Lords
Proceedings
9 July 2026
UK Migration
My Lords, when will the Government have a computerised system in place that can accurately track both entry into and exit from the United Kingdom, and therefore give the Government an accurate picture of who is here and what their status is at any one time?
Lords
Debate
16 April 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I will respond to the amendments in this group on waste crime and fly-tipping. As we know, nearly one-fifth of all our waste ends up in the hands of criminals. The rising number of mega tips and the speed at which they are now appearing show the increasingly sophisticated nature of crimina…
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I spoke on this subject in Committee; I did so with considerable wariness given the strength and distinguished nature of the lawyers who were stressing the importance of open justice. I listened to their speeches incredibly carefully and the House owes them a great deal for coming forward …
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Buscombe in the thrust of what she is seeking to achieve with her Amendment 387A. I do not think I heard my noble friend say that this would be a panacea or the answer to this complex situation, which clearly needs a multi-agency response. There seems to be a…
Lords
Debate
4 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, we covered these matters pretty thoroughly during discussion of a number of amendments in Committee. As we are now on Report, I shall get quickly to the nub of the issue that I should like to discuss, which reflects a lot of what my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Shinkwin have alre…
My Lords, I am afraid that I really cannot let the Minister get away with that. I think that all Members who have spoken in today’s debate, and in previous debates, are absolutely unanimous about the degree to which there is a problem. I do not accept the Minister saying that the problem is that the…
Lords
Debate
25 February 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
I do not wish to move the amendment.
For the administrative ease of the House, I have not moved Amendment 14, but I do have another amendment in this group, Amendment 21, which I do intend to talk to, if that is in order.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
11 February 2026
Smart Motorways
I cannot give the noble Viscount the specific details about that particular section of road, but I am very happy to ask for those statistics.
Lords
Proceedings
3 February 2026
Police Reform White Paper
My Lords, the Government should be commended for coming forward with bold proposals. It is clear that the existing structures are rooted in a situation from way before we had the levels of mobility, technology and new crimes that are coming forward and taking up so much of the police’s time. Having …
Lords
Debate
22 January 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, it is with great trepidation that I speak, very briefly. Having heard such powerful legal voices discussing these issues—and I hugely respect the legal expertise that we have in the House—on the basis of what we have heard and how the Government have approached this issue, I am minded to s…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 January 2026
Number Plates Intended to Defeat Enforcement Cameras
The noble Viscount is straying some way from illegal number plates, but that subject has been discussed in this House before. The enforcement is of course a matter for chief police officers, but the Government are very seriously considering the sale of such motorcycles.
Lords
Debate
20 January 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
I wonder whether the Minister could help us. I listened carefully to his remarks but I am not sure that I really understood the difference, as the Government define it, between “violence” and “serious violence”. We all perhaps have some ideas in our minds, and it has been a balanced and considered d…
My Lords, this is somewhat Groundhog Day for the Committee, as we have considered very similar amendments and issues on earlier days. All Peers who have spoken, including my noble friends Lord Shinkwin and Lord Blencathra, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, me and many others, have agreed that there i…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
14 January 2026
Large-scale Waste Crime
I am sure the noble Viscount and others know that the Kidlington situation was utterly appalling. It was, as he said, quite extraordinary that it was allowed to happen. It is important to recognise that it was exceptional. We need to concentrate on the fact that waste crime is more and more frequent…
Lords
Debate
7 January 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, briefly, I support my noble friend’s amendment, which seeks to fill a lacuna in Bill. It seems that the Government and my noble friend will be very close in what they trying to achieve, which is to remove these devices from sale and use and to make it more difficult for the criminals.
