Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 438E, I will speak also to Amendments 438EA—which the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, has been kind enough to support—and 438F, 454A and 454B about non-violent extremism.

Right at the start, the term “non-violent extremism” requires a bit of definition. Noble Lords may ask whether the social practices of, say, the Christian Exclusive Brethren are extreme? Could the same be said of a Hasidic Jewish sect, an anarchist commune or a Quietist Salafi group in Islam? My view is that, while these groups and others can be problematic for cohesion and integration, they are not so in relation to the extremism that my amendments seek to address, for none of them is intrinsically connected to harassment, public order offences, acts of terrorism and other such breaches of the rule of law.

There are many extremist movements and ideologies that are; the three most prominent are the far left, the far right and, for want of a better term, the Islamists. All three aim to

“negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others … undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or … intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve”

these aims. I quote from the last Government’s definition of extremism. I am told that it is also this Government’s and would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether this is so when he replies to the debate.

Of these three forms of extremism—far-left, far-right and Islamist—the last has preoccupied public policy most since the London Tube bombings of 7 July 2005. Some 71% of terrorist incidents in Britain since that date have been executed by Islamists and 75% of the case load of Contest—the Government’s counterterror strategy—is concerned with Islamist threats. Only last October came the first murder since medieval times of Jews in England simply for being Jews, in the terror attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester.

The question that has haunted public policy since 7/7, including crime and policing policy, is whether it should seek to address acts of lawbreaking alone or also the ideologies that help to drive them. To use the classic figure of speech, should policy seek simply to shoot the crocodiles or also to drain the swamp? The thrust of policy under Governments of all three main parties—as evidenced by Contest, which a Labour Government created; by the Munich speech of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton in 2011, during the coalition years; or by Sir William Shawcross’s Prevent review three years ago—has been to seek to drain the swamp, but progress has been fitful. There has never been an overarching policy that seeks to counter Islamist and other extremism in our institutions and civil society—such as in charities and out-of-school settings, through to the NHS, universities and schools.

There is also the matter of sermons and talks in mosques—this is extremely topical, I am afraid—that incite hatred and violence. The X account habibi regularly draws attention to these, and I will send the Minister a file drawn on it after this debate. But he will already have available to him details of how many preachers in mosques have been prosecuted for such offences since, say, 7 October 2023. I would be grateful if he would share these with the Committee when he replies or, if he does not have the figures available, write to me.

My amendments could not possibly cover all this ground, nor do they fall into the trap of assuming that all extremism is terror related; nor that all extremism, whether terror-related or not, is Islamist; nor that Islam, an ancient and venerable faith, is to be conflated with Islamism, a modern and politicised ideology. Indeed, only one of my five amendments is religion-specific and it is not Islam-specific.

However, my amendments do seek to cover the ground I have been describing, and I am grateful for the emerging work of two all-party groups. The first is the All-Party Group for Defending Democracy, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Walney. The second is the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Counter Extremism, chaired by Damien Egan, MP for Bristol North East, whose visit to a local school was recently cancelled. He is the vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel. It later emerged that the diversity and inclusion leader of the academy trust, of which the school is a part, had supported the Hamas terrorists of 7 October as “heroes”.

The all-party group has produced a report, Time to Act, which points out, first, that the last Government, in effect, scrapped their own counterextremism strategy in 2021. Secondly, this Government’s post general election “rapid analytical sprint” review of extremism has never, to the best of my knowledge, been published, although the think tank Policy Exchange obtained a draft. Thirdly, it is unclear whether the Commission for Countering Extremism, set up by the last Government, will continue. The commissioner, Robin Simcox, has not been replaced. The Minister, asked by me recently whether he would be, has now very kindly and promptly replied to say:

“We are reviewing the roles and remits of various bodies to ensure our resources are best placed to meet current challenges”—


which, if I may say so, does not cast a great deal more light on the matter.

I turn to the amendments themselves. My Amendment 454A would require the publication of the rapid analytical sprint. If the Minister will not accept the amendment, will he please tell the House when the sprint will be published?

My Amendment 454B would require the appointment of a Commissioner for Countering Extremism to replace Mr Simcox. Again, if the Minister will not accept the amendment, can he tell the House what his plans are for the commission, or, if he cannot do that yet, when he will?

My Amendment 438E would require each police force to publish its strategy for reducing non-violent extremism. Again, if the Minister will not accept the amendment, will he tell the Committee what plans the Government have for police forces in this regard and on what timetable?

Finally, my Amendment 438EA comes in the wake of the horrifying developments in Birmingham referred to earlier today by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough, in which the West Midlands Police bowed to an extremist mob over a football game, conjured up evidence that does not exist to justify its decision, and then, in the words of Nick Timothy MP, “lied and lied again” about its actions, including to Parliament. Three of the eight mosques that the West Midlands Police consulted over its decision had hosted preachers who promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories or called for the death of Jews.

