Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Therefore, if the Minister is not content with this amendment, he has it in his own hands to deal with it. If he has dealt with it when we come back at Third Reading, we can no doubt make a judgment as to whether it is sufficient. We cannot run away from this any more. It is going on all the time, and in institutions in which huge amounts of taxpayers’ money are invested we are seeing people who have reached the stage where they feel uncomfortable, even on campus. These are places of learning; it is where there is a generation of people who will in the future run businesses and create wealth, and they are bombarded by this totally unacceptable propaganda. We always pride ourselves on free speech in this country and we have all been parts of protests over the years, but things have got particularly nasty. To simply assume that we can carry on as normal is no longer acceptable.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief. I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment. As I said in Committee, I firmly support her in seeking to amend the emulation requirement in the Terrorism Act 2006. We will of course have a more wide-ranging debate on terrorism in the next group, so I will reserve my wider comments for then.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, for returning to the issue of the glorification of terrorism, our exchange of letters and her movement and reflections on what we said in Committee. I note the support from the noble Lords, Lord Rogan, Lord Empey, Lord Weir, Lord Marks, from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, Lord Polak, from the Conservative Back Benches, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown, and Lord Elliott. I will come back to comments made by other noble Lords as I progress.

Let me say straight away that I have not been a victim of terrorism, but I know people who have been. I have met victims of terrorism not only in the context of Northern Ireland when I had the honour of serving there but in this job, from a range of backgrounds. I know that discussion of all these issues, including in this debate, causes great pain for those victims. However, I hope can explain why, even with the changes that have been made by the noble Baroness, I cannot accept the amendment in its current form.

Let me first express and reiterate the purpose of the encouragement offence. It was introduced after the 7/7 attacks and is designed to act as a precursor offence to reduce the risk of people being encouraged to carry out acts of terrorism. The offence applies equally to statements made online or offline. It also applies even where an individual is reckless about the impact of their statement—that goes some way to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

Encouragement includes any statements that glorify acts of terrorism. To be clear, “acts of terrorism” in this context includes any action taken for the purposes of terrorism, whether or not it was taken by a proscribed organisation. Today, we have talked about the IRA—which, at one stage, was heavily proscribed—and about Palestine Action and other organisations in relation to the current conflicts and activities in Palestine and Israel. “Glorification” is defined in the 2006 Act—which was passed by a previous Government in which I served—as including any “praise or celebration”.

I recognise that Amendment 418 is a modified version of the noble Baroness’s proposal made in Committee. Specifically, the amendment would retain the historical safeguard that I pointed out to her and that is necessary to limit the offence, for the very reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, indicated today. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for having taken into account our concerns. However, the amendment would still disapply this to statements that indirectly encouraged acts of terrorism carried out by proscribed organisations.

The offence was carefully drafted at the time of its introduction to ensure that statements that are automatically captured by the offence have to meet both the requirement that the statement glorifies an act of terrorism and the historical safeguard. Amendment 418 attempts to split up these two requirements, when it was always intended that these requirements would work together. I remind the House that the encouragement offence has been recently reviewed by Jonathan Hall KC, the current Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, at the Government’s request and in light of the 7 October attacks, which a number of noble Lords referred to. In that review, he strongly advised against removing this historical safeguard.

In addition, the offence is very clear that statements that glorify acts of terrorism in such a way as to encourage others to carry out these acts would include acts of terrorism carried out by proscribed organisations. As a result, it is not necessary to spell this out any more clearly in legislation. As with the noble Baroness’s previous amendment tabled in Committee, it is also worth highlighting—this point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich—that there are other offences that may be relevant to her concern too. In particular, Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it an offence to invite support for a proscribed organisation. The noble Lords, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown and Lord Elliott, made points about prosecutions, which have very often been undertaken under that legislation. The offence in this Bill is designed to address the harm that comes from the legitimisation of terrorist organisations, which the noble Baroness has spoken about.

We may need to test the opinion of the House, but I know why the noble Baroness has brought the amendment forward. I know why noble Lords—particularly those with fresh memories of activities in Northern Ireland, including those who saw activities that still offend many people in Northern Ireland—support the amendment. I know why the noble Lord, Lord Polak, supports the amendment. However, I say to all of them that the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation has reviewed it and believes the offence is currently fit for purpose. There are many other mechanisms—including those that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, pointed to—that will lead to prosecutions for these issues. There is also a significant effort to ensure that the Government support activities to turn people away from terrorism—through the Prevent scheme, education and a range of other mechanisms—so that people are not politicised towards terrorism through activities undertaken.

