Counter-Extremism Strategy

Debate between Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Baroness Wheeler

Thursday 12th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been four minutes.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

I have one and a half sentences left. If our laws on online safety, public order, hate crime, counterterrorism, hostile state activity or proscription are insufficient, let us revisit, amend and supplement them. But the trick is to excise the tumours without undue harm to the healthy tissue of free speech, which requires a scalpel, not the suffocating blanket labelled “extremism”.