Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Katz Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, we are about to start the final day on Report of the Crime and Policing Bill. There are 13 groups of amendments to complete today, and multiple votes are expected. I will briefly remind the House of some key parts of the Companion that are particularly relevant to Report. This is intended to help us make progress and proceed to votes.

First—this is every Whip’s favourite line—the House has resolved that speeches should be shorter. Secondly, and importantly for today as we are on Report, the Companion states:

“Arguments fully deployed in Committee … should not be repeated at length on report”.


Thirdly, I remind your Lordships’ House that, while interventions are in accordance with the customs of the House, they should be brief questions for clarification; lengthy and frequent interventions should not be made.

Finally, some of the topics we will discuss today are emotive and very important to many noble Lords. As my noble friend the Chief Whip has frequently reminded the House, it is in the best traditions of the House that these debates are conducted with courtesy and respect.

Amendment 409FA not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

Does the noble Lord agree that, as we saw recently, it is also the extent to which, if we normalise the sense of terrorism, it feeds into future terrorism? To give an example of this, when we saw the terrible shooting of John Caldwell—thankfully, despite horrendous injuries, the officer survived—and, a day or two later, the police arrived on an estate to arrest one of the suspects, there were a number of young people in that area who were cheering on not the arrest but the potential culprit. I suspect that they were doing that through a level of ignorance, but there is the seeping in of the idea that terrorism is acceptable to a new generation. That means that, while it is bad enough in terms of the memories of those who have gone through it, it is creating the fertile ground—

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I remind the noble Lord that interventions are meant to be short and to ask a question; his has gone on for quite a while.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

I was just going to say: fertile ground for the future.