Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the intelligence used by West Midlands police that led to the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending Villa Park on 6 November 2025.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this urgent question. Let me begin by acknowledging the concern and disappointment felt by supporters affected by the decision regarding attendance at Villa Park on 6 November; I recognise the strength of feeling in this House and the wider communities on the matter.

As Members will appreciate, operational decisions regarding public safety at football matches are a matter for the police, working closely with local partners and events organisers. In this case West Midlands police, in consultation with the club and the local safety advisory group, made the recommendation that away fans should not attend based on their assessment of the intelligence available to them at the time. I am sure the House will understand that I am limited in what I can say about the specific intelligence underpinning this decision; these are sensitive matters and it is vital that the police act on information received to protect public safety. West Midlands police issued a statement in response to the latest media reporting on the intelligence they used, are carrying out a debrief of the events leading up to the match and will be publishing the timeline of events, the decisions taken and the rationale for the recommendations provided to the SAG.

In light of recent events and to ensure robust oversight, the Home Secretary has commissioned His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to review how police forces in England and Wales provide risk assessment advice to local SAGs and other bodies responsible for licensing high-profile public events. This inspection will consider whether police advice takes proper account of all relevant factors, including the impact on wider community relations and whether the balance between public safety and community consideration is being struck effectively.

I want to assure Members that understanding the series of events that occurred in the period before the match was played remains of keen interest to me and of course the Home Secretary. The Government are clear there is no place for hatred or discrimination in football or indeed in wider society. We are committed to ensuring that fans can attend matches safely, regardless of background or affiliation.

[Nick Timothy]

The ban on Israeli Jewish supporters was a disgrace and the justification given by West Midlands Police was, it turns out, based on fiction. The police said that their intelligence came from Dutch counterparts after the Ajax against Maccabi Tel Aviv match last year. West Midlands police called the Israeli fans “highly organised” and “co-ordinated” and

“experienced fighters…linked to the Israel Defence Forces”.

They said they intentionally targeted Muslim communities and 5,000 officers were deployed in response, but that was contradicted by an official Dutch report and the Dutch police themselves. They called the West Midlands police claims “not true” and “obviously inaccurate”. In some cases, such as the Israeli victim thrown into the river, the facts were inverted with Israelis presented as aggressors.

West Midlands police repeated their claims to the Home Affairs Committee Chairman on Friday and refused to answer specific questions from The Sunday Times or to justify their claims, so will the Minister ensure the publication of all intelligence material relating to the ban? It is mostly not sensitive; it can be redacted where necessary. Will lists of individuals and organisations consulted by West Midlands police and the safety advisory group and all those who submitted evidence be published? Can the Minister confirm that no organisations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or subject to Government non-engagement participated? Will she confirm that Hind Rajab Foundation submitted a paper and that this was accepted by West Midlands police?

What intelligence was shared by West Midlands police with the United Kingdom football policing unit and the National Police Chiefs’ Council?

Which information was given to Home Office Ministers and officials, and when? Officials were told about the options under consideration on 2 October, two weeks before the ban was announced, so what did Ministers do in the intervening period?

Under pressure from Islamist agitators, local politicians and thugs, an English police force is accused of fabricating intelligence and misleading the public. This could hardly be more serious. We need Ministers to hold the chief constable to account and give the country the truth.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I know that he understands the principle of police operational independence, and that we need to ensure that we reflect that correctly when such decisions are taken. Stepping back, there are wider lessons that we need to learn, which is why the Home Secretary has written to the inspector to ask him to look at how the SAG process occurs and how the group makes decisions. Members will know that the SAG process was set up following the Hillsborough tragedy as a means by which we can make decisions and secure safety at football matches and other large-scale events.

The Home Secretary has asked the inspector to consider the degree to which the police take into account intelligence and the degree to which the SAG process takes into account wider community impacts. That speaks to the hon. Gentleman’s question, which I cannot answer now, about who was giving the information and on what basis the police were making their recommendations. The review will look at whether the balance of those factors is being struck correctly, and I hope we will come back through that process. We wrote to the inspector at the end of October to ask him to undertake the work. We have asked him to provide his initial conclusions by March next year and made funding available for the additional inspection.

