Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 417 I will speak to the associated Amendment 419, both in my name and with named support across the Committee. The purpose of these amendments is to provide a clear and easy-to-use legal basis for those found guilty of sanctions breaches and other similar offences to pay compensation in the public interest to specified victims’ organisations listed in the proposed Schedule 22A and any other similar organisations added to that list through regulations.

There is a clear case for legislative intervention in this area. By way of overview, the existing law provides only a very narrow basis for using the proceeds of confiscated criminal assets to compensate victims, and only in straightforward cases. Victims are rarely allocated any share of the sums recovered. Amendments 417 and 419 would empower courts to award compensation for public interest or social purposes, addressing a significant gap in the law by enabling compensation in the more complex cases for which the existing law is ill suited—for example, supporting Ukrainians who are most impacted by breaches of the UK’s targeted sanctions against the Putin regime and its corrupt cronies.

Against that overview, I turn to the main features of the existing law to demonstrate why they do not go far enough. First, compensation orders under the Sentencing Act 2020 are designed to compensate direct victims of criminal conduct. Where a conviction has been secured, the court is empowered to order the offender to pay compensation for any personal injury, loss or damage arising from the offence in question. The courts have, however, held that these kinds of compensation orders are intended only for clear and simple cases, where there is an obvious direct victim and the amount of compensation can readily and easily be ascertained. Thus, for example, a builder may take a £15,000 deposit to complete building work for a home owner and fraudulently make no attempt to carry out the work. There is a clear victim and a clear loss: the home owner and the £15,000. The compensation order is well suited to handle that sort of case.

By contrast, a court is highly unlikely to be able to make a standard compensation order in a sanctions breach or similar case. Sanctions breaches are rarely clear and simple cases because, by the nature of the offence, the consequences are wide reaching, and they can violate the rights of a large number of people. Victims of the breach, or indeed the precise loss or damage suffered, will typically be very difficult to identify or quantify with the necessary precision required by the current law.

Courts are ill equipped to handle victim compensation in such cases, given the vast and multifaceted harms at issue and the indirect connection between the harms and the sanctions breach. The NGO Redress has advised that its experts are not aware of any single sanctions breach case in the UK in which the court has issued a compensation order for victims. I would be interested to know whether the Minister can provide us with any such examples. Such compensation orders are simply not suited to complex economic crime, such as sanctions offences.

The second area of the existing law is confiscation orders under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. In the event of a conviction, the court can order the confiscation of a portion of an offender’s assets, provided they have been found to have benefited from their criminal conduct. These confiscation orders are intended to deprive the defendant of the proceeds of the crime, rather than to compensate victims. The amounts confiscated are usually paid to the Government’s bank account and then sometimes shared across certain government departments and arm’s-length bodies. No amount is typically paid to victims, subject to very limited exceptions.

The third category of the existing law is forfeiture orders, also under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. In this respect, agencies such as the National Crime Agency, HMRC and the Serious Fraud Office, among others, can institute civil forfeiture proceedings in some situations, in which a court may issue a forfeiture order in respect of funds associated with unlawful conduct. Here too, however, the law is inadequate to deal with sanctions breaches. There is a statutory requirement for funds that have been forfeited under such an order to be paid, again, to the Government’s general bank account, with very limited exceptions relating to situations where someone can show that the amount belongs to them and that they were deprived of it by the offender’s unlawful conduct. Again, that is ill suited to the sanctions context.

Pulling this together, I suggest that, unless the law is changed, in the vast majority of cases judges will have no real ability to award compensation to the victims of sanctions and associated crimes. Not a penny will go to the very people most harmed by the criminal violation in question, not because they are undeserving or have not suffered a harm, but simply because there is a gap in the law that means their position cannot be addressed. This shortcoming is increasingly indefensible in the current world in which we live and will only grow as the UK rightly takes more sanctions enforcement action, most immediately in the context of Ukraine but also in any future cases.

Dealing with the context of Ukraine, the UK positions itself, quite admirably, as a global leader on Russian sanctions. Some 3,000 targets have been sanctioned to date. Yet, when it comes to enforcing these sanctions and penalising any breaches of them, it is the UK, not the victims, that retains the proceeds. Having dedicated unprecedented diplomatic and financial resources to seeking to bring an end to Putin’s war for the benefit of the Ukrainian people, it is striking that the courts have practically no legal basis to channel any of the proceeds of Russian sanctions breaches to Ukrainian victims, whom the sanctions programme is ultimately intended to protect.

I turn to alternatives. In correspondence between Redress and the Home Office, which I have seen, the Minister referred to other amendments proposed to the Bill to ensure that the uplifts to existing confiscation orders can similarly be redirected. However, these are subject to the same or similar limitations as the existing law. In particular, the limitation of the concepts of victim and loss being narrowly defined means that redress is not available for indirect victims. It is that gap that my Amendments 417 and 419 are intended to address.

