Moved on Wednesday 13 May by

That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

My Lords, it is a privilege to open this debate on the Government’s plans for home affairs, the justice system and the union. I express my gratitude to His Majesty for delivering the most gracious Speech.

I want to say at the outset that, in the 15 months since I came into your Lordships’ House, I have been awed by the amount of expertise, experience and wisdom to be found here. On that subject, I am sure that many noble Lords will have noted that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, is to make his valedictory speech today after 16 years in your Lordships’ House. We shall miss him. His contributions, like his books, have always been learned, penetrative and eloquent, and he has never been afraid to tell us straight what he thinks. To have leading political historians in this House has added knowledge and quality to our debates. Because the noble Lord has already said this publicly, I am sure he will not mind me referring to the fact that he suffers from Parkinson’s disease. In fact, so does my own father, who was 90 last weekend and is going strong. I am sure your Lordships will all join me in wishing the noble Lord good health, long life and continued happiness.

I also look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Case, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

In opening this debate, I have two themes: the protection of the public and rebuilding trust in our public institutions. We will do this at the national level but we will also work with the newly formed devolved Governments because people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and here in England, expect to see their Governments working together to deliver for them.

We all long for the sunlit uplands where the economy is so strong that there is money to pay for everything that we want and deserve. While I, as a proud member of this Labour Government, firmly believe that we are on the right path to greater economic strength, we all have to accept that at the moment we cannot afford everything that we want to do, so hard choices have to be made. But the lodestar for this Government is these two principles: fairness and opportunity for all people across the United Kingdom.

I start with the protection of the public, because keeping our citizens safe is the most fundamental duty of all. This Government have two objectives: to ensure that law enforcement bodies have the tools to tackle emerging dangers while maintaining the trust and confidence of the communities they serve. This Government are introducing the biggest reform to policing in two centuries, designed to do three things: to respond to rapidly changing threats, to give confidence at a local level that communities’ priorities are listened to and acted on, and to increase democratic accountability.

Crime is evolving fast. Sophisticated criminal gangs are working both here and internationally, smuggling drugs and trafficking people into this country. The online world is making it easier than ever for sexual abusers and online fraudsters to operate—90% of crime today has a digital element, and fraud now makes up nearly half of all crime. We no longer live in the world of “Dixon of Dock Green”. I knew I could make that reference safely in your Lordships’ House, but when I said it to my children I got rather a blank stare. That rather makes the point for me that policing must evolve to tackle modern realities.

The police reform Bill will restore trust in policing. It will strengthen local policing by driving down waste, cutting bureaucracy, empowering officers in their communities and equipping forces with the technology and skills they need to keep pace with crime as it evolves. We are creating the national police service, which will provide a unified response to the most serious crimes, set stronger national policing standards and ensure that there is more consistency in how the police go about their work. While operational independence remains a crucial cornerstone of modern policing, this Bill will ensure that there is greater accountability to the public through their elected representatives. To achieve this, the Home Secretary will set national priorities, improving police performance and ensuring that standards are met across the country.

In addition, as part of protecting the public we must keep up with modern dangers. That is why the most gracious Speech also included proposals to tackle two of the greatest emerging threats: those posed by hostile states as well as by individuals. The tackling state threats Bill creates a powerful new tool to disrupt and deter the activities of state-linked entities and those acting in concert with them. This follows a recommendation made by the independent reviewer. Hostile states sponsor terrorism and create insecurity, so with this Bill we will create a new power for the Secretary of State directly to address organisations engaged in state-linked threats with new criminal sanctions.

But it is not just other countries that represent an evolving threat. We also need stronger protections against individuals who become fixated on violence and can and do cause serious real-world harm. The Southport attack in July 2024 was a stark reminder of why this is needed. We must protect the public from those who plan to commit a mass casualty attack, even if they do not have an ideological motive, so we will introduce a national security Bill with measures to tackle online extreme violence. We all know that exposure to the most graphic and extreme violent material can escalate to planning and conducting an attack. This Bill will criminalise the creation and sharing of extreme violence content, give law enforcement updated powers to take down cyber criminals, including introducing a cyber crime risk order, and criminalise the planning of a mass casualty attack such as the Southport attack.

I turn to my second subject: confidence in our public institutions. This Government are bringing forward several measures to rebuild that trust, to make sure that systems work as they should and to restore fairness and predictability. I start with a subject close to my own heart: our criminal justice system. Whether your Lordships belong to a particular political grouping or to none, I think we can all agree that our criminal justice system is struggling. We might disagree about who is to blame, but we all know that things are not how they should be in a mature democracy. There are grotesque delays in cases being tried, victims who feel that the system is weighted against them, guilty defendants gaming the system and innocent defendants whose lives are ruined by the many months, if not years, waiting to be cleared, by which time they may well have lost their jobs, homes and families.

All these things are closely intertwined: the delays make it worth while for the guilty to string things out, which in turn makes victims feel that the system is broken. Today, the backlog of cases awaiting trial in the Crown Court is over 80,000. Without action, that backlog will continue to rise beyond the point of recovery, so we must act.

We are implementing a package of reforms. The first element is a record financial investment in the criminal justice system. We are funding unlimited sitting days in the Crown Court this financial year; as many courts as the Lady Chief Justice can give us, we will fund. That is part of a record £2.78 billion settlement for the courts and tribunals this year, which includes significant increases to legal aid to attract and retain the excellent lawyers upon whom the system depends. The second element is improving efficiency. We are working hard to give our response to the second part of the Leveson report but, by way of example, there will be more blitz courts, and we are making greater use of technology and artificial intelligence.

The third element of our package is to introduce modernising reforms. We will do this through the return of the Courts and Tribunals Bill. For reasons that, I must confess, I have been a bit mystified by, this has attracted huge controversy. The reason I am mystified by it is that this Government are doing only what pretty much every other Government have done in the past, including Conservative Governments. Let me explain what I mean. It has always been the case that only 10% of criminal cases are dealt with in the Crown Court. There are obvious reasons for this: jury trial is much slower and more expensive than in the magistrates’ court, which is why every Government reserve jury trial for the most serious cases—and what is meant by “the most serious cases” changes over time. Let me give a little illustration.

Picture the scene: on a sunny morning in 1971, a 23 year-old barrister set off to the Birkenhead Quarter Sessions to conduct his first jury trial. The name of that young man was Alex Carlile, known to this House as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and, as some of your Lordships know, my noble kinsman. In case your Lordships are wondering why I have embarked on this recounting of ancient history, the reason is this: the offence for which his client was being tried was driving with excess alcohol. It was a breathalyser case. I think your Lordships will now have the point. We do not try breathalyser cases in the Crown Court any more; they go only before the magistrates. As for the reason for that, I can do no better than to use the words of the late, great Gareth Williams QC, Lord Williams of Mostyn. In 1999, speaking in your Lordships’ House when he was Minister of State in the Home Office, he said:

“Things are not set in stone. Your Lordships will remember the introduction of the breathalyser provisions and the right to trial by jury. I remember that with perfect satisfaction and happiness because it kept many of us going in south and west Wales for many years running completely bogus defences—I can say this now—about whether the policeman was wearing his cap and, if not, whether it constituted full uniform. Eventually, the right to elect trial in breathalyser cases was wholly removed and transferred to the magistracy. One cannot set these matters in stone; one must take a sensible balance and build in judicial safeguards”.—[Official Report, 19/5/1999; col. 366.]

The party that had removed the right of jury trial for these cases was, of course, the party opposite. I do not say that to criticise them, but merely to make the point that this is what Governments do to keep up with modern life. They just move the line as to which cases are tried in the magistrates’ court and which require the greater time and resources of judge and jury in the Crown Court. We are a Labour Government. We did not come into office, and I did not come into your Lordships’ House, to remove jury trial. This is a sensible and proportionate response to the changing nature of criminal offences and the way in which they are prosecuted in the public interest, because the modelling is clear: investment and modernisation alone are not enough. We also need to reform.

I turn to the better and fairer immigration and asylum system that we promised the British people. We will not hesitate to remove those with no right to be here and ensure that our immigration rules are enforced. But I also say that this Labour Government will never shirk the responsibility of providing refugee status to those fleeing war and persecution. We will continue to meet our international obligations, while encouraging those who want to build a life in the UK to do so via safe and legal routes. What we see on our television screens unfolding in the English Channel is grotesque—vulnerable adults and children being exploited and put in danger—and it must stop.

We have made a good start: we have cut £1 billion from the asylum Bill, and we have increased the return of illegal immigrants by 31% since coming into office. However, it is absolutely clear that we cannot solve this by incremental measures alone; the task is too urgent and too big. The immigration and asylum Bill will introduce the most significant changes to the immigration system in a generation. It will restore order and control by tightening the application of Article 8, ensuring that “family life” means only the core family unit and addressing the misuse of the modern slavery framework. It will speed up the removal and deportation of illegal migrants and foreign criminals, as well as reducing the pull factors driving illegal migration.

We will create a new independent appeals body and a system that is fair and fast and commands public confidence, which will ensure the immediate forced removal of those who have exhausted all their appeals. We will ensure that refugees who do integrate, contribute and play a full part in our society will be able to come off basic protection and settle more quickly. These proposals will make our immigration system fair and fit for purpose and allow us to focus on those who genuinely need support.

A failure in accountability of those who serve or should serve the public has worn down public trust. His Majesty confirmed the carryover of two Bills designed to right past wrongs. The first will fulfil our manifesto commitment to get the public accountability law on the statute book. We are determined to deliver for the Hillsborough families after 37 long years, as well as the victims of other tragedies where the state was at fault, including infected blood, Horizon and Grenfell.

The Bill will introduce a duty of candour and individual accountability, and it will require honesty and frankness when things go wrong. It will put powerful new obligations on public bodies and officials to help investigations to get to the truth, and it will make sure that there is parity of arms at inquests, representing the largest expansion of civil legal aid in a decade. Taken together, the measures in this Bill will give individual citizens real and meaningful ability to challenge the state.

His Majesty confirmed the return of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. This Bill is also designed to rebuild public trust, as well as ensuring dignity for the families of victims. Many of those families have suffered so much down the years and simply want answers about what happened to their family members killed in the Troubles. We will therefore reform the current system of addressing the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland. This includes measures to enhance next-of-kin participation, safeguard witnesses, including our veterans, and bolster confidence in the reformed legacy commission. This is a proportionate and workable approach to addressing this dark period in our history.

I know that, in the best traditions of your Lordships’ House, the debate to follow will allow for a full and interesting discussion of this Government’s agenda. I would welcome discussion with any of your Lordships, from whichever party or group, about any or all of these plans. This Government are keen to draw upon the experience and wisdom in this House, about which I spoke at the beginning of this speech. Where we can achieve consensus, we will do so. The most gracious Speech set out this Government’s approach to keeping the public safe and restoring trust. We are determined that, by doing so, we can build a better future for us all.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her speech outlining the Government’s legislative programme for the new Session in the area of justice and home affairs. I was particularly impressed, if I may say respectfully, that her speech managed both to defend her husband and to revive “Dixon of Dock Green”, a combination not often encountered in modern criminal justice policy. Like her, I look forward to the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, whose route to high office in the Church was assured when she was ordained in Liverpool.

I also look forward, of course, to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Case, whose route to becoming Cabinet Secretary was assured when he had as his doctoral supervisor, I understand, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield. Like the Minister, I also pay tribute to the noble Lord in what I understand is to be his valedictory speech. He is one of the House’s greatest historians and constitutionalists. His wisdom and scholarship have enriched our political life for many years. According to Wikipedia, which might be accurate on this point at least, when created a life Peer he said:

“I hope I can help the House of Lords a bit on constitutional matters. I’ll certainly give it my best shot”.

I think I speak for the whole House when I say that there are few, if any, better shots.

I am going to focus on the justice and constitutional aspects of the programme, and my noble friend Lord Davis of Gower will have more to say about the Home Office and immigration matters. Before turning to the substance, I cannot help observing that the gracious Speech is admirably confident in declaring what His Majesty’s Government “will” do; in current political circumstances, a little more conditional drafting might have been prudent. One is tempted to suggest that “may” rather than “will” is currently the operative auxiliary verb, because so much of the programme before us bears the unmistakable imprint of the current Prime Minister’s constitutional philosophy, although I doubt those words have ever crossed his own lips.

It is an approach to policy and political life in which the instinctive answer to almost every social problem is not stronger institutions, stronger families, stronger civic culture or greater democratic resilience but instead another statutory duty, another regulator, another criminal offence or another extension of state authority. This Government and their programme speak the language of moderation and pragmatism, but beneath it lies an unmistakably lawyerly belief that society can be reordered from Whitehall by legislative design and managed compliance. It is a vision in which politics becomes litigation by other means, and in which the state readily, steadily and constantly expands, while responsibility is transferred upwards from citizens and communities to officials, regulators and courts.

Before turning to the matters that divide us, I want to turn to a matter which ought to unite us. His Majesty chose to address antisemitism in, I think, the second or third paragraph of the gracious Speech, and with respect, he was right to do so, because the fight against antisemitism goes directly to the themes of justice, public order and national cohesion which underpin this debate. I am sure the whole House joins me in recording our gratitude to His Majesty for his visit to Golders Green last Thursday. It demonstrated moral leadership, solidarity and an understanding that the rise in antisemitism is not some marginal or community-based concern but a direct challenge to the values and cohesion of this country, and that challenge is increasingly visible on our streets.

On Saturday afternoon, London witnessed two very different marches. One march was under the banner of Palestinian activism and the other was addressed by Tommy Robinson, but there was one deeply disturbing point of convergence between them. At the first march, a banner declared, “End Zionist control of the UK government”. At the second march, a banner demanded, “End Zionist occupation of Britain”. They were different crowds and different political tribes, but it was the same ancient poison, the same conspiracy theory, the same obsessive belief that Jews—or Zionists, used as a euphemism—secretly control Governments, societies and nations. The far left and the far right now increasingly resemble two mirrors facing one another, reflecting the same hatred back and forth in slightly different language. One wraps it in the rhetoric of anti-imperialism, the other in the rhetoric of nationalism and racial grievance, but beneath both lies precisely the same antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The overnight news is no better. Police are investigating another violent physical attack in Golders Green in the early hours of this morning. The Metropolitan Police has asked the organisers of the Nova festival exhibition to take down the main sign and keep the location a secret—not as censorship but as a protective measure. The fact that an exhibition commemorating young people murdered at a music festival should require covert policing and counterterrorism precautions before it can safely open in London in 2026 is a disturbing reflection of the climate we face in Britain today.

