Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I have already said that I have heard, and indeed share, the anger and frustration in Committee. I may not have been in your Lordships’ House for that long, but I have not been living underneath a stone. Given my previous existence, I am acutely aware of these debates. What is obvious to us all is that, however well-intentioned past attempts have been, these things are still happening. If we want them to stop, we have to do something about them. I do not believe I can go further than I have at the moment; all I can say is that the will is there.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

During Robert Runcie’s time in the Church of England, he was exasperated that when matters became very difficult, the General Synod was called to set up a committee. He saw the setting up of committees as a postponing of a decision that ought to be taken. These inquiries keep going on and on. Given the Government’s machinery and lawyers, I do not understand why this could not be looked at before Report.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I have already answered that, I am afraid. With the greatest of respect to the noble and right reverend Lord, I cannot give that commitment today, but he has heard what I have said.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The wording in the Bill is the wording the Government have agreed. That is the position that we have taken. We may have a disagreement on that. If my noble friend wishes to put an amendment down on Report to change that wording, that is a matter for her. She has made a further suggestion about a further defence. Those are matters that I suggest should be considered by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. If she wishes to expediate that quickly, she has the opportunity along with anybody else to table an amendment on Report. But the Government have given serious consideration to this and Clauses 118, 119 and 120 are the result of those considerations. They are at the request of the police, they are proportionate, and they are, in my view, compliant with human rights. I commend them to the House and in a gentle way urge the noble Baroness, either today or in the future, not to seek to withdraw them.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I happen to support these clauses, but I have the same concern as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that this has been drawn rather too narrowly and there may be areas that may have to be considered.

Secondly, the noble Lord is quite right: the clauses give this power to the police to prevent crimes being committed. What happens if the police get it wrong? We all know what happened with the sus law and reasonable grounds to suspect: they suspected and stopped people again and again, and nothing was actually worth suspecting. I do not want an answer; I want the possibility of considering what will happen if the police get it wrong. We have the Birmingham question still; I do not want to talk about it, because there are inquiries going on. What measures does the noble Lord want to address the particular conundrum that is there?

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I add this, to save time. I know people are trying to expand the number of conditions, but I would like us not to run away with the assumption that the work face mask makes sense. Intuitively, it does, but I do not understand the paint sprayer who is at a protest wearing their mask. They are either at the protest or at work; I am not sure why they are wearing the mask at the protest. I do not understand that juxtaposition, and it may be for the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, to consider as well.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment 411, because it brings clarity and accountability to the exceptional power in Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. This is not a call to strengthen police powers; it is a call to describe them accurately, so the public understand their narrow scope and the safeguards that constrain them.

Section 60 is triggered only when

“a police officer of or above the rank of inspector reasonably believes”

one of a small number of factors: that incidents of violence may take place in a locality; that a weapon used in a recent incident is being carried locally; or that people are carrying weapons without good reason; and that there has already been an incident of serious violence. The statute requires the authorisation to be for

“any place within that locality for a specified period not exceeding 24 hours”.

These are tight operational limits.

Changing the definition from “serious violence” to “violence” keeps all the safeguards that make this power exceptional rather than just routine: the inspector-level threshold; the written and recorded authorisation; the geographic and temporal limits; the ability to seize weapons; and the requirement to provide records to those stopped. Those are not peripheral details; they are the legal guardrails that protect civil liberties while enabling targeted public safety action.

I simply ask: where is the dividing line between violence and serious violence? If someone gets stabbed multiple times and it is life-threatening, we would all agree that is serious violence, but what about the person who gets stabbed once and suffers a non-life-threatening cut? Is that merely violence and so does not count? That is why we have to change this definition to any violence, no matter how serious it may be called. This is not a wide-ranging opening of the stop and search powers applying everywhere for all time. Using “violence” in operational documents with an explicit cross-reference to the Section 60 triggers reduces confusion with broader strategic programmes labelled “serious violence”. It prevents the normalisation of suspicionless searches and makes it easier for Parliament, oversight bodies and the public to scrutinise each authorisation against the statutory test.