Whe…
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Blencathra has made a very pragmatic speech on the difficulties of fare evasion and the extraordinary complexities of the ticketing and fares system in the UK. Of course, I note that the Government are legislating in this area as part of the broader GB Railways Bill th…
Lords
Debate
17 December 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support this group of amendments, which very neatly follow on from the discussions we had on Monday, when there was a great deal of consensus around the Committee on the degree to which there is a problem, particularly with delivery riders on illegal e-bikes and delivery riders riding e-…
Before my noble friend responds to the Minister’s wind-up speech, I put a gentle challenge to the Minister that the Committee was looking for a substantive response. I believe he was supportive, in principle, of the need for enhanced road safety but was not seriously acknowledging that there is a sp…
Lords
Debate
15 December 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support the thrust of a number of the amendments that appear in this very broad group. Undoubtedly, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, told us, we have a significant problem, particularly in London. My own anecdotal experience is of cyclists and e-cyclists totally flouting the law, riding …
Perhaps so. It is not a question of having ineffective enforcement; I would say that we have no enforcement whatever—at least none that I have ever seen. If you have a law that is not enforced at all and is defined by people ignoring it, you have a serious problem. We should not be making additional…
Lords
Debate
19 November 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I agree with the points made and the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, supported by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. We are in the territory of unintended consequences. The Committee needs to take a pragmatic approach. Where there are lacunae and mishaps in complex swathe…
My Lords, briefly, I associate myself with all the sentiments that have been shared this afternoon on this matter. I think we all know what we want to try and stop with the Bill: zombie knives. There is no excuse or legitimate use at all for a zombie knife. But it is incredibly difficult to define, …
Lords
Debate
17 November 2025
5 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I wholeheartedly support my noble friend. He has done the Committee a great service by bringing forward these amendments. The Bill is indeed very broad, and the question of fly-tipping falls very squarely within its auspices.
This is a very serious issue indeed, and it is undertaken by a …
My Lords, can the Minister help the Committee by telling us how often such an order has been imposed?
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
11 November 2025
Police: Records
There are 43 police forces; I bear the scars of being the Police and Counter- terrorism Minister in 2009-10 looking at potentially encouraging some forces to merge. I will not comment on the numbers—the important thing is efficiency. A policing White Paper will be published very shortly, in which we…
Lords
Debate
10 November 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
I support my noble friends Lord Davies and Lord Blencathra. Litter is important, and while it may sound like a low-level issue, I endorse the sentiments expressed by my noble friends about the broken windows theory that a messy environment leading to more litter and more problems.
I support the inc…
Lords
Debate
10 November 2025
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I associate myself with the remarks we have heard from around the Chamber, including from my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about the seriousness of anti-social behaviour and the rationale of the Government in bringing forward the measures that the…
My Lords, the Minister mentioned in his remarks on the first group that there are over a million instances of anti-social behaviour in the United Kingdom, and he is seeking broad new powers in the early part of the Bill. Can he give the House any guidance as to what sort of effect, if the House were…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
5 November 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment 35. We really need the data to understand the problem and how efficacious our measures to control it are. My noble friend asked a number of different questions in a number of different ways, and he has not been given the information the House requires.…
Lords
Debate
28 October 2025
2 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I support my noble friend in his Amendment 3 and the amendments that the Government have brought forward to try to make Clause 13 more effective and appropriate.
I have a broader question for the Minister. I suspect that many of the people who may be caught by this are already committing …
My Lords, I also commend the Government on bringing forward this suite of amendments. My remarks will follow and parallel quite closely those of my noble friend Lord Harper.
This is a very difficult area of the law. Social media and the internet are very fast-evolving and extremely difficult to def…
Lords
Debate
16 October 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I add my welcome and thanks to the Minister for her introduction to the Bill. I also thank my noble friend Lady Doocey for setting out the Liberal Democrat stall so cogently both on policing more generally and on this Bill. On these Benches, we recognise the imperative to make our streets …
Lords
Oral Questions
16 September 2025
Undocumented Migrants
I did give those statistics to the noble Viscount, but I can also give him some more today if it helps. For example, between 1 January and 1 September this year, nearly 17,000 crossing attempts were stopped by joint action between the French and the British. Those do not show up in the statistics I …
Lords
Debate
8 September 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, all noble Lords who have spoken on the amendment have got a deep understanding of a very complex system—the legal aid system—which I certainly do not, so I will leave the fundamentals of the amendment and how the legal aid system works to those who have a great deal of professional knowled…