Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Maclean of Redditch Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch]

247B: After Clause 55, insert the following new Clause—
“Independent Commission on Grooming Gangs: timescaleWithin three months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must commence the work of the Independent Commission on Grooming Gangs by—(a) appointing a Chair,(b) publishing the inquiry’s terms of reference,(c) appointing a Minister with the sole task of overseeing the inquiry and related activities, and(d) directing the inquiry’s hearings to begin.”

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, there is a dismal pattern in our country in response to serious failings of the state. First, we see denials and cover-ups, then the issue gains traction, but shock and outrage quickly follow. Calls for something to be done are heard but too often are followed by absolutely nothing—more delay, while victims are relegated to yesterday’s newspapers and the news cycle moves on. Unfortunately, the rape gang issue is a classic example of this pattern.

Victims deserve so much better from us than this. Has anyone else noticed that it has gone eerily quiet? Where is the national statutory inquiry promised by the Government? The Minister said earlier, in his responses in Oral Questions, that it was coming “very soonly”, and I give him credit for inventing another euphemism which even I have not heard before. But seriously, it is conspicuous by its absence. Neither the public nor the victims know when it is going to start or who is going to chair it and, because so many victims have lost confidence in the Safeguarding Minister in the other place, Jess Phillips, which Minister is going to oversee it. Perhaps it will be our Minister, in which case I am sure we will welcome that.

This is the reason behind my tabling of Amendments 247B and 535A. They are straightforward and designed simply to ensure that the grooming gangs inquiry begins at long last. The amendments are not designed to dictate the outcome, set the scope or limit its independence. We need it for one simple reason, which is to ensure that the state does not continue to mistreat those victims, who have already suffered so much by its collective failure.

I recognise that it is perhaps not conventional and may even be novel to legislate for the start date of an inquiry, and I anticipate that the Minister will say this when he comes to respond. However, I implore him to take this seriously. We have a position in this House and we should use it for this end. We should be speaking up for these girls and women who have been let down so shockingly. The very least we can do is to send the signal to the victims that we are not going to continue failing them and we are going to get justice for them.

What is more—I speak as a former Minister in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice—I am sure the Minister will recognise what I am about to say: providing a deadline focuses minds and drives action and activity in all parts of the system, whether the delays are accidental or bureaucratic or, in fact, unfortunately, intentional. I also remind the Minister that, in the words of the famous sage, if you keep doing what you have always done, you are going to keep getting what you have always got—no action.

We should remember that some of the survivors at the heart of this scandal have been waiting 20 years or even longer. Fiona Goddard first reported her abuse to police in 2012. She was a child when the crimes were committed against her in the mid-2000s. She told her story, took the risk, trusted the system and, as she puts it, was met with silence, closed doors and disbelief. When she was asked recently how it felt to wait this long, she said, “It’s like living with a wound that’s never allowed to close, because every year I’m told justice will come but every year nothing begins”. The victims have to keep reliving the trauma, but nothing moves forward. Hope is being postponed, year after year. We know that the only thing worse than being failed by institutions once is being failed by them twice, thrice and more. As one survivor said, “We do not need perfection. We just need to know that somebody has finally begun the work”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord has made his case. I have put my view. If he wishes to examine it further, we can do so in due course. I understand that he wants to bring people to justice. So do I, but the approach we want to take is different from his, and we will have to accept that.

Amendment 271B, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and Amendment 271C, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, would give effect to recommendation 1 of the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, that the law should be changed so that adults penetrating a child aged under 16 are charged with rape. As I have said, the Government have accepted this recommendation and have committed to changing the law. I reassure noble Lords that we are working fast to consider how that law change should be made. We are discussing this. I met the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, as part of that work and I will update Parliament soon about our proposed approach but, at the moment, I hope that the noble and learned Lord accepts that we are committed to that legislation and will table it as soon as time allows.

Amendment 271C, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, would mean that someone suspected of or charged with a sexual offence against a child that involved penetration would be described as having committed rape, whether the penetration was penile or non-penile, and regardless of what the offence is actually called in legislation. It would also mean that a wide range of other non-penetrative offending behaviour would be referred to simply as sexual assault. I do not think that that meets the intention of the recommendation from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, as it would not substantially change criminal law. Additionally, the difference in how offences are labelled in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and mandating how enforcement agencies then refer to those offences could lead to operational confusion, which I hope the noble Lord would seek to avoid.

