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Lord Goodman of Wycombe
To ask His Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the introduction of a counter-extremism strategy.
Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to open this short debate on the consideration given to the introduction of a counterextremism strategy. The usual form on these occasions is to describe the issues and ask some questions. However, the issues I want to describe and the questions I want to ask were described and asked recently in the House, as the Minister knows. I will therefore be as brief as I can in order to allow other noble Lords to have their say; I am delighted to see so many colleagues present.
I turn first to the issues. In sum, my view is that non-violent extremism aims to, in the words of the previous Government’s definition,
“negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others … undermine, overturn or replace”
our
“system of liberal … democracy and democratic rights; or … intentionally create a permissive environment for others”.
At best, this non-violent extremism makes cohesion and integration impossible; at worst, it gives rise to harassment, public order offences, acts of terrorism and other breaches of the rule of law. Its three most prominent forms are far-right, far-left and Islamist extremism. The last of those is responsible for some 71% of terrorist incidents in Britain since the London Tube atrocities of 7 July 2005, as well as some 75% of the case load of Contest, the Government’s counterterror strategy. This is not—I repeat, not—to conflate Islam, the ancient religion, with Islamism, the political ideology, any more than it is to conflate the far left and socialism or the far right and patriotism.
Having set out the issues, I turn next to the Government’s response. When asked recently in the House whether the Government uphold the definition of non-violent extremism that I quoted earlier or have one of their own, the Minister said that it,
“is a deeply challenging and complex area”,
and that,
“there is no statutory definition of or consensus on what would include extremism”.
When he was asked whether a counterextremism commissioner will be appointed to replace Robin Simcox, the Minister repeated:
“We are reviewing the roles and remits of various bodies to ensure our resources are best placed to meet current challenges”.
When he was asked whether the Government will publish the rapid analytical sprint review of non-violent extremism, commissioned after the general election, he said that publication,
“could, for example, undermine policy development”.—[Official Report, 27/1/26; cols. 804-06.]
and sent a file of support for terror, antisemitism, denial and conspiracy theory gleaned from mosques. I then asked how many prosecutions have arisen, and the Minister replied that no figures are available.
It is not hard to see what is happening here. There is a repeated cycle. First, there is an incident. It could be the conviction of a left-wing anarchist in 2024 on multiple terror charges. It could be the attack on the Heaton Park synagogue last year, which saw the first murder of Jews simply for being Jews in Britain in modern times. It could be the conviction of a far-right racist for the 2017 attack on Finsbury Park mosque. Then there is a wave of public alarm. Ministers promise action, time passes, media attention moves on and inertia sets in as the Government, the Opposition, the security services, the police, advisers and academics retreat into their siloes and disagree about solutions. Ministers are then reshuffled or a general election takes place, and we go back to square one until the next time.
Only two recent Prime Ministers seriously attempted to break the cycle: Tony Blair and my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton. Both understood that in our centralised system, only a cross-government counterextremism strategy driven from Downing Street will produce results. Such a strategy would ensure that the Government themselves do not patronise, give platforms to, fund or engage with extremists; that prisons are run by governors and staff, not by gangs; that extremist mobs do not dictate terms to the police, as happened recently in Birmingham; that hospitals and surgeries are neutral spaces; that posters on walls and lanyards worn by staff do not advertise political causes; that demonstrators and marchers do not incite violence by calling, for example, for the intifada to be globalised; and that funds raised for charities do not end up funding terror.
I pay tribute to two all-party initiatives that have the potential to develop such a policy. The first is the All-Party Parliamentary Group on defending democracy, led by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, who I am pleased to see will speak today. The second is the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Counter Extremism, chaired by Damien Egan, which has already produced a useful report, Time to Act.
I described the pattern of events in counterextremism policy as a cycle, but perhaps it would be more accurate to describe it as a spiral, one which is descending steadily downwards. I have assumed for the whole of my adult life that our multifaith and multiracial democracy will continue to progress for the better, and, on balance, I still believe that it will, but I also believe that we can no longer be sure. The 2022 disturbances in Leicester, the Aston Villa game scandal in Birmingham, the Manchester synagogue attack, the firebomb attack on the Peacehaven mosque, the outbreak of Palestinian and St George’s Cross flag flying, the rise of the Gaza independents and the push for an “Islamophobia” definition, plus the Sikh and Hindu reaction to it, are signs that our towns and cities are in danger of dividing, at least in part, into ethnic and religious enclaves. It is hard to see how such a future could square with the Disraelian “one nation” ideal or, indeed, with a coherent nation at all.