I expect police forces to liaise with mosques and with other religious institutions. It is important to point out that groups and organisations other than mosques were involved in lobbying the West Midlands Police over the game in question. But the public surely has a right to know which police forces meet with which mosques and other religious institutions of other faiths, and then to draw their own conclusions. My Amendment 438EA would require them to do so.

These are probing amendments, but we cannot have a void where policy should be when the future of our liberal democracy is at stake. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has explained, this group is largely about a concentration on efforts to combat non-violent extremism, about transparency and about efforts by the Government and police forces to counteract such extremism. He also calls for the appointment of a Commissioner for Countering Extremism.

The noble Lord particularly—and, I would suggest, rightly—recognises and is concerned with the importance of developing and fostering dialogue between police forces and religious communities, as well as a much wider understanding of the real concern and fear of religious communities in the face of extremism, not amounting to terrorism, that has become so much worse in recent years and particularly since 7 October.

This group gives us the opportunity to invite the Government to bring greater clarity and focus to their efforts in this area and to make it clear what it is that they plan. When Yvette Cooper, then the Home Secretary, directed the establishment of the rapid analytical sprint on extremism, she said that it was intended

“to map and monitor extremist trends, to understand the evidence about what works to disrupt and divert people away from extremist views, and to identify any gaps in existing policy which need to be addressed to crack down on those pushing harmful and hateful beliefs and violence”.

It is certainly right that the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was directed to those ends—considering hateful and harmful beliefs and violence not necessarily amounting to extremism. The rapid analytical sprint was intended to be directed widely and, since then, publicity has been given to the concentration also on misogyny, racism, antisemitism and general community hostilities. It was commissioned last August, so perhaps the use of the word “rapid”, if we do not know when it is going to be produced, is not completely apposite.

The group is also concerned with the concept of youth diversion orders. We will debate youth diversion orders on a later group, but they are directed by the terms of Clause 167, as it is drafted, to terrorism and terrorism-related offences. It is certainly right that Clause 167(2)(b) talks about

“the purpose of protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism or other serious harm”,

but serious harm is defined in, and our attention is directed to, Clause 168, which talks about harm from

“conduct that … involves serious violence against a person … endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person engaging in the conduct, or … creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or … the threat of such conduct”.

Serious harm in that context is, effectively, the threat of violence. As I understood the speech and the amendments, as a whole, by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, they are also directed to the points that Yvette Cooper mentioned when the rapid analytical sprint was established. They go much wider and concern non-violent extremism, which is what this group is about. He talked about confronting ideologies and draining the swamp.

We would be grateful if the Minister, when he responds, clarifies what the Government’s target is in tackling non-violent extremism. How far is the government strategy for both government and police action aimed at producing an overarching strategy to tackle non-violent extremism as well as terrorism? We appreciate that it is perhaps more difficult in conceptual terms to develop such a strategy aimed at non-violence than it is to develop a strategy aimed at terrorism, which, while appalling, is relatively straightforward to define. The concept of non-violent extremism is altogether more difficult, and at the moment we are left in the dark about what the Government propose.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, in this interesting group of amendments in his name, draws our attention to non-violent extremism and raises hugely important issues. I am not entirely happy with that broad definition of non-violent extremism, but the noble Lord has given us plenty to mull over in his interesting, thought-provoking and hard-hitting speech.

I am worried about the kind of ideologies that we face at present; I just think that the reluctance to confront those ideologies is more likely to be a failure of moral leadership rather than law, so I am trying to work my way around that. I am also concerned about the policing of a range of views dubbed extremist. We have to be careful, because that can be used to close down legitimate speech and to demonise dissident views as being too extremist and too beyond the pale to engage with.

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[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, briefly, I know this might sound as though it is a Northern Ireland debate, but it is not. I respect and accept the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, saying that this is an issue in England and Wales and more broadly. But we have experience of it—maybe more experience than others, or we may think we have. I stand here having served in the home service security forces in Northern Ireland for 18 years. Colleagues were murdered and friends were murdered. I carried their coffins. What is more, I have seen the devastation of some of those families in the aftermath, when some people lauded those terrorist acts. We see the rewriting of history and the glorification of terrorism—they taunt the families.

To prove that it is a much wider issue than Northern Ireland, back in 2014, two people were jailed for the glorification of the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby. So I accept that it is a much wider issue than Northern Ireland, but I want all noble Lords to understand the experience that the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, and others have of the Northern Ireland situation and what we have seen.

I had a friend murdered back in 1985. That evening, going past their house, people were stopping and jeering and applauding that murder. Is that not the glorification of terrorism? I do not care whether it is the glorification of a terrorist, terrorists or terrorism—to me, it is all the same. If you are glorifying terrorism, that is wrong and should not be allowed. That is the rewriting of history. Even now, we have the taunting of young people because their grandparents, uncles or other family members were murdered. That is wrong and it cannot be allowed to continue. That is why I support Amendment 450.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 447 and 448. I also support the spirit of Amendment 450, with one reservation, which I will explain, and which maybe the Minister would have taken in any case.

