Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 383, which repeals the statutory code relating to non-crime hate incidents issued under Sections 60 and 61 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Consideration of the review undertaken by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council has shown that to be the appropriate policy to take forward. The interim findings of the review commissioned, in conjunction with the College of Policing, by the former Home Secretary were published in October. They were clear that the existing system no longer operates as intended and should be replaced with a clearer, more proportionate model.

Non-crime hate incidents were originally introduced following the landmark Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Their intent—to gather information to prevent crime, support investigations and safeguard the vulnerable—remains as relevant today as it did 30 years ago, and we remain committed to safeguarding against hostility and collecting information to support an effective policing response. However, the environment in which policing operates has evolved significantly since that inquiry and over time non-crime hate incidents have expanded beyond their original intention. The growth of social media in particular and online polarisation has drawn the police into disputes that fall outside their core duties. Police officers must be able to focus on catching criminals, cutting crime and ensuring public safety, and the present statutory code has not provided the clarity needed to support that focus. It must therefore be revoked.

The College of Policing—I am pleased to see its chair, the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, in his place—and the National Police Chiefs’ Council are clear that the current system is not fit for purpose. They intend to set out a more appropriate framework that ensures that recording is proportionate, clearer and firmly focused on the most serious incidents to ensure the police are not drawn into matters they should not be drawn into. It will do this by tightening the definition of an incident, raising the recording threshold, moving from recording all incidents that are a cause for concern to capturing only those that relate to core policing purposes. These reforms will be supported by robust guidance and training so that the incidents are handled appropriately. The new framework has been developed by police experts in consultation with community representatives. It will, I believe, strike the right balance between safeguarding vulnerable communities and protecting lawful freedom of expression by ensuring that recording is consistent and focused on genuine risk.

The amendment before the House today repeals the statutory framework to facilitate the introduction of a new framework. Commencement will be timed to ensure an orderly transition aligned with the introduction of the replacement framework. As I have indicated to the House previously, further detail will be set out following the publication of the college’s final report, which I expect in very short order in the coming weeks. The report is going to the National Police Chiefs’ Council for consideration next week and I expect it to be published by the College of Policing shortly afterwards.

Amendment 383 will end a system that policing experts agree no longer works. However, the original intention behind non-crime hate incidents to help prevent crime and safeguard the vulnerable remains important. Our commitment to tackling hate remains, as witnessed by the amendments we brought forward last week that were approved by this House, but the mechanism by which the police assess and record information will change, with a higher threshold for police involvement. We will continue to safeguard our communities but through a clearer, more proportionate framework that works. When that is brought forward, I will make sure that the results are published and that noble Lords, as well as Members of the House of Commons, can see the outcome of that final report once the National Police Chiefs’ Council has issued it for clearance. The amendment enables the changes that I have explained.

I will respond to Amendment 387B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young, once I have heard noble Lords, but for now I beg to move the amendment.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 387B. I declare my interest as a director of the Free Speech Union.

I am grateful to the Minister for summarising the final report of the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council on non-crime hate incidents, for the courtesy he has shown me and the co-sponsors of this amendment in the run-up to this debate, and for arranging for me and others to be briefed by Sir Andy Marsh and his team at the College of Policing about the recommendations in the final report, which I will get to shortly.

As I made clear to the House in Committee, I have long-standing concerns that the investigation and recording of non-crime hate incidents has been a huge waste of police time and had a chilling effect on free speech. According to a report for Policy Exchange published in November 2024, police in England and Wales are spending an estimated 60,000 hours a year investigating and recording NCHIs—non-crimes. That is time that could be spent solving actual crimes. Based on FoI requests submitted by the Telegraph and others, the Free Speech Union estimates that over a quarter of a million NCHIs have been recorded since they were first introduced in 2014, and that is in England and Wales alone. That is an average of more than 65 a day.

Why so many? Because if a hate incident is reported to the police by a member of the public, they have little choice but to record it as an NCHI. All that is required is that the victim, or indeed any witness, believes that the incident in question was motivated by hostility towards one or more of the victim’s protected characteristics. No additional evidence is required. Examples include a man accused of whistling the theme tune to “Bob the Builder” whenever he saw his neighbour, a woman who said on social media she thought her cat was a Methodist, and two schoolgirls who told another girl in the school playground that she smelled like fish.

It is hard not to laugh, but for the people who have had NCHIs recorded against them it is no laughing matter. If you apply for a position or a voluntary role that requires you to carry out an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check, an NCHI can show up on your record. That is why I say that NCHIs have had a chilling effect on free speech. People are rightly concerned that, if they say something that another person takes offence at, it can permanently blot their copybook and may prevent them getting a job as a teacher or a carer, or volunteering at a charity like the Samaritans. There is also the broader concern that the amount of time the police are spending on investigating and recording non-crimes is undermining public confidence in the police.