His Majesty the King has, as I said, shown leadership and moral clarity. We now look to the Government to show leadership and legislative clarity. That means moving urgently to proscribe the IRGC in full. Last Thursday, in the other place, the Security Minister said that the Government would bring forward fast-track legislation “in the coming weeks”. I hope the Minister will be able to clarify later tonight precisely when the Government intend to bring this legislation before Parliament and whether it is intended to commence the Bill here or in the other place.

At the centre of the Government’s programme for justice reform is the courts modernisation Bill. We have been consistently told that these measures are necessary to tackle court backlog and restore confidence in the criminal justice system. We on these Benches do not dispute the seriousness of the backlog. Victims are waiting years for justice and defendants are left in limbo. There is a real risk that cases collapse under the weight of delay. But the fact that a problem is serious is no justification for some of the alarming solutions proposed.

A jury trial should not be viewed as an administrative inconvenience. It is a central safeguard of liberty in our constitutional order. The right to be judged by one’s peers has endured precisely because it protects the individual from the unchecked power of the state. It commands public confidence in a way that no technocratic reform or efficiency drive ever can or will. Indeed, the strongest arguments in favour of jury trial have come from the Government. The Prime Minister, in his previous incarnation as the Director of Public Prosecutions, said:

“The right to trial by jury is an important factor in the delicate balance between the power of the state and the freedom of the individual. The further it is restricted, the greater the imbalance”.

Likewise, the current Lord Chancellor was described as finding juries in his 2017 review into racial bias in the criminal justice system to be

“the only stage … without racial bias”.—[Official Report, 2/12/25; col. 1750.]

He recognised that juries are not obstacles to justice but defenders of fairness and equality under the law.

One point that the Minister did not deal with but that I would ask the Government to think about is this: we have a judiciary in this country of the highest quality, but it is not reflective of the society in which we live. At the moment, we, so to speak, get away with it in our criminal justice system because juries are representative. If we do away with juries, and defendants walk in and see a judge and perhaps two magistrates who do not look like them, nor come from where they come from, speak like them or share the same life experiences, that will to lead to demands for different ways of appointing our judges and, perhaps, for radical reform of our judiciary. I gently ask the Government to think about this very carefully. We might not get what we wish for.

These same figures, the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor, who in the past were so confident in the strength of the jury system, now ask us to accept that juries have become barriers to efficiency. Under this Government, therefore, the proposal reflects not only a change of policy but a collapse in principle.

Let me take on the Minister’s point about the change of offences that go to magistrates and juries. Of course there have been changes over the years, but we are talking about serious cases. Under these reforms, offences that attract sentences of up to three years’ imprisonment may be heard without a jury. Many sexual assault cases will fall within scope, and fraud and theft cases may be heard by a judge alone. Those, if I may pick up the Minister’s phrase, are among the most serious cases. For the Government to suggest that these offences no longer warrant the constitutional safeguard of a jury trial is a profound shift in the balance between citizen and state; it reflects a stripping away of individual citizens’ rights.

That is particularly the case because one of the most alarming elements of the Bill is its retrospective effect: its impact on those already awaiting jury trials. Defendants who have already exercised their lawful right to elect a Crown Court trial now find that right about to be removed, according to the Government’s Bill, after the fact. Parliament is being asked to change the rules midway through the process for individuals who made their decisions based on the law as it stood at the time. That is unfair, and it will be seen throughout the country as profoundly unfair.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this debate is that the evidence, which the Minister did not really touch on, increasingly points against the Government’s case. Last week the chief executive of His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service confirmed that cases are being resolved at a faster rate than forecast because sitting days have increased and courts are operating more effectively. Lifting the cap on judicial sitting days—which the Government should have done when they came into office and not only after the Lady Chief Justice asked for it—has begun to reduce backlogs in key regions across England and Wales.

Of course we need more judges and more IT, but we also need more courts actually capable of sitting. Last week 10% of courts capable of sitting did not sit because there are such problems with the court service and the way courts have been maintained. These are long-running problems, but the answer is not to abolish juries; the answer is to deal with the criminal justice system.

There is a fundamental lack of legislative coherence at the heart of the Government’s policy. When justifying these reforms, the Lord Chancellor claimed that defendants are “gaming the system” by electing Crown Court trials for relatively minor offences. The Minister for Courts in the other place asked:

“Do we think that someone who has stolen a bottle of whisky from a minimart should receive the right to trial by jury?”

Well, I can answer her question: yes, her own Government think that. The Government’s Crime and Policing Act, which received Royal Assent a matter of weeks ago, restored low-value shoplifting offences to the ordinary either way regime, thereby preserving the defendant’s right to a trial by jury in the Crown Court for low-level shoplifting offences. Why were these low-level shoplifting offences sufficiently serious to justify a jury on an either way offence, whereas now we are told that they are so minor that jury trial should be removed?

What makes all this especially troubling is that the basis for this policy has fundamentally changed. When it was introduced, we were told that it was necessary to reduce the backlog; it was all about efficiency. The Criminal Bar Association, the Law Society and the Bar Council said, “Where is the modelling?”, but the modelling was not there. Now we are told something completely different: that it is a matter of principle. Sarah Sackman told the House of Commons that even if there is no backlog, this is what the Government are going to do. It is no longer being advanced as an emergency administrative response to pressure on the courts; it is being advanced as a matter of constitutional principle.

If this really was a principled constitutional change to the relationship between citizen and state, between accused and jury, and between the Executive and the administration of justice, why was there not a word about it in the Government’s manifesto? Indeed, even if the reason for it was to reduce the backlog, I have to tell the Minister that, when we sat on different sides, we were constantly being berated about the backlog by what was then the Opposition—the backlog was not a state secret. So, even if this is an answer to the backlog, it still should have been in the Labour Party’s manifesto. This is an emergency response. I do not know whether it has come from No. 10 or from the Attorney-General. I doubt, however, it will survive under any future Prime Minister.

This matters. The electorate were given no indication whatever that a Labour Government intended to dilute or curtail long-standing rights to trial by jury. Constitutional change in this country derives its legitimacy not merely from parliamentary arithmetic but from democratic consent. It is precisely in circumstances such as these that your Lordships’ House has, I suggest, a particular constitutional duty: not to frustrate government for the sake of opposition but to require Ministers to justify profound constitutional change openly, candidly and before the electorate, rather than presenting it after the event as an inevitable technocratic necessity.

The right to jury trial has endured for centuries because it protects the liberty of the citizen against the power of the state. Once diminished, it will not easily be restored. This House should therefore approach this element of the Government’s programme with the utmost caution. That is assuming, of course, that the next Prime Minister—who might be with us in a matter of weeks, and surely within months—does not conclude that Mr Lammy’s earlier instincts on these matters were rather sounder than his later ones and quietly leave these proposals where they belong, in what the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, has taught us is the long catalogue of constitutional mistakes wisely abandoned before they could do lasting harm.

My Lords, I will restrict my remarks to the Government’s proposals for policing. At the start of the last Session, many of us hoped for a serious reforming agenda after too many years in which our public services stagnated and, in too many respects, went backwards. Nowhere is this truer than in policing. We therefore await details of the police reform Bill with great interest.

These Benches agree with much of the direction set out in the recent White Paper, particularly the ambition to strengthen neighbourhood policing and address the workforce, skills and training issues that are central to a successful, modern police service. This Bill provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity for long-overdue structural change, but will this ambition be matched by the necessary political will? I sincerely hope so.

We are on our sixth Home Secretary in six years. Reshaping policing requires sustained commitment, not a revolving door of leadership. Do the Government have the focus to carry through bold reform when the Home Office is consumed by so many other priorities?

The real test of the Bill is whether it will improve investigations, deter lawbreaking, and give witnesses and victims a better response when they turn to the police for help. It must also remain faithful to the core principles that have underpinned British policing for generations: policing by consent, local accountability, impartiality, and restraint. That is the standard against which it will be measured.

Much attention is focused on plans to merge forces and create a national police service, but structural reorganisation will mean little if we ignore the reality that front-line policing demand routinely exceeds capacity, and policing is permanently struggling to cope. For too long, politicians have colluded in the fiction that all demand can be met, when everyone on the front line knows that it cannot. The burden is pushed downwards, to be absorbed by officers and staff who must find their own ways to ration resources, while Ministers avoid confronting those trade-offs openly.

This has to stop. We need an honest, public conversation about what we are asking the police to do and what we are prepared to fund. Innumerable chief constables have told me that their key ask is greater clarity about the role and mission of the police. New responsibilities must come with the funding to match, and when difficult choices are made, they must be owned collectively, not pushed down, as now, on to local forces.

The Government want a more active Home Office setting national priorities. But the question remains: who will decide what is to be deprioritised? What politician will admit that without significant extra investment, some tasks can no longer be done to the same standard? If everything is prioritised, nothing will be. Can the Minister tell us how much of the investment for these new national structures is expected to come from savings within policing itself?

The Liberal Democrats’ priority is to protect local policing. We want every community to have guaranteed access to a police counter, not in buildings resembling Fort Knox that alienate the public. We want hubs in familiar places, such as supermarkets and post offices, so that people can report a crime, get advice, or pass on their concerns as they go about their daily lives. In too many areas, policing is verging on irrelevance, called upon only in the direst of emergencies. We must restore the Peelite principle of the police as part of the community, not a distant ancillary service.

We welcome the end of the failed police and crime commissioner experiment, but its replacement must be better, not just different. Shifting powers from one underscrutinised politician to another is no answer. Policing must be accountable to the communities it serves, and day-to-day operations must be protected from political interference. We must not drift towards a model where the police answer more to Whitehall than to local residents, even as we sensibly reduce duplication and improve the sharing of data and intelligence.

In relation to police use of AI, the belated promise of a world­leading regulatory framework is very welcome, but in one of the most heavily surveilled democracies, it is surely the minimum the public should expect. Regulation is still lagging far behind the technology, even as the Home Secretary urges forces to adopt AI at pace and scale. Public anxiety about a drift towards a surveillance society is real, and international experience shows how easily such tools can be misused. Troubling early signs of misuse here at home only reinforce that risk. We will therefore press hard to ensure that any new legislation is genuinely robust and enforceable.

Finally, I share the concern about the increasing amount of ping-pong—but when the only way to have sensible ideas properly considered is to press them repeatedly, those of us who want to contribute constructively are left with little choice. In the debates on the last policing Bill, we repeatedly argued for proper safeguards on facial recognition, only to be told, time and again, that it was premature. Weeks later, the Home Office proposed those very safeguards. I am delighted the case was finally accepted, but I hope it does not become the pattern. The public want us to work across party lines to improve public services, especially in the fight against crime. They do not want point-scoring; they want visible improvements in policing and public safety. If the Government are serious about reform, they must show it not only in what they say and how they legislate but, crucially, in how they listen.

My Lords, before the full debate begins—I know your Lordships are looking forward to a full and fascinating debate—I note that we have 77 speakers today, and therefore the advisory speaking time has been set at four minutes. I therefore encourage your Lordships to stick to that, to give the later speakers a fair crack of the whip and so that we can achieve a reasonable rising time. I know that being a Whip is not a path to popularity, but I hope your Lordships will forgive the Whips if we feel the need to intervene if people exceed the advisory time beyond what the House thinks is reasonable.

My Lords, I welcome the maiden speeches of my noble friend Lord Case and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

I am not looking forward to the valedictory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, not because I do not think it will lighten our spirits and we will enjoy his wisdom, but because it is his final speech. I for one will miss him very much from this Chamber. We heard earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, of the King’s visit to Golders Green, which was endorsed by the House. I will pick up another thing that the King has recently done, for those who missed it: he endowed on Peter—the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy—the Order of the Garter. His qualities have been noticed not just in this House but beyond.

In the gracious Speech, I noticed 17 references to “security”. As the former head of the Security Service, more regularly known as MI5, I thought that was quite a lot and I welcomed it. I will just say a few things about the current national security threat, derived largely from the current head of the service in a speech he made in October.

Russia is attacking us on all fronts through cyber, influence operations, exploring our underwater cables, drone attacks, sabotage and murders, as well as conventional espionage. China is engaging in cyber, in influence operations and politically; it is seeking to exercise influence over the diaspora and is stealing our technology. Iran is sponsoring violence and terrorism and exacerbating antisemitism at a substantial level. Additionally, al-Qaeda and ISIS are still there. While we had hopes that Northern Ireland was peaceful, we had a car bomb there last month. Since I retired, we have also had extreme right-wing terrorism.

The most frightening thing—again deriving from the October speech—is that last year, 235 people were arrested for terrorism in this country, one in five of whom was under the age of 17. I touch on my sadness that the gracious Speech did not refer to under-16s on social media.

I will also say a little word in defence of Prevent at this stage. It is often pilloried; obviously, there was the most recent and notorious case of Southport. However, without it, the efforts to stop young people getting on to violent tracks, whether terrorism or extremism, are likely to be less successful.

I turn to tackling antisemitism and growing threats from states, protecting people from extreme violence and improving cyber defences. I think the whole House would applaud those aims of the Government and we look forward to the legislative frameworks for doing that. I have just one word of caution. The solutions to these problems will come not from law but from people—from the men and women from my organisation and the police, and more broadly—seeking to stop it.

This brings me on to Hillsborough. Who can dispute that the public deserve trust from their public servants? Of course they do. Who can dispute that the families concerned in this and other cases have suffered enormous anguish, from not just the event but the aftermath and the treatment of it? Therefore, the concern I am going to raise is difficult to raise because it sounds unsympathetic. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, as I am going to go slightly over four minutes; I know this is a bad precedent, but I need to say these things. Nor is it the case that I think my former service should not expect accountability and oversight—that is why we sought a parliamentary committee long before we got it. However, there are three problems here and the House will need to work hard to ensure that this Bill does not compromise national security.

The three problems, briefly, are these. The first problem is that this will take people off current work, plus lawyers, to deal with the requests. How much and how extensive is hard to judge, but it will remove people from front-line work. The second problem is that we get a great deal of intelligence from foreign services. They may be cautious about sharing that with us if it cannot be protected. Thirdly, human sources who work for us at risk of torture and death may be—it all depends on the detail—reluctant to offer their services if they think that their identity will be compromised. That said, I know this House will consider this important legislation very carefully and scrutinise it closely.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to respond to His Majesty’s gracious Speech today. I too look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Case, and my right reverend friend the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

We face serious challenges at home and abroad, and I continue to pray for those who carry responsibilities of office as we seek to meet these challenges together. At my installation at Canterbury Cathedral, I spoke about the presence and importance of hope. As a Christian, I believe that we have hope because we have a God who walks with us, even when circumstances feel overwhelming.

