Lords
Debate
5 February 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, economic crime is not a marginal issue. It is a national crisis affecting millions of people every year but, generally speaking, it goes under the radar most of the time. These are not victimless offences: they destroy life savings, devastate small businesses and undermine trust in our eco…
My Lords, as the Home Secretary observed in the recent White Paper, policing has not always kept pace with a rapidly changing world. Airspace has indeed become a new frontier for both opportunistic and organised crime. Drones are now being used by burglars and organised gangs as near-silent scouts, …
Lords
Proceedings
3 February 2026
Police Reform White Paper
My Lords, our system of policing is outdated—that is beyond doubt. The White Paper is right to promise radical reform, but, for victims and communities, the real tests are simple: will more crimes be prevented and will more offenders be brought to justice? Reform cannot be a top-down, money-saving e…
Lords
Oral Questions
28 January 2026
National Police Service
No, we cannot, because at the moment cyber crime issues are dealt with by the National Crime Agency. We are looking to establish a national police force area. Fraud is with the City of London Police, and very shortly I will bring to this Parliament a new revised fraud strategy. We are looking first …
Lords
Debate
27 January 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, Amendment 438EB is inspired by the 999 Injured and Forgotten campaign, led by Tom Curry, a detective forced to retire after suffering a life-changing injury on duty, weeks before reaching 22 years of service. In 2023, Tom launched a petition calling for a new medal for police injured on du…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for his support. I also pay tribute to Tom Morrison MP, who previously highlighted this campaign in the other place. Those people who put themselves on the line for us in the course of duty really ought to be h…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
27 January 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, from these Benches there is strong support for Amendments 435 and 438A, which would finally shine a light on one of the most sensitive and least discussed aspects of police welfare: suicide and attempted suicide among officers and staff. This is not about apportioning blame; it is about cr…
My Lords, Amendment 437 calls for a review of the volume of paperwork that police officers must complete in the course of their duties. This is one of the most persistent frustrations voiced by front-line officers. Despite the introduction of a new digital case file system, the use of automatic reda…
Lords
Debate
22 January 2026
11 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, this has been a short debate. I agree with many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. I find it almost extraordinary that misconduct investigations linger on for so long; it really is a disgrace for everybody involved. Police professional standards departments have for too…
My Lords, from these Benches we support a carefully framed presumption of anonymity for firearms officers facing criminal charges, but we believe that it should be tightly drawn and subject to clear judicial safeguards.
Giving automatic anonymity to firearms officers who face criminal charges would…
+9 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
20 January 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, Amendment 421 is now a hot topic. The West Midlands Police chief constable has resigned, and the Government are pledging to restore the Home Secretary’s power to dismiss chiefs who “fail their communities”. Last week’s events bring the motivation behind this amendment into sharp focus, und…
In view of what the Minister has just said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
20 January 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, there is now considerable evidence about how stop and search powers are used in practice, their impact and long-term consequences, not least in building trust, which is so vital for effective community policing. Stop and search powers, especially under Section 60—suspicionless powers —alre…
My Lords, the amendment rightly exposes a serious weakness in our current system. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, points out, HMICFRS can diagnose deep-seated problems within police forces but it does not have the power to make sure these problems are fixed. There are simply too few national leve…
Lords
Debate
15 January 2026
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, in moving Amendment 379, I will speak also to Amendment 471. When used responsibly, live facial recognition can help to protect the public. The real question before us is not whether it is used but how, under what safeguards, with what scrutiny and by what authority from Parliament? At pre…
I do not normally disagree with the Minister, although we might be on different sides of an argument, but I found that last comment very bad. We are all on the same side—we all want to catch criminals and prevent crime. That needs to go on the record. From what he just said, it was almost as though …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
7 January 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
We are very happy on these Benches to support this amendment. We all know the grim scale of fraud, now our most common crime. Authorised push payment scams are driven by online platforms, adverts on social media fuelling shopping and investment frauds, and hacked accounts enabling ticket scams. Yet,…
Lords
Debate
7 January 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, Amendment 357, first tabled by my party in the other place last year, would extend the operation of the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act by making explicit reference to GPS equipment or, as the industry now prefers, global navigation satellite systems.