That is why I welcome the recommendations that the Minister has shared with us. It sounds like we have finally seen the back of NCHIs—something that the Free Speech Union has been campaigning for for six years now. Assuming that the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Secretary of State sign off on these proposals, the kind of incidents that were recorded as NCHIs in the past will in future be recorded, as I understand it, as anti-social behaviour incidents, and only those that meet the higher threshold—that is, that recording the incident is considered necessary for the prevention or detection of a crime or for another policing purpose, and it complies with the new recording guidance.

I am particularly encouraged by what we have heard about the new guidance. We have been assured that it will have due regard to the right to freedom of expression and in that way, we hope, protect the police from being dragged into bad-tempered arguments on social media as well as petty disputes between neighbours. In future, if someone calls a control room to complain about a supposedly offensive remark they have seen on Twitter or overheard across the garden fence, the call handler can say, “I’m sorry, but that’s not a policing matter”. That is all to the good, and I take this opportunity to congratulate the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council on producing such a sensible report. This is a welcome dose of common sense that I hope will go some way to restoring public confidence in the police.

Nevertheless, I do not intend not to press the amendment. Our amendment would not prevent the police recording incidents where doing so served a legitimate policing purpose, even in some circumstances logging those incidents on an intelligent management system. Noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised concerns about that during the debate in Committee, and we have adapted our amendment accordingly.

To be clear, this amendment will not prevent the police recording incidents involving a hate element for intelligence-gathering purposes. However, I still have concerns that historic NCHIs could show up in enhanced DBS checks. That is why proposed subsection (5) in this amendment says that the police must not disclose historic NCHIs that would not meet the new higher recording thresholds. I think your Lordships would agree that data entries that would not be made under the new regime, but which are hanging around on police computers, must not be disclosed in enhanced DBS checks.

I have reluctantly come to accept that asking the police to comb through their databases and delete historic NCHIs that would not meet the new recording threshold would be too resource-intensive because of the sheer number that had been recorded, and that demand no longer appears in our amendment. Nevertheless, proposed subsection (5) says that any NCHIs that police come across that would not be recorded under the new regime must be deleted. I do not think that is a big ask, and it would enable people who believe NCHIs have been recorded against their names—trivial incidents that would not be recorded under the new criteria—to ask the police to delete them.

I welcome the assurance that the new recording guidance will have due regard to the right to freedom of expression, but, in the absence of putting any of these recommendations in statute, what guarantee do we have that the College of Policing, under new leadership, or a different Home Secretary, would not dispense with that requirement? Consequently, proposed subsection (4) in the amendment says:

“Guidance in relation to incident recording must have due regard to … freedom of expression”.


That brings me to a broader point. As I understand it, the Government’s plans for taking forward these recommendations—assuming they are signed off—is to include them in guidance, but not statute. The government amendment in this group will repeal the statutory basis for the current NCHI regime, thereby clearing the ground for a new regime to spring up in its place. But that new regime will be wholly reliant on guidance. I do not doubt the Minister will do what he has said he will do with the full support of my noble friend Lord Herbert, the chair of the College of Policing, Sir Andy Marsh the CEO and the chief constables on the national council. But what about their successors? What happens if a more authoritarian Government replace the current one?

The only way to future-proof these recommendations, to guarantee that this new, more sensible arrangement is not short-lived and that NCHIs do not spring back to life, Freddy Krueger-like, in a few years’ time, is to give the new regime some statutory underpinning. Proposed subsection (1) in this amendment drives a stake through the heart of NCHIs and makes sure they cannot be resurrected in the absence of primary legislation to the contrary. No Parliament can bind its successors. Indeed, if the Home Secretary wants to take up some, but not all, of the report’s recommendations, the Government could amend this amendment at Third Reading. In the meantime, I urge them to support these sensible suggestions and put them on a statutory footing.

In my view, too many of the rules governing how public authorities behave are found in guidance when they should properly be in statute. Indeed, the current NCHI regime, which I think we are all agreed is not fit for purpose, emerged from guidance issued by the College of Policing in 2014 and was not put on a statutory footing until 2022, by which time it was too late for Parliament to wrest control over it. A bureaucratic leviathan had been created in the form of ever more voluminous guidance. Let us not make the same mistake again. Something as important as what incidents reported to the police are investigated and recorded and, in some cases, disclosed in enhanced DBS checks is properly a matter for Parliament, which is why I urge your Lordships’ House to support this amendment.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, as the leader of the local authority, I had to address a public meeting in Wymondham in Norfolk at least 10 years ago, I cannot quite remember. It was about providing accommodation in the local plan for Gypsies and Travellers. I see here in the Chamber this evening at least four former council leaders, and I hope they will sympathise with the dilemma I faced. It is a thorny subject. Not many people have sympathy for Gypsy and Traveller families, but it is one of those hands you are dealt when you become a leader. The meeting was highly charged. I was in the lions’ den, but at least I was able to rely on a briefing from the council solicitor and monitoring officer as to what was the safe ground: the procedure about the local plan, the process about assessing needs, the duty to balance the needs of the settled and travelling communities and the obligations to follow the law. My job was to hold the ring.