The work of integration has never been more urgent. We have witnessed a deeply concerning deterioration in intercommunity relations. I therefore welcome the commitment in the gracious Speech to do more to protect the Jewish community following the recent appalling attacks. In doing so, I wish to assure both Jewish and Muslim communities of my support as they face the unacceptable rise in hate crime, intimidation and hostility. The Church of England has long held that the right of all people to practise their faith without fear must be protected. We have also seen religious identity misused to intimidate and divide. Let us be clear: to follow Jesus Christ is to love your neighbour as yourself, to love without exception and to seek the flourishing of all.

We must address the pressures facing people and communities today, while ensuring that systems for new arrivals are fair. We must undertake the harder task of bringing communities together, of making strangers neighbours, and of ensuring that all who reside here have both the opportunity and the responsibility to contribute to our shared life. This becomes far more difficult if those refugees for whom we hold responsibility lack clarity about whether or when they may be required to return to their country of origin. We embed insecurity rather than stability when those seeking British citizenship are put through a decade-long game of immigration snakes and ladders.

As human beings, we are naturally drawn to those who resemble us or reinforce our views, particularly in times of adversity and scarcity, yet such instincts do not lead to a flourishing society. Our debate on immigration can, however, be a source of hope: that attitudes can change, that fairer societies are less divided, and that daily life alongside people of different backgrounds reduces fear and suspicion. Through its presence in every parish across England, the Church of England helps build communities where people know and care for one another. In doing so, it builds bridges and fosters relationships across lines of race, faith, class and more. In these acts of mutual care, the seeds of belonging are sown. It is this patient work of integration and community building that policy-making must support. My prayer is that we will see a renewal of hope in our country, a rejection of hatred and division, and a turning towards one another. This is where true pride in our nation is found.

There is much more in the gracious Speech that I cannot address today. However, I note the announcement of a draft conversion practices Bill and remind the House that, in 2017, the General Synod of the Church of England voted in favour of such a ban. I urge the Government to consult widely and wisely on this draft legislation, so that meaningful progress can be made.

Finally, I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, for his service to this House and nation. He has been a source of wisdom, particularly on Church-state relations and our constitutional settlement. I thank him for placing his expertise at the service of this Chamber and I wish him a happy, peaceful and well-earned retirement.

My Lords, after a week of fixation on personalities and personal ambitions, we can now return—I almost said “to sanity”—to the process of policies and the political direction of the Government. I am sure that they will want to make sure that their policies do not hinder but promote growth, and that the rewards of that growth go in a fair fashion to those who create the wealth—that is, the workers and the legitimate workless—not to those who choose not to work.

Having said that, I have two points to make about today’s debate. First, I very much welcome the immigration and asylum Bill. I am reassured by the present Home Secretary—I think she is probably the best for, say, 20 years. She recognises the problems that have been caused by uncontrolled immigration, not least under Prime Minister Boris Johnson. For two decades, it has caused considerable alienation among the public, not because they are all racists but because of endlessly increasing demand on public services at a time when the provision of public services, particularly during austerity, has been reduced continually. The problem has not been created by Nigel Farage and Reform. They have stepped into a vacuum which successive Governments have allowed to exist. They have used it, but they did not create it. I think our present Home Secretary recognises that, and I therefore fully support her efforts to finally tackle some of the worst excesses of the problem.

Secondly, I welcome the national security Bill. I remind the House that we are approaching the 20th anniversary of the biggest terrorist attack in our history: the liquid bomb plot to murder several thousand people in aeroplanes across the Atlantic. That plot was foiled by the vigilance of our security services, under the leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and here I must mention the noble Lord, Lord Evans.

It was a great thing that plot was foiled, but there were unintended consequences. The terrorists have not gone away. As one famous terrorist once said, they adapted: they shaped new, simpler and less vulnerable methods of murder—less vulnerable to detection—by individual acts of terrorism, using low technology such as knives, guns, cars, arson and opportunistic attacks on innocent civilians. They also targeted, in particular, the primary source of their hatred: the Jews—not just Israel. Anybody who can should look at the suicide videos which, fortunately, were ultimately of no use 20 years ago; they targeted the Jews. It is not just the state of Britain or the United Kingdom or Israel but individual Jews here and throughout the world. That is driven, of course, by extreme Islamism but it is now being succoured by the extreme right and, increasingly, the extreme left of politics. That should not surprise us. The extreme left; nationalism; the extreme right; extreme socialism; those were the intrinsic elements of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party of Deutschland.

When it is embedded like that—this is my final point—within civil society, it cannot be countered by the security services alone; that can be done only by civil society. It was defeated 80 years ago by the united resolution of the whole of the British people, including their united civil resistance to the poison of antisemitism at home. We need that again and urgently.

My Lords, I realise that everyone has a great deal to say in this debate. Unfortunately, the advisory time is four minutes. There are a significant number of speakers. If everyone goes even half a minute or up to a minute over, it will really knock on the time. Can I please ask all noble Lords to stay within the four minutes allocated?

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Wolfson has done the House a service, not only through what he said and the way that he said it but by saving me from saying it all over again. I agree with every word that he said.

I could also spend the entirety of the time allotted to me in this debate, and a lot more, speaking about the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy—whose valedictory speech we will hear very shortly—thanking him for his contribution to public understanding of our constitution through his books, his broadcasts, his journalism, his lectures and his participation among us here in your Lordships’ House. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, I congratulate him on becoming a Knight of the Garter, a fitting recognition by His Majesty of his achievements and his service to the country over many years. I should perhaps also add my congratulations to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, and the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell.

The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, has written to the effect that:

“Whereas every other Western democracy has codified its system of government, Britain’s constitution is a mish-mash of laws and conventions, customs and courtesies. Britain sees no need for the legalistic … writing down its constitution in one place. Instead it relies on the notion that its politicians know where the unwritten lines of the constitution lie, and do not cross them. ‘The British constitution’”,

he said,

“‘is a state of mind’”.

He famously described this as the “good chaps” theory of government, which requires a sense of restraint all round to make it work. He said:

“We have long assumed that those who rise to high office will be ‘good chaps’ … who understand the rules and choose to observe them. That has left us vulnerable to those who are not ‘good chaps’ but are willing to smash those rules for their own advantage”.

I will not divert myself down my anecdotage to refer to the Prorogation case, in which I appeared for Sir John Major to intervene on behalf of one former Prime Minister and leader of my party against the then current leader of my party and Prime Minister, but suffice it to say that the case described very neatly what the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was writing about. Many years ago, Professor Dicey wrote that if you break a convention, you will end up breaking the law. In 2019, that prediction was made good.

Whether one uses the expression “good chaps” or something else, there never was a golden age of politics in our history. It is a history of disagreement and occasionally of violent conflict. However, for most of the last few centuries, we have all understood each other. That attachment to commonly accepted rules, to passionate but well-argued debate and behaviour in the governance of our country’s affairs, is now, as this weekend has demonstrated, under strain.

I have spoken of the fellowship that existed between parliamentarians, the legal profession and the judiciary, which has become attenuated. We used to speak the same constitutional language and understood where we could go and where we should not go. The courts did not invade Parliament, and Parliament and the Executive did not abuse the judiciary. Barristers were not attacked for representing unpopular clients or vicious criminals. We were all part of a shared endeavour to do the very best for our country and its people, even if we came from different backgrounds and wanted different outcomes.

I see that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, is on the Front Bench. He has worked his guts out trying to improve the prison system, but, sadly, he has been prevented from doing the one thing that he and I want to do, which is to reform the IPP system finally and for good. I am sorry that there was nothing in the gracious Speech that allowed him to bring forward a package of reform.

I will say no more about the jury system. There is plenty of time to say something about that when we come to deal with the now, I understand, newly named courts modernisation Bill—it is the same rubbish but a different name. I think the Government ought to drop it.

My Lords, I welcome the gracious Speech. It sets out some of the new measures announced by the Government. To some extent, following the municipal elections, these claims are overshadowed by the recent goings-on in the Labour Party, and we cannot be certain that we will be able to see the final outcome of much of the legislation. This will depend on who finally leads the Labour Government. What we are seeing is a new brand of politics emerging from different political opinions in the country.

The main point which caught my eye was the improving of and continuing to invest in the renewal of public services. The Government will push forward with significant reforms to the police service. It is important to bear in mind that we should stop playing the snakes and ladders game with our police services. We had the most golden opportunity to introduce a royal commission on the criminal justice system. This was in the Labour Party manifesto but was put into the long grass in the last Session of Parliament—what a golden opportunity missed.

We have a crisis not just in policing issues but within the overall criminal justice system. Simply looking at policing reform is not going to resolve our problems. Why have we so many children in our care homes? Why have so many family structures broken down? How much has poverty and deprivation added to this problem? Do we need to criminalise our children at the age of 10 years or more? Look at the overrepresentation of Black and minority people in our penal institutions. Compared with the general population, they are not overrepresented in crime as against their numbers in the community. We should be investing more in their welfare within their family structures.

Are we sure that supervision is available for at least the first year when inmates leave prison? It is important to provide through-the-gate services so that young people can have a place to live as well as continuity of training and treatment between prison and the community. We should not lose sight of the fact that, when the state incarcerates prisoners, it takes full responsibility for each individual. We would do well, in very difficult times, to say to ourselves that if we lose that responsibility, we will lose control of our criminal justice system.

Let me come to some matters quite specific to the gracious Speech. The Government are to introduce legislation to restructure the police in England and Wales. This includes creating one big national force to tackle organised crime by merging the National Crime Agency with counterterrorism, currently led by the Metropolitan Police, and other elements of national policing.

We welcome the abolition of PCCs: we have called for this and claim some success in achieving this aim. A properly constituted structure, including local councillors and local representatives, will bring more effectiveness to our policing and save funds that have been wasted so far.

The last few months have seen a lot of focus on the role of technology in policing, including the involvement of companies such as Palantir. Amnesty International points out that three-quarters of police forces in the United Kingdom use a predictive policing system, a form of technology that is notoriously unregulated. Research has found that these systems lead to the targeting of already overpoliced communities such as Black people, ethnic minorities and working-class people. What steps are the Government taking through legislation to introduce rigorous oversight of these systems? Will they commit to a publicly available and accessible register on which police forces must register the predictive system they are developing or using? If we fail here, we will face incidents of conflict for generations and years to come.

My Lords, it is an honour to be speaking in your Lordships’ House for the first time, especially in the context of His Majesty’s most gracious Speech and as a warm-up act for the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. The State Opening is a reminder of how well our nation does pageantry and ceremony. Therefore, I pay tribute to all the public servants who supported the occasion. I am, of course, individually grateful to so many of those same members of the House staff who have made me welcome here in this place.

Our sovereign’s appearance last week was also a reminder of the balance struck within our modern constitutional settlement, which mingles so intricately the majesty of monarchy with the somewhat gnarlier necessities of modern governance—the sparkling jewels of the dignified crown with the rather more thrusting battleground of 21st-century politics. As we have all been taught over the ages, both constitutional pillars have their essential parts to play, and both require due care and attention.

I was fortunate enough to learn my constitutional history at the feet of some of our finest teachers in the arts and crafts of the British constitution. In particular, the debt I owe to my greatest of noble friends, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, is one which can never be repaid. His instruction and guidance have sustained, challenged and encouraged so many students over decades, and we are all much the better for it. “The Prof”, as we affectionately know him, has so often celebrated the mysteries of our largely unwritten constitution. As already noted, more recently he has invited us to observe with sadness the smashed pieces of our so-called “good chap” principles strewn across the floor of royal palaces.

If we are to sustain our tradition of a largely unwritten and therefore dynamic constitution, we must be for ever mindful of its inherent fragility. The flexibility we celebrate can so easily become the catastrophe we regret. Herein lies the essential teaching. As each of us takes our place in line between those who came before and those who will come after, we must recognise our greatest duty of all: that of stewardship. Individually and collectively we are required to make sure that, as our precious union continues its steady stroll through time, decisions, especially those that affect our constitutional foundations, are taken deliberately and thoughtfully, not blithely nor under anaesthesia, as the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, once put it to one of the classes of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessey. A deliberate constitution can serve the nation; a careless constitution leaves us unmoored and at risk.

To be clear, I do not argue that the job is the preservation of the status quo. When one looks around this country and talks to people in some of our communities most in need—in places like Barrow-in-Furness, where I chair a regeneration partnership, as recorded in my register of interests—we can see that in too many eyes, power is not being wielded in the interests of those who seek to build or strengthen communities. Power has to be aligned so that it enables those who have the passion, creativity and knowledge to improve lives and efficiently and effectively give people up and down this country the opportunities to thrive that they so deserve.

His Majesty informed us that his Government are committed to the strength and integrity of the union of the United Kingdom. That task, I humbly suggest, needs to be one shared far and wide. The preservation of our union is too often reduced to an immediate scrum between specific political parties in any given political moment, yet I argue that it is a far more serious and enduring task than that. It is one rooted in the humble and thoughtful development of our institutions, in the deliberate adjustment of our constitutional arrangements to support those who would do good in our communities, and in taking seriously our duty to take what we have learned from those who came before us and to hand on an improved lot to those who come after. It is perhaps the most important task of all.

My Lords, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Case, is of course a special moment for an old teacher like me. I thank him and other noble Lords, including the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, for their very moving words.

There is another factor in play. Old PhD supervisors never die; they fade away in libraries and archives, waiting and hoping that their former students do well, and, when they do, the pride is very real. There is another one of my former PhD students to come in this debate; I leave that to be a pleasant surprise for you all. These old teachers keep their metaphorical red pen poised and mark in their minds what their former pupils say and write. The noble Lord, Lord Case, will say wise and important things aplenty in this Chamber and its committees, and I shall be waiting, watching and applauding. It was a great day when my friend Dr Peter Martland got on the phone from Cambridge and told me he had just the research student for me. I urged the future Lord Case to get down the Mile End Road to Queen Mary straight away. He did. He came, he saw and he flourished, just as he will in your Lordships’ House.

Before I get to the subject of the constitution, I want to mention the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I was not planning a valedictory. “Plan it,” she said, so I did. The noble Baroness was one of our bridesmaids, and you do not argue with bridesmaids. I said, “I will do it if you come and sit beside me, lest it all becomes too much”. So, here we are.

