section 8A of that Act (rape of a child under 16);”.(3) In Schedule 4 (qualifying offences for purposes of section 62), after paragraph 16 insert—“Rape of a child under 16
16A An offence under section 8A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.Attempted rape of a child under 16
16B An offence under section 1 of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 of attempting to commit an offence under section 8A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.Assault of a child under 16 by penetration
16C An offence under section 8B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.Causing a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration
16D An offence under section 8C of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 where it is alleged that the activity was caused.” (4) In Schedule 5 (qualifying offences for purposes of Part 10) after paragraph 15 insert—“Rape of a child under 16
15A An offence under section 8A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.Attempted rape of a child under 16
15B An offence under section 1 of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 of attempting to commit an offence under section 8A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.Assault of a child under 16 by penetration
15C An offence under section 8B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.Causing a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration
15D An offence under section 8C of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 where it is alleged that the activity was caused.”(5) In Part 2 of Schedule 15 (specified sexual offences for purposes of sections 244ZA and 325) after paragraph 109 insert—“109A An offence under section 8A of that Act (rape of a child under 16).109B An offence under section 8B of that Act (assault of a child under 16 by penetration).109C An offence under section 8C of that Act (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration).”(6) In paragraph 7 of Schedule 34A (child sex offences for purposes of section 327A), after paragraph (a) insert—“(aa) sections 8A to 8C of that Act (rape and other offences against children under 16);”.Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (c.12)
10 In section 116(8)(a) of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (offences constituting child sexual exploitation), after the entry for sections 5 to 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 insert—“sections 8A to 8C (rape and other offences against children under 16);”.Modern Slavery Act 2015 (c.30)
11 In paragraph 33 of Schedule 4 to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (sexual offences to which defence in section 45 does not apply), after the entry for section 8 insert—“section 8A (rape of child under 16)section 8B (assault of child under 16 by penetration)section 8C (causing or inciting child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration)”.Sentencing Act 2020 (c. 17)
12 (1) The Sentencing Code is amended as follows.(2) In Part 1 of Schedule 14 (extended sentences: the earlier offence condition: offences), in the table in paragraph 9, after the entry for section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 insert—

“(ga) Section 8A (rape of a child under 16)

(gb) Section 8B (assault of a child under 16 by penetration)

(gc) Section 8C (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration)”.

(3) In Part 1 of Schedule 15 (life sentence for second offence: listed offences), in paragraph 9, after the entry for section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 insert—

“(ga) section 8A (rape of a child under 16)	The date on which section 8A comes into force
(gb) section 8B (assault of a child under 16 by penetration)	The date on which section 8B comes into force
(gc) section 8C (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration)	The date on which section 8C comes into force”

(4) In Part 2 of Schedule 18 (specified sexual offences for purposes of section 306), in paragraph 38 after paragraph (h) insert—“(ha) section 8A (rape of a child under 16);(hb) section 8B (assault of a child under 16 by penetration);(hc) section 8C (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration);”.(5) In Schedule 19 (specified offences carrying maximum sentence of imprisonment for life), in the table in paragraph 20, after the entry for section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 insert—

“(fa) Section 8A (rape of a child under 16)

(fb) Section 8B (assault of a child under 16 by penetration)

(fc) Section 8C (causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration)”.”

Member's explanatory statement
This new Schedule makes minor and consequential amendments in relation to my new clause (Sexual offences against children under 16) inserted after clause 73.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

250: Schedule 10, page 318, line 35, at end insert—
“(ia) sections 8A to 8C (rape and other offences against children under 16);”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my new clause (Sexual offences against children under 16), inserted after clause 73.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

270: Clause 87, page 111, leave out lines 31 to 39
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment removes a provision which requires the courts to dismiss certain actions in respect of personal injuries attributable to child sex abuse if there would be substantial prejudice to the defendant and it would not be equitable for the action to proceed.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, government Amendment 270 makes a change to Clause 87. In making this change, the Government are responding to the concerns raised by some of your Lordships in Committee.

Clause 87 itself is vital; it removes the current three-year limitation period for personal injury claims brought by victims and survivors of child sexual abuse in respect of the abuse committed against them and gives effect to a recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. This is needed because many victims and survivors are not able to talk—or even think—about the abuse they suffered until many years afterwards, which is a direct consequence of the abuse itself.

Clause 87 inserts new Section 11ZB into the Limitation Act 1980 because it is that Act that makes provision for the dismissal of actions which are outside the time limit for personal injury claims. Under new Section 11ZB(2), if an action is brought outside the usual three-year limitation period, for it to be dismissed the defendant must satisfy the court that a fair hearing cannot take place. Under the current drafting of new Section 11ZB(3), the action may also be dismissed if the defendant demonstrates that allowing the action to proceed would cause them substantial prejudice.

We have listened carefully to the testimony of victims and survivors, and reflected on the amendments debated in Committee, all of which raised concerns about the substantial prejudice test. We decided that they were right. The retention of Section 11ZB(2) alone both implements the relevant IICSA recommendation and ensures that those accused of child sexual abuse maintain their right to a fair hearing. I am therefore pleased to say that Amendment 270 removes new Section 11ZB(3) from Clause 87.

Many have spoken about this, and I pay tribute to them all, but I make special mention of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and Mr Stephen Bernard, who brought this to our attention swiftly. Mr Bernard spoke to me most movingly about his own experiences, and I thank him for this; he has played a big part in ensuring that the Government reached this decision. I beg to move.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, as I mentioned at Second Reading, I am very proud that with Clause 87 this Government abolished the time limitations in historical Church child sexual abuse cases. Survivors such as my friend Stephen Bernard, whom my noble friend the Minister referenced, were concerned that the clause, as originally drafted, added a new substantial prejudice, especially for historical cases. This created uncertainty, delays and an extra hurdle for survivors.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for listening to the concerns of survivors such as Stephen, and for tabling Amendment 270. With the removal of lines 31 to 39, the IICSA recommendation has now been adopted in full, thus ensuring better access to justice for the survivors of historical sexual abuse. I am very grateful to my noble friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this is a significant amendment which my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower, with the support of noble Lords from across your Lordships’ House, originally tabled as a probing amendment in Committee. The removal of new Section 11ZB(3) from the Bill is important. If it had remained in the Bill, it would have weakened the removal of limitation periods for civil claims arising from child sexual abuse, correctly introduced by the proceeding provision new Section 11ZA. By removing subsection (3), it is fair to say we send a clear message that the law recognises the particular trauma and complexity that so often characterises historic cases of child sexual abuse.

In Committee, we moved the amendment on the grounds that new Section 11ZB added uncertainty for survivors. Noble Lords from across the House raised concerns then, and have mentioned them today as well, that an additional hurdle could undermine the purpose of the reform and create ambiguity for claimants. I am therefore very pleased that the Minister has had a change of heart. I am tempted to explore further the reasons behind that, but for the time being, I thank her for the change of heart.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all Members of your Lordships’ House who welcomed this government amendment. On the matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, sadly the courts are very used to dealing with non-recent cases of child sexual abuse and the issues of loss of evidence and loss of opportunity to present matters, and I am confident that the courts will be able to deal with that in a fair way. I am pleased to hear that there is overall support for the amendment. I thank again those who raised this with us in Committee, and I beg to move.

Amendment 270 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

271: Clause 89, page 113, line 13, after “to” insert “semen-defaced images,”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment creating a new offence of sharing semen-defaced images (see my amendment to Schedule 11, page 321, line 19).

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an honour to be opening today’s debate on intimate image abuse. It gives me great pleasure to be able to say that, over the course of the passage of this Bill in your Lordships’ House, I have had a number of extremely helpful conversations on the subjects of pornography, child sexual abuse images, misogyny and a lot of other subjects which, while often distasteful, are important in the fight against violence against women and girls. We will cover some of those issues in this group and others in subsequent groups. I want to say, in relation to all of them, how grateful I am to those Members of your Lordships’ House who have taken the time to speak to me and work with me.

In the context of this group, I pay tribute to the noble Baronesses, Lady Owen, Lady Kidron, Lady Brinton and Lady Doocey, and the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Clement-Jones. A substantial part of my career as a lawyer has been spent in the fight against violence against women and children—not only girls—and I thought that I was pretty knowledgeable about it in the context of the criminal law, but I am more than happy to acknowledge that I have learned a great deal from those to whom I have spoken in the context of this Bill, and I pay particular tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. On a number of occasions, I have changed my mind after speaking to them and I have no doubt that this is a better Bill as a result, and so I thank them.

As a result of what has been said in the debates and other conversations, the Government have tabled a collection of amendments that, taken together, create a package of further changes that strengthen the overall intimate image abuse regime already contained in the Bill. I hope that your Lordships will agree that they show that the Government are listening and acting.

I have already mentioned the noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, but I also thank Professor Clare McGlynn; they have both worked hard to keep these issues at the top of the agenda. These amendments are also a tribute to the vital work of organisations such the Revenge Porn Helpline and Refuge and, of course, the victims and survivors themselves, who have taken the courageous and important step of reporting online abuse and raising awareness.

I have already said that I am proud of these amendments, but I am aware that, for some, they do not go far enough. I ask those who will speak to their amendments today to accept two things: that we are all on the same side about the harm that we are trying to prevent and that I am truly committed to trying to get this right. When I say that I cannot accede to something, there is a good reason for it, and I am not refusing to accept amendments for partisan reasons or simply out of stubbornness.

This landscape changes fast and usually not for the better, but there is a reason that we sometimes urge caution before creating new criminal offences and penalties. There can be real dangers in making piecemeal changes as soon as we are confronted by some new horrifying behaviour causing harm to so many victims. It is the responsibility of the Government to ensure that we do not legislate in haste and then come to regret it. If, in relation to some of these proposals, I ask that the Government are given time to gather more evidence and then consider the best way of going about preventing such behaviour, I ask your Lordships to accept that this comes from a good place—namely, wanting to make sure that any laws we pass capture the crimes we have in mind but do not have unanticipated consequences.

