National Security (State Threats) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 17th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s construction of

proposed new section 33G, but I am sure that we can pick up that point in Committee, when we do line-by-line scrutiny. The Bill is intended to be read alongside all our other pieces of international and human rights legislation, and the Bill is compliant with our domestic and international human rights obligations.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Your Party)]

The Bill gives considerably more powers to the Home Secretary and the Government, so it results in greater Executive power. Further to earlier interventions, is she not concerned that the Executive, and this branch of the Executive, are to have much greater power, but there is no commensurate increase in bodies’ accountability to Parliament for deciding what organisations and which individuals are to be sanctioned, and what the system will be for making those decisions? We have been through this process many times, going right back to the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in the 1970s. Does she not feel that there is a danger of our moving too far away from parliamentary and public accountability for the very important decision to deny liberty to various individuals, who will have difficulty challenging that legally?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman almost entirely. The Executive have a responsibility to protect and maintain this country’s national security, and we have to move when we see that hostile actors are employing new methods to put our people and interests at risk. We have seen an increase in hostile activity from those who are not directly related to foreign powers, but have a relationship with them. That is why we are bringing forward the designated body condition in the Bill. It rather sounds as if he questions the basis for us having counter-terror legislation, or this legislation, at all. I disagree with him on that. I think we have a suitable legal framework, under both the Terrorism Act 2000 and this new Bill, to deal with all the threats that this country faces, including those that are emerging as new ways for people to put our citizens at risk.

Let me turn to the threat posed by Iran. We are debating this Bill in the shadow of a recent surge in hostile activity by the Iranian state. In just a single year, MI5 has tracked and disrupted over 20 potentially lethal Iranian plots. These have targeted dissidents, media organisations and critics of the Iranian regime, and they pose a real and enduring threat to our Jewish community here at home.