Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I add my welcome and thanks to the Minister for her introduction to the Bill. I also thank my noble friend Lady Doocey for setting out the Liberal Democrat stall so cogently both on policing more generally and on this Bill. On these Benches, we recognise the imperative to make our streets safer and to equip the police with the tools necessary to address modern crime. We support the elements of the Bill that tackle knife crime, combat online child exploitation and pursue criminal proceeds.

However, the foundation of our approach to public safety is our demand that new laws should be not just tough but fair and proportionate. We reject measures that risk the erosion of civil liberties or the criminalisation of the vulnerable. A core priority for me and my party is ensuring that our legal framework is modernised and future-proofed against evolving digital and online threats, as my noble friend emphasised. We support the new measures concerning the online supply chain of offensive weapons. We welcome the introduction of civil penalties aimed at strengthening accountability for businesses and online platforms involved in the advertising or selling of unlawful weapons. To enhance police intervention capability, we will, however, propose an amendment mandating a proactive real-time system for reporting under the new duty to report to the police bulk or suspicious sales of bladed articles.

The current cybersecurity landscape is badly hampered by outdated legislation. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is now 34 years old, stemming from a time before widespread internet access. It inadvertently criminalises legitimate cybersecurity activities such as vulnerability research, which are essential for national security. We call for the introduction of a statutory public interest defence within that Act to decriminalise the vital work of cybersecurity professionals and provide clearer legal protections.

Furthermore, to combat organised crime and address widespread online fraud, we want to see the creation of a specific criminal offence for digital identity theft. This new offence must target the unauthorised obtaining of personal or sensitive information, such as passwords or biometric data, with the clear intent to impersonate an individual for unauthorised activities.

We support new online child protection offences targeting AI-generated child sexual abuse material and enhanced Border Force powers to compel device unlocking for CSAM searches. On extreme pornography, we will strongly support amendments to be tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, following her review, extending the online definition to explicitly cover incest, pornography, and material depicting adults acting as or depicting children.

We want robust safeguards against the inappropriate use of intrusive technology. We oppose police use of live facial recognition—surveillance in public spaces without a statutory framework—given concerns regarding privacy and algorithmic bias. Deployment of LFR should be explicitly authorised by a judicial warrant and governed by a statutory code of practice, complete with an independent oversight body.

For antisocial behaviour measures, accountability and fairness are crucial. New respect orders must be subject to rigorous democratic scrutiny. Applications need to undergo full public consultation and should be approved by the relevant full council or its executive or cabinet before implementation.

We oppose the punitive increase in fixed penalty notices for breaches of public spaces protection orders and community protection notices from £100 to £500. This sharp increase risks intensifying abuses and arbitrary enforcement against the most vulnerable individuals. We will continue to protect the fundamental right to peaceful protest.

On these Benches, we will seek to amend the Bill to ensure that it is rooted, online and offline, in accountability, proportionality and the protection of civil liberties. We must ensure that this legislation is fair, effective and fit for the future.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 6, at beginning insert “Subject to a review of existing anti-social behaviour powers under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2014 being conducted and completed by an independent person appointed by the Secretary of State within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent,”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Government to review current anti-social behaviour powers within six months of the Bill becoming law, before the new measures proposed in the Bill take effect.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 1, I will speak to other amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Doocey.

I welcome the start of Committee and the opportunity to engage in detail with Part 1 of the Bill concerning anti-social behaviour. We on these Benches recognise the imperative to make our streets safer, and we support measures designed to tackle genuinely persistent and disruptive anti-social behaviour. However, the Liberal Democrat approach to public safety demands that new laws be not just tough but fair and proportionate. We reject measures which risk the erosion of civil liberties or the criminalisation of the vulnerable. This debate on respect orders goes directly to that principle.

Clause 1 introduces the respect order for adults, which partly replaces the old anti-social behaviour injunction. The fundamental difference is severe. While breach of an ASBI was treated as a civil contempt, breach of a respect order is explicitly categorised as a criminal offence that can lead to an unlimited fine or up to two years’ imprisonment. If the state intends to use a civil tool granted merely on the balance of probabilities to impose prohibitions whose breach results in criminal sanctions, that tool must be subject to the most rigorous safeguards. Unfortunately, respect orders currently risk replicating and arguably worsening the problems and abuses associated with past anti-social behaviour regimes.

The Manifesto Club—I declare an interest as a member of its advisory board—highlights several fundamental flaws in the previous regime under the 2014 Act, which civil liberties advocates argue must be addressed before new anti-social behaviour powers such as respect orders are introduced.

The core legal powers underpinning PSPOs and CPNs are inherently flawed due to their low legal threshold and vague scope. PSPOs can be implemented if activities are deemed to be having a detrimental effect on the quality of life in a defined public area. The Manifesto Club notes that this is an unprecedentedly low legal test for criminal intervention and argues that there is often no requirement to show substantial evidence of this effect. PSPOs are vague and subjective restrictions and are often drafted broadly, which leads to them functioning more as a tool applied at the discretion of officers than as a precise law, and this has resulted in what the Manifesto Club calls

“absurd, stigmatising and authoritarian orders”

that ban diverse and sometimes anodyne non-criminal activities.

A major criticism centres on the weak governance and poor assessment of these powers. Manifesto Club research found that nearly half of all PSPOs issued by local authorities in one year were signed off by a single council officer, without passing through scrutiny procedures within the council, such as approval by cabinet or full council. Despite legal requirements for consultation, the Manifesto Club points out that the legislation requires consultation only with the police chief, the landowner and whatever community representatives the local authority thinks it appropriate to consult, meaning that there is no requirement for any public consultation or minimum standards for one.

There is a significant lack of official data collection and central government scrutiny on the use and effectiveness of anti-social behaviour powers such as CPNs and PSPOs. The broad and unchecked nature of the powers creates inconsistency of enforcement across the country, leading to postcode lotteries for victims, where enforcement depends on location rather than circumstances.

PSPOs and dispersal powers are often unfairly imposed on or enforced against homeless people, including bans on rough sleeping and begging. Homeless individuals report being moved on by police multiple times a day and feeling that the system is set against them. Examples of arbitrary and overzealous enforcement include fines issued to an 82 year-old man for cycling his bike in a town centre, for the feeding of stray cats, for the flying of model aircraft, for keeping a wheelbarrow behind a garden shed and for using foul language. Community protection notices have been issued with restrictions on how people conduct themselves in their own home, sometimes based on weak evidence reliant on hearsay.

There is increasing commercialisation of enforcement of anti-social behaviour powers. Many councils outsource the issuance of fixed penalty notices for PSPOs and CPNs to private companies. The most common contractual arrangement involves companies receiving a percentage of FPN—fixed penalty notice—income, which directly incentivises officers to issue as many penalties as possible.

This practice is explicitly stated to contradict statutory guidance, which notes that enforcement should in no circumstances be used as a means to raise revenue. Private officers employed under this system have been accused of setting daily targets, hiding badges, intimidating people and ticketing minor offences or non-offences. This intensification of busybody offences and penalties risks increasing injustice, particularly for vulnerable people.

Amendment 1, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Doocey, and signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, would require the implementation of respect orders to be delayed until a comprehensive review of existing anti-social behaviour powers under the anti-social behaviour Act 2014 is conducted and completed by an independent person within six months of Royal Assent.

Before we introduce a new measure, we should assess whether the myriad existing tools—ASBIs, community protection notices and public space protection orders—are truly fit for purpose. The process of anti-social behaviour governance is already widely criticised as confusing, inconsistent and prone to arbitrary enforcement.

Without undertaking this vital review, we risk merely layering a new, complex civil order onto a system that is already confusing, ineffective and unjust, leading to overlapping powers and making enforcement decisions more difficult. Additional support for this delay, and an independent review, comes from key stakeholders, including Justice and the Victims’ Commissioner. We must pause, review what we have and then legislate effectively.

The core legal test for imposing a respect order is dangerously permissive. It rests on two conditions: the civil standard of proof—the balance of probabilities that the individual has engaged in anti-social behaviour—and the judicial belief that it is merely just and convenient to make the order. This is an alarmingly low threshold for an order that can severely restrict an individual’s liberty and lead to imprisonment. We must insist on a higher standard.

Amendment 5, in the name of my noble friend Lady Doocey and signed by me, proposes to replace the vague phrase “just and convenient” with the essential standard of “necessary and proportionate”. This change is essential to ensure that the restrictions imposed align strictly with the principles of the Human Rights Act 1998, ensuring that the conditions are tailored and appropriate to the specific case.

