Antisemitic Attacks

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend, whose point goes to the heart of intelligence-led policing. We need to look, through intelligence and the security services, who do a great job, at who is behind motivating these attacks, the actors who are undertaking them and whether they are being supported or directed by other state organisations, and we need to take action accordingly. The security services, the police and the Home Office are constantly on that ball, trying to ensure that we find out who are the perpetrators and stopping attacks as well as dealing with the consequences.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My noble friend Lord Palmer quoted his local rabbi as saying that this is unacceptable for us as a nation. That is what I would like to emphasise. The Minister has given us an account of a lot of the good work that the Government have done, but I cannot help thinking that we are not really getting down to the roots. Even the title of the Statement is “Antisemitic Attacks”, which is a bit precise. Antisemitism is a virus, as has been said, that ideally we want to cure, but first we have to look at all the root causes and the way in which it is changing and mutating. We need something bigger and bolder to get across to the nation what is happening to the Jewish community, such as the Prime Minister going on television, if that is not a daft idea. We need to sock it to our fellow Brits just what the Jewish community is experiencing at the moment.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The title of the Statement is what it is because my honourable friend the Security Minister wanted to make a Statement to the House of Commons straight after the events just over a week ago. He went to the House of Commons last week and we are discussing that Statement today. He also visited the synagogues, as did my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on Friday last week.

It is absolutely vital that politicians of all parties stand with the Jewish community and look at the very issues that the noble Baroness mentioned, which are the root causes. We have an antisemitism commissioner, my noble friend Lord Mann, reports coming through about what we need to do in the long term and the social cohesion strategy, which is funded by £800 million of taxpayers’ resource and is trying to bring together actions to make sure that we have the social cohesion that we want. We will also continue using intelligence-led policing to track down those who are undertaking this type of activity.