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.

Hillsborough Law

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in the development of the proposed ‘Hillsborough Law’.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister opened last week’s House of Commons debate on the Second Reading of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill—the Hillsborough law—with what he described as

“a simple acknowledgment, long overdue, that the British state failed the families and victims of Hillsborough to an almost inhuman level”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/11/25; col. 653.]

Echoing the “burning injustices” description used by the noble Baroness, Lady May, he powerfully described the closing of ranks, institutional lies, cover-ups, smears and betrayal by the very people who should have been protecting families: victims who became trapped in a cycle of profound grief and wicked vilification, with the public purse used to bankroll misconduct and malfeasance and to camouflage the truth. Truth, expeditious justice, and consequences are the three themes I wish to address today.

Hansard records that 36 years ago, as a Liverpool Member of Parliament, I sent correspondence to the Government of the day questioning the suitability of Hillsborough for the semi-final on 15 April 1989. I enclosed a statement from the chief executive of Liverpool Football Club, who said

“there was no way I could support the choice of Hillsborough this year with the same ticket allocations applying”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/4/1989; col. 32.]

Of course, the match was played, with disastrous consequences.

Despite repeated suggestions that the fans had brought the calamity on themselves, Lord Justice Taylor accurately identified the role of South Yorkshire Police and criticised its attempt to shift responsibility from itself to the spectators. Four days after the disaster, I wrote to Sir Cecil Clothier, then chairman of the Police Complaints Authority, enclosing a first-hand account from a constituent. I asked him to open an independent inquiry into attempts by the police spokesman to blame the fans for their own deaths. I said this was

“part of a smokescreen of propaganda aimed at diverting attention from the truth”.

He declined to investigate the conduct of the police, despite repeated requests.

Years later, I was shown a letter from Sir Cecil to the chief constable of South Yorkshire, saying that he had done his best to “deflect” my complaint. Sir Cecil signed the letter “Spike”: a word journalists use when an editor has decided to withhold a story from publication. With the truth being “spiked”, victims had to watch a system circle its wagons around its own. In 2012, the Hillsborough Independent Panel found that 164 statements had been altered significantly, and 116 had been amended to remove content that was unfavourable to the police.

It was only when the original 1990 to 1991 inquest verdicts of accidental death were re-run—using the obligations of the Human Rights Act 1998 and Article 2 of the ECHR—that verdicts of unlawful killing were finally reached. Some 27 years had now passed as the truth gradually began to emerge. The 2016 jury vindicated the fans and established gross negligence, defects at the stadium, errors in the safety certification and much more besides. Instead of consequences for those at fault, we have seen early retirements and enhanced pensions.

Parliament will want to be convinced that the Hillsborough law will tip the balance away from the behemoth against whom the small battalions are pitted. We must finally lay to rest what the 2017 independent report into Hillsborough, chaired by Bishop James Jones, described in its title as The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power. Five years after its publication—and 28 years after the disaster—I protested that there had still been no government response to the report’s recommendations that, first, a duty of candour, secondly, an equality of arms at inquests, thirdly, the appointment of an independent public advocate, and fourthly, a charter for families bereaved through public tragedy, should be enacted.

Following this up in 2023, I participated in an all-party group meeting here on public accountability. We discussed a range of public tragedies, including Primodos, atomic test victims, infected blood and Hillsborough. Other examples might have included Windrush, Chinook, Grenfell, Manchester Arena, Covid, grooming gangs and Horizon. After that meeting, I suggested to Ian Byrne Member of Parliament, who had been a young spectator at Hillsborough, that he should write to the Joint Committee on Human Rights—of which I was a member and which I now have the privilege to chair—and ask us to examine the Hillsborough law. It did, and its witnesses included Bishop Jones and Andy Burnham. The hearing led to our unanimous report in May 2024 calling for a Hillsborough law. On 3 March, the Government responded positively. It is indicative that, during its hearings, the Joint Committee was told that a Hillsborough law could have made a difference when inaccurate evidence was given to the late Lord Kerslake’s inquiry in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing.

