Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as director of the Free Speech Union.

I intend to table an amendment to the Bill scrapping non-crime hate incidents. A non-crime hate incident—NCHI—is an incident or alleged incident that involves or is alleged to involve an act that is perceived by the intended victim to be motivated wholly or partly by hostility or prejudice towards one or more of their protected characteristics. This definition is hopelessly subjective, relying as it does on the perception of the complainant.

NCHIs have been recorded against a woman who said she thought her cat was a Methodist, a man who whistled the theme tune to “Bob the Builder” and former MP Amber Rudd, who had an NCHI logged against her against after a speech at the 2016 Conservative Party conference in which she called for British jobs for British workers. She was Home Secretary at the time.

The reason the police are logging these incidents is because in 2014 the College of Policing instructed them to record all hate crime reports that, on investigation, turned out not to be crimes, as NCHIs. That explains why, according to the most conservative estimate, 130,000 NCHIs have been recorded in the last 11 years.

The police should not be put in the invidious position of having to record what are often vexatious, politically motivated complaints. As the High Court judge said in 2020 when he found for Harry Miller, an ex-policeman who challenged an NCHI that had been recorded against him:

“In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi”.


Noble Lords may ask why it matters if an NCHI is recorded against someone’s name. It matters because they can show up in an enhanced DBS check and stop someone getting a job as a teacher or a carer. Why should the fact that someone has committed a non-crime prevent them from getting a job?

NCHIs are a breach of a sacrosanct principle of English common law: unless something is explicitly prohibited, it is permitted. The behaviour recorded in NCHIs is, by definition, not prohibited by law; it is non-criminal, so why are people being punished for it?

Recording NCHIs is also a colossal waste of police time. In a report published last year, Policy Exchange estimated that recording NCHIs takes up 60,000 hours of police time every year.

It is not just free speech lobbyists such as me who think that NCHIs have to go. His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Andy Cooke, has called for their abolition. Earlier this year he said:

“We need, at times, to allow people to speak openly without the fear that their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law … I’m a firm believer … that … non-crime hate incidents are no longer required”.


Sir Andy is not alone among senior and ex-senior police officers in his opinion of NCHIs. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, will be co-sponsoring my amendment.

The Minister said she hoped that the Bill will restore public confidence in the criminal justice system. Scrapping NCHIs, which risk turning the police into objects of ridicule, is a vital first step.