The Government currently seem too battered, disorientated and bewildered by events to rise to the challenge. The opposition parties are only beginning, at this stage of the electoral cycle, to grapple with it, and Parliament as an institution is running to catch up with the pace of events. I would not claim that this debate is the start of further discussion to come, but I hope it can be an important step along the road, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
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.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, extremism is not what it used to be. In October 2024, MI5’s director Ken McCallum said:
“Straightforward labels like ‘Islamist terrorism’ or ‘extreme right wing’ don’t fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see”.
My current experience as Independent Prevent Commissioner confirms his analysis. Young people, often disturbed by family trauma or personal grievances, seek comfort in the rigid hatreds of their offline or online tribe, often with added misogyny or antisemitism. Their minds are inflamed by geopolitical events, dehumanising computer games and the malign algorithms of social media into an unpredictable mash-up of resentment, rage and normalised violence.
Conspiracy theories are promoted by hostile states. Fragments of ideology are packaged as video clips. The boy drawing Nazi symbols on his arm may, the next week, be seen shouting sectarian slogans, refusing to interact with female teachers or posing as a suicide bomber. The terrorism statistics record violent offences that were motivated by a single, consistent ideology, most commonly—as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has rightly said—a perverted version of Islam.
Extremism in its broader sense, however, motivates many attacks of equivalent seriousness, including those perpetrated by the multiple killers Danyal Hussein, Jake Davison and, in Southport, Axel Rudakubana. These violent expressions of extremism represent, of course, only a small part of the social problems caused by its non-violent outworkings.
The single point I want to make today is that while the word extremism is a convenient label for drawing attention to a vast bundle of problems, it is not a satisfactory key to solving them. The normal meaning of the word is dauntingly broad. In the libel case Shakeel Begg v BBC, Lord Justice Haddon-Cave said:
“What is ‘extreme’ is, by definition, something which is not ‘moderate’”.
Attempts by successive Governments to narrow it down have been inconsistent and hard to translate into consistent policy. Phrases such as “opposition to British values” and “creating a permissive environment” are too wide to form a reliable basis for rules or coercive action.
Confronted with so large a target, counterextremism strategies have been diffuse and ineffective. The 2015 Counter-Extremism Strategy was diagnosed by Professor Clive Walker, our greatest academic authority on terrorism, as suffering from
“inexact and contested meanings, objectives, and mechanisms which generate dynamics of suspicion as much as persuasion”.
The rapid analytical sprint leaked last January was said by Policy Exchange to have confused extremism with
“any shocking crime, bad belief or nasty social phenomenon about which we are worried”.
Overbreadth is particularly dangerous when accompanied by harsh sanctions. The counterextremism Bill of 2016, which I was privileged to see, would have allowed the penalisation of “extremist activity”, defined to include huge swathes of otherwise perfectly legitimate political and religious speech. It was, at least to me, a relief when, after being announced in two successive Queen’s Speeches, it blew up on the launch pad.
Parliament and the courts have calibrated our laws over the centuries with extraordinary and rather impressive care. It would be a lazy and illiberal error to overlay those laws with vague and contested notions such as extremism or—I agree—Islamophobia. Let us promote integration, critical thinking, social media literacy and awareness of our civic rights and duties. Let us research harmful belief systems and challenge divisive or intolerant narratives wherever we find them. If our laws on online safety, public order, hate crime, counterterrorism, hostile state activity—
Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)
My Lords, it has been four minutes.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
I have one and a half sentences left. If our laws on online safety, public order, hate crime, counterterrorism, hostile state activity or proscription are insufficient, let us revisit, amend and supplement them. But the trick is to excise the tumours without undue harm to the healthy tissue of free speech, which requires a scalpel, not the suffocating blanket labelled “extremism”.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, for this crucial debate. I want to focus on the normalisation of Islamism and virulent antisemitism but first I need to negotiate the obstacle course of counterextremism. I am not the first to note that official definitions of extremism can be unhelpful: too vague, ambiguous and broad, and a distraction from real threats. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, about the problem of extremism as a legal concept. Also, in a democratic, pluralist society of citizens with diverse views, how can you establish a robust legal definition without being partisan or censorious?