Amendment 271B, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, which I have already mentioned, would create a new offence of rape which would apply when an adult penetrates with their penis the vagina, anus or mouth of a child aged 13 to 15. The offence would not require proof of an absence of consent or reasonable belief. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, who spoke to it on behalf of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, that the Government are committed to making this change in law. We have accepted the recommendations of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and we strongly agree with the sentiment behind the amendment. However, we are also aware of the need to ensure a robust framework of sexual offences, which must work effectively across all types of child sexual abuse. This will be a significant change to the framework and, as such, if the noble Lord will allow me, we need to discuss it with the police and prosecutors to make sure that they have the tools needed to bring abusers to justice. When we have done that and taken those considerations into account, we will change the law, and we will update Parliament when we do that. I hope he can accept that intention.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, for her Amendments 288A and 288B. These overlap with the provisions in Chapter 2 of Part 5, which provide for a duty to report, which we will come on to later; she noted and accepted that. We believe, after extensive consultation with the relevant sectors, that the model in that chapter is the appropriate one to adopt. Again, we can debate that later, and I am sure we will, but that is the Government’s view at the moment.

Amendment 288B seeks to create a criminal offence specifically in respect of concealment by public officials. I am mindful that the type of offence proposed by this amendment may overlap with existing statutory provision, including obstruction of justice offences. Later, we will come on to consider the offence of preventing or deterring a reporter from carrying out their duty in Clause 79, and it will be part of the appropriate way forward at that stage.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, also tabled Amendments 288C and 288D, which are about the collection of the ethnicity and nationality data of child sexual abuse offenders and victims. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, said. The recommendation from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is to work alongside the police to establish improvements which are required to assist the collection and publication of this data. We have accepted that recommendation. This includes reviewing and improving the existing data that the police collect, as well as considering future legislative measures if required. The objective the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, has set is one that we have accepted. We are working through that at the moment and, although it may not be satisfactory today, it is an objective to which she and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, can hold us to account.

This is an important debate. I think we are at one on these things, but it is the Government’s firm view that most of the amendments are not the way forward or need further refinement along the lines that I have already outlined to the Committee. As I have said, the Government are committed to changing the law in relation to rape. We will take away amendments and consider this further for Report.

Given these caveats, let us go back to where we started on this wide-ranging group, which is whether we should have a statutory timescale for the inquiry. Going back to the lead amendment in this group, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, will withdraw her amendment because we are trying to do this as speedily as possible. The converse impact of her amendment may well be to create a further delay to a process that the Government are determined to get down as quickly as possible, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, to land the inquiry and get further recommendations to tighten up areas in which we need to reduce—and, we hope, stop—the number of further victims of these awful crimes.

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for addressing my amendment and the others in such detail, and my noble friends Baroness Cash and Lord Blencathra for adding their support.

Even though the Minister has not accepted my amendment and stated that the others do not fit with the Government’s plans, I welcome the agreement across the Committee that we all support the principle of the work that is happening. However, I make no apologies for standing up and saying that the system is still not adequate in many ways. I am sure that the Minister can recognise some of this. I remember sitting in the Home Office in 2021-22, when I was a Minister there, and asking for the data about ethnicity and whether there was any connection. I was told, “No, Minister, there is none”. We all know now that that was not the case. I wish to God we had known that then so we could have done more for the victims. Collectively, we have all let them down; this is not a party-political issue, but one in which we should feel ashamed about what has happened to those vulnerable girls in our country.

I accept the Minister’s point about the timeline and the passage of the Bill, and that, were he to accept my amendment, it would potentially be delayed further than any of us would wish. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 247B withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Maclean of Redditch Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Shawcross-Wolfson (Con)]

My Lords, I also support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Owen and will try to keep my remarks as brief as possible. As we have heard today, technology continues to provide new avenues for abuse, in particular for the abuse of women. Abusers use technology in ever more inventive ways to harm, harass and try to humiliate their victims. Thanks to the work of my noble friend Lady Owen and others in this House, the law has made huge strides in recent years; however, more needs to be done.

Broadly, these amendments fall into two categories: those that seek to update the law to ensure that it addresses new and growing forms of tech-enabled abuse, and those that seek to provide more effective support to the victims of non-consensual intimate image abuse. We need action on both fronts. I will not go into detail here, as it has already been covered, but I will just reiterate that some of the gaps that need to be closed are: updating our definition of what constitutes taking an image; including audio recordings in the framework for tackling non-consensual intimate images; ensuring that images which may have been innocuous when they were taken but are then transformed into something sexual or degrading are also captured by the law; and, finally, recognising the practice of doxing as an aggregating factor.

Unfortunately, we know that, however the law changes, abuse will not be eliminated any time soon, so we must also ensure that the law supports victims in the aftermath of their abuse. As it stands, there is no proper framework to ensure that intimate images that the courts have found to be taken or shared illegally are then removed and destroyed. Instead, survivors see their images being repeatedly uploaded, posted on to pornography sites, shared in anonymous chat forums and even allowed to remain untouched on their abusers’ devices or cloud accounts. It cannot be right; the law must change. Between them, Amendments 295BA, 295BB, 295BC and 295BD would create a proper mechanism for victims to ensure that images are promptly removed from online platforms, deleted and then hashed to prevent them from resurfacing elsewhere.

