Commercial Payments Bill [HL]

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to take this opportunity to speak in the gap and to warmly welcome the Bill. I pay tribute to the Minister not just for his eloquence in introducing the Bill but for his experience and expertise, and the Bill certainly bears their imprint. He was gracious and correct to acknowledge the steps taken by the previous Government, but he should be proud of the extent and scope of what he has introduced to this House. It will undoubtedly be transformative, even if it may not be the end of the journey.

As someone who has drafted a previous Private Member’s Bill on this issue, I think the Bill is impressively drafted and there is a good impact assessment. I am sure that, with the issues that have been expertly raised during the course of this debate, we will have a good opportunity to see if we can improve or clarify some of the elements outstanding in the Bill during our discussions.

I will add a couple of points that I would be keen for the Minister to consider. Before that, I pay tribute to the fact that the Bill as drafted and the impact assessment are a recognition that this is not just about bad actors. The realities of the business environment are properly acknowledged, along with issues that concern businesses and the challenges they have with cash flow. It is good that it has been done in a proportionate and balanced way. I continue to be concerned that it is just about large businesses to small businesses, where there are indeed problems with supply chains, with large businesses not featuring in the bilateral relationship, but I hope that we are able to consider how that may be addressed.

Although I and many others have always thought 30 days to be the right standard—there can always be consideration of a phased approach—I bear the same concerns that others have that marking 60 days may reverse the massive progress that has taken place in reducing the overall number of days. While we are looking at timing, clarity is essential. The Bill does not currently include a clear statutory definition of when payment is legally deemed to have occurred. The point at which the clock starts must be equally clear and resistant to manipulation. I hope that it can be made clear that the proposed 60-day verification period should be incorporated within the 60-day maximum and not added on top of it, which would de facto create a 90-day limit.

On mandatory interest, I would welcome confirmation from the Minister that the large businesses will be required to apply interest automatically when settling a late invoice, rather than leaving the burden on suppliers to claim it—something which most would be unlikely to do.

It is time to consider late payments by public bodies and to merge those into the same regime. The last exercise that was done looked at FoI data. Public sector bodies identify the interest payments that they should be paying but none has ever been claimed. The last comprehensive exercise identified that £3 billion of interest payments should have been paid to small businesses. Some NHS trusts and local authorities pay over 80% of their SME suppliers late—over 30 days. It is time to consider joining up those regimes.

We must consider whether we are looking at predatory payment terms and other things in the right way. Most importantly, the journey that the Small Business Commissioner has gone through and where it has ended up in the Bill is encouraging. I urge the Minister to consider not just its resources but its scope, to make sure it retains the role, across all areas, to help advise the Government on further steps ahead. I welcome the Bill.

Counter-Extremism Strategy

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, on introducing this debate. A serious discussion on this is long overdue, and I thank him for all his work and leadership on this and the many colleagues who I am looking forward to hearing who have been very involved in it as well. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Hofenung Foundation and as someone who has been deeply concerned about the growing extremism crisis in our country. We face a rapidly accelerating threat. We see this in the historic levels of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate, the surge of Prevent referrals, the unprecedented normalisation of conspiracy theories and the rising tolerance, particularly among younger groups, of political violence. These are not isolated indicators; they are symptoms of a weakening social fabric and declining democratic resilience.

The most disturbing thing is that we are flying blind. We are confronting a fast-evolving, increasingly organised and sometimes foreign-backed extremism ecosystem without a national counterextremism strategy of any kind. We make a profound mistake when we conflate extremism with terrorism. Terrorism is the violent end point, but extremism is the infrastructure, the ideology, the recruitment ecosystem, the conspiracy culture, the dehumanisation and the democratic erosion that makes violence possible. Contest is an excellent counterterrorism strategy, but it was never designed to address the harms that sit below the terrorism threshold, where extremist groups currently operate with impunity. We have reached a point where extremist organisations—far left, far right, Islamicist—can radicalise children, spread dangerous ideological propaganda and mainstream hate on the streets and online without breaking any law because the law does not yet capture hateful extremism as a category. This is untenable.

What do we need to do? First, we need a clear operational definition of extremism, and I hope the Minister can confirm that the existing one announced by the previous Government still stands. It will be important to have his reflections on whether the Government will accept that it should include reference to hateful extremism. Secondly, the Government must close the legislative gaps. As set out in the report Operating With Impunity, we need hateful extremism proscription orders for extremist groups that sit below the terrorism threshold but whose actions are demonstrably harmful. Other democracies such as Canada and Germany already do this. Following the horrendous Islamicist terrorist attack in Australia, its Government are taking steps to list proscribed groups in regulations, where this can be applied. We cannot allow extremists to operate freely simply because the law has failed to keep pace.

Thirdly, the Government must fund ideological challenge programmes. When asked about what kinds of counterextremism programmes the Home Office funds outside Prevent, Jonathan Emmett mentioned at the Home Affairs Select Committee that the Government had made a significant sum available for protective security at places of worship. I welcome such funding—although not that much, as it is a sign of real failure that we must produce money for security in those places; it would be nice if it went down, rather than kept going up—but it is a mistake to equate protective security with counterextremism programmes. We must challenge extremist narratives, online and offline, support vulnerable individuals and build resilience against conspiracy theories, dehumanisation and hate.

The data shows a country fragmenting with extremism metastasising into the cracks, online in civic spaces, on our streets and in community relations. If we fail to act now, the social, political and security-related costs will only deepen. This debate is about safeguarding the integrity of our democracy and the safety of our communities in the kind of country we aspire to be. I hope that the Minister will agree that we need a muscular and values-driven counterextremism strategy. It is not optional; we must do it, and now.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak; I have been listening with great interest to the competing arguments. However, I am utterly convinced by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on the government amendment.

It crosses my mind that, just as Jews and synagogues are currently at risk, I can see a situation in the future where mosques and people who support Muslims, or indeed the gurdwaras of the Sikhs, are under threat. You might get an extremist group of Sikhs opposed to the current Sikh processes who decide to have a demonstration every single week against a series of gurdwaras in a certain area. What the Government are seeking to do is entirely sensible. It will impose on the police a duty and give them a power to decide whether to carry out what may or may not be needed. We need to accept this government amendment. I am also very attracted to the amendment from the noble Lords, Lord Walney and Lord Pannick, which would add a bit to the government amendment. Having listened, I really think that the government amendment must get through.

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 370AA, which stands in my name as well as that of the noble Lord, Lord Austin, and the noble Lord, Lord Polak, who has already spoken to it. I also support Amendment 486C, which I tabled with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

I start by thanking the Government for introducing this clause and their amendment, both of which are very important measures. I am grateful to them for introducing them, and I hope that they remain as strong and as resolute as they can be in pushing them through.

I will try to give noble Lords the context of what we are doing. The reason we are here is that we are facing the considerable problem of non-prosecutions. This is the type of thing happening in our society that is undermining democratic resilience and social cohesion, and which is particularly targeting the Jewish community. That is the area where my amendments are particularly relevant, and they apply in that context.

It is absolutely clear that one of the issues coming up is that a lot of existing powers are not used. I fear to mention Policy Exchange again, but I note that that Jonathan Hall KC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, made a significant point in his speech there today. He said:

“My perception is that if you don’t deal with anti-Israeli hatred, you leave wriggle room for those who indulge in antisemitism but formally disavow it. Once hatred to Israelis is tolerated then it is carried around like a flame”.


He made the further point, which I think is immensely significant:

“The truth is that hatred of nationality fits onto hatred of race like a glove. And importantly, our law recognizes this. The Public Order Act 1986 prohibits stirring up racial hatred. Let me read section 17 of the 1986 Act which defines racial hatred, and I am going to do this slowly: ‘In this Part “racial hatred” means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins’”.