In the light of that, I stress that my challenge to the Minister is a constructive one, because I want to put on the record the personal experience I have of the deeply conscientious engagement he has had on matters of Ukraine that I have raised with him. I thank him publicly for that, as I have done privately. Can he offer a cast-iron guarantee that the existing law, coupled with any proposed amendments the Government are putting forward, goes as far as Amendments 417 and 419, or does he accept that there is a gap? If he does, can he explain the justification for it? I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Banner. I have signed Amendments 417 and 419. The noble Lord has made a powerful, constructive and eloquent case for we should try to tackle the public interest compensation orders and deal with the gap that is left by confiscation orders, compensation orders and forfeiture, which he mentioned in his speech.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

In terms of the dangers, there are two things difficult for anyone to dispute. In terms of the risks to the woman, the later the abortion, the greater the risk. We can debate what the statistics are, but a late abortion will, almost by definition, create a greater level of physical risk to the mother. Secondly, an abortion—by its nature and legally, it cannot be carried out without clinical help—that is done at home through pills through the post at a very late stage will, with the removal of that medical support, create additional risk to the mother. For a range of reasons, it is dangerous. A number of amendments have been put forward that offer either amelioration or potential solutions to that. All of those are better than Clause 191. While we try to grapple with a sensitive and difficult issue—irrespective of one’s views, broadly speaking, on abortion as a whole—the main thing to my mind is that Clause 191 is not the solution to those problems.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the mitigating amendments from a number of noble Lords, but I particularly support the proposition from the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, that Clause 191 should not stand part of the Bill. I do so for a number of reasons; some are to do with principle and some to do with parliamentary procedure. Listening just now to the noble Lord, Lord Weir, and before that to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, I think that there are plenty of reasons why this deserves the kind of detailed examination that we have been giving it on the Floor of your Lordships’ House today, whatever our personal views may be.

Abortion is not just a medical procedure. It is not just about choice; it ends the life of a nascent human being. As the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said early in our debate, it is about the sanctity of human life. That is one of the key questions that we must always wrestle with when we come to this issue.

Since 1967, when Parliament permitted what were supposed to be terminations carried out in rare and exceptional cases, there have been more than 11 million abortions in the United Kingdom. That is one life taken across the UK every two minutes. Since 1990, we have permitted eugenic abortions on the ground of disability right up to birth. That includes things such as cleft palate or club foot; 90% of all babies with Down syndrome are now aborted in the United Kingdom, according to NHS figures.

Laws have profound consequences. We are not a debating society but we do send signals. Laws, to some extent, are like semaphore: they send a signal to society. They have profound consequences—social, personal, economic and demographic—and not just for the unborn child. Clearly, from what noble Lords have said this afternoon, there are consequences for the women and everybody else who is involved. The amendments in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Maclean, Lady Meyer, Lady Lawlor, Lady Coffey, Lady Stroud, Lady Foster and Lady Eaton, and my noble friend Lady O’Loan, make it clear that this has profound consequences for women. We should take that into account as well.

Some noble Lords have touched on the question of law and whether international norms require us to do this. I remind the Committee that there is no such recognised right as the right to abortion in the European Convention on Human Rights. Decisions from the European Court of Human Rights have confirmed that the convention does not guarantee a right to have an abortion, nor does it guarantee a right to perform abortions. The court has also been clear that Article 8, which guarantees the right to private and family life, does not confer a right to abortion. The court has ruled that domestic laws that prohibit abortion do not violate Article 8. In contrast, human rights laws grant protection to the unborn. The preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the United Kingdom is a signatory, states that the child

“needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”.

We need to ask ourselves, when we talk about conforming with what other jurisdictions do, how well we conform to those norms as well.

Things have changed as a result of the Health and Care Act 2022. I took part in the proceedings on that legislation. On the fourth day, an amendment was brought forward to make permanent the Covid arrangements permitting at-home abortions. Let me remind the Committee of the words of the then Health Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, who told the House, when announcing the end of the policy in February 2022,

“that it was always intended to be a temporary measure”.—[Official Report, 10/2/22; col. 1820.]

Too often, though, temporary measures become permanent and new arguments are brought forward to justify them.

One of the key arguments put forward in support of Clause 191 today is the alleged rise in the prosecution of women in recent years. If there has been a rise, that is intrinsically linked to abortion pills by post. I was particularly struck that Jonathan Lord, now of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and a former medical director of Marie Stopes, acknowledged that for the 160 years prior to 2022,

“only three women have ever been on trial”.

Between 1 January 2012 and 31 July 2022, data from the Metropolitan Police shows that of 42 arrests under Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Persons Act and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act, 34 of those arrested were men, and that of the seven who were ultimately charged, none of them were women. Prosecutions of women, I am glad to say, remain very rare indeed.

