B

Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 22 April 2026

Debate

Crime and Policing Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on pushing Motion A1, which I will be supporting. After the previous ping-pong debate on the issue of on-the-spot fines by private enterprises, I was inundated with complaints about egregious harassment by these very bodies, these enforcement agencies. People were outraged at what they saw as an abuse of the system. I quote one, who said, “Not only you have have to, as you walk down the high street, look out for phone-snatchers, but you also have to look out for official muggers after your money, and then find out that they are employed by the contract. They are just as illegitimate and just as anti-social”. I emphasise that this abuse of the public’s understandable frustration and concern about anti-social behaviour—and the Government’s completely correct focus on tackling it—is made worse by an enforcement regime that is discredited. That is why enforcement matters: if the legitimacy of the enforcement response is weak, it means that we are not tackling anti-social behaviour and the public just become cynical about the whole enterprise.

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