Lords
Proceedings
8 July 2026
Lord Advocate
My Lords, we welcome the outline position taken by the Minister. But formally, and uniquely in the United Kingdom, the Lord Advocate is both head of the Prosecution Service in Scotland and a Government Minister who attends Cabinet. This duality, as has been said by everyone, has long been criticised…
Lords
Proceedings
6 July 2026
Imprisonment for Public Protection Prisoners
My Lords, the House understands the need to balance risk to the public from release against the injustice to IPP prisoners of their continued detention long after they have served their tariffs. Granted that we are making progress, does the Minister think that we yet have the balance right—even now,…
Lords
Proceedings
2 July 2026
Employment Tribunals
My Lords, the noble Baroness’s view is undoubtedly that employment tribunals are intended to provide a cheap, efficient and effective way of resolving employment disputes. If she shares that view, does she not therefore agree that the issues raised by this Question and highlighted around the House a…
Lords
Proceedings
1 July 2026
Prisoner Early Release
My Lords, these issues are very difficult, but we share the Government’s determination to ensure that we do not run out of prison cell space as a result of past serious underprovision. However, I have two questions on early release. First, can the Minister say how effectively victims notified of the…
Lords
Debate
30 June 2026
National Security (State Threats) Bill
My Lords, from these Benches, I reiterate the thanks of all of us to the Minister and his team, both in the House and in the Home Office, and his Bill team generally, for the enormous help that we have had and for engaging with us. From our point of view, we have achieved some significant improvemen…
Lords
Proceedings
20 May 2026
Youth Justice
My Lords, the success in reducing the number of children in custody has been a great achievement, and we should still be concentrating on further bringing down that number. That success has been largely achieved through the work of the Youth Justice Board, in which my noble friend Lord McNally playe…
Lords
Proceedings
18 May 2026
King’s Speech
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, for his brilliant valedictory speech. He will be greatly missed, both for the warmth of his company and for his combination of erudition and deep understanding, in contributions not only here but to our national debate. He warns us…
Lords
Debate
27 April 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, the House should take account of two factors. My understanding of the advice from the much-respected Jonathan Hall, the Government’s adviser on terrorism legislation, is that specific new legislation is required to ensure that malign state actors can be proscribed and dealt with.
Secondly…
Lords
Debate
23 April 2026
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Amendment 4D. This is likely my last appearance on the Front Bench though not, I anticipate, my last speech in this Chamber. I shall simply say that I have greatly enjoyed debating Home Office and justice issues, of which I have had practical experience both as…
Lords
Debate
22 April 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
I am grateful to noble Lords who spoke in this short debate, and I will respond to their comments. On fixed penalty notices, I had genuinely hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would have accepted that we have moved significantly towards his position. Everybody wants to see fixed penalty …
Lords
Debate
16 April 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords—
I am not willing to take that risk. It is a matter for noble Lords opposite. We are making a recommended change—we have accepted every recommendation from the College of Policing—but such an approach from the noble Lord risks removing information that may still be relevant. I am not willing to take …
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
15 April 2026
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I turn first to the issue of private prosecutions, which is the contentious area in this group. I say at the outset that we on these Benches agree with Motion D1, and the Amendments 4B and 4C in lieu, proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen. I start with a brief general point tha…
Lords
Debate
18 March 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I expressed some doubt in Committee about the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. I recognised the strength of feeling around the House in favour of her position, forcefully expressed, then as now, by the noble Lord, Lord Weir, and others, in connection particularly with past e…
My Lords, I will deal with this group as briefly as I can. I too support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. The idea that you can bundle together organisations and then proscribe the…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, Amendment 385 is the face covering amendment, in which I note that motorcyclists strangely are not covered but scooter riders are. I am not sure I see the need for a new general stand-alone police power to require someone to stop, and I see real dangers in requiring someone to remove a fac…
My Lords, I will answer very briefly, and perhaps on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, as well, because I suspect that what we are saying is roughly the same. I am entirely with the noble Baroness on the question of juries, and on the question of needing to do something to reduce the kind of c…
Lords
Debate
10 March 2026
3 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, noble Lords will remember an amendment in these terms from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, who moved it in Committee. He is the lead tabler of this amendment on Report but cannot be here today, so he has asked me and its other co-signatory, the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidwort…
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive response on the question of a review. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, was grateful for the meeting. Our continuing frustration is about the timescale. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, and I are very pleased to hear …
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
9 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for the elegant way that he introduced this amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for explaining his perspective on it. In effect, it was a police perspective, given that the police find it difficult to apply the law as it was thought to be aft…
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that the fact that this access is to be authorised by regulations is a saving grace. We know full well that in this House, fatal Motions virtually never succeed. The Conservative Front Bench may take some comfort from the fact that there would be provisio…
Lords
Debate
9 March 2026
7 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, in opening this group, I will speak principally to Amendment 369, which is in my name and the names of my noble friend Baroness Doocey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox of Buckley and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I will also speak to Amendments 369A, 372A, 372B, 372C and 373.
Amendment 36…
The answer to that is that the cumulative nature of the disruption is not what causes the oppression to worshippers at synagogues or mosques or anywhere else. We have accepted, for the purpose of Report, restrictions on the right to protest near places of worship on condition that it is relevant and…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
4 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, Amendment 358 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Doocey. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, who co-signed an amendment in the same terms in Committee and spoke to it, is unfortunately unable to be here this evening but is fully behind the amendment, on which he has campa…
My Lords, I regret that I am not content to withdraw my amendment.
First, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for highlighting how the opinions of the public may be affected, and the fact that the reputations of psychotherapy and counselling services, which are of value and hones…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 February 2026
Public Office (Accountability) Bill: Exclusion
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for providing the opportunity for noble Lords to raise a matter of deep and real public interest. The exclusion of Members of this House and the House of Commons from Clause 11 of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill is a topic which touc…
Lords
Oral Questions
24 February 2026
Prisons: Education
There are some good reasons why we do not want internet everywhere in prisons, but 90% of the English estate now has digital learning in its cells in various ways: Launchpad or Coracle. My vision is that we need to go much further with that, as well as offering a much wider curriculum on iPads or co…
Lords
Proceedings
11 February 2026
Court Reporting Data
My Lords, we are all committed to open justice, but so we are to the protection of sensitive personal data. Minister Sackman told the Commons yesterday, as has the Minister here, that Courtsdesk had been sharing with an AI company, no doubt for commercial purposes, personal data of defendants and vi…
Lords
Debate
9 February 2026
2 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords—
Not at all. I apologise. I waited for the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, to introduce his amendment before I spoke.
I will speak briefly to Amendment 40, moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and then to Amendment 67, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. I will say nothing on Ame…
Lords
Debate
9 February 2026
3 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for the way in which he has explained these amendments. I am also extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for injecting a note of caution and to my noble friend Lady Hamwee for injecting a note of questioni…
My Lords, once again I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his note of caution about Amendment 3—and Amendment 8 in the case of service personnel—which would allow victims to request that an order be made. I completely agree with him that it is a matter for the judi…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
5 February 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
Before the noble Lord leaves the question of international comparisons, can he confirm that in Sweden the proposal is to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 13, rather than leaving that unsaid?
My Lords, I fully support this amendment. I agree effectively with every word that has fallen from the lips of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and my noble friend Lady Brinton, and almost every word uttered by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. I hope t…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
2 February 2026
Prisoners for Palestine: Hunger Strikes
So far as the court backlogs and the length of time on remand are concerned, the situation is of course similar to what I inherited in the prisons. We need a sustainable system. We cannot have a system where we run out of prison places and victims have to wait years and years to see justice done. Th…