Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of making Holocaust denial a criminal offence.

There are no plans to make Holocaust denial a criminal offence.

The Government believes that Holocaust denial is both immoral and factually wrong. However, legislation reflects the enormous value this country rightly places upon free speech. It enables people to engage in debate freely, while protecting people from criminal activity including threatening and abusive behaviour or behaviour which is intended to, or is likely to, stir up hatred.

I am clear that antisemitism in any form is inexcusable and this Government has taken a number of steps to help eliminate it over the last five years. In 2016 we became the first country in the world to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. We’ve since had organisations such as the Premier League and over three-quarters of councils adopt the definition.

In July 2019 we also appointed Lord John Mann as an independent antisemitism advisor, to provide advice to the Government on the best ways to tackle antisemitism. Finally, we have provided £14m in funding this financial year (2021/22) for protection of Jewish institutions through the Jewish Community Protective Security (JCPS) Grant, administered through the Community Security Trust (CST).