Amendment 4, also in my noble friend’s name, probes the wording that allows an order to be made if a person “threatens to engage in” anti-social behaviour. This vague phrasing gives excessive scope for judicial speculation, allowing the state to impose serious orders based on future suspicion rather than concrete, proven past behaviour.

Amendment 7, also in my noble friend’s name, seeks to specify a maximum length of time for an order, challenging the Bill’s proposals that a respect order can be imposed for an indefinite period. An indefinite order, based on a civil standard of proof, is inconsistent with the framework of other behaviour control orders. We propose a maximum duration, such as two years, to align respect orders with other established orders and requiring judicial review for any extension.

We must ensure that these powers cannot be weaponised against those struggling with homelessness or mental health issues, as seen with past anti-social behaviour powers targeting people for begging, sleeping rough or feeding the birds. Amendment 12—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for signing it—seeks to remove the power to exclude a person from their home. This power, introduced in new Section C1, is disproportionate; exclusion from one’s home is an extremely severe sanction. While the Bill limits this to cases involving violence or a significant risk of harm, such threats should be handled exclusively through the criminal justice system or specific protection orders to ensure that the necessary safeguards and standards of proof are met. We on these Benches are particularly concerned about the risk of this power being used inappropriately against victims of domestic abuse, potentially leading to their eviction instead of the perpetrator’s detention.

Amendment 18 would remove the provision creating interim respect orders. Interim orders lack proper procedural safeguards and carry the inherent risk of disproportionate interference with liberty, particularly when they are made without notice to the respondent. If a situation is so urgent that it requires immediate prohibition, a more specific or criminal intervention is warranted. Anti-social and behaviour measures must possess strong democratic and public accountability to counter the risk of arbitrary local restriction.

Amendment 9 in my name requires respect orders to pass through full council and be subject to a full public consultation before the relevant authority makes an application to the court. This would ensure that elected representatives approve decisions that directly impact civil liberties, which would mitigate the democratic deficit seen in the implementation of other local orders such as PSPOs.

Amendment 21, in my name and signed by my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, mandates that the Secretary of State must conduct a full public consultation exercise prior to issuing any statutory guidance on respect orders. This guidance must be informed by groups including the police, victims’ interests groups, housing providers and, crucially, homeless persons and legal practitioners. This would prevent guidance aimed at curbing behaviour being developed in a vacuum and ensure that it is practical and trauma-informed, especially when dealing with those struggling with addiction or homelessness.

In conclusion, these amendments collectively seek to address the historical weaknesses of the ASBI regime —weak judicial thresholds, arbitrary enforcement, indefinite application and a lack of accountability—before they are codified in a new measure that carries the full weight of the criminal law. If respect orders are to succeed where previous civil orders failed, they must be founded on evidence, necessity and transparency. I urge the Minister to recognise the fundamental importance of these safeguards. I beg to move.

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That was a long climb, and I am still only about 10 feet up Everest, but I hope that those comments help the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. This has been a useful discussion, but I hope that we can reach a conclusion on those matters now.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I think it is the Matterhorn at this stage, rather than Everest, but we will see. I thank the Minister for his very full reply, and I thank all noble Lords for their support for this set of amendments that I and my noble friend Lady Doocey put forward. The Minister has set out his stall; he is clearly very wedded to the current wording, and that will merit careful consideration. I recognise the point he made about this being a manifesto commitment, but Amendment 1 is not designed to negate respect orders; it is designed to review the existing suite of anti-social behaviour legislation in order to make sure that it is effective.

I recognise the point the Minister made about the 1 million incidents, but we do not know at this stage, other than from the Minister’s assertions, that the respect orders are going to be effective in dealing with those, or, indeed, whether existing powers would have themselves been effective.

The Minister did not really explain why the current legislation is inadequate. He also did not for one second admit that the current regime of PSPOs and CPNs had its faults.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The real difference between this legislation and the existing legislation is that action can be taken immediately. I think I did touch on that point, but if it was not to the noble Lord’s satisfaction, I apologise. We can take action immediately on a breach.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I think we are going to need some more convincing that that is the case, compared to anti-social behaviour injunctions. So, we remain somewhat unconvinced.

We have the common aim across the House of achieving an effective system that is fair and proportionate. The one chink in the Minister’s armour was that he was prepared, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to consider the wording “necessary and proportionate”. I very much hope that he will consider that as a possible amendment to his proposal.

I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, that Governments reach for the statute book; we need to consider whether existing legislation is sufficient. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, called for a pause. Whether it is a pause or a review, we will definitely want to return to this on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Just briefly, because this is a very important aspect of the enforcement of respect orders, I ask whether the Minister is saying that all that is needed is that it is shown beyond reasonable doubt that the respect order has been breached, or does one go back to the original decision on the civil balance of probabilities—the reasons for the respect order? Is it purely that you have to show beyond reasonable doubt that the respect order has been breached, in which case it is still a civil balance of probabilities requirement for the original respect order to be enforced?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

There is a determination, and I believe the legislation before us today is clear on that matter. We will debate this still further, undoubtedly, but there is essentially a respect order where the court will consider the potential breach and will make a judgment on it, and having examined that, it will determine the issue in relation to that breach. The noble Lord raises that issue now, but as regards Amendment 19 before us today, which is the point I am making now, limiting the scope of where an interim respect order can be issued risks further harm for communities as a whole.

I will just focus on the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, mentioned. She covered in the last series of amendments the same issue, in a sense, about capacity, which is important. It will be a matter for discretion of the applicant and the court to determine what requirements will be most suitable in line with the resources and options that are available in a given area. So, again, that discretion is there at a local level to determine; for example, if an alcohol awareness course is required, then self-evidently an alcohol awareness course has to be available for the individual to take up that course. Those judgments will be made at a local level by the local individuals who are determining these matters.

Again, I refer noble Lords to the economic impact assessment that we have published. The ASB package is expected to lead to

“an overall reduction in prison places”.

The respect order replaces the civil injunction, and we are not expecting additional cases per se. Once in a steady state, annual prison places for respect orders will stay more or less the same, and we expect respect orders to have a neutral impact on prison places, given that they are replacing civil injunction powers. So I hope that that again reassures the noble Baroness in relation to the resource question of the additional impact of these matters. With those comments, I respectfully request the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned in his remarks on the first group that there are over a million instances of anti-social behaviour in the United Kingdom, and he is seeking broad new powers in the early part of the Bill. Can he give the House any guidance as to what sort of effect, if the House were to give the Government these powers, will be seen in terms of a projected reduction in anti-social behaviour as a result?

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I will seize the opportunity to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, while the going is good and before I have to disagree with him on future groupings. I entirely agreed with what he had to say, as indeed I did with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower.

This stand part debate goes to what might be called the heart of legislative utility. Why do we need a new tool if the old tools are sufficient? We must ask: does Clause 1 solve a problem or does it merely create complexity and risk? The Bill, as we have heard, introduces respect orders, but it also retains anti-social behaviour injunctions. Many of us already feel that the new respect orders, as we debated in the first group, are unnecessary and largely either replicate powers already available under the 2014 Act, or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made very clear, add undesirable elements to those powers.

We have seen with ASBIs that there have been some proposals to include positive requirements tailored to underlying causes of behaviour. If the goal of the Government is to better address the underlying causes of persistent anti-social behaviour, we could be strengthening the existing injunction framework, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, focusing resources on effective enforcement and mandating psychological or therapeutic interventions, rather than introducing a confusing, duplicated power.

Our preference on these Benches is very clear. We should focus on accountability, review and proportionality to ensure that the existing framework works effectively, rather than adding a potentially flawed new tool that invites mission creep and targets the vulnerable.

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Moved by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

23: Clause 4, page 12, line 8, leave out subsections (3) and (4)
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment removes the subsections increasing the level of fines attached to FPNs, aiming to address concerns that existing notices and orders are being imposed in inappropriate circumstances.

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[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 23 would remove subsections that increase the maximum level of fines attached to fixed penalty notices for breach of public space protection orders and community protection notices. The core proposal of Clause 4 is to increase the maximum FPN for these breaches from £100 to a punitive £500. This represents a 400% increase in the penalty for infractions often issued without judicial oversight.

