Crime and Policing Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 334

MPs voted on 14 April 2026 to reject Lords amendment 334 to the Crime and Policing Bill, passing the government's motion to disagree by 356 votes to 90. The Lords amendment would have fully abolished the police recording of non-crime hate incidents and required any future recording guidance to give explicit due regard to freedom of expression. The government opposed it, arguing that its own parallel reform, scrapping the existing code of practice and implementing a higher-threshold national standard recommended by the College of Policing, made the Lords amendment unnecessary. The vote determines how, or whether, police in England and Wales record non-crime hate incidents: reports of behaviour that may be motivated by hostility but does not reach the threshold of a criminal offence. The government's position is that abolishing the existing code of practice and adopting the College of Policing's recommended higher threshold for recording constitutes genuine reform. Critics, including those who backed the Lords amendment, argue the government's approach amounts to rebranding rather than abolition, with reports still being logged and personal data still being recorded under a revised triage system. The division was almost entirely along party lines. All 256 Labour MPs and 27 Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted backed the government's position, as did all 60 Liberal Democrats, all four Greens, and all three Plaid Cymru MPs who voted. All 80 Conservatives who voted opposed the motion, joined by all five Democratic Unionist Party MPs, two Reform UK MPs, and three independents. No Conservative voted with the government, and no Labour or Liberal Democrat MP voted against it.