Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Pannick

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 27th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, despite everything that the Minister has said on proscription of the IRGC, we are now in something of an Alice in Wonderland world. The Prime Minister has told the media in recent days that the Government propose to introduce further legislation to address state threats. Such legislation has been reported by the BBC, among others, as enabling the Government to ban state-related organisations such as the IRGC. The Prime Minister has said that the King’s Speech next month will commit to such legislation. Yet the Terrorism Act already permits such a ban: Section 1(4) states that terrorist action includes action outside the UK; the public affected includes the public of a country outside the UK; and the Government affected means the Government of another country as well as the Government of the UK. Therefore, terrorism is specifically international. Section 3, as we know, permits the proscription of terrorist organisations without limiting them to UK organisations or UK terrorism.

The Government know this. As we heard last week, the Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, and the present Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper—herself a former Home Secretary—specifically called for proscription of the IRGC while in opposition, just as we on these Benches have consistently called for it. Nobody but nobody has said that there has been no power to proscribe the IRGC because it is state-related.

The EU, led by France and Italy, as well as Australia, the United States, Canada and several of the Gulf states, have all proscribed the IRGC. Yet the Government, despite previous Labour policy, have promised Parliament only an anodyne statement about

“the general policies and procedures of the Secretary of State in relation to the Secretary of State’s powers under Section 3”.

Last week, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, called that patronising. It is worse than that. Despite their previous policy, the Government rely only on the repeated mantra that they will not give a running commentary on decisions on proscription.

The IRGC is connected, on very substantial evidence, not only to the appalling oppression and murder of protesters in Iran in December and January, but to multiple acts of terrorism in the UK and abroad. There are clear links with antisemitic attacks here and elsewhere in Europe and the world, including on synagogues. The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre, responsible for monitoring and assisting international shipping, has reported on large numbers of attacks on cargo ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz, which are carried out by the IRGC or connected entities.

We recognise, of course, that the Government have a strong view on the Iranian regime, as the Minister rightly said, yet they have said to Parliament that we are not entitled to an explanation of why the IRGC is not to be proscribed but must wait for further legislation targeted at state-related organisations for such proscription. Yet, if indeed the new legislation is to involve the implementation of the recommendations of Jonathan Hall KC, in his recent report updated in January, that was aimed at improving legislation on state threats under the National Security Act and the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act. For the proscription of the IRGC under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act, such new legislation is unnecessary and a red herring.

We should continue to demand a proper and timely explanation of what the Government intend to do and when, subject, we agree of course, to the provision of confidential information being restricted to the Intelligence and Security Committee. We support the Conservative Motion B1, and if the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, wishes to test the opinion of the House, we will vote for his Motion.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, the House should take account of two factors. My understanding of the advice from the much-respected Jonathan Hall, the Government’s adviser on terrorism legislation, is that specific new legislation is required to ensure that malign state actors can be proscribed and dealt with.

Secondly, the House should take account of the fact that, on a visit to Kenton synagogue last Thursday—one of the synagogues that has been subjected to a disgraceful firebomb attack—the Prime Minister gave what I understand to be a very clear commitment:

“We go into a new session in a few weeks’ time, and we’ll bring that legislation forward”.


It is true that the Prime Minister has not specifically committed to proscribe the IRGC, but my understanding is that that is because the Government never give advance notice of who they are going to proscribe. If the Government do not carry out these commitments, do not bring forward legislation and do not implement it very speedily, I would regard that as a very serious breach of faith and this House will no doubt have much to say about it.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Pannick

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)]

I stress that the Deputy Speaker made it clear that people who arrive late for the debate are not allowed to speak. I think it is difficult for the noble Lord, having heard the explanation and the discussion, to stand up and speak. I am sorry.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

We are a self-governing House. If it is the will of the House that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, speak briefly from the Front Bench, I suggest that we should hear him.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I hope I will be permitted to speak briefly. I have followed the arguments on all these matters throughout these proceedings.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Pannick