I turn to semen-defaced images. This is not a pleasant thing to discuss in polite society, but I need to make it clear what is meant by this, what the harm is and what we are doing in relation to it. What is meant by semen-defaced images are images of semen deposited on to another image, often a photograph and usually a photograph of a woman. It is disgraceful behaviour. It is designed to degrade and humiliate the woman in the picture, and we cannot tolerate this misogynistic behaviour in a civilised society. The noble Baroness, Lady Owen, persuaded me that we should make this a criminal offence and so we have done so. That is why the Government are bringing forward Amendments 271, 278, 279, 290 and 292 today. Together, they introduce a new offence of sharing a semen-defaced image of another person without consent.

This is the first step in stamping out this type of behaviour for good, but it is not the end. We are determined to tackle violence against women and girls in all its forms, and we want to ensure that the criminal law gets ahead of emerging harms. That is why we have announced in the VAWG strategy that we are launching a call for evidence better to understand online misogynistic, image-based abuse and the extent to which there are new harms and behaviour that may not be fully captured by existing criminal offences.

The issue of screenshotting was also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, at Second Reading and in Committee. Intimate images are personal and private. Consenting adults are of course free to share them and may do so in ways that are permanent or temporary. A person’s right to share their image temporarily in private must be respected, and if there is a violation of that right, it must be addressed. Government Amendments 281, 282, 283, 285, 286, 287, 288, 291, 293, 294 and 295, taken together, make it a criminal offence non-consensually to take a screenshot of, or copy in any way, an intimate image that the victim has shared only temporarily. This offence sits alongside, and mirrors wherever relevant, the other intimate image offences, and it sends a clear message to those who engage in this non-consensual behaviour that it is unacceptable and will be punished.

I briefly turn to the subject of takedown. I know that Amendment 275, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, will be debated later today in a separate group, but I will take a moment to mention the announcement made by the Prime Minister on 19 February. We will bring forward government Amendments at Third Reading in response to Amendment 275 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, to ensure that tech companies are legally required to have measures to take down reported non-consensual intimate image abuse within 48 hours to ensure that victims get rapid protection. It is important to refer to this now to demonstrate the Government’s action in this space as a whole. Where we have been able to, we have moved. I hope that your Lordships will bear that in mind as we progress through this debate.

I am also pleased to say that Amendments 296 and 456 designate new offences in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to criminalise creating and requesting purported deepfake, non-consensual intimate images as priority offences under the Online Safety Act. As many of your Lordships will know, this means that platforms will face the stronger duties that apply to the most serious illegal content. They will be required to assess specifically the risks of the service being used to facilitate this offence; to mitigate and manage the risk of the service being used to commit the offence; to take proactive steps to prevent users encountering such content; and to minimise the time that such content is present on their platform. There has been understandable public concern over the creation and dissemination of non-consensual sexual deepfakes on X, and the Government have been clear that no woman or child should live in fear of having their image sexually manipulated. These amendments help put that principle into practice.

Finally, Amendment 455 makes a small minor and technical change in respect of the taking and installing offences in the Bill, and I can provide further details if any of your Lordships would like them. I beg to move.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 273, 274, 275, 276, 284 and 296A in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Pannick, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. In doing so, I declare an interest as I have received pro bono legal advice from Mishcon de Reya on image-based sexual abuse. I will also speak to government Amendments 278, 281 and 296. I want to place on record my support for Amendment 277 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey.

I thank the Minister for her determination to make progress on this issue. We have made huge strides since Committee, and I am very grateful. I also thank the survivors and campaigners who have fought for so long for these changes.

Amendment 273 seeks to ensure that in relation to abusers who are convicted of an intimate image abuse offence the court must,

“order the destruction of any content used to commit the offence on any device or data store containing”

it, and that prosecutors,

“lodge a deletion verification report within 28 days”.

While I acknowledge that the Government have updated the law to clarify that this content should be seen as being used to commit the offence under Section 153 of the Sentencing Act 2020, this does not offer victims any guarantee of the total destruction of the content used to commit the crime.

One survivor, Daria, whose convicted abuser was allowed to keep the content of her, said, “The weapons with which he caused life-shattering harm remain in his arsenal. Despite the severity of the crimes, as reflected in the sentences handed down by the Crown Court, I remain at his mercy with regard to whether he chooses to violate me again in the same way”. Daria is not alone in her experience. Shanti Das, a journalist who undertook research on this and published in February 2025, found that of the 98 image-based abuse offences prosecuted in magistrates’ courts in England and Wales in the preceding six months, only three resulted in deprivation orders. It is quite simply appalling. Survivors of this abuse deserve better. On this amendment, I will test the opinion of the House.

Amendments 274 and 276 mandate the Secretary of State to bring forward regulations to create a centralised statutory hash registry and mandate hash sharing. The Revenge Porn Helpline currently runs the voluntary register called StopNCII.org and has confirmed that it would be willing to run the centralised registry. The Revenge Porn Helpline does incredible work supporting victims of intimate image abuse and has a 90% success rate on the removal of content. However, 10% of the content is on non-compliant sites.

The amendment seeks to tackle non-compliance by allowing the Revenge Porn Helpline to co-ordinate with internet service providers to mandate the blocking of verified NCII content in cases of non-compliance, thus avoiding the long and bureaucratic process of obtaining business disruption measures under Ofcom that are of little comfort to victims whose image remains online. One victim, Jane, stated that,

“the platform’s slow and inconsistent enforcement left me feeling trapped in a relentless cycle, where the harm snowballed with every hour the abusive content stayed up. Constantly monitoring the internet, reporting the same material, and watching it reappear has taken a huge mental toll”.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, the people-pleaser in me would love to be able to say, “Oh, go on then— I will accept them all and make everybody happy”, but I am afraid there are some good reasons why I cannot accept some of these amendments. I am going to try to respond to them all as briefly as possible, in the hope of explaining why the Government do not consider these amendments necessary in some cases, and do not consider it desirable for them to be done through the unwieldy mechanism of primary legislation in others.

I start with Amendment 273 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, on deletion orders. I say at the outset that the Government of course recognise the harm caused by those who retain copies of intimate images, and we want to ensure that the legal framework protects victims. We agree that it is a no-brainer about the principle, but, for reasons I will come to in a moment, it is not as simple to enact as it might seem.

The noble Baroness has correctly identified that there is a difference between depriving offenders of devices that have been used, and actually getting rid of—deleting—the images themselves. If there is an issue about insufficient judges making deprivation orders for devices, then we must tackle that. This amendment is not the solution to that. Indeed, if she is right that judges are proving to be reluctant, there is a risk that, even if this deletion order provision came into force, they might be reluctant to do that as well. That is not the way to tackle judges not making the orders.

We must make sure that what we do is workable. Verified deletion is highly complex in practice. There are a number of challenges concerning, for example, images stored in the cloud. The noble Baroness’s amendment is very short on the practical measures that would be needed to make it effective, such as how the verification is to be carried out, what the penalty would be for an offender who refuses to comply with an order to provide the password, or what happens during the appeal period. For example, in the Crown Court, defendants have 28 days following conviction to lodge grounds for appeal. These are all significant drafting issues that present problems with the amendment as tabled by the noble Baroness, so we need to give this further thought.

As I said to the noble Baroness in Committee and during our recent meetings, we are already amending deprivation orders so that they can be applied to seize intimate images and any devices containing those images, regardless of whether the device was used in the offence itself.

One of the issues which concerns us is that only a fraction of the victims of intimate images go through the criminal justice system. Many victims do not want to go anywhere near a criminal court, so we want to look at the available remedies in the civil courts in order to ensure that these, too, will offer meaningful redress for victims.

But anything we do needs to be comprehensive and in a package that works well together, ensuring removal of these images as quickly as possible. That is why I am pleased to announce today that we intend to review the available court order protection for victims of intimate image abuse across civil and criminal courts. The review is going to include routes for deletion to ensure that it is fit for purpose, that it identifies necessary improvements and that it has attached to it all the consequential provisions that are needed to make sure that it is actually effective.

This is not an attempt by the Government to kick the can down the road. We want to get it right, and we want it to have material value. We do not want to create something that does not work so judges do not use it. But we do not think a court order available in the criminal court addresses this problem as a whole, and that is why we need to take time to think more comprehensively about a tailored solution, working for victims and for criminal justice partners. The noble Baroness, Lady Owen, Professor McGlynn and I have discussed this, and I hope that the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment today in the light of that announcement.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. The amendment, as she understands, imposes a duty on judges. Therefore, there is no question of a judge deciding not to use it. More substantially, I am very concerned about the delay that will result if the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, does not move her amendment. Surely, the proper way to deal with this is for the Government to accept the amendment, and, if they will not, for the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, to move it. If the Government wish, as they are perfectly entitled to, to add or to subtract, they can do so at Third Reading or, perhaps more realistically, in the other place. They will have plenty of time to do that; let us get on today and put this into law.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I will say two things in response to the noble Lord. The first is that the criminal courts tend not to be very keen on provisions that they regard as complex when they come at the end of a sentencing hearing. They tend to react by saying, “We’re going to leave this to be dealt with through some other mechanism because it’s too complicated. We can’t work out how to verify it”—the sorts of objections that occasionally are made in relation to, for example, very complicated compensation orders or confiscation orders. The second point is that there is, as I have already said, a real risk in piecemeal legislation that you bring in provisions for one court that then do not work in the read-across from the civil courts. On the civil courts, we cannot do that today.

We need to do this quickly, and we absolutely recognise this. After all, there is no point in saying that we take this stuff seriously and then saying that we are not going to do anything about getting rid of the images. It is illogical, apart from anything else, as well as perhaps not being very moral either. I ask the noble Baroness to accept the sincerity of what we say. That is as far as I can go today.