With those reasons in mind, while I recognise the noble Baroness’s concerns and understand why she brought them forward, I hope that the reassurances I have given mean that she will not press the amendment to a Division. I await her response.

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Finally, Amendment 422C calls for a review of any organisations related to the Iranian Government, with a view to considering whether they should be proscribed. The Liberal Democrats have long supported the proscription of the IRGC. It is sensible in the current circumstances—in the context of the war in Iran—that there should be consideration of other organisations connected with the Iranian Government. In the light of the oppressive and murderous treatment meted out to protesters and dissidents in Iran in January, it is very important to keep under consideration the issues of which organisations connected to the Iranian Government should properly be proscribed. So that is an amendment that we also support.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this is a very large and wide-ranging group of amendments, all relating to varying aspects of the law on terrorism and the proscription of terrorist groups. Given the amount that we need to get through today, I will be as brief as possible.

I have tabled Amendments 422C and 467AAA. The new clause proposed by Amendment 422C would require the Secretary of State to

“review whether any organisations related to the Iranian government should be proscribed under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000”

within one month of Royal Assent. It would also require the Government to publish the results of that review and give reasons for the decision. Amendment 467AAA would simply ensure that the proposed new clause came into effect on the day that the Bill passed.

I acknowledge at the outset that this amendment is perhaps a round-about way of confronting a very simple but incredibly serious issue. I am, of course, concerned about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps specifically. Unfortunately, I was advised that an amendment to primary legislation that inserted the name of an organisation into Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000 would be hybridising, so I have not done so.

I am in the fortunate position where I am almost certain that I know exactly what the Minister is going to say in response to this amendment: that the Government keep proscription under review at all times and, as such, my amendment is not necessary. But the fact is that the decision the Government have taken not to proscribe the IRGC is not satisfactory.

I am also sure that the Minister will try to attack me by saying that the previous Government did not proscribe the IRGC either. I am fully aware of that fact. But it is blatantly clear now to everyone that the situation is radically different from the situation even last year. We now have the Iranian regime erratically attacking most of the Middle East, blockading the Strait of Hormuz and allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in the United States. So I do not think it unreasonable for this to be the point at which we finally proscribe the IRGC. I know that there are a lot of people in this country who would support that.

On my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s amendments, I am sympathetic to what he is attempting to achieve. The ruling of the High Court in the case of R (on the application of Huda Ammori) v Secretary of State for the Home Department found the proscription of Palestine Action to be unlawful on two of the four grounds before the court. One of those grounds was compatibility with the ECHR. The ruling on the second ground—that the Home Secretary was acting contrary to her own policy—was also contentious.

The court said at paragraph 74 of the judgment that the Home Secretary is required by the Home Office’s policy on proscription to balance the “benefits” and “costs” of proscription. Drawing the courts into what is in essence a political judgment such as this risks a very dangerous precedent, and my noble friend is therefore making an important point.

I also point out to those who might criticise my noble friend’s Amendment 421 that there are still protections against arbitrary proscriptions even if the role of the courts is curtailed. Both Houses of Parliament have to agree to an order under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act, and, under Section 4, an appeal can be made to the Home Secretary to deproscribe an organisation. If that appeal is rejected, an appeal can then be made to the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, which—and this is important—per Section 5(3) of the Act must apply the same principles as the court would in a judicial review. Therefore, there are safeguards against arbitrary proscription and, as such, my noble friend Lord Blencathra is entirely correct to question the role of the courts here.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the amendments in this group—there are quite of lot of them—and the topics that have been raised.

To begin, I reiterate the critical importance of our counterterrorism framework, including proscription, in protecting the public; that is what this is about. I say in response to a number of comments by noble Lords that yes, we always keep the framework under review. As was mentioned in the debate, some organisations have been deproscribed as a result of government examination, and we are held to critical independent oversight, provided by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.

Let me address each of the amendments in turn. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti’s Amendment 420 aims to limit proscription orders to a single organisation per order, ensuring that each group is debated and voted on separately. That has had support today from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and others. I understand my noble friend’s intention. I just say again to them—and to the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger —that Palestine Action was proscribed, along with the other two organisations, according to exactly the same test under the Act that allows proscription to take place. The exact same test was applied to each of those organisations.