In addition to the duty of candour, the new law must build on the admirable work begun in 2014 by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and Maria Eagle Member of Parliament in promoting a Bill for an Independent Public Advocate, which I strongly endorsed, and which was established in 2024. The post is now held by Cindy Butts. Although the JCHR has not yet decided what its approach will be on the new Bill, I hope it will consider seeking further information on whether she has adequate powers and resources to support victims of major incidents, to guide them through the obstacle course and to ensure a response from Government. I would like to hear the Minister’s view about strengthening the advocate’s role and for her to tell us why the Government say this Bill might not be the right place in which to do it. I would also like to hear about the creation of a national oversight mechanism to ensure that when recommendations are made, they are implemented.

The House will also want to hear about the practicalities of ensuring that victims of disasters or state-related deaths receive parity of legal representation during inquests and inquiries, and about the resources the Government will set aside for this. Above all, the House will want to hear how confident the Minister is that the new legal duty of candour on public authorities and officials will bring to an end the depressingly familiar pattern of cover-ups and concealment, and whether penalties will be exemplary and adequate to punish outrageous conduct.

In the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, who will steer the Bill through this House, we have a Minister whose entire working life has revolved around justice, and she is particularly well placed to turn bitter experiences and unfulfilled promises into a workable reality. I am grateful to her for the constructive discussion we had last week.

Thirty six years ago, I visited the families of constituents who had loved ones, including teenage children, among the fatalities and the injured. Among those was Andrew Devine, who suffered life-changing injuries after being deprived of oxygen. His remarkable parents, Hilary and Stanley, lovingly cared for Andrew with exemplary humanity and courage. Andrew emerged from his coma in 1994. On his death in 2021, the coroner ruled he had been unlawfully killed, becoming the 97th Hillsborough victim.

Andrew’s family are grateful to the Minister for agreeing to meet them privately, without media intrusion, to discuss their hope, which they have asked me to relay to the House, that there will be one enforceable code of conduct for all public officials with significant sanctions, including financial penalties, for non-compliance. In the quest for truth, expeditious justice and consequences, Andrew, his family and all those who 36 years ago paid such a terrible price must now be our guiding light. I thank all noble Lords who are taking part today.

“Hillsborough Law”

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I am sorry to hear that from my noble friend. I am aware of very recent interaction with the families in Liverpool. My understanding is that those talks have been going positively, and it is very much hoped that we will be able to reach some form of agreement in the coming weeks and months.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, Andrew Devine was my constituent. He died in 2021, the 97th victim of Hillsborough, 32 years after his chest was crushed and he was deprived of oxygen. We owe it, as the noble Lord has said, to his memory and to many others in that disaster and others, such as the Manchester Arena bombing and Grenfell, to fully implement the manifesto commitment of a Hillsborough law; I greatly welcomed it when it was made a manifesto commitment. Before the Minister appears before the Joint Committee on Human Rights in the autumn, will he go back and reread the findings of the committee, which called two years ago for “stronger measures” to be put in place

“to prevent a repeat of the failure to uncover and acknowledge the truth of what happened at Hillsborough”

and the subsequent promise to the committee by the Attorney-General and the Lord Chancellor to proceed at pace? Will he spell out to the House what that means and what the proposals are for a duty of candour, as well as an equality of arms in legal representation and an independent advocate? Will he commit that that will not be, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has said, watered down or diluted in any way? Do we not owe that to the memory of Andrew Devine and the many others who suffered?

Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate can be assured that I will take the matter of victims of domestic abuse very seriously. I am sure she will be pleased to know that we will not have to wait too long for the Gauke review to be published. Obviously, I cannot comment on what is going to be in that, but I am confident that David Gauke will recommend changes to ensure that we never run out of space again. The number of recalls is 13,000 and growing. Only six years ago, the number was half that, so clearly there is a problem. We need to address that, and we will.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, many of us applauded the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, as the Prisons Minister, because he has such commitment to this cause and we still applaud him for the work that he is doing. Is it not obvious from the questions in your Lordships’ House that there is scope for a debate on building new prisons, on recall and on what the right reverend Prelate just mentioned about the Gauke review? We have read today that he says that 11,000 foreign nationals in our prisons will be deported; many of us will have concerns about what will happen if some of them re-enter the United Kingdom prematurely. Will the noble Lord undertake to speak to his noble friend about the possibility of a proper debate about these and associated issues?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his generous words. It is the usual channels that will decide debates, but when it comes to prison building, we are sure that we just need to keep building more prisons. Not enough prison spaces have been built; we need to build 14,000 and to build them fast. On foreign national offenders, we have removed 15% more this year than last year. I have regular meetings with Home Office colleagues to make sure that we are doing it as productively and efficiently as possible.

