Crime and Policing Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 311

MPs voted 300 to 101 on 14 April 2026 to reject Lords Amendment 311, which had been inserted into the Crime and Policing Bill by the House of Lords. The amendment, introduced by Lord Walney, would have given the Secretary of State power to proscribe organisations classified as "extreme criminal protest groups." The government's motion to disagree passed comfortably, removing the provision from the Bill. The practical effect of the vote is that no new lower-tier proscription regime for protest groups will be created under this legislation. The existing framework under the Terrorism Act 2000 remains the operative threshold for banning organisations. Minister Sarah Jones told the Commons that where criminal protest activity meets the terrorism threshold, the government "will act, and have already acted," but argued that a "proscription-lite" regime for conduct falling below that threshold was "neither necessary nor proportionate." Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, is cited in Jones's remarks as sharing that concern. The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. All 286 Labour and Labour-Co-operative MPs who voted supported the government, as did the Greens, Plaid Cymru, and a majority of independents. The 101 votes against came predominantly from the 91 Conservatives who voted, joined by the five Democratic Unionist Party MPs, three Reform UK members, one Traditional Unionist Voice MP, and two independents. The Liberal Democrats had no votes recorded in either lobby on this division. The amendment had been added in the Lords after the Bill's Committee stage in the Commons, a point Matt Vickers raised on the Conservative benches, arguing it had not received adequate scrutiny.