This amendment is modest, practical and proportionate. It highlights the statutory safeguards and does not remove any of them, but it gives the police a sensible power to save lives and prevent injury where they think that there may be more violence. I urge the Committee and the Minister to support Amendment 411.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the wording as it is in the Bill. The word “serious” is quite important. Stop and search, particularly in the London area, has been abused. You are supposed to stop somebody because of “reasonable” grounds to suspect, but as somebody who was stopped and searched six times, and every time I did not have anything they thought I would have, I see it as a sort of overpolicing.

It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, is not here, because when he became the chief police officer in this place, he realised that some of this was not working and was antagonising communities, not delivering the result that was expected. The Bill is worded in terms of “serious”; the amendment tries to lower the threshold. As the intention of the Bill is to stop serious crime, “serious” to me is quite important. I do not support the amendment and would like to retain the wording in the Bill.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

My Lords, this is not a small matter that we are debating. I have listened to both sides of the argument. The argument in favour of these stand part notices was made in detail, initially by the noble Lord, Lord Black, and was then supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. I listened to those submissions, and they strongly reflected my own. I asked myself: is there anything I can usefully add? I do not think there is, but we are dealing with a matter of high principle. The noble Baroness, Lady Cash, reminded us of the statement that hard cases make bad law. What we have heard in opposition to these stand part notices exemplifies that proposition. We are dealing with a very important matter, and we should not allow a few hard cases to make bad law.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I find myself persuaded by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. This is a moment when, as legislators, we have to pause and ask where the balance really lies. For me, this is not an either/or. When legislators try to legislate, they must not pass the burden of coming to terms with difficult conundrums to someone else to resolve. I would be quite unhappy if we were to leave it to the judge to decide. If they go for anonymity, the courts could then be seen by some people as being on the side not of the citizen but of a few. We have to resolve this and come to a common mind on where we think this should be done. It seems to me that we should not burden the courts with coming to a decision. Legislators should make up their minds on what way they want to go.

I am persuaded by the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. I have always been in favour of open courts, trial by jury and no citizen being above the law. We should all have equality before the law, but that argument can sometimes, unfortunately, ignore circumstances that need to be differentiated—not because you do not want fairness and equality but because, if you blindly go down a particular road, you may cause a greater injustice. That is why I am not in favour of people who are so moralist and who keep to their morals: if you are not careful, you could end up with an injustice.

To those who oppose these clauses and to the Government, who bravely want to put this particular way of doing it in the Bill, I suggest that a further conversation needs to be had. How do we resolve this? Clearly, some of us—and I am one of them—would like to defend police officers who have to decide in a split-second to do something, without a lot of thought. They see a danger and they want to neutralise it—not like in Minnesota, where I do not think there was any danger; I would not want to defend those kinds of actions. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has given us the figures, and actually the statistics are very low. In the unfortunate cases where this has happened, most of our armed police officers are disciplined and well trained. However, in life, you always end up with risks you did not anticipate.

I would want to go the way that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, argued for—that if somebody took a decision because they saw greater danger and they took somebody out, I can tell you, the media and other people will focus on their family, not on the decision that was taken. We who are legislators cannot ignore the difficulty that that raises for families.

I do not think that volunteers will disappear immediately if these clauses are not part of the Bill. I still think there are people who, for the sake of security and the well-being of society, will continue to volunteer—but you are going to make it more difficult. I plead with all of us in that regard. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, has encapsulated my thoughts on this but I am still in a quandary: will I vote for this or for that? I just hope that the mover of this stand part notice will withdraw it, knowing that Report is still to come, so that it is a clear conversation, and then we can all make up our mind where this is going to lie.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, can I just make an observation that the question is whether we agree these clauses in the Bill or not? If we do not agree the clauses in the Bill, they will fall out of the Bill and then we cannot consider them at a later stage. If we want to consider them at a later stage, we must agree them today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches are grateful to the noble Lady Baroness, Smith of Llanfaes, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for tabling Amendments 433 and 434, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for adding his name to Amendment 434. These amendments relate to the devolution of policing and youth justice to Wales.

My noble friend Lady Humphreys has signed both amendments as they agree with Lib Dem policy and our ambitions for Wales, but, unfortunately, she cannot be in her place today. Our manifesto for the general election in 2024 promised to:

“Deliver a fair deal for the people of Wales by … Devolving powers over youth justice, probation services, prisons and policing to allow Wales to create an effective, liberal, community-based approach to policing and tackling crime”.


