Contribution
I thank my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn for tabling this amendment, which he also tabled in Committee, and I thank all who spoke for their contributions, in particular my noble friend Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath and the noble Lords, Lord Polak and Lord Cameron of Lochiel. I am going to start by finding common cause—somewhat usually, but it is nice to do it, even at this late hour—with the noble Lord, Lord Cameron.
As I said in Committee, it would be inappropriate for Parliament to prescribe the internal organisation of the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS is rightly operationally independent of government, and it is up to the Director of Public Prosecutions to deploy the resources at its disposal to bring prosecutions forward. Having said that, I reassure my noble friend that the CPS and the Government take the issue of antisemitism extremely seriously. The CPS has trained prosecutors in place to prosecute all hate crime offences, including antisemitism.
I note the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on parity of esteem and regard when it comes to other minority hate crimes. We need to have care towards that. However, the CPS already maintains an internal network of specialist hate crime co-ordinators across each of its regional teams, led by a chief crown prosecutor national lead, to ensure a consistent and robust approach to tackling hate crimes. With regard to antisemitism specifically, the organisation has gone a step further, enrolling all senior civil servants, including chief crown prosecutors and deputy chief crown prosecutors, in mandatory training on antisemitism to improve awareness across the CPS.
The CPS’s conduct of hate crime cases is subject to considerable independent external scrutiny. This includes a series of hate crime inspections that are scheduled to be carried out by His Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate this year. This includes an inspection of racially and religiously aggravated hate crime that will include consideration of cases involving antisemitism. These inspections will examine the CPS’s handling of these cases and its service to victims.
The CPS is an active member of the cross-government Antisemitism Working Group and the National Police Chiefs’ Council gold group on community tensions. It works collaboratively with criminal justice partners and stakeholders to ensure a joined-up approach.
I hope that goes some way to reassure my noble friend and your Lordships’ House about the efforts being made within the CPS to raise awareness and understanding of antisemitism, and to ensure that it receives the priority that it deserves. The CPS will hear this debate—by that I mean it will read or watch this debate and the debate we had in Committee. It will be aware that there are concerns in the community, and that will be at the forefront of its mind.
The noble Lord, Lord Polak, talked about issues of confidence, as did, in a similar way, my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn. On the reaction to the question that the noble Lord, Lord Polak, posed to Holocaust survivors—yesterday, now—from my experience, I am saddened but not surprised by that reaction. I want to provide a wider confidence that the Government are cognisant of this issue and doing all they can to tackle and understand antisemitism, including how it finds its way on to the streets and the underlying causes.
Briefly, there are measures in the Bill around public order policing, including conditions around the cumulative impact of protests and protesting around places of worship—which, in turn were direct reactions to the fatal terrorist incident at Heaton Park synagogue last autumn. As we heard, there is a wider review of public order policing, being undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. There are reviews of antisemitism in both the NHS and schools, which are being undertaken by my noble friend Lord Mann and Sir David Bell respectively.
Just last week, we heard from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the new social cohesion strategy, Protecting What Matters. Take it from me, the Community Security Trust’s reaction to this was very positive. It pointed out that the announcements in the plan
“root Jews within British society and rightly treat antisemitism as a matter of national importance”.
It called out the predominant threat of Islamism and the far right, not only to Jews but to national cohesion.
I hope that will give your Lordships some confidence that the importance of tackling antisemitism—for the impact it has on the Jewish community and on our national life and character, and what it says about the kind of society that we want to live in—is something that the Government treat and will continue to treat very seriously. With that in mind, and given the late hour, I ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.