Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I want briefly to express my sympathy in support of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. The Minister will recall that, some months ago in Grand Committee, we discussed the noble Baroness’s amendment on this question of the glorification of terrorism. I absolutely respect the concerns raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and others about ambiguity, which clearly exists in some of these contexts, but for the issues that the noble Baroness talked about, there is no ambiguity—“Ooh ah, up the Ra” means only one thing. There is no ambiguity either in Kneecap—the word itself refers to glorification of a sadistic paramilitary act. When I spoke that day, many Members in the Room had not heard of Kneecap. Since then, Kneecap has become much bigger. I understand completely the difficulty the Minister has now in concluding, but I wish to convey to him this problem. Since we spoke that day, the glorification of terrorism has not abated or weakened; it has actually increased. Entire communities are getting locked into this, and that is a problem that faces this House.

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, briefly, I know this might sound as though it is a Northern Ireland debate, but it is not. I respect and accept the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, saying that this is an issue in England and Wales and more broadly. But we have experience of it—maybe more experience than others, or we may think we have. I stand here having served in the home service security forces in Northern Ireland for 18 years. Colleagues were murdered and friends were murdered. I carried their coffins. What is more, I have seen the devastation of some of those families in the aftermath, when some people lauded those terrorist acts. We see the rewriting of history and the glorification of terrorism—they taunt the families.

To prove that it is a much wider issue than Northern Ireland, back in 2014, two people were jailed for the glorification of the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby. So I accept that it is a much wider issue than Northern Ireland, but I want all noble Lords to understand the experience that the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, and others have of the Northern Ireland situation and what we have seen.

I had a friend murdered back in 1985. That evening, going past their house, people were stopping and jeering and applauding that murder. Is that not the glorification of terrorism? I do not care whether it is the glorification of a terrorist, terrorists or terrorism—to me, it is all the same. If you are glorifying terrorism, that is wrong and should not be allowed. That is the rewriting of history. Even now, we have the taunting of young people because their grandparents, uncles or other family members were murdered. That is wrong and it cannot be allowed to continue. That is why I support Amendment 450.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 447 and 448. I also support the spirit of Amendment 450, with one reservation, which I will explain, and which maybe the Minister would have taken in any case.

As far as Amendments 447 and 448 are concerned, I have spoken in several debates about the scope of the Terrorism Act 2000 and the way it works, in particular because of the breadth of the offence under Section 12 of support for a terrorist organisation and the offence under Section 13 of wearing an article or uniform, and the publication of images, as arousing suspicion of support for a proscribed organisation. I spoke, from the point of view of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, about the unnecessarily broad scope of those sections as they stand, and in support of our amendment seeking a statement about the right of peaceable protest in this Bill.

My immediate concern arises, as it arose then, out of the arrest of some 2,700 people at peaceable protests against the proscription of Palestine Action. I take the point entirely that the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, made, that we cannot dig into the minds of those protesters and work out what their motivation was and then create some kind of thought crime that covers their position. What we can do is consider what the right of peaceable protest is and what price we pay for it. It is quite clear that this is not about the rights or wrongs of the proscription of Palestine Action. In supporting these amendments, I am solely concerned, as was the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, with the right to protest and the consequences of the way that the Terrorist Act 2000 works, branding peaceable protests as an offence against that Act, and branding as terrorists protesters who have done nothing more than carry banners or publicly express the view that the proscription is wrong.

I quite agree with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that there is a massive distinction between the exercise of that right, however foolish those protesters, or some of them, may be and however much we may disagree with them, and branding them as terrorists and comparing them with those who are actually carrying out terrorism, which is, I suggest, not justified. It is not, of course, confined to protests in connection with Palestine Action, but the point that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made was also that the consequences for those who have been arrested, be they elderly retired people or students on the threshold of their career, are, in his words, wholly disproportionate. Those are words with which I entirely agree.

Some of those arrested have been charged. The charging process is nowhere near complete, and, as I understand it, the charging will go ahead so long as the proscription lives—the proscription is, of course, the subject of challenge. But if those arrests proceed inexorably to conviction then those people convicted will be branded as terrorists. As for the sickening nature of the slogans they may shout, “Globalise the intifada” to me can mean only one thing, and that is killing Jews for being Jews, and I speak as a Jew, and the phrase, “From the river to the sea”, is wholly unpleasant and has only one meaning. But for students to sit down and listen to and then repeat those slogans at a peaceable protest does not mean that they support acts of terrorism. It means, as the noble Lord said, that they are opposing, and opposing with force, some of the actions of the Israeli Government and of Israeli soldiers in Gaza, which have been, as the British Government and most western Governments have said, absolutely appalling themselves. It does not mean that they are terrorists. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, is right, as I said, that we cannot go into their minds to see what their motivation is, but we have to tailor the criminal law to actions, combined with a mental state.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, broadly, I support these amendments. I would have thought the Government would welcome all of them, because they seem quite common sense. They are quite tactical at times, and I would just say that two strategic things need to be considered. One is the charging regime for businesses attending recycling sites. If the charges are set too high, it encourages people to find alternative arrangements. We might condemn it, but it is a bit like smuggling tobacco—when we set the tax wrong, the smuggling of tobacco from France increases exponentially. Getting that balance right is not easy, but if you look at where you can get rid of a fridge and what charge you will make if you are a business, that really is the context in which these offences have been committed. I am not trying to provide a defence for the people involved; it just seems to me that that is one of the things causing it.