Report stage
Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

The noble Lord has already accepted that the right to protest has to be balanced against the rights of others. Surely the virtue of the cumulative disruption provision, Clause 140, is that it is totally unacceptable that the rights of others who wish to pray in their synagogue, who wish to get to their synagogue, who wish to get away from their synagogue, should be repeatedly disrupted in the same place every week. The cumulative nature of the disruption pushes the balance in favour of asking the protesters not to cease protesting but to do it somewhere else.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

The answer to that is that the cumulative nature of the disruption is not what causes the oppression to worshippers at synagogues or mosques or anywhere else. We have accepted, for the purpose of Report, restrictions on the right to protest near places of worship on condition that it is relevant and that we are talking about the place of worship and worshippers being disrupted. The fact that a legitimate protest is repeated is not a reason for restricting the protests. If the rights and freedoms of others are restricted, that in itself is, under our Amendment 369, a reason for restricting protest, because there is a right to protest. It is not helped by the fact that repeated protests are seen as more difficult. I see the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about repeated protests at synagogues and mosques, but they are covered by our condition on restriction at a place of worship. I beg to move.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Pannick

Report stage
Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, criticism of the Ziegler decision is well-founded and well-taken, but the law has moved on. For example, in the Supreme Court’s abortion services case, 2022 UKSC 32, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed, speaking for a seven-judge Supreme Court, said at paragraph 42:

“The decision in Ziegler was widely understood as having established that every criminal conviction of protesters involved a restriction upon their Convention rights, and must be proved to be justified and proportionate on the basis of an assessment of the particular facts. As explained, that understanding was mistaken”.


The law has moved on.

As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, recognised, there have been a number of more recent cases in which the courts emphasised, in the context of protest, that it is sufficient that Parliament has laid down a particular offence. It is therefore not necessary for the prosecution to prove proportionality on the facts of the individual case. It may well be that more clarity is required in this area, but the House should proceed on the recognition that Ziegler, for all its faults, is not current law.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for the elegant way that he introduced this amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for explaining his perspective on it. In effect, it was a police perspective, given that the police find it difficult to apply the law as it was thought to be after Ziegler. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for explaining that the law has moved on since Ziegler.

I do not propose to get into the argument of precisely what the law is in the light of Ziegler as subsequently interpreted. I am concerned with the way that this amendment addresses the question of reasonable excuse. This is achieved by, in effect, spelling it out in proposed new subsection (2), which says:

“A person has no excuse for the conduct if … it is intended to intimidate, provoke, inconvenience or otherwise harm members of the public by interrupting or disrupting their freedom to carry on a lawful activity”.


That hides within it an open question about the meaning of intention in that context. It is for that reason that I do not support the amendment as drafted.

It may well be that a person recognises that conduct that is otherwise perfectly lawful, particularly in a context of peaceful protest, may inevitably carry the consequence of provoking or inconveniencing other members of the public by interrupting or disrupting their freedom to carry on a lawful activity. That comes back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made in the context of obstructing the highway. Any obstruction or interference with traffic or movement or getting to work, or any delay, could all be intended consequences of lawful protest. What worries me is that this amendment, as drafted, would acknowledge that intention and say that there could be no excuse. It is not then a question of weighing up any excuse in the light of what the courts may consider to be an excuse in any particular case; the question is what the intended consequence would be, and the intended consequence may appear to the people charged with the conduct to be entirely reasonable, though intended, and may objectively be entirely reasonable, though intended.

Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Pannick

Report stage
Wednesday 23rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Is it really appropriate for a Secretary of State to insist that the circumstances relating to an individual are publicly exposed—subject to cross-examination, subject to a public judgment—when the individual whose private rights are the subject of those proceedings wishes, no doubt for good reason, that they not be so exposed? Is it really appropriate?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

I venture to suggest that in some circumstances it might be, but I add an important point, which is that my party has been involved in discussions with the Government about the protection of such a worker.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

