Lords division · 22 Mar 2022 · No. 2

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool moved, as an amendment to Motion D, at end to insert “and do propose Amendment 72B in lieu—72B After Clause 54, insert the following new Clause—“Intimidatory offences aggravated by sex or gender(1) A person must not commit an act—(a) which amounts to harassment or intimidation of another,(b) which he or she knows or ought to know amounts to harassment or intimidation of the other, and(c) which is aggravated by hostility towards sex or gender.(2) For the purposes of this section, the person whose act is in question ought to know that it amounts to or involves harassment or intimidation of another if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the act amounted to harassment or intimidation of the other.(3) Subsection (1) or (2) does not apply to an act if the person who pursued it shows—(a) that it was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime,(b) that it was pursued under any enactment or rule of law or to comply with any condition or requirement imposed by any person under any enactment, or(c) that in the particular circumstances the conduct was reasonable.(4) A person who commits an act in breach of subsection (1) is guilty of an offence.(5) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or both.(6) An offence is “aggravated by hostility towards sex or gender” for the purposes of this section if—(a) at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrates towards the victim of the offence hostility based on the victim’s sex or gender (or presumed sex or gender); or(b) the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a group based on their sex or gender.(7) The Secretary of State must make regulations within six months of the passing of this Act requiring the chief officer of police of any police force to provide information relating to—(a) the number of crimes reported to the police force which, in the opinion of the chief officer of police, fall under subsection (6), and(b) the number of crimes reported to the police force which, in the opinion of the chief officer of police, do not fall under subsection (6) but in which the victim indicated they believed they were targeted due to their sex or gender.”The House divided:

The Contents have it

Majority 43

Contents: 198 Not Contents: 155

At a glance The Contents won by a margin of 43 votes. The Government's position was Not Content, and it lost.

How the parties voted

Contents

Labour	92
Liberal Democrat	52
Crossbench	35
Non-affiliated	10
Bishops	4
Green Party	2
Conservative	1
Ulster Unionist Party	1
Plaid Cymru	1

Not Contents

Conservative	138
Non-affiliated	10
Crossbench	6
Democratic Unionist Party	1

The party breakdowns are our own analysis of the official voting records (recorded votes only; they do not describe the formal whip). How we work this out.

Peers attend divisions ad hoc, so there is no did-not-vote list. Tellers are counted in the Content and Not Content totals, unlike in the Commons.