Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Goodman of Wycombe Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly commend the report of the noble Lord, Lord Walney, which I have read. My purpose in speaking, very briefly, is to interrogate Amendment 369, in the light of what we already have.

What we already have was very well put in a report by David Spencer of Policy Exchange, the director of which is my noble friend Lord Godson. David Spencer put the current balance very well, I think in his report A Long, Long Way to Go. He wrote:

“The Human Rights Act 1998 does not refer to a ‘Right to Protest’ – the relevant rights are the ‘Right to freedom of expression’ (Article 10) and ‘Right to freedom of peaceful assembly’ (Article 11). However, the sense that many of the recent wave of protests have been ‘peaceful’ by any ordinary understanding of the word – particularly when filled with antisemitic chanting through mobile sound amplifiers, calls for ‘jihad’ on the streets of London, or the use of criminal damage as a tactic – is clearly false. Further, Articles 10 and 11 are qualified rights”—


and this is the point about balance that other noble Lords have made—

“in that they can be restricted where it is necessary and proportionate to protect public safety, prevent crime and protect the rights and freedoms of others”.

I myself think that the balance in the Human Rights Act really puts the matter rather well when it refers to this right of peaceful assembly. Peaceful assembly surely does not mean that the protest must be meek and mild. One must expect protests to be noisy, turbulent, robust and, up to a point, disruptive. But the right of protests to be disruptive, as the noble Lord, Lord Walney, said a few moments ago, must be balanced against the right of others not to have their lives disrupted. That is the balance of the thing.

Furthermore, just in closing, there is a very difficult issue here that David Spencer raises very profoundly about some of the language that has been used in demonstrations that is very close to—trembling on the verge of—incitement. In a country where we have seen what happened in the synagogue in Manchester, and where attacks are carried out on other institutions, we have to bear that in mind.

In short, it seems to me this amendment is either reproducing what is already in the Human Rights Act, in which case it is unnecessary, or it is complicating it, in which case it should not really be there. My own sense is that it is complicating it, and that it makes no sense at all to scatter different rights willy-nilly in different pieces of legislation, rather than—if one is going to set positive rights out in statute—putting them in one place in the Human Rights Act, which is what has been done. So I think that the balance we have got is satisfactory and that the amendment does not really stand up to robust interrogation.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for bringing forward these amendments. The importance of peaceful protest in a free and democratic society is of course a principle supported by all noble Lords. I want to be clear at the outset that no one on the Benches on this side questions either the legitimacy or the constitutional right to protest.

I first turn to Amendment 369, which seeks to place an express statutory right to protest into the Public Order Act 1986. This amendment risks solving a problem that does not exist. That is our belief. The right to protest is already deeply embedded in our constitutional and legal framework, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has so carefully explained. It is recognised in common law, it long predates our membership of the European Convention on Human Rights and it has been repeatedly affirmed by the courts as a fundamental freedom in our democratic tradition. Crucially, this right has never been absolute. Historically, it has always existed alongside the equally important duties of the state to maintain public order, protect public safety and safeguard the rights and freedoms of others. That careful balance has evolved over centuries through common law and legislation. It is not at all clear that reinstating the right to protest in statutory form would add meaningful protection beyond what already exists.

There is a real risk that codifying such a broad and long-standing right in statue could have unintended consequences. By setting out open-ended duties on public authorities to respect, protect and facilitate protest, the amendment would inevitably invite further litigation and judicial interpretation. Decisions about the proper balance between protest rights and competing public interests, such as disruption to essential services or public safety, could increasingly be determined in the courts rather than by Parliament or accountable Ministers. That risks further frustrating the will of the Executive and of Parliament. I do not believe that placing an express right to protest into statute is either necessary or desirable. Our system has functioned for generations without such a provision and it is not evident that this long-standing settlement is now deficient.

I turn to Amendment 371, which would require an independent review of the existing legislative framework governing protest. We on these Benches are unconvinced of the case for such a review. The Acts listed have been subject to extensive parliamentary scrutiny and their compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights has been debated at length in both Houses. We do not support proposed new subsection (5) in this amendment, which would require the review to have regard to the impacts of legislation on the exercise of rights under the ECHR. The ECHR is already subject to unwelcome litigation which brings about perverse outcomes that were never intended at its commencement: there are plenty of examples of that. An additional independent review would be unnecessarily burdensome and duplicative, consuming time and public resources without a clear or compelling purpose. For these reasons, we on these Benches do not support either amendment. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and to further discussion of how best to uphold both the right to protest and the rule of law in a balanced and proportionate way.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Goodman of Wycombe Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe]

438E: After Clause 166, insert the following new Clause—
“Report: non-violent extremismWithin three months of the day on which this Act is passed, each police force in England and Wales must publish a report setting out any strategies they have to reduce crime associated with non-violent extremism.”