I am worried about a blank cheque. Official signs of extremism include everything from spreading misinformation to involvement in the manosphere—think “Adolescence”, a drama, not a documentary, yet the Government vowed to show it in every school to counter online extremism. Such a shallow lack of specificity means that state agencies acquire huge power to police legitimate, if unpleasant or dissenting, views. Recently, a Home Office-funded interactive computer game hit the headlines. “Pathways: Navigating the Internet and Extremism” takes 13 to 18 year-olds on a journey. As game characters, they must make decisions to avoid being reported for extreme right-wing ideology. If they wrongly answer multiple-choice questions on, for example, migration, or if their avatar chooses to attend a protest against the “erosion in British values”, they are branded.
This superficial approach begs questions. In January, the director of counterterrorism at the Homeland Security Group claimed that 68 civil society groups are being funded by Prevent. Can the Minister outline who these groups are, what kind of programmes they are delivering and, crucially, how the Home Office is assessing their effectiveness? I ask because the “Pathways” computer game backfired spectacularly. The developers created a purple-haired goth girl, Amelia, as the far-right baddie, but rather than being viewed as a dangerous extremist, Amelia has been embraced as an ironic heroine and has become a union jack-waving viral meme.
This backlash reveals how tone deaf anti-extremist initiatives can be. For example, framing patriotic sentiment as extremism risks radicalising those moderate youth who resent their scepticism of progressive orthodoxies being criminalised, especially while the elephant in the room, radical Islamism, is allowed free rein. They have a point. Official interventions using vague and non-exhaustive definitions of extremism, applied with little discrimination to an expanding number of targets, often avoid tackling Islamist extremism. One reason is that people are afraid of upsetting radical Islamists but are not afraid of upsetting critics of multiculturalism, real-life Amelias, the Pink Ladies, Reform UK supporters or whoever.
A year ago, the Speaker in the other place overrode centuries of parliamentary procedure to protect Labour MPs scared by threats from extremists over a Gaza vote. This morning, at Questions, we were reminded of the unprecedented harassment and intimidation of candidates, MPs and even voters at and since the general election. The Maccabi Tel Aviv scandal exposed police capitulation to fundamentalist threats to Israeli fans. All that is just a taste of a growing Islamist veto over public life. Then there is the fear of being labelled an Islamophobic extremist if you raise such concern. The Government’s push to define anti-Muslim hatred threatens to institutionalise that chilling effect. They say, “See it. Say it. Sorted”, but if we see it and cannot say it, it will not get sorted. We must stop wasting time on fictitious Amelias and target the real-life problem hiding in plain sight.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for initiating this debate. He has been consistent and persistent in his arguments, which he was also able to spell out in his Times article on Tuesday. The thousand comments, almost all in support, were striking, expressing anxiety and concern about the rise of terrorism and antisemitism, as well as fear, however unjustified, that they—we—no longer feel safe in our streets. This is particularly true for women who worry about their safety walking home at night or even, now, in broad daylight. They fear for their daughters and even their sons, as exemplified by this week’s school knife attack. People are afraid of masked men, crowded tubes, buses. I feel it myself. It is in large part because they—we—do not feel that the Government have a grip and that they have no sense of urgency. Of course, none of us underestimates the challenges faced by government and the security services, but there is a strong sense that as a country we are behind the curve rather than fully aware of and dealing with not only the current challenges but those coming down the track.
More and more people, especially younger friends and acquaintances, spontaneously raise these issues with me. They are concerned about radicalisation, cohesion and integration. They have a strong feeling that they cannot, or generally should not, talk publicly about their worries and fear that they will be judged for doing so, which is why I am speaking today.