In July, those orders were put together in one vote for the purpose of the effective use of parliamentary time. We had a big debate in both the Commons and this Chamber, and there was no underhand purpose in doing that. As I said to the Committee at the time, multiple organisations have routinely been proscribed at the same time, according to the circumstances of the time. That is my “We’ve always done it this way” defence, but we have in fact always done things this way, under every political party in government to date.

There will be instances in future when it is again necessary for organisations to be packaged together for a proscription debate. I understand the purpose of the point made by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. I have discussed this matter with my colleagues who deal with these matters in the House of Commons. I want to reflect on it, but I ask my noble friend to allow us the time to do so, because I do not believe that such legislation should tie the hands of the Government in how they approach proscription. Let us reflect on these sensible points in order to allow a single debate and independent votes. I will leave it at that for the moment.

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

422C: After Clause 207, insert the following new Clause—
“Proscription status of Iran-related entities: review(1) The Secretary of State must, within one month of the date on which this Act is passed, review whether any organisations related to the Iranian government should be proscribed under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (proscription).(2) The Secretary of State must publish the outcome of the review under subsection (1), and this must include the reasons for the Secretary of State’s decision.”

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Amendment 422C seeks a review of the proscription status of Iran-related entities within one month of the date on which the Act is passed. As I said previously and re-emphasise, it is clear to everyone that the situation now is radically different from the situation even last year, and on that basis I think we have a duty to protect people and I therefore seek the opinion of the House.

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[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I express from these Benches our very strong support for these comprehensive amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which she has characteristically introduced so well and to which so many noble Lords have spoken so eloquently in support. I also want to express our concerns regarding the Government’s proposed alternative, Amendment 429B.

In this group, we confront digital harm that is not incidental but engineered by design. AI chatbots are no longer a futuristic curiosity but deeply embedded the lives of our children. They are designed not merely as tools but as confidantes, mentors, companions and, in some cases, explicit romantic partners. Their anthropomorphic features create dangerous emotional dependency. Without statutory safeguards, these bots can provide explicit information on how to self-harm. This is not a flaw but a design feature that drives engagement, and we cannot allow the generative power of AI to become a generator of despair.

We are not debating theoretical risks, as many noble Lords have said today. We are debating the forces that led to the tragic deaths of Sewell Setzer III, mentioned by a number of noble Lords, and Adam Raine, in the United States. Their families are pursuing legal action in the US on the basis that deceptively designed, inadequately safeguarded chatbots can be treated as defective products, and that developers should bear full legal liability when systems encourage, facilitate or fail to interrupt a user’s path to suicide.

I welcome the Government’s admission that a legal loophole exists in the UK. However, their proposed remedy, Amendment 429B, gives us a choice between the clarity of primary legislation through the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the convenience of the Executive. In contrast, the noble Baroness’s amendments provide clarity and embed safety duties in the Bill. Like my noble friend, I highlight Amendment 433, which deals with targeting the engineered features that keep children hooked. We know that bots guilt-trip users who try to end conversations. For a child, this is not a user interface quirk; it is emotional manipulation. These amendments would prohibit such coercive engagement techniques and, crucially, require bots to signpost users to help when asked about health, suicide or self-harm.

The primary legislation route offered by these amendments is the only fully viable and responsible path. If the noble Baroness wants to test the opinion of the House, we will support her in the Lobby. Should we be unable to secure her amendments, we would need to take a view on Amendment 429B. Four specific binding assurances would be required before we could consider supporting it; without them, it is nothing but a dangerous blank cheque. As changing these sections effectively rewrites the criminal threshold of the Online Safety Act, the Government must commit to the equivalent of the super-affirmative procedure for all significant policy choices, including amendments to core definitions or the expansion of duties beyond priority legal content. Standard procedures will not give this House the scrutiny needed.

Regarding mandatory supply chain transparency, we need a firm commitment that regulations will include a statutory mandate for providers to document and share their technical blueprints with Ofcom. Without this, the regulator cannot do its job. The Minister must confirm that the power will be used to tackle the issues raised by subsections (6) and (7) of Section 192 of the Online Safety Act, ensuring that chatbots cannot evade regulation simply because they lack a human mens rea. A bot does not intend harm, but it can be designed to cause it. The Minister must commit that any new regulations will explicitly disapply the requirement to prove human intent for AI-generated content. Regulations must define control across the entire AI supply chain so that accountability is not lost in a black box.

