National Security

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I understand the concern raised by my hon. Friend. He will know that this is a matter of policy for colleagues in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Secretary of State has made it clear that she believes there is further work to do on ensuring online safety for everyone. More generally, age verification has had a good impact in relation to the viewing of pornographic material. When it comes to material that is in the more contested space of cultural issues, we would still have the issue of where we draw the line between content that, although it might be horrible, is lawful; content that is lawful but harmful; and content that slips into illegality. Those questions remain, regardless of whether we have age verification.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I put on record my thanks to Counter Terrorism Policing West Midlands and West Mercia police’s special branch for all they are doing in their regions and areas for all Members, across parties. In reply to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), who is no longer in her place, the Home Secretary mentioned that the system was “fragmented”. In her statement, she also said, “We are also building a specialist mission in Counter Terrorism Policing to disrupt state threats”. The Home Secretary will know that the Security Service—she knows what branch—plays a major part in counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. We also have counter-terror police and the National Crime Agency. Given that, as she said, more deniable proxy attacks are happening through criminal gangs, is this not creating another silo, at a time when we need to break down the silos and have all these agencies and forces working together?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments on supporting the work of counter-terror police. So much of that work is not public, but it is crucial to the safety and security of our nation; it is right that we place on record our thanks to them. He makes a good point about silos. That is one of the reasons why I am setting up the national police service, which will bring together the National Crime Agency and Counter Terrorism Policing into one service. I am doing so because I recognise that placing those two agencies together puts us in the best possible place to face these growing and complex threats, which are changing all the time.

I believe that the National Crime Agency and Counter Terrorism Policing work very effectively together. They have built up good arrangements over the years to ensure that when allegedly criminal activity strays across the boundaries into what their organisations look at, they work closely together. I meet all of them, alongside other partners, weekly, as does the Security Minister. We work very hard to ensure that there are not silos.

The reason for setting up the new state threats mission is that the nature of state threats has changed so significantly. We see this, and other Five Eyes partner countries see the same trend. It is important to be at the cutting edge of understanding how our enemies want to do us harm, so that we can meet that challenge. I commit to the right hon. Gentleman that I will not allow any silos to exist. The national police service will have a key role in ensuring that that never happens.