West Midlands Police: Maccabi Tel Aviv Match

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. Let me say two things. The police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands is accountable to the people of the West Midlands for whatever they say. The chief constable is accountable to the police and crime commissioner and it is for them—I say this genuinely—to determine locally whether they wish to take any further action in the light of the interesting points that my noble friend made.

What we have done, as the Home Office and Home Secretary, is to ask, on 27 November, for an urgent report on the intelligence received and the issues that my noble friend mentioned. We have asked for that to be done via His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary by 31 December, so that we can get to the bottom of what was said and what information led to it. It is better that I wait for the outcome of the report that we commissioned before I comment in detail on any of the potential allegations that have been made. The Home Affairs Select Committee is looking at this issue separately and will produce its own report in due course.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, we now know that the match decision was based on fake evidence, but it is not just a local matter. I have made a list of the number of times that this Prime Minister has said, “We will not tolerate antisemitism in our society and on our streets”. But he does and they do: more than any other Government I remember in recent years. It is time for the Government to indicate to the police that they should not prioritise the supposed interests of violent, unreasonable, anti-Israel politicians and mobs over the peaceful majority, whether around football or at protests.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Let me, in the nicest possible way, refute exactly what the noble Baroness said. This Prime Minister is committed to rooting out and tackling antisemitism and to making sure that we do not have racism in our society. He is doing so in a way that also allows for people who take a view on Israel and the performance of the Israeli state to protest peacefully. If the noble Baroness looks at the Crime and Policing Bill that we are taking through now, she will see that we are putting in a range of measures to stop protests that impact on any community in a particular way.

The noble Baroness also raised some wider issues, which I accept, which is why we have asked His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to look at them, as well as the specific allegations to which my noble friend referred, and at whether we can improve the performance of safety group assessments in the areas that she mentioned.