To the disappointment of many in Wales, the issue of devolving justice to Wales was absent from Labour’s general election manifesto, despite Keir Starmer committing a year before, in 2023, to introducing a take back control Bill to devolve new powers to communities from Westminster. This commitment appears to apply to England only, and gradually, over the months since the election of the Labour Government, their lack of ambition for Wales has become more apparent.

After the State Opening of Parliament in 2024, there was no new mention of new powers for Wales in the King’s Speech. In July 2025, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, said that the UK Government could row back on its promises on the devolution of probation and youth justice, despite the Welsh Government beginning the groundwork to prepare for what they believed to be a realistic project.

Noble Lords have raised queries about the consequences of the decision taken by the Government in November last year to abolish police and crime commissioners—a decision that those of us on these Benches applauded. At the time, noble Lords from Wales were concerned about the lack of clarity on the Government’s plans for the transference of the PCCs’ functions to Wales. The assumption was that the functions would transfer to mayors in England and to the Senedd in Wales. However, far from providing clarity, the answers they received amounted to pure obfuscation. Now we learn, in what could be described as a slap in the face to the Senedd, that the functions of the PCCs are to be transferred to a new board, placing the Welsh Parliament on the same level as a non-mayoral authority in England.

On these Benches we understand the difficulties so ably clarified by the noble and learned Lord in his contribution to the Sentencing Bill of devolving just one part of a system. But where has English Labour’s ambition for Wales disappeared to? For all the platitudes about mutual respect and co-operative working, the disrespect is beginning to show, sadly. Where is the recognition that Wales has been ready for the devolution of the justice system for the last 25 years at least, and where is the road map for our two nations to achieve that together?

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I do not come from Wales. I am speaking because I have sympathy, and I have friends there. I remember somebody asking me, “Are you evangelical or Anglo-Catholic?” I said, “Catholic, yes; Anglo, no”. Wales may sometimes feel it is singing that song.

The devolution of justice and policing to Wales are two sides of one coin, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said. To those who tabled Amendments 433 and 434—the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain—I simply ask one question: if policing and youth justice, this one coin with two sides, are devolved to Scotland, why not Wales?

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment, following on from what both noble Lords have said. Policing is a difficult, dangerous and stressful task. I have for many years referred to police officers as the men and women who are the dustbin collectors of society. They will go where other people do not want to go. I take my information source beyond those whom the noble Lords have mentioned. My son did 32 years in the police service. He has just retired as a senior detective, running one of the most difficult parts of the Metropolitan Police, and he now has a very senior role in government. Over the last two to three years, he and his friends have reported how people are either thinking about committing suicide or have attempted suicide, and in his command over about 18 months two committed suicide.

Whether and how you deal with a suicide is a difficult question. It is sensitive information. People shy away from it, understandably, but there is no doubt that we have a suicide problem in policing. My 30 years’ experience of Northern Ireland was in taking people into the most difficult situation in policing that has ever been undertaken—more of that later, no doubt, at the public inquiry, with what has been disclosed recently. Out of 28 people, all hand-picked, who went into Northern Ireland on the so-called Stevens 1, four of them never came back to policing. Two of them were thinking of committing suicide and I referred them to the force medical officer. Those people never reached the statistics.

Like my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe, I was an inspector of constabulary for nearly two years, inspecting many forces across the country, from the largest to the smallest. One of the most important roles of the inspectorate in that case—we have discussed this—was that we went and looked at the sickness rates of a force. If we found that the sickness rates were very high, performance and morale were low. We would dig deeper, but it was difficult to find out where suicide played a role or if it played a role at all. We have a problem here and I say to the Minister, who is always supportive, that this may well be a nudge in the right direction.

Some of us, as old men do, have dinner parties or meet up for a glass now and again, and the information that I am getting from my old colleagues and current colleagues, who I have to keep in contact with because of the activities that we are now about to be involved in in relation to Northern Ireland, is that there is a problem. I can understand why some chiefs would shy away from that. We have a police commissioner here who did a superb job—not many of them do or did, but he did—and if you listen to what my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe has to say and to my information, we need to do something.

