Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to express my sympathy with the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. I hope my noble friend will be able to respond sympathetically but will also open the door to a discussion with his Health ministerial colleagues, because I believe that hand in hand with the amendment put forward today goes the need for statutory regulation of the psychotherapy profession. At the moment, anyone can put psychotherapy behind their name or on a label, and there is no protection whatever.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, referred to the years in which he had been involved in this. I am afraid I go back to 2001, when as a Health Minister I responded to an amendment to yet another NHS reorganisation Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, proposed statutory regulation for psychotherapists and we as a government agreed with the principle. What then happened was that the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, led work attempting to get agreement within the profession to statutory regulation. It fell down essentially because there were so many different schools of thought within the psychotherapy profession itself that it was impossible to get agreement. Sadly, it essentially died the death.

We debated this amendment in the legislation that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, mentioned, but previously he had a debate in which the regulation of the profession was raised. At that point, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, the then Health Minister, said:

“The Government are committed to a proportionate system of safeguards for the professionals who work in … health and care … Where practitioners pose a direct risk of harm to the health and well-being of patients, legal avenues will and must be explored … However, more rules are not always the answer to every problem. While statutory regulation is sometimes necessary where significant risks to users of services cannot be mitigated … it is not always the most proportionate or effective means of assuring the safe and effective care of service users”.—[Official Report, 2/3/20; col. 480.]


The noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, were pretty convincing on why you need statutory regulation alongside the amendment to this Bill. One of the problems is a lack of hard research in this area. In 2017—it goes back some years—the Brighton Therapy Partnership commented:

“There is very little research into the harm that properly executed therapy can cause. This is an unusual anomaly for a medical field, as in every other area research is abundant into both efficacy and failure of all treatment options”.


Little research has been done in this area, but anecdotally we know that many thousands of people, particularly young people and their families, have been hugely damaged by the quack therapists the noble Lord, Lord Marks, referred to. I hope that, alongside this amendment, my noble friend will agree to a discussion with Health Ministers to look at statutory regulation, which I believe goes side by side with the proposals being made tonight.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

Can I just go back to the point the noble Viscount raised a minute or two ago? He said that such investigations must be undertaken with great sensitivity. He referred to the investigation of rape cases. I put it to him that all experience shows that the police and, indeed, prosecution authorities sometimes find it very difficult to investigate such cases with sensitivity. How is he going to guarantee that?

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I am not sure that I accept that. It is certainly true that when I started practising at the Bar, which was a very long time ago, investigations were not conducted with great sensitivity, but the police service has advanced a long way from that. So I do not think—I hope the noble Lord will forgive me —that I accept the premise that the police are crude or insensitive in their investigation. There may be individual cases, but in general, no.

I hope I will be forgiven now if I conclude. Clause 208 is a serious departure from existing law and practice. It was passed in the Commons on Report in a time-limited debate without the normal benefit of scrutiny in Committee or of pre-legislation consultation. I have tried to meet your Lordships’ anxieties with a compromise amendment. If there is no taste for that, so be it, and I will vote for the other amendments and clauses that I have identified, but I hope that your Lordships might reflect on the desirability of compromise.