Headingley Incident

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for those questions. I can confirm that amendments will be tabled to the Crime and Policing Bill to strengthen the verification controls. I can also confirm that we will publish the review shortly, which will look at how to address this issue. As the whole House will know, there have been a number of these attacks in recent years and, as the noble Baroness rightly says, these types of weapons are available online. We do not know how many are owned in the country; of course, they are much more powerful than they were 10 or 20 years ago. It is a problem which the Government are very aware of and we will publish some recommendations soon.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will pursue the point on policing and ask the Minister what plans the Government have to make pub crawls such as the “Otley run” recognisable events, subject to the same laws and protections as events that take place at a single venue, such as the Manchester Arena, thereby providing the means to fund the additional policing needed—not least from some businesses that are making enormous profits while communities in Headingley feel increasingly under siege.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising that point; it is not one that I have heard before. I understand that one of the joys, if I can put it that way, of the “Otley run” is that it is done every week, mainly by students and very often in fancy dress. I did not know that there were calls for it to be regulated in some way. I will ask about that and, if appropriate, I will write to her, because I thought it was seen as a boon and an advantage to the local community that that run goes on regularly.