Crime and Policing Bill

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matt Vickers]

One of the things we were doing was putting record funding into policing and putting a record number of police on the streets. The one thing we were not doing was taxing our police forces off the streets. We were making huge progress.

I would also like to mention Sergeant Dave Catlow of the Metropolitan police, who joined us last week. He is doing great work on this issue.

New clause 130 proposes three key changes. First, fines for perpetrators would equate to the cost of replacing equipment, repairing the damage caused and the loss of work. Secondly, theft of tools would be treated as an aggravated offence, meaning tougher sentences for the crooks who steal tradesmen’s vital equipment. Finally, councils would be required to put in place an enforcement plan to crack down on the sale of stolen tools at car boot sales.

I will also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) for her campaigning on this issue. I know how much she, too, wants to see action on tool theft. As the Minister knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) brought the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 through the House. It could make a real difference on this issue. Will the Minister confirm when the Government will table a statutory instrument to put it into action?

I turn to non-crime hate incidents. New clause 7 would change legislation and guidance to remove the recording and retention of non-crime hate incidents. The use of non-crime hate incidents has spiralled out of all control and well beyond its originally intended purpose. The deal should be simple: if the law is broken, justice must be served. But non-crime hate incidents are a different beast—you did not break the law; you just said something daft and ended up logged on police records like a criminal. We need our police on the streets, not policing hurty words on Twitter. We have all seen the utterly barmy story of a nine-year-old who insulted another pupil in the playground. Is that unkind? Yes, of course it is. But instead of a quiet word with a teacher or a call to the parents, the police were brought in. I appeal to Members across the House—would they want that happening to their child, or would they rather give them a proper telling-off at home?

This also has a bigger effect. Our police officers are being tied up documenting playground spats and Twitter comments, treating childish jibes like national security threats, while real crimes such as burglary, robbery and even violent offences are being pushed to the back of the queue. In fact, research from Policy Exchange has found that, nationally, over 60,000 police hours are being spent on non-crime hate incidents. Our police need to get back to keeping our streets safe, not policing silly words or childish playground issues.

Before concluding my remarks, I would like to draw the House’s attention to some of the Opposition’s other amendment that could protect our communities and keep our streets safe. We would have been voting today on new clause 144 to secure that national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs—a scandal that is our country’s shame. Child sexual exploitation ruins lives; preying on the most vulnerable in our communities, exploiting them for horrific sexual acts and often coercing them into a life of crime. A national inquiry is what the victims wanted, so I am glad that the Prime Minister has finally U-turned, given into the pressure and joined what he described as the far-right bandwagon of people who wanted a national inquiry.

As the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, we must not have another whitewash. The national inquiry must ask the hard questions and leave no stone unturned. Criminal investigations must run in parallel to the inquiry. It must look at the whole system—Whitehall, the Crown Prosecution Service, the police and local authorities—and wherever there is wrongdoing, there should be prosecutions. Foreign perpetrators must be immediately deported, and the inquiry must be fully independent, with statutory powers covering all relevant towns. Local councils simply cannot be left to investigate themselves.

New clause 125 aims to reinstate people’s confidence in policing. We have recently seen the perverse anti-racism commitment issued by the National Police Chiefs’ Council. It calls for arrest rates to be artificially engineered to be the same across racial groups. Advice to treat black and white suspects differently is morally indefensible. It is, by definition, two-tier policing. It undermines trust and confidence in our police. This new clause would give the Home Secretary the power to amend or require the withdrawal of any code of practice intended to direct policing practices.

New clause 139 makes provisions in relation to off-road bikes. I know many Members across the House know the havoc being caused by them in local communities. The issue has been raised by Members on both sides of the House numerous times in Westminster Hall and in this place, and the tweak in approach that features in this Bill will simply not be enough. Using alternative legislation, the police are already able to seize off-road bikes without notice. The new clause would remove the prohibition on the police entering a private dwelling to confiscate an off-road bike and ensure that police destroyed seized bikes rather than selling them back into the market. I urge the Minister—in fact, I beg her—to look again comprehensively at how we tackle the scourge of off-road bikes.

