The Crime and Policing Bill has been described by the Home Office as one of the most significant pieces of legislation of its kind in decades.
That description appears to be backed up by the sheer scale of it – the version currently being considered by the House of Lords is no fewer than 444 pages long.
Within the Bill, there is a vast range of issues falling under the banner of justice in the UK, from knife crime to protest to abortion.
Once passed, it will introduce several new crimes and change the way police are able to track down offenders.
Here are some of the most important elements of the Crime and Policing Bill that you should know about.
Knife crime
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Much of the recent conversation around violent crime in the UK has revolved around the proliferation of knives – with concerns being raised again following the Huntingdon train stabbing attack.
In its manifesto at last year’s election, Labour said it would aim to halve knife crime in a decade.
The measures in the Crime and Policing Bill represent the basic tools by which the government hopes to achieve that target.
They include:
- Introduction of ‘Ronan’s Law’, which makes it more difficult to buy knives online and bans deadly bladed weapons like ninja swords
- A legal requirement for online retailers to report bulk buys of knives
- Tougher prison sentences for people who sell knives to under-18s
- Introduction of a new offence of possessing a knife with intent to cause unlawful violence
Violence against women and girls
As well as the target of halving knife crime, the Labour manifesto also featured a ‘landmark mission’ of halving violence against women and girls.
Again, this is a major focus in the Crime and Policing Bill.
Measures include:
- Giving victims of intimate image abuse three years to report it, up from six months at the moment
- Introduction of new crime of possessing or publishing depictions of strangulation or suffocation in porn
- Scrapping fees to have personal details removed from the insolvency register, preventing abusers from accessing victims’ details on a public record
- New ‘Right to Know’ statutory guidance, giving police the power to reveal the identity of stalkers at the earliest opportunity
- Introduction of a new offence of administering a harmful substance, which will cover spiking
- Introduction of a new offence of creating or sharing explicit deepfakes of people without their consent
- Blocking sex offenders from changing their name to hide from the consequences of their crimes
Child sexual exploitation
The grooming gangs scandal has horrified the country since details first emerged a number of years ago.
But it flew up the agenda at the beginning of this year, when pressure increased on the government to launch a national inquiry – later announced by Sir Keir Starmer, following a U-turn.
The government has now also tabled amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill which would disregard and pardon historic convictions for ‘child prostitution’.
It follows a recommendation from Baroness Casey’s rapid audit of grooming gangs, carried out and published earlier this year.
The UK will also become the world’s first country to outlaw the creation of child sex abuse images using artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, a new ‘Romeo and Juliet Law’ would mean adults who do not report underage people who are sexually active with each other will not get in trouble with the law.
Abortion
This is one aspect of the Crime and Policing Bill that the government did not originally include.
Instead, a measure to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales was added to the Bill in the form of an amendment proposed by Labour backbench MP Tonia Antoniazzi.
Her amendment would stop women from being investigated, arrested, prosecuted or imprisoned for ending their own pregnancies.
However, it would retain the need for the approval and signatures of two doctors, and punishments for medical professionals or violent partners who end a pregnancy outside of the current law.
Gang crime
Three new offences are being introduced to tackle specific ways organised crime gangs exploit the vulnerable:
- Criminal exploitation of children, which will have a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison
- Coerced internal concealment, which involves victims being asked to hide illicit substances and items inside themselves and will carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison
- Cuckooing, the name given to the practice of taking over a vulnerable person’s home for criminal purposes, which will have a maximum sentence of five years in prison
Retail crime
The new Bill will introduce a new standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker, which the government says will ‘protect staff, measure the scale of the problem and drive down retail crime’.
It will also remove a section of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980 which grants ‘perceived immunity’ to shop thefts under £200, to ensure it’s treated like any other theft offence.
Protest
A new law will restrict protests outside the homes of public office holders like MPs, local councillors and peers.
Police will get new powers to combat what Security Minister Dan Jarvis called a ‘threat to our democracy’.
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