Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I will focus on disorder in public places and spaces, which is having such a detrimental effect on our lives. In doing so, I will concentrate on Clauses 37 and 38, which create a new stand-alone offence of assault against a retail worker and build on the aggravated offence contained in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. I support the two new measures in the Bill: I want to see violence against someone doing their job dealt with seriously. No one should be subject to random attacks while at work, and I should declare that, as a vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Customer Service, I do not want people who care deeply about giving great customer service to leave their jobs, or to deter anyone from taking up this kind of employment, which is essential and valuable to us in so many ways. I will say more about how in a moment.

First, however, the Institute of Customer Service tracking survey shows that violent abuse against all front-line service workers continues to rise. That means public transport workers, those who work in the hospitality trade, people who work in post offices and banks, delivery drivers and even utility engineers working on the streets. That is why the aggravated offence in the 2022 Act covers anyone, not just retail staff, providing a public-facing service or doing a public-facing job. I ask the Minister to say, when he comes to wind up, why the Bill’s stronger measures cover retail workers only.

All the people who do these public-facing jobs matter, not just because we need the services they provide but because, more often than not, they are the responsible person in charge of public spaces and places, so they need not just protection but our support to uphold our common standards, which are so important to maintaining good order and a civil society. That means that we must show respect for the authority of their roles in public settings, whether their authority in such situations is formal or informal. We need to give the people who do these jobs the recognition they deserve so they discharge their responsibilities well.

If we are to prevent violent criminal behaviour in public spaces becoming normalised, we must work together to tackle the low-level disorder and disrespect that we see on our streets, on public transport, in shops and elsewhere, which cause us to feel so despondent: litter dropping; feet on seats; watching videos or listening to music on our phones without headphones; queue-jumping; fare dodging; graffiti. Police presence on our streets is important. Rapid response from the police to actual crimes is vital, but we cannot keep creating new criminal offences and expect the police to deal with everything that has gone wrong in society. We as leaders, whether political, religious, business, public service or union, must use our authority to set, promote and honour the standards we know are vital for a healthy society, yet too often now treat as unimportant.

I would support expanding Clauses 37 and 38 to more than just retail workers for the reasons I have given, but I ask all the businesses, unions and trade bodies, which understandably want more legal protection for their workers, to think about what I have said. Likewise, we as legislators must do more than the easy bit of making new laws, as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier said. Tackling crime and disorder through better policing and stronger sentencing is important, but on its own it is not enough. We need to share and promote what the good citizens of this country want and expect from each other in our shared spaces. That is how we will create the right conditions for people to support each other and together make it harder for people to behave badly and do wrong.

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[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the almost 70 speakers in today’s debate. I start by declaring an interest on my own behalf. I am a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and have been for 46 years. That will obviously have an impact on my view of the measures on shop theft and assaults on shop workers.

I am pleased tonight to have the broad support of HM Opposition and, indeed, the broad support of the Liberal Democrat Benches—with some caveats from both. I look forward to the noble and learned Lord’s amendments in Committee. I cannot give him a response tonight on those details, but we will have plenty of time to discuss that. In saying that, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, the noble Baronesses, Lady Browning and Lady Fox of Buckley, and others mentioned the length of time for debate and the size of the Bill. Indeed, so did my noble friend Lord Hacking. We will have time for that, and it will be discussed through the usual channels. I look forward to a full and frank debate on this matter in due course.

The Bill deals with a number of key issues, and Members have talked about a theme in it. There are several themes in this Bill: making our communities safe, strengthening child sexual abuse prevention, tackling anti-social behaviour and knife crime and, dare I say it, supporting free speech—while at the same time ensuring that we have some measures on protests. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Lords, Lord Frost and Lord Vaizey, and indeed my noble friend Lord Hacking said that there is a mixture in this Bill, that it does not have a theme and that it is very large. It is a government programme, much of it based on a manifesto commitment. As my noble friend Lady Levitt mentioned in her excellent maiden speech from this Front Bench on a Second Reading debate, it is a manifesto commitment from the Government to do most of the things in this Bill, and therefore we are going to do most of the things in it, with the support of this House and the House of Commons.

A lot of issues in the debate have been about legislative proposals, certainly, but we have touched on neighbourhood policing, courts, speeding, police presence, speeding up justice, police numbers, et cetera. My noble friend Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate mentioned that. The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, talked about delivery, which is extremely important. Those things are not in the Bill, but they are extremely important matters that are before us today.

I shall concentrate, if I may, on what is actually in the Bill and the points that have been debated by noble Lords today. Let me start with respect orders and youth diversion orders, which were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. Respect orders are a substantial new power that gives police and authorities effective levers to deal with anti-social behaviour. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, made some criticism of them and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, challenges them as well. We believe them to be an effective tool, and we will have a chance to debate that in due course in Committee.

Youth diversion orders are an important measure. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, that we will come back to them, but they are designed to help prevent terrorism and prevent people drifting into terrorism.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey, Lady Stowell, Lady Hazarika and Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lords, Lord Herbert, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Davies of Gower, all raised the issue of shop theft. Shop theft is extremely important, and something we should not tolerate. That is why we are removing the £200 threshold, are putting a focus on it with policing and have encouraged police forces to tackle it. The measures that we are removing will send a signal. It is still for judicial discretion, but it will send a very strong signal—as will, on the issue of mobile phone theft, giving tracking powers for officers to be able to visit a premise straightaway. I look forward to debating them, but it is important to take action.