I would also like to draw the House’s attention to new clause 131, which would introduce mandatory deportation for foreign nationals found in possession of child sexual abuse images. These sick paedophiles have no place in our country and they, along with all foreign offenders, should be deported.

To conclude, the British people want our police to be able to focus on putting real criminals behind bars—the thieves who nick our hard-working tradesmen’s tools—not spending time policing playground squabbles and treating them like crimes. Our Opposition new clauses are common-sense changes that I hope the whole House will get behind, protecting victims and restoring policing to what it is meant to be: tackling crime on our streets.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

I thank all hon. and right hon. Members, including the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), and the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) who have taken part in the debate, and in particular those who have brought forward new clauses. There are well over 100 new clauses in this group, so I am sure the House will appreciate that, sadly, I will not be able to cover them all. I will do my best in the time remaining to respond to as many as I can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Happy to.

[Amanda Martin]

I thank the Minister for acknowledging how tool theft affects people’s lives. Does she agree that this is not just about police on our streets and arrests, but about sentencing, and will she work with me, across Departments, to ensure that the aggravated circumstances powers that the courts already have reflect the real cost of such crime?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Yes, I am very happy to do that. I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking this campaign forward and on being such a worthy advocate for it. We take the issue very seriously and we are fully committed to implementing the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023. We are finalising our plans for commencement and we will update the House in due course.

[Nick Timothy]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am going to keep going, because I am conscious that I do not have much time.

To reiterate to the shadow Minister what I said in Committee, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been clear that a consistent and common-sense approach must be taken with non-crime hate incidents. Accordingly, it has been agreed with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing that they will conduct a review of this area. I say to the shadow Minister that it was the shadow Home Secretary, when he was the Policing Minister, who introduced the current code of practice and police guidance on non-crime hate incidents. He said:

“The Government fully recognises the importance of ensuring that vulnerable individuals, groups and communities continue to be protected by the police; indeed, this is the purpose of non-crime hate incident recording. We are confident that the code does precisely this.”

It seems odd that he said that the approach was right at that stage, but now he wants to scrap it.

On new clause 144, I was disappointed that the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) seemed to have missed the announcement made by the Home Secretary on Monday, which answered a number of her questions. The shadow Minister did not seem to be aware of the announcement either. Using existing legislation in the Inquiries Act 2005, the independent commission will be set up under a national inquiry with full powers to compel individuals to testify, with the aim of holding institutions to account for current and historic failures in their response to group-based child sexual exploitation. The Home Secretary was clear that she is accepting all the recommendations from Baroness Casey.

[Esther McVey]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

No, I am going to carry on.

The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) mentioned new clauses 87 and 88. This Government have been clear that water companies must accelerate action to reduce pollution to the environment. The Water (Special Measures) Act, which received Royal Assent earlier this year, significantly strengthens the power of the regulators and delivers on the Government’s commitment to put failing water companies under special measures. Among other measures, the Act introduced automatic penalties on polluters and banned bonuses for water company executives if they fail to meet adequate standards.

[Esther McVey]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

No.

On new clauses 85 and 86 about neighbourhood policing, it is clear that this Government are starting to implement our neighbourhood policing guarantee.

On new clause 13, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson), the Government recognise the serious consequences that can result from joint enterprise convictions. However, joint enterprise ensures that those who act together in committing a crime are all held responsible. We saw that in the cases of Ben Kinsella and Garry Newlove, as well as many others. We are aware of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend and we will continue to look at that.

I apologise to right hon. and hon. Members for not being able to get through all 100 amendments that were tabled. I also need to leave time for the person whose new clause leads the group to respond.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the new clause.

New clause 2, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 7

Abolition of non-crime hate incidents

“(1) Non-crime hate incidents as a special category of incident to be recognised by police authorities are abolished. Reporting, recording and investigation of such incidents should occur only in the limited circumstances provided for in this section.

(2) For the purposes of Article 6(1) of the UK GDPR, section 35 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (“the Act”) and Article 8 of the Law Enforcement Directive, the processing of relevant data by a police authority is unlawful.

