Counter-Extremism Strategy

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the contributions from noble Lords today. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, who is persistent in raising this issue—rightly so, dare I say? He framed the debate, if I may say so, in terms of government action on examining non-violent extremism, but in the context of far-right, far-left and Islamist extremism. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, who obviously has a great and deep interest in this, added the question of lone wolf independent radicalisation, which again is a common thread. I shall respond to the debate not only by addressing the points that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, raised, but also in relation to high-harm extremism, where we have a very high threshold and take action upon it.

I will start with the point the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, mentioned: the statutory definition of extremism. My noble friend Lord Mendelsohn also touched on this point. I confirm to the Committee that there are no plans to change the definition of extremism that was set out by the previous Government in March 2024. This existing definition is based on behaviours and does not look at specific ideologies, although the points that have been raised today are obviously important. The definition is a useful tool for government departments and others to look at when considering public engagement and when reaching out to stakeholders.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

I am grateful to the Minister. He described it as a “statutory definition of extremism”. I am not encouraging him, but is there an intention to put it into statute?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

It was a slip of the tongue if I used the word “statutory” in reference to the definition of extremism. If that was the case, I apologise to the Committee. In essence, the 2024 definition of extremism that the noble Earl mentioned is correct.

In the gentlest of ways, I will respond to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, who said that there is government inertia on this matter. There is no government inertia on this matter. We have to protect our citizens against high-harm extremism. We have to ensure that the extremism that fuels polarisation, erodes social cohesion and undermines trust between communities is challenged. Those individuals in our communities who raise antisemitism, Islamophobia and far-right or far-left terrorism and extremism have to be challenged.

The Government must be able to protect our citizens from the harm of extremism, violence and hatred. In doing so, we must have a balance between allowing freedom of speech and tackling those who promote violence and hatred in our communities. There are fundamental values in our community, such as freedom of speech, freedom of worship and the freedom of democracy, which define us as a society and which the Government will continue to uphold and promote as values. Where they are challenged by individuals, groups or environments that foster or enable hatred, we will take action against them.

I say to noble Lords and Baronesses that there is a really serious issue here that the Government will try to deal with. We have a government response, which includes, for example, the Online Safety Act, which sets out that platforms, including those that are now likely to be accessed by children, must employ highly effective methods to protect children from content that is harmful or age inappropriate. We can now, through the Ofcom independent regulator, take enforcement action on those duties. Where extremists often deliberately operate below legal thresholds, we want to ensure, rightly, that they can be prosecuted and investigated and that we can take action.

Home Office efforts to counter extremism have certainly focused on high-harm threats. I understand that the noble Lord did not frame his argument around that, but we do have to focus on high-harm threats. We stop foreign individuals of extremist concern, including hate preachers and influencers, travelling to the UK through our visa watchlist programme. We advise and support public authorities and local partners to reduce permissive environments by disrupting extremist hate events, such as speaking tours featuring hate preachers. We have invested in capabilities to stop charities being exploited by extremists. We support communities targeted by extremists to ensure that there is protective security at places of worship—a point that my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn mentioned.

We have also put in place very strong mechanisms through the Prevent programme. At the very start of our term of office, we had the sprint to look at what we needed to do, and there are lessons to be learned from that. We commissioned the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, to look at an independent review of Prevent. He brought forward 34 recommendations, which I note answers the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. Lessons were learned from the Prevent programme—not just from the appalling cases of Southport and the murder of my former colleague Sir David Amess but also positive impacts—to ensure that we deal with some of the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, mentioned on how we stop radicalisation in the first place.

On the point the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, mentioned, I can say that the funding of Prevent is stable. We had £34.5 million of funding in 2023-24, and in the current financial year, the Government have committed £38.7 million to the programme. The noble Baroness asked what that does and what that achieves—I paraphrase, but that was broadly the tenor of her input. It is important, because we believe it makes a difference to people who are being radicalised by turning their lives around, pointing them in the right direction and stopping them from being influenced by far-left, far-right or, in particular, Islamist radicalisation. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, whom I thank for his work, brought forward recommendations, and we have implemented 33 of the 34 of them.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

I hate to stand up again, but I want to put on the record that I made 10 recommendations. Sir William Shawcross had already made 34, and I felt that that was about as much as the system could stand.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord’s recommendations and the independent review of Prevent have been accepted by the Government. We have implemented the vast majority of the recommendations, and we will continue to learn. If there are lessons from today’s debate, we will continue to look at them.

