Crime and Policing Bill 2025
The Crime and Policing Bill has continued to be investigated by the House of Lords in the Committee Stage.
What is it?
The Crime and Policing Bill was originally brought into the House of Commons on February 25, 2025. Its purpose was to focus on very pressing and current issues such as ‘anti-social behaviour, knife crime, violence against women and girls, theft, child sexual abuse, other sexual offending and youth radicalisation’*. As it currently stands the bill has made it to the House of Lords and is within the committee stage. Within this stage is where each member will work through the clauses in the Bill and discuss if there should be any amendments made. So far there have been 15 days of the committee stage and may continue.
What have they discussed so far?
Day 1 and 2 had a large focus on anti-social behaviour and knife crime, considering aspects such as the maximum sentence for possessing a weapon with intent, serious and organised waste crime and respect orders (focused on anti-social behaviour in public and residential areas)
Day 3 and 4 members discussed gangs, retail crime and child exploitation
Day 5 and 6 looked at stalking, harmful online content and gender recognition certificates for offenders
Day 7 and 8 the members spoke on violence against women and girls on trains and technology based issues such as digital identity theft , offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the financial liability of technology companies
Day 9 and 10 discussed public processions and protests, looking at the protection of freedom of speech, protection of public monuments and statues and hate crime offences
Day 11 and 12 had a significant focus on police officers. They discussed mental health training for police officers, stop and search powers, and prohibition on police using digital identification
Lastly, on day 13 and 14 the members considered the amendments for neighbourhood policing, police enforcement data and reasonable force for firearms officers. As well as issues relating to abortions, for example a required in-person consultation for the termination of a pregnancy.
Why is it important?
This Bill is highly important to be brought into legislation due to the significant issues within our society that it aims to tackle.
There is a continuing issue with knife crime, violence against women and girls and extreme anti-social behaviour within towns.
Although, knife crime has decreased in the year ending September 2025, there were still 50,430 offences. It is positive that this number has gone down by 9% from the previous year, however, that is still a very high number of offences and therefore, it important for the safety of our communities that it be dealt with.
Violence against women and girls is a particular national emergency. It has been recorded that violence against women and girls makes up around 20% of all recorded crime in England and Wales*. This further results in a woman being killed by a man every 3 days in the UK*. These are terrifying statistics and is incredibly important that it is dealt with.
For the year of March 2025, the Crime survey evidenced that 35% of people experienced or witnessed anti-social behaviour*, a statistic that did not change from the previous year. As we can see anti-social behaviour is not decreasing and again must be tackled.
Should this bill ensure that we are a step closer to dealing with these issues, building an increased level of public confidence within the police and in turn the criminal justice system, then I do not see a reason as to why this would be a negative step forward.
*https://www.npcc.police.uk/our-work/violence-against-women-and-girls/
*https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2025#anti-social-behaviour