The issue closest to my heart in this Bill is that of retail workers and attacks on retail workers. The noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell, Lady Doocey, Lady Thornton, Lady Browning and Lady Fox, and my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton contributed to this debate. This is a long-standing campaign, which is why I declare my membership of USDAW. When in the House of Commons I moved amendments on this issue over many years, and I appreciate very much the support of my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton and the members of USDAW, along with the businesses—the Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and others—that have raised this issue. The new offence will put in place an obligation to ensure that those who uphold the law—which is what colleagues do in shops on solvent abuse, cigarette sales and alcohol—are also protected by the law. I hope that will have good support.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

Before the Minister moves on, will he respond to my question? Why have the Government decided to legislate only for that group of workers?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The argument I will put to the noble Baroness now is that shop workers are upholding the law on solvent abuse, alcohol, cigarette sales and other things. There will be representations on other areas, and we will examine those representations, but I really want to get this over the line after a long campaign. I hope that the noble Baroness will support those measures, whatever amendments she may bring forward.

There has been considerable debate around civil liberties from the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, Lady Chakrabarti, Lady Doocey and Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, my noble friend Lord Cashman and others. We are making some changes, and we will bring some further changes forward, but the principle of this is that we are trying to ensure that we have freedom of speech and the right to protest, but that we also have the right to ensure that protest is managed in an effective way. There are responsibilities in protest as well as the right to protest.

We have looked at the question of the Vagrancy Act; the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned that in particular. The Government have been clear that no one should be criminalised, which is why we are repealing the outdated 1824 Act. We are committed to a repeal of the Vagrancy Act once a replacement can be determined. I hope that clarifies that for him.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, among many other issues that I will come back to in a moment, raised the issue of policing and suicide. We are working closely with the National Police Wellbeing Service to examine that.

There has been a major debate from noble Lords and noble Baronesses on the question of child exploitation, child sexual abuse and the IICSA implementation. The noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Hamwee, Lady Royall, Lady Benjamin, Lady Kidron, Lady Cash and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Faulks, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and others all raised and discussed that issue. We are going to have a big debate on this. We are trying to meet the IICSA recommendations. The Private Member’s Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, stretches us a bit further. We will have a discussion around that. I hope that this Bill, at the end of its process in this House, will have achieved an improvement in child protection services as a whole.

We have also had a discussion around the big issue of abortion, raised by many Members: the noble Baronesses, Lady Spielman, Lady O’Loan, Lady Coffey, Lady Mattinson, Lady Hazarika, Lady Thornton, Lady Lawlor and Lady Monckton, the noble Lords, Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, Lord Jackson, Lord Frost, Lord Farmer and Lord Hampton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. There are different pressures on that: some want that provision taken out and some want it maintained. The Government will remain neutral on this matter and facilitate whatever Parliament agrees and settles on in the end. We will look at those issues, and the Government will have a free vote on that matter as a whole.

The issue of police misconduct and police vetting was raised very strongly by my noble friend Lady Lawrence, the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, and others, particularly in the light of the “Panorama” investigation we touched on in Question Time today. There are a number of measures in the Bill to support strengthening police vetting, and I very much welcome those and hope they will be looked at positively in the future.

Knife crime was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Hampton, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Birt, and my noble friend Lady Lawrence. Again, the measures in the Bill are designed to regulate the supply of knives by people who wish to use those knives in a way that is not conducive to good behaviour and that causes death, misery and injury. We have to take those actions, and I think it is important that we do so.

There has been a lot of discussion around the issue of hate crime. First of all, I want to touch on the issue raised by my noble friends Lady Donaghy and Lord Cashman and the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green: the aggravated offence. It was a Labour manifesto commitment at the general election. We are carefully considering now how best to amend the law to ensure the protected characteristics have that fairness. We will set out our conclusions later, during the passage of the Bill, but that commitment has been given and we will examine that in due course.

That leads me on to the question, a live issue for noble Lords, of non-crime hate incidents. The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, indicated very strongly what has happened in relation to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and I am grateful to him for his support in giving the review on this matter. We have recently had discussions from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and others in the House, including the noble Lord, Lord Young, about this matter, and we are going to have a debate about it, but I am hoping that the review that the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, has instigated will help colour whatever amendments are brought forward. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned it as well. It is important that we have that debate and discussion, but I want it to be influenced by the review from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, if noble Lords think that is appropriate.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the pornography review, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, in particular for the work she has done on that. The noble Baronesses, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, Lady Kidron and Lady Sugg, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and my noble friend Lady Donaghy all made contributions today on the pornography review. We are committed to taking any necessary action following consideration of the noble Baroness’s recommendations. We have committed to criminalising pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation in this Bill, and we will bring forward an amendment to that effect. Where we can, in relation to the recommendations of the noble Baroness’s report, we will take early action to undertake that as a whole.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned honour-based abuse, and I am grateful to her—I was looking for her, and she was there when we started but has now moved over there. She called for a statutory definition of so-called honour-based abuse, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. We will work closely with the honour-based abuse sector to develop that statutory definition. We have given that commitment. I agree that it is vital that all professionals with safeguarding responsibilities have the right framework to identify victims and perpetrators, and I will be looking at that during the passage of this Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, mentioned spiking. It is an important measure and, again, I will reflect on the points she made in this discussion.

I was pleased by the welcome from the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, for the measures on cuckolding—