I know that there is agreement across the Committee, because we have all said it during the debate today, that any investigation of a woman following a pregnancy loss is a matter that requires deep compassion and sensitivity. Like others who have spoken in the debate, those of us who are fathers may have experienced the loss of a child as a result of miscarriage. We know what that means for men, as well as for women—what it means for everyone. It is the loss of a new child. Either life begins at conception or it does not. If it does, then the sanctity of human life that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, described earlier surely must be a consideration.

I acknowledge that there may be circumstances in which accessing care and support may be less straightforward, but that does not justify the removal of in-person clinical safeguards altogether, particularly where there are well-documented risks around gestational error, coercion and missed complications. A compassionate and appropriate response would surely be to address access problems through properly funded, local, in-person services and targeted support for vulnerable women who may be coerced or even trafficked, rather than relying on a remote model that prioritises speed and convenience over safety.

There are radical alternatives to the defeat. As many have said in this debate, wherever we come from on the substantive issue, abortion itself is not something that is good or desirable; we must do all we can to try to find alternatives to it. Instead of asking a Select Committee to examine the sorts of arguments we have heard, instead of pre-legislative scrutiny, instead of examining the dangers to women or the inevitable increase in the number of terminations, instead of looking for alternatives which promote the well-being of both mother and child, instead of—as one noble Lord rightly referred to earlier—an impact assessment or any of the normal requirements in promoting legislation, this new clause was added simply as a Back-Bench amendment at a late stage of a Bill which is not primarily about abortion, and it was given a cursory 46 minutes of Back-Bench debate in the House of Commons. That would not have happened in my day in the House of Commons. This is no way to make law. The Government would be well advised to withdraw this clause, pending further consideration of the practical issues that it raises.

The uncomfortable truth which all of us must wrestle with, irrespective of our in-principle views on abortion, is that with Clause 191 on the statute book, if a woman intentionally induces an abortion at a very late stage and the baby dies in utero or during the process and is not born alive, there would be no criminal offence available in respect of her actions, regardless of gestation.

Abortion pills are powerful drugs. They can involve significant bleeding, pain and complications, and they can be tragically misused. The purpose of an in-person consultation is not delay or obstruction but to provide a vital clinical and safeguarding checkpoint. I urge noble Lords, even if they cannot support the substantive objections that I have made to Clause 191 in supporting the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, to at least support Amendment 460, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud. I hope that, when we return to this question on Report, there may have been some movement in that direction.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

472: After Clause 196, insert the following new Clause—
“Universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and ancillary conduct (England and Wales)(1) The International Criminal Court Act 2001 is amended as follows.(2) In section 51(1)—(a) after “person”, insert “, whatever his or her nationality,”;(b) after “war crime”, insert “in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.”.(3) Omit section 51(2).(4) In section 52(1)—(a) after “person”, insert “, whatever his or her nationality,”;(b) after “conduct”, insert “in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.”.(5) Omit section 52(4).”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause gives effect to the JCHR’s recommendation to amend the ICC Act 2001 to provide for the exercise of universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and ancillary conduct. This would allow for the authorities in England and Wales to prosecute persons suspected of these crimes without any requirement for a connection to the UK.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in moving all-party Amendments 472 and 473, I thank the co-sponsors and other supporters, who include the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and Lady Hodgson of Abinger, my noble friends Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord Carlile of Berriew, and the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Clement-Jones.

These amendments have been recommended to the House in two separate reports of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the honour to chair. One of those arose from the legislative scrutiny of this Bill; the other was its report on how to deal with the atrocity crimes of Daesh against the Yazidis and other minorities. The recommendations and amendments of the JCHR were unanimous and enjoyed all-party support. They also enjoyed the strong support of the International Development Committee of the House of Commons and its chair Sarah Champion MP, and organisations such as Redress.

The Minister and others will have seen a letter from the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, signed by more than 30 of some of the most illustrious and distinguished practitioners in the field. These amendments are a response to what the JCHR saw as a justice gap. They are also compatible with practice in other jurisdictions and are limited in scope. They make a very small but indicative and incremental change by removing the requirement of UK citizenship and UK residence from Sections 51 and 58 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001. I will try to summarise the key arguments in favour of the amendments for the Committee, then tackle some of the misconceptions.

Under international law, the UK is already legally obliged to prosecute suspects of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes who are present on its territory regardless of nationality or residence. A failure to do so puts the UK at risk of becoming a safe haven for alleged perpetrators of international crimes. The rule of law is weakened when alleged perpetrators of genocide or crimes against humanity and war crimes can be here in the UK without facing justice, so this is about closing that justice gap.

