Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

What we have here is a huge number of the organisations that know, represent and see every day the women whom Clause 191 could protect, saying, “Please keep Clause 191 in the Bill”.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, first, I ought to say how I approach this debate. I had not intended to speak. The issue—passionate though people feel about it on both sides of the argument—is one that I hope I have always approached with an open mind. Abortion is a terrible thing in contemplation for anybody concerned, but it is a practical necessity for some. That is something that I have always felt strongly about.

One of the things that we could have been confused about in hearing the debate today is that the police are investigating every stillbirth and every miscarriage, which is not the case. If the death takes place or the child’s life is lost in a medical setting, usually the police are never involved. The time when the police become involved is either when there is a medical referral because there is a concern by medics or, alternatively, when there is an emergency at home or somewhere else.

I mention this because we have to be realistic, whatever the decisions made about Clause 191, about how the police respond. There are some ways the police response could be improved, but we have to give some understanding to the officers who deal with these emergencies, say, in a home or at a place of work. It could be a public toilet, or it could be that something is discovered in the middle of a field. At the beginning, the officers do not know whether they are dealing with a baby, a late-term foetus or a child who might have taken a breath or not; they have a very confused situation, and they cannot just walk away from it.

My first point is that there has to be some sensitivity. At a far earlier stage in the debate, I think the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, raised sudden death syndrome for babies. The police have got far better at dealing with that sort of situation, because 30 years ago we did not know that sudden death syndrome happened. Now we do, so it is dealt with in a different way from how it was 20 or 30 years ago.

The bottom line is that there is a requirement to freeze the scene in terms of evidence, because it is no good two or three weeks after the event when a judge, a coroner or someone turns around and says, “Well, you must have seen this at the scene and gained the evidence”, and they say, “Well, actually we did not seize it; we did not freeze it”. There is a difference between starting an investigation and freezing the scene and making sure you have as much evidence as is available, without too much intrusion, at that first point.

It is really important to be clear about this. If we set off and say that Clause 191 will come into effect and there will certainly not be a criminal investigation into the mother, that does not stop the need to collect evidence right at the beginning, when no one is sure. I think we have to be a little realistic about this.

On improving the police investigation process, there are two things that would be really helpful. Number one is that a senior detective with some experience attends the scene as soon as possible—I would say within an hour—to see what they are dealing with, so that if there is evidence to be seized, it is done sensitively and the family are protected as much as possible. Probably as importantly, unless there is an immediate need to start an investigation—for example, we could imagine that there might be injury to a child or a foetus that is not possible to explain by what appears to have happened to it medically, for example a knife or something else—you need to consider that set of circumstances. But generally, within a period of time—let us say 48 hours—the police must seek medical advice about how this child or foetus died and what, if anything, should happen thereafter. That starts to create a process that we could all objectively rely on.

My second point is that there has been a little confusion about the fact that, if the woman is coerced, Clause 191 does not mean that the coercer is innocent. It has nothing to do with that at all. It is only about the mother, if it is decided that that should go ahead.

I would like to make two final points. I just want to sit here and learn, but one thing I have not heard addressed in the debate—the problem, it seems to me—is that there are some women who, at 24 weeks and onward, need help. Whether the state says they can have an abortion or not, they might take that decision. Where do they go? We all agree that a back street abortionist is not a good idea. They cannot go to a medical professional, who would then be complicit in providing the abortion, perhaps, that they cannot legally have. If they end up with these online tablets designed for those under 10 weeks, that is not a good outcome. But I am not sure that what the state says—what we say—will help them in that terrible dilemma, because the need that they feel to have that abortion beyond 24 weeks has not gone away. If we abandon them to that decision alone, I do not think we help anyone. I would like to understand this myself, regardless of the decision about Clause 191: how do women in this position get some help?

With an open mind, there were three points that I do not think we have yet clarified. One thing that I was really interested to hear was that the pills designed for under 10 weeks are available online for people beyond that, and it seems as though that is not a good idea. They are designed for people under 10 weeks because that is when they work best. At 24 weeks and beyond they sound like an awful option—but what if they are your only option? How are we going to deal with control of those pills? I do not understand, from Clause 191 or the existing law, what we intend to do about that.

The second point, from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was that there is this fundamental dilemma: the woman has not committed a criminal offence, but the people who enable her to do this act do commit an offence. I am not a lawyer, but that sounds like a contradiction. I think there has to be some explanation of how that gets remedied.

On the final point that was raised, I am not sure about the answers. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, did not think it relevant, but the point about sex determination as a reason for abortion seems to me a real risk. I do not know whether Clause 191 makes it more or less likely to happen, but it is a risk and nobody should allow that. It happens now, potentially, but if Clause 191 makes it more likely, what is the mitigation of that risk? I have not heard it. That needs to be addressed if Clauses 191 is to remain.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, for the benefit of the absent noble Lord, Lord Russell, I will attempt to speak in a paperless fashion, which means that if I engage in verbal streams of consciousness I hope that the Committee will forgive me. There is a range of amendments in this group, many of which I support, a number of which I have sympathy with and a few that I oppose. That is perhaps natural, given the fact that a number of amendments in this group pull in completely opposite directions.

Of the amendments that I support, I draw particular attention to Amendment 460, which would require that before an abortion could take place there is at least a clinical appointment, that guidance is given and that it is done through that route. Noble Lords have come up with a range of solutions to what we all appreciate is a sensitive situation and have tried to square the circle. The evidence from prosecutions that have taken place, and where there have been convictions, is that in almost every case there has been an absence of clinical support and someone has, in effect, gone on a form of solo run. Albeit that it may well have been in very difficult circumstances and taken with a heavy heart, nevertheless that is the route down which they have gone.

In the limited time available, I will concentrate on supporting the Clause 191 stand part notice from the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, because, with respect to those who drafted Clause 191, it is somewhat disingenuous, radical in its implications and dangerous, particularly for women. Let me explain why.

Mention has been made that it does not legally change the time limits. In a strict legal sense, that is true, but it does turn those time limits into a façade. If you have a situation in which an act that remains illegal can be carried out but the person who carries it out is immune and protected from prosecution in all circumstances—in blanket circumstances—you have a law that is utterly ineffective. It is the equivalent of saying that we will retain speed limits on motorways but anyone found driving on a motorway beyond that speed limit will not be prosecuted. It is somewhat disingenuous. A more honest approach would have been an amendment that simply said, “We want to move the time limit to the point of birth”. That is, in effect, what Clause 191 does, but the changes that it makes are disguised as the mirage that has been put in front of us.

This is a radical change. Within this Committee and society as a whole, there is a wide spectrum of views on the issue of abortion. Some, and I am one, would take a much more restrictive approach towards abortion and feel that with our current laws the balance is wrong. Others take a much more liberal or permissive view. The settled compromise between those positions is to say that, at present, the determining line between what is legal and what is not is whether a child can be born and viable at the point of birth. The point has been made that that line has shifted from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. There is a good argument that it should come down a little bit more. But Clause 191 will, in effect, shift the ground in some cases to a situation in which that abortion can take place up until the day of birth. That is a radical step that is out of sync with public feeling.