I turn now to Amendment 274, again in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. I understand and agree with what she is trying to achieve. The only issue between us is whether this is the right way to do it. Ofcom has already consulted on additional safety measures for its illegal content codes of practice. These proposed measures explicitly include the use of perceptual hash-matching technology to detect and remove non-consensual intimate imagery, including deepfakes.

To be deemed compliant with their Online Safety Act duties by following the codes, services would need to deploy this technology automatically to identify and remove such content, providing victims with reassurance that their images are being removed swiftly. Given the urgent need to strengthen protection in this area, Ofcom announced on 19 February that it is accelerating timelines and will publish its final decision on these proposals on the use of hash matching in May, with measures expected to come into effect by the summer.

We consider that the work of Ofcom meets the aims of the noble Baroness’s amendment. The protection that she seeks will be delivered promptly and robustly through Ofcom’s forthcoming codes of practice. It is an area where unnecessarily imposing duties in statute, especially where work is already in progress, could have the adverse effect of restricting the flexibility of this work should it need to respond and change to the ever-changing online landscape in the future.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

The Prime Minister launched his strategy for tackling non-compliance by saying that it would be a “one and done” system. Does the Minister acknowledge that the Ofcom system is not a “one and done” system? It is dependent on a series of factors, including whether all service providers choose to adopt third-party hashing. If they choose to operate their own hash database where they do not share the hashes, it is not a “one and done” system. I would really like to tidy up the confusion here between whether the Prime Minister is right or what is being said here is correct.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is right. The difference between us is what we understand by the system. The Government’s position is that the Ofcom system will achieve what the Prime Minister said he wanted to achieve. That is the difference between the noble Baroness and me. I am not sure that I can go any further than that this evening.

I turn now to Amendment 276, once again in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, on the NCII register. The Government recognise the vital work undertaken by the Revenge Porn Helpline, including operating a database of existing hashes of non-consensual intimate images that are shared with participating companies to detect and remove the images online. We recognise the benefits that a register of verified NCII content would provide, including the important role that it could play in supporting victims in the removal of the content.

This is one of those instances where the issue between us is whether it is necessary or desirable to put it on a statutory footing. The Government’s position is that it is not a necessity for its success and needs very careful consideration, especially to ensure that an NCII register aligns with the process taken by the Internet Watch Foundation’s register for child sexual abuse imagery, which operates successfully and has never been on a statutory footing, and to avoid any unintended consequences. For this reason, I confirm that the Government are committing to undertake a preliminary evaluation to determine the operational needs and impact of establishing a successful central register for non-consensual intimate image abuse.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

I think it is important to clarify for the sake of the House that, with regard to the Internet Watch Foundation’s CSAM register, CSAM is illegal in and of itself. NCII—non-consensual intimate image—material is not illegal in and of itself. Therefore, a voluntary system will not work. It needs to be on a statutory footing.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I do not think anyone is suggesting that it should be voluntary. It is simply whether it should be established through primary legislation or regulation. I used the expression earlier about the unwieldiness of primary legislation. After all, one of the problems with legislating through primary legislation is that, if you get it wrong, you have to try to amend it or repeal it, whereas if you have regulations, particularly backed up by enforcement powers, it is a much nimbler way of going about things. That is the issue between us.

The evaluation will also assess critical considerations that are still outstanding, including the effect that such a registry has on intermediary liability and what is needed to establish robust verification procedures. The findings will be used to guide next steps to ensure that any options are sustainable and effective and work alongside existing regulation for platforms.

Turning again to semen-defaced images and Amendments 284 and 296A, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, as I said when opening this group, the Government agree with her that semen imagery is disgusting behaviour. That is exactly why we have brought forward our own amendments to criminalise the sharing of a semen-defaced image without consent. The inclusion of

“semen … on any part of their body”,

as in the noble Baroness’s amendment, is unnecessary, because such images would already fall within the scope of the intimate image offences. To answer her question directly, I can confirm that the example she gave will, and should, already be covered by the existing legislation. The noble Baroness asked whether we can, in effect, require the CPS to amend its guidance to make it clearer. The CPS is, of course, an independent organisation—constitutionally, importantly so—but we can certainly look at asking the CPS whether it would be prepared to do so.

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[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I am sure the whole House agrees with, in essence, what Amendment 273 says, but I also noted from my noble friend that it is much more complex than I had understood. I am sure that she is as frustrated as everyone else that these things take time, and I wonder whether she is able to give us any timeline. Sorry, I am an optimist, but this is an extremely important amendment. I will be supporting the Government, but it would be good to know if we are talking about months or whatever, because obviously we want to see this in statute as soon as possible.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I do not think I can quite express how unpopular I would be if I suddenly, on the hoof, came out with a time. All I can say is that we are committed to doing this quickly.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I emphasise that we have talked about drafting issues on Amendment 273. Obviously, I do not want to delay proceedings, but I remind the House that I first brought up forced deletion in September 2024, so the issue has been before the House now for about 17 months. It was in the Data (Use and Access) Bill in December 2024, when the Minister said, “There’s no problem here because it should be seen under Section 153 of the Sentencing Act 2020”. This is not working, and the only answer really is to deal with the matter tonight.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

272: After Clause 89, insert the following new Clause—
“Purported intimate image generators(1) The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is amended as follows.(2) After section 66H insert— “66I Making or supplying purported intimate image generators(1) A person commits an offence if the person—(a) makes or adapts a thing, or(b) supplies or offers to supply a thing,for use as a generator of purported intimate images.(2) A “generator of purported intimate images” is a thing for creating, or facilitating the creation of, purported intimate images of a person.(3) A person makes, adapts, supplies, or offers to supply a thing for use as a generator of purported intimate images if a reasonable person (having regard to all the circumstances) would consider that they do so.(4) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they took all reasonable steps to prevent the thing being used for creating, or facilitating the creation of, purported intimate images of a person without the person’s consent.(5) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or a fine (or both).(6) Section 72(1) applies in relation to an act which, if done in England and Wales, would constitute an offence under this section as if references to a United Kingdom national included—(a) a body incorporated under the law of any part of the United Kingdom, or(b) an unincorporated association formed under the law of any part of the United Kingdom.(7) In this section—“purported intimate image” of a person, and references to creating a purported intimate image of a person, have the same meaning as in section 66E;“thing” includes a program, information in electronic form and a service.66J Section 66I: further defences(1) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under section 66I to prove that the person did the act which constituted the offence for the purposes of the prevention, detection or investigation of crime, or for the purposes of criminal proceedings, in any part of the world.(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under section 66I to prove that the person—(a) was a member of the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service or GCHQ (a “security body”), and(b) did the act which constituted the offence for the purposes of the exercise of any function of the security body.(3) “GCHQ” has the meaning given by section 3 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994.(4) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under section 66I to prove that the person—(a) was a member of OFCOM, was employed or engaged by OFCOM, or assisted OFCOM in the exercise of any of its online safety functions, and(b) did the act which constituted the offence for the purposes of OFCOM’s exercise of any of its online safety functions.(5) In subsection (4)—(a) “OFCOM” means the Office of Communications; (b) a reference to OFCOM’s “online safety functions” has the meaning given by section 235 of the Online Safety Act 2023.66K Section 66I: application to internet service providers(1) An internet service provider does not commit an offence under section 66I by—(a) providing access to a communication network, or(b) transmitting, in a communication network, information provided by a user, if the provider does not—(i) initiate the transmission,(ii) select the recipient of the transmission, or(iii) select or modify the information contained in the transmission.(2) The references in subsection (1) to providing access to, or transmitting information in, a communication network include storing the information transmitted so far as the storage—(a) is automatic, intermediate and transient,(b) is solely for the purpose of carrying out the transmission in the network, and(c) is for no longer than is reasonably necessary for the transmission.(3) An internet service provider does not commit an offence under section 66I by storing information provided by a user for transmission in a communication network if—(a) the storage of the information—(i) is automatic, intermediate and temporary, and(ii) is solely for the purpose of making more efficient the onward transmission of the information to other users at their request, and(b) the internet service provider—(i) does not modify the information,(ii) complies with any conditions attached to having access to the information, and(iii) on knowing of a matter within subsection (4), promptly removes the information or disables access to it.(4) The matters within this subsection are that—(a) the information at the initial source of the transmission has been removed from the network,(b) access to it has been disabled, or(c) a court or administrative authority has ordered the removal from the network of, or the disablement of access to, the information.(5) An internet service provider does not commit an offence under section 66I by storing information provided by a user who is not acting under the authority or control of the provider if—(a) when the information was provided the provider did not know that it was, or contained, a generator of purported intimate images, and(b) on knowing that the information was, or contained, a generator of purported intimate images, the provider promptly removed the information or disabled access to it.(6) In this section—“generator of purported intimate images” has the same meaning as in section 66I;“internet service provider” means a provider of—(a) a service that is made available by means of the internet, or(b) a service that provides access to the internet; “user”, in relation to an internet service provider, means a user of a service provided by the internet service provider.66L Liability for offence under section 66I committed by bodies(1) This section applies where an offence under section 66I is committed by a body.(2) If the offence is committed with the consent or connivance of—(a) a relevant person in relation to the body, or(b) a person purporting to act in the capacity of a relevant person in relation to the body,the person (as well as the body) commits the offence and is liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.(3) In this section—“body” means a body corporate, a partnership or an unincorporated association other than a partnership;“relevant person” , in relation to a body, means—(a) in the case of a body corporate other than one whose affairs are managed by its members, a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body;(b) in the case of a limited liability partnership or other body corporate whose affairs are managed by its members, a member who exercises functions of management with respect to it;(c) in the case of a limited partnership, a general partner (within the meaning given by section 3 of the Limited Partnerships Act 1907);(d) in the case of any other partnership, a partner;(e) in the case of an unincorporated association other than a partnership, a person who exercises functions of management with respect to it.”(3) In section 79(5) (meaning of references to image of a person), for “and 66G” substitute “, 66G and 66I”.(4) In paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 (sexual offences for purposes of section 72), after paragraph (c) insert—“(ca) an offence under section 66I;”.(5) In Schedule 3 (sexual offences for purposes of Part 2), after paragraph 33B insert—“33C An offence under section 66I of this Act (purported intimate image generators), if the offender is sentenced in respect of the offence to imprisonment for a term of at least 12 months.””Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause creates offences of making, adapting, supplying or offering to supply a generator of purported intimate images.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to be opening this group with the introduction of government Amendments 272, 297, 449, 450 and 458. I once again thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, for the insightful recommendations in her pornography review. I also thank her for meeting me on a number of occasions over the last few months, and for the cordial and constructive tone of those meetings.