The Manifesto Club—a body which I mentioned previously and with which I have engaged extensively on these powers—rightly labels this increase as a

“grossly out-of-proportion penalty”.

We must look at the nature of the offences that these fines target. The Home Office claims that this increase shows a “zero-tolerance approach” to anti-social behaviour, but that ignores the actual activities being punished. Manifesto Club research, relying on freedom of information data, shows that the vast majority of penalties are issued for innocuous actions that fall far outside anyone’s definition of serious anti-social behaviour. This is leading to what the Manifesto Club calls

“the hyper-regulation of public spaces”.

For instance, in 2023, Hillingdon Council issued PSPO penalties largely for idling—leaving a car engine running for more than two minutes. This affected 2,335 people, including a man waiting to collect his wife from a doctor’s surgery. Other commonly banned activities that face this grossly increased penalty include loitering, swearing, begging, wild swimming, busking and feeding birds.

The Manifesto Club has documented community protection notices that target non-harmful behaviours, which are also subject to the increased fine. Orders have been issued banning two people from closing their front door too loudly, prohibiting a man from storing his wheelbarrow behind his shed and banning an 82 year-old from wearing a bikini in her own garden. The increase in fines to £500 for these so-called busybody offences appears to be simply a form of message sending, rather than a proportionate penalty designed to resolve community harm.

The second, and perhaps most corrosive, effect of Clause 4 is that it will spark a boom in the enforcement industry and intensify the practice of fining for profit. The Manifesto Club found that 75% of PSPO penalties in 2023 were issued by private enforcement companies. These companies are typically paid per fine issued, which creates an overt financial incentive to pursue volume regardless of genuine harm or proportionality. They target easy infractions rather than the most serious offenders.

Increasing the financial reward fivefold heightens this perverse incentive to issue as many FPNs as possible for anodyne activities. Crucially, while Defra has published guidance stating that environmental enforcement should never be a means to raise revenue, the Home Office has not prohibited fining for profit for anti-social behaviour offences such as PSPO and CPN breaches, nor even formally acknowledged the issue. I have raised this many times in the House.

Rather than authorising this increase in fines, we should be prohibiting incentivised enforcement for all ASB penalties in primary legislation or statutory guidance. The system of FPNs is already heavily criticised for undermining due process. They are issued solely based on the decision of an official and do not involve the production of evidence in court. This lack of judicial scrutiny means that, when innocent people are fined for innocuous actions, they often feel completely helpless, lacking the means to appeal a decision made by incentive-driven officers.

If we are serious about addressing serious anti-social behaviour, the enforcement should focus on serious criminality and nuisance, not extracting revenue from arbitrary restrictions. We must resist measures that intensify arbitrary law enforcement and injustice. This increase in penalties must be abandoned. I therefore urge the Government to support Amendment 23 and reject subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 4. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendments 24 and 25. In some aspects, I take a slightly different view from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, because I approve of the increased £500 penalty, provided it is for real anti-social behaviour. I accept the noble Lord’s point that there seem to have been quite a few ASBOs granted for “busybody offences”, and that is not right.

However, my concern here is making sure that the fines are properly paid. If we give the rise to £500, what will be the punishment if criminals do not pay it? Imprisonment is not important. In the words of the great capitalist Del Boy, it is “cushty”, and most criminals, from the smallest to the greatest, regard a term of imprisonment as factored into the crime. What about fines? No problem, they will simply not pay them, and with sufficient sob stories to the court, they will probably get away with a ridiculously low payment plan. Then, when they go outside and drive away in their BMW while texting on their new iPhone, that is great.

Only one thing works as proper punishment—they hate it—and gives the state and victims proper recompense: that is the confiscation of their ill-gotten gains or of any part of their property, which will cover the amount of any unpaid penalty. Of course, there are compensation orders, which can be made for most crimes, but, again, the convict will probably not pay up and nothing more will be done about it.

We must expand confiscation orders to all crimes where a penalty has not been paid, and my amendments are, I would suggest, a tiny but good example. We seem to go out of our way to make compensation orders as difficult as possible to obtain and deliver. Confiscation orders in the UK can be issued for any crime that involves financial gain, not just specific offences. They are used to take away profits from criminal activity, with the court determining the amount of the order based on the defendant’s benefit from their criminal conduct. The common crimes involve fraud, drug trafficking, theft and organised crime, but any offence where a financial element is present can trigger an order.

How do confiscation orders work? First of all, a conviction is required. Even I would agree with that. A confiscation order can be made only after the defendant is convicted of a crime. The Crown Court decides whether to issue an order after gathering information from both the prosecution and defence. The court’s goal is to recover the benefit—they stress “benefit”—the defendant gained from the criminal conduct. The court considers whether the defendant has a criminal lifestyle, which can be established by their conduct over time. The ultimate aim is to disrupt criminal activity by making the crime unprofitable and preventing future offences.

Why on earth stop with that tight confiscation concept about ill-gotten gains? If someone has committed a crime and gets a financial penalty or a fine and he does not pay up, he has benefited from that crime. He has made a financial gain in that he has saved the money he should have spent on a fine. In those circumstances, it is only just and right that the court’s bailiff can confiscate all and any property of the convict to recover the fine he has refused to pay or says that he cannot pay.

In this case, we are looking at confiscation of his goods and property up to a value of £500 plus a small administration fee. My amendment advocates automaticity, and that is essential. We do not need all the evidence of ill-gotten gains that prosecutors have to go through to prove that the superyacht, Bentleys and five homes all over the world came from drug running or ripping off a pension fund, since we would be collecting only on a known fine imposed by a court.

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I recognise where the noble Lord is coming from. He shakes his head in slight unhappiness at my response, but I think this is a reasonable approach, and the Government’s intention is that, when fines are levied, they are paid. That is the key point on which we share common ground. With that, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lord, I thank the Minister for his reply, disappointing though it is, but that is probably a pattern that will continue as the Bill carries on.

I did not even get an acknowledgement from the Minister that there are flaws in the existing PSPO/CPN system; often, it is just busybody offences that receive fixed penalty notices. He just recited a number, at perhaps the outer edge of anti-social behaviour, which of course should attract fixed penalty notices. He also prayed in aid the fact that environmental offences can have fixed penalty notices at a higher level, but we have heard quite a lot of anecdotal evidence about those being misused. The chances are that these new higher penalties will be misused as well.

I also did not seem to get any acknowledgement that the fining-for-profit aspect of this by local government is a problem. I do not know whether the new statutory guidance the Minister mentioned will include something along those lines. I very much hope so, and that he can reassure us that there will be a reaffirmation of the need for proper democratic oversight of PSPOs and CPNs. The current guidance recommends that councils, either in full council or in cabinet, approve these orders but that appears not to be the case currently, with all the consequences that the Baroness, Lady Fox, has outlined.

I hope that, if we are going to learn from the experience of the current anti-social behaviour powers, the Government take on board some of this debate and the points made in previous groups. We will probably return to this on Report, but for now, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 23.

Amendment 23 withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 26 relates to Clause 5. Clause 5 is very short and is titled “Closure of premises by registered social housing provider”. It says that Schedule 2 amends various parts of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014

“so as to enable registered social housing providers to close premises that they own or manage which are associated with nuisance and disorder”.

My amendment says:

“An RSH provider may issue a closure notice in respect of an individual flat within a housing block for which they are responsible”.


I apologise to the Committee and to the Minister if my amendment is already included in the definition of “premises”. However, the only definition I can find is in Clause 92 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, and that says

“‘premises’ includes … any land or other place (whether enclosed or not) … any outbuildings that are, or are used as, part of premises”.

Thus, it would seem to me, as a non-lawyer, that a person could argue that an individual flat in an RSH housing block was technically not “premises” within the definition of the 2014 Act or Schedule 2 to this Bill.

I tabled this amendment because I am aware of a serious problem in a block of flats next to mine and only about 400 yards away from here. Over a period of about two years, residents complained of blatant drug dealing in a flat owned by the L&Q social landlords. Addicts were threatening other householders to let them in to buy drugs from the flat. Children in other flats were scared to come home from school in case they met violent druggies in the corridor. The police were involved but could not sit there 24/7, waiting to catch drug dealing in practice. The Westminster City Council anti-social behaviour unit and the local MP got involved, demanding action, but L&Q refused to do anything. It even lied that it had applied for an ASBO, and it took two years before that tenant was finally evicted. Of course, the Bill and my amendment cannot force a negligent RSH, such as L&Q, to issue a closure notice, but it might help those who do care about their tenants.