I offer a few parting thoughts about the British constitution. To put it as pithily as I can, I am more anxious about it than I have ever been. Our constitution has been seriously stress-tested in the years since I joined your Lordships’ House in 2010. Since then, there have been some scarring moments—for example, when the highest in the political land ignored or disdained it when the constitutional decencies and proprieties etched into the Ministerial Code got in his way.

It may well be the case that the current course and condition of British politics decays still further into rancour and recrimination, so I leave behind just one suggestion: that this House and its Constitution Committee carry out an inquiry into where the vulnerabilities of the British constitution might lie if, heaven forbid, a future Government sought to overthrow the conventions that have served us so well in the past. This is not the moment to recite a litany of the peculiar bundle of statutes, codes, practices, customs and precedents that together comprise this elusive phenomenon that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, observed, is not contained in a single document yet somehow lives and breathes every day for the benefit and stability of our country. Instead, I shall concentrate on the human side: the states of mind, the sense of where the boundaries both visible and invisible are drawn, on the part of all those engaged in public and political life, for in the observance of these decencies our safety lies.

The human side of the British constitution in the past has relied on three feeder streams for it to bring it sustenance and refreshment, generation upon generation: the civility stream, the way we conduct our political arguments; the tolerance stream, the attitude we take to the losing side in said arguments; and the duty of care stream, which carries our sense of where the boundaries lie into the everyday conduct of political and public life. It is the confluence of these sustaining streams on which the buoyancy of our entire system of government depends. Happy is the country, fortunate are its people, when the steady flow of this life-enhancing cataract is the norm.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, noted, it was a Cabinet Office friend, the late Clive Priestley, who first called this human approach

“the good chaps theory of government”.

We would not, perhaps, use that precise vocabulary today, but Clive Priestley was right. In the end, the vitality and strength of the British constitution do depend on the sense of duty, public service and restraint of those set in authority above us.

We have been mired for too long in the politics of pessimism as a result of living in what many people regard as a “nothing works” society. Should this sour still further into a politics of despair, we would be in deep trouble. Crucial to avoiding this will be a replenishment of those feeder streams. This is why, in the end, I am optimistic, for those decencies run deep in our certain idea of Britain—to adapt the opening sentence of General Charles de Gaulle’s memoirs. I think especially of the brave, stoical generation who fought for us in the huge war of national survival in the 1940s, who planned and implemented a better peace for the generation into which I was born. They showed just how potent the mobilisation of decency can be. We owe it to their memory, and to the generations to come, to once more in our time mobilise that cardinal virtue.

For it is the politics of decency that is our greatest protection against a slide into the politics of despair, out of whose dark crevices authoritarianism can slink. To so mobilise would require no new statute from Parliament and not a penny from the Treasury, for it is a matter of spirit, a question of faith. We have done it before, and we can do it again. That is why, in the end, I am sure we can break out of the cycle of pessimism and hold the line against those who would curb our liberties and make a bonfire of the decencies in whose defence we must take our stand—and quickly. As my special friend, the noble Lord, Lord Case, expressed it just now, in a sentence that deserves to ring out from this Chamber: “The flexibility we celebrate can so easily become the catastrophe we regret”.

It has been a delight to sit with your Lordships these past 15 and a half years. I shall miss you all and for ever cherish the memory of our time together.

Hear, hear!

My Lords, how to follow that? It is not often that a Member of this House is heard in such silence and with such reverence. It is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and we are all delighted to see him back in his place. We regret that he is leaving. We congratulate him on his appointment to the Order of the Garter. It is rather daunting to try to pay tribute to the work he has done. He is held in such high esteem, as we have already heard in this House this afternoon. He is a distinguished historian, a distinguished academic and a distinguished journalist and has been a very significant contributor to this House.

That might make the noble Lord sound rather a dry individual. But, as we have heard this afternoon, that is far from the case. When he speaks about contemporary issues, it is almost as if he is writing the readable history for the future of what is happening at the moment. I recall hearing that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was once an altar boy. I think maybe that explains the innocent look he sometimes gives us—which is very disarming—when he is making a particular point in a very significant way. The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, looked up the maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, as did I, and he did say that he hoped he could help the House of Lords on constitutional matters, which is exactly what he has done.

As a former chair of the Constitution Committee, I recall some of our meetings during Covid. These were often held remotely, sometimes with the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, joining us from Orkney, although only with the essential technological help of his wife, Enid, because I do not think he would ever quite have managed to master that particular task. I can certainly vouch for the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, fulfilled his hope to help the House. He just said that he will miss this House and cherish the memories of our time together. May I say, on behalf of us all, that we are grateful for his many insights and for the hope that he gave us today, at what he described as a very challenging time? Like him, we will cherish the memory of our time together and we wish him and his family well.

Turning to the King’s Speech, and picking up on what has just been said about the strength of the British constitution depending on a sense of duty and public service, I note that in it the Government say that they will

“defend the British values of decency, tolerance and respect for difference”.

Alas, defence of these values is needed even more than usual. Anyone who knocked on doors in the recent local elections would probably confirm this. The experience was described by many as toxic, and we have to assert that greater respect for everyone has to be worked for. It is a great shame that many good and decent councillors, not just in my own party, were treated very badly, because we need people with a sense of public service at all levels of government. If we are to break out of what the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, described as the politics of pessimism, we have to do more.

The King’s Speech is very heavy, which is good in one sense, because there is much that needs to be done, but in terms of the best functioning of Parliament, I worry about the weight of legislation and its complexity. I also worry about the knee-jerk reaction to many issues that we see today, as if there is only ever a binary choice. I would like to see more Bills presented in draft, or after a Green Paper, a White Paper and a system of consultation. Of course, some Bills—or some parts of Bills—will always be controversial. The Opposition made that clear today when mentioning the courts modernisation Bill but, as I think the Minister pointed out, everyone agrees that the current system is not ideal. I therefore wish that we could work more together to work out what practical improvements could actually be made. I hope that we can have constructive discussions on this. Specifically, I ask Ministers to intensify their efforts to recruit more magistrates and a more diverse band of magistrates. I know they are trying, but it really is urgent.

This debate is very wide, so I cannot resist mentioning one or two other measures in the King’s Speech. As a proud northerner, I have to welcome the proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail Bill, which is long overdue, long neglected and nothing to do with other events taking place at the moment. I also welcome the attention being given to the late payments problem for small businesses, because I think many of us have heard about many problems of that kind. Of course, I must mention and welcome the Sporting Events Bill. Finally, I mention the draft Bill to ban abusive conversion practices, an abhorrent activity. I hope that having that Bill in draft will enable us to get the details appropriate and comprehensive, without causing undue delay.

We have just had a very busy parliamentary Session and it looks like another intense year. I hope that we can have a constructive approach on all sides and can all bear in mind the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy: that we should try to embrace the politics of decency.

My Lords, I will get straight to the point and take on board the advice of the Government Whip on duty. I was hugely disappointed not to see SLAPPs legislation included in the gracious Speech. When a primary objective of government is restoring public confidence in democracy and our institutions, it is hard to understand why the Government are curtailing access to jury trials but not legislating to prevent the abuse of our legal system and protect access to justice. Let us be clear: SLAPPs are brought not to protect a claimant’s reputation or rights but to deter, burden or silence public interest speech.

In the UK, which is the destination of choice for this aggressive lawfare, such claims have been brought by sanctioned individuals, hostile state-linked actors, perpetrators of serious misconduct, multinational corporations and other well-resourced claimants. Anyone having to defend themselves against a SLAPP is too often forced into submission because they do not have access to the same kind of money or resource to spend the time and energy engaged in a costly and debilitating fight. This is a serious situation, and legislation is both necessary and urgent.

In the absence of its inclusion in the gracious Speech, I none the less bring some cheering news. I will bring forward a SLAPPs Private Member’s Bill, having been successful in the ballot on Friday. It is important that we learn from both the economic crime Act provisions with regard to SLAPPS and the debates over the previous Private Member’s Bill in how we move forward. I have worked with the Media Lawyers Association and the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, and my Bill will cover three principles.

The first is an early dismissal mechanism that examines the characteristics of the claim, not the claimant’s motives, ensuring that a case concerning an act of public participation will not move forward if a claim is not likely to succeed and if the public interest expression outweighs the alleged harm to the claimant. This would allow judges to balance free expression with the claimant’s rights, and to apply well-understood legal principles rather than being bogged down in statutory definitions. The second is express case-management powers to allow for a determination to be made on the papers, with a short oral hearing only where necessary, ensuring that the dismissal mechanism cannot be weaponised by the claimant. The third is a mechanism to deter SLAPPs by awarding costs against claimants on an indemnity basis and protecting defendants from adverse cost orders if the case is a SLAPP.

This approach would protect access to justice, as a claimant with a strong or genuinely arguable case would proceed even if it may potentially suppress an act of public participation. To be clear, this mechanism would not prevent claims from being brought, but would prevent claims without realistic merit consuming disproportionate resources and doing so much harm.

Well over 100 Members on all sides of this House signed a letter to the Prime Minister last month calling for SLAPPs legislation. In 2024, the Conservative Government backed legislation, as did the then Labour Opposition Front Bench. We have the opportunity now to achieve what everyone wants: an end to the abuse of our legal system, which threatens fundamental principles and, at the same time, doing so by maintaining access to justice. The House of Lords is well placed to lead on this, and I want to work with all Members, especially legal colleagues who recognise the need for reform and are rightly concerned about overreach. Today, I simply ask the Minister winding up, and indeed my own and the Lib Dem Front Benches, to confirm that they will work with me in ensuring that, on this occasion, we succeed.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. Yes, he was my PhD supervisor, though I heard on the way in that he thought that the PhD of the noble Lord, Lord Case, was the best he had ever seen. However, I am happy to follow his interest by talking about just two aspects of the urgent task of cleaning up politics.

The first is about lobbying. I value being lobbied; I think it helps us understand the implications of proposed—or indeed, as we have just heard, much-needed—legislation, whether that affects business, finance, poverty, consumers, workers, localities or the environment, but lobbying in this country is basically unregulated. The coalition Government introduced what they called a register of lobbyists but, alas, it covered only consultant lobbying firms, not the much larger industry of in-house lobbyists. Luckily, however, I topped last week’s ballot for Private Members’ Bills, so my Bill, which will have its First Reading on 1 June, would extend the register to include in-house lobbyists. I trust that the House will support that Bill, as our rather crazy current situation is that the so-called register includes only consultancies and not the most effective of lobbyists, namely those who work within big companies. Lobbyists, or public affairs as they tend to be called, who are directly employed by defence companies, the drinks industry, utilities, developers or the financial sector, all work under the radar. In contrast, small bodies, be they SMEs or charities, are unable to employ their own public affairs departments and therefore call in the help of consultants and see that work registered. Advisers to a small charity, such as Alcohol Concern that I used to run, must register, but not the public affairs teams of drinks companies.

Secondly, I turn to the idea of a cap on donations from expat voters. I am very pleased that, following the report, the Government have said they will introduce a cap on donations from overseas voters, many of whom will not have lived in the UK for decades and probably have no intention of ever returning here. They do not pay UK tax, they do not use our services or contribute to our economy, but they will still be permitted to donate £100,000 a year to a political party—that is £200,000 for a couple, or a million pounds within a Parliament. We on our side of the House, and I hope on the other side, may rail against Nigel Farage’s receipt of £5 million from an expat, but why are we all so relaxed about £1 million per Parliament being donated from a non-resident British couple, with no skin in the game, where the source of their money, or even whether they are in prison, working for another Government or anything else, cannot be easily verified? It is very different from the way they treat us, as PEPs. Let us reduce the permitted donation cap for overseas residents to one-tenth, say £10,000 a year, or allow such donations only from UK taxpayers.

My noble friend the Minister said in her introduction that she wanted to rebuild trust in our British constitution. These two measures would move towards that.

My Lords, I wish we had extra time today in order to hear more from the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. It is so fitting that it is he who speaks of civility, tolerance and duty of care. We will miss him.

Following the tradition of bemoaning what is not in the legislative programme, I would have mentioned SLAPPs but instead I can welcome the PMB of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell—this is not to ignore the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. There is also a tradition of calling for more cross-government working and, declaring an association with the charity Missing People, I note the number of people dying while missing, mostly by suicide. It is up 30% in six years. The current response, led by the police, just is not working. Their role is vital, but they are not alone responsible. All the agencies that deal with safeguarding, exploitation and care need to be mandated to work together. The Home Office should lead on this.

Modern slavery and human trafficking have grown, while our response has been weakened by a series of regressive reforms. As the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner notes in her recent report:

“It appears in shocking cases that briefly make headlines but then fade quickly from collective consciousness … Without widespread public awareness, even the strongest laws will struggle to deliver real-world impact”—

and they are not the strongest laws or the best practice. She is emphatic that people with lived experience see risks and problems long before institutions do, yet we fail to learn from them.

At the same time, government claims of widespread misuse and abuse of the national referral mechanism are not supported by the available evidence base, as the University of Nottingham Rights Lab points out. In an increasingly diverse and complex exploitation landscape, the statutory guidance was changed last week to put a higher burden on survivors to explain what they have gone through. The Home Office should not be using the term “trauma-informed” when it is so clearly lacking, as is any evidence of understanding retraumatisation.

Slavery is still conflated with immigration and immigration enforcement. We know that legislation in that area will herald measures that these Benches will not be able to welcome. The new independent appeals body is to be staffed by adjudicators, not judges. On stricter age assessments, the priority should be ensuring that fewer children are incorrectly treated as adults. The Government are requiring refugees to repay the cost of Home Office support without removing barriers to employment so that they can more easily contribute. The lifeline of family reunion is still paused. I am sure that my noble friend Lord German will say more about that.

The writer Horatio Clare puts it well:

“The story … misrepresents everyone. Brave and resourceful people crossing the Channel in hope and belief have been disfigured into faceless threats. The volunteers … aid workers and very many members of the public who help and support refugees, migrants and asylum seekers are slandered, denigrated or ignored. The populace of Britain, who are as overwhelmingly kind, sympathetic and generous as the people in the small boats believe us to be, are made to feel fearful, mean and foolish. All the good we and our institutions have done has been redacted”.

My Lords, in January 2022 the Constitution Committee, of which I had the privilege of being a member together with my noble friend Lord Hennessy, published a report. The title, crafted by my noble friend himself, was Respect and Co-operation: Building a Stronger Union for the 21st Century. The committee said that there was

“evidence of an increasing ambivalence about the Union among the populations of each nation”.