On the specific chronology of events, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that Home Office officials asked the United Kingdom football policing unit for an update on the match on 2 October. They were told that force gold was considering and it would go to the SAG for decisions, and several different available options were laid out at that time.

I have written to the chief constable of West Midlands police to ask for clarity following yesterday’s newspaper article. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot tell him about the truth of those claims—it is a newspaper article and we want to get to the bottom of it—but there are questions within it that we need to understand. I have written to the chief constable to answer those questions. I am happy to share more information as I get it, and the Home Affairs Committee has already taken a lead in asking West Midlands police some of those questions.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

As a local MP, I have previously expressed my concerns about the decision-making process. I welcome the Minister’s commitment today that a review is being carried out about how such risk assessments are made. I understand why some information may not be suitable for placing in the public domain, but can the Minister assure the House that the Government’s view is that as much information as possible should be made available for public scrutiny?

[Sarah Jones]

Of course we want to ensure that as much information as possible is in the public domain. We do not yet know the truth about some of the statements in yesterday’s article and we need to get to the bottom of that. I know that Members of the House will be very interested in hearing about where the inspector gets to in his work, as well as ensuring that we have answers to the questions that Members are raising today.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

Last month, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were banned under the threat of antisemitic mob violence and a highly politicised anti-Israel campaign. Let me be clear: we must never allow the threat of mob violence to dictate policy. West Midlands police cited concerns about the Tel Aviv fans based on a previous game in Amsterdam, but the Dutch police have now shown that those concerns were completely false. There was no mob of 500 fans targeting the Muslim community in Amsterdam. In fact, many Maccabi fans were themselves attacked. Nobody was thrown in a river, apart from one Maccabi fan. The Maccabi fans were not skilled and organised fighters; that was just made up. What will the Government do to hold West Midlands police to account for providing that false information? Unless they have a good explanation, the chief constable should resign.

Disturbingly, two members of the safety advisory group, Waseem Zaffar and Mumtaz Hussain, both previously expressed vehement anti-Israel views, so they were not impartial. We have seen the Palestine solidarity campaign in Birmingham trying to hunt down Maccabi players before the game—that is despicable. When my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) went to the game, he was abused and called a “dog” by pro-Palestine protesters, thereby revealing their true colours.

We have now discovered through a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich and Evesham (Nigel Huddleston) that the Home Office was made aware of the possibility of the ban as early as 2 October—a full two weeks before the decision was taken. Why did the Home Office then do nothing to ensure that Maccabi fans could be properly protected? Do the Government really think it is acceptable that the threat of antisemitic mob violence can dictate policy? That is morally wrong and should never be allowed to happen in this country.

[Sarah Jones]

I agree entirely with the shadow Home Secretary that we should not allow the threat of mob violence to stop matches going ahead. With respect, I think that he is jumping the gun a bit with some of the phrases he has used, saying that it was “just made up”. We are not clear on that at this point, and I do not want this House to take what was in the newspaper yesterday and jump to conclusions. That is not to say that we do not want to get to the bottom of what happened; I can reassure hon. Members of that.

Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our society, and we are taking a strong lead in tackling it in all its forms. The Prime Minister made his view about the decision on this match very clear, as did the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she came to this place to speak of it in previous weeks.

We have a duty to find the right balance between operational independence and ensuring that all our communities are protected in exactly the way that we need them to be. Lots of hon. Members here will know of the work of lots of Jewish organisations, in particular the Community Security Trust, which help us in that task. We will not shy away from that or from what we need to do.

As I said, the SAG process was set up following Hillsborough for a different purpose, and we find ourselves in a different world with a different set of situations. If changes to the SAG process are needed, we will make them.

As I also said, I have written to the chief constable of West Midlands police to ask some questions of him, and we have asked the inspector to conduct a review. The Home Secretary is right—[Interruption.] The shadow Home Secretary is right—

[Chris Philp]

It is only a matter of time!

[Sarah Jones]

I think not, but there we are. He is my constituency neighbour in Croydon, so best wishes to him always.