Just for the record, I have named that company because my noble friend Lord Gove, then the Housing Minister, called in the chief executive after writing to him, stating:

“You have failed your residents”.


He did that after a devastating ombudsman’s report uncovered a prolonged period of decline in L&Q’s repairs and complaint handling.

I do not need to say any more. If the Minister tells me that “premises” includes individual flats within the definition and we will be covered with this, I will not come back to this on Report. But if I have a valid point, I hope the Government will make a little tweak and amend the Bill accordingly. I beg to move.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I knew there was a reason why I was so nice about the earlier amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I am afraid we do not agree with Amendment 26. The amendment focuses on the power to issue closure notices, a measure which deals directly with the security of the home, which we believe is a fundamental right in our society. A closure notice is an extreme measure, and any power enabling the exclusion of a person from their residence must be subject to the highest legal scrutiny and strict proportionality, and we do not support the amendment.

Social justice groups consistently caution that new powers risk disadvantaging tenants and vulnerable groups. We must remember that, where these orders relate to social housing, they have the potential to render entire families homeless. We believe that the amendment would exacerbate that.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Amendment 26 to Schedule 2 to the Bill, which permits a registered social housing provider to issue a closure notice in respect of premises they own or manage, under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. As my noble friend and other noble Lords have stated, a closure notice under Section 76 of that Act is a notice which prohibits a person from accessing specific premises. Currently, such a notice can be issued only by the police or the local authority, but Schedule 2 permits an RSH to also issue such notices.

My noble friend’s amendment would ensure that the RSH provider is able to issue a closure notice for an individual flat in the premises it is responsible for. Given that paragraph (2)(b) of Schedule 2 does not specify that fact, I look forward to the Minister’s answer and hope he might clarify that point.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, these are powerful amendments and it is hard to see how they can be argued against. We have all heard of cases where victims have had a very tough time demonstrating the persecution that they have experienced, and they often get challenged in court, unreasonably, I think. These amendments are excellent and we should encourage the noble Lord to push them to a vote later.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this group, so well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Stedman-Scott and Lady Jones, focuses on putting the victim first, a principle that we wholeheartedly support.

Clause 6 aims to strengthen the anti-social behaviour case review, and we support the package of amendments to the clause tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Hampton. We support the objective of establishing a statutory threshold for convening a review that explicitly considers the victim’s vulnerability. This is crucial, as it would remove the discretion for authorities to apply additional caveats and ensure that the severity of the impact on the individual is prioritised over mere persistence of the behaviour.

We back the proposal in Amendment 29 to ensure that the review is chaired by an independent person who has not previously been involved in the case. Independence is essential to restore trust and ensure objectivity when agencies review their own failures. We also strongly agree with the demand in Amendment 30 that authorities must publish the reasons for determining that the threshold for a review has not been met. This is a simple but powerful measure to increase accountability and transparency in the decision-making process. Amendment 27, which would require police officers to undertake an ASB impact assessment when the threshold is met, is a common-sense measure to ensure that victims experiencing high levels of harm receive appropriate support.

These amendments demonstrate how we can collectively strengthen the system to deliver genuine justice for victims of persistent anti-social behaviour, ensuring that their trauma and vulnerability are fully recognised. I very much hope that the Government will take them on board.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are technical amendments that affect provisions in the Bill containing data-sharing provisions. Within the relevant clauses and schedule, there are general provisions that bar the disclosure of data if such disclosures would contravene data-protection legislation. These protections against data-protection overrides are now no longer needed within the Bill, as a general provision to the same effect is now made by Section 183A of the Data Protection Act 2018, which was inserted by Section 106(2) of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. That Act came into effect on 20 August and, now that the general provision is in force, the amendments remove the redundant duplicative provisions from the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s confirmation that the amendments are matters of purely technical housekeeping, because they remove provisions that are no longer needed, and that this is caused by the insertion of Section 183A into the Data Protection Act 2018 by Section 106(2) of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. I must confess, having spent time in the salt mines of the then Data (Use and Access) Bill, that this did not come to my attention at the time, but I am sure it is a valuable piece of legislation.

This creates an overarching safeguard, ensuring that new enactments such as this Bill do not automatically override core data protection requirements. However, I must say that the fact that the Government’s intentions are technically sound in this respect does not remove the need for clarification and specific statutory safeguards in certain highly sensitive policy areas, which we will be debating in due course. I thought I would put the Minister on notice that we will be calling for the adoption of additional safeguards ensuring that new powers in the Bill are fair and proportionate: for instance, the DVLA access and facial recognition provisions in Clause 138, which grant powers for regulations concerning police access to DVLA driver licensing information. We remain deeply concerned that the power granted by Clause 138 could be used to create a vast police facial recognition database, and we will be looking for additional safeguards.

On Clauses 192 to 194, concerning international law enforcement information-sharing agreements, the cross-border transfer of data inherent in such agreements presents significant civil liberties concerns, so we will be calling for mandatory privacy impact assessments. That is just a taster.

In conclusion, while the Government’s amendments are technical in nature, we will in due course be using the opportunity to embed specific, robust statutory safeguards for a number of new powers in the Bill.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

The House will be relieved to know I will be mercifully brief on this occasion. Until 1968 the Met and other police forces used CID officers to do SOCO work—that is, collecting forensic evidence at the scenes of crimes. For many it was not their speciality and they often damaged vital evidence. Police forces realised that teams of dedicated civilians who specialise in gathering evidence at crime scenes could do a better job. Naturally, the Police Federation opposed any civilians being brought in to do it. Now, civilians do command and dispatch—which used to be done by serving officers—investigation support, and crime analysis. Over the years the police service has had to recognise, reluctantly in my opinion, that a constable of whatever rank may not be the best-qualified person to undertake increasingly complex tasks. We see credit card fraud going through the roof because there is practically no one in any police force capable of investigating it. Goodness knows who could do it —forensic accountants, perhaps.

All I am seeking here is an assurance from the Minister that this important co-ordinating role will not go to an inspector or a superintendent unless he or she is an absolute expert on the internet and online sales. This requires a switched-on internet geek, and not necessarily a uniformed bobby. Can the Minister assure me that the police will recruit for this role the best-qualified person, from wherever that person comes from, provided that he or she passes all the integrity tests, and that the guidance envisaged in the clause will say so? I beg to move.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I must say, I admire the range of interventions made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I do not want him to fall back on his seat, but on this occasion, we have some sympathy with the two amendments he has put forward. This group addresses the establishment of the new civil penalty regime for online advertising, a measure which we on these Benches support for its goal of strengthening accountability for online platforms. The introduction of civil penalties in this part of the Bill is intended to tackle the online grey market that facilitates the sale of illegal weapons, enabling earlier intervention and prevention of offensive weapon crimes. We must ensure that the framework we establish is not only robust legally but operationally effective in the digital age.

Amendment 55B tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, concerning Clause 13, focuses specifically on the essential role of the co-ordinating officer. Clause 13 mandates that the Secretary of State designate a member of a relevant police force or a National Crime Agency officer as the co-ordinating officer for this chapter. The amendment proposes that:

“The coordinating officer need not be a constable but must be someone versed in the internet and online sales and purchases”.


We on these Benches recognise that 21st-century crime fighting is no longer solely about boots on the ground. It relies heavily on specialised digital expertise to effectively police online marketplaces and hold search services and user-to-user services accountable. The designated officer must possess deep knowledge of digital platform sales techniques and online advertising mechanisms, as the noble Lord indicated. By explicitly allowing this officer to be a non-constable professional and expert, we would ensure that law enforcement can deploy the most qualified individuals to secure content removal notices and apply civil penalties. In our view, this pragmatic approach would ensure efficiency and maximum efficacy against technologically sophisticated platforms.

Amendment 55F in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, relates to Clause 24, which governs the guidance issued by the Secretary of State regarding the operation of this new regime. All new intrusive powers, especially those concerning online services, require clear, precise guidance to avoid unintended consequences and ensure fairness. Proper statutory guidance is the mechanism by which the principles established in the Bill should be translated into proportionate and actionable requirements for online service providers.

