Contribution
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 418 and to try to explain the rationale for the changes I have made since Committee. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Polak, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, for adding their names in support of the amendment. I declare that I am an officeholder in the APPG for counterextremism, a member of the APPG for terrorism and security, and a victim of terrorism.
For 20 years we have had a criminal offence of “glorification of terrorism”. However, the current Section 1 is a very high bar to meet for prosecution, as the person making the statement of glorification has to intend that a person hearing the statement would be encouraged to “emulate” the terrorism being glorified. After the debate in Committee, I sought to narrow the wording of my amendment to deal with current proscribed organisations. Noble Lords may remember that there was a concern, as the amendment was drafted for Committee, that it may capture some historic features that none of us would have seen as glorification of terrorism in today’s world. When I shared my change of amendment and sought to narrow the scope, however, the Minister pointed out in a letter to me that I might now be excluding glorification of those terrorists acting on their own behalf: those not advocating or acting on behalf of a proscribed organisation, such as the Manchester bomber. Obviously, I would not want that to be the case.
I have worked with the wonderfully patient staff in the Public Bill Office to try to deal with the issues raised by the Minister. I hope that what is before the House today captures my amendments, as put forward in Committee, but also deals with the issue of so-called “lone wolf” terrorists, or their supporters, calling for others to emulate their activities. I thank the Public Bill Office for all its assistance in dealing with these issues, and thank the Minister, also, for bringing the issue to my attention.
My reasons for pushing this amendment are fourfold. First, defeating terrorism is not just about militarily defeating the terrorists or the organisation, but about not allowing the narrative of those terrorists to be justified. Secondly, there have been no prosecutions in Northern Ireland under the current Section 1, and very few in England and Wales, despite the growing glorification of terrorism and terrorists. We need to enable the police and the prosecutors to deal with those who seek to glorify terrorists, and I hope that this amendment is helpful in that regard. Thirdly, as I indicated, I am an officeholder in the APPG on counterextremism. If we do not amend the law, as the amendment seeks to do, I fear the continued glorification of terrorism and the radicalisation of more of our young people, leading them into terrorism. At present, there is a lack of legislation to capture extremism, but, if we allow the glorification of terrorism to continue unabated, extremism will grow in our society, and we know all the problems that would bring.
In Time to Act, the recent APPG report on counterextremism, it was found that one in five voters said that political violence in the UK was acceptable in some conditions. We should all be shocked by that statistic, but unfortunately it comes from the normalisation of terrorism. In a further report, published this week by the Union of Jewish Students, we are given clear evidence of what happens when glorification of terrorism is allowed to happen unchecked. The report found that the glorification of terrorism is prevalent and unpunished. Our research has found that student groups have explicitly called for violence against Jews, even justifying the terrorist attack at Bondi beach in December 2025. Some 49% of those students spoken to have heard slogans or chants glorifying Hamas, Hezbollah or other proscribed groups on campus. Some 47% have witnessed justification of the 7 October attacks, rising to 77% among those who encounter Israel/Palestine protests regularly.
We must act. We have been given clear evidence of the impact of the glorification of terrorism, particularly on our young people. We must deal with it because, fourthly and finally, what sort of society do we want to live in? Do we want to allow the continued glorification of terrorism, and all the inherent problems that it will bring, or do we want to send a signal from Parliament that terrorism is, was and always will be wrong?
Just yesterday, I was shocked—I should not have been, because unfortunately it has become the norm—that, at a council-run St Patrick’s Day parade in Newry, parents were buying balaclavas and scarves with IRA slogans on them for their young children. The impact on our young people is huge, and that is what I am concerned about. People might say that I should not live in the past, and sometimes when I raise the issue of the glorification of terrorism the Minister will say that everything that happened in the past was terrible. But this is not about the past; this is about the future and our young people.
We need to stop the harmful normalisation of terrorism, and this amendment would go some way towards doing that. Terrorism is never justified. It causes mistrust between communities, takes away lives and causes devastation for so many people. I have listened to the concerns that were raised in Committee, and by the Minister, and I hope that the House will see fit to back my amendment. I beg to move.