The 2 October was the point at which the Home Office asked officials in the United Kingdom football policing unit for the update, and we were told that a range of different options were being considered. That is certainly true, and I will not shy away from that. It is now important we ensure that where there are lessons to be learned, we learn them.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

At high-risk football matches, including several local derbies, away fans have been given tickets only once they are on the coaches. Those buses have been taken in by a police escort, removing any fan clashes. Does the Minister agree that questions should be asked about why that tried and tested method was not used?

[Sarah Jones]

The SAG looked at lots of considerations in terms of what the options were. Should it have been a closed match, for example, with no fans? That sometimes happens. Should the match not have gone ahead at all? As my hon. Friend says, should it have been a match with a limited number of tickets? Many options were being weighed up, but a SAG will not just look at the policing advice when it makes its recommendation; it will also look at other factors. That is why we want to get to the heart of how the SAG process is working, what kinds of decisions are being made and how it operates.

I should also tell the House that although there was concern that there would be problems at the match itself, with significant protest and different groups coming to the match, those concerns were not realised, which was a good thing. However, I certainly take my hon. Friend’s point.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is alarming that the decision made by West Midlands police was based on intelligence parts of which the Netherlands national police force has stated is not true, according to reports in the national press this weekend. The public should be able to trust the authorities to base decisions on credible, well-sourced and proportionate intelligence. Will the Minister set out where this intelligence came from, if not the Dutch police, and if she cannot, is that one of the questions she is asking West Midlands police? Who was ultimately responsible for sourcing that intelligence? What investigations has the Home Office asked for to ensure that any circulation of misinformation and the use of that misinformation by police was not prompted by antisemitic sentiment?

West Midlands police have continued to defend their decision, and to say that the threat was related to a specific sub-group of fans, not the wider fanbase. Will the Home Secretary ensure that senior West Midlands police officers come back to Parliament to appear before the Home Affairs Select Committee, to defend their decision and explain why a total ban on all supporters was justified? Finally, with antisemitic incidents remaining at record highs, what steps are the Government taking to reassure the Jewish community of their safety and tackle the root causes of antisemitism? This Government promised a community cohesion strategy last year following the Southport attacks. Part of that strategy must focus on anti-Jewish racism, so when will the Minister commit to publishing it?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. At this point, I cannot give him the answers he wants about intelligence—the root of it and the truth of it. We are responding simply to the information that we got yesterday, and we have asked the appropriate questions to get to the bottom of that. He is right to say that the Home Affairs Select Committee has a strong role in this space, and can be quite helpful in helping us to unpick some of these challenges.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the support and signals that we as a Government are sending, and intend to send, to our Jewish communities to reassure them that we take their safety incredibly seriously. I can reassure him that I have met Jewish community leaders, including the Community Security Trust, as has the Home Secretary. As a response to the Manchester attack, we are making more funding available for our Jewish synagogues and other buildings. We have also commissioned an independent review of our public order and hate crime legislation, and Lord Macdonald of River Glaven KC—a former Director of Public Prosecutions who is well known to this House—has been appointed to carry out that review. It will examine whether the existing legislation within the wider parameters of public order and protest is effective and proportionate; whether it adequately protects communities from intimidation and hate; and whether it strikes a fair and sustainable balance between the freedom of expression and peaceful protest and the need to prevent disorder and keep our communities safe.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the wider review that is being undertaken. That work is not being done within my Department, but we are working with the relevant Department on it, and the review will be published as soon as it is ready.

[Joani Reid (East Kilbride and Strathaven) (Lab)]

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, I know that with British Jewish communities facing an unprecedented rise in antisemitic attacks and hatred of Jews being spread with impunity online, many Jews are fearful that the events in Birmingham are just the first step towards excluding them from British public life. There can be no doubt that there are many people in this country who would be only too happy for that to happen. Is the Minister able to take this opportunity to make clear to Israelis coming to the UK to take part in our cultural, sporting and academic activities that they will be treated just as we treat any other visitor coming from any other friendly country?