Opponents of the union said that “its demise is inevitable”. The committee said:

“It is not, but there is no room for complacency”.

That message has been driven home even more powerfully by the fact that, following the recent elections, explicitly anti-unionist parties are now in the majority in each of the three devolved Governments. That cannot be left unnoticed.

The position is most compelling in Scotland. That is not because there is evidence that independence is the settled will of the Scottish people; it is far from clear that this is so. But the fact that the two pro-independence parties—the SNP and the Greens—once again have a significant majority over the parties that favour the union does matter. It provides the First Minister, John Swinney, with a platform that he is determined to exploit to develop his nationalist agenda.

At first sight, all the cards are with the Government here at Westminster. Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 declares that

“the Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland”

is a reserved matter, so the referendum Bill that the First Minister is planning to introduce to the Scottish Parliament will get nowhere unless an order is made under Section 30 of that Act to modify that arrangement, which is not in prospect.

The Constitution Committee addressed this issue by stating that, while not a panacea, governance of the UK should be improved by greater respect and co-operation between the nations. Indeed, that was my noble friend Lord Hennessy’s message. This theme was repeated in the opening words of the gracious Speech, but, if the Minister will forgive me, this is no longer good enough; we must do more if the union is to be preserved. We must do more to ensure that the benefits of the union are recognised across all the nations. It needs to be clear what a vote for independence would involve, which is certainly not understood by most of those who favour independence.

I offer three suggestions. First, thought should be given to introducing a process for granting the Section 30 order by setting out in legislation the standard that needs to be achieved if a referendum on independence is to be authorised. Secondly, it should be made clear to the First Minister in any future discussions that a yes vote is only the starting point towards independence; we need to know what he plans to do next. Thirdly, and most importantly, thought should be given to introducing a provision similar to Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty on what would happen should any devolved Administration decide to withdraw from the union. It should be made clear that they will first need to negotiate and then conclude an agreement with the rest of the UK as to the arrangements to withdraw, taking account of the future relationship with the UK. That is what led to Brexit; the equivalent process for Scotland’s departure, should it ever happen, will be even more complicated. It cannot happen—and those who favour it should be reminded of this—unless and until a Bill that enables it to do so has been passed by the Parliament here at Westminster.

My Lords, it is both an honour and a little intimidating to follow some of the brilliant speeches we have heard this afternoon, in particular the valedictory speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. He will be very much missed.

I will talk briefly about the proposed reforms to jury service, which is a subject very dear to my heart. As an undergraduate law student back in the day, I wrote my final-year dissertation on the value of jury service to the English legal system. Back then, I was passionate about how the principle of jury service, the right to be judged by our fellow citizens, was justifiably a cornerstone of British justice and a powerful protection against state overreach. I am still passionate about those things. More recently, working in politics, I have also argued that the principle of legal juries could usefully be extended to wider policy-making through the introduction of citizens’ juries where fellow citizens deliberate, debate and judge policy. I think that would also be very useful.

Frankly, you would go a long way to find somebody who was more of a champion of jury service—its principles and process—than I am, so it is strange to find myself here supporting proposals in this King’s Speech to reduce access to jury service. But support them I do, because our justice system today—unlike the justice system when I wrote my undergraduate thesis all those years ago—is in crisis. This Government have inherited a situation, after years of underfunding and neglect, in which some 80,000 cases are awaiting trial, bringing untold anguish to the victims of those crimes, who are often unable to move on with their lives. Many victims wait for years for justice, with 21,000 cases waiting more than a year.

My noble friend the Minister has eloquently set out a series of measures designed at last to tackle this head-on and to address the backlog. I strongly support these proposals and believe that they are, as my noble friend the Minister has said, proportionate and sensible. They are a price worth paying to end the agonising and unacceptable weight that victims and their families—and those seeking to clear their names—have been forced to endure in recent years. They know better than most that justice delayed is justice denied.

At a time when trust in politicians and politics is at an all-time low, we hear a lot about how Governments fail to tackle or take on the tough decisions, too often choosing instead the easy route, which is to kick the challenge into the long grass and, in doing so, prop up the failing status quo while the vulnerable live with the consequences of that broken system. I am proud and relieved that this Government are prepared to be bold—to grasp the nettle and put victims of crime first.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the well-argued speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson. I suspect we will have plenty more argument on that subject. However, today belongs to the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, although we were privileged to hear a powerful maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Case.

Can this really be the troublesome young journalist for the Times with whom I used to have lunch in the early 1970s, in direct disobedience of the predecessor of the noble Lord, Lord Case, Sir Burke Trend, who had forbidden any contact with this dangerous figure? Can this ermined and gartered figure really be the same person? Yes, it is—my goodness, Burke would be surprised, but pleased.

The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, together with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, and the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, has put paid to a traditional part of the British constitution. Perhaps after some advice from the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, he put paid to Lord Melbourne’s dictum that “there is no damn merit about the garter”. This was an essential part of our constitution and laying it to rest, as it now finally has been, is to be welcomed.

I come not only to praise the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, but to say how much I valued our personal friendship over many years, plotting about more open government and many other things, and that we must listen to him. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, was before, I am a member of the Constitution Committee. I will put before fellow members, of whom I am only one, of course, that we should now be looking to the very present dangers that exist for our constitution and try to identify the weaknesses, bolster the strengths and say that sometimes there should perhaps be more legal backing, although the introduction of lawyers into the process of government is not always to be welcomed. We should look to the weaknesses while we have time because, like the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, I predict that this is going to come under grave attack, or is liable to, in the years ahead. It is no news to any noble Lords that, at the moment, we have powerful forces about in the political world of the United Kingdom who are blaming the instruments of government, and not their own policies, for the problems we face.

I believe there is, in a prominent position in this country, the son of a tool-maker. He should surely know the phrase, which we were all brought up with, that a bad workman blames his tools. It is not the independent Civil Service, or some imaginary deep state, or any of that nonsense, which stops good policy being made; it is that we have lost, in the House of Commons, the capacity to debate new legislation in the way it ought to be debated. That is at the heart of quite a lot of the ills and problems that this House now faces. It is considered, consensual patriotism—consensus in its broadest sense, which linked Sir Winston Churchill to Mr Ernie Bevin, two people who could hardly have been more different in background and in every other way—which leads to good long-term policy.

I, for one, hope in a small way to respond to the appeal from the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and that the House as a whole listens carefully to what he says.

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave, and his sweeping look at history and the constitution.

The gracious Speech has a lot of legislation contained therein, but there are two omissions which I want to mention in passing. The first is a very welcome omission: the decision not to proceed with the Diego Garcia Bill, which, of course, was an affront to the rights of the BIOT community. The second omission is a missed opportunity, on welfare reform, and no doubt we will come back to that matter.

In the short time available to me, I want to highlight just two issues—the first is around extremism. The Minister will be pleased to hear that I met with Jonathan Hall KC just last week, who is carrying out a review of Section 1 of the Terrorism Act and its effectiveness in dealing with the glorification of terrorism. I look forward to continuing the dialogue with Mr Hall about his review and hope that he can make impactful recommendations to His Majesty’s Government.

For me, there is a gap in the legislation which allows the praising of terrorism. The impact of that goes beyond direct incitement—it is about the erosion of democratic resilience and social cohesion as well. I believe we need to send a clear message from Parliament to confront and reject extremism in all its forms, by making the glorification of terrorism something which is not normalised but rather seen as the radicalisation tool that it is.

Secondly, as this debate covers the union, I want briefly to reflect on the recent election results across the nation, with the sometimes inaccurate commentary that has followed. First, I certainly do not think the results should be ignored or glossed over by those of us who care deeply about the union, but they should also not be misrepresented. In Wales, Plaid Cymru has broken through in a remarkable way and become the largest party, with 35.4% of the vote. But with respect to Plaid’s victory, that figure is nowhere near a majority for breaking up the union in Wales, especially when one looks at the turnout, which was only 51.6%—meaning that nearly half the Welsh electorate stayed at home.

In Scotland, the SNP captured 38.2% of the vote in the constituency ballot, which is down 9.2% from 2021. When combined with the pro-independence Greens, the vote share for pro-independence parties totals only 41.15%, which is the second-lowest vote share for pro-independence parties since 2007.

There were more seats won, however, with fewer votes, because of the fragmentation of the pro-union vote. This, unfortunately, is something with which we are very familiar in Northern Ireland. In 2022, the Sinn Féin vote was just 29%, and when combined with the SDLP, it reached 38%. So, there is still clearly a pro-union majority, not just in Northern Ireland but in Scotland and Wales as well. I want to point out to noble Lords that the Sinn Féin First Minister of Northern Ireland is a joint First Minister with the unionist deputy First Minister. The First Minister cannot take any decision without the agreement of the deputy First Minister, and the hyperbole about the three devolved First Ministers being separatists is not correct. Northern Ireland is led jointly by two Ministers in the Executive Office, with equal powers and equal say. That is the price of power-sharing. Many have conveniently forgotten or chosen to ignore that fact, and it is very important that it be noted here today.

Finally, for the First Minister of Scotland to cosy up to Sinn Féin and tell us to move on, I say this: it is difficult to move on from Sinn Féin’s dark past when it refuses to move on from its dark past and continues to glorify the violence of the IRA. As Elie Wiesel said:

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time”.

My Lords, a little while ago, I became aware of the case of a young man charged with multiple counts of rape. He was arrested late at night in front of his weeping parents and taken away in a police van. It was five years before he came to trial.

The trial itself lasted five days. When it finished, the jury—nine of whom were women—took less than five minutes to find him not guilty. The jury was so distressed that, afterwards, they waited for the young man out in the street. One by one, they embraced him on the pavement because of the terrible injustice that he had been put through—five years of a young life wiped out, reduced to cleaning portaloos. In their turn, every member of that jury wanted a hug from him, to help soften their own pain from being part of the process.

Our system is not only blind but, nowadays, deaf—and it is dying. Hyperbole? No. Hillsborough, bad blood, the Rotherham grooming gangs, Grenfell Tower, the Post Office—they were scandals in which thousands of people died, many by suicide, with tens of thousands of other lives ruined. That was because public servants ticked their little boxes and left it at that. No one took responsibility.

Rape is a terrible crime—and it is a terrible accusation. Yet neither the police nor the CPS reviewed the defence material. No witnesses were interviewed. The prosecuting lawyer had not even finished reading the file when the trial began and did not even know there was more than one charge to answer—that is justice today. This was a dereliction of duty by public servants on an inexcusable scale, and it happens every day.

Who is responsible? Ultimately, we are. We wake up in the morning, read terrible headlines and say, “Something must be done!” We wave our magic wands, write a manifesto and pull out dead rabbits from a hat. We make new laws and issue more orders that overwhelm the system—good intentions that have paved the way to hell. In every corner, instead of the sound of justice, we hear the echoes of files being shuffled, statistics being manipulated, lawyers gaming the system, boxes being ticked and hands being washed.

The only semblance of justice given to this young man came from the jury, yet, ironically, the Government are threatening our jury system. My noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar powerfully pointed all that out. The Government must think again. British justice was once regarded as the fairest and finest in the world, yet nowadays we find her lying face down in the mud. It is our fault and our duty to fix.

My Lords, like others, I note that the King’s Speech did not mention constitutional or political reform. The Representation of the People Bill addresses many of the external threats to our constitutional democracy but does nothing to address the domestic threats, both from the depth of public disillusion and from the frailty of our constitutional safeguards against abuse of the executive power.

Public mistrust in Westminster politics, even in democracy as such, continues to rise. Polls show the leader of my party as the least unpopular political leader at the moment, but I have to say that all leaders based in Westminster are currently in negative territory. Yet Labour’s promise in its 2024 manifesto to “deepen our democracy” through parliamentary reform has almost been forgotten. It did set up the Modernisation Committee in the Commons, but that has so far achieved mainly improved accessibility for disabled Members; it has done nothing to address the order of Commons business.

Lords reform shuffles another couple of paces forward. The manifesto promised to move towards a second Chamber that is

“more representative of our nations and regions”—

that has disappeared. When I raised with the Minister, during the debate on the then devolution Bill, the question of how the new Mayoral Council for England would relate to the current, much weaker Council of the Nations and Regions, she seemed unaware that there might be a problem with relations between the different Governments within our union.

The local elections have shown that two-party politics has disappeared, leaving our electoral system and the conventions of Parliament unfit for purpose. In several local authorities, Reform won a majority of seats on a third or less of the vote. In Richmond upon Thames, the Liberal Democrats won every seat on little more than half the vote, which is not itself an advertisement for proper democracy. Labour’s massive majority in the Commons was won on barely a third of votes cast, on a turnout of less than six in 10. It is possible that, at the next election, a party could win a majority of seats on under 30% of votes cast, on an even lower turnout. That would be a real democratic crisis.

The Conservatives promised in the 2015 election campaign that they would provide “strong and stable single-party government” instead of what they described as a “coalition of chaos”. Since then, we have suffered years of chaotic single-party government under the Conservatives, and sadly now also under Labour.

Three weeks ago, a consortium of NGOs published a manifesto entitled Defensive Constitutional Reform: Preventing the UK from Going the Way of the US. They noted the growth of populist and authoritarian movements in European democracies, and the ease with which President Trump has swept aside the stronger constitutional safeguards, legal constraints and democratic scrutiny in the American system. Our constitutional safeguards are weak. We have already seen one Prime Minister attempt to bypass Parliament and govern by executive power. As the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and others have said, we are no longer governed by “good chaps” alone.

All of us, in government and in democratic parties now in opposition, need to consider together what changes are needed in the way Parliament operates, in the balance between central, national and local government, and in the centre of government itself, to defend effective constitutional democracy from the threats we now face. All the King’s Speech offered us instead was a Bill to remove hereditary titles from the roll of Peers.

My noble friend Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield has been a fine mentor to the whole House. That was evident today. As we proceed without him, we must not let him down. Laws send social messages. Candour and individual accountability must improve in all sectors. Human nature and fear intimidate people from admitting when decisions—often taken in haste—have been wrong. For the bereaved fighting for years to reveal the truth, truth is essential in coping with their grief. Financial compensation does not stop the pain, but being misled and cover-ups make grieving much more painful, burning into people’s soul as they search for honour, facts and peace. Legislation is long overdue.