My noble friend Lord Goodman and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, mentioned the director of MI5, who confirmed in his threat updates both last October and in 2024 that Islamist extremism remains the most significant terrorism threat to the UK and accounts for 75% of MI5’s case load. I, for one, am very grateful to the security services for holding the line in the most complex and interconnected threat environment ever seen, but there are concerns about whether they have the resources that they need and are collecting the relevant data. This debate is an opportunity for the Government to clarify what they know, what they monitor and where the gaps remain. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the many questions raised today.
Will the Minister confirm that the Government still assess Islamist extremism as the predominant terrorism threat to the UK? The Government’s 2015 review of the Muslim Brotherhood concluded that aspects of its ideology and activities were
“contrary to our values and … national interests”,
and noted expressions of support for terrorist violence by individuals linked to Muslim Brotherhood-influenced organisations. More than a decade later, the Muslim Brotherhood remains legal in the United Kingdom but, since that review, numerous allied states have banned or designated the Muslim Brotherhood or its branches. Hamas, which identifies itself as the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing, has shown intent to operate internationally, including in Europe. Will the Minister update us on the Government’s current thinking about the Muslim Brotherhood and on whether the Home Office or MI5 currently monitors Muslim Brotherhood-linked organisations operating in the UK and, if so, on what basis? There is also a big issue around data. Do the Government feel that they have sufficient data on extremism in the UK? Specifically, do they monitor non-terrorist Islamist activities that may nevertheless contribute to radicalisation and intimidation?
Other noble Lords today speak from personal and community experience about antisemitism, but I watch its growth on social media and elsewhere with dismay. My noble friend Lord Finkelstein’s Times article earlier this week spelled out in detail the horrific abuse he has experienced when taking on Nick Fuentes. The viral hate that poured in and continues today—I looked again online this morning—is beyond horrible. Something in this country has changed, is changing, and not for the better.
Lord Cryer (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for securing this debate. Like him, I want to refer to the APPG’s report, Time to Act: Addressing the UK’s Accelerating Extremism Threat, a copy of which I have handily placed in front of me on the desk. I will come to that in a minute.
I start by pointing out that only two days ago the Community Security Trust, another great organisation that we should probably refer to more often in these debates, recorded that 3,700 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2025. That is the second-highest on record, the highest being in 2023, which was, of course, the year of the appalling attacks in southern Israel. In that year, there were 4,298 incidents.
It is also worth pointing out that, as noted in the APPG report, anti-Muslim hate has doubled over the past decade. Tell Mama recorded that anti-Muslim hate incidents rose from 500 per annum in 2012 to 2,500 per annum in 2021, which is going some. As the APPG has also pointed out, the explosion in the online world—this is stating the obvious—has gone hand in hand with an equally virulent explosion in conspiracy theories and the two have created a toxic mix.
I am pleased that the Government are taking certain steps against the hate marches in the form of the Crime and Policing Bill. It remains to be seen when that Bill reaches the statute book how effective the new measures will be, but I hope that we will leave the door open to going further with those measures, if necessary. I am also pleased that HMG has created criminal sanctions for those who have undeclared links to Tehran, whose proxies operate in the UK and elsewhere.
On that subject, I have two questions for the Minister. The first—he is probably getting tired of listening to me raise this, because I do so probably every couple of weeks—is that we need to look at the question of proscribing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. This is an issue that came up under the previous Government. It has come up persistently under this Government. I have never heard a convincing explanation as to why we do not proscribe the IRGC. Let us for a minute reflect on what the IRGC is. It is a group of homicidal maniacs who answer to a bunch of clerical fascists in Tehran. The important thing as far as proscription in the UK is concerned is that the IRGC persistently uses proxies. They use front organisations in the UK and elsewhere across the globe in order to carry out their vile activities.
Many of us are worried that we are not perhaps tracking the extremist landscape as effectively as we should be, so my second question for my noble friend is: what assessment have the Government made of who the most prominent domestic extremists are, what is their scale and influence and what is the level of harm that they are causing to British society? I will leave it at that for the time being.
Lord Massey of Hampstead (Con)
This is an excellent time to be debating this vital issue and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Goodman of Wycombe on initiating this debate and on his recent comments on this important and complex subject. The Government have commissioned a rapid analytical sprint review but have not yet accepted its findings. But the review, as we know, has been the subject of a Policy Exchange document and identifies a broad range of extremist threats from the far right, the manosphere, left-wing and climate-change protests and many other areas. However, it does not seem to prioritise what is evidently the single biggest threat to the UK, which is, of course, Islamism, as my noble friend and many others have mentioned.