These amendments give substance to the long-standing case for reform repeatedly raised since 2009 and are not directed at any particular country, individual or context. There is no concealed political agenda, and safeguards are included to ensure the continuation of prosecutorial oversight by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Attorney-General of decisions about whether to prosecute. They also make a reality of the often-repeated desire for the United Kingdom to reinforce and renew its claim to leadership in promoting the rule of law. We will be doing so by ending impunity for the gravest international crimes and by empowering British courts to act where alleged perpetrators of international crimes are present in the United Kingdom.

It is a mirage to cite the role of the International Criminal Court, as it cannot single-handedly provide accountability for international crimes, even before considering the use of vetoes by those who would not wish such crimes to be referred to that court. Capable national courts must share the burden, as the German courts have done, in successfully prosecuting the crime of genocide. Other comparable democracies already prosecute suspects present on their territory, and that option should be open to us too.

--- Later in debate ---

As for the other concerns I have mentioned, we might try to address them by providing the strict conditions under which our courts would exercise universal jurisdiction. Those conditions would be, first, if the individual in question could not be extradited to a foreign jurisdiction with a closer connection with the alleged offence of the alleged offender because of, for example, human rights bars; and, secondly, where the countries with closer connections with the offence or the offender do not have an independent judiciary. If we had those conditions spelled out, it would deal with some of the concerns that have been pointed out.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I ask the noble Lord to continue the discussions with those of us proposing this amendment today, but our amendment is not as ambitious as he suggests. I wish it were, but actually it is much more limited. On some of the points he raised about the kinds of people who could be brought for prosecution to the United Kingdom under universal jurisdiction more widely, yes, that could happen in a country like Germany, but it would not happen under this amendment. This is about people coming here and being able to do so with impunity rather than immunity, simply because we do not have any powers to arrest them or take them to court.

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

I appreciate that it is about only those who are within the jurisdiction, but a lot of officials come within the jurisdiction at different points in time and for different reasons. There was another case a few years ago in which I was also instructed, concerning the visit of the Egyptian head of intelligence to the United Kingdom. On that occasion, there was an attempt to arrest him, which failed, and his immunity was upheld. That is the sort of scenario where we need clarity.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am very glad that my noble friend has raised that point, because it is very relevant. If, for instance, the Foreign Office were to say to the Attorney-General, “We are bringing someone here to have discussions about how to secure peace in Sudan”, but they might have been involved with the RSF or the Sudanese Army in some of the atrocities there, there would be no requirement to prosecute them, because in those circumstances the Attorney-General simply would not allow the prosecution to proceed.

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

It is not quite like that, because the Foreign Office would have to issue special permission for the person who came within the jurisdiction, and now that we have clarified the law, that would give that individual immunity. As for the Attorney-General’s decision not to consent, there is a risk that that could be subject to judicial review, and there have already been attempts in that space. But I agree that that is a very important procedural requirement, and it is already in the Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I accept that, and I thought I understood the noble Lord’s position clearly, but I am grateful for his clarification. It still adds to the general point that I have made today, and I go back to the original, overarching point that the UK applies universal jurisdiction to only a very few specific international crimes. Our approach—through long-standing support of successive Governments—is that, where there is no apparent link between the UK and an international crime, we support the principle that such crimes are best investigated and prosecuted close to where they are perpetrated. That may not be a position that satisfies the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, or his supporters today, but it is one which I hope I have clarified. I note also—which I did not mention earlier—the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for the general approach of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. With that, I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has participated in this important debate. I was particularly grateful, of course, to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, with her immense experience and as a colleague on the Joint Committee on Human Rights—we are beginning to miss her already, only one week after she rotated off the committee. This was a unanimous recommendation, not just in one but in two reports. We took evidence. This was not just about our inability to intervene in faraway places. We took evidence about British nationals who had been in north-east Syria and in northern Iraq and who had committed what even the Foreign and Commonwealth office has now decided was a genocide—it is willing now to use that word, which is very unusual on the part of the FCDO.

So we have the evidence. We know that 400 of the British fighters who went there came back, and not a single one has been prosecuted for the crime of genocide. Too often, there has been rank impunity. We also know that they have connections with other people who are not British citizens and who regularly travel to the United Kingdom. What this limited amendment seeks to do is not bring all those people before the British courts; it is about taking people who come into the UK with those kinds of links and bringing them to justice if the Attorney-General believes that there is a case to answer.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for reinforcing the argument, and I thank my noble friend Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the noble Lords, Lord Verdirame and Lord Wigley, and my noble and right reverend friend Lord Sentamu. I wish we could have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, but I suspect there will be an opportunity on Report, and I hope that omission will be put right. Nevertheless, I was grateful to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, said about being willing to hear what she has to say but on a one-to-one basis. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and of course the Minister himself.