Maybe this amendment is too long and complex for it to stand the test of examination, but there is an amendment further on, submitted by my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe, which is short, sharp and to the point. It holds the kernel of what we are dealing with. I support the amendments, including the final amendment, whichever way my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe wants to go. Let us have a look at it. What is there to hide behind these figures? Why has this survey come back with very little information in it? Speaking as a chief constable, a commissioner and an HMI, I think that that is not good enough. I do not believe that the Home Office should be treated in such a way.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I, too, support the shortest of all the amendments. My noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe’s Amendment 438A gets to what needs to happen without a lot of description. I have always felt that brevity is the best answer to a problem, because you know what is being asked for. I want to congratulate him on putting in this amendment. Every organisation will face this question of suicide and, if there is a way of collecting the data and working out why, that is necessary. I believe that the duty of candour is not simply about the way the police treat citizens; it is also about the way the organisation treats the police service. There must be a duty of candour from the chief officer and, of course, the Home Office has a part to play. I support this wonderful short amendment, because that is what needs to happen. With a much longer amendment, I am afraid that what is simple will be lost in quite a lot of detail, which is not what we want.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches there is strong support for Amendments 435 and 438A, which would finally shine a light on one of the most sensitive and least discussed aspects of police welfare: suicide and attempted suicide among officers and staff. This is not about apportioning blame; it is about creating conditions in which people can seek help early and leaders cannot look away. Nearly two years ago I sought this very information and was assured that work was happening to collate it. Yet no figures have emerged, leaving families, colleagues and policymakers in the dark, still awaiting clarity and transparency. These amendments would ensure that bereaved families do not feel that their loss has been silently absorbed and they would confront the lingering stigma around mental ill health in policing.

Policing demands a particular duty of care that transcends the ordinary employer-employee relationship, as the state requires officers to face repeated trauma that is unparalleled in any other walk of life. We are now operating in what many describe as a crisis policing model, where officers spend most of their time dealing with the darkest parts of human experience with far fewer opportunities to balance that with visible neighbourhood-based work. In the past, time spent on community policing would lift them out of the dark place. Today, that release valve is much weaker. Much of the informal support that once existed has disappeared. Officers used to have shared spaces where they could decompress together at the end of a shift, but those communal areas have largely gone. From staff sifting through distressing online material every day to front-line officers facing the increasing likelihood of physical assault, the psychological strain is relentless. This feeds a siege mentality in a service that still struggles to recognise emotion and is not naturally open.

Policing remains an environment where taking paternity leave can invite mockery and where the burden can fall especially heavily on women and minority officers amid unreported discrimination. In too many forces, officers still fear that admitting vulnerability will derail their career progression. If Parliament seeks people to shoulder that burden on our behalf, it must insist on collecting basic information. Tracking suicides and attempted suicides would pinpoint hotspots and high-risk groups, enabling proactive measures such as resilience training, peer support and routine psychological screening. I urge the Minister to take these amendments back to the Home Office and consider bringing forward concrete proposals on Report.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak on Amendment 469, and I have listened with great care to the persuasive argument presented by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, whom I think I can also refer to as a noble friend. I have also been briefed by Justice, a body that I have the highest respect for; indeed, I have been a member of Justice—I think I joined in 1964—for up to 60 years.

I accept the widespread view in other countries that the age for findings of criminality should be 14 years, which is the proposition in Amendment 469. I accept also that Scotland has recently raised the age of criminality from eight years to 12 years. We should also take into account the alarming increase in crime committed by young children going down to the age of nine years, and even lower. I read, for example, from Home Office statistics, which record that 9,544 offences were committed by children aged nine or younger in 2024. That is a rise of 30% on the 7,370 under-10 crimes recorded in 2019, before the pandemic, and an 18% rise on the total for 2022 of 8,064. They range, alarmingly, over crimes concerning rape, arson, stalking, attacking police, making death threats and drug and racially motivated offences—that is for nine year-olds. In Cheshire recently, police faced an attempted murder suspect who was too young to go before the courts. I take full account of all that.

However, I have a sense of unease in raising the age of criminality from 10 to 14 years. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, raised the case relating to two year-old James Bulger, of February 1993. I need not go into the full facts, but it suffices to say that in a shopping centre in Bootle in Merseyside, a little boy, two year-old James Bulger, was separated from his mother and was met by two other boys, 10 year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. They proceeded to take him away, eventually to a railway line, where they committed the most horrendous murder of that little boy. Following that, they were tried and convicted in November 1993 and in June 2001 were released from prison on licence. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has dealt with their anonymity following their release.