In court modernisation, magistrates’ non-custodial sentencing powers must widen. Let us take alcohol-fuelled crime and alcohol abstinence tags—I declare that I chair the Commission on Alcohol Harm. The initial pilot in Wales was impressive, with recent data suggesting that recidivism when tagged remains low. Will the Government now use probation’s longer-term data from the alcohol use disorders identification test—AUDIT—to gain further insights to guide magistrates’ sentencing? Drink-related harm costs the country around £21.5 billion a year, with alcohol playing a part in four in 10 serious crimes. Some 20% of offenders on probation misuse alcohol, so sobriety sentencing longer than four months could improve long-term outcomes. The increase in drink-drug crimes calls for urgent development of drug detection tags linked to treatment, not only alcohol detection tags.

The cycle of criminality is broken only through adequate prevention. The links between health and criminality are stark. Women make up 4% of the prison population. More than half are neurodiverse or have trauma-induced brain injury. Many had experienced domestic or sexual abuse and coercive relationships, needed mental health treatment, were drinking out of control, often with a drug problem, and some had overdosed—before sentencing. Around one in five had been in the care system. Each year, around 600 pregnant women are incarcerated, with missed antenatal care, pre-term or precipitate labour more common, and insufficient prison mother and baby units. Trials and sentencing must recognise that better prison health for one can alter an entire family’s trajectory, as prisoners’ children experience higher rates of emotional distress, disrupted attachment, poorer educational outcomes and future vulnerability.

Clean water legislation crosses England and Wales, as Welsh Water supplies into England, whilst the Severn impacts both England and Wales. Can the Minister confirm that, as intended, the Senedd is intricately involved in legislative control of water companies, stringent enough to ensure that water companies comply, rather than just meet a minimum standard? Planning regulation must be linked; we need food production, not concreted-over land and gardens that increase surface water run-off into drains and affect the water table. Our inadequate water treatment and sewerage plants require urgent investment, leveraged through regulation. Farmers need incentives to decrease ammonia and other fertiliser use, and to undertake muck spreading, as in Ireland, with nutrients absorbed into the soil rather than running off into waterways.

Comments on the Health Bill are for another day.

My Lords, extremism in democratic societies rarely presents itself fully formed. More often, it emerges through gradual shifts—in what is tolerated, expected, and left unchallenged. These shifts are now visible: declining trust in institutions, tolerance of political violence, and the spread of conspiracy narratives. The question is not how we respond but whether we recognise the conditions that allow them to take root—and to act while there is still time.

The programme set out in the King’s Speech recognises elements of this challenge, including tackling antisemitism and ensuring that communities feel safe. The question is whether our approach is keeping pace with how extremism now operates—or whether recognition is running ahead of response. Changes in the law are necessary but not in themselves sufficient. Extremism is not only a matter for statute; it develops in the spaces between law, culture and consent.

One indicator of extremism is the point where extraordinary measures become ordinary. Jewish communal life increasingly operates behind permanent security—not as a temporary response but as a condition of participation in public life. When this becomes unremarkable, it reflects a failure not only of safety but of equality.

That reflects a deeper shift in how belonging is understood. A defining feature of extremist thinking is the imposition of loyalty tests—the idea that participation depends on repudiating part of one’s identity. Jews are expected to disavow Israel or Jewish identity as a condition of inclusion. No other community is asked to renounce history or connection in this way. Conditional belonging is incompatible with a pluralist democracy.

When belonging becomes conditional, language becomes instrumental in exclusion. The term “Zionist” is often used in ways that enable the collective targeting of Jews while maintaining a veneer of legitimacy. When a political label becomes a proxy for people, individual responsibility is replaced by a collective blame. This is not robust debate; it is modern antisemitism. These patterns persist where response is fragmented. Extremism now operates beyond traditional frameworks—through online radicalisation, fluid ideologies, and co-ordinated intimidation. Where frameworks are incomplete, the effect is permissive.

Silence is rarely neutrality. Over time, when it is tolerated, it expands. When security becomes normal and belonging conditional, when language obscures exclusion and silence signals acceptance, democratic standards are lowered. The risk is not extremism itself; it is quiet accommodation within what is accepted.

The responsibility before us is clear: not simply to respond once harm is visible but to define and uphold the conditions in which equal participation is non-negotiable—explicit, consistent and protected. Because once equality must be argued for, rather than assumed, it is already in retreat.

My Lords, I am mindful of the irony of raising issues of democracy in what is now an entirely appointed Chamber. My expectation when I entered the House in 1999 was that there would soon be elections to this place, and I never thought that it would take 29 years just to complete the removal of the right to sit here of hereditary Peers.

That modest step has taken place only 115 years since it was promised in the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911. That legislation from Asquith’s Liberal Government made reforms to the powers of the House pending it becoming a body

“constituted on a popular instead of a hereditary basis”.

Democracy is not perfect. In 1947, Churchill said that

“democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/11/1947; col. 207.]

So I believe that letting people use ballot papers to choose at least most of us who sit in this place, as opposed to relying on the personal whims of Prime Ministers and party leaders, would strengthen our effectiveness. It would avoid the accusations of cronyism that sully the reputation of the House, reduce the number of scandals concerning party finances, and prevent the prospect of peerages being bestowed, or blocked, as a means of persuading potential appointees to toe a particular line, switch party support, or open a chequebook. Too many appointments have been made here to make people Ministers, who then shortly afterwards give up on that job, or of people who want the title but not the responsibility, and who also rapidly disappear.

It took 27 years to end the temporary gentlemen’s agreement allowing for the holding of by-elections to replace departing hereditary Peers because of determined filibusters by a handful of Members. It was clear that the will of the House on that issue was unfairly blocked. So it was with the assisted dying Bill, where it was made impossible to return the Bill to the Commons for it to be considered further. I am strongly opposed to introducing timetables in this place for government legislation, but I think the time has come for us to be able to agree timetables for Private Members’ Bills.

We also need in this Session to strengthen legislation to safeguard core democratic principles. The latest Representation of the People Bill fails to do that because it does not provide for a cap on the size of donations to a political party except for those from overseas. Extremely wealthy donors can potentially buy a political party, purchase a party leader, and change the outcome of a general election with, for example, the reported £1 million payments to two party leaders to make them agree on an electoral pact.

We need to put a cap on the size of any one donation in any one year. I suggest that the precise limit should be proposed by the Electoral Commission. Donations such as Frank Hester’s to the Conservative Party of £20 million in the previous Parliament, and those of Christopher Harborne, perhaps of up to £30 million, to the various iterations of the Reform Party and its leader, must be banned if our democracy is not for sale.

My Lords, I focus my remarks on youth crime. It is a timely subject, coinciding with the publication today of the Government’s excellent White Paper on youth justice.

The youth justice system, built on the foundations of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, has been one of the great, quiet success stories of modern public policy. Since that Act came into force, first-time entrants to the system have fallen by 93%, proven offences by children are down 88% and the number of children in custody has dropped by over 85%. That success does not belong to one party alone. Labour’s 1998 legislation created the architecture, with youth offending teams working locally to prevent and punish, alongside national leadership from the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. Subsequent Governments have maintained that architecture, sustaining those gains. We know what works: local, multidisciplinary teams, early identification and intervention before the justice system gets involved—not ideology, but evidence.

However, today’s White Paper is clear that challenges remain. Eight out of 10 prolific offenders committed their first crime as a child. Two-thirds of children released from custody reoffend within a year, compared with just one-third of those given community sentences. The case for early, community-based intervention could not be clearer. Most recently, the independent evaluation of the turnaround programme found that 93% of children who completed it did not go on to receive a caution or conviction. I therefore welcome the further funding announced for this programme today.

Ministry of Justice analysis shows that reoffending costs this country £18 billion a year. Of that, £1.5 billion is attributable to children and young people alone. Every single pound of that is a pound that we could have saved by acting earlier. However, the gains go far beyond the public finances. Reoffending is not simply a cost to the state but a drain on our national potential. When a young person enters the revolving door of the justice system, we risk losing them—the worker who may never reach their potential, the entrepreneur whose business may never be started and the skills and talent that our economy needs left untapped.

Today’s commitment to consult on reforming childhood criminal records, so that a mistake made at 15 does not track a person for life, speaks directly to this economic argument. A criminal record is one of the most powerful barriers to employment. It significantly reduces the chances of being called to interview, let alone of getting the job. If we are serious about unlocking the potential of every young person, we cannot ask employers to give young people a second chance while the system itself refuses to.

I came to this House with a conviction that the circumstances of your birth should not determine how far you go or what you contribute. Today’s White Paper is a serious, evidence-based response to that challenge. The evidence tells us what works; the economics tell us that it pays. I welcome this White Paper and look forward to working with Ministers on this and other issues to ensure that we deliver on our ambitions for a modern youth justice system that is fit for the future.

My Lords, I will make just two points. First, I welcome the commitment in the gracious Speech to process the Hillsborough Bill, creating a duty of candour for public servants. As His Majesty said,

“the highest standards of trust in public office are essential for the social contract and the United Kingdom’s collective security”.

I acknowledge the import of the risks to our national security that were identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller. Massive risks continue to be managed. We must find a way to accommodate accountability and transparency while protecting our national security. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The Bill could allow the security and intelligence services to avoid even admitting that they hold information relevant to a criminal investigation or public inquiry, on grounds of national security. However, our security services rely on co-operation from many ordinary people and there is need to maintain that level of support and to work out what information needs to be protected and what is no longer in absolute need of protection and can be revealed either in full or through a protective process.

That brings me to my second point. His Majesty’s Government promised to repeal the widely rejected Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 which caused such great distress to victims, but they have now stepped back. They have proposed a reformed legacy commission, reconstituted from the ICRIR. The ICRIR has 275 staff, fewer than half of whom are investigators. It has some wonderful staff who know what they should be able to do, but the ICRIR does not have the investigatory powers that over 600 public authorities have, including the Care Quality Commission, the Food Standards Agency and all UK local authorities. They were removed from the Bill by the Conservative Government at the later stages of the Bill’s process through the House. The ICRIR has no powers to access telecommunications data, although the Gambling Commission and the Health and Safety Executive have them. It does not have power to access financial data. The Bill before the other place does not confer these powers on the proposed legacy commission.

A highly critical report on the ICRIR was published last week which identified significant problems. The commission is approaching the end of its second year. It has spent some £65 million and has not produced a single report. For the new legacy commission to gain the confidence of the people it must be a new, properly empowered investigative commission. There will be few prosecutions, but the investigators must have the powers to which I have referred. They are investigating heinous crimes, including the Guildford pub bombings, the M62 coach bombing in Yorkshire and the murders of civilians, RUC and Army officers and a judge. One person was told recently that, although the ICRIR might have some forensic evidence, it does not have a forensic scientist to examine it. That is truly shocking.

Consideration of any case must involve examining all available material, any secret reports, et cetera, then using modern investigative techniques. Only if that is done will the legacy commission gain the confidence and trust of the people who lost loved ones in the Troubles. As many veterans from the police and the Army who served so honourably have said, “We don’t want special treatment, we just want fairness”. That fairness will include acknowledgment by the state of the situations in which it got things wrong or failed to act to prevent crime. Such candour must be required of all organisations of the state.

Significant amendments will be required to the Bill currently before the other House if Northern Ireland is to have a legacy commission which is strong, truly independent, has the powers to carry out effective investigation, treats suspects in accordance with the law and respects their rights and those of the many victims of the Troubles. Can the Minister assure us that the new commission will have the powers that it needs?

My Lords, I share the pleasure that “Chagos” did not appear in the gracious Speech, and hope that this is the end of the matter.

In the gracious Speech there was a great deal of talk about commitment to the strength and integrity of the union of the United Kingdom; yet, because of the Windsor Framework, Northern Ireland is subject to the EU’s customs code, which declares Great Britain to be a third country. When I travel over each week from Belfast, I am in theory coming to a foreign country. We do not have a full democracy any more; we have a partial democracy, with 300 laws being imposed. This is unsustainable and the integrity is already being threatened.

Now the European partnership Bill seeks to fast-track EU rules into our law. The vote to leave the EU was a vote to take back control, not to give it away, so that we could make our own laws without being overruled by majority voting. That vote was for the exact opposite of what is now happening in Northern Ireland and what the Government now want for the rest of the United Kingdom without any mandate for doing so. The Bill will still leave the United Kingdom divided into two by an international customs union. We must leave the EU properly. I look forward to the Private Member’s Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, drawn as number five, the European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill, which was introduced in the previous Session by the honourable Member for North Antrim.

I will say just a word or two on the reintroduced Troubles Bill. Sir Declan Morgan and the ICRIR must be given a fair chance to succeed. I think that, on this Bill, there is a widely held view that the Secretary of State is far too worried about what the Irish Government want rather than what our veterans want and what our victims need. Last week, we had a Statement from the Secretary of State on the Dillon judgment, which came out from the UK Supreme Court. The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court is massively important for the future of the Troubles Bill. Due to the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, acting on behalf of the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement, the Supreme Court also stated its view on amnesty or conditional immunity for the purpose of reconciliation, as in the 2023 legacy Act.

On the day, the UK Government proclaimed that

“the Court went out of its way to refute the main argument put forward”

for immunity. In the Statement, the Secretary of State said:

“Contrary to what has been claimed by some, the UK Supreme Court has not endorsed the immunity scheme ”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/5/26; col. 141.]

Nobody said that it had, but the judgment summary did say:

“The Supreme Court finds that the Strasbourg court has not decided that there is a reconciliation exception (though it has not ruled out the possibility that such an exception may exist)”.

That is very significant, but was studiously omitted by the Secretary of State. He did admit that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, had withdrawn the human rights appeal in July 2024.

Is it not a nonsense that we have primary legislation in the form of the Troubles Bill amending the 2023 Act and, alongside it, an unamendable secondary legislation remedial order also amending the 2023 Act? The order should be scrapped and the Bill rewritten. The Supreme Court judgment was a huge blow to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland courts, which were of course found to have acted unlawfully. Sadly, the NIHRC and the ECNI are part of an industry of lawfare and activist organisations, and they can no longer operate in a way that commands confidence across the political spectrum. It is time to ask whether they serve any useful purpose for the huge amounts of money funded by taxpayers.

Finally, the truth is that Labour’s central belief system is no longer British-based but European-based. What is missing from the King’s Speech is our withdrawal from the ECHR. Until we do that, all talk of toughening our policies on immigration and protecting our veterans will fail.