The leaked report is interesting because it reveals the Civil Service’s approach to this issue. It seeks to focus on behaviour and conducts, not ideologies that pose enormous threats to this country. These threats include not just terrorist activities and persistent violent protests but dangerous, non-violent activities below the radar by organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, as my noble friend Lady Jenkin mentioned, and Iranian cells. It should be a matter of great concern that certain moderate Muslim countries recognise these risks more than we do.
The clue to the approach in the leaked document can be found in the title: “Understand”. This is in contrast to the title of the APPG’s counterterrorism document, Time to Act. I know which approach I prefer. The core of our problem today is that there has been too much understanding and not enough action. A tolerance has built up of despicable actions by certain segments of our society. Jonathan Hall KC recently referred to this as the normalisation of extremism, where hateful and divisive views, once occupying the fringe, are now widely expressed with impunity.
This is happening because a great deal of hateful extremism operates just below the legal threshold. I would be interested in the Government’s assessment of the report by the commission led by Sir Mark Rowley and Dame Sara Khan in 2021, Operating with Impunity, as it seems very relevant to any strategy formulation today. Sir Mark reiterated his findings as recently as December 2025.
Just 7% of those arrested in pro-Palestinian marches have been charged. When so-called protestors break a police officer’s back with a sledgehammer, a jury is unable to convict them. Is it any wonder that they operate with complete impunity? Terrorist incidents do not occur in a vacuum. The fact that incidents of antisemitism actually increased in the aftermath of the Manchester attack, just as they did in the aftermath of the massacre of 7 October, shows that extremism needs to be addressed early and decisively.
Part of the problem, as has been mentioned, is the fear of appearing discriminatory. Dame Sara Khan put the problem well in her recent review on social cohesion and democratic resilience. She says:
“It is vital that police forces do not inadvertently support hate preachers and extremist actors in the misguided belief that such activity supports social cohesion or diversity and inclusion principles”.
These comments could apply to important cases in Rotherham and Batley, and most recently with the West Midlands Police Force. As the Government finalise their review, I ask the Minister to ensure that there will be a well-resourced unit to centre on the Islamist threat to this country, especially on the organised—and organised is a key word—funded and planned aspect of this threat. Yes, we need understanding, but it really is time to act.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for arranging this debate and congratulate him on his excellent speech. I also thank my friends the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Walney, for all the work that they are doing to counter extremism. Indeed, I thank all noble friends—I consider everybody in this Room a noble friend—for all the work that they have been doing. I declare my interest as a member of the APPG on Counter Extremism.
I recognise, as others have done, that this is a very challenging and complex issue. We need to consider the issue of extremism as a system-wide problem. It is pervading, in more or less dangerous forms, early education, local and national politics, universities, prisons and even police services, as has been pointed out in terms of bowing to demands and threats from partisan groups in the case of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football match. What will and can the Government do to protect ordinary members of the public from the rising intolerance of absolutist, extremist and uncompromising positions, masquerading as free speech, that have so crept into the national discourse?
I would also ask the Minister about this. From record high antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate incidents to historically high Prevent referrals, all the metrics of assessing this extremist ideology suggest that we are in the grip of an extremism crisis. Can we hear from my noble friend the Government’s explanation of steps they will take to develop their counterextremism strategy and the timetable for that?
One can cite so many examples—we have heard many this afternoon—of ways in which it seems that extremism pervades our society more and more with impunity. One has to ask: when will the CPS act in cases such as that of Dr Aladwan, who has been arrested several times for inciting racial hatred? She has supported Hamas and broken the terms of her bail. Even more alarmingly, I would argue, she has openly involved herself with the Anti-Zionist Movement, a new group which declares that it is intent on
“Pro Armed Resistance … against Jewish supremacy”.
What can and will the Government and the police do to monitor this type of group?