In short, in our view these amendments seek to guarantee that the architecture of this new regime is built on technical expertise and clarity, both those pillars being essential in ensuring that our online crime-fighting tools are fit for purpose. As such, we support them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 55C, I will speak also to my Amendments 55D and 55E. My three amendments here are all similar, as I argue that a value-based penalty is more effective than a maximum fixed fine. The issue of illegal knife sales on the internet is a matter of serious public concern. It is big business with big consequences when those knives—machetes and zombie knives—are used to kill and maim, as is increasingly the case.

The proposals in the Bill to fine individuals and businesses up to £60,000 for selling illegal knives online seem hefty at first glance. However, the effectiveness and fairness of such a fixed penalty are questionable. A more effective approach would be to impose a fine equal to 500% of the total value of all the illegal goods advertised. I want to convince the Minister that a proportional penalty is, in some cases, superior to a subjective fixed maximum fine.

First, there is the subjectivity of the fixed maximum fine. Setting a maximum fine of £60,000 for selling illegal knives leaves the final penalty to the discretion of the court. This introduces subjectivity into the process, as judges must determine what amount is appropriate in each case. The outcome may vary significantly depending on the judge’s interpretation of the offence’s severity, the defendant’s circumstances and other factors. Consequently, similar offenders could face vastly different penalties, undermining the consistency and predictability of the law. Then, of course, I come back to my favourite organisation, the Sentencing Council, advising that the £60,000 fine should never be imposed—but let us leave that aside for the moment.

Moreover, a fixed cap may not reflect the true scale of the illegal activity. For example, a small-scale individual seller and a large business operation could both face the same maximum penalty, despite the latter potentially profiting far more from illegal sales. This lack of proportionality can result in fines that are either too lenient or excessively harsh, depending on the specifics of the case.

In contrast, my suggestion of a fine set at 500% of the value of all illegal knives advertised is directly linked to the scale of the offence and the profits. This proportional penalty approach ensures that the penalty increases in line with the seriousness of the crime. Large-scale operations, which are likely to profit more and cause greater harm, would face correspondingly larger fines. This not only achieves greater fairness but strengthens the deterrent effect. As we have said on many occasions, criminals are primarily motivated by profit. If the financial penalty reliably exceeds any potential gains—by a factor of five in this case—the risk heavily outweighs the reward. I suggest that that creates a strong disincentive for individuals and businesses to engage in illegal knife sales.

The proportional system also ensures that penalties remain meaningful, even as the market or profitability of legal knives fluctuates over time. The proportional penalty system is more likely to deter criminal behaviour, because it removes ambiguity and subjectivity from sentencing. Offenders know in advance that any profits from illegal activity will be entirely wiped out and replaced by a substantial loss. That clarity and certainty are crucial in discouraging would-be offenders. Furthermore, tying the fine to the value of the legal goods ensures fairness across all cases. Small-time offenders are punished proportionately for their actions, while major players face penalties commensurate with the harm they cause and the profits they make. That upholds the principle that the punishment should fit the crime.

In summary, I submit that a fixed maximum fine of £60,000 for selling illegal knives online introduces subjectivity and inconsistency—whereas a penalty of 500% of the value of all illegal goods advertised is fair, more predictable and far more likely to deter criminal activity.

I do not need to speak to my Amendment 55E; it is the same concept but suggests a mere 100% proportional penalty for a lesser offence. I urge the Minister to consider adopting a proportional penalty system to effectively combat the sale of illegal knives over the internet. I beg to move.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has so concisely described—he gets more concise as the evening goes on—this group deals with the sanctions applied under the online weapon advertising regime.

We very much welcome the Government’s commitment to ensuring accountability for businesses and sellers who facilitate the online sale of knives. However, if the penalties imposed are too small, they merely become a tolerable cost of doing business for large, wealthy online service providers. As the noble Lord explained, the Bill proposes maximum civil penalties for service providers of up to £60,000 for failing to comply with content manager requirements or for failing to comply with a content removal notice. His Amendments 55C and 55D directly challenge that maximum limit by proposing that the penalty for a service provider’s non-compliance should instead be a minimum of 500% of the value of the illegal goods advertised.

In our view, that proposal shifts the focus decisively towards financial deterrence—although I hate to agree with the noble Lord twice in one evening. The argument embedded within these amendments is sound: fines should reflect the scale and profitability of the illegal advertising business they enable. By linking the minimum fine directly to five times the value of the illegal goods advertised, we ensure that the penalty scales proportionally with the volume of the illicit trade facilitated by the platform, making it financially unsustainable to turn a blind eye to illegal weapon content.

The noble Lord’s Amendment 55E applies this same principle to the penalties imposed on the service provider’s content manager. Clause 23 currently sets the maximum penalty for the content manager at £10,000. Amendment 55E seeks to replace that cap with a minimum penalty of 100% of the value of the illegal goods advertised. That would ensure that the individual responsible for overseeing compliance within the organisation also faces a penalty that reflects the seriousness of the content they failed to manage or remove, particularly where that content is tied directly to the advertisement of unlawful weapons.

These amendments force us to consider how we can make our laws genuinely tough on organised online crime. In our view, legislation must be proportionate; and proportionality, in the face of corporate digital crime, means that penalties should meaningfully exceed the profits derived from facilitating criminal activity. The amendments rightly push us to consider the financial consequences that would truly deter platforms from risking public safety for private gain.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blencathra for these amendments and offer support from the Front Bench for them.

The three amendments by my noble friend all have the same aim: to tie the level of financial penalty directly to the value of the illegal knives being advertised and the profits generated from their sale. The logic behind them is obvious—and they also raise an important point. Fines that merely represent a modest operational cost to criminals will do little to deter those who deliberately trade in dangerous and illegal weapons. If the economic reward remains greater than the economic risk, the deterrent effect is minimal. Therefore, it seems prudent to put into statute appropriate provisions to ensure that that never is the case. The purpose of penalties must be both to punish wrongdoing and to disrupt the business model that makes it worth pursuing.

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[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for his explanation of the amendments in this group. As he said, Amendment 55C would set minimum fines for companies that fail to comply with an appointment notice that requires them to designate an executive to be held liable for failing to take down illegal knife and weapons content. Amendments 55D and 55E would set minimum fines for companies and liable executives that fail to take down illegal content when requested to do so. As he explains, his proposed minimum fines are proportionate for companies; they are set at 500% of the value of the knife or the weapon for companies, and 100% of the value for individuals.

I hate to disappoint the Committee or to ruin the spirit of accord that has broken out across the Benches opposite, but while the logic of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is good, I am afraid it does not reflect the actual behaviour and experience of the marketplace. If I can, I will try to explain why it would not be as effective or as impactful as he no doubt intends.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I hate to interrupt the Minister—well, I do not really—but can he explain what he means by that about the market? I did not grasp what he meant by that.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

Well, that is a very good segue into the words that are just following—I was about to get there.

Many knives and weapons that are sold illegally are sold relatively cheaply, in the order of tens of pounds. Some sellers who sell knives and weapons over social media tend to hold and advertise small stock numbers. Therefore, we contend that the suggested minimum penalties are simply too low to incentivise the prompt removal of illegal content. The independent review of online safety of knives shows a case study as an example where an individual bought 30 knives to sell illegally over social media for under £50 each. Should the social media company not take the illegal content down, the proposed minimum fine under these amendments would be £1,500 for the executive and £7,500 for the companies. Those penalties, as I am sure noble Lords would agree, would be too low for large tech companies and executives to be worried about at all. Not having a minimum penalty will leave full discretion to the police, who specialise in investigating illegal knife sales online. This will allow them to use their judgment to issue fines that are commensurate in each case.

The penalties for failing to comply with these are, as already noted, issued in the form of civil penalty notices by the police. They can be up to £60,000 for companies and £10,000 for individuals. I remind noble Lords that these penalties are for single violations and will add up if companies and executives repeatedly fail to comply with removal notices. The measure is intended not just to punish companies but to facilitate behaviour change. I trust that the police administering these measures will issue fines of an appropriate level to incentivise the prompt removal of illegal content.

I note the experience, which I found instructive, of the independent review of the online sale of knives, that a lot of the activity is undertaken through very small stocks that are cheaply sold. If we used the regime of a proportionate measure, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, we simply would not generate enough. Noble Lords may not think that £60,000 is worth much, but we certainly would not generate anywhere near £60,000 in those examples.

It is worth bearing in mind that a lot of the grey market sellers do so over social media websites. The recipient of the fine is the tech company that does not take down the illegal material, rather than the person selling the knives or the weapons. We understand the intended recipient of the punishment—the fines—which is why we think that having the £60,000 or £10,000 level is appropriate, because that is for single offences. Any time a company fails to remove the content for which they have received a notice, the fines will add up and accumulate, which will make an impact—and we would all agree that that needs to be done.