I do not think I made any friends that evening, but I was the messenger for a law that not everybody appreciated. But, if the council did not follow the law, who else would? I got out alive and, in the circumstances, I think it probably went as well as it could have. The alternative was probably not to turn up, and that would not have been right at all. So imagine my surprise when I was called to a police interview a few days later to answer for a non-crime hate incident. I was supported by the council’s solicitor, who confirmed that, yes, I had accurately reported the process and the law at the meeting. Right was on my side. But that meant nothing. Perhaps someone in the audience that evening in Wymondham had hurty feelings. Perhaps they had an axe to grind against Gypsies and Travellers. Perhaps they were political opponents. Ironically, perhaps they were prejudiced against me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak. I spoke in Committee, and I listened to what the Minister put forward and what the noble Lord on the opposite Bench said about the recording of non-crime hate. It depends on how you see non-crime hate and on who is at the receiving end of it. For me, it led to the murder of my son. For individuals who think they have the right to walk around and talk about especially young black men in a certain way, what starts off as just verbal leads to violence. This is what I tried put across in Committee: people see the verbal as a playground, but it is not necessarily that. After the inquiry, when that was put into a recommendation, it was said that, if those who are on the receiving end—or people around them—perceive it to be something, that is what it is.

If you take that away and do not record it, how do you move forward, if it then moves from something verbal into violence and you have no way of tracking back to where it started from? Okay, so within the report here, it could be said in a way so it comes across to make sure that you do not lose that part of it, because some of it leads to violence and that is what happened to my son. Hence, I take offence when people say that it is just playground talk, because it does not necessarily mean that. So noble Lords should please consider what they are saying here and what implications it has outside, and our children.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

Perhaps I could briefly add something to what the noble Baroness has just said. Just to clarify, I think that the kinds of remarks that she is talking about that were made about her son would be recorded and would meet the new criteria under the anti-social behaviour incident regime, which, as I understand it, is going to replace the NCHI regime. They would remain on a police database in a way that could then be used to detect and prevent a crime: they would meet the new recording threshold. I have no objection to that kind of thing being recorded: I think that it would serve a useful policing purpose. So just to be clear, I am not in any way suggesting that those kinds of remarks should not be included in future—I think that they should be—but I want to exclude the more trivial things from being recorded and having the police waste so much time on them.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

But you would not know until it gets to that point: to violence. If you do not start off with where it starts from, you will never get to the end, whether that is from trivial chat or whatever you want to call it, or playground. Later on, if that same individual or whoever carries on, that leads to violence, and if you have no way of going back to check where that started from, how do you know to be able to prosecute that individual for what he said, going back further to where we are now? That is what we need to be very careful about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests showing that I am the chair of the College of Policing. We are broadly in agreement about the way forward. There is a large measure of agreement that the current system of non-crime hate incidents is no longer fit for purpose. As the Minister said, under the new proposals in the final report into this matter that the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council have produced, which goes to the police chiefs’ council next week for ratification, non-crime hate incidents will no longer be recorded. They will go.

I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that this will not be a mere rebranding exercise. The threshold of an incident will be significantly increased. Common-sense professional judgment will guide decisions and only where there is a genuine risk of harm and a clear policing purpose will incidents continue to be recorded. The powerful intervention by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon, reminds us of the importance of ensuring that, where there is a risk of harm, we must continue to record the incidents. That was the original reason why, as a result of the recommendation of the Macpherson review, this regime was put in place. However, for all the reasons we have discussed, it does not work properly and there is a better approach that will reduce police time.

So far, so good, and I can therefore agree with most of my noble friend Lord Young’s Amendment 387. The one problematic area is the requirement that all records must be deleted after three months. The policy on deletion is a matter for the Government, not for the College of Police or the National Police Chiefs’ Council, but the view of those bodies is that it would be disproportionately burdensome to go back and delete all the existing records.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

Just to be clear, one of the differences between the amendment as originally drafted and this new version is that the new version no longer asks the police to go through all their databases and delete all historic NCHIs. It just asks them to delete those they come across. So, if a person who thinks they have an NCHI recorded against them, like my noble friend, writes to the police, fires off an SAR and discovers they have an NCHI still recorded against their name—and it does not meet the new, higher recording threshold—the police will be obliged to delete it. The amendment does not ask the police to go through records. As my noble friend says, that would be too resource-intensive; all it asks is that, when they come across them, they delete them if they do not meet the new threshold.

