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

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

The safety and security of the public is, of course, paramount. It is and always will be our number one priority. The ongoing fight to counter and contain terrorism in all its guises is an essential part of that mission, as is standing up for the values that we cherish. When our collective security and our values are threatened by groups such as the Terrorgram collective, we will not hesitate to act. We will do whatever it takes to protect our communities. I therefore urge Members to support this proscription, and I commend the order to the House.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I will respond to the Minister’s statement by first thanking our intelligence, security and police services, as well as the Home Office staff, for their work in protecting us all. The Government’s first duty must always be to protect national security and the public. The people who undertake the challenging work of making sure we are always one step ahead of those who wish to cause us harm will always find support from these Benches.

We strongly support the introduction of this order. Terrorgram, named for its use of the online messaging platform Telegram, is an online collection of violent neofascists who distribute and promote material that incites right-wing extreme terrorist activity, both in the UK and across the world.

As the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, said, the propaganda distributed by this network targets violence against ethnic minorities, religious groups, women and the LGBT community. Telegram groups promote a dangerous, violent, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic ideology. They glorify terrorist attacks, such as those committed by Anders Breivik, incite violent terrorist attacks and distribute bomb-making guides and other dangerous instructional material designed to aid would-be attackers. The dangerous consequences of their actions occurred only recently, as the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, said, when people were murdered in the LGBT nightclub in Bratislava by a terrorist who thanked Terrorgram in his manifesto. The Government’s welcome update of the definition of terrorism and this proscription order will provide a much-needed tool to prevent such attacks from being repeated here in the UK.

In the light of evidence connecting right-wing ideologies and violent terrorist acts to misogynistic views, can the Minister expand on what more the Government can do to counter this? Are there plans to update the Prevent programme to include incel ideology and violent misogyny as extremism? How is the Home Office working to prevent young men from being exposed to extreme misogynistic ideologies at a young age? What work is being done with other government departments to combat this threat? More broadly, what are the Government doing to assess and confront the online hate and extremism that form the basis of many terrorism threats?

I would welcome the Minister speaking more about the Government’s counterextremism strategy. Beyond the list of organisations defined as terrorist that the Government have said they will release, will a full, updated counterextremism strategy also be published? The previous strategy was published in 2015. The way Terrorgram uses online networks and platforms and intersects with other violent neo-Nazi organisations across the world demonstrates the growing complexity of the threats we face. As the terrorist threat evolves and becomes harder to predict and prevent, our understanding of the causes, nature and the consequences of the threats we face must also evolve.

The Government’s hate crime strategy has also not been updated since 2015. Terrorgram’s violent, bigoted ideology sits within a context of rising levels of hate crime across the UK. Hate crimes against transgender people hit record highs in England and Wales last year, and the Community Security Trust recorded a 147% increase in anti-Semitic incidents since 7 October, compared with 2022. It is important to have proscription orders in our arsenal of weapons against hate, extremism and terrorism, but they cannot be the only weapon. Can the Minister outline whether the Government plan to publish a new hate crime strategy?

This order is very welcome. Proscription is the right response to a dangerous and complex network that threatens our way of life, our public safety and our national security. This House and the country are united in protecting us all and we fully support the order.

I have one final question for the noble Lord. This clearly is a vile, disgusting group, so why have we waited so long? Why did we not bring this order much earlier? Some of the things they have been involved in, over quite a long period, are things we all abhor. With that, I support the order.

[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.