In response to another point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, we feel that the Sentencing Council is unlikely to comment on the level of a civil penalty. That may be a little speculative from my perspective, but I think that it is probably what the experience bears out.

Given this explanation and the clarification of our view of how the environment—I should not have used the word “market” earlier—in which these sales take place, I hope that the noble Lord is sufficiently assured that these penalties will have an impact in the way they are set out in the Bill and that he will be content to withdraw his amendment.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

As I have previously stated in the House, Internet Matters found that teenagers saw sexually explicit deepfakes as worse than real images, for reasons such as lack of autonomy and awareness of the image, the anonymity of the perpetrator and the ways in which the image may be manipulated to portray the victim. The Girlguiding survey found that 59% of 11 to 21 year-olds were concerned that AI may be used to create fake images of them online. The accessibility of this technology quite simply facilitates the gamification of abuse, and I believe that we must take this opportunity to put a stop to it.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard some very powerful and emotional speeches, and I very much hope that, having seen the unanimous support all around the Committee, the Minister will respond positively today. I wholeheartedly support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin; I would have added my name to all of them, had there been space on the Order Paper.

This has been quite a dark debate, but as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, these are the direct, evidence-based conclusions of her independent pornography review. I very much welcome the questions the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked about the lack of a response to the Creating a Safer World review. It analysed 132,000 videos and clearly established an unambiguous link between the consumption of extreme pornography and violence against women and girls, both online and offline. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, it is poison; as the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Boycott, said, it is motivated by money; and as the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, said, it is the worst end of human nature for profit.

As we have heard today from all around the Committee, we are extremely mindful of the emotional impact on young women and girls in particular. I acknowledge that, in their later Amendments 294 and 295, the Government have made some progress on the possession and publication of pornographic images portraying strangulation and suffocation. The review by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, found that such content is rife on mainstream platforms and has normalised life-threatening violence, to the extent that 58% of young people have seen it, so I welcome the Government’s moves to close that specific gap.

However, while the Government have addressed the issue of strangulation, these amendments address the remaining glaring legislative gaps identified by the review. We cannot shut the door on one form of extreme violence, while leaving the windows wide open for others.

Amendment 314 seeks to establish a fundamental principle: parity between the online and offline worlds, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, and others, have explained. Since 1984, we have prohibited content offline that the British Board of Film Classification would refuse to classify, such as material promoting non-consensual acts or sexual violence. Again, like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I hope that, given the extremely effective way the BBFC has carried out its duties, we will not find it too difficult to find a way of sharpening that amendment to make sure that there is a very clear definition of the kind of content online that is equivalent to that offline, which we are seeking to regulate.

Amendments 290 and 291 address content that mimics child sexual abuse and incest. The noble Baroness’s review highlighted that “teen” is one of the most frequently searched terms, often leading to videos featuring performers styled with props, such as lollipops and school uniforms, to look underage. Experts working with sex offenders have made it clear that viewing this type of violent or age-play pornography is a key risk factor. Men who offend against children are 11 times more likely to watch violent pornography than those who do not. By allowing this content to proliferate, we are effectively hosting a training ground for abuse. These amendments would extend the definition of extreme pornography to cover these specific, harmful depictions.

Amendment 292 would introduce a duty for pornography websites to verify not just age but consent. We know that the average age of entry into trafficking for pornography in the US is just 12.8 years. Currently, once a video is online, a woman who has been coerced, trafficked or simply changed her mind has often no legal mechanism to withdraw that consent. What the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, said on this was particularly telling. This amendment would provide a necessary right to erasure, ensuring that platforms must remove content if consent is withdrawn. If the banking sector can verify identity to secure our finances, the multi-billion pound pornography industry can verify identity to secure human dignity.

Amendment 298 addresses the rapid rise of AI nudification apps. As my noble friend Lady Benjamin said, the Internet Watch Foundation reported a 380% increase in AI-generated child exploitation imagery between 2023 and 2024—a staggering figure. These tools are being weaponised to humiliate women and children. This amendment would criminalise the possession of software designed to create non-consensual nude images, closing a loophole before it widens further. I add to what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said on the need for wider guard-rails on large language models in, I hope, future government legislation.

The Government have rightly recognised the harm of strangulation content, and I urge them now to accept the logic of their own position and to support these additional amendments to deal with incest, child-mimicking content and the fundamental issue of consent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said, we should be ashamed of ourselves, and I hope that we now ensure that the legislation catches up with the reality of the digital age.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Bertin not just for tabling and speaking to these amendments but for the excellent work she has done and continues to do in this area, which by all accounts has taken its toll. She has campaigned on these matters for a long time and deserves so much praise from all of us.

When I first discussed these amendments with my noble friend, I could hardly believe what she was telling me. Essentially, their underlying premise is that certain forms of extreme pornography are still allowed despite the fact that they have been proven to have highly damaging impacts on the development and behaviour of young boys and adolescents, not to mention the exploitation of children, women and so many victims and potential victims of this subject matter.

We have heard compelling speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Kennedy, and, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, in support of these amendments. There are so many perspectives from which one can look at them. One slightly personal perspective I have is that of a father of teenage children. I have teenage sons. Like all teenagers, they are bombarded with technology, challenged by social media and confronted with the unlimited scope that access to the internet can provide, with all its positive possibilities but also all its temptations, and in particular the dangers inherent in online pornography of an extreme nature. My sons, in effect, are the target audience of much of this material and I do not want this to be the new normal, as one of my noble friends described it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, spoke of poison and how we have to find ways of dealing with it. I concur completely. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, who said so powerfully that technology is outpacing regulation. That is the real danger here. As my noble friend Lady Shawcross-Wolfson said, we have to close the loopholes.

My noble friend Lady Bertin has highlighted that, at present, we criminalise child sexual abuse in all its forms. We thus criminalise sexual activity within certain family relationships and the making of indecent images of children, yet, astonishingly, online content that depicts, fantasises about or encourages these same criminal acts is legally and widely available.

Amendment 290 confronts the deeply troubling reality that material which appears to portray a child—even when the performer is an adult—can be used to groom, normalise or encourage sexual interest in children. We know that such material is not harmless fantasy. Law enforcement, child protection organisations and international research bodies have all warned that material appearing to depict children fuels harmful attitudes and increases the risk that individuals progress towards real-world offending.

Crucially, Amendment 290 would also create a new offence of producing or distributing material that glorifies or encourages sexual activity with a child or family member. No one in this Chamber needs reminding that such conduct is criminal and profoundly harmful, yet text-based, audio and visual material explicitly celebrating child abuse and incest remains widely accessible on mainstream pornography sites and user-generated content platforms. The law should recognise the role of such material in grooming, desensitisation and normalisation of abuse.

Amendment 291 addresses the glaring inconsistency whereby extreme pornographic content is prohibited in many contexts yet explicit depictions of unlawful sexual acts between family members—including those involving persons described or portrayed as under 18 —are not necessarily captured by existing legislation. Incest is a criminal offence, reflecting both the safeguarding imperative and the inherent power imbalance within some familial relationships. Yet, again, pornographic content portraying incest, often stylised to appear illicit, coercive or involving younger family members, remains permissible to host, sell and distribute online so long as it is performed by adults.

This amendment would not criminalise lawful adult behaviour; it would criminalise the possession of extreme pornographic images depicting acts that would themselves be criminal if performed in reality. Once again, the principle is consistency. What is an offence offline should not be freely commodified online under the guise of entertainment.

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[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I add my voice to the support for my noble friend Lady Owen from across the Committee. She has done a great service to victims of these crimes all across the country, most of whom we know are women and girls, but men and boys can be affected too.

I will focus on Amendment 334 which, as my noble friend Lady Coffey has mentioned, would add the word “reckless” in relation to the spiking offence. This is very important. I remember being the Home Office Minister when the phenomenon of needle spiking first hit the headlines. It focused a lot of attention on spiking in general as a phenomenon and meant the Home Office had to put its focus and resources behind it. We found it was very difficult to prosecute these crimes. Often, the substance had left the body. Often, victims were blamed for their behaviour, for putting themselves in those situations.

