Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, economic crime, in particular fraud, is now the leading form of UK crime and, together with money laundering and bribery, costs the UK billions of pounds each year. It also undermines public trust, public confidence and economic growth. The good news is that enforcement against these economic crimes and associated confiscation of assets, while complex, generates substantial receipts—some £566 million per year currently. Yet, while we entrust the police and other law agencies with more and more tasks, mostly both difficult and vital, the very agencies responsible for securing these funds from criminals face acute resource challenges, particularly in recruiting and retaining specialist staff, updating skills and modernising ageing IT systems and capabilities, as a number of other speakers across the House have referred to so powerfully today.

I suggest to the House—and not for the first time—that those enforcing the laws we so carefully create and pass here must be properly resourced. An obvious means of doing this would be to use the confiscated criminal assets via a ring-fenced fund to resource the agencies concerned. There are two existing schemes in this area. The economic crime levy is an annual charge on UK businesses regulated under the money-laundering regulations. This private sector contribution could logically be matched by greater reinvestment of enforcement receipts. The current asset recovery incentivisation scheme, ARIS, is subject to the curiously named “annularity rules”. This means that money not used by the year end, which is sometimes just weeks away from when the money is obtained, is lost. A ring-fenced fund would enable stronger agencies, which would then deliver greater asset recovery and confiscation which, reinvested into the fight against economic crime, would establish a virtuous circle of self-financing investment and effectiveness.

Beyond the obvious capacity and effectiveness benefits from such targeted resources, a ring-fenced fund would demonstrate to working people that the Government are exploring all avenues to crack down on economic crime. There is a certain fiscal poetry here—not a phrase one hears very often, I believe—in that this would all be achieved without adding to anyone’s tax burden, but by making the criminals pay: a form of “polluter pays”, if you will.

In the House of Commons, an amendment to the Bill was put down to require the Government simply to investigate the viability of such a ring-fenced economic crime fighting fund using a proportion of the assets I have referred to. This cross-party proposal secured broad parliamentary support. It was signed by 28 MPs from Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green parties on Report. Unfortunately, there was insufficient time to debate the amendment, but there were productive conversations with the relevant Ministers.

To underline again, the amendment did not suggest, and I do not suggest, that the Bill is used to establish such a fund, simply that its viability is investigated. I have already shared these ideas and, indeed, a draft of the amendment with the Minister. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on this subject when he winds up this debate and would also welcome a meeting to discuss it with him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Cuckooing, not cuckolding. Sorry, it has been a long day in the Chamber today—apart from a very quick 20-second call of nature, I have been in for the whole day. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support for that measure as a whole.

We have also had a range of new ideas for the Bill, and I look forward—honestly—to developing and arguing and having a discussion around the amendments during the passage of the Bill.

I am happy to meet any Members, if I can, who are going to raise those issues. I have firearms and cycling from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. Historical weapons were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, takes an interest in that. I have had measures on child abuse from the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. I have transport issues from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, deceased children from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the chatbot issues. I have new proposals on cyber-digital from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, The noble Lord, Lord Walney, raised a number of issues to do with the terrorism review.

I have universal jurisdiction from my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. I have the cumulative impact issues from the noble Lord, Lord Walney. I have facial recognition from the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. I have vehicle non-compliance from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I have fraud from the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Birt, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Coffey. On all those things, I am happy to meet and discuss. Let us look at what is tabled, let us look at what is put down, and the Government will reflect on it. We may disagree at the end, but let us have that discussion as a whole.

On the fraud issue, from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, in particular, I am the Government’s first Fraud Minister—Anti-Fraud Minister, really, but is called Fraud Minister for the purposes of the discussion here today. I have a challenge from the Government to produce a new fraud strategy. We are in the process of working on that. By January or February of next year, there will be a three-year fraud strategy, which will cover some of the points that the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Birt, and others mentioned.

I know that facial recognition issues are important to the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, and I want to ensure that we examine those.

The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, and others made representations about the stalking measures in the Bill. I hope they will welcome those, but we will have a debate around that in due course.

My noble friend Lady Whitaker argued for the repeal of the provisions on encampments in Part 4 of the Police Act. We are aware of the High Court ruling and of the points made there. We will consider how best to respond in due course and will do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, again mentioned the recording of offences of intimate images. I am not sure we are going to agree on some of these issues, but at least I look forward to the amendments in due course if they are brought forward.

I also note the points from the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, which I will reflect on and look at in due course.

This is indeed a very large Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act and the implementation of that for farmers. We are looking now at when we can implement that and trying to bring the necessary regulations later this year—so I can give him the answer and support on that.

Although it is very rushed, I think I have covered every point raised by every Member who has spoken in the debate today. I may not have satisfied every Member, but I hope I have recognised that—

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Can I make the briefest of interruptions? That is a terrific to-do list and I congratulate the Minister on a spectacular summation. The one thing that has not really been touched on, which I think almost all of us spoke about, is resources. How are we going to pay for it?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Again, the Bill covers a range of legislative options on a range of matters. In parallel to that, there are two other aspects of work. We will produce a policing White Paper very shortly, which will look at some of the issues in policing and how we can improve efficiencies. With the National Police Chiefs’ Council and colleagues and police and crime commissioners, we will look at how we can get better value and better focus on the key policing issues that Members have talked about today.

The very point that the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and others have mentioned—about delivery, about use of resources, about focus and about asking what the police do on particular issues—is extremely important. It is absolutely vital that we focus the police on government priorities. Aside from the police White Paper, we have issues with police funding and budgets. We have given £1.2 billion extra this year to policing. There is a challenging settlement, but our job is to get better value out of that. But I think there is commonality between all of us in the Chamber today that the issues that matter to people are anti-social behaviour, shop theft, violence against women and girls and child sexual abuse. Although there are many policing priorities, those are things that this legislation is dealing with. Therefore, we are hoping that the resources and focus will follow the legislation. The work we have done already—putting an extra 3,000 neighbourhood police on the ground and focusing on neighbourhood policing—means that over the next two to three years we try to increase the number of forward-facing neighbourhood police officers on the ground.

Nobody expects that there will be no challenge in all this, but the purpose of this Bill is to give legislative framework to government manifesto commitments. I think it meets a number of important objectives. There will be debate between Members; there will be differences; there will be votes; there may not be a meeting of minds on certain issues. But I am hopeful that, when this process is over, this Bill will pass, that it will be put into effect and that Members of this House and the House of Commons will hold the Home Office to account for making sure that we reduce crime, increase confidence in policing and make sure that there are fewer victims in the future. I commend the Bill to the House.