Making progress on this issue is crucial. We know the trauma caused to victims who have to live with their images remaining online or live with the knowledge that they could be re-uploaded at any point. As one survivor told the Women and Equalities Committee:

“I am terrified of applying for jobs for fear that the prospective employer will google my name and see. I am terrified when meeting new people that they will google my name and see. I am terrified that every person I meet has seen”.


We cannot allow this situation to continue. The amendments from my noble friend Lady Owen would make the law more effective, more enforceable and more protective to victims, and I hope that we will be able to make progress on them in this House.

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I add my voice to the support for my noble friend Lady Owen from across the Committee. She has done a great service to victims of these crimes all across the country, most of whom we know are women and girls, but men and boys can be affected too.

I will focus on Amendment 334 which, as my noble friend Lady Coffey has mentioned, would add the word “reckless” in relation to the spiking offence. This is very important. I remember being the Home Office Minister when the phenomenon of needle spiking first hit the headlines. It focused a lot of attention on spiking in general as a phenomenon and meant the Home Office had to put its focus and resources behind it. We found it was very difficult to prosecute these crimes. Often, the substance had left the body. Often, victims were blamed for their behaviour, for putting themselves in those situations.

When I went to talk to the victims, I often heard that they thought that people were just doing it for a laugh, and a lot of the hospitality industry—bars, clubs and festivals—said the same thing. They said that it was really inadequate to have the requirement to prove harm or a sexual motive. That was part of the reason, though not the whole reason, why we have seen such a woefully low level of prosecutions for this. It is my belief that we need to make sure we include this recklessness element, and that is also the belief of most of the campaigners that I have worked with, including Stamp Out Spiking and, of course, Richard Graham, who did a tremendous job. I hope that the Government will adopt this amendment and all the others.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it has been a privilege to take part in today’s Committee. I think anyone reading Hansard subsequently will get a much better insight than they ever had before of the risks and experience of young women and girls in today’s world, sadly. It has been a privilege listening to all the speeches, particularly on these amendments.

Like others, started by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, for the forensic way she has identified the digital loopholes that currently allow abusers to evade justice. As we have been reminded, she has been a doughty campaigner on the Data (Use and Access) Act, with a winning streak that I hope will continue.

At the same time, I welcome the government amendments in this group, which at least signal a positive direction of travel. For far too long, victims of intimate image abuse have been timed out of justice by the six-month limit on summary offences. The noble Baroness, Lady Owen, identified this injustice, and I am delighted that the Government have listened with their Amendment 300. Then, of course, we have a number of other amendments. The noble Baroness’s amendments go further than time limits; they address harms that the Bill completely misses.

In particular, I highlight Amendment 298B, which addresses the malicious practice known as doxing. It is a terrifying reality for survivors that perpetrators often do not just share an intimate image; they weaponise it by publishing the victim’s address, employer or educational details alongside it. This is calculated to maximise distress, vulnerability and real-world danger. This amendment would rightly establish that providing such information is a statutory aggravating factor and would ensure that the court must treat this calculated destruction of a victim’s privacy with the severity it deserves.

While we welcome the government amendments regarding deprivation orders, I urge the Minister to look closely at Amendment 295BB, also in the name of the noble Baroness. Current police powers often focus on seizing the physical device—the phone or laptop—but we live in an age of cloud storage. Seizing a phone is meaningless if the image remains accessible in the cloud, ready to be downloaded the moment the offender buys a new device. Amendment 295BB would create a duty for verified deletion, including from cloud services. We must ensure that when we say an image is destroyed, it is truly gone.

I also strongly support the suite of amendments extending the law to cover audio recordings. As technology evolves, we are seeing the rise of AI-generated audio deepfakes—a new frontier of abuse highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, and the Revenge Porn Helpline, as we have heard today. I pay tribute to her for raising this issue. By explicitly including audio recordings in the definition of intimate image offences, these amendments could future-proof the legislation against these emerging AI threats.

Finally in this area, Amendment 295BD offers a systematic solution: a non-consensual intimate image register using hashing technology, which was so clearly described by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. We cannot rely on a game of whack-a-mole, where victims must report the same image to platform after platform. A hash registry that identifies the unique digital fingerprint of an image to block its upload across providers is the only scalable technical solution to this problem.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, we also welcome the new offence of administering harmful substances in Clause 101, but the current drafting requires specific intent to “injure, aggrieve or annoy”. Perpetrators of spiking often hide behind the defence that it was just a prank or done to liven up a friend. This leaves prosecutors struggling to prove specific intent. Amendment 334 would close this gap by introducing recklessness into the offence. If you spike a person’s drink, you are inherently being reckless as to the danger you pose to that person. The law should reflect that reality, and I urge the Government to accept this strengthening of the clause.