When I went to talk to the victims, I often heard that they thought that people were just doing it for a laugh, and a lot of the hospitality industry—bars, clubs and festivals—said the same thing. They said that it was really inadequate to have the requirement to prove harm or a sexual motive. That was part of the reason, though not the whole reason, why we have seen such a woefully low level of prosecutions for this. It is my belief that we need to make sure we include this recklessness element, and that is also the belief of most of the campaigners that I have worked with, including Stamp Out Spiking and, of course, Richard Graham, who did a tremendous job. I hope that the Government will adopt this amendment and all the others.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it has been a privilege to take part in today’s Committee. I think anyone reading Hansard subsequently will get a much better insight than they ever had before of the risks and experience of young women and girls in today’s world, sadly. It has been a privilege listening to all the speeches, particularly on these amendments.

Like others, started by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, for the forensic way she has identified the digital loopholes that currently allow abusers to evade justice. As we have been reminded, she has been a doughty campaigner on the Data (Use and Access) Act, with a winning streak that I hope will continue.

At the same time, I welcome the government amendments in this group, which at least signal a positive direction of travel. For far too long, victims of intimate image abuse have been timed out of justice by the six-month limit on summary offences. The noble Baroness, Lady Owen, identified this injustice, and I am delighted that the Government have listened with their Amendment 300. Then, of course, we have a number of other amendments. The noble Baroness’s amendments go further than time limits; they address harms that the Bill completely misses.

In particular, I highlight Amendment 298B, which addresses the malicious practice known as doxing. It is a terrifying reality for survivors that perpetrators often do not just share an intimate image; they weaponise it by publishing the victim’s address, employer or educational details alongside it. This is calculated to maximise distress, vulnerability and real-world danger. This amendment would rightly establish that providing such information is a statutory aggravating factor and would ensure that the court must treat this calculated destruction of a victim’s privacy with the severity it deserves.

While we welcome the government amendments regarding deprivation orders, I urge the Minister to look closely at Amendment 295BB, also in the name of the noble Baroness. Current police powers often focus on seizing the physical device—the phone or laptop—but we live in an age of cloud storage. Seizing a phone is meaningless if the image remains accessible in the cloud, ready to be downloaded the moment the offender buys a new device. Amendment 295BB would create a duty for verified deletion, including from cloud services. We must ensure that when we say an image is destroyed, it is truly gone.

I also strongly support the suite of amendments extending the law to cover audio recordings. As technology evolves, we are seeing the rise of AI-generated audio deepfakes—a new frontier of abuse highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, and the Revenge Porn Helpline, as we have heard today. I pay tribute to her for raising this issue. By explicitly including audio recordings in the definition of intimate image offences, these amendments could future-proof the legislation against these emerging AI threats.

Finally in this area, Amendment 295BD offers a systematic solution: a non-consensual intimate image register using hashing technology, which was so clearly described by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. We cannot rely on a game of whack-a-mole, where victims must report the same image to platform after platform. A hash registry that identifies the unique digital fingerprint of an image to block its upload across providers is the only scalable technical solution to this problem.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, we also welcome the new offence of administering harmful substances in Clause 101, but the current drafting requires specific intent to “injure, aggrieve or annoy”. Perpetrators of spiking often hide behind the defence that it was just a prank or done to liven up a friend. This leaves prosecutors struggling to prove specific intent. Amendment 334 would close this gap by introducing recklessness into the offence. If you spike a person’s drink, you are inherently being reckless as to the danger you pose to that person. The law should reflect that reality, and I urge the Government to accept this strengthening of the clause.

Finally, we support Amendment 356B, which would modernise domestic abuse protection orders. Abusers are innovative; they use third parties and digital platforms to bypass physical restrictions. This amendment would explicitly prohibit indirect contact and digital harassment, ensuring that a protection order actually provides protection in the 21st century.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

317: Clause 87, page 100, line 34, at end insert—
“(aa) if the name change is by deed poll, seven days prior to submitting an application for change of name (if that day is earlier than the day specified in paragraph (a)), or” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that if a person is changing their name by deed poll, they must notify a new name to the police prior to submitting the application.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses a vital aspect of public protection, closing the loopholes that allow registered sex offenders to evade detection and monitoring by changing their identity. Effective management of offenders in the 21st century requires a justice system that is not only legally robust but properly resourced and technologically capable.

On these Benches, we strongly welcome Clause 87, which requires sex offenders to notify the police of a name change seven days before using that new name, in the words of the clause. This is a significant improvement on the current retrospective notification regime, which has allowed offenders to disappear from the radar of the authorities. However, my Amendment 317 seeks to tighten this provision further regarding deed polls. As currently drafted, an offender could theoretically go through the legal process of obtaining a deed poll to change their name without the police being aware until the moment they intend using it, again using the language of Clause 87.

My amendment specifies that if a name change is by deed poll, the offender must notify the police seven days prior to submitting the application. This would ensure that the police are alerted at the very start of the administrative process of changing identity rather than at the end. It provides authorities with the vital time needed to conduct appropriate risk assessments and, if necessary, intervene before a new legal identity is formally established. This proposal has been championed by campaigners such as Sarah Champion MP in the other place, and it is a common-sense safeguard to ensure that the police are always one step ahead.

I stress that the management of offenders today is not just about physical monitoring but about digital monitoring. Just as we have seen criminal recruitment drives for money mules take place on social media platforms, we know that the internet provides avenues for offenders to reoffend or breach their conditions. Although Amendment 317 seeks to tighten the management regime legislative framework, I urge the Government to ensure that the police and relevant agencies have the digital resources and data-sharing capabilities required to enforce these new powers effectively rather than relying on a fragmented system that allows offenders to slip through the net. This measure would strengthen the safety net around our communities immeasurably. I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment as a logical extension of the Government’s own objectives in Clause 87. I beg to move.

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was designed for a world with low demand for gender recognition certificates and did not anticipate modern safeguarding realities. I believe that that context has fundamentally changed, and that creates a serious gap that my amendment seeks to close. The system is no longer confined to a small number of older adults. New Ministry of Justice data shows that almost 10,000 GRCs have been issued. Last year alone, over 1,169 were granted. That is the highest number on record and more than triple the annual figure five years ago. This is quite a dramatic generational shift: almost a quarter of new certificates now go to people born since the year 2000. Demand has changed but safeguarding has not kept up.

I recently tabled a Written Question to the Government after I had seen multiple cases of male-born sex offenders changing their gender identity, so by the time they appeared in court or were sent to prison they identified as women. I was curious, so I asked the Government what safeguards would prevent a convicted rapist or sex offender going on to obtain a gender recognition certificate and being legally recognised as a woman. First, I was troubled that this Question, when it came to be answered, had been transferred to the Minister for Equalities rather than being answered by the Home Office. I believe it is fundamentally a matter of safety and not about equality. It should have been answered by the Home Office, so I worry that that demonstrates a confusion at the heart of the Government on this issue. Rape and sex offences are not about equality or identity but about safety.

Moreover, and more importantly, the response ignored the core issue. While of course we welcome the measures on name changes, passports and police notification, they do not prevent a convicted sex offender, if I understand it correctly, changing their legal sex under the Gender Recognition Act and going on to live the remainder of their life legally as a woman. To me, that highlights a serious safeguarding gap, and this amendment seeks to close that.

Noble Lords may ask why this is necessary and what this risk is that I speak about. We must be frank—sexual predators cannot be cured. The risk may be managed but it is not eliminated. That is why we have the lifelong monitoring regimes we have. That is why MAPPA exists and why I believe that the law must ensure that those who pose a permanent risk to women and girls, and men and boys, cannot access a legal mechanism that alters their status in ways that Parliament never intended.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I remind the Committee that the position of any of these individuals—as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned in her initial contribution—will be subject to consistently heavy management. These are serious offenders. There is a Probation Service. There is a MAPPA process. There is the registration. I have given the assurance that both names will be included in that registration.

Every piece of legislation that any House of Commons and House of Lords passes is subject to people breaking it. That happens, but there will be significant consequences in the event of that occurring. I am simply saying to the noble Baroness who has proposed this amendment, and to the proposals in the Bill that are genuinely welcome across the Committee, that there is significant supervision of sex offenders, and the requirements are as I have outlined to the Committee already. I hope that on that basis, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I am glad he focused on risk mitigation, and I think we got there in the final few paragraphs of his response. We need to take very seriously what he said, and I hope that if anything he said needs qualification, he will write to us subsequently, because this is a really important area.