(3) In this section, “relevant data” means personal data relating to the conduct or alleged of a data subject which is unlikely to constitute criminal conduct and which has been perceived by another person to be motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility or prejudice towards one or more persons who have or who are or have been perceived to have one or more relevant characteristics and with that hostility or prejudice arising due to that or the perception of those protected characteristics.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (3), the following are relevant characteristics—

(a) race,

(b) religion,

(c) sexual orientation,

(d) disability,

(e) transgender identity.

(5) Subsection (2) does not apply in respect of the processing of relevant data—

(a) pursuant to an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution,

(b) for the purposes of the internal administrative functions of the police authority.

(6) Subsection (2) does not apply in respect of the retention of a record (a “non-crime perception record”) of relevant data where a police officer (the “certifying officer”) of the rank of inspector or above certifies that in their opinion the retention of the non-crime perception record is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct which may occur in the future.

(7) Where a certifying officer certifies the retention of a non-crime perception record pursuant to subsection (6)—

(a) the certifying officer must include in the record a description of the future criminal conduct they have in mind and the reasons they believe that the retention of the record may assist in its detection or prevention,

(b) the relevant data which may be retained as part of the record may be no more than the certifying officer believes is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct,

(c) a copy of the record must be expeditiously provided to the data subject unless an officer of the of the rank of superintendent or above certifies that—

(i) the provision of the record to the data subject may interfere in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct, or

(ii) the officer is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable to provide a copy of the record to the data subject.

(8) If the data subject objects to the retention of the non-crime perception record, subsection (6) does not apply unless a police officer of the rank of superintendent or above certifies that in their opinion the retention of the non-crime perception record is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct which may occur in the future.

(9) No police authority or police officer can be held under any circumstances to be under any duty to undertake the retention of any relevant data.

(10) After subsection 113B(3) of the Police Act 1997 insert—

“(3A) An enhanced criminal record certificate must not give the details of a relevant matter to the extent that doing so would result in the disclosure of relevant data as defined in section (The retention by the police of non-crime perception records) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025.”

(11) For subsection 39A(3) of the Police Act 1996 substitute—

“(3) No part of any Code of Practice issued by the College of Policing may be in a form which could be issued by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 60 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.”

(12) Section 60 the 2022 Act is to be amended as follows—

(a) the cross heading to be changed to “Non-crime perception records”,

(b) the section heading to be changed to “Code of practice relating to non-crime perception records”,

(c) in subsection (1) leave out from “by” to the end of the subsection and insert “of relevant data”,

(d) omit subsection (2),

(e) in subsection (3)(a), leave out “personal data relating to a hate incident” and insert “relevant data”,

(f) in subsections (3)(b), (c), (d) and (e), for “such personal data” substitute “relevant data”,

(g) in subsection (4)(a), for “personal data” substitute “relevant data”,

(h) in subsection (4)(b), leave out “personal data relating to the alleged perpetrator of a hate incident” and insert “relevant data relating to the alleged perpetrator”,

(i) in subsection (7), at end, insert “relevant data” has the meaning given by section (The retention by the police of non-crime perception records) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025”.

(13) Any code of practice previously issued under section 60 of the 2022 Act is deemed to be withdrawn.

(14) Within three months of the commencement of each calendar year, each police authority which is retaining non-crime perception records must—

(a) undertake a review of the relevant data by an independent person to ensure that any retention of such records is in compliance with the provisions of this section.

(b) publish a report in respect of the review prepared by the independent person including setting—

(i) the total number of non-crime perception records retained by the police authority;

(ii) the total number of data subject to which those records relate; and

(iii) the equivalent numbers of those records added in the previous year.

(15) In this section—

(a) “a police authority” means—

(i) a person specified or described in paragraphs 5 to 17 of Schedule 7 of the Act,

(ii) a person acting under the authority of such a person,

(b) the terms “data subject”, “processing” and “the UK GDPR” have the same meanings as under section 3 of the Act,

(c) “the Law Enforcement Directive” means the Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament,

(d) “the 2022 Act” means the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.”—(Matt Vickers.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.