The record is that—and I think this is very relevant—Robert Thompson is not known to have been a reoffender, but not so with Jon Venables. He has had multiple convictions, including for child pornography. He is currently in prison and recently, in 2023, bail was refused because he still posed a danger and a risk to the public. As I said, I have expressed my unease about this.

The only further comment I make on the horrendous case relating to poor two year-old James Bulger is that it is not the only recorded crime of horrendous behaviour by young persons. I recall reading in the newspaper of the recent murder of a pensioner, and I am fairly sure that it was underage children who were responsible for that. I also recall reading in the newspapers of the murder of a homosexual in a public park. Again, if I recall correctly, underage children were involved, including a young girl.

Juvenile crime, I suggest, should be kept on the record. It was highly relevant in the case of Jon Venables that it should be kept on the record. Perhaps we could make an exception for the very serious crime that I have outlined to your Lordships. But one way or another, that record of criminality should remain with the juvenile.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I am not going to repeat the wonderful presentation by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. There is a sentiment in me which wants to go a long way with some of the things we have said. I listened quite intently to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the arguments were what I call suitable for a seminar, in that you can look at all sides of them. I am persuaded that some children may need greater care and support. It is quite possible that those who exhibit criminality could be helped and end up in a different place. Certainly, listening to the wonderful presentation by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the cases that she has tried, I do not think anyone could say a 10 year-old can commit a crime—that would be very strange. If they have committed a crime, they have committed a crime, and in questions of criminality it is not simply a matter of the law, because, say, you are, like me, an older man at nearly 77. In all of us, there is a propensity to be saintly and holy, but also a darkness which you have to deal with.

I am not uneasy about children having a criminal record if they have committed a crime; I am uneasy about the way they are then treated. We heard from the noble and learned Baroness about making sure that their identity is not put out in the public domain, because there will be vigilantes who want to terrible things to young children. On the fact that a judge took a decision on their being taken to another prison, there are appropriate ways of punishing people without feeling that all punishment must be the same because the nature of the crimes is like those of other criminals. I would have a thought that, with a child such as Thompson or Venables, and considering what they did to young James Bulger, you need to find appropriate ways of dealing with their safekeeping and providing help, but not in the same way as you would treat a John Sentamu. For instance, if I commit a terrible crime, although I am 77, I should be answerable to the rest of the population. The way we handle children often leaves a lot to be desired.

I was a chaplain in a remand centre, and some of those young people had committed horrendous crimes. When you looked back, nearly 99% of their habits had been learned from adults; it was not that they were dreaming of doing these terrible things. It was a borstal for the young, so I take on the arguments made. On the arguments about children that the noble Baroness gave us, I do not think it is a question of age. I do not know how their brains work, although that might help in terms of sentencing, but for me it is not a question of age.

During the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, we went to Wales, and we—and William Macpherson, who was the chair of the inquiry—were shocked that children as young as six were committing some of the most horrendous racist incidents. By the way, we call it the Stephen Lawrence inquiry but the rest of the population do not say that. They keep on calling it the Macpherson inquiry. It is not that; its title is the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Again, you looked at the parents and they were not responsible. It was a group enterprise. Kids in school were learning the language and there was not enough information to help them understand that behaving like that is not going to help them.

We as a nation should take the view that all children belong to us, and it is our responsibility to make sure we create an environment in which they are going to be helped. Locking them up and throwing away the key cannot be acceptable where children are concerned, no matter what crimes they may have committed. We should examine, in the streets where we live, how well we have helped and supported children.

I ask the Minister, as we have matters that need to be taken seriously, to consider whether it is best to do this through this Bill, or whether it would be better to arrange a seminar to examine the issue before Report, and find out what would be best for our children, instead of applying the unhelpful label “criminal” or deciding that a threshold of 14 or 12 will do it, because kids as young as seven can do some terrible things. We should put our hand on our hearts and say that maybe, as a society, we need to do much better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

It is not quite like that, because the Foreign Office would have to issue special permission for the person who came within the jurisdiction, and now that we have clarified the law, that would give that individual immunity. As for the Attorney-General’s decision not to consent, there is a risk that that could be subject to judicial review, and there have already been attempts in that space. But I agree that that is a very important procedural requirement, and it is already in the Act.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 472 and 473. On the arguments and all the difficulties and intricacies, the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, cannot be doubted, given his involvement and the things he has done. In the end, however, I am a simple person. I know that there are complications and it is difficult, but if these amendments are accepted, it would allow the possibility of exploring all those intricacies and complications.