I understand that it is not easy to draw the line or understand where to draw the line, even in cases such as the polarisation of politics, but I would argue that, if we start from a position of zero tolerance as soon as we see constant protests, we may be able to start getting a grip. I quote Rabbi Sacks:
“There is nothing inevitable about the division, fragmentation, extremism, isolation … or the politics of anger that have been the mood of Britain … in recent years”.
We must have the courage to speak out and act against this.
Lord Walney (CB)
My Lords, I add my gratitude and congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, on not only securing this debate but on his continued leadership on this issue. I shall conclude the Back-Bench contributions to this debate with two key questions for the Minister.
The first stems from the confusion, which the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, set out so eloquently, over the Government’s position on a definition of counterextremism. Can the Minister confirm that the focus on attacking democratic institutions and democratic values, which was written into the last definition produced by the previous Government, is still in this Government’s remit on tackling counterextremism? Following on from that, do the Government believe that we should be seeking a legal way to bar public funding to any organisation that demonstrates or promotes extremism or seeks to systematically undermine our democratic values and institutions?
Secondly, related to that, will the Government—the Minister can speak for the Labour Party—set a political lead by pledging not to engage with institutions that seek to systematically undermine our representative democracy rather than to engage with it? This second question echoes much of the concern expressed today around whether the Government will adequately acknowledge and lead in countering Islamist extremism as part of a wider extremist strategy.
I draw the attention of the Minister and noble Lords to the document released by the Government in December last year, entitled Antisemitism: Recent Government Actions and Next Steps. In that document, the Government say that we must be bolder in “calling out … hateful ideologies”. That is absolutely the case, but I think noble Lords might be able to guess the number of times Islamist extremism is mentioned in that entire document. It is zero. So many parts of our society, not only the Jewish community but across society, are looking at the Government to make tackling Islamist extremism, the biggest driver of extremism in our country, in my view, publicly central to a cross-government, cross-departmental effort to keep our citizens safe.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for tabling this Question for Short Debate, which, given the current political environment, is incredibly timely. Ever since the horrific attack on Israel by Hamas on 7 October, which was referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Cryer, we have witnessed weekly marches and protests where those involved have chanted antisemitic slogans. The Jewish community has been not only intimidated but attacked. Even before the horrors of 2023, we saw a worrying rise in extremism across the United Kingdom, Palestine Action and Bash Back being prime examples.
The noble Lord, Lord Massey, was entirely correct when he said that Palestine Action attacked a police officer with a sledgehammer, fracturing her spine. I ask noble Lords to briefly ponder this: a female police officer, a symbol of law and order, who puts herself on the front line to protect innocent members of the community, was attacked with a sledgehammer. The chair of Avon and Somerset Police Federation was entirely right when he said:
“When an officer is assaulted while simply doing their job, the impact is felt across the policing family”.
While His Majesty’s loyal Opposition know that all noble Lords support constructive challenge—it is incredibly important to have an effective balancing view—in the same vein, the Government surely cannot allow a situation, which was referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, where violence is normalised to further a cause that a group of individuals believes in.
Bash Back has engaged in a campaign of systematic intimidation. It hacked the Free Speech Union and vandalised the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The noble Baroness, Lady Cash, told us during Oral Questions about the impact its illegal actions had not just on employees at the Equality and Human Rights Commission but on other completely innocent bystanders in the building. The effects are far-reaching, mentally and psychologically. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, mentioned social media and online activity. Bash Back published a manual on its website which advised people how to commit serious criminal offences and avoid prosecution. I simply ask the Minister: how can that be possible?
The noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Walney, flagged that a comprehensive definition of extremism does exist. It was drafted by the previous Conservative Government and, in answer to a Written Question on 18 June last year, the Minister confirmed that the Government were also using that definition. While this is, of course, positive movement, law-abiding citizens are clamouring to ask how the Government intend to operationalise that definition across the country. How exactly will local authorities, regulators, schools, prisons, online platforms and others be trained to utilise the definition?
So we welcome the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, to drive forward a counterextremism strategy. There is a developing tranche of organisations which, while not meeting the threshold for terrorism, pose serious threats to public safety, law-abiding citizens and democracy. It has to be the case that an appropriate and relevant legislative response is put in place at pace by this Government to deal with the ever-increasing threat to society of extremist groups. Delay is simply not an option.
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.