King’s Speech

Baroness Foster of Oxton Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, In November 2023, in a speech about the October 7 attacks in Israel, I spoke about the escalation of Islamic extremism throughout the West. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with many other terror organisations, during the last 40 years had spread like a cancer across the globe. It was not as though there had been no warnings. In 2001, as an MEP, following 9/11, I was the rapporteur in the European Parliament responsible for the legislation on security at airports. I had spent 25 years in the airline industry and witnessed the growing threats from hijacking by the PLO and Black September in the 1970s to the horrific terrorist attack on flight Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie.

It should have been a wake-up call, but it has not been. We have had 30 years of the IRA’s atrocities, murdering civilians on our shores. However, as those threats began to diminish, they have been replaced by the terrorist atrocities we have seen at first hand—7/7, Glasgow Airport, Lee Rigby, Westminster, Manchester Arena, London Bridge, Reading, and many more—carried out by Islamic extremists, as if counterterrorism and the security services do not have anything better to do.

After October 7, the pro-Palestinian hate protests started. Week in, week out, we heard “from the river to the sea” and calls for jihad. Nazi placards and blatant antisemitism were in full view. Hizb ut-Tahrir, later proscribed, took part. Hamas sympathisers and children dressed as Hamas terrorists had their photographs taken with members of the Metropolitan Police. I complained, we complained, and nothing was done. Excuses were made, and so it continues.

Some of us met with Gold Command from the Metropolitan Police more than 18 months ago. I asked about the threshold which apparently, if reached, would mean that these protests would have to stop. He obfuscated, and so I asked him, “If these protesters shouted, ‘Kill the Blacks!’”—he was a Black officer—“or ‘Kill all Muslims!’, would there have been a second march, or any following?” I believe not.

Two and a half years in, antisemitism has escalated to a degree I thought I would never see in my lifetime. There are attacks on synagogues, restaurants and shops, murders and stabbings, and British families and children are now surrounded by a ring of steel. They are threatened daily and fear for their lives. Warm words will no longer wash.

The Prime Minister sounded very surprised when he spoke recently. Where has he been? He blamed the far right, as usual. It appears that those of us who speak out on these issues and spell out the problem are all far right. The vast majority of people who marched at the weekend in the “Unite the Kingdom” rally were certainly not far right. They were ordinary people tired of living with this Islamist threat hanging over us. There were Israeli flags, Iranian flags, and every flag from every part of the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, at the Nakba rally, they were still calling for the annihilation of all Jews and of Israel, and much more.

In conclusion, the public are sick and tired of this appeasing approach to these Islamists who actually hate our country. Unless the Government, the Metropolitan Police, the Home Secretary and everyone else involved are prepared to stop talking and take action, this will not improve. As Churchill once said,

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”


Let me be clear: those of us speaking out on this will not stay silent.

Criminal Court Reform

Baroness Foster of Oxton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, the Justice Secretary repeatedly emphasised the lengthy waiting times in bringing cases to court. I am not a lawyer—I am one of the non-lawyers in the Chamber today—but I was disappointed that the Statement did not acknowledge the difficulties that had been brought about by the Covid lockdowns, across two or three years, which should be acknowledged. Notwithstanding that, the Minister pointed out that all the evidence, including from social media, that now has to be collected for any trial these days takes an inordinate amount of time to collate. Nevertheless, when it comes to unnecessarily lengthy waiting times, this is pure hypocrisy, given that the same Justice Secretary supports bringing to court former British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland 50 years ago. In addition, the Government have certainly managed to find time recently to bring to court, pretty quickly, people who had maybe put not very nice posts on social media. Neither the public nor, I think, many in the judiciary support the steps that the Government wish to take—certainly from what I have heard. I therefore urge the Minister to reconsider this ill-judged proposal and defer bringing it forward.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her observations, which echoed what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said. I did my best to try to keep this non-partisan as far as possible until provoked into it by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie. It is true that Covid had an effect on the backlog, but that is not the only element; a lot of it is due to the cuts in the criminal justice system. For example, one of the questions that I am sure somebody will ask me at some point is why we simply do not open up all the unused courtrooms. The reason is that a court is much more than just a room. It is staffed by a lot of people, which includes the barristers and the solicitors, and we do not have enough criminal barristers any more because of the cuts to legal aid—about which the party opposite was warned at the time they made them. That is why we are going to increase funding for legal aid and the match funding for pupillages to try to grow back up that venerable body of practitioners. I will not comment on individual cases or categories of cases; this is a systemic problem that requires a systemic solution.