“Hillsborough Law”

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand there have been multiple meetings between Hillsborough Law Now and the Government, Andy Burnham, Steve Rotherham, Liverpool MPs and my noble friend Lord Wills. I also understand that the Prime Minister is taking a personal interest in this matter. I know that the Government have undertaken to look very seriously at all the questions raised and will come forward with legislation at pace, as I said in my original Answer.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Joint Committee on Human Rights carried out an inquiry into the proposed Hillsborough law, unanimously coming out in its favour having heard evidence from, among others, victims of the Hillsborough disaster, the Lord Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, who chaired the independent inquiry, and Andy Burnham? In a letter dated 12 April, the Government did not say which of the three provisions—the duty of candour referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, equality of arms or the independent advocate—now requires more delay and further consideration. Do we not owe it to the 97 who lost their lives in 1989—including children, some of whom were my constituents in Liverpool at the time—to say why a promise made as a manifesto commitment is now a promised that has not been kept?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister is painfully aware that he made a promise and yet that date has slipped. Regarding the specific points made by the noble Lord, the Government have undertaken to look at this very closely and come up with legislation. I also am personally affected by this matter—a friend of my brother died in the disaster—and everyone I know who is involved in this is very seized of the matter and wants to get the answer right as quickly as possible.

Prison Maintenance: Insourcing

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

It is vital that the Government are led by the evidence and deliver value for money for the taxpayer. HMPPS has worked closely with the Cabinet Office to undertake a detailed assessment of prison maintenance requirements and how best to deliver them—I have even read all 175 pages of it. While they consider insourcing, the current evidence indicates that the private sector is best placed to provide a safe and decent estate, supported by effective maintenance that delivers value for money. I am continually monitoring performance and will keep my mind open to the best future options.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, last week, during a meeting with the National Preventive Mechanism, I was told that women in prison in Scotland with psychiatric conditions have to be transported 300 miles away. Can the Minister take an urgent look at that situation, but also tell us what is being done about self-harm and suicide in prisons?

European Convention on Human Rights: 75th Anniversary

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the incoming Secretary-General of the Council of Europe is a Swiss national and former Swiss president. I am sure he will be very well versed on the issue which the noble Lord raises. It is right that we want to work with the European convention in trying to address environmental problems. That is a body of law that is currently being developed. The Government are committed to that, and we will work within the various European agencies to develop that body of law.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, Articles 10 and 8 of the convention protect our rights in respect of family life and private life and freedom of expression. The Minister will be aware that the former Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, Professor Fraser Sampson, and the European court itself expressed grave concern about mass surveillance in the United Kingdom by Hikvision cameras and about the increase in surveillance generally. Will the Minister take the opportunity of this anniversary to undertake to look again at whether we are sufficiently compliant with Articles 8 and 10?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I remember dealing with those types of questions while I was an Opposition Minister in the Home Office. Whether Articles 8 and 10 are indeed breached by these cameras is a very live question; they are everywhere and they are being used in ways that we do not always understand. The noble Lord makes a good point.

Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I am not sighted on that issue, but I will absolutely take up his suggestion that the relevant Ministers make clear their position regarding the importance of human rights in all parts of the world, and in the example he gave as well.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will know that the House of Commons has accused the Chinese Communist Party of genocide in Xinjiang against the Uighur Muslim population. He will also know that the health of 76 year-old British national Jimmy Lai, who is being kept in a cell along with 1,800 other political prisoners, is deteriorating. What is the Government’s view on the continued presence of British judges dignifying the courts of Hong Kong?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. Hong Kong is a friend of ours, and this means we can have a frank exchange of views on human rights matters, which the Government continue to do. The noble Lord raised a specific question about Jimmy Lai and the other prisoners detained in Hong Kong. I will make sure that that is brought to the attention of my noble friend Lord Collins, who is directly responsible for these matters. If necessary, he will write to the noble Lord.