Gaza Protests: Anti-terrorism Legislation

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend and I have worked in Northern Ireland and on terrorism-related issues. If he received a report from the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre saying that Palestine Action had met a threshold for terrorist activity, I doubt very much that he would not have signed that order as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary did. We have done that because Palestine Action has already had people convicted of not just criminal damage but intimidation and physical threats. There are cases about which I cannot comment that are before the courts; there are allegations around a range of other behaviours and there is strong evidence from JTAC about underground cells and plots against defence organisations and others.

Again, if people wish to hold up a placard saying, “I support Palestine Action”, that is an offence under the terms of the terrorism prevention order that we have. People are sometimes mistaken in their conflation of support for Palestine and support for Palestine Action. That is where the dividing line should be.

My noble friend says that we should concentrate on neighbourhood policing, shoplifting and other things. I just say to him that ensuring 13,000 new police officers will be on the beat over these four years, introducing measures on shop theft in the Crime and Policing Bill and conducting a drive to tackle anti-social behaviour are all things that this Government are doing. But we in this House and in this Government have a duty to protect our citizens against terrorism activity. When we get advice that this threshold has been crossed, it would be irresponsible of me and other members of the Home Office Ministerial team to ignore it.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, a Labour MP recently commented that the people who have been arrested were not, in fact, supporting terrorism but objecting to the prohibition of the group. This is a very fine distinction for the police to try to make on the streets. Surely we should all be supporting the police because, after all, this is a logical consequence of prohibiting the group and having a law to make sure that support for terrorism is illegal, which was passed by this place and another. The Government must have considered that this group had some mass support for its general intent, if not its methods. This is one of the consequences that the police will have to try to resolve, and we all need to support them until this matter is resolved politically.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The police are acting extremely professionally, and I am grateful for their support on this matter. I assure the House that it is not an offence to say, “I wish to see the Palestine Action proscription overturned”. People can hold a placard saying that, but they cannot say, “I support Palestine Action”. In the same way, because of the tests that have been made under this legislation, they cannot say, “I support Hamas”.

I hope the police will exercise their discretion and examine those issues, and the CPS will do the same, but under the legislation there has to be a clear line in the sand. The JTAC assessment to Ministers was that this line had been crossed. Therefore, we have had to take action. I will continue to support the police in their difficult task of interpreting that action in an executive way, which it is not my responsibility to do.