There is very little between the Government and the noble Baroness in our objectives. We recognise that her intention is to prevent the deeply unpleasant and damaging effect of what happens in both the online and offline worlds, including the effects upon our children. I hope and believe she also recognises that I am sincere when I say that we want to achieve the same thing. Where possible, the Government have tried to deliver on the issues that she has raised, and I thank her for the time she has taken to talk them through with us. I know that she has some concerns with regard to certain aspects of these amendments, to which I will respond later, but first I will speak to the government amendments.

I start with nudification apps. Together, Amendments 272 and 449 introduce a new offence that will ban the making, adapting, supplying or offer to supply of a tool or service for use as a generator of intimate images. The offence will give effect to our violence against women and girls strategy commitment to ban nudification tools. The offence will capture intimate image generators in all their unpleasant forms, including, but not limited to, apps, software, websites, AI models and bots. To be captured by the criminal offence, the tool must be made or supplied for the use of generating purported intimate images, irrespective of whether that is a primary purpose. The nudification tool ban will be the first of its kind in the world, and it will target the developers and suppliers who profit from the profound distress and victimisation of others. We will work with international partners and fora to tackle this issue.

The Government are committed to tackling the scourge of non-consensual sexual deepfakes and will continue to act to ensure that artificial intelligence cannot be misused to generate this abusive content. In addition to banning image generators, we have announced that we will table an amendment to the Bill to allow the Government to bring additional chatbots into the scope of the Online Safety Act and require them to protect their users from illegal content, including non-consensual intimate images. We will also work with international partners and fora to tackle this issue. Once the offence is in force, the Online Safety Act will impose requirements on social media and search services to have processes and systems in place to remove illegal content that supplies or offers to supply nudification tools, and this will significantly limit their accessibility to users in the UK.

I turn to another unpleasant topic: incest. It is with some pride that I bring forward Amendments 297, 450 and 458. Together, these amendments criminalise the possession or publication of pornographic images that portray sexual activity between family members, otherwise known unattractively as incest porn. In doing so, we give effect to one of the key recommendations of the Independent Review of Pornography by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. I know that she will soon speak to a cluster of her own amendments on this issue but, before she does, I place on record my sincere thanks to her for the vital role that she has played in bringing forward this important change.

We know there are concerns that the proliferation of incest-themed pornography can contribute to extremely harmful attitudes, particularly where it risks normalising child sexual abuse. The government amendment recognises those concerns. We are also pleased to announce that the new offence will be listed as a priority offence under the Online Safety Act, requiring platforms to take proactive and proportionate steps to stop this harmful material appearing online.

The offence as it stands will not capture pornography depicting relationships between step-relatives. This is a controversial topic, but such relationships are not illegal in real life. To be clear, though, any pornography involving real children, whether a step element is present or not, is already criminalised under the Protection of Children Act 1978. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bertin (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 298, 297A to 297D, 281A, 300 and 300A in my name. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, in particular, who has worked on this issue for so many years, the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for adding their names to this set of amendments.

One thing is clear from the past few weeks: the status quo that has allowed abuse, misogyny, paedophilia and the exploitation of women and girls to flourish cannot continue. The recent release of the Epstein files, which were porn-drenched, should be our moment of reckoning, a moment that forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about power, complicity and the systems that allow abuse to thrive in plain sight.

One of those systems is the modern online pornography industry. This House knows my steadfast commitment to bringing effective regulation to that sector, and I believe that this group of amendments will bring about this much-needed reset. It is a sector that has been driven to abusive extremes by powerful, profit-driven algorithms, too often monetising sexual violence and degradation. Categories such as “barely legal” may claim legality because performers are over 18, but the aesthetic is deliberate: youth, vulnerability and childhood. They are a fig leaf for the sexualisation of minors. Exploitation and trafficking are rife. Sexual abuse material remains far too easy to find on these sites, and many survivors tell us that what is filmed as content is in reality recorded abuse. This cannot continue.

Amendment 298, when tabled, had the intention of closing the gaping disparity between offline and online regulation. If content cannot be legally sold in a shop or on a DVD, it should not be freely available online. For decades, physical distribution has had classification, compliance and enforcement; online, self-regulation still dominates. This amendment sets out in clear terms the material that must not be distributed online. This is based on the BBFC’s guidelines and therefore mirrors what is illegal and prohibited offline, bringing parity across regimes. It also provides for an independent auditing body working alongside Ofcom—I would suggest the BBFC but I am not being specific on that—to carry out spot checks and audits of pornography so that content that would never meet the criteria for physical distribution is detected and removed, not simply noticed and ignored.

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Amendment 300A is an important amendment that would close the loophole in the current law whereby actors over the age of 18 create sexual contexts that depict the indecent sexualisation of children. That represents an overt endorsement and encouragement of child sexual abuse, and such a state of affairs is plainly wrong. I thank my noble friend for her efforts to rectify this issue. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government of course sympathise with the intention behind all these amendments. They raise important but tricky issues. I am pleased that they have received such an extensive airing this evening, and I apologise in advance for the fact that this speech is a bit longer than some of the others, but some of these are complicated. I know that some of what I will say will not be what some of your Lordships may wish to hear. I remind the House that the Government have moved on some of the important issues raised, and I assure your Lordships that we have no intention of stopping here. But there are some areas that need further consideration and others where we have genuine operational concerns.

We are committed to continuing to work with the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. I and my fellow Ministers in the Home Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have immensely valued her time and expertise in our meetings with her. It is because of this direct engagement that we have brought forward some of the amendments today. They are entirely to her credit, and I hope we can continue the discussions.

On nudification apps, we have sympathy with the underlying objective of Amendment 281A, but we do not believe that it is necessary for two reasons. First, the aim of Amendment 281A is already captured by the recently commenced Section 66E of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which bans individuals from using nudification tools to create intimate images without consent. Section 66B of the 2003 Act bans anyone from sharing such images once they have been created.

Secondly, nudification tools are commonly accessed online—for example, via a website, an AI model or a chatbot. A person using a tool will not necessarily possess or have downloaded the relevant software or model. That means that Amendment 281A would risk creating an unworkable discrepancy between very similar tools being accessed via different means. For example, it might capture a tool if it was downloaded as code by a user but not if it was accessed as a website. For this reason, we have focused the government amendment on banning the creation and the supply of such tools, rather than just the software. The Government are confident that the combined effect of the new offence in government Amendment 272, along with regulation via the Online Safety Act and existing criminal offences banning individuals from creating and sharing intimate images without consent, is an effective package in tackling this egregious harm in all its forms.

[Baroness Bertin (Con)]

I promise not to interrupt the Minister too much, but what about the point that it will not extend beyond UK apps?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

This is always the problem with criminal offences, which is why, on occasions, the Government have said that we want to urge caution before creating criminal offences when things that can be dealt with through regulation have a much wider reach. One drawback of criminal offences is that they typically apply only where prosecutors are able to establish UK jurisdiction. To provide some extraterritorial effect, we have ensured that Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act applies to this offence, which will enable prosecutors to target overseas offending by UK nationals, bodies and associations. But the regulations—

[Baroness Bertin (Con)]

I accept that and, let us face it, this is the wrong Bill for this piece of legislation— I am prepared to accept that. I know that this is a criminal Bill, but surely the Government and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have to accept—and make the point on the Floor of this House—that they will therefore re-open the Online Safety Act and bring regulation in to support the very good amendments that they are putting in at this point, or my Amendment 281A.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

These are exactly the conversations that we wish to carry on having, on how to best go about this to make sure that we achieve the aim that we are all trying to get to: getting rid of these horrible things. I would like to continue the conversation with the noble Baroness in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, stressed that there was undue emphasis on intention and states of mind. Again, this is the problem with criminal offences: we do not create criminal offences where people who have done something accidentally end up being criminalised. That is why, on occasions, we say that regulation may be a better tool. The noble Baroness is looking outraged.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

No, I dare not tackle the noble Baroness on legal matters—what we do and do not do in the law—but, if you accidentally poison children’s food, you do not get a free pass. There are all sorts of places and spaces that have to—

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

We will continue this, but with the greatest of respect to the noble Baroness, the fact is that all criminal offences, pretty much, apart from those that are strict liability offences, which are pretty unpopular in the criminal law—[Interruption.] We will discuss this later, but take it from me that it is very rare to criminalise something that is done accidentally.

I turn now to incest. As I said earlier today, the Government have tabled a cluster of amendments that seek to go further than Amendment 299 by criminalising the possession and publication of pornography that depicts sexual activity between both adult and child family members. The reason for doing that is that it makes it more straightforward for law enforcement and regulators to tackle the harmful content, as pornography that portrays a family relationship will be criminalised and the prosecutor does not need to have to prove that the person concerned is under 18 or is a child. It can be very difficult to prove that the person is actually a child. We therefore consider government Amendment 297 to more robustly address the harm that the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, seeks to address.

I turn to the noble Baroness’s Amendments 297AA, 297B, 297C and 297D. Although I understand why she wishes to extend the Government’s amendment to a wider range of relationships, it is important that your Lordships understand that such an extension would criminalise sexual relationships that are lawful between adults in real life. With her Amendment 298, the noble Baroness has specifically sought to include that. It would go further than offline regulation, where some portrayals of step-relative relationships are classified, provided they are not in any way abusive in nature.

