Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban

Debate between Nick Timothy and Sarah Jones

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the intelligence used by West Midlands police that led to the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending Villa Park on 6 November 2025.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this urgent question. Let me begin by acknowledging the concern and disappointment felt by supporters affected by the decision regarding attendance at Villa Park on 6 November; I recognise the strength of feeling in this House and the wider communities on the matter.

As Members will appreciate, operational decisions regarding public safety at football matches are a matter for the police, working closely with local partners and events organisers. In this case West Midlands police, in consultation with the club and the local safety advisory group, made the recommendation that away fans should not attend based on their assessment of the intelligence available to them at the time. I am sure the House will understand that I am limited in what I can say about the specific intelligence underpinning this decision; these are sensitive matters and it is vital that the police act on information received to protect public safety. West Midlands police issued a statement in response to the latest media reporting on the intelligence they used, are carrying out a debrief of the events leading up to the match and will be publishing the timeline of events, the decisions taken and the rationale for the recommendations provided to the SAG.

In light of recent events and to ensure robust oversight, the Home Secretary has commissioned His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to review how police forces in England and Wales provide risk assessment advice to local SAGs and other bodies responsible for licensing high-profile public events. This inspection will consider whether police advice takes proper account of all relevant factors, including the impact on wider community relations and whether the balance between public safety and community consideration is being struck effectively.

I want to assure Members that understanding the series of events that occurred in the period before the match was played remains of keen interest to me and of course the Home Secretary. The Government are clear there is no place for hatred or discrimination in football or indeed in wider society. We are committed to ensuring that fans can attend matches safely, regardless of background or affiliation.

[Nick Timothy]

The ban on Israeli Jewish supporters was a disgrace and the justification given by West Midlands Police was, it turns out, based on fiction. The police said that their intelligence came from Dutch counterparts after the Ajax against Maccabi Tel Aviv match last year. West Midlands police called the Israeli fans “highly organised” and “co-ordinated” and

“experienced fighters…linked to the Israel Defence Forces”.

They said they intentionally targeted Muslim communities and 5,000 officers were deployed in response, but that was contradicted by an official Dutch report and the Dutch police themselves. They called the West Midlands police claims “not true” and “obviously inaccurate”. In some cases, such as the Israeli victim thrown into the river, the facts were inverted with Israelis presented as aggressors.

West Midlands police repeated their claims to the Home Affairs Committee Chairman on Friday and refused to answer specific questions from The Sunday Times or to justify their claims, so will the Minister ensure the publication of all intelligence material relating to the ban? It is mostly not sensitive; it can be redacted where necessary. Will lists of individuals and organisations consulted by West Midlands police and the safety advisory group and all those who submitted evidence be published? Can the Minister confirm that no organisations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or subject to Government non-engagement participated? Will she confirm that Hind Rajab Foundation submitted a paper and that this was accepted by West Midlands police?

What intelligence was shared by West Midlands police with the United Kingdom football policing unit and the National Police Chiefs’ Council?

Which information was given to Home Office Ministers and officials, and when? Officials were told about the options under consideration on 2 October, two weeks before the ban was announced, so what did Ministers do in the intervening period?

Under pressure from Islamist agitators, local politicians and thugs, an English police force is accused of fabricating intelligence and misleading the public. This could hardly be more serious. We need Ministers to hold the chief constable to account and give the country the truth.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I know that he understands the principle of police operational independence, and that we need to ensure that we reflect that correctly when such decisions are taken. Stepping back, there are wider lessons that we need to learn, which is why the Home Secretary has written to the inspector to ask him to look at how the SAG process occurs and how the group makes decisions. Members will know that the SAG process was set up following the Hillsborough tragedy as a means by which we can make decisions and secure safety at football matches and other large-scale events.

The Home Secretary has asked the inspector to consider the degree to which the police take into account intelligence and the degree to which the SAG process takes into account wider community impacts. That speaks to the hon. Gentleman’s question, which I cannot answer now, about who was giving the information and on what basis the police were making their recommendations. The review will look at whether the balance of those factors is being struck correctly, and I hope we will come back through that process. We wrote to the inspector at the end of October to ask him to undertake the work. We have asked him to provide his initial conclusions by March next year and made funding available for the additional inspection.