For several years, Liberal Democrats…
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and to the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Davies of Gower, for their support. We all want this legislation to be effective, but we want swift implementation of the Act, not in the fullness of time, and stronger rural crime prevention, i…
Lords
Debate
17 December 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I have listened to this rather short debate against the particular backdrop of the Government’s increasingly unsettling approach to public order—a direction of travel that raises real concerns on these Benches. The current stance seems to involve simply doubling down on the pattern set by …
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for moving her amendment. This group also includes Amendment 356 in my name and in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Blower, whose support I greatly appreciate. I also thank Southall Black Sisters for their tireless …
Lords
Debate
17 December 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, on these Benches we take a very different view and strongly support Clauses 107 and 108, which recognise a simple reality. Emergency workers can face racially or religiously aggravated abuse whenever and wherever they are carrying out their duties, including in private homes. They cannot c…
My Lords, these amendments ask employers not only to react when something goes wrong but to look ahead, identify the risks and take sensible steps to prevent harm before it happens. That is especially important for women and those in insecure or public-facing roles, who we know are more likely to be…
Lords
Debate
15 December 2025
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I am pleased to support Amendment 337A, which is about consistency and common sense. The same standard of protection should apply wherever a child is taught, whether in a classroom, online or in their own home. Parents assume that safeguards already exist, and they are shocked when they le…
My Lords, I am still not clear. There are 90,000 names on the DBS barred list. I understand the Minister to have said that parents will now be able to access the enhanced barred list, therefore things that would not be picked up in a lower-level DBS check will be picked up with the enhanced one. How…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
15 December 2025
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, this debate has underlined that stalking is not an occasional nuisance but a pattern of behaviour that our systems still struggle to recognise and act on early enough. The debate shows a familiar picture: warning signs are missed, threats are minimised and tools that Parliament has already…
My Lords, Amendment 334A is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. I am grateful to Southall Black Sisters for the detailed evidence it has provided. On Wednesday we are going to cover broader issues around codes of honour and the deployment of these as a motivation and an excuse fo…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
11 December 2025
Social Media: Scam Adverts and Fraudulent Content
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. One of the things that we are trying to do—again, trailing the fraud strategy—is to ensure that we have better criminal justice outcomes for investigations. We are just starting—this will become clearer when the fraud strategy is produced—a better journey for …
Lords
Debate
9 December 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, this amendment exposes the indefensible gap between Parliament’s clear intent and women’s lived reality. The new offence was deliberately framed to capture deliberate, targeted and deeply damaging conduct, with a suitably serious maximum penalty, but without commencement, there are no cons…
My Lords, this group of amendments reflects the realities that the police, the NCA and child protection agencies now face, with children being coerced online into self-abuse, harming siblings or even abusing their family pets under pressure to provide images or live streams as proof. The overlap bet…
Lords
Debate
9 December 2025
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, on these Benches we recognise the purpose of time limits and we recognise the right to fair trial, but survivors of child sexual abuse should not be barred from justice simply by the passage of time. The difficulty lies, of course, in striking that balance. At the moment, too many claims w…
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Brinton has made a powerful case for removing the limitation period. The Government have already signalled a willingness to act, so objections are likely about timing rather than policy—at least, I hope that is the case.
The amendment would align the law with what Par…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
24 November 2025
Non-Crime Hate Incidents
I am grateful for that question from the noble Baroness. The issue is that non-crime hate incidents are not currently fit for purpose. That includes a range of mechanisms relating to how the police interpret that, what they do with the information and indeed whether any information is collected inco…
Lords
Debate
19 November 2025
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, the amendments in this group, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, put forward a number of alternative approaches to reduce shoplifting. However, they fail to address practical realities and risk creating more issues than they resolve.
The proposal in Amendment 216A would allow shop…
The noble Lord is misinterpreting what I said. I did not say that it was not possible to look at CCTV coverage. I said that if you are a small shopkeeper and the shop is being run by one or two people, you are not going to sit there and do everything that the noble Lord has suggested in that amendme…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
19 November 2025
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, the key finding of the Clayman review was the need for better police data recording on knife crime. Officers often fail to note the specific type of knife used, with further gaps around sales and marketing. Amendment 122 recognises that, without understanding the threat, it is difficult to…
My Lords, I will speak about Amendment 214B on knives in schools. It will come as no surprise to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that we on these Benches take a different view. We strongly believe that criminalising children is just not the way forward. Last year, an authoritative joint police and …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
18 November 2025
Police Reform
My Lords, police and crime commissioners were an innovative idea, but experience has shown they have not delivered as intended. Instead, they have proved to be a costly and flawed experiment, so we welcome their abolition. However, I hope the Minister will be able to provide the House with rather mo…
Lords
Debate
17 November 2025
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, everyone is concerned about gang activity. The dark web means it has never been easier for people to source and buy drugs independently, contributing to the emergence of more loosely organised micro-gangs, as once an individual has a large supply of illicit drugs, they need to recruit othe…
My Lords, there is a genuine problem around aggressive begging and the involvement of organised criminal gangs. That is why we support Clause 11, which rightly focuses not on individuals who are begging but on those who are orchestrating and profiting from this practice.
Lots of things in life are …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
11 November 2025
Police: Records
As I said to my noble friend, the Home Secretary is the accountable Minister with political oversight for the code of practice, although it is obviously in part an operational matter for the police. The noble Baroness mentions the alleged destruction of papers by Northumbria Police. There is for the…
Lords
Debate
10 November 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, we support Amendment 55A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. She has already highlighted the importance of improved data collection around the use of anti-social behaviour legislation. This is essential because it is impossible to gauge the fairness or effectivene…