Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Walney Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, having nodded along to those who complained about the length and diverse nature of the Bill, I am going to propose five modest additions to it, which in their entirety would take up less than an extra page to add to the 400 that the Bill already contains. These measures are related to the review I carried out in my capacity as the Government’s former independent adviser on political violence and disruption. The review had such a profound impact on the last Government that the Prime Minister called a general election 24 hours after my having published it, so this is the first legislative opportunity to enact some of these measures.

This is a timely moment. The Prime Minister rightly stood up after the Heaton Park synagogue murders and said that he would do whatever it takes to keep the Jewish community safe. There are a number of measures in the Bill that will help protect vulnerable communities and individuals, such as Jewish people, in this increasingly dangerous and intimidating environment and better balance the right to protest, which is indeed fundamental, with the wider rights of communities and individuals to live their lives free from disruption.

But it must go further in a number of key ways: first, on cumulative impact, where the focus of the Prime Minister and Home Secretary is welcome, looking at the harm that has been done to Jewish communities in particular from the repeated, weekly marches that have taken place, which have made many areas seem unsafe for Jewish people. The commitment made so far, which is to add cumulative impact into Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act, already exists—unless the Minister can explain to me how it will be extended. The important thing is to add cumulative impact into Section 13 of the Act, which enables the police to recommend to the Home Secretary that a procession should not go ahead on particular days. Simply amending the precise route or the timing is not going to be sufficient. I do not want to go over my time, so let me race through the other measures.

Secondly, on protecting police resources, the Government should consider adding into Sections 12, 13 and 14 the difficulty of police being able to resource repeat marches and the effect that this is having on other key areas.

Thirdly, on protecting our democracy, places that are central to the functioning of our democracy, such as council offices and MPs’ offices, should have their protection strengthened, alongside the very welcome strengthening of the protection of places of worship.

Fourthly, there should be enhanced powers to tackle extreme protest activity. However anyone comes down on the recent issue of Palestine Action, it was a nonsense that it took five years of it being able to carry out crimes and advertise them for it to reach the terrorism threshold. I hope the Government will consider my proposal of an extreme protest activity order.

Finally, there should be clearer statutory measures to prohibit public funding going to bodies such as Kneecap, which received a public grant that could not be taken back by the Government, despite its promotion of criminal activity and its undermining of democratic governance.