There is nothing secret about any such discussions. They relate to anonymity for such a worker and the restrictions on publicity that might protect such a worker from exactly the dangers and difficulties that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, suggests and envisages. But the Secretary of State might, in a given case, take the view that an issue of law or principle was involved, with wider ramifications going beyond that particular case, and that the public interest required the issue to be determined. With respect to all the arguments that have been put by those who have spoken before me, I am not sure that any of those arguments met that possibility, certainly not in the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Murray, expressed it. Even the moderate tones of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, a colleague of mine, failed to deal comprehensively with that suggestion.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

This is a very important matter. Surely the answer to his concern that the individual case may raise wider, broader issues is that it is absolutely inevitable in those circumstances that there will be other affected workers, one of whom no doubt will bring proceedings. We do not need the Secretary of State to bring proceedings in those circumstances. It is inconceivable.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

There might be others. Then again, there might not. I quite accept that a Secretary of State would have to weigh up very carefully the competing considerations in favour of the public interest in having a point determined against the private interest of the worker concerned in not being involved in any way in litigation. Of course, the worker concerned does not have to be involved; proceedings are brought—this is a point I will come on to in a moment—as if he were involved, but the point may need determination in any case.

I think I have covered the point about the public interest, which I suspect is the argument that we will hear from the Government. Nevertheless, and on a point that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, made, in a case where Section 113 is invoked, I suggest that it would be utterly wrong for such a worker to be exposed to risk by the Secretary of State proceeding with such a case. I have dealt with the point about anonymity and circumscribing publicity, and I suggest that this must be addressed before this clause becomes law.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

Such protections as would be afforded would depend on the individual case and on such measures as the tribunal thought appropriate; they might indeed include anonymity or witness protection in an extreme case. I do not believe that that is likely, but I do believe that the right of the worker to some sort of privacy, in a case in which he positively did not want to be identified, would have to be protected.

Going on to my point about the risk in costs, I suggest that it would be simply unconscionable if the decision of the Secretary of the State to take proceedings could expose the worker to a risk in costs. There is no protection in the Bill for a worker on this point; indeed, in subsections (3) and (6) in particular, there is the clear suggestion that there would be a risk in costs for an unwilling worker claimant. Specifically, subsection (3) would provide that, if the Secretary of State brings such proceedings, they are

“to be proceeded with as if they had been brought by the worker”,

and that needs to be addressed. As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, pointed out, subsection (6) will provide that:

“The Secretary of State is not liable to any worker for anything done (or omitted to be done) in, or in connection with, the discharge or purported discharge of the Secretary of State’s functions by virtue of this section”.


That, in my submission, renders the worker vulnerable to an order in costs and there ought to be an indemnity against any such order. I accept that there is not one; the question is therefore whether that can be addressed by the Government. It is not a question that leads to a stand part decision that the clause should be left out of the Bill altogether.

We would of course hope that no employment tribunal would make a costs order against a worker in such circumstances, but this House should not proceed on the basis of hope alone; the possibility remains, particularly if the tribunal were to take a dim view of the worker’s conduct. That, we should remember, may be exactly the conduct that sensibly dissuaded the worker from launching proceedings in the first place.

I invite the Government to bring forward an amendment, hopefully by agreement at Third Reading, whereby protection from this risk in costs could be given to a worker, either by way of indemnity by the Secretary of State or by a prohibition on a costs order. I also urge the Government to look at the other protections that the worker might have. Alternatively, the Government might consider giving solid assurances to meet this point. I give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Can I ask for the noble Lord’s assistance? He mentioned that, according to subsection (3),

“the proceedings are to be proceeded with as if they had been brought by the worker”.

Does he think that that means that if the worker decides to withdraw the proceedings, they are to be treated as withdrawn?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

The noble Lord has plainly given the Government solid pause for thought on that point, because of course any proceedings before a tribunal of first instance can be withdrawn by the litigants. The litigants in this case would be the Secretary of State and the other party—presumably the employer. If subsection (3) is given the interpretation that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, suggests might be given to it, the worker would be treated as the litigant. That is a difficult point for the courts to resolve. It is a point that at Third Reading the Government really must resolve, and that I entirely accept.