[Sarah Jones]

I can definitely give my hon. Friend that assurance—she is absolutely right, and I thank her for the work she is doing as chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism. I have been involved with that group and with Danny Stone for many years; they do a fantastic job, and I recommend that all Members of Parliament do their training session on antisemitism—it is incredibly insightful and really worth investing the time in.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If Israelis want to come here, they are very welcome, and there should be no question about that. Through the reviews that we are undertaking on public order and through the work we are doing to put money in to tackle antisemitism and to protect our Jewish friends in synagogues and other places, we hopefully will be sending the right message. There will always be extra work to do, because antisemitism is a rising issue and we all need to work to tackle it.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

Will the Minister provide any information about the work done by the Home Office from the point that it found out that the away fans may be banned to when the decision was taken—or was the work that could be done to enable the match to go ahead with the away fans there done only after the decision had been taken?

[Sarah Jones]

There were a series of different interactions and communications between the different groups in that period, as Members would expect. There is a balance to be struck with the operational independence question, and we need to get that right; it is not for the Home Secretary to march in and demand that the police say a certain thing or act a certain way. There were communications—I am sure we could help by outlining them—between the period of 2 October, when the Home Office first asked the question of the United Kingdom football policing unit, and 16 October, when the decision was made. To be clear, the Department found out about the decision when it broke on the news; we were not told in advance.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)]

Our police forces in this country have dealt with violent fans from other countries for a long time. I do not expect my hon. Friend to be familiar with the Bad Blue Boys of Dinamo Zagreb—probably the worst fans in Europe, responsible for deaths and imprisonments—or the ultras of Roma, Inter Milan or Lazio, but they have been dealt with. The only conclusion I can draw from the information before us is that the West Midlands police and the local authorities in Birmingham, following fictions about the fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv, created a no-go zone for Jews in one of our major cities. Is she, like me, ashamed of that?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he did supporting colleagues and his constituents after the Manchester attack. He is right to point to the 1980s, when we had a completely different era of huge violence in football. We are very glad that that has, in the main, subsided. He says that there should be no no-go areas for Jews. That is absolutely right; I completely agree with him.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

The Minister knows the Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield area well, so she will understand why so many of us locally are deeply troubled by this unpleasant episode. The initial decision to ban the Israeli fans was clearly wrong, and that is compounded by the information that has now come to light. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) on securing this urgent question. Birmingham is a welcoming and tolerant city, and community relations in Britain’s second city are truly excellent. That is not because of the politicians, but because of the work that faith communities have done over many years.

[Sarah Jones]

The right hon. Member is right. I am very familiar with Sutton Coldfield—and my husband is a Villa season ticket holder, as are my twin boys. It is in some ways the bane of my life, because I never see them as they are always at Villa. It is worth saying that Villa fans are lovely and it is a lovely club. They are devastated that there would be any of this controversy. They just want to play football, watch football, support football, support their players and get on with it. Having talked to lots of them, I know that they have found the whole thing upsetting. They just want to watch the football.

As the right hon. Gentleman says, Birmingham is a great city. I pay tribute to the faith communities in his area and, I suspect, in many of our constituencies where the Faiths Together groups meet and bring different leaders together to ensure that we are all learning from each other and living side by side in peace.

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

According to the response to the Home Affairs Committee by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, the Home Office was fully briefed in advance on the likely recommendation to ban visiting fans from the match, so can the Minister explain why the Government failed to offer additional support for the match to go ahead until after the ban was finalised?

[Sarah Jones]

We were not fully briefed in advance of the decision; we were told when the decision was made. As we have already said, we knew that options were being considered. This is the way in which these processes work: a safety advisory group makes recommendations, and the local authority responds accordingly. In response to what has happened, we are asking the inspector to look at the safety advisory groups and tell us whether we need to make some changes.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

As vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, I can attest to the fact that many British Jews do not feel safe, especially in Birmingham. I take the Minister at her word that she takes this very seriously. When I stood up and spoke about the issue, I received torrents of abuse for doing so, but I did so because I thought it was clear that the decision was wrong: it was bad for the people of the west midlands, bad for Aston Villa fans, bad for British Muslims—some of whom wrote to me expressing concern that they had been dragged into it—and, of course, terrible for British Jews.

The Minister said that she could not comment on the evidence having been made up. Has she read the Dutch report, does she knowledge that the stories over the weekend have further upset British Jews, and will she ensure that West Midlands police are held to account?