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

Okay; that is helpful. I thank my noble friend, and I am sure the Government will respond to that. But if part of the purpose of this is to ensure that it meets the concern my noble friend set out—that people may, to use his words, be prevented from getting a job because of the release of a non-crime hate incident in an enhanced DBS check—I should point out that the review has not been able to find a single example of a non-crime hate incident being disclosed in an extended DBS check and preventing someone from securing employment. We therefore think the risk of that is very low. The release is a matter for the chief constable’s discretion. Of course, the risk could be made even lower if the new, higher threshold were applied to any future decision, but again, that would be within the Government’s gift to agree. What is already a negligible risk could be made even more negligible, so that would address the concern.

The final question relates to whether non-crime hate incidents will spring back into life, to use my noble friend’s expression. My response is, not so long as I am involved with this, and I am sure I could say the same for the chief executive of the college, Sir Andy Marsh. The serious point, however, is that there clearly has been a change of mood, partly because of the way in which social media has influenced this whole matter. But such action is always within the gift of any future Government, as my noble friend conceded: no Government can bind themselves to changing practice and policy. What matters now is that we put in place a robust regime that works and ensure that the police are focused on the right things.

Therefore, I am very pleased we have this broad agreement about the way forward. I do not think my noble friend’s amendment is necessary, but it is for the Government to respond to that. We must be wary of tying up the police more on this, when we are trying to release their time. We must also be aware of the injunction of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence: that serious incidents must continue to be recorded. We must remember why this regime was set up in the first place. Not every recorded non-crime hate incident has been trivial; they can indicate a building pattern of behaviour and that is what we have to guard against. But the new system will put in place higher thresholds to ensure that the trivial are weeded out, and that, I think, is what we all want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

The disagreement is not about whether incidents should be recorded because they could form part of a course of conduct which ends in a serious crime. The argument is about where the recording threshold should be placed. Surely the noble Baroness will accept that, if it is so low that the police are recording 65 non-crime hate incidents every day in England and Wales alone, then the threshold is too low.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The hour is late and I really do not want to get into a debate about that. The point is that the police are going to have to make whatever the new system is work. My worry is that there seems to be a line now that might exclude cases that are important because of the course of conduct which might become a criminal act.

I did not manage to get quite to the end of my speech. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government are confident that such a course of conduct under a number of non-crime hate incidents would be visible to the police if the code of practice is repealed and the police stop recording them.

--- Later in debate ---

The figure for those 4.1 million enhanced DBS checks is just 0.12%—for the record, that is 4,920 disclosures out of 4.1 million—and of that small number not all were NCHIs; some were serious offences. It is a relatively small proportion. The noble Lord’s amendment, as well as originally being administratively difficult, would, in essence, tie officers’ hands in what is a very small percentage of work to be done.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I am struggling to understand what the rationale would be for disclosing in an enhanced DBS check an NCHI which, under the new recording thresholds, would not have been recorded. The Minister elided the issue by suggesting that the police—a chief constable—might think in future it would be sensible to disclose relevant information if someone is applying to work with children or vulnerable adults. But if the police would not have recorded that historic NCHI under the new higher recording threshold—because it would not be considered to have any police or intelligence value, or value in the detection or prevention of a crime—what justification could there be for disclosing it in an enhanced DBS check? If there is not one, what will it cost the Government to put it in statute that it cannot happen?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord is asking for the deletion of historic records. That is the important point I am trying to make. If the chief officer determines that that non-conviction information should be disclosed—I go back to the 4,920 disclosures out of 4.1 million, including all matters for an enhanced DBS check—then it is important that we do not fetter the chief officer’s hands and apply a prohibition to disclose information which may be relevant to individuals. That may be a difference between us and, as the noble Lord, Lord David of Gower, said, we may well test that in a Division when the time comes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made the absolutely right point that we need to ensure that we do not repeal Sections 60 and 61 until a replacement framework is in place. We will try to do that. As I said at the start of the debate and in the comments I have just made, it is essential that police and others continue to have the ability to monitor hate and hostility to prevent crime and safeguard the vulnerable. That is also the assurance I give to my noble friend Lady Lawrence.

In summary, the Government’s amendment is designed to repeal the statutory guidance, restore focus and reduce administrative burdens. We have made those changes because of the type of incidents noble Lords referred to. Amendment 387B would risk creating precisely the opposite effect and, for those reasons, the Government cannot support it. I invite the noble Lord not to move his amendment when the time comes, but, in the meantime—tonight—I commend Amendment 383 because, having considered and reviewed the matter, it is the right thing to do. In establishing the new regime, we will make sure that we keep the essence of the important matters from the former regime.