Crime and Policing Bill: Motion relating to Lords Amendments 2D and 2E

Parliament voted on 20 April 2026 to reject Lords Amendments 2D and 2E to the Crime and Policing Bill, substituting in their place government amendments 2B(a) and 2C(b). The motion passed by 293 votes to 159. The amendments in question, originally tabled by Liberal Democrat peers in the Lords, concerned fixed penalty notices for antisocial behaviour offences and the concern that enforcement agencies might issue such notices in circumstances where there was a financial incentive to do so, a practice sometimes described as "fining for profit". The government disagreed with the Lords' version but proposed its own replacement amendments, arguing these addressed the same underlying concern. This vote was part of the final stages of a lengthy "ping-pong" process, the back-and-forth exchange of amendments between the Commons and the Lords that occurs when the two chambers disagree. The Bill had been under parliamentary consideration for around 14 months. The government's position was that its replacement amendments adequately addressed concerns about financial incentives in antisocial behaviour enforcement, while the Liberal Democrats argued the government's wording was insufficiently binding. Beyond this specific provision, the same parliamentary session on 20 April also addressed disputes over fly-tipping enforcement powers, youth diversion orders and the potential proscription of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The practical effect of the vote was to advance the government's preferred, more permissive drafting on fixed penalty notices rather than the stricter Lords version. Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs voted unanimously for the government motion, providing all 293 Aye votes alongside two independents. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, the Democratic Unionist Party, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru all voted No. There were no notable rebellions on either side. The vote sits within a broader pattern of repeated government victories in the ping-pong stage of this Bill; related divisions on the same day produced virtually identical results, with the government winning each motion by margins of roughly 130 to 140 votes.