On the specific chronology of events, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that Home Office officials asked the United Kingdom football policing unit for an update on the match on 2 October. They were told that force gold was considering and it would go to the SAG for decisions, and several different available options were laid out at that time.

I have written to the chief constable of West Midlands police to ask for clarity following yesterday’s newspaper article. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot tell him about the truth of those claims—it is a newspaper article and we want to get to the bottom of it—but there are questions within it that we need to understand. I have written to the chief constable to answer those questions. I am happy to share more information as I get it, and the Home Affairs Committee has already taken a lead in asking West Midlands police some of those questions.

Police Reform

Debate between Nick Timothy and Sarah Jones

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

As was the hon. Lady. I just wanted to be clear about that.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

In Suffolk, the police and crime commissioner’s powers will be transferred to a combined mayoralty for Suffolk and Norfolk; the mayor will be responsible for the two police forces. This is only one step away from a full-blown merger of the two forces, which local people are very concerned about. Will the Minister take this opportunity to categorically state that the Government will never allow a police merger between Suffolk and Norfolk?

[Sarah Jones]

Just to be clear, the arrangements we are announcing today are not changing the 43 models at all. We will bring forward reform, which hopefully the hon. Gentleman will support, and he will have the time to consider it when it comes forward.

Scunthorpe Steelworks

Debate between Nick Timothy and Sarah Jones

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I wish the Minister would stop saying that some of these issues are complicated, and therefore that we should not debate them. We are sent here to debate complicated issues, and she is supposed to be here to answer our questions.

We are witnessing the absurd spectacle of the Government begging a Chinese company to take taxpayers’ money to keep British Steel alive, while China suppresses its own costs and dumps its steel on other countries. We may soon be the only G7 country incapable of producing primary steel. The Minister brushes off the reality of crippling British energy costs, which will only get worse in the years ahead as a matter of deliberate Government policy. Why will she not guarantee the supply of the raw materials needed to keep the blast furnaces open, and why will she not admit that steel has no future in this country so long as this Government’s trade and climate policies continue?

[Sarah Jones]

If only the hon. Member had done something when he had some influence as an adviser to a previous Prime Minister. That would have been good, wouldn’t it?

I was not sent here to divulge commercially confidential conversations with a private company that affect thousands of people’s jobs, and if the hon. Member thinks that I was, he is wrong. We are not going to do that, nor are we begging anywhere for anything—

[Nick Timothy]

You are.

[Sarah Jones]

No, absolutely not, and I am disappointed that the hon. Member would speak in that way. As he knows, we are having a conversation about a potential deal that we believe is there to be done with British Steel.

On the wider issue, it is a fact that China produces 53% of the world’s steel, and we have huge issues with that, as the hon. Member knows. The tariffs have over-complicated the situation, which is why the Secretary of State is meeting the Trade Remedies Authority today, why we are looking at our trade strategy, and why we are talking to the Americans to make sure we can do a deal with them. We will continue to ensure that we have all the protection we need, in terms of stopping the onshoring of steel as much as we can. Those conversations will continue. The TRA is now looking at steel, and we expect those results quite soon.

UK Steel Manufacturing

Debate between Nick Timothy and Sarah Jones

Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for making those important points. Our energy-intensive industries are hammered by energy costs, which are at the heart of this. Although the previous Government provided relief, we need a longer-term solution. We need to bring down those energy costs. That is why we are pushing for clean energy by 2030, which will be cheaper, and why we want to produce more energy in this country so that we are not reliant on Putin or affected by international events.

I have talked about business rates, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to look at that. Government procurement is very important, so we are looking at our supply chains and all the levers of Government to see what we can do proactively to make sure that, where we can, we are making, building and using in the UK.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I do not think the Minister answered the question asked by the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), so let me repeat it. Do the Government consider the manufacture of primary steel to be a strategic domestic industry that must be protected, yes or no?

[Sarah Jones]

Well, the previous Government did not. We have a £2.5 billion fund and, as I said, we are looking at DRI to make virgin iron. To be clear, we are having to deal with a mess that we inherited. Virgin steel is important, and that is what we are looking at. I am not going to say to the hon. Gentleman right now that this is what we are spending our £2.5 billion investment on, because this is being worked on at pace. We will come back to the House as soon as we have something to announce.