Lords
Oral Questions
16 April 2026
Southport Inquiry: Prevent Programme
One of the recommendations said the issue of autism was a potential contributing factor but not the sole contributing factor. As I mentioned on the Statement last night, it is anticipated that a revised autism strategy being produced by other parts of government will be done in relatively short orde…
Lords
Proceedings
15 April 2026
Knife Crime
My Lords, we meet at a time when too many people in this country still feel less safe in their streets and less confident in the criminal justice system. We know the threat of knife crime; in Committee on the Crime and Policing Bill, we on this side of the House pointed out that, in the year ending …
Lords
Proceedings
15 April 2026
Southport Inquiry
My Lords, I thank the Minister for today’s Statement. There are many things to learn but our foremost concern must be with the victims and their families. This report is littered with evidence of institutional failure. Time and again, public bodies were presented with the evidence and given the chan…
Lords
Proceedings
14 April 2026
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord German, and my noble friend Lord Dubs for tabling their regret Motions. It is always a pleasure to discuss matters in the House, even at 10.32 pm. Important issues have been raised, and I will try to respond to them as best I can—even with my croaky vo…
Lords
Oral Questions
14 April 2026
Child Poverty and Homelessness: Asylum and Settlement Policies
I am grateful for the noble Lord’s contribution. I just say gently that, in the four years between 2021 and 2024, an additional 2.6 million people arrived and 101,000 claimed asylum. The scheme to assess that was very slow and almost non-existent towards the end. We have increased the speed of asylu…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 March 2026
Golders Green Ambulance Attack
The Government have taken very strong action and recently published Protecting What Matters . That will include, for example, specialist disruption units to detect, expose and counter extremist influence across the UK. We are looking at giving state threats designation powers, which is another form …
Lords
Debate
25 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
I am grateful to the Baroness, Lady Owen, for tabling her amendments and initiating this discussion. I feel like someone who has brought a birthday cake to a party, only to have someone else blow the candles out. On behalf of the Prime Minister, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology,…
My Lords, this has been an incredibly long time coming. This Bill has endured 15 days in Committee and six days on Report in your Lordships’ House. It has been a mammoth of a task, but throughout the Bill’s passage, I am pleased to say that we have executed our duties in this House as diligently as …
Lords
Debate
18 March 2026
7 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for their contributions. I will not detain the House for long, as we have heard two very powerful—
Well, we have certainly heard one very powerful elucidation of why Clause 212 should be removed from the Bill. In essence, my concern is that this clause grants a foreign court a greater say in whether a British citizen should be extradited when a person is convicted in absentia where they did not d…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
18 March 2026
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I shall be extremely brief. I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment. As I said in Committee, I firmly support her in seeking to amend the emulation requirement in the Terrorism Act 2006. We will of course have a more wide-ranging debate on terrorism in the next group, so I will reserv…
My Lords, this is a very large and wide-ranging group of amendments, all relating to varying aspects of the law on terrorism and the proscription of terrorist groups. Given the amount that we need to get through today, I will be as brief as possible.
I have tabled Amendments 422C and 467AAA. The ne…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
7 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her amendment. It is a measured proposal that would simply require a police and crime commissioner, before suspending a chief constable, to be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for doing so and to consult His Majesty’s Inspectorate of …
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 394 and to the other amendments in this group. Britain has a very proud and distinctive model of policing by consent. The defining feature of that model is that the overwhelming majority of our police officers do not routinely carry firearms and when firearms a…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, Amendment 391 stands in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. In Committee, speaking to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, I raised the case of the police officer, Martyn Blake, whose case served as the perfe…
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for his valid points and for injecting his valuable experience into this debate. I say to my noble friend Lord H…
Lords
Debate
9 March 2026
8 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, this group of amendments returns us to an issue debated at some length in Committee: the use of live facial recognition technology in policing. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for tabling these amendments on this important topic.
