Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests. I chair the College of Policing, but I am not speaking in that capacity, nor have I spoken to policing colleagues about this matter.

I want to make a couple of observations about the debate that we have had. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green, whose comments I agreed with entirely. The issue that she was seeking to draw attention to was in response to the argument that we have heard that there is no need for the provisions that the Government have set out because the courts can apply a sentencing uplift already for crimes involving hostility to gay or disabled people. Yes, they can, but for the reasons the noble Baroness explained, we are talking about a separate architecture of aggravated offences, which are stand-alone criminal charges, and which are therefore investigated as such from the outset and recorded separately. That sends a much more potent signal about the seriousness of these crimes. These aggravated offences also extend the statutory time limit for cases to be submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service, which the regime of mere sentencing uplift does not. That potentially provides additional protection for victims.

I have a concern with the arguments that are being advanced about the Government’s proposal. If, for instance, the issue is that police time will be wasted by this change in the law and that it is the wrong use of resources, that is an argument for the existing aggravated offences to be swept away. The principled argument to take, and one that would be advanced by my noble friend Lord Moynihan, who is nodding vigorously, would be to say that if aggravated offences are wrong, a waste of time and do not matter—I think they matter a great deal for the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Hunt, set out—then we should sweep them away for offences in relation to religious hatred or racial hatred, because those also are protected characteristics under the Equality Act and this architecture is worthless because it corrodes free speech, and so on.

Make that argument if that is what you believe. However, the reverse argument was put by the Law Commission. Extending this protection for some offences to some groups but not others—to groups that are already recognised as being worthy of protection by the criminal law because of their vulnerability, because they are minority groups—creates a “significant disparity” and causes significant injustice and confusion. A Law Commission report, hundreds of pages long, examined these issues in depth and concluded that there should be an extension.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

That is the second or third time that the 2021 report of the Law Commission of England and Wales has been referred to in this debate. To clarify, that report clearly and strongly recommended not including sex as a protected, aggravated characteristic in the charging or sentencing regime. It set out some extremely good reasons for why sex should not be included from a clearly feminist point of view. By all means, cite the Law Commission’s recommendations to support the inclusion of the other three aggravators that the Government want to add to the charging regime, but it was explicitly not recommended that sex be added as an aggravator.

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

But my argument was against the proposal that these offences in their entirety should be rejected by this House—that the Government’s proposal in its entirety should be rejected by this House. I was not engaging with my noble friend’s argument. I have some sympathy with his point, and in particular that merely misgendering someone should not become a criminal offence. It might be a thoroughly unpleasant thing to do but whether it should be an aggravated offence is worthy of discussion. My concern is that we may be getting ourselves into the position of opposing an amendment that makes an aggravated offence in relation to disabled people, as well as to LGBT people, and we reject that and yet we do not for the other offences.

There is also a danger of attempting to trivialise this matter and a confusion with the debate on non-crime hate incidents. We will come to that. I have taken the strong position that we need a much higher bar in relation to those incidents and that the whole regime needs sweeping away. We will come to that. However, we are not talking about that. We are talking about potentially very serious criminal offences. We are talking about GBH and criminal damage, and are saying that where those offences are motivated by hostility against a group, it does not make sense that the offence can be aggravated in relation to racial or religious hostility but not in relation to disabled people or to LGBT people.

That is the argument. We are not talking about whether people should be able to say disagreeable things on Twitter. This is not the moment for that debate. We are talking about serious offences and whether they should be aggravated, which would result in a more serious penalty and would send a signal to wider society.

There has been a quite concerning increase in hate crimes in relation to LGBT people, particularly transgender people. I have taken for some time a position, which finds me out of step with most of the groups in the LGBT lobby, that there is a very legitimate discussion to have about how women’s rights are affected by transgender rights and that there needs to be a recalibration of the law and the movement’s positions on this. I happen to take that position. However, I know that the way in which this debate is being conducted outside of this Chamber is resulting in an increase in hate against transgender people. That is deeply concerning. It is vilifying people because of ideological positions that are being taken. It is particularly wrong when people in positions of responsibility start using this debate for political purposes.

I have great concern about the climate in which this debate is being—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti reminds me that I have been in this House for just under two years now and have voted only once in the Lobby on that side of the Chamber.

Tonight, I ask my noble friends and anybody else who wishes to join me to vote for this amendment, because it does what the noble Baroness, Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green, said: it says to people who have protected characteristics, “Society is on your side”, and if you are picked out because of that characteristic, we will make sure that the people who pick you out pay a penalty for that if the judge in that trial determines that, having had a guilty verdict, your motivation was one that attacked protected characteristics. If it is good enough for people who are Jewish, Muslim or Black, it should be good enough for trans, disabled and other people. That is why I take great pleasure in asking my noble friends to join me in this Lobby any moment now to vote for this amendment. I hope that all noble Lords who support the principle will do so.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his response and, on the basis that I have understood him correctly that none of these amendments or the Government’s intention of commencing the new Clause 4B of the Public Order Act is intended to encourage the police to investigate misgendering on social media—I can see the Minister is nodding—I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 334A (to Amendment 334) withdrawn.