Finally, we support Amendment 356B, which would modernise domestic abuse protection orders. Abusers are innovative; they use third parties and digital platforms to bypass physical restrictions. This amendment would explicitly prohibit indirect contact and digital harassment, ensuring that a protection order actually provides protection in the 21st century.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Maclean of Redditch Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses a vital aspect of public protection, closing the loopholes that allow registered sex offenders to evade detection and monitoring by changing their identity. Effective management of offenders in the 21st century requires a justice system that is not only legally robust but properly resourced and technologically capable.

On these Benches, we strongly welcome Clause 87, which requires sex offenders to notify the police of a name change seven days before using that new name, in the words of the clause. This is a significant improvement on the current retrospective notification regime, which has allowed offenders to disappear from the radar of the authorities. However, my Amendment 317 seeks to tighten this provision further regarding deed polls. As currently drafted, an offender could theoretically go through the legal process of obtaining a deed poll to change their name without the police being aware until the moment they intend using it, again using the language of Clause 87.

My amendment specifies that if a name change is by deed poll, the offender must notify the police seven days prior to submitting the application. This would ensure that the police are alerted at the very start of the administrative process of changing identity rather than at the end. It provides authorities with the vital time needed to conduct appropriate risk assessments and, if necessary, intervene before a new legal identity is formally established. This proposal has been championed by campaigners such as Sarah Champion MP in the other place, and it is a common-sense safeguard to ensure that the police are always one step ahead.

I stress that the management of offenders today is not just about physical monitoring but about digital monitoring. Just as we have seen criminal recruitment drives for money mules take place on social media platforms, we know that the internet provides avenues for offenders to reoffend or breach their conditions. Although Amendment 317 seeks to tighten the management regime legislative framework, I urge the Government to ensure that the police and relevant agencies have the digital resources and data-sharing capabilities required to enforce these new powers effectively rather than relying on a fragmented system that allows offenders to slip through the net. This measure would strengthen the safety net around our communities immeasurably. I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment as a logical extension of the Government’s own objectives in Clause 87. I beg to move.

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was designed for a world with low demand for gender recognition certificates and did not anticipate modern safeguarding realities. I believe that that context has fundamentally changed, and that creates a serious gap that my amendment seeks to close. The system is no longer confined to a small number of older adults. New Ministry of Justice data shows that almost 10,000 GRCs have been issued. Last year alone, over 1,169 were granted. That is the highest number on record and more than triple the annual figure five years ago. This is quite a dramatic generational shift: almost a quarter of new certificates now go to people born since the year 2000. Demand has changed but safeguarding has not kept up.

I recently tabled a Written Question to the Government after I had seen multiple cases of male-born sex offenders changing their gender identity, so by the time they appeared in court or were sent to prison they identified as women. I was curious, so I asked the Government what safeguards would prevent a convicted rapist or sex offender going on to obtain a gender recognition certificate and being legally recognised as a woman. First, I was troubled that this Question, when it came to be answered, had been transferred to the Minister for Equalities rather than being answered by the Home Office. I believe it is fundamentally a matter of safety and not about equality. It should have been answered by the Home Office, so I worry that that demonstrates a confusion at the heart of the Government on this issue. Rape and sex offences are not about equality or identity but about safety.

Moreover, and more importantly, the response ignored the core issue. While of course we welcome the measures on name changes, passports and police notification, they do not prevent a convicted sex offender, if I understand it correctly, changing their legal sex under the Gender Recognition Act and going on to live the remainder of their life legally as a woman. To me, that highlights a serious safeguarding gap, and this amendment seeks to close that.

Noble Lords may ask why this is necessary and what this risk is that I speak about. We must be frank—sexual predators cannot be cured. The risk may be managed but it is not eliminated. That is why we have the lifelong monitoring regimes we have. That is why MAPPA exists and why I believe that the law must ensure that those who pose a permanent risk to women and girls, and men and boys, cannot access a legal mechanism that alters their status in ways that Parliament never intended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is my understanding of the position. I hope that helps the noble and learned Baroness. That is the principle behind what we are proposing here today. Again, I say to the whole Committee that this is, ultimately, management based on risk, not on gender.

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

May I press the Minister on one specific point? I understand what he is saying about management of risk, but would it be possible for a convicted sex offender—a serious sex offender or rapist—to be prevented, on the basis of risk, from obtaining a gender recognition certificate, should they wish to do so? Would it be possible for that to be barred in a specific case, should that individual be assessed as posing a risk to public safety?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 ensures that convicted sex offenders are already subject to post-conviction controls. They are managed according to their risk, and the sex offenders register is about looking at the position with regard to the individual having the risk on the basis of their actions. It would not be possible to stop someone applying for a gender recognition certificate. Ultimately, they would be placed on the sex offenders register based on their risk, not on their gender. With that, I hope that the noble Lords will not press the amendments.