National Security (State Threats) Bill

Lord Walney Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow that thoughtful speech from the noble Lord, Lord Docherty. There is one person who I wish we could have heard from today: our dear friend Meta, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale. She was such an extraordinary expert on these issues for many years in the House and in her career as an intelligence officer. We said goodbye to her at a very moving funeral last Friday in Glasgow. I was gathering memories and stories about Meta, and one that is pertinent to share just now is when she gave a speech, I think in Tel Aviv, on Iran. This erudite, softly spoken woman, who everyone really wanted to be their great-aunt, gently said that the IRGC

“must be eliminated—and I really do mean eliminated”.

My friend recalled the jaw of the British ambassador next to him dropping as she said that.

Those words are pertinent, because I really hope that the Minister will listen to that and agree to be a little bit more Meta on this Bill. Although I welcome it like everybody else, it does not achieve the Government’s and Jonathan Hall’s stated aim of an equivalent measure to terrorist proscription. It is weaker in an array of respects; there are excuses provided by the Government for each, but the cumulative effect is a significantly weaker regime.

The noble Lord, Lord Polak, made a pertinent point about Hezbollah. Unlike the majority of noble Lords who have spoken—including learned noble Lords with much greater experience on the subject of terrorism—who appear to have accepted Jonathan Hall’s analysis, I still question why we cannot take the approach that we did in 2019 with Hezbollah and which the US, Canada, Australia and the European Union have taken in fully proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.

That said, we are where we are. We are going to get the Bill on to the statute book, apparently with extraordinary speed. Despite us having asked for this and the Government having thought about it for more than 14 months, I really hope that they will agree to take an extra day or so to strengthen the Bill, rather than railroading a weaker measure through to the Commons. I am afraid one would have to assume, if the Government maintain this speed of timetable, that they are doing it as an excuse to get a weaker Bill on the statute book rather than taking that a couple of extra days potentially to strengthen it.

The Government talked about the system of immunity and the Vienna convention demanding a higher bar as reasons for some of these measures not matching terrorist proscription. However, we are not proscribing Tehran here; we are prosecuting operatives who are using all the tools of terrorism to do their work. Perhaps this points to the need for the IRGC to be treated as a conventional terrorist organisation, unlike some of the other organisations to which this legislation may end up applying. Although I take the argument that, in many circumstances, you would not wish to fully treat the people who are operating as part of a state enterprise as terrorist operatives, it is the case that the IRGC has been, effectively, a full-blown terrorist organisation under our very eyes for many years. It would send a strong signal to treat it as such, with all the authority and the taboo which would surround even those state officials. They would try to claim diplomatic immunity, but we would say that the way this organisation operates is so heinous that they deserve the full force of terrorism law. I hope the Government are open to strengthening the approach.

In Committee, I intend to explore the approach to the displaying of insignia, the dissemination of publications and self-directing promotion of the group. My preference would be simply to put that on to the statute book. I would like also to explore the prospect of a flexible, discretionary approach to be applied to particular organisations by the Secretary of State through regulation. I hope that is an issue that we can get into in Committee.

National Security (State Threats) Bill

Lord Walney Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 30th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have added my name in support of Amendment 20 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. As he has explained, Amendment 20 would create an offence mirroring an existing offence in Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Under that section, it is already an offence for a person to wear an item of clothing in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that that person is a supporter of a proscribed terrorist organisation. So we already have that offence in Section 13 of the Terrorism Act in respect of proscribed terrorism organisations; but, unless Amendment 20 is adopted, there will be no similar offence for someone wearing a uniform or displaying the insignia of a designated body.

I agree with those who have said a number of times that state threats call for a different response in some respects from that which we adopt in respect of terrorist organisations, but I do not see why, in respect of this particular offence, a different approach is needed. With this Bill we are trying to protect our public spaces—our public sphere, really—from the influence of malign foreign state organisations and from their attempts to subvert our democratic values and our liberal principles.

