Crime and Policing Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 333

What happened

On 14 April 2026, MPs voted by 301 to 157 to reject Lords Amendment 333 to the Crime and Policing Bill, siding with the government's position. The amendment had been tabled in the House of Lords by Baroness Buscombe and related to tackling money laundering and associated criminality on high streets. The government argued the amendment was unworkable or otherwise inappropriate, and the Commons majority agreed to remove it from the Bill.

Why it matters

Lords Amendment 333 had sought to address what its supporters described as high street illegality linked to money laundering. By voting to disagree with it, MPs have blocked that particular measure from becoming law in the form the Lords approved. The Crime and Policing Bill is described by ministers as the largest criminal justice Bill in a generation, and this vote is one of several on the same day in which the Commons pushed back against changes made during the Bill's passage through the House of Lords, a process known as "ping pong." The practical effect is that the government retains control over the shape of anti-money-laundering provisions in the legislation, without the Lords' version of the clause.

The politics

The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs provided all 301 votes in favour of rejecting the Lords amendment, while Conservatives (89 votes) and Liberal Democrats (61 votes) made up the bulk of the opposition, joined by the Democratic Unionist Party and one Traditional Unionist Voice MP. There were no Conservative or Liberal Democrat votes on the government side, and no Labour rebels. Some critics on the day raised broader concerns about the pace of parliamentary scrutiny across the Bill as a whole, with the opposition's Matt Vickers arguing that certain significant changes had been added after the Commons Committee stage with insufficient examination. This division was one of a series of votes on 14 April in which the government successfully overturned Lords amendments, reflecting the government's determination to reassert Commons primacy over the upper chamber's revisions to this major legislation.