My Lords, I declare my registered interest in policing. I am sympathetic to the reason why the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has moved the amendment and why it has been supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. However, I fear the real mischief they and we might seek to address is not the absence of suitable offences but the absence of action by, perhaps, police, prosecutors and sentencers. There is a range of assault offences already on the statute book that is more than adequate to cover the challenges that noble Lords have raised, such as common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm and aggravated assault if there is a racial element.
There are more than adequate offences on the statute book to deal with this challenge. The real mischief is the absence of action, the overuse of cautioning or the overly lenient sentencing around these offences—