The Bill criminalises supporting a designated body but, as the Minister has explained before, it does so on a basis that is more demanding than for the corresponding offence under the Terrorism Act, so it would be challenging to rely on the offence of “supporting” to target the particular conduct Amendment 20 is aimed at. The “supporting” offence requires a prohibited purpose, which is defined as follows:

“that the person knows, or having regard to other matters known to them ought reasonably to know”,

that the purpose

“is prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom”.

Faced with a person wearing the uniform of a designated organisation or carrying the insignia of that organisation in our streets, it would be difficult for the police to apply that test and quickly determine whether the prohibited purpose, which is not a low bar, was satisfied in the specific circumstances. But, if we have an offence such as Amendment 20 would introduce, which mirrors an existing offence under terrorism legislation, that determination could be made more simply and there would be no reason for the police to hesitate.

I hesitate to make comparisons with the 1930s, but I imagine that if we had had this power then, we would have designated the SS and then surely would have expected our police to arrest those wearing SS uniform in public spaces. I do not understand the hesitation the Government have in adopting this amendment, which, as we have heard, has already been recommended by a number of experts. I do not believe that immunity is a good reason. It is already the case that if an Iranian diplomat chooses to wear a Hamas uniform, he cannot be arrested because he enjoys immunity. Even though he would be committing an offence under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, that diplomat would be able to invoke immunity. If the same person chooses to wear in London an IRGC uniform—if the Government end up designating that organisation—that person would be entitled to immunity. I do not think that immunity is a good reason for not extending this offence to designated organisations. For that reason, I hope that the Government will be able to support the amendment or, at the very least, indicate a willingness to adopt an offence on very similar terms. If the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, is going to divide the Committee on his amendment, he will have my support.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, I too have added my name in support of Amendment 20 and endorse everything my noble friend Lord Verdirame has just said. I will briefly add, for emphasis, that the Government have promised an equivalent power for state-related organisations and without this, one of the key planks would not have an equivalent power.

Finally, if I understood correctly the concern expressed about the keffiyeh at the beginning of speech of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is that not an article of clothing now commonly associated with a fully proscribed terrorist organisation, Hamas? As has been said, if such legal jeopardy arose, the relevant law does exist—Section 13 of the Terrorism Act. It is not widely used, and the argument would probably be that this headdress was originally about the assertion of Palestinian national identity. It has indeed been co-opted by supporters of Hamas, but it is a separate question which I do not think impinges on whether this amendment ought to be supported.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I hesitate to do so, but I disagree with my two noble friends who have just spoken. Some years ago I was in a supermarket in London and found myself standing next to an approximately 17 year-old young man who was wearing a t-shirt with a swastika on it. He was entitled to wear that if he wished, because it is not unlawful to wear a t-shirt with a swastika on it, however much one disapproves. I turned to the young man and, in a moment of complete foolishness, I suppose, said to him, “Excuse me, but do you realise that 6 million people were murdered by the Nazis on the back of that particular insignia?” He turned to me and said, “Sir, I’m most awfully sorry: I never knew that, and I will never wear this again”. I was surprised that I got away with it and lived to tell the tale, as noble Lords will be sure I have on many occasions.

I do not think that in this Bill, we should be criminalising the mere wearing of such insignia as I have described. This is not a counterterrorism Bill; this is a counter-state threats Bill. We had this discussion at Second Reading and, in my view at least, we are not merely replicating what is in other Acts of Parliament. Further, if somebody wears an insignia and there is a public order disturbance or a racially aggravated public order disturbance, there are plenty of other laws to deal with that activity.

My final reason for objecting to this amendment is one that perhaps some will think trivial. However, if your Lordships were to look at new Section 17B of the 2023 Act, on page 4 of the Bill, between lines 13 and 21 it contains no fewer than four split infinitives in “to materially assist”, to which I object as a matter of principle. I hope that the Minister might agree that they should read “materially to assist” in order to comply with the English language, something I was taught by my foreigner parents to comply with at all times if possible.