The second thing is that it is a business, so they are doing it for money. I know that there are later amendments about it being an organised crime, but obviously you have to go after the assets ruthlessly, so that when you get them you go after their home or the business. That really starts to make an impact when they realise that their life will not continue in the way that it has. I am not sure we collectively—I include the police and the Environment Agency—have had that determination.

On the amendments, for me, Amendments 13 and 21 are vital. It seems bizarre that the person who suffered once would suffer twice when they have to pay to remove the problem, unless of course they are being paid to store it or have not taken reasonable steps to make sure it does not continue, such as calling the police, the Environment Agency or anybody else to try to help make sure that it does not happen again. Fundamentally, it cannot be right if a victim is asked to pay to remove a problem they did not arrange. It seems to me that at the moment it is being treated as a civil wrong when in fact we all agree that it is a criminal wrong. This shift of culture is vital.

The best people to try to help clear the problem—forget about whose fault it is—are the local authorities. They are the ones with the equipment, the people who are skilled, and, frankly, the recycling places and the tips to get rid of it now. The consequences are that we are seeing around the country health hazards growing: sometimes toxic waste; sometimes just rat infestations. We are seeing these things growing very near to where people are living with children or anybody. That cannot be right. Something has to be done, in the sense that somebody has to act quickly to remove the pile of stuff and make sure, so far as possible, that it does not return.

The other two amendments that I support are Amendments 14 and 20, which are two sides of a similar coin. They propose giving points on licences to offenders or taking their vehicles. We have seen that they have been effective measures. It does not necessarily stop people driving, but it restricts their mobility for a while. They can still drive, but the police have now got an opportunity to lock them up because they are driving while disqualified, so it is starting to inhibit their mobility. The second thing is, obviously, to take the vehicles. A large vehicle can be worth £20,000, £50,000 or £100,000. This starts to make a difference in their business model and that, it seems to me, is vital. Of course, the side benefit is that, where vehicles are seized because they have no insurance, no tax or no test, the police can do one of two things: they can either crush them and sell the scrap and get back any tax that remains on the vehicle, or they can sell the vehicle itself, so, actually, the money that is taken from the offender is then applied straightaway to law enforcement.

The Government might want to consider whether money taken in this respect is applied either through the Environment Agency or through other bodies to make sure that it enhances their ability to reduce the amount of organised crime involved in this horrible thing that is causing such misery around the country. Therefore, if a vote is called, I will certainly support Amendment 13, but I also support the other amendments because I think they are things that could work.

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of these amendments. In particular, as a landowner and someone who has had fly-tipping on their property, I can say that it is extremely dangerous, even with small amounts of fly-tipping, whereby you have the fridges and the small amounts of wood or timber, particularly where you have livestock and machinery and where you have children. It brings disease and all sorts of trouble. So, there is that small level of fly-tipping, but then we also have the larger waste crimes, which are carried out by criminal gangs.

I know that, in Northern Ireland, we had a huge site at Mobuoy, outside of Londonderry. Two criminals have been prosecuted and jailed: one got 21 months and one got one year. Between them, however, their criminal gangs and their businesses are believed to have benefited to in the region of £33 million from that dumping and that waste disposal on to individual people’s land. It is absolutely criminal and we need to do more to clamp down on this, otherwise it is going to expand. Obviously, in Northern Ireland we suffer as well from cross-border fly-tipping and people coming across the border to tip their rubbish in Northern Ireland. But in general, it is something that really needs to be clamped down on, simply because there are not enough convictions and there are not enough people being caught.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to respond from our Bench to this group of amendments. Fly-tipping is anything from the illegal disposal of rubbish from the back of a car boot to the more serious organised dumping of rubbish. There is no doubt that it is a growing problem that is out of control and harming our communities, damaging our environment and having a disproportionate impact on our rural communities. All too often, it is farmers and innocent landowners who end up paying the cost for other people’s criminality; the criminals all too often go undetected and unpunished.

The Government’s own statistics show that around 20% of all our waste generated ends up being illegally managed. Government figures released just this morning show that, for the year 2024-25, local authorities in England dealt with 1.26 million incidents—an increase of 9% from the 1.15 million incidents reported in 2023-24. This highlights the absolute scale of the problem, which is relentless and is only growing worse. While profits can range up to £2,500 per lorry load, this is low risk and high reward.

We have a lot of sympathy and general support for the amendments, but we do not feel that any of them, in and of themselves, offer the appropriate solutions. Amendment 13 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Cameron, seeks to ensure that the state’s guidance on fly-tipping makes the person who is responsible, rather than a landowner or the community, liable for the cost of clearing up the mess. We entirely understand and share the concerns that this amendment seeks to address, but this is not a workable answer. The blight of fly-tipping and illegal waste dumping causes immense frustration for communities —especially innocent landowners who find themselves facing significant costs through no fault of their own. It is wholly right that those responsible for such environmental harm bear the financial burden for their actions. We fundamentally support the “polluter pays” principle.