Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2024

Baroness Lawlor Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord very much indeed for his support and the support of his party. We have covered some ground here and I will do my very best to answer the questions.

Why have we decided to proscribe the Terrogram collective now? I think I explained much of this in my opening remarks but to proscribe an organisation the Home Secretary must believe that it is concerned in terrorism and it is right that any decision to proscribe must be proportionate and necessary. As the House has heard, Terrorgram involves itself in preparing for terrorism through instruction material. It also promotes and encourages terrorism through its publications which contain violent narratives. As proscription is such a powerful counterterrorism tool, cases are scrutinised carefully to ensure that the decisions we take are lawful, consistent and proportionate. Proscription sends such a strong message of the UK’s commitment to tackling terrorism globally and calling out this activity wherever it is committed, but the evidence has to be very carefully scrutinised and that is, in essence, the reason why it has taken a while to get to this point.

The noble Lord also asked me about what is happening with the counter-extremism strategy and what has replaced the old one. The Government remain very much focused on disrupting the activities and influence of extremists, supporting those who stand up to extremism and stopping people from being drawn into terrorism. We keep our response to extremism under constant review, for the reasons the noble Lord laid out, in particular things such as the CREST research that he referred to. We have to make sure that it is best placed to tackle evolving threats. The Government’s current focus is to use existing mechanisms to analyse, prevent and disrupt the spread of high-harm extremist ideologies that can lead from community division and radicalisation into terrorism, particularly those that radicalise others but deliberately operate below counterterrorism thresholds. Where there is evidence of purposeful actions that are potentially radicalising others into terrorism or violence, proportionate disruptive action will be considered.

The noble Lord made comments on incel and misogyny. We will not tolerate the spread of the harmful ideologies that can lead to these sorts of activities. There is a wide range of offences and powers that can be used to counter the threat from these areas and we are working to maximise their use. Of course, we know, as the noble Lord said, that the extremism landscape is constantly evolving and therefore that we have to continually seek to build and refresh our knowledge of the threat it poses. From 1 April 2023, the Government instructed all police forces in England and Wales to identify any violence against the person, including stalking and harassment, or sexual offences where the crime is deemed to be motivated by a hostility towards the victim’s sex. The implementation of sex-based hostility recording illustrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that we have a better understanding of these abhorrent crimes, and that will obviously assist us in future policy development.

I conclude by again offering my thanks for the House’s consideration of and support for this very important measure. As I have outlined, it is proportionate and necessary in our ongoing effort to tackle terrorism to protect the public and to defend our values. There is no place whatever for the vile ideology espoused by the Terrorgram collective, and we will not stand for it. We will never relent in showing up terrorism for what it is: a poisonous, corrosive force that will always fail. With that, I commend the order to the House.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the statutory order. I support the addition of the Terrorgram collective to follow the recent addition of Hizb ut-Tahrir to the proscribed organisation list under this order. This online terror collective, as has been said, supported acts of terrorism in Norway and Slovakia, and incitement in the Baltimore case of attacks on power substations. In common with its immediate predecessor on the list, it seeks to incite violence against Jewish people in the State of Israel, including by supporting Hamas’s attack of 7 October.

Such a proscription therefore has my support, but it prompts a wider question about the Terrorism Act 2000, under which the proscriptions are made. That Act defines terrorism in Section 1, which includes

“the use or threat of action where … the use or threat is designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and … the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious … or ideological cause”.

In subsection (2)(d), it refers to creating

“a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public”

and so on.

Therefore, I have a question for my noble friend the Minister. While proscription outlaws an organisation, it does not address the blatant advocacy on our streets during the pro-Palestine marches—actions of intimidation against the Jewish community in Israel or at home. These, in the words of the 2000 Act, create

“a serious risk to the … safety of the public or a section of the public”,

and are

“designed to influence the government … or to intimidate”.

I urge my noble friend, in the same spirit of this addition to the proscribed list, to reconsider the arrangements for these marches in this context. Surely it is time for His Majesty’s Government to go beyond the standard reply that policing of marches is an operational matter for the police. Does the intimidation and threat to a section of our people—the Jewish minority here and overseas—not require a more direct address by the law, given that policing to date has proved inadequate, in addition to this proscription, which I welcome?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate the sentiments behind my noble friend’s questions. I am not sure they are entirely appropriate for this format, but I will just rehash the powers conferred on the Government under the Public Order Act 1986. The Home Secretary does not have the direct power to prohibit a public procession; the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has the power to prohibit public processions under Section 13 of the Act. Before this power can be used, they must reasonably believe that the power to impose conditions under Section 12 of the Act would not be sufficient to prevent serious public disorder, and must obtain the consent of the Secretary of State. I am afraid that those are questions that would be better addressed to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.