As far as Amendments 447 and 448 are concerned, I have spoken in several debates about the scope of the Terrorism Act 2000 and the way it works, in particular because of the breadth of the offence under Section 12 of support for a terrorist organisation and the offence under Section 13 of wearing an article or uniform, and the publication of images, as arousing suspicion of support for a proscribed organisation. I spoke, from the point of view of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, about the unnecessarily broad scope of those sections as they stand, and in support of our amendment seeking a statement about the right of peaceable protest in this Bill.

My immediate concern arises, as it arose then, out of the arrest of some 2,700 people at peaceable protests against the proscription of Palestine Action. I take the point entirely that the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, made, that we cannot dig into the minds of those protesters and work out what their motivation was and then create some kind of thought crime that covers their position. What we can do is consider what the right of peaceable protest is and what price we pay for it. It is quite clear that this is not about the rights or wrongs of the proscription of Palestine Action. In supporting these amendments, I am solely concerned, as was the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, with the right to protest and the consequences of the way that the Terrorist Act 2000 works, branding peaceable protests as an offence against that Act, and branding as terrorists protesters who have done nothing more than carry banners or publicly express the view that the proscription is wrong.

I quite agree with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that there is a massive distinction between the exercise of that right, however foolish those protesters, or some of them, may be and however much we may disagree with them, and branding them as terrorists and comparing them with those who are actually carrying out terrorism, which is, I suggest, not justified. It is not, of course, confined to protests in connection with Palestine Action, but the point that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made was also that the consequences for those who have been arrested, be they elderly retired people or students on the threshold of their career, are, in his words, wholly disproportionate. Those are words with which I entirely agree.

Some of those arrested have been charged. The charging process is nowhere near complete, and, as I understand it, the charging will go ahead so long as the proscription lives—the proscription is, of course, the subject of challenge. But if those arrests proceed inexorably to conviction then those people convicted will be branded as terrorists. As for the sickening nature of the slogans they may shout, “Globalise the intifada” to me can mean only one thing, and that is killing Jews for being Jews, and I speak as a Jew, and the phrase, “From the river to the sea”, is wholly unpleasant and has only one meaning. But for students to sit down and listen to and then repeat those slogans at a peaceable protest does not mean that they support acts of terrorism. It means, as the noble Lord said, that they are opposing, and opposing with force, some of the actions of the Israeli Government and of Israeli soldiers in Gaza, which have been, as the British Government and most western Governments have said, absolutely appalling themselves. It does not mean that they are terrorists. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, is right, as I said, that we cannot go into their minds to see what their motivation is, but we have to tailor the criminal law to actions, combined with a mental state.

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[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

Would it help the noble Lord if I were to indicate that if and when I bring this amendment back on Report I intend to make it clearer that it is in respect of current proscribed organisations—in other words, terrorist organisations now? I accept the noble Lords’s point about historical context—it is an important point on which I have reflected during the debate—but if the amendment is brought back on Report, we could narrow the ground in terms of glorifying the acts of current proscribed organisations.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for her intervention. That would, or could, remove my concern about the amendment about the glorification of past terrorist acts that may subsequently be seen as justified. I will certainly look at any modified amendment that the noble Baroness brings forward. Because I so strongly support everything that she and others have said in support of the spirit of Amendment 450, I would wish to support an amendment that dealt with those possibilities.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a vigorous and wide-ranging debate, dealing with very difficult questions. I thank my noble friend Lord Hailsham for his amendments. Regretfully and unfortunately, I have to disappoint him by stating that I cannot support them because I believe they would significantly weaken the effectiveness of our counterterrorism legislative framework at a time when the threat we face is persistent and evolving. In the words of my noble friend Lord Goodman, there is a darkening context.

The amendments would insert an intent requirement, where Parliament has deliberately chosen not to do so. Sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 created offences that were crafted to disrupt terrorism at an early stage to prevent radicalisation and normalisation, and to give practical assistance long before violence is carried out. That preventive purpose would be undermined if the prosecution were required, in every case, to prove a specific intent to encourage or to enable a terrorist act.

It is also important to be clear that the current law already contains safeguards, especially in the court process. Prosecutorial discretion, a public interest test and judicial oversight all ensure that these offences are not applied casually or indiscriminately. I entirely accept the point from the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, that these must be applied consistently. The suggestion that individuals are routinely prosecuted and tried without regard to context or fairness is not borne out.

On a different note, I support Amendment 450 from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. The glorification of terrorism, in all cases, is abhorrent. We have seen such glorification, from certain quarters, of the IRA and Hamas, which serves only to normalise such atrocities. I simply cannot add to the power of the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, and indeed by other noble Lords who spoke in favour of her amendment, which I simply cannot add more to, except to say that I support it and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response.