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Prolonged and sustained abuse, particularly where it involves coercive control and psychological harm, can be the catalyst for the deepest despair and ultimately for the loss of life. The amendment would recognise this and encourage judges, coroners and police to investigate these cases thoroughly so that victims are no longer failed in death as they were in life. I urge the Government to consider it carefully and I beg to move.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I follow my noble friend Lady Doocey in this small but perfectly formed group of amendments. My Amendment 335 would mandate a statutory consultation on the guidance to accompany the new encouraging or assisting serious self-harm offences contained in Clauses 102 and 103.

On these Benches we welcome the underlying intention of Clauses 102 and 103 to implement the Law Commission’s recommendations for a broader offence covering encouragement or assistance of serious self-harm, expanding beyond digital communication to include direct assistance. However, offences that involve encouraging self-harm must be handled with the utmost care, given the vulnerabilities inherent in such cases. The critical issue here is the risk of inadvertently criminalising legitimate support services, which has been raised with us by a number of support organisations.

The offence requires a specific intention to encourage or assist serious self-harm. This is intended to ensure that charitable organisations and mental health professionals who advise sufferers on how to moderate or manage self-harming behaviour are not criminalised. My amendment addresses this directly by requiring the Secretary of State to produce guidance and consult extensively with representatives of self-harm support charities and organisations; mental health professionals, including those providing trauma-informed care; and legal experts—prosecutors and defence practitioners—regarding the application of the specific intent requirement. This mandatory consultation is essential, in our view, to ensure that the statutory guidance clearly differentiates between criminal encouragement and legitimate therapeutic activity. Without ensuring that this guidance is informed by experts and laid before Parliament, we risk confusion among front-line practitioners and the inadvertent penalisation of those working hardest to help vulnerable people. I hope the Government will give serious consideration to this amendment.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I fully appreciate the general principle behind these proposals. This is an incredibly serious subject, and I appreciate the sincerity with which the noble Baronesses have approached the debate.

On the amendment in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Blower, everyone wants to reach a scenario where all possibilities are accounted for, and there are no loopholes through which those who either encourage or abet self-harm can jump. It is for that reason that I cannot offer my support for proposed subsection (6) in the noble Baronesses’ amendment. First, I am sceptical of the need for more aggravating factors. The general offences that fall under loosely defined so-called honour-based abuse are crimes themselves, so I am unsure why there is a need to create an aggravating offence when a criminal will already be able to be tried for those offences individually.

Primarily, though, I do not think this is the right time to be incorporating new definitions into our legal framework. There is guidance for Crown prosecutors as to what might fall under honour-based abuse and examples as to how that might look, but it is yet to be enshrined in law and it is a rather broad and non-exclusive term within our law. That is not to say that it is not easy to spot—it often is—but it should have its own delineated legal definition before it is made an aggravating factor. I agree with the noble Baroness that honour-based abuse is an increasing issue that we must tackle head on, but that cannot be done with a single amendment. However, I offer my support to the principle behind proposed subsection (6)(b).

I welcome the sentiment behind Amendment 335 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. Policy rooted in pragmatism is crucial, and consultation and guidance are one of the primary ways to achieve that. The Government should base all the policy that they bring forward on the testimonies of people who dedicate their lives to the subjects that we legislate on, and that it is especially important for a policy in such a sensitive area as this. I hope the Minister agrees, and I look forward to her response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for tabling Amendments 334A and 335 respectively.

I am aware of the cases that have motivated the desire to have an amendment such as Amendment 334A, and I completely understand; the stories that the noble Baroness outlined cannot fail to move anyone listening to them. Having said that, the Government will not be supporting either of these amendments today, for the following reasons.

I shall deal first with the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. When a defendant has previous convictions, including those relating to a history of domestic abuse, that is already recognised as a statutory aggravating factor in sentencing. In addition, aggravating factors that are associated with honour-based abuse, such as abuse of trust or targeting vulnerable victims, are already covered in the domestic abuse guidelines. The presence of aggravating factors such as these should therefore already result in the sentence reflecting those factors, and in my experience it always would. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, about not adding an ever-increasing list of statutory aggravating factors. This is certainly the third group of amendments that I have dealt with that has proposed different forms of offences.

On the second aspect of the amendment, proposed subsection (6)(b) raises a sensitive and important issue. The Government wholeheartedly agree that, when it can be proved that suicide was the result of abuse or encouragement, the abuser should be held accountable. There are existing offences that cover this situation, such as manslaughter or encouraging or assisting suicide offences, which have maximum penalties of life imprisonment and 14 years’ imprisonment respectively. However, imposing a requirement for the court to sentence the defendant in those circumstances as though they had been convicted of murder, when in fact they have not been convicted of murder, would be at odds not only with the current sentencing approach but with the principle that people are sentenced only for matters that have been proved to the satisfaction of the court. I also make the perhaps obvious comment that there is no range of sentences for murder; there is only one sentence, which is life imprisonment. For those reasons, amending Clause 102 in this way would not be appropriate.

However, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that the Law Commission is currently undertaking a review of homicide offences and of sentencing for murder, and this will include a review of the use of, and the obstacles to using, manslaughter offences where abuse may have driven someone to suicide. I hope that the noble Baroness will understand why the Government are reluctant to make any piecemeal amendments in advance of the Law Commission reporting.

I turn to Amendment 335, from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I thank the noble Lord for his welcome of the offence. As to the guidance that he proposes in the consultation, as many in this Committee are aware, I was principal legal adviser to a rather well-known former Director of Public Prosecutions—I spent five years working for the Crown Process Service—so it is important to me to emphasise that it is in fact for the independent Crown Prosecution Service to update guidance on prosecuting offences under this new provision. It may well be that many noble Lords know this but, while the statutory Code for Crown Prosecutors governs in general terms how prosecutors make decisions on which cases to prosecute and which not, sitting underneath that is a raft of legal guidance that is published and publicly available. It exists for two reasons: the first is so that members of the public can see the basis on which the CPS makes its decisions, but the second is so that the CPS can be held to account. If it fails to follow its own guidance, that will often provide a ground for challenging the decision made.

I understand that the noble Lord’s amendment aims to ensure that legitimate support or therapeutic activity is not criminalised, so I reassure him that the offence has been carefully drafted to avoid capturing vulnerable individuals or those providing mental health support. The offence as drafted in the Bill was recommended by the Law Commission in its 2021 malicious communications report and contains two key safeguards: first, that the person must intend to encourage or assist serious self-harm and without such intent no offence would be committed; and, secondly, that serious self-harm is defined as harm amounting to grievous bodily harm. These safeguards ensure that the offence targets only the most serious and culpable behaviour and protects those who are, for example, sharing personal experience or discussing self-harm but not encouraging it.

The offence also does not cover the glorification or glamorisation of self-harm. The Law Commission found that that was too broad and would potentially capture vulnerable people who might then be exposed to prosecution: so, taking on board the commission’s comments, the Government have not included that.

In our view, this approach ensures that the offence is necessary, proportionate and focused on genuinely harmful acts. There is also a further protection for the vulnerable, which is provided by the public interest stage of the full code test. This requires that, even where there is sufficient evidence, prosecutors must consider whether or not a prosecution is required in the public interest, and plainly the vulnerabilities of the potential defendant would come into play at that stage.

I hope that the reasons I have provided clearly set out why the Government do not support either of these amendments today, and I ask that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, do not press their respective amendments.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I thank the Minister, who has carefully taken us through three limbs, as far as I tell: first, there will be CPS guidance in terms of the specific offence, in the way that it decides whether or not to prosecute; secondly, the way that the offence itself has been drafted; and, thirdly, the public interest test. However, will she engage with the organisations that are concerned about the offences? I think I understand what she is saying about intent, grievous bodily harm and the other limbs that mean we will not see the kinds of prosecutions that people are concerned about, but will the MoJ engage with the organisations that have concerns?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. As far as the first of the three protections is concerned, obviously I cannot bind the Crown Prosecution Service—the whole point about it is that it is independent of government. However, based on my own experiences, where there are areas of the law that plainly need clarification as to when the Crown Prosecution Service would prosecute and when it would not, it usually issues guidance. As regards engaging with the organisations, of course, it is sometimes not easy to explain the law and the thinking behind it. It is in everyone’s interests that the organisations which are concerned for vulnerable people understand that the Government have those interests very much at heart. I would welcome the opportunity to explain to them.