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are Jews in this country who do not feel safe. In Croydon we have a small community who visit a synagogue very close to my house, and I have spoken to them many times about how they feel. It is true that people do not want to go into central London at weekends, which should be completely unacceptable to all of us. We are reviewing the public order legislation to establish how we can balance people’s right to express their views and protest in a way that is appropriate with the reality of the impact that that has had over quite a long period.

I am aware of the matters that the hon. Gentleman has raised about the information. I have written to West Midlands police to ask them a series of questions, and I do not want to comment until I have those responses. I know that the Home Affairs Committee has written to them as well.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

As a west midlands MP, I find this deeply troubling. There are clearly questions that need to be answered. Specifically, in the light of the significant inaccuracies that have now been confirmed by Dutch law enforcement, does the Minister agree that there are also questions that should be asked of the political leadership in the west midlands and, in particular, the police and crime commissioner, who—however we look at it—is supposed to be representing our communities?

[Sarah Jones]

I am not going to make a slightly political point about the right hon. Lady’s decision to attack the police and crime commissioner; I think that he does a good job and has served well for many years. As for the wider point that she made, as a west midlands MP, about what has happened and what it means, I absolutely share her concern.

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the information that came to light over the weekend seems to suggest that a very worrying bias has entered the decision-making process, and that this has cast a stain on Birmingham’s reputation as a welcoming city as well as raising serious questions about the senior leadership of West Midlands police ?

[Sarah Jones]

I am not going to draw that conclusion today, but the hon. Gentleman can be assured that I am going to ensure that we get to the bottom of yesterday’s reporting and what happened. We often ask the police to make decisions that are almost impossible, and—here I am setting aside this particular case—we ask them to police protests in such a way that we are almost asking them to make political decisions on a day-to-day basis, which is very difficult for them. I should pay tribute to the many excellent public order police officers, who are very well trained and who work in such difficult circumstances. We ask a great deal of them, and I am grateful for the work that they do.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

After the incident with Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam, the Government’s independent assessor on antisemitism, Lord Mann, visited the city, did a fact-finding mission and compiled a report. It was passed to the Government in January, and to the Government and the police again in June. Can the Minister tell us what consideration, if any, was given to this report in the decision making?

[Sarah Jones]

I would very much like to talk to Lord Mann about the work that he has done, which was prior to me being in post. I will pick that up.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

Let us cut to the chase: Jew hatred in this country has been on the rise for over a decade. It was given a safe space in the past, and that has grown. I have a significant Jewish population in my constituency, who will tell you that Leeds sometimes feels like a really threatening place because of the protests. But the reality is that the protests that take place are okay under freedom of speech, which I support, as long as they do not break the law.

These fans were not breaking the law, and they should have been allowed to go to the match, but it appears that there were people—for example, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) outlined, in the safety advisory group—who had a biased intent. Will the Government start to analyse and audit these groups, which are supposed to be independent? We have seen bias at the BBC and a rise in antisemitic language and incidents in the NHS—which, despite the Health Secretary saying they are unacceptable, the General Medical Council clears. It is reported that 51% of students in Russell Group universities feel that it is okay to insult Jews. Can there please be a root-and-branch review from the Government to make sure that bodies are truly independent and are not hiding their blatant antisemitism?

[Sarah Jones]

To the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, the Prime Minister’s view was very clear: the wrong decision was made. That is our position. We believe that the decision made was the wrong one.

On the safety advisory groups, we have asked the inspector to look at them, their role and their function. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that across all our public bodies, we need to stamp out antisemitism in all its forms, wherever we find it and wherever we see it. I will certainly support him in that.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Confidence in the police is very important, and the Jewish community have every justification for not being confident in the police—whether it is some of the policing we have seen here in London or in the west midlands. Given that the reports in The Sunday Times seem to contradict totally what the police in the west midlands said, is it not accurate to say that their recommendations on which Israeli fans were to be banned from the Aston Villa match were nothing but a tissue of lies? If they had really wanted accurate information, would they, as experienced investigators, not just have lifted the phone or sent an email to the police in Amsterdam to find out the facts about the match that occurred there?

It appears that the West Midlands police have given in to pressure from Muslim politicians and Muslim thugs. As a result, the Jewish community are once again left feeling that they are the disadvantaged people. Will the Minister assure us that the inquiry will look very clearly at what political pressure was put on the police in the west midlands to reach their decision?

