Arrangement of Business

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Friday 30th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I have a very brief question about the Chief Whip’s exhortation to us this morning that, as usual, we should remain brief. In the noble and learned Lord’s interview on the “Today” programme yesterday, he repeatedly said that a few Members of this House were filibustering and delaying the passage of the Bill. Do noble Lords accept that, while many people across this House would wish to intervene on every amendment, we hold back to allow those who are more expert than we are to articulate our concerns in order not to delay the passage of the Bill? It is our self-restraint that has made us arrive at where we are today.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Can I just add this? I have sat through every day in Committee. Last Friday, I did not say a single word.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, Amendments 447, 448 and 450 could not be more different, but they seem to show two sides of the same coin.

Dealing first with Amendment 450, I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, has said. It is absolutely appalling that people should glorify terrorism in any way. We listened to some painful stories of what had happened during the Troubles. However, this is not a Northern Ireland issue. Having listened to three people from Northern Ireland, as an English woman who was formerly married to a man from County Down, now deceased, it is important to point out that this happens in the rest of the United Kingdom.

There are people in this country who support ISIS; there are people who support Hamas, and there are other groups that are not so well known that may well be supported. Whether it be the appalling acts of the IRA or the equally appalling acts of Hamas—whether the genocide is or is not does not seem relevant at the moment—there should be no glorification. I hope that the Government will listen to this, because, although it is promoted largely by those from Northern Ireland, as I have said already, it is equally applicable to the rather parts of the United Kingdom.

Looking at the other side of the coin, I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Weir. The sort of people who are going out on the streets, particularly in London, to support Palestine Action, could not be more removed from the terrorists and the people glorifying terrorism. A lot of very decent, naive—as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, called them—and, in many ways, foolish people are going out because they do not like what happens in Gaza. We get a great deal of coverage, rightly, about what is happening there. That creates a situation in which decent and very often elderly people are going along and behaving very stupidly, but they absolutely are not terrorists.

I wonder whether the Government were all that wise to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. It is an abhorrent organisation, but I really do not think it is within the ambit of terrorism as we normally understand it—but we are stuck with it because it is now the law. However, that does not mean that everybody who is foolish, naive and stupid enough to go out on the streets, very often in bad weather, to yell out rather stupid slogans are themselves terrorists. I am not sure that it brings any praise on the country, and particularly the Government, to have huge numbers of these people arrested. What on earth is going to happen to them? We look rather foolish with this, and I hope that the Government might look with considerable sympathy particularly at Amendment 447, which is the one that I would support.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I have listened to the noble and learned Baroness’s very fair presentation of the two sides of that argument. However, we cannot know, because we have no evidence, what the deeper, inner views may be of those people she referred to, who are leaving an event or a protest, or whatever. It is perfectly plausible that they may attend a demonstration but that their views are more extreme than those exhibited at the demonstration. I would therefore be a little bit cautious about not accepting that glorification is the door-opening to the more sinister motives that people can have. We know, from the extent of antisemitism that we have seen in our streets and from what is preached in mosques or liked on social media, that there is a fairly sinister trend in the glorification of terrorism.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am very sorry, but I have not entirely understood whether the noble Baroness is disagreeing with me on Amendment 450 or Amendment 447.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I think possibly a bit of both, but Amendment 447 is the one that I would disagree with her on more.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I find it extraordinary that glorification of terrorism can be supported in any way; it just seems abhorrent. In relation to Amendment 447, I am not entirely objecting to the police arresting people, because they may well arrest people when they are not sure, but if there be a great many people whom the police would recognise as not likely to be supporting terrorism as such, I hope that those people would be released pretty quickly from the police station.

Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Committee stage
Friday 17th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I declare that I—along with Fiona Mactaggart, then an MP—wrote a report on children in northern France, Calais and Dunkirk some years ago. I find this whole group of amendments to the Bill extremely sad.

I want to concentrate on a legal issue, which I raise to some extent with the noble Lord, Lord Murray. I was certainly not an immigration lawyer but, as far as I understand the Immigration Rules, civil partners, who come up in Amendment 13, and adopted children, who come up in Amendment 14—both are referred to in Clause 1(5)—are already within the Immigration Rules. Consequently, if the noble Lord and the noble Baroness are right, they are trying to reduce the Immigration Rules, not increase them.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I was unable to attend Second Reading, but I have come in today especially because this debate is a very interesting one. I say to those who really want to hear a well-argued and well-reasoned debate that it is the convention of this House that, when someone seeks to intervene with a point and they ask the speaker to give way, that person should be heard. It is very sad to see the tone of this debate.