National Security

Andrew Pakes Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I absolutely agree with the final remarks of the Chair of the Select Committee. None of us wants to be mourning another of our colleagues, either current or former, and that is why I believe that change is needed. The right hon. Lady will know that the responsibilities for the protective security system as it stands today are shared across multiple Departments, including the Parliamentary Security Department, individual local police forces, the Home Office and RAVEC—the Royal and VIP Executive Committee. It is a fragmented system and I am acknowledging today that, while everybody works hard within that system to provide a good security response for individuals in public life, it needs to be looked at again because of the range of threats that we now see, and the complexity of the changing environment.

When the system was first set up, nobody had in mind that we would have high-profile political leaders who were not in Parliament. That was not how our political culture used to work, but things have changed and the system has not been able to keep up in the way that it needs to do so. That is why I have announced the expansion of Operation Ford to cover more people, so that at least they have some contact with police, can access advice and, where necessary, can have an assessment of their risk with other security measures attached to it. However, the system needs an overhaul, and that is why the review is an important step forward. I will be finalising official terms of reference with Stephen Lovegrove, the independent reviewer, and I will obviously ensure that the House is updated. As I say, I want this done within six months because I recognise the urgency of the situation.

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab/Co-op)]

Faith matters in this country, and nothing strikes our shared British values more than attacks on places of worship. It is absolutely right that this Government call out the attacks on synagogues and other Jewish communal organisations, and it is right that Members of this House push the Government to do more to tackle antisemitism and make the resources available. There is also a wider hatred against other faiths in this country, and I am aware that in my gurdwaras, mosques and places of other religious faiths, people are worried about attacks on their communal spaces and their sacred ability to worship freely as part of modern Britain. What more can my right hon. Friend do to focus not just on antisemitism, which it is right to do, but on what support and funding are available to other places of worship, to ensure that modern Britain is a place where all our faiths have a place and are represented and protected?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is a sacred ability of all our citizens who have a faith to practise their faith freely in their places of worship—a freedom that I have availed myself of on many occasions—but I understand people’s fear whenever they hear of an attack, whether on a synagogue, a mosque, a gurdwara or any other place of worship. My hon. Friend might be aware that the Government have already allocated record funding of over £70 million for the protective security schemes for faith communities. That includes all faith communities. Of that money, £40 million is for the protective security for mosques scheme. I have already updated Members on the money made available to the Jewish community, given the particular range of threats to our Jewish community, but there is funding for which other faith groups can apply, for assistance with security measures.

At the Home Office, we are obviously downstream of many of these issues. We are involved when things are about to go wrong or have gone wrong, and what we can offer in terms of policy are things like security measures. My hon. Friend is right to say that we need a wider societal conversation on how we change our culture, so that we can stop the descent into a more polarised society that we have seen in recent years, and do more to build a cohesive society that is confident and whose citizens can live freely alongside one another.