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an appropriately sombre debate given the scale and sweep of the challenges described. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Foster and Lady Fox, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, as well as the two speakers from the Front Benches and the Minister for replying to the debate. As I say, it has been necessarily sombre.

The Minister, very helpfully, for a number of technical reasons, explained why he wants to reject all of the amendments that I have put forward. But the sum of what he said—in dealing with the amendments in his usual charming and emollient manner—is that he did not confirm that there is a definition of counterextremism, and so has not confirmed that the Government have maintained the last Government’s position. He has not confirmed whether or not the commissioner will or will not be appointed. As for the analytical sprint, I could not really follow the logic of his argument, which is that it is impossible for some reason to publish it because it would cause difficulties in doing so. The last person the Minister reminds me of is any of the Beatles, but I feel his policy is taking us on a bit of a magical mystery tour. We do not know where the policy on non-violent extremism is going and we do not really know when we will know.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, caught the mood of the moment, which is a certain impatience. A vacuum in government policy simply is not good enough. Although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that these matters are not best addressed by amendments and legislation—there was a certain element of probing in the amendments I have put forward—I do not think these matters have been entirely cleared up by the magical mystery tour that the Minister has taken us on and I reserve the right to come back to them on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 438E withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as always, the rational logic of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has been very helpful in untangling this issue. She has summed up some of my concerns and things that I am not sure about.

The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, has brilliantly articulated her worries about the glorification of terrorism and how it normalises terrorism into everyday life. I think that is valid. She notes that this is based on little knowledge, and little knowledge can be very dangerous. Whatever one thinks about Northern Ireland —and I assure noble Lords that at this end we do not all agree—it was a bloody conflict, and it is not to be treated lightly. Those who simply reduce it to slogans in the way that was described do not know what they are talking about.

In support of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, my concern is that when we get proscription legislation wrong, we also rob the notion of terrorism of its power to shock, of its content, and the danger is that we relativise it and trivialise it. I think a huge amount of damage has been done by putting Palestine Action into the same category as Hamas or ISIS. Even though Palestine Action, as has been described, is an obnoxious or objectionable organisation and should be held to account under the law when it uses criminal damage, I do not think it is a terrorist organisation. Putting those self-indulgent OAP protesters or students into the same camp as Hizb ut-Tahrir calling for jihad or those hate preachers I quoted earlier, for example, seems misplaced. It turns what I consider to be numpty protesters into some sort of heroes in their own mind, and it has captured the imagination.

If you go to universities, you now find that people think that anyone who supports Palestine Action is a free speech warrior who we should all get up and support. They do not understand why I, as a free-speecher, am not supporting it. The problem is that they now all think that terrorism is sitting on a road and saying, “I support Palestine Action”. If only terrorism were sitting on a road and shouting, “I support Palestine Action” or wearing a badge. That is not the content of terrorism, and there is a lack of knowledge about what terrorism is. If people think those people are terrorists, we sell young generations short by them not understanding what we are up against and what the problems are. Proscribing organisations, which is a very important weapon to use in a particular way, is one thing; treating those who simply are vocal in their support of that organisation, as has happened with Palestine Action, can just mean that we conflate slogans and words with terrorist actions or violent actions and empty them of any horror.

The difficulty is that I am torn. When I hear Bob Vylan, Kneecap or those student groups shouting “Internationalise the intifada” or strutting their stuff and cosplaying their support for barbarism, it is sickening and I want something to be done. Listening to the moving speech by the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, you can see that that is what you might want to tackle. It is just that I do not think proscribing Palestine Action did that, and we are now paying the cost for having inappropriately used proscription of an organisation to devalue what we mean by terrorism.

If we no longer have young people in this country who have lived experience of terrorism—sadly, young Iranians do, for example, so let us not concentrate entirely on ourselves—they think going on a demo outside a prison fighting for the hunger strikers inside is as bad as it gets. They do not get it, but I do not think we have helped them get it either, which is why I am nervous about saying that glorification of terrorism in that context should be against the law, because we have to be very careful about what we are making illegal.

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly in support of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, which I signed. I do so, paradoxically, as someone who has written in the Daily Telegraph, of all places, against the proscription of Palestine Action. My argument was that there is a difference—this is to address the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner—between the intent of the protesters and the nature of the organisation.

There must be some common-sense way of differentiating between a violent organisation such as Palestine Action and Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, al-Qaeda and so on. In fact, a way has been proposed, because the noble Lord, Lord Walney, produced a whole report for the last Government suggesting that organisations such as Palestine Action be subject to certain sorts of orders that would separate them out. But that raises the question: what about Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, the IRA and so on?