In addition, this change proposed by the noble Baroness’s amendment would significantly increase the complexity of the offence. For example, if the pornographic image depicted sex between step-siblings, operational partners would then also have to consider whether the persons live or have lived together, or whether one person is or has been regularly involved in caring for the other. It would be challenging for the police and the CPS to determine and ultimately prosecute. The intention behind the Government’s amendments is to make it as straightforward as possible to enforce and prosecute. That said, although I appreciate what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve, I urge her not to press her amendment.

Turning now to parity, I put on record that the Government accept the principle at the heart of Amendment 298 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. There is a clear and urgent need for greater parity between the treatment of harmful pornography online and offline. This Government, who have prioritised tackling all forms of violence against women and girls, will show the leadership necessary to deliver it. We have, with thanks to the noble Baroness, already taken steps in the Bill to criminalise some of the most egregious forms of content that are currently mainstream online. The strangulation pornography offence added in Committee and the further changes we are bringing forward today on incest pornography have been added because of the noble Baroness. These matters are now prohibited under offline regulation.

Acknowledging that the changing online world brings new challenges that must be tackled to address emerging harms, we will also be reviewing the criminal law relating to pornography to assess its effectiveness. We will ensure that our online regulatory framework keeps pace with these changes to the criminal law. Delivery of parity in regulatory treatment has already started. Once enforced, these offences will become priority offences under the Online Safety Act, requiring platforms to have proportionate systems and processes in place to prevent UK users encountering this content. This should stop this abhorrent content circulating unchecked on online platforms, where right now it is being recommended to unwitting users.

While these measures mark a significant step forward in protecting individuals online, we acknowledge that they do not address the totality of the complex question on parity. The current offline regime relies on checks on individual pieces of content, which can consider wider context and nuance in a way that does not easily translate to the scale and speed of online content. For this reason, we cannot accept the noble Baroness’s amendment, but because we completely agree with the need for greater parity, the Government are committing our joint pornography team, which was announced as part of the VAWG strategy, to produce a delivery plan within six months of Royal Assent.

Crucially, the delivery plan will set out how, not whether, the Government can most effectively close the gap. This will include consideration of how a new approach can address other potentially harmful content, such as pornography portraying step-incest relationships or adults role-playing as children. The delivery plan will thoroughly test which approach will be most effective by testing audit and reporting functions and considering how this can be done at scale to achieve the desired impact. The plan will also consider how and which regulatory frameworks can best address the issue, noting the interactions with the BBFC’s existing remit and that of Ofcom under the Online Safety Act, and how to ensure that there is effective enforcement in any future system. It will examine the case for tools, including fines and business disruption measures. We will keep up the pace. I can commit to including clear timelines for implementation in the plan, and we will keep them as short as possible, factoring in the possible need for legislation, subject to parliamentary timing. I know that my fellow Ministers will welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, joining us as we conduct this work.

[Baroness Bertin (Con)]

I want to say thank you. The Minister has just made a very big announcement and I thank her, because she has acknowledged parity, and I hope that she will therefore be using regulation to make sure that we absolutely do create that level playing field. I just want to acknowledge that.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I turn to Amendment 300. While we accept the intended aim of this amendment, we cannot accept the proposed approach. The part of the amendment relating to the withdrawal of consent and its application to professional entertainment contracts has a number of practical implications. Where content is produced legally, as with the wider film industry, the rules and regulations governing its use are usually a commercial matter to be agreed between the performer and the production company, taking into account the intellectual property framework. I add that much of the content captured by this proposed offence is already illegal. The creation, distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material and sharing an intimate image without consent are already criminal offences.

The law is also crystal clear about the distribution of indecent images of children. Under the Protection of Children Act 1978, the UK has a strict prohibition on the taking, making, circulation and possession with a view to distribution of any indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child under 18. That said, as I said earlier this evening, we accept that there is harmful material, including content that is non-consensual and displays child sexual abuse, that remains online, and that is not good enough. So, while we cannot support the amendment today, we are keen once again to work with the noble Baroness further to consider existing best practice in the area and, where there are gaps, how these can be filled. The outcome of the work on parity to which we have committed today will also influence consideration of how this amendment could be regulated.

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[Baroness Bertin (Con)]

Law enforcement is already duty bound to investigate any material that may contain a child, so I do not believe that the amendment would suddenly create a whole load of legal activity that could stop the protection of children. I just do not accept that.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The concern expressed by law enforcement is that it would divert resources from what they are doing at the moment. We will consider this issue as part of our rapid work on parity, and we will also consider the issue as part of our broader work on reviewing the criminal law. I do not underestimate the importance of all these matters. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for the length of time it has taken me to deal with them. My hope is that your Lordships will take the commitments that I have made and the government amendments that I have tabled as a sign of the Government’s genuine intention. Take it from me: we will go further, but we must get these issues right. In the meantime, with every respect, I ask the noble Baroness not to press her amendment.

Amendment 272 agreed.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 2nd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her amendment, which would place a duty on the Secretary of State, within 12 months of the Act being passed, to make provisions for the way in which offences of sharing intimate images are reported and the mechanisms by which content is removed by the relevant internet service. I understand that the Government have given my noble friend an undertaking for Third Reading, and I am pleased that they have done so.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to put on record that this Government completely accept and agree with the intention that underlies this amendment. That is why, as I said earlier, the Government will introduce a legal duty for tech platforms to take down reported non-consensual intimate image abuse within 48 hours, to ensure that victims get rapid protection. This change, which will be brought forward at Third Reading, will create a strong, enforceable foundation for getting harmful material removed from online circulation, so that victims are no longer left chasing platforms for action. To support swift and effective action to remove this material by internet infrastructure providers, we will also explore any barriers to blocking and how this can be addressed. This will help ensure that rogue sites operating outside the scope of the Online Safety Act will be targeted. I appreciate the noble Baroness’s eagerness to see this change brought about quickly, but as the Government intend to bring forward amendments to this effect at Third Reading, I hope she will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

Can the Minister confirm to the House that not only will the Government be bringing forward amendments but if I am not satisfied with them, I may bring back my own?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Yes.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

May I just check that that is an undertaking? We have a nod. Thank you. I am very pleased that we will return to this issue at Third Reading, but for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

278: Schedule 11, page 321, line 19, at end insert—
“1A After section 66A insert—“66AA Sharing semen-defaced image(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—(a) A intentionally shares a semen-defaced image of another person (B),(b) B does not consent to the sharing of the semen-defaced image, and(c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.(2) A “semen-defaced image” of a person (B) is—(a) a photograph or film which—(i) shows, or appears to show, B, and(ii) has, or appears to have, semen on it or in its immediate vicinity, or(b) a photograph or film of a photograph or film within paragraph (a). (3) “Photograph” includes the negative as well as the positive version.(4) “Film” means a moving image.(5) References to a photograph or film also include—(a) an image, whether made or altered by computer graphics or in any other way, which appears to be a photograph or film,(b) a copy of a photograph, film or image within paragraph (a), and(c) data stored by any means which is capable of conversion into a photograph, film or image within paragraph (a).(6) A person “shares” a semen-defaced image if the person, by any means, gives or shows it to another person or makes it available to another person.(7) But a provider of an internet service by means of which a semen-defaced image is shared is not to be regarded as a person who shares it.(8) For the purposes of subsection (1)—(a) “consent” to the sharing of a semen-defaced image includes general consent covering the particular act of sharing as well as specific consent to the particular act of sharing, and(b) whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.(9) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1) to prove that the person had a reasonable excuse for sharing the semen-defaced image.(10) A person (A) who shares a semen-defaced image of another person (B) does not commit an offence under subsection (1) if—(a) the semen-defaced image had, or A reasonably believes that it had, been previously publicly shared, and(b) B had, or A reasonably believes that A had, consented to the previous sharing.(11) A person who commits an offence under subsection (1) is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term for summary offences or a fine (or both).””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment creates a new offence of sharing a photograph or film of a person where the image has, or appears to have, semen on it or in its immediate vicinity, without the person’s consent.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

281: Schedule 11, page 324, line 13, at end insert—
“66AD Creating a copy of intimate photograph or film shared temporarily(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—(a) another person (B)— (i) shares with A a photograph or film which shows, or appears to show, B in an intimate state, and(ii) does so in such a way that A can view the photograph or film for a limited time, but cannot send it to another person,(b) A intentionally creates a copy of the photograph or film that A can view at other times,(c) A knows that the photograph or film is shared with A by B,(d) B does not consent to the creation of the copy, and(e) A does not reasonably believe that B consents to the creation of the copy.(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a)(ii)—(a) the cases in which A can view the photograph or film for a limited time include the case where A can view it for as long as B allows A to do so;(b) sending the photograph or film to another person does not include showing it to another person.(3) References in this section to creating a copy of a photograph or a film include —(a) creating a copy of part of a photograph or film, or(b) creating a copy of a photograph or film with modifications,where the copy shows, or appears to show, B in the intimate state in which B is shown, or appears to be shown, in the photograph or film.(4) Subsection (1) is subject to section 66AE (exemptions).(5) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1) to prove that the person had a reasonable excuse for creating the copy.(6) Section 76 applies to an offence under this section.(7) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term for summary offences or a fine (or both).66AE Creating a copy of intimate photograph or film shared temporarily: exemptions(1) A person (A) does not commit an offence under section 66AD(1) in relation to a photograph or film shared with A if—(a) the photograph or film was, or A reasonably believes that it was, taken or recorded in a place to which the public or a section of the public had or were permitted to have access (whether on payment or otherwise),(b) the person the photograph or film shows, or appears to show, in an intimate state (B) had no reasonable expectation of privacy from such a photograph or film being taken or recorded, and(c) B was, or A reasonably believes that B was, in the intimate state voluntarily.(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b), whether a person had a reasonable expectation of privacy from a photograph or film being taken or recorded is to be determined by reference to the circumstances that A reasonably believes to have existed at the time the photograph or film was taken or recorded.(3) A person (A) does not commit an offence under section 66AD(1) in relation to a photograph or film shared with A if—(a) the photograph or film had, or A reasonably believes that the photograph or film had, been previously publicly shared, and(b) B had, or A reasonably believes that B had, consented to the previous sharing.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment creates a new offence of creating a copy of a photograph or film showing, or appearing to show, a person in an intimate state, that has been shared with the person creating the copy only temporarily.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

282: Schedule 11, page 324, line 28, at end insert—
“(2A) In subsection (3), at the end insert “, or as a person with whom it is shared”.” Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that the provider of an internet service by means of which a photograph or film is shared is not regarded as a person with whom it is shared for the purposes of the offence in section 66AD of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (inserted by my amendment to Schedule 11, page 324, line 13).