The really annoying thing for most of us is when people whom we know have committed terrible atrocities—when the evidence is incontrovertible—can leave the places they have devastated and come here to do their shopping and have holidays. This country, and particularly this present Government, say that everything is going to be best under the rule of law. Lord Bingham, in his book The Rule of Law, said some wonderful things—that the rule of law is the nearest thing we have to a universal origin. In other words, there are no areas the rule of law does not cover. I say that because there is a possibility of enshrining what Lord Bingham was talking about.

Globalisation has given we citizens of the world the possibility of living in a global village. It is no longer about living on this little island—we all belong to this huge global village, and whoever touches any citizen in our global village touches us. It is not just the people who live in Ukraine or somewhere else: they touch them, and they are touching us.

We are therefore partly involved in all this. The United Kingdom must not become a haven, as the noble Lord said, for those who committed such atrocities and are escaping justice and the places where they were done. We must not be a place that gives the impression that the door is open and they can come here. They do their shopping, and some even bring their children to send them to university or other places of learning; I have known this. They think that they are getting away with it. To me, that is what must not happen.

Margaret and I came to this country in 1974, and it was another nearly six years before Idi Amin’s Government fell. We were terrified to have any contact with the Ugandan embassy, because the people he had sent before his Government fell had committed terrible atrocities. Margaret and I knew these characters and they got away with it. In his regime, nearly 900,000 people were murdered, including the chief justice, the chancellor of the university, the head of the civil service—I could go on and on. These dictators and people like that seem to have a very long arm that prevents anybody getting near them.

For me, these amendments are opening a door for further conversation. The proposers of the two amendments were wise in saying that this, if it is to happen, should be laid at the door of the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General, who has a lot of advisers and very able people, will look at it and make a decision on whether prosecution happens. They are not simply opening it out to every court, to everybody, to think they can have a go. It is so limited. If we do not do this, as a country that really upholds the rule of law, and if we do not have this universal jurisdiction as an armoury in place, we will simply have people coming here when they have committed terrible atrocities, and they will look as though they are untouchable.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, all the speakers have made a powerful case in support of these two amendments, not least of course the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who moved the lead amendment. I apologise to him for missing the first few minutes. I was caught out because I had not remembered that Amendment 471 had already been debated. I have had the advantage of reading that part of the JCHR report, both on the account of—

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

On the amendments before the House today, I hope I have given supportive words to some, clarification on others and indicated that there are amendments the Government cannot support. I remind the House that all this is done for a purpose: to prevent anti-social behaviour and support the growth of our town centres. I commend Amendment 4, in my name, to the House and ask colleagues to not to press their amendments.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. Nobody doubts or questions that addressing anti-social behaviour is a manifesto commitment; that is taken as read. However, if it is a manifesto commitment, it must be put in words that clearly describe what the Government are trying to say. I find it quite baffling that in their first amendment, the Government prefer the words, “just and convenient”. What is convenient in there? Why are the Government dressing it up? I would have thought that the normal language of “necessary and proportionate” is much easier to understand. Why are the Government rejecting words that will help deal with anti-social behaviour, and instead fishing for other words that make no sense? Can the Minister try to make sense of it for me? I was given an explanation, but I was not persuaded, and I am sure I am not the only one. The words that we know in the Human Rights Act—necessary and proportionate —would ease the fear that the police will go on a spree and do a number of things because they judge it to be “just and convenient”.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As ever, I am genuinely sorry that I have not been able to persuade the noble and right reverend Lord of the Government’s case. We have taken the view that “just and convenient” mirrors the civil injunction regime of the 2014 Act, passed by a Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government. They are not words from a Labour Minister but from an Act passed in 2014 that we are mirroring in the Government’s manifesto commitment to introduce respect orders. I am sorry that I cannot convince the noble and right reverend Lord of that, and that I have not persuaded him accordingly. We may—although I do not know—very shortly have an opportunity to see whether anybody else is persuaded.