My Lords, I will focus my brief time on antisemitism. Only around 0.5% of the UK’s population are Jewish. To our very great shame, they are probably the least safe group in our society. Jewish schools and children have to be guarded. Only last week, a group of Jewish children was seen on the London streets guarded by guards in stab vests. Jewish places of worship have extensive security measures but, as we saw with the murderous attack on the Heaton synagogue, even that is not enough. No other religious group in the UK has to go to these lengths to keep itself safe. Symbols such as the Star of David or the kippah carry a clear risk of unprovoked attack, as the vicious stabbings in Golders Green laid bare. Jewish students on campuses suffer routine antisemitism and university authorities have done little to protect them.

Antisemitism is of course not a new phenomenon, but it has been intensifying and threats to Jewish people have now reached truly dreadful proportions. It is ironic that they got much worse after the 7 October assault by Hamas terrorists on the people of Israel. The whole world should have rallied around Israel and the need to defend its people. Instead, many countries, including the UK, tolerated anti-Israel protests and lies about genocide, which have allowed antisemitism to flourish under the guise of anti-Zionist or anti-Israel sentiment. It is shocking that it took the recent attacks in north London to make the police and CPS wake up to the plain criminal intent of posters and chants such as “Globalise the intifada”, which can only reasonably be interpreted as a call to kill Jews everywhere.

The gracious Speech promised a Bill to tackle state threats, and so we might—at long last—see the evil IRGC proscribed, but that will not be enough. The Government must do more to counter extremism. Antisemitism hides among extremism of all kinds, including, as other noble Lords have said, the extreme right and the extreme left, as well as Islamic extremism. The Prevent programme is not up to this task; more must be done.

Policing and law enforcement must be clear, unbiased and speedy, in ways that it has not always been in the past. Antisemitism, like all forms of racism, must be stamped upon and all policy areas need to be viewed through the lens of eradicating the hatred of Jews. If the Government cannot make Jewish people be safer and feel safer, that will be a colossal failure.

My Lords, last week the Home Affairs Committee in the other place held a very important session on the scourge of antisemitism, which has just been described very powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Among the experts they took evidence from were Dave Rich from the Community Security Trust and Danny Stone from the Antisemitism Policy Trust, both of whom I got to know, respect and was grateful to for their advice when I led the Labour Party’s work on tackling antisemitism in the Labour Party. Danny advised the committee that it is very important that politicians of all political parties and none should address antisemitism within their ranks, very much as the Labour Party did when Sir Keir Starmer became its leader in 2020. I am sure he is right about this, so I would like to use today’s Home Affairs debate to propose to noble Lords across this House that the time is right for a cross-party campaign to tackle antisemitism among politically active people wherever they are.

Two vital ingredients of the work that the Labour Party undertook were training and complaints handling. A comprehensive training programme for all Labour MPs, all my noble friends in this House, the Senedd, Scottish Parliament, and thousands of members across the country was set up, along with an independent complaints process, to ensure that antisemitism, and indeed any discrimination, was fully challenged. This required careful design to get right. The Equality and Human Rights Commission approved the action plan developed in 2021 and gave the party a clean bill of health on this in 2023. This combination of training and complaints handling made a huge difference to the Labour Party, and I commend it to the Green Party, Reform and other political parties too.

It would be helpful to understand what the EHRC is doing now and if it has plans to address the antisemitism seen from a number of candidates in the recent local elections. But why wait until people become politically active before teaching them about antisemitism? By that, I mean starting at school, particularly given the legislation that we will shortly debate on allowing 16 and 17 year-olds roles to vote. None of my nearly 18 year-old daughter’s friends and classmates watches television news or read newspapers. They access any news and current affairs that they may be interested in mainly on their phones, with Instagram, TikTok and YouTube helping them curate content through algorithms pushing content accordingly. Regrettably, an interest in, say, some candidates in the recent local elections, or what began as a perfectly healthy interest in, say, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, all too easily leads to antisemitic content taking over. This makes education an important part of the fight against antisemitism, its history, current context and the repulsive tropes that are rampant on social media—it is absolutely vital.

This would soon filter through to the students of tomorrow on university campuses, where, as we have all too often heard in this Chamber, antisemitic abuse and even attacks are rife. The importance of teaching school children about antisemitism was raised at last week’s Home Affairs Committee, this time by way of my noble friend Lord Mann, who gave evidence as the Government’s Independent Adviser on Antisemitism. My noble friend was clear about the vital importance of training teachers. He said he has been calling on the Government to ensure that all secondary teachers are trained. The good news is that His Majesty’s Government have recently let a contract to train secondary school teachers; but it is a plan to train 650 of them. There are more than 4,000 secondary schools in England and more than 200,000 secondary teachers.

We need, as my noble friend Lord Reid spoke of earlier, civil society, as well as the criminal justice system, to be responding to the scourge of antisemitism, so let us put some rocket boosters under this programme and ensure that it matches the scale of the challenge. This, combined with political parties and their candidates putting their own houses in order, could really make a practical and sustainable difference in tackling the terrible scourge of antisemitism.

My Lords, I welcome the rhetoric of the Chişinău Declaration and the wonderfully sensible words in the No. 10 briefing on the immigration Bill that bogus illegals will not be able to use every excuse under the sun to prevent them being sent back. Will it happen? I doubt it since we have two major problems. First, it is just a political declaration and not one word of the ECHR treaty will change. The same judges will continue expanding their powers, undermining democratic Governments. What most people do not realise is that the majority in the court are not real judges as we understand them or as we see in this House, but legal academics, many of whom would not get a lectureship in one of our low-grade polytechnics.

The second problem is the appalling decisions of many of our own immigration judges, who have refused to send back murderers, paedophiles and rapists, since the poor darlings would not get the same luxurious prison treatment they get here. So, unless we amend our own laws and get rid of some incompetent judges, none of the rhetoric will work. I serve on the Council of Europe and for the last few years colleagues, including left-wing and socialist MPs, from many other countries have been saying that massive Islamic immigration is destroying 500 years of Judaeo-Christian liberal democracy in Europe. “They bring a different attitude to our laws, culture and even democracy itself”, they say.

I have had a little flat near here for almost 30 years, and I have seen demographic changes—the influx of Somalis, Eritreans, Syrians, Iraqis and others from sub-Saharan Africa. I have seen an unfortunate increase in aggro and hostility to our way of life and, yes, liberal democracy. I have seen the increase in criminality from people just off the boat, then driving big illegal bikes on the pavement for Deliveroo and Uber Eats the next day at one end of the scale, and at the other, the machete culture we seem to have imported from Africa.

There is a little Tesco in Strutton Ground and a Sainsbury’s on Marsham Street, both sort of 7-11s. When I came back after Christmas they both had erected big steel frames with bullet-resistant glass in them. You poke your groceries through one slot, the staff ring them up, and they poke them back through another. You cannot get chocolates because they are locked behind plastic screens. What a disgusting way to have to shop for groceries today, but the staff now need that protection. That Sainsbury’s is 20 yards away, across the street, from the Home Office, and 200 yards away from the HQ of MI5. It is not local London cabbies, nor poor people, who are driving this crime wave. I regret it is immigrant-led. So who in the name of God are we letting into this country that we need armour-plated glass in a little grocery shop a quarter of a mile away from this building?

Then we have the vile attacks on Jews in this country. Not enough has been done to stop those despicable Palestinian marches. Let us not pretend that they are defending Gaza when they have signs showing Israel being pushed into the sea and chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—free of Jews, that is. They can lie all they like, but they are calling for a new Holocaust—8 million Jews to be removed from their homeland. The British Jewish community has a rich history of contributions to the UK, playing vital roles across all tiers of society. Its historic and ongoing impact is deeply woven into our country’s economic foundations, public health, and social welfare. From medicine and healthcare to banking and retail, charity and philanthropy, law and—look around us—politics, Jews have helped to make this country great. Perhaps in 200 years’ time we might be able to say the same thing about Palestinians. Jews have not knifed imams, driven cars into Christmas markets or set off terrorist bombs; nor do they have a belief in killing people who do not share their religion.

I welcome the language used in the Government’s briefing documents for the gracious Speech, but only the details of the legislation will let us see whether it is a real attempt to bring back control from the terror sweeping our streets in London and some other cities.

My Lords, the Government are right to focus on economic growth. But in parts the plans are timid and in others they are, frankly, bizarre and wrong. They are timid about rebuilding our relationship with the European Union, given the inhibiting red lines. The recent first quarter 0.6% of GDP rise pales into insignificance against the latest estimate that Brexit hit GDP by as much as 8%. So, after the catastrophic mistake of Brexit, the Government should be much more ambitious, going much further towards reuniting with our European allies to rebuild our economy and our defences. When he responds, I hope the Minister will tell me whether he agrees with these Benches, Wes Streeting, and possibly, though we are not quite sure, Andy Burnham.

Elsewhere, though, the Government are getting it very badly wrong. They have said that, despite the harm and misery that it causes, they want to grow the gambling industry and believe it can be done while also reducing gambling harm. This is absolute nonsense. National and international public health experts believe that it will lead to more gambling harm and more misery for individuals, families and communities. It is also economic nonsense. Four recent reports all show that reducing gambling will put more discretionary spend into more productive parts of the economy, creating more jobs, higher tax receipts for the Treasury and reduced treatment costs. Labour has admitted it got it wrong with the Gambling Act 2005. Encouraging growth in gambling now would be an even bigger mistake.

On a different subject, live facial recognition—LFR—is increasingly being used around the country. But, as the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I chair, has regularly pointed out, this is without proper legal basis, adequate independent scrutiny or consistent national training. The policing reform Bill promises to address this. Consultation has already been conducted. But, while the deadline has passed, the Government’s response still has not appeared. So will the Minister tell us when we can expect the response, and can he give us the timeline for the creation of a legal framework and a regulatory body to oversee the use of LFR?

Finally, on prisons, last year the Justice and Home Affairs Committee report on prisons highlighted the high reoffending rate of ex-prisoners. We argued for more measures to reduce reoffending, as well as for education, skills training, help with drugs, alcohol and gambling problems, and help with housing and jobs on leaving prison. We pointed out that in particular we need to reduce overcrowding and improve recruitment, retention and training of prison officers. The highly effective Prisons Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, is doing as much as he can, but still prisoners, often let out of their cells for less than three hours a day, spend far too long with little to do.

The Minister is hindered by delays and cost overruns in the new building programme; a maintenance backlog of £1.8 billion; inadequate fire safety arrangements, with cell fires averaging eight per day; and the temporary closure of Dartmoor prison because of radon gas, with 16 other prisons possibly having the same problem. He has to deal with the uncertainty for foreign prison officers who have only a temporary reprieve from the impact of the new Immigration Rules, which means their salaries fall below the new minimum for skilled workers’ visas. There is the real possibility that the measures in the proposed courts modernisation Bill, with more cases to be handled by magistrates’ courts with extended sentencing powers, will lead to an increased prison population. So can the Minister share the Government’s assessment of the proposed Bill’s impact on prisoner numbers, and can he ensure that the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, gets more support from the Government for the good work that he is already doing?

My Lords, in the King’s Speech we were told that the Government are going to pursue a foreign policy

“based on a calm assessment of the national interest”.

The Prime Minister often reassures us that he intends to act in the national interest. I would have thought that went without saying. But with lawyers at the helm of government, perhaps it is intended to counter the strong impression that it is adherence to international law that lies at the heart of foreign policy, and what international law is must be interpreted by the high priests: human rights lawyers such as the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General.

But the gracious Speech is right to emphasise the importance of “defence and economic security”. We must of course spend more on defence, but how are we going to afford that? Britain’s welfare bill is set to surge by £18 billion in a single year. That increase alone is, according to the Centre for Social Justice, the equivalent of 15 Royal Navy frigates, 220 fighter jets or a quarter of a million soldiers’ salaries, more than three times the current size of the British Army. Yet, at the first sign of opposition to his welfare reform, the Prime Minister capitulated. With his authority now so thoroughly undermined, is it remotely likely that he will have another go at reducing the welfare budget?

Even assuming that money can be found, there is not much point in having an enhanced defence capability if the lawyers advise that it cannot in fact be deployed. Cases such as Al-Skeini or Smith and others v Ministry of Defence have left our military entirely uncertain as to what they are allowed to do. This has had an unwelcome effect on morale and recruitment, reinforced by the Government’s desire to undo the legacy Act and drag veterans before the courts for incidents that happened more than 50 years ago.

We are gathering an unwelcome reputation for so-called legal freeloading. General David Petraeus recently observed that the current Government’s approach to so-called lawfare reflects a threat to national security.

The security of our borders against illegal migration is of course of major concern, not just to us but to other countries within the Council of Europe. The recent meeting in Moldova created a declaration, but I share others’ views that it is unlikely to have any practical effect on the decisions made by courts in Strasbourg or the courts in this country. We of course have gone for a maximalist approach by incorporating the convention into our own Human Rights Act and requiring our judges to take account of that jurisprudence. I look forward to what the greatest Home Secretary for 20 years may be about to say about immigration, but I fear that I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, that, without our leaving the ECHR, this particular bird has flown.

I hoped there was going to be some mention of the effective anti-SLAPP legislation so much talked about. It is a pity it is being left to a Private Member’s Bill, albeit in the capable hands of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell.

I wish there were something positive about growth in the gracious Speech because, without growth, how can the noble aspirations referred to ever be realised? I am afraid that this is a Speech from a Government entirely bereft of ideas as to how to improve this country, apart from a certain zealotry towards international law. They lack a plan, and the Prime Minister now has an extremely slender grasp over their leadership.

My Lords, I will speak yet again, as many others have, about antisemitism. I would love to be able to stand here today and say that the tide was being turned against antisemitism and we would not have too many more debates like this, but I am afraid I cannot say that because the tide is still running in the wrong direction. I welcome the increased powers to stop protests that threaten public order, which the Government had already taken before the gracious Speech, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, that the glorification of terrorism should be a criminal offence. I had the impression that the Government were going to put that on the statute book, but I may be mistaken about that. All you have to do is look at the marches carrying and chanting repellent slogans to see how terrorism is being glorified on our streets.

There are just two facts to bear in mind. One is that on 7 October 2023, when people were being murdered, raped and tortured in southern Israel, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign applied for a licence to have a protest on the streets of London. Two days later, the Stop the War Coalition—I think it uses the word “coalition” as a matter of irony—held a protest outside the Israeli embassy. Why would you do that unless you were inciting racial hatred? I think that is exactly what they were doing. By the way, the last time I raised the activities of Stop the War, I started getting threatening emails and messages from it, which indicates to me that I have probably hit the nail on the head about its activities.