A…
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity for debate that the Government’s Amendment 375 has afforded us. This is obviously a highly contested issue but, before we start, I put on record the very specific nature of the issue we are debating. In 2024, the High Court declared that a specific section of the …
+6 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
9 March 2026
5 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, we have started the fourth day on Report with a wide-ranging and interesting debate on the general landscape of public order law. The noble Lords, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Strasburger, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Fox of Buckley, have argued t…
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Parkinson for tabling these amendments that seek to ensure that our memorials of national and historic importance are afforded the respect and protection they deserve under the new offence created in Clause 137. As was noted in Committee, the offence of climbin…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
4 March 2026
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I thank the Government and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for their amendments in this group. I do, however, have some concerns about the Government’s Amendment 338. We on these Benches believe that domestic abuse protection orders are a very important civil tool; indeed, they were intr…
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston for moving Amendment 359. I know that she has been pursuing it with tenacity. This amendment and Amendment 361 relate to the Government’s proposal to create a specific, stand-alone offence of assaulting a retail worker at work. I want to be c…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
4 March 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, we have spent many hours in your Lordships’ House debating the issue of dangerous cycling and the misuse of e-bikes. In Committee, I welcomed the Government’s measures to create offences to criminalise causing death by dangerous cycling, and it is right that offences relating to cycling ar…
Lords
Debate
2 March 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her amendment, which would place a duty on the Secretary of State, within 12 months of the Act being passed, to make provisions for the way in which offences of sharing intimate images are reported and the mechanisms by which content is removed by the relevant i…
Lords
Debate
2 March 2026
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, the government amendments in this group are largely consequential and minor drafting changes. They relate to the important topic of child sexual abuse image generators. I have little to say to this group other than that the topic which they address is one of serious and urgent concern.
Th…
My Lords, Amendment 209, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would require providers of relevant online services to assess and address the risks that their platforms may be used for the creation, sharing or facilitation of child sexual abuse material, placing a strengthened duty on them …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
26 February 2026
Electronic Travel Authorisation: Dual Nationals
My Lords, any suggestion that there have been insufficient transitional arrangements for the ETA system is surely for the sky. The scheme was introduced three years ago but was not made mandatory, to allow for people to adjust. It is absolutely right that the Government are now making this system ma…
Lords
Debate
25 February 2026
5 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, in Committee, I asked the Government to withdraw their amendments that permitted them to require by regulations the use of digital ID for age verification for the online sale of knives and crossbows. My concern was that permitting this would be the first legislative step towards mandating …
My Lords, I too thank the Minister for bringing forward these amendments. These measures were rightly pressed for in Committee by my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham, so I am glad the Government have taken his points on board and are now implementing them. These amendments will remove an admini…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
25 February 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, we have come to the first of two groups containing a large number of government amendments. I find myself having to express my strong frustration and disappointment with the number of government amendments that have been brought to this Bill on Report. As we broke up for recess, the Govern…
My Lords, the amendment in my name relates to fly-tipping and measures that can and should be taken to combat it. Fly-tipping is a serious and growing blight on society. In 2023-24 local authorities in England had to contend with approximately 1.15 million fly-tipping and litter incidents, an increa…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
12 February 2026
Security of Candidates, MPs and Elections
The important message that I have for your Lordships is that we too have a role in dealing with this problem. An important aspect of our role is to make sure that incidents which might seem trivial or short-lived at the time are properly reported. We should all be aware of our responsibilities. The …
Lords
Oral Questions
9 February 2026
Life Sciences: Beagles
That is an important point. We have to ensure that the sector operates properly and effectively and is not damaged by foreign state actors or any other criminal elements. That is why we put in place the measures in relation to protests, which we debated in this House last week. The Government will c…
Lords
Debate
5 February 2026
19 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, we thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his amendments and the importance that he has obviously placed on the right to privacy of the general public.
I support the principle behind Amendment 464. Sharing information often carries a risk with it, particularly when it is for the pu…
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for tabling this clause stand part notice. I would like to add my reservations about this clause.
First, I am concerned that this clause has not received sufficient scrutiny and consideration by Parliament. It was added on Report in the other plac…
+17 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
3 February 2026
Shamima Begum
The noble Lord makes a very valid point, and it is one that I support. The Foreign Secretary has already spoken to the Syrian Foreign Minister about the situation of those who have been and are being detained. We want to ensure that we continue to monitor the security situation in northern Syria, bu…