[Sarah Jones]

The right hon. Member is right to say that confidence in policing is incredibly important. We need that confidence across all our communities, and we know that there is a lot of work to do in some areas in particular. I am not going to comment on what appears to be the case, but I can reassure him that, as I have said, the Prime Minister believes it was the wrong decision in the first place. We want to understand what happened, and we want to take a wider look at the safety advisory groups, which, as I said, were set up in response to a problem of safety within our football venues. We recognise that things have moved on, and we need to look at whether the SAGs are working in the way that they should be.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It sounds as though the Minister is getting to grips with this, and I am very grateful for that. Will she accept that the counterpart or corollary of operational independence for the police is their political impartiality, and does she agree with me that the last thing we want is a poisonous cocktail of football hooliganism infected by the hatreds arising out of the middle eastern conflict?

[Sarah Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about political impartiality. It is absolutely crucial that our police are not making decisions based on politics. We ask them every day to almost do that, even though we are very clear that they must not. It is difficult and complicated, and when they are policing—for example, in London or our big cities—protests with multiple causes, and protests in response to events around the world that are deeply interesting to a lot of citizens of this country, we do ask a lot of them. We need to appreciate that, in the vast majority of cases, they make the right call, and they also do things behind closed doors that we do not see. For example, there is lots of negotiation with lots of protest organisations about changing the route of a protest, and making sure that it is moving in the right way to avoid more conflict. In the main, they do a very good job, but we need to make sure that we get to the bottom of this case.

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

This whole sorry episode will have had a very corrosive effect on the confidence and trust that the Jewish community places in policing. What will the Government do to ensure that confidence is restored in the long term? Whether we are talking about this instance at Villa Park, or disorder following pro-Palestinian marches, can the Minister tell me and the House why, far too often, the Jewish community is made to feel that it is the problem?

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Member raises a good question. Of course, we need to work with the Jewish community to make sure that relationships with police are strong. The Community Security Trust has a really good relationship with police. It works very closely with them, and it obviously has a huge infrastructure, for which we are very grateful, that helps it to monitor synagogues and other spaces. As probably many Members have done, I have been to its head office and seen the work that it does. Indeed, it has a police officer embedded in the operations centre some of the time. Those relationships are good, but the wider Jewish community of course needs to feel that it can go to the police and report crimes. I would encourage all members of that community to do so whenever they are affected by any kind of hate crime, so that we can make sure that the figures are accurate. I will of course keep working to make sure that we get this right.

[Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)]

The whole House recognises the challenge posed by football hooliganism, but anyone with the slightest knowledge of football would accept that this hooliganism is restricted to a very small minority of fans of clubs and countries across the world. Will the Minister work with colleagues in the Home Office and police forces across the country to ensure that next time an Israeli club draws a British club in a European competition, or the Israeli national side draws one of the home nations in a qualifying competition—or, indeed, if Israel were to qualify for Euro 2028—those fans would be welcome in the United Kingdom to enjoy our football and our hospitality?

[Sarah Jones]

Of course, we want to ensure that all fans from all parts of the world are welcome in this country. The hon. Member is absolutely right to say that the problem of football hooliganism is nothing like what it was in the 1980s. There was a football match at Villa from which fans were banned in 2023, but I think that decision was made in response to activity in the immediate vicinity of the match. He is right to say that this is not a large problem any more—thank goodness—in part because of great policing, and in part because we have changed how football matches work. They are much more family affairs than they used to be, and there is less alcohol—all things that have helped us with these issues. He is right: we of course want to welcome Israeli fans, whenever they come.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much for her answers, and for the confidence that she is trying to instil across the nation. On the so-called confidential intelligence that West Midlands police claims to have seen about Israeli fans engaging in significant hooliganism, I am very concerned, as others are, about the message that sends about exclusion, and about how the Government deal with intelligence in this country. What steps have been taken to ensure that international football fans are treated fairly and are not excluded from events based on incorrect information and dishonest claims, and that lessons can be learned to prevent similar incidents in the future?

[Sarah Jones]

I agree with the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question. Where we can, we want to ensure that intelligence is correct, that decisions are made on the basis of a wide range of factors, and that football, a sport that this country loves so much, carries on in the way that we all want it to.