Finally, we would require a clear assurance that this power will not be used to alter the legal position of services that are not AI services. The scope of Amendment 429B must not drift beyond its stated purpose. If the Government are serious when they say that no platform gets a free pass, that must apply equally to generative AI models that, as we speak, are reshaping the childhoods of so many of our citizens. Safety by design must be the price of entry into the UK market, not an aspiration deferred to secondary legislation.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, both the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the Government are trying to solve the same problem, but with different solutions. I have to say that I find both solutions wanting. I feel that the position I see solidifying in the House is that we must accept either the Government’s amendment or the noble Baroness’s amendment, that something must be done and that this is binary, and I am not sure that I can accept that. I commend the aims of the noble Baroness’s campaign and I hope that we can find some common ground, but I have a number of questions about her amendments.

The approach that the noble Baroness has taken in her Amendments 422D and 433 is to create criminal offences for a person to create or even supply an AI chatbot that produces a selection of prohibited content. That would place criminal penalties on individuals who are involved in the creation of such a chatbot. The Online Safety Act applies civil penalties when companies violate the regulations: the companies are fined by Ofcom if they allow prohibited content to be published on their platform. These amendments would apply criminal sanctions punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment, but who is liable for these criminal penalties? Is it the software engineer who developed the chatbot? Is it the employee who presses the “publish” button that brings the AI online? Is it the senior management team who oversaw it, or the investors who commissioned it? Is it the CEO of the whole company? It is not clear to me, and it would be useful if the noble Baroness could clear that up.

The offence of supplying such a chatbot might also be problematic. If an AI chatbot app is listed on the App Store, and the AI could in some way be used by a person in the manner described, should Apple be criminally liable for that? Similarly, I have a few concerns about the risk assessment that the amendment would require AI providers to undertake. For example, proposed new subsection (5)(e) would require that a provider

“assesses the risks to equality of treatment of individuals”.

I question whether it is the Government’s role to mandate the target audience of a business product. It is worrying enough to believe that it is meritocratic to mandate quotas within organisations, but it is quite another stance to say that the very reason for a business’s existence, its output, should be directed by legislation.

As I have made clear, we do not oppose the noble Baroness’s objective of addressing the harms of AI with this amendment, but simply saying that there is a problem and that doing anything is better than doing nothing, irrespective of the problems with that something, is not a proper way to legislate. It is a recipe, I suggest, for bad law. However, I understand that the noble Baroness is trying to make the Government take action. It is up to the Government to come to Parliament with a sufficient solution. The Minister may try to say that the Government do have a sufficient solution in government Amendment 429B, but that would be wholly incorrect. I am quite shocked that the Minister has even considered bringing this amendment to the House, and I can only imagine what he might have said about it if he were standing where I am now.

Amendment 429B grants the Secretary of State sweeping Henry VIII powers to amend the entire Online Safety Act for the purpose of mitigating harms presented by AI-generated content. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, would be delighted to hear me say that this is an egregious attempt by an overreaching Government to exploit a serious issue to centralise power in the hands of the Secretary of State. It is almost unprecedented to grant a Minister the ability to amend an entire Act of Parliament. With this amendment, the Government are doing away with every bit of lip service they have paid to the importance of parliamentary scrutiny or their democratic mandate. The amendment would give not only this Government, who have made it clear that they are very happy running a centralised state with digital IDs, but every future Government the ability to amend online regulations and curtail the freedoms of providers. Indeed, a future Reform Government might go in the opposite direction and remove all regulations on AI. The noble Lord should reflect on that, too.

I ask the Minister to imagine that the glove was on the other hand: that he was standing at this Dispatch Box and I was the Minister proposing to give my Government these powers. There is no way that he would support such sweeping powers to amend an Act of Parliament by ministerial fiat. This is the Henry VIII power to end all Henry VIII powers. It cannot be allowed to make its way into the Bill and, when it is called, I will take pleasure in opposing it in the Lobbies.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall start by saying something that needs saying. The Government believe in protecting the public, especially children, from online content, which is why we have tabled the amendments on illegal online content today.