National Security (State Threats) Bill

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, in what has been an informative, if alarming, debate—alarming because it has highlighted the degree to which the freedoms which my grandparents’ generation fought and died for are now under grave threat. The need for this Bill underlines how much the social context has changed, as my noble friend Lady Verma alluded to. I doubt that the older generation could have anticipated just how strong a sense of entitlement to those freedoms their great-grandchildren would develop. It is as if their great-grandparents’ sacrifice, made in blood, sweat and tears, was ancient history, something that belonged in a Hollywood blockbuster, but which was irrelevant to today’s apparently so much more sophisticated world.

I suspect that, having made that sacrifice in order that we might be free from the racist, genocidal, Jew-hating Nazis, my grandparents’ generation would appreciate far more than we do the trouble we are in and the urgency of getting the measures in this Bill, and perhaps others, on to the statute book. They would see the extent to which the threat to our democracy posed by hostile states’ use of proxies and malign non-state actors is exacerbated by society’s privileged, desensitised indifference to the danger they pose.

The Lord Privy Seal said shortly before we began this debate that the public do not appreciate the threat. I agree with her, but I would go further. I fear that some are in denial, desperately clinging to a delusion that peace is permanent, that the welfare state is inviolable and that deterrence does not matter enough to justify the necessary recalibration of resources. Meanwhile, hostile states and their proxies exploit our weakness ruthlessly and insidiously, turning those hard-won freedoms that we take for granted against us.

Take racism as an example. This country outlawed racism based, among other criteria, on ethnic origin, 61 years ago. Yet our enemies cynically weaponise democracy, exploiting demonstrations featuring pernicious racist chants as if they were somehow a celebration of democratic rights rather than a concerted attempt by some to single out and intimidate a particular race—our Jewish brothers and sisters—and thereby undermine our social and cultural cohesion. Shamefully, we let them do it. We let them undermine a crucial aspect of our democracy, supposedly in the name of democracy.

I welcome this Bill because it goes some way to addressing the threat we face. My question is whether it goes far enough. Are its measures truly commensurate with the scale of that threat? I will not rehearse the points already made, but I join with those who wonder whether it takes into account sufficiently the rise of what could be termed “hatred for hire”, such as we saw in the arson attacks on the Jewish community ambulances and the attack on the Prime Minister’s former home, which the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, mentioned.

I close with three points. The first is a thank you to our wonderful security services, who work so hard within difficult democratic constraints to keep us safe, particularly in our case as parliamentarians. The second is to highlight the importance of pre-emption as a means of prevention. One only has to consider that the odious Chinese Communist Party regime operated a secret police hub here in London to spy on and intimidate Hong Kong dissidents to know that in some cases, our enemies are running rings around us. Their aggression and hostile intent are palpable. I ask the Minister, who we all appreciate is dedicated to ensuring the safety and security of our country, whether he is absolutely sure that the powers in this Bill are sufficiently aggressive and pre-emptive in return.

My final point is this. Is the Minister confident that the Bill takes account of the incredibly unstable context in which we consider it? The Hormuz sell-out seems to be unravelling as we speak. A previously reliable partner is becoming reliably unreliable, yet some would say that we are still tripping over ourselves to observe legal niceties. I fear that we make our enemies laugh. I hope that our combined determination to close any gaps in the Bill, mentioned during this debate, will ensure that they have no reason to laugh at us—either today or in the future.