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

285: Schedule 11, page 325, line 2, after the first “(3)” insert “66AD(1), 66AE(3)(b)”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment applies the definition of consent in section 66D(10) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to the new sections inserted by my amendment to Schedule 11, page 324, line 13.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

290: Schedule 11, page 325, line 18, at end insert—
“(za) section 66AA;”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment extends the time limit for prosecuting the offence in new section 66AA of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (inserted by my amendment to Schedule 11, page 321, line 19).

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

296: Schedule 11, page 330, line 21, at end insert—
“Online Safety Act 2023 (c. 50)
23 In Schedule 7 to the Online Safety Act 2023 (priority offences), in paragraph 28A (Sexual Offences Act 2003), at the end insert—“(c) section 66E (creating purported intimate image of adult);(d) section 66F (requesting the creation of purported intimate image of adult).””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment adds offences to Schedule 7 to the Online Safety Act 2023, requiring service providers to take action to identify and minimise users’ exposure to content created or requested in the commission of those offences and to mitigate the risk of services being used to commit those offences.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

297: After Clause 91, insert the following new Clause—
“Pornographic images of sex between relatives(1) After section 67D of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert—“67E Possession or publication of pornographic images of sex between relatives(1) It is an offence for a person (P) to be in possession of an image if—(a) the image is pornographic, within the meaning of section 63,(b) the image portrays, in an explicit and realistic way, a person (A) sexually penetrating—(i) the vagina or anus of another person (B) with a part of A’s body or anything else, or(ii) B’s mouth with A’s penis,(c) a reasonable person looking at the image would think that A and B were real, and(d) a reasonable person—(i) looking at the image, and(ii) taking into account any sound or information associated with the image,would think that A and B were related, or pretending to be related, in a way mentioned in subsection (2).(2) That is to say, A being related to B as parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece.(3) It is an offence for a person to publish an image of the kind mentioned in subsection (1).(4) Publishing an image includes giving or making it available to another person by any means.(5) For the purpose of subsection (1)(d)—(a) the reference to sound or information associated with the image is—(i) when subsection (1)(d) applies for the purpose of an offence under subsection (1), to sound, or information, associated with the image that is in P’s possession, and(ii) when subsection (1)(d) applies for the purpose of an offence under subsection (3), to sound, or information, associated with the image that the person in subsection (3) publishes with the image, and(b) A and B are not to be taken as pretending to be related if it is fanciful that they are actually related in the way pretended.(6) In subsection (2)—“(a) “parent” includes an adoptive parent;“(b) “child” includes an adopted person within the meaning of Chapter 4 of Part 1 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002;“(c) “uncle” means the brother of a person’s parent, and “aunt” has a corresponding meaning;“(d) “nephew” means the child of a person’s brother or sister, and “niece” has a corresponding meaning.(7) For the purpose of this section—“(a) “image” has the same meaning as in section 63;(b) penetration is a continuing act from entry to withdrawal;“(c) “vagina” includes vulva; (d) references to a part of the body include references to a part surgically constructed (in particular through gender reassignment surgery).(8) Subsections (1) and (3) do not apply to excluded images, within the meaning of section 64.(9) Nothing in—(a) section 47 of the Adoption Act 1976 (which disapplies the status provisions in section 39 of that Act for the purposes of this section in relation to adoptions before 30 December 2005), or(b) section 74 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (which disapplies the status provisions in section 67 of that Act for those purposes in relation to adoptions on or after that date),is to be read as preventing the application of section 39 of the Adoption Act 1976 or section 67 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 for the purposes of subsection (6)(a) or (b).(10) Proceedings for an offence under this section may not be instituted except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.67F Defences to offence under section 67E(1) Where a person is charged with an offence under section 67E(1), it is a defence for the person to prove any of the matters mentioned in subsection (2).(2) The matters are—(a) that the person had a legitimate reason for being in possession of the image concerned;(b) that the person had not seen the image concerned and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, it to be an image of the kind mentioned in section 67E(1);(c) that the person—(i) was sent the image concerned without any prior request having been made by or on behalf of the person, and(ii) did not keep it for an unreasonable time;(d) that—(i) the person directly participated in the act portrayed as person A or B mentioned in section 67E(1)(b),(ii) the act did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual harm on any person, and(iii) the person is not related to person B or A (as the case may be) in a way mentioned in section 67E(2).(3) Where a person is charged with an offence under section 67E(3), it is a defence for a person to prove any of the matters mentioned in subsection (4).(4) The matters are—(a) that the person had a legitimate reason for publishing the image concerned to the persons to whom they published it;(b) that the person had not seen the image concerned and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, it to be an image of the kind mentioned in section 67E(1);(c) that—(i) the person directly participated in the act portrayed as person A or B mentioned in section 67E(1)(b),(ii) the act did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual harm on any person,(iii) the person is not related to person B or A (as the case may be) in a way mentioned in section 67E(2), and(iv) the person only published the image to person B or A (as the case may be).(5) In this section, “non-consensual harm” has the same meaning as in section 66. 67G Penalties for offences under section 67E(1) A person who commits an offence under section 67E(1) is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine (or both).(2) A person who commits an offence under section 67E(3) is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine (or both).”(2) In section 68 of that Act (special rules relating to providers of information society services), after “67A” (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert “and 67E”.(3) In Schedule 14 to that Act (special rules relating to providers of information society services), in paragraphs 3(1), 4(2) and 5(1) after “67A” (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert “or 67E”.(4) In section 47(1) of the Adoption Act 1976, for “or sections 64 and 65 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sex with an adult relative)” substitute “sections 64 and 65 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sex with an adult relative), or section 67E of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (possession or publication of pornographic images of sex between relatives)”.(5) In section 74(1) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002—(a) omit the “or” after paragraph (a);(b) after paragraph (b) insert “, or(c) section 67E of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (possession or publication of pornographic images of sex between relatives).”(6) In Schedule 34A to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (child sex offences for the purposes of section 327A), after paragraph 13ZA (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert—“13ZB An offence under section 67E of that Act (possession or publication of pornographic images of sex between relatives).”(7) In Schedule 7 to the Online Safety Act 2023 (priority offences), in paragraph 29, after paragraph (b) (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert “;(c) section 67E (possession or publication of pornographic images of sex between relatives)”.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment makes it an offence to possess or publish pornographic images of sex between relatives (that is to say, incest).

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

301: After Clause 94, insert the following new Clause—
“Sexual activity with an animal(1) The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (5).(2) For section 69 (intercourse with an animal) substitute—“69 Sexual activity with an animal(1) A person commits an offence if—(a) the person intentionally touches an animal (whether living or dead),(b) the person knows that, or is reckless as to whether, that is what is touched, and(c) the touching is sexual.(2) For the purposes of this section, touching is sexual if a reasonable person would consider that—(a) because of its nature it may be sexual, and(b) because of its circumstances or the purpose of any person in relation to it (or both) it is sexual.(3) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.” (3) In section 78 (meaning of “sexual”), after “66D” insert“, 69”.(4) In section 79 (Part 1: general interpretation) omit subsection (10).(5) In paragraphs 35 and 92 of Schedule 3 (sexual offences that make offender subject to notification requirements), for “intercourse” substitute “sexual activity”.(6) In the following provisions, for “intercourse” substitute “sexual activity”—(a) paragraph 151 of Schedule 15 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003;(b) paragraph 38(az) of Schedule 18 to the Sentencing Code.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment replaces the existing offence of intercourse with an animal with a wider offence of sexual activity with an animal.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, we have dealt with some unattractive topics already this evening, and we are about to embark on another one. Government Amendments 301, 302, 451 and 465 in my name deal with the unpalatable but very serious question of animal sexual abuse.

These amendments respond directly to concerns raised in both Houses. I am grateful to many noble Lords, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Black, Lord Blencathra and Lord Pannick, and Danny Chambers MP, all of whom argued persuasively that the current offence does not reflect the full range of abhorrent behaviour that we believe should be prohibited. I pay particular tribute to David Martin and Paula Boyden from the Links Group, who met me and provided the Government with further evidence.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken to the amendments in this group and I echo the thanks of my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood to the Minister for her remarks and for listening and acting on the concerns raised in Committee. I acknowledge the work of my noble friends Lord Black and Lord Blencathra, who are tireless champions of animal welfare and have worked effectively with the Government on the Bill.

We welcome the introduction of Amendment 301 and its consequential amendments, which build on the debate in Committee and update the offence of “intercourse with an animal” with a wider provision that covers all sexual activity, as we have heard. This area of law has long needed updating, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, and I am glad that the Government are doing it now. My noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood raised a couple of concerns that were worth highlighting. He said that to deprive an individual of animals that they own after they have been convicted is a logical next step. If the primary goal is to promote the welfare of animals, as I believe it is, it seems to me that the best way to achieve that would be to ensure that those who have been convicted are prevented from owning or having access to animals.