The rise in antisemitism is possibly—no, not possibly, definitely—the most frightening thing that I have ever witnessed, and I am getting on a bit these days. There are elements in our society that, without any shadow of a doubt, have one aim, and that is to drive British Jews into the sea. That is what they are about. Some of those elements receive support from Tehran. Directly or indirectly, they get funding and resources from that poisonous, evil regime in Tehran that slaughters its own people. I am very pleased to see, though not before time, that the Government plan to proscribe the IRGC. We should have done that before, as should have the previous Government and probably the Government before that.

I welcome the fact that we have criminalised activities that constitute undeclared links to the regime in Tehran. We should also think about criminalising people who have undeclared links to demonstrably Iranian proxies who are operating in this country. That includes criminal gangs, by the way. We are talking not just about religious organisations or political organisations but about criminal gangs, and until we take strong action to criminalise those gangs and organisations that are receiving direct or indirect funding from Tehran, we will not turn the tide on antisemitism.

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to have a few minutes in this debate on the humble Address.

I want to deal with a couple of issues around Northern Ireland. The first, mentioned in the Address, is the Northern Ireland Democratic Scrutiny Committee and the increasing of the number of days in which it can implement or take a decision on an issue from five to 10. It is one of the most ineffective committees I would have ever thought possible, and I am not sure that an increase in the time in which a decision can be taken from five to 10 days will be hugely effective, but at the same time I welcome it.

The other issue is the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. We have heard a lot from this current Government indicating that the last Bill did not have any support. I have news for the Government: this Bill does not have any further support. In fact it has even less, if that is possible or practical. We have heard much about amnesties. The Labour Government wanted to provide amnesties for terrorists back in 2001, but that was blocked. They had given letters of comfort to many terrorists, and that has progressed through the system unknown—they did not even bring it to this House or the other House at all.

I call on this Government to show a bit of backbone, particularly in relation to the Republic of Ireland. Instead of being dragged by the nose through the courts by the Irish Government, which they are allowing them to do, they need to stand up to them for once. These are people who have hidden the terrorists of Northern Ireland and murdered our kith and kin and indeed some of their own people—Irish citizens. They claim to be doing this in the name of Ireland but they have murdered their own citizens, let alone our friends and neighbours, and they have been protected by the Irish people at times and the Irish Government. That has to stop, and this Government must stand up to the Irish Government.

My third issue is something that I am pleased is not in the Bill: any change that might have come about in the minimum age of criminal responsibility. It currently sits at 10 but I was concerned that there may have been plans to change that, so I really am pleased that that is not happening.

My fourth issue—people will say, “What has that got to do with this?”—is that this Government provide significant financial support to the Scottish Football Association. I think anyone who has seen them was disgusted by the scenes in Glasgow on Saturday afternoon of people being attacked and football players being attacked by supporters who did not even let the game finish between Celtic and Hearts at Celtic Park, along with the disturbances outside that left two police officers in a critical condition. That cannot be allowed to continue in our communities, particularly in the name of sport. There is now a significant test for the Scottish Football Association. Will it stand up to the big clubs? Will it stand up against these lawbreakers and thugs and those who have no respect for law and regulations, or will it just cave in with a mild sanction or possibly nothing at all?

My Lords, when we think about the justice system, let us not forget Cinderella—the family courts. It is not entirely bad news; there is some good news on this front. Exceptionally in this debate, I congratulate, if I may, the Minister, and indeed her predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, on the Government’s recent commitment to complete the rollout of what is now called the child-focused model in private law disputes concerning children. Previously known as the pathfinder scheme, and initiated by the previous Government, this new approach introduces a problem-solving, multi-agency approach in private family law cases concerning children in place of the traditional adversarial model. Recently described by the retiring President of the Family Division as one of the most important developments in family law over the past 30 years, this new approach has been shown to reduce backlogs, shorten proceedings, save costs, reduce stress and, most importantly, enhance the voice of the child in these often-traumatic cases.

But there is, as always, a “but”. I appreciate that the most difficult thing in government is to extract from the machine a commitment to achieve a certain policy aim by a certain date—in other words, to set a deadline. Has anybody ever succeeded in getting the Government to set a definite deadline by which a commitment will be delivered? None the less, my plea today to the Minister—and through her to the Lord Chancellor and the Government—is to set a deadline for the completion of the rollout of the child-focused model in the family courts. Please give the children, stuck through no fault of their own for months and sometimes years on end in the family courts, the priority they so plainly deserve.

This is a success story. It is a partial answer to those who believe that nothing works. Good public sector reform can be achieved, but the drive has to come from Ministers. I respectfully suggest that the end of 2027 for the complete introduction of child-focused family courts across the country, including London, would be a proper deadline. We are not yet even half way there. We have made good progress—and great credit to everyone concerned—but let us press on with this most important project.

My Lords, I should like to add my sorrow at the retirement of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. He will be sadly missed.

I strongly oppose the current proposals of the Government in relation to jury trials, for the reasons so brilliantly set out by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, but I would like to speak, in the short time I have, about modern slavery and the potential for dealing with it in the immigration and asylum Bill which is proposed.

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that there has been no evidence to show any serious abuse of the system of finding victims of exploitation. It was said by the last Government; it is said by this Government, and so far we do not know why. It might be of interest to the Government to check the figures. Some 77% of negative decisions in the NRM were changed to a positive outcome, and only six people last year were disqualified for having said that they were exploited when they clearly were not. One of the major concerns is a lack of training for the police, who are the first responders to the national referral mechanism, the NRM.

I will move briefly to the supply chains. It is very sad that nothing is being done or being proposed. The Select Committee of which I was a member recommended that the Government look at mandatory rules in relation to supply chains—everything is currently voluntary—and at the moment nothing has been done, despite the EU having now a directive on due diligence. That is something that, again, the Government should be looking at.

There is a worrying lack of co-ordination among agencies, with a lack of data about victims and a failure to share the data when it actually exists. I hope that the Bill may underline the usefulness of prevention and risk orders, which came in in the 2015 Act and are not used to the extent to which they could be. They are very useful. They can take away passports and prevent people going to certain places and so on and could be very much better used.

There have been only 243 convictions for slavery and trafficking during the last year, and one of the major reasons why this happens and why there are so few convictions, and indeed so few prosecutions, is the failure to look after the victims—so the victims disappear. They are not there when the trials commence and, consequently, it is much more difficult to get a conviction. The failure of support for victims is a serious issue; we ought to be doing better than 243 convictions in a year. There are excellent multi-agency arrangements for exploited children, at least half of whom are British, but it would be very useful if that could be rolled out right across the country.

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and a privilege to have been here today to listen to the contributions so far in this debate, especially the valedictory speech from the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and his important call to us all.

I stand in your Lordships’ House today reflecting on the King’s Speech, not just as a Peer but as a mother to two children who have to pass anti-car ramming bollards, high walls, five security guards, a gated air lock and, as of just a few weeks ago, a guard dog just to get into their primary school. Why do Jewish children experience the start of their school day in a way that is so different to millions of other children in this country?

Hate crime offences in the UK have risen nearly every year for the last decade, from just over 40,000 offences in 2013 to over 115,000 in 2025. Prevent referrals last year rose to 8,517. This is the highest ever—up by 27% in 12 months. All these offences and referrals are the result of extremism, online radicalisation and antisemitism. These three key issues coalesce to pose a toxic and destabilising threat to our domestic security and social cohesion. I welcome the measures to be presented in the national security Bill, which will criminalise the creation and sharing of the most harmful, violent material online. There is, though, no specific mention of counterextremism measures in the forthcoming legislative agenda, which I hoped would complement the Government’s recent social cohesion strategy, Protecting What Matters.

Anti-Jewish hatred is found within all extremist ideologies: far left, far right and Islamist. Antisemitism is also consistent with non-ideological extremism. It has often been referred to as a gateway for radicalisation, through conspiracy theories that so often lead back to deep-rooted anti-Jewish hatred. Our understandable focus on counterterrorism has left us without the capacity to address the growing volume of extremist activity that operates below the terrorism threshold. The report by the Home Affairs Select Committee concluded that we lack a meaningful, stand-alone counterextremism strategy, that we are overreliant on Prevent and that community-based early intervention approaches have been eroded through underfunding.

Prevent is also poorly equipped to detect online radicalisation, despite the internet being a hotbed for radicalisation, as other noble Lords have alluded to in this debate. An increasing number of young people are being radicalised online. X and Telegram are acting as key amplifiers of extremist ideas and movements. Their algorithms are designed to promote extreme content, which most people are not searching for, through bots and antisemitic accounts hijacking popular, neutral-content posts, turning them into breeding grounds for antisemitism. These are used to socialise and normalise hate and conspiracies.

The Antisemitism Policy Trust published research the other week, confirming again that TikTok is actively serving young people extremist content. A young person aged 15 interested in fitness and male lifestyle content was, within just one hour, being served antisemitic conspiracy theories. By his sixth one-hour session online, he was watching videos celebrating Hitler and denying the Holocaust. He did not seek or search for any of this content.

We cannot let these extreme ideologies and their increasing capacity to recruit more young people continue to infect minds, especially when we know that more things can be done. First, we need a new legal framework to address hateful and extremist groups that radicalise individuals and undermine our democracy, in the same way that Australia has done after the deadly Hanukkah shooting. Secondly, we need to urgently treat big tech, social media and messaging companies in the same way as we do our broadcasters in respect of regulation. People are not radicalised in a vacuum.

These online activities have real-world consequences. We cannot let this continue. We need urgent action.

My Lords, like many other speakers, I want to focus today on a sentence that would have been unimaginable in a Queen’s Speech of 40, 30 or even 20 years ago. It is the sentence that begins:

“My Government will take urgent action to tackle antisemitism”.

I want to make three points. First, I have a confession to make. Many years ago I wrote to the then Israeli ambassador in London because I disagreed with the view, which he had expressed, that it was not safe for British citizens who were Jewish to live in Britain. He urged them to go and live in Israel. I wrote to him to say that I thought he was being alarmist and exaggerating, and was tarnishing Britain’s international reputation. Well, today, I am afraid I have been proved wrong.

Last year the Community Security Trust recorded 3,700 anti-Jewish incidents. “Incidents”, by the way, completely understates what it was describing. These so-called incidents involved discrimination on campuses and in the world of the arts. They involved verbal assaults on the streets of our towns and cities, attacks on Jewish cemeteries and synagogues and, worse still, as we have seen recently, attacks and firebombings leading to the deaths of Jewish people as they worshipped. These things were not happening in a foreign country a long way away. We are not talking about Germany in the 1930s and Europe. This is happening in Britain, something that none of us could have imagined when we were growing up—unimaginable.

My second point is this. I welcome the Prime Minister’s very clear denunciation of antisemitism and the fact that it has been echoed very strongly by the leaders of other parties, including my right honourable friend Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Lib Dems and the leader of Reform UK, because words do matter. That is why I was less than happy with what the leader of the Green Party said very recently: that he did not believe Israel had the right to exist. When challenged, he went on to say that he did not believe any country, including the United Kingdom, had any right to exist. I regard that as stark raving bonkers, to be honest, but what really worried me was how his remarks might be perceived, because they carry sinister undertones. They have a sinister subtext which, however unintended, could well feed further anti-Jewish prejudice or hatred. Everyone should reject the preposterous and dangerous view that British citizens who are Jewish are somehow responsible for the actions of a foreign Government, in this case the Israeli Government. They are not.

This morning, and this is my third point, we heard about the arrest by the FBI in the United States of al-Saadi, a commander of an Iranian-backed militia group responsible for firebombings across Europe and, almost certainly, in the UK. The gracious Speech talked about urgent action. I hope that the Minister will tell us in his speech what action is being planned and when, and in particular when the Government will take action to proscribe the IRGC.

My Lords, I will focus on the Representation of the People Bill, which seeks to protect our democracy. What is more important than that? I declare an interest, since I have been liaising with and advising the charity Spotlight on Corruption.

There is much to commend in the Representation of the People Bill, but the question is whether it goes far enough in certain respects, particularly given the febrile political landscape we now see, with more political parties seeking opportunities for power or a share of it. The temptation, therefore, by unscrupulous actors to give a fiscal advantage to a particular party by bending or circumventing the electoral rules on political donations and spending has never been greater. The Government are taking various measures to clamp down on abuse but, once the Bill reaches this House, I will be testing whether these measures should be strengthened in certain respects—for example, as regards foreign money finding its way into ostensibly permissible donations from donors in the UK, the amount of money that can be donated by each donor, and the limits on political parties’ spending.

There is, however, a quite separate urgency arising from the proposal to give the vote to 16 year-olds from 2028, which is whether young people have the necessary knowledge that they themselves have stated they want—and need—about our constitution, Parliament, the rule of law, the differences between the political parties and so on, to help them decide how to use their vote. Yes, some of this is mentioned in guidance on what citizenship education should cover in the national curriculum at key stages 3 and 4, and the Government have responded to Becky Francis’s review of the curriculum by saying that they will extend aspects of this to key stages 1 and 2. This is good but does not go nearly far enough.

We know from the House of Lords Liaison Committee in 2022 that the teaching of citizenship has been badly neglected. This is confirmed by a recent study by London Metropolitan University of 14 and 15 year-olds in 120 schools, which showed that many of them have no real idea of what British political parties stand for, or even what a constituency is. The Liaison Committee said there was a lack of teacher expertise to make citizenship education in our schools meaningful. There should be at least one teacher trained in civic and constitutional education in every primary and secondary school.

I would add that giving 16 year-olds the vote means that the current guidance on the content of citizenship education in the national curriculum must be given a statutory mandate that requires a programme of civic and constitutional education, including education in domestic and international human rights, and the balance to be struck between such rights and individual responsibilities. This was recommended by Sir Peter Gross in his 2022 review of the Human Rights Act, and it has never been so important, given the starkly different views between our parties, for example on our membership of the ECHR. Young people need to be taught the basic facts so that they can make up their own minds and cast their vote accordingly.

In conclusion, the late and greatly missed Lord Harries of Pentregarth introduced a Private Member’s Bill in July 2024 that highlighted the importance of citizenship values, but without ultimate success. I hope we can do better in this new Session. One opportunity might be the Private Member’s Bill on citizenship education that I have been fortunate to secure in the ballot. This would require our young people to be taught on all these issues by trained and impartial teachers, so as to make their vote at 16 more meaningful for them.

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this House. I begin by expressing my sincere gratitude for the warm welcome I have received from all sides. I thank the officers and staff of this House for their patience, professionalism and kindness in guiding new Members through these early days. As Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, I