Crime and Policing Bill

Richard Holden Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I think the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) just ran out of time. I remember that I too raised Banaz’s case as a Back Bencher.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of six of the new clauses that go to the heart of our responsibilities as legislators—safeguarding children, restoring public confidence in the law and defending free expression—although due to the lack of time, I will not be able to go into them all in detail.

New clause 45, standing in my name, seeks to ensure that where an individual under the age of 18 has been cautioned or convicted of a child sex offence, the police must notify any organisation that that child is involved in, where they are with other children, or an organisation that that person is seeking to join. This new clause stems from a real case in my own constituency and would close a dangerous and demonstrably harmful safeguarding loophole, which I have already discussed privately with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips). I hope that the Government will look at this as they take this legislation through the other place.

New clause 46, also standing my name, addresses another gap in legislation: a person’s ability to buy a car without providing any form of verifiable ID, or indeed proving that they can actually drive. This is in memory of Andrew Rowlands, with the support of his family, and it would make it harder for criminals and reckless drivers to use untraceable vehicles with impunity and kill people, as happened in Andrew’s case.

New clause 108, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), seeks to reaffirm the right to speak freely about religion or belief, including criticism, satire and dissent, by restoring clarity to our public order laws. I know he will be speaking to it later, and I wholly support it. It is closely aligned to new clause 7, which is being put forward by the Opposition Front Bench today. We need to start addressing some of these non-crime hate incidents, which I think are becoming a pernicious attack upon freedom in our society.

More broadly, it was great to hear the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) speak about pornography and some of the amendments she has put forward. I support new clause 103. In fact, I have been doing some work recently with the British Board of Film Classification because there are clearly major issues between what is allowed to be broadcast and age rated within traditional broadcast settings and what is available online. There is a growing body of evidence linking violent and abusive pornography with increased rates of sexual aggression, especially towards women and girls. I fully support the new clause and hope that the Government pay attention to what the hon. Member proposed.

I support new clause 150 relating to cousin marriage. I am glad that the Opposition Front Bench has put it forward, and I spoke at length about the matter earlier in Westminster Hall. This is not a knee-jerk reaction; it represents the next logical step in a serious and ongoing effort to protect the vulnerable and promote social cohesion. I have already introduced a private Member’s Bill in this Session on the marriage element, following the successful challenge banning virginity testing and hymenoplasty in the last Session, because when it comes to protecting women and men from outdated, coercive and harmful practices, this House must not look the other way.

This is not about race or religion; it is about freedom, societal cohesion and health. It is about freedom because consent is meaningless when extended families can pressure young men and women into cousin marriages that they do not want. We must stand up for those without a voice and give them the legal backing to say no. It is about cohesion because multigenerational cousin marriage often fosters huge issues around social segregation, locking individuals into closed systems of authority. When countries like Norway and Denmark have acted decisively, there is no excuse for this country to lag behind others with progressive credentials. It is about health because there is a real risk. The Born in Bradford study, which has been going on for many years, has found the real societal implications, and we still do not know the full side effects of multigenerational first cousin marriages.

We rightly prohibit relationships where power distorts consent—between teachers and pupils, doctors and patients, and within close family settings. The same logic clearly applies here as well. This new clause is rooted in compassion, not condemnation. It speaks to freedom, especially for women, and the courage to legislate where silence simply causes harm.

Each of these amendments addresses a different risk—child safety, public accountability and freedom of expression—but they are united in the common principle that the law should protect the vulnerable, demand responsibility, and preserve the freedoms on which a healthy and confident society depends.

[Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I rise to support new clause 122, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor).

In 2007, Fiona Pilkington drove herself and her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca Hardwick, to a lay-by near her home. She also took the family’s pet rabbit to soothe her daughter, who had severe learning disabilities. She then set the car on fire, killing them both. An inquest two years later heard how the family had been kept virtual prisoners in their home by youths who threw stones, flour and other objects and kept up a relentless stream of abuse. At the time, the Independent Police Complaints Commission concluded that one of the police’s main failings was in not identifying the abuse as hate crime.

The case prompted wider concern that many police forces were failing to properly identify hate crimes motivated by disability, and thus treating them as low-priority antisocial behaviour—something disability campaigners say too often remains the case. I am proud that last year our Labour manifesto

“committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with them, so that their views and voices will be at the heart of all we do.”

I support my hon. Friend’s new clause 122, which would implement our manifesto commitment to protect LGBT+ and disabled people by making all existing strands of hate crime an aggravated offence. The new clause would finally place the Law Commission’s recommendations on a statutory footing. As the commission has said:

“It is undesirable for the current law to give the impression of a ‘hierarchy’ of victims.”

The Bill will be powerful in delivering the Government’s safer streets mission and plan for change. It will help to tackle the crimes that matter most to communities but that have been ignored for too long, after 14 years of the Tory dereliction of duty on law and order.