Similarly, he spoke about the discrepancy in sentences and that does not seem to make complete sense, as it stands. I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness has to say in reply.

My noble friend also mentioned the possession and sharing of animal pornography. I am sure that there is not much appetite for further discussion of pornography today, but this is an important issue, and I would be grateful if the Minister could commit to considering measures to curbing animal pornography in the future.

Finally, these Benches wholly support the intention behind the amendment in the names of my noble friends. In the interest of brevity, I will not repeat the statistics or arguments raised by my noble friend Lord Black in his speech, but the evidence base is clear and irrefutable. It seems there is a causal link between animal abuse and domestic abuse and sexual violence. As he highlighted, pets are often used to coerce and control victims of domestic abuse. There seems to be institutional knowledge within relevant authorities that this is happening and yet we lack the safeguards to address it. My noble friend also mentioned the tragic case of Holly Bramley.

The cost/benefit of this measure is hard to argue against. The child sex offender register, a current practice that uses the same principle, costs just £1.92 million per year. I suggest that we would be in similar sums for this. I understand that the Minister may not be able to offer her support to this measure at this point, but I hope that it is something that the Government will return to in the future.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Black, Lord Blencathra, Lord Pannick and Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for welcoming the Government amendments today and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for the flattering remarks that he made which were very welcome after a long day in your Lordships’ House. I am pleased to hear that the amendments have this support and, once again, I thank those who raised this with us in Committee.

This new offence is focused solely on strengthening the criminal offence relating to sexual abuse of animals, given the scope of this Bill. To establish this offence, the new offence that the Government are bringing today, the prosecution does not have to prove that the animal actually suffered, because this was sometimes an obstacle to prosecutions in the past. This was something that we were persuaded of during the meetings with the noble Lord and those who came with him. Where the conduct has caused the animal to suffer, the defendant can be charged with an offence under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, for which orders such as removing the animal from the offender’s ownership, rehoming or destroying the animal, or disqualifying the offender from keeping animals are available. It is not either or—they can both be charged at the same time. It is quite common with criminal behaviour.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

The Minister says that the accused could be charged. Charged and prosecuted by whom?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Although the RSPCA conventionally prosecutes, there is nothing to stop the Crown Prosecution Service from prosecuting. If you had conduct that fell within both, you would not have two separate prosecutors bringing two separate sets of proceedings; it would be the Crown Prosecution Service for both. However, I understand the concerns. I am committing to continuing to engage with parliamentarians and key stakeholders on this issue. We will keep it under consideration.

As far as animal pornography is concerned—obviously a great worry to everybody—the offence of possession of extreme pornographic images under Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 already criminalises possession of pornographic images depicting extreme acts, which includes intercourse or oral sex with an animal, whether living or dead. We do not believe that further legislation is necessary.

Turning to the question of sentence, the current offence of intercourse with an animal carries a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment, which we will retain for the new offence. We do not have evidence at the moment that this is insufficient to enable the courts to deal appropriately with offending of this nature, but we know that, when animal suffering occurs, there are higher penalties available under the animal cruelty legislation, which—as has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—provides sentences of up to five years’ imprisonment. Once again, we will engage with parliamentarians and key stakeholders as to how the existing animal cruelty offences operate alongside the new offence. With that in mind, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Black, to withdraw—

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I am sorry for holding the House back this late at night. The Minister says that there is nothing to stop the CPS prosecuting for animal cruelty if it is prosecuting a case of sex with an animal and discovers cruelty. In that case, will she guarantee that the CPS will issue guidance to all its prosecutors that, where a prosecutor is prosecuting for animal sexual abuse and discovers animal cruelty, he or she will automatically prosecute it and not wait for the RPSCA to do it God knows when?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The difficulty is that the Crown Prosecution Service, as a matter of constitutional convention, is independent of the Government and does not take well to being told what to do by them. However, we can raise this with it and ask whether it will look at it again. I beg to move.

Amendment 301 agreed.

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Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

302: Clause 95, page 122, line 12, leave out “paragraph 35” and insert “paragraphs 35 and 92”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment updates the wording of a reference to the offence of sexual activity with a corpse in paragraph 92 of Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I had written “I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones”, which I crossed out, and then “the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey”, which I also crossed out. I will now say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for bringing forward this amendment and for the careful way in which he outlined the basis for it.

We support the intention behind Clauses 115 and 116. These are serious offences, designed to capture those who deliberately encourage or assist serious self-harm. Precisely because the subject matter is so grave and so bound up with vulnerability, it is essential that the law is applied with clarity and care.

The amendment’s focus on consultation and guidance is pragmatic and proportionate, because policy in this area must be rooted in the lived experience of mental health professionals and legal practitioners, so guidance that distinguishes criminal intent from legitimate activity will be vital to avoid unintended consequences. For those reasons, we lend our support to the principle behind this amendment and look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I too had a speech that started off thanking the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I too crossed that out and wrote in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. I also now thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for moving this amendment.

I am, however, grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who is not in his place now, for meeting me to discuss his amendment. I think I was able to persuade him and to reassure him that guidance on the application of Clauses 115 and 116 is not necessary. I also wrote to him—I know I cleared the letter, and it may even have been the day before yesterday; I think I have just received a message saying that it may not have been sent until this afternoon, but it has definitely gone. We have placed a copy in the House Library. The letter was written with the intention that it could be sent to the various charities so that they could see exactly what I was saying.

As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and I discussed, the existing offence that these amendments seek to broaden, which is under Section 184 of the Online Safety Act, is already in active use by the CPS and law enforcement. We are not aware of any cases involving therapeutic support where prosecutors have struggled to determine whether a prosecution was appropriate. The CPS guidance is clear about the requirement of intention, which must be present to meet the threshold of the offence, and the CPS legal guidance will be updated to reflect the widened scope of the offence, which now covers conduct both online and in person.

The offence also contains two important safeguards. First, the defendant must intend to encourage or assist the serious self-harm. Secondly, their act must be capable of doing so. These safeguards ensure that vulnerable individuals and those providing mental health support are not also inadvertently captured.

I should make it clear that it is absolutely not the Government’s intention to target either vulnerable people or the therapeutic services that support them. The Government believe the offence as it operates now and as it will be expanded in the Bill is proportionate and targets only the most serious and culpable offending. I hope that the noble Lord is content with these reassurances and will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving that assurance. Having it repeated again at the Dispatch Box makes it easier for people to feel secure about this. That, along with the letter, which I am sure is a work of great wisdom, will add to the fact that we will have a defence in place, just in case there are misunderstandings. With that, I am prepared to withdraw the amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments illustrates exactly how sensitive and difficult these cases are, does it not? In some of the amendments, noble Lords are saying that firearms officers should be held to a different standard than the rest of the population, but, in the others, it is being argued that even a small additional protection for them and their families is too great a differential in treatment.

Against that background, I start with Amendments 393B to 393F, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I met the noble Lord, together with the noble Lords, Lord Faulks and Lord Black, and the News Media Association, and I thank them all for the interesting and constructive conversation that we had. The Government have considered the noble Lord’s amendments with great care. We understand, and entirely support, the principle of open justice and freedom of the press, but what is in issue here is trying to find the appropriate balance.

I am really sorry to have to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, whom I admire greatly, but the Government firmly believe that firearms officers face very real and specific risks from organised crime groups and violent offenders, and that this requires there should be a presumption that only their personal details should be withheld up until such time as they are convicted—and if they are acquitted, that their identity will remain protected.

In doing so, we recognise that firearms officers who are being prosecuted for discharging their firearm face a unique situation, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said. The threats they face before and after the trial are real and, unlike most defendants, if acquitted, they are simply unable to return to their old lives as innocent people. Firearms officers and their families have targets on their back, even if they are cleared of any wrongdoing.

This special set of circumstances requires a tailored response, and we believe that the Government’s proposals achieve the correct balance. Those who are opposed to establishing a presumption of anonymity until conviction have twin concerns: first, that there is insufficient evidence that this is necessary; and, secondly, that it represents the thin end of the wedge. I want to deal briefly with each argument in turn.

First, on the evidence that this is needed, there is no doubt that the threat faced by firearms officers is not theoretical. There are very real risks. As I set out in Committee, and will not repeat in detail, firearms officers can face serious death threats and other forms of intimidation, which also extend to their families. As evidence for the need, there is real concern that the revelation of the identity of police officers who are being prosecuted is having a negative effect on the recruitment and retention of these essential officers. I am not sure that these are exactly the same statistics that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has, but certainly those from the document on armed policing attrition and retention record that, since 2019, there has been a loss of 583 armed officers, or an 8.8% reduction. This is a very real concern.

What is important is that this measure does not force the courts to issue an anonymity order. It will not cause secret trials. Judges must still consider the interests of justice and they have an active duty to uphold open justice. Even if no party challenges the anonymity, they still must, in considering the interests of justice, assess whether a reporting direction is necessary and proportionate. Even when anonymity is granted, the proceedings will remain public and the evidence will be tested in open court.

I am afraid the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, is under a misapprehension about what this involves. The only restriction is removing the identity, so they will be referred to throughout all proceedings as Officer A. Everything else will be reported, and, in the event that they are convicted, anonymity will be rescinded and their identity will become known.

A further concern has been the ability of the media to challenge the making of such an order. The Government absolutely understand the point, and we offer the following reassurances. First, by virtue of Criminal Procedure Rule 6.2, courts must actively invite media representations whenever anonymity or reporting restrictions are under consideration, and the judge must create the opportunity for scrutiny.

Secondly, HMCTS has delivered a package of reforms to strengthen media access and support open justice in criminal courts. As part of this reform, every criminal court now has a new circulation list called the reporting restriction application notice list. This list includes contacts from the media distribution list who have specifically agreed to have their details shared with applicants for advance notice. They will be added as mandatory contacts to all reporting restriction application notice lists held by criminal courts to ensure service on their members. In addition, HMCTS has established a media engagement group to improve processes to better serve media professionals in criminal courts.

Thirdly, the law grants the media the right to appeal any decision to make a reporting direction or an anonymity order to the Court of Appeal. But here is one of the most important points: if a judge refuses to make an anonymity order, the prosecution and the defendant have no right of appeal. That is one of the reasons that the Government have decided that the starting point should be a presumption that anonymity is granted.

Would this be the thin end of the wedge? These are unique circumstances. The number of trials is tiny. In the past 10 years there have been two criminal trials for murder or manslaughter as a result of a fatal police shooting. By way of comparison, there have been 13 fatal police shootings since 2019-20. Clauses 168 to 171 have been carefully drafted to strike a lawful and proportionate balance between fundamental rights and the need to protect our firearms officers and their families.

I turn to Amendment 394, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and spoken to powerfully also by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. It is one of two amendments that take the opposite view to that advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick.

While we acknowledge, once again, the importance of firearms officers and the debt that we owe them, the Government are unable to support this amendment, for these reasons. It would fundamentally alter the basis upon which prosecutorial decisions are taken by introducing a statutory presumption against prosecution for a particular group of citizens, who in this case happen to be police officers. Without doubt, this would create a two-tier approach to prosecutions in the criminal justice system. All public prosecutorial decisions, as we have heard frequently this evening, are made in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which has statutory force. Its two-stage test has stood the test of time.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, suggests that the CPS is getting the decisions wrong because of the number of acquittals. With respect to the noble Lord, that rather misses the point. The CPS test is not to decide whether it prosecutes somebody who is guilty. If we knew they were guilty, we would not need the jury. The test is whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction. That is an exercise of judgment as to whether it is more likely than not that there will be a conviction. If so, and if the public interest stage is satisfied, the case is put before a jury, who decide whether or not they are actually guilty.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I understand and accept the distinction that she makes. Over the past 20 or 30 years, the concern for the police officers involved is that, on every occasion that the decision has been made, it has been wrong so far as the jury is concerned. It has left the officers believing, sometimes, that the way that the CPS has discharged its problem—with a public outcry about the shooting—has been to test it in a court, rather than making its own decision for which it should be accountable. I understand the distinction that the Minister makes, therefore, but it is spooky that on every occasion the CPS has got it wrong so far as juries are concerned.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, again, that is a fundamental misunderstanding. If the CPS had got it wrong, the judge would have withdrawn it at half-time. It would never have got as far as a jury. The two things —one of them being the fact that the jury has acquitted—simply do not correlate.

The noble Lord’s amendment gives no indication as to how this proposed test would fit with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, save that we would then have a two-tier system, with one rule for the police and another for the citizens they police. It is hard to see how such a situation could command public confidence.

As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said, the unique position of firearms officers will be taken into consideration at both stages of the full code test. In cases involving fatal police shootings, the Crown Prosecution Service already considers whether the officer’s actions were necessary and reasonable in the circumstances, as the officer honestly believed them to be, recognising how difficult it can be to make fine decisions in the heat of the moment. It is the same law that applies to every citizen. Prosecutions in these cases are very rare, reflecting the high threshold already applied; an additional statutory presumption is neither necessary nor appropriate.

Lastly, I turn to Amendment 403 from the noble Lord, Lord Carter, which was, as ever, attractively advanced by him. The Government’s position remains as it was in Committee: there cannot be a separate criminal law for police officers in homicide cases. The current legal framework already offers robust protection for those who act under a genuine and honest belief, even if that belief later proves to be mistaken. In any event, the Law Commission is considering the offence of homicide, and the Government will consider its report carefully in due course.

I am grateful for the debate that we have had today. It is clear that there are strongly held views on both sides, but the Government believe that they have struck the right balance to protect our highly valued armed police officers while not standing in the way of the principles of open justice and a single-tier justice system. For that reason, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by placing on record my gratitude to all the noble Lords who have led the campaign on this important issue, none more so than the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who has so ably championed this cause. I think it self-evident that we all acknowledge the harms that phones and social media are doing to our youth. I speak as a father of teenage children who are grappling with these very issues day to day.

This is most tragically brought to the fore when phones and social media lead to the death of children. Parents who face this unimaginable tragedy should be able to know what their child was accessing, and the evidence from these awful incidents should prove to the general public that steps have to be taken. I see no argument for why the police should not be required to collect evidence relating to potential digital harm, as indeed they are required to do for general causes of death. Similarly, if social media has in part led to the death of a child, the bare minimum that providers should do is to retain the data relating to the victim.

I too express gratitude to the Minister for considering the arguments raised in Committee and acting upon this. I understand that many in your Lordships’ House believe that Amendment 429A does not go far enough and that it does not place the desired duties on police forces. However, I welcome at least the start that this represents.

There is a tension, I fear, between what the Government are doing in your Lordships’ House—rightly, making concessions on the issue—and, at the same time, in the other place voting against further protections from online harms. The Minister’s amendment today places duties on providers. It is a short step from mandating data retention to enforcing age limits. This is not the time for that debate in its entirety, but it is worth putting it on the record. I reiterate my gratitude to all Members of your Lordships’ House who have campaigned on this important matter.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government remain grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and to the bereaved families who have raised concerns about the effectiveness of the existing framework for the preservation of online material that may be relevant to understanding a child’s death. I reiterate what I said in Committee: the loss of any child is a profound tragedy, and the Government are clear that we must take every possible step to safeguard children online.

I pay tribute to all the campaigners on this issue. Of course, I would be delighted to see Ellen Roome. I had the opportunity to meet her briefly; she was introduced to me by the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, outside the Chamber. It would be good to organise something formally and to include the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Barran. I will do what I can to find out what is happening with the inquest. Obviously, I cannot commit my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General to anything, but I will do what I can to find out what is happening.

I promised in Committee that the Government would consider how that framework could be amended to ensure that data preservation is applied consistently and as quickly as possible. We have done that: we listened and we have acted. I am delighted today to bring forward government Amendments 429A, 454A and 467AB, which require speedy data preservation in every case involving the death of a child aged five or above. The only exceptions to that will be where the child’s online activity is clearly irrelevant to their death or an investigation is plainly not necessary.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for her constructive engagement on the development of this provision. Our most recent meeting was this afternoon, where we did our best to move things forward; I will return to that in a moment. As I have emphasised to her, the Government’s firm intention is that a DPN request becomes the default and should be made in every case, unless the coroner is very clear from the outset that online data is not relevant to a child’s death. We will ensure that this expectation is clearly set out in the Explanatory Notes to the new provision. I will write to the Chief Coroner, asking her to consider issuing guidance for coroners on the application of the mandatory requirement and, crucially, the circumstances in which an exception may be appropriate.

The Government thought we had done enough and that we had done what was wanted of us, because we all agreed with the objectives. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has reservations, and I understand them. I hope that we can continue to discuss this, so that we can reach a position where everybody is happy that we are doing what we have set out to do.

On the time limit, this now mandatory policy will entail the preservation of a much greater volume of data, including that of third parties, than at present. As it preserves the data relating to the dead child, it will also sweep up those on the other end of the interaction—the third parties are the issue here. To ensure that it is proportionate, we are therefore reducing the initial retention period—not the overall retention period—to six months, which, in the majority of cases, should provide sufficient time for the coroner to decide whether the online evidence is relevant. It is not related to when the inquest takes place, because the coroners all start working on this long before the inquest actually opens. It is simply putting it in place so that they have time to make the decision. There is a provision to extend it. The coroner does not have to apply to extend it; it is much simpler than that—they simply have to decide to extend it. Therefore, more time can be secured by the coroner if it is not yet clear.

We will work with the Chief Coroner and operational partners to ensure that coroners are clear that a positive decision is needed at the six-month point on whether or not to extend a DPN. If there is any doubt, the default position should be to extend the DPN to ensure that the data is preserved until the inquest.

These amendments will make a minor change to the existing regulation-making power in Section 101 of the Online Safety Act, so that regulations setting out the kinds of services that will automatically receive a DPN can refer to ongoing research. That means they will remain current and will capture any new and emerging services that become popular with children.

Amendments 431 and 432, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would, as we are all aware, basically give effect to the same issue as the government amendments, but they include preserving data where online activity is not relevant to a child’s death. The reason for the difference is that the government amendments carve this out to reduce delay and diverting resources away from relevant cases. For that reason, we cannot accept the noble Baroness’s Amendments 431 and 432, as they would require a disproportionate retention of third-party data, which would risk breaching Article 8.

Finally, on Amendment 404 and the consequential Amendment 405, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, we agree that it is essential that the police both understand the powers available to them and can use those powers consistently to access all relevant information when investigating these cases, including digital material or content held on social media platforms. As the noble Baroness knows, the National Police Chiefs’ Council is developing guidance to improve awareness and to promote uniform use of these powers, and the Home Office is committed to working with the police on this issue.

I know how concerned your Lordships’ House is about the pace of change in some of these newer technologies. That is exactly why, for guidance to remain practical and effective, it must be able to evolve alongside the fast-changing technological developments and legal frameworks. That is why it is preferable not to set this guidance or its detail in primary legislation but instead to continue working with the police to ensure that this guidance is delivered soon and to a high standard.

For the reasons I have set out, I ask the noble Baroness not to press her amendments. I thank her again and thank all other noble Lords who have spoken for their collaboration and engagement on this important issue.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I thank all noble Lords who have supported this, not just tonight but on previous occasions, and I thank the Minister. Earlier this afternoon, we were looking for the perfect words. When she stood up, she said “clearly irrelevant” to the death of a child, and that would have been the perfect phrase to have in the Bill. I say it on the record. Maybe she can come back with a surprise at Third Reading.

I very much appreciate the work of the department and where the Government have met us, and I accept the point about the police. I say for one final time that, unfortunately, we have been round this three times. If this does not work, we will be back again with fury. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.