I listened to, understood and accepted the points from the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington. She will understand that I cannot comment on individual organisations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood that she mentioned. We keep all organisations under review. That same principle applies to my noble friend Lord Cryer—I know he has heard this before—in relation to Iran’s revolutionary guards. We keep proscription under review because we do not announce what we will do ahead of doing it.

We consider whether there is sufficient evidence to proscribe an organisation, such as Palestine Action, which was mentioned by a number of noble Lords in the debate. I cannot comment on the court case in which the sledgehammer was involved, because potential further action will be taken on that. People have been remanded in custody, but I cannot comment on that. However, I assure both the noble Baroness and my noble friend that, if proscription is required against any organisation at any time, we will make that proscription.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, said that many of the people she speaks to feel unsafe, particularly women—I understand that. We now have a violence against women and girls strategy in place. Knife crime, which she discussed in particular, has fallen by 8% in the past 18 months. Knife homicides are down by 27% in the past 18 months. We have banned dangerous weapons, such as ninja swords and zombie-style knives, and have taken 60,000 knives off the street. I understand her concerns. We will look at organisations as and when, but, through neighbourhood policing and other things, we are trying—I hope—to make our communities much safer.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Massey of Hampstead, I do not want to see the normalisation of extremism; it should not be tolerated. We have a basic set of values in this society, and we need to uphold those societal values. There is freedom of speech, but we cannot normalise extremism as a whole.

The noble Lord, Lord Walney, made a number of key points. On the extremism definition that he mentioned—which I have spoken to—we keep all matters under review. On the counterterrorism review—which I know is of interest to him; he has done tremendous work in that field—we are looking at that as part of the arm’s-length body review. It does not take away from the principle that we want to ensure that we handle high levels of extremism and also deal with the issues that noble Lords have mentioned today.

I put on record—because this goes to the heart of the question of whether the Government are doing things in this area—that we are upholding the Public Order Act 1986, which imposes conditions on public processions. In the Crime and Policing Bill, currently going through the House, we have put forward a range of measures to ensure that persistent harassment on parades and demonstrations does not happen—that will be law very shortly. We put in place a range of measures through the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which we still support; it allows civil injunctions to be put in place.

We have legislation, such as the Immigration Act, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, the Communications Act 2003 and the Education Act 2002, which was passed by Governments of both my political party and the Conservative Party to ensure that we put in place basic standards so that Governments can take action. We want to ensure that we look at all these matters.

On extremism, we have a number of other potential issues. We set out a clear response to terrorism in the UK’s counterterrorism strategy, Contest—an overarching strategy, of which Prevent is a key part, that directs our work in this area and provides a framework for us to operate in. As part of the Contest strategy, the Prevent programme has helped nearly 6,000 people at risk of being drawn into terrorism to turn their lives around. There are always lessons that we can learn, but it is important that we have that information before us today.

I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for bringing this important subject to the Grand Committee. I am grateful to him and to everybody who has spoken for their contributions; I hope I have referred to them all. Whatever form it takes and whatever form of bad ideology it espouses, extremism is a toxic force that has no place in our society. We have a high-level strategy to deal with high-harm extremism, but I will always look at, and work with colleagues to look at, what we do about the types of extremism that the noble Lord introduced in his opening contribution. That level of extremism remains unacceptable; the Government will not tolerate it. As I have set out, we are taking a range of actions to quell this threat and to prevent young and vulnerable minds being polluted. Counterterrorism remains a complex and multifaceted issue, but I assure noble Lords that we are unwavering in our commitment to tackle this crucial task.

My door will remain open, as will that of my honourable friend Minister Jarvis in the House of Commons. If noble Lords wish to raise issues, I am open to listening, debating and learning. The threat continues to change, as does the online approach, and so we as a society in this country need to make sure that we allow our fundamental values to remain operational, so that people do not feel harassment for their religion or beliefs or for things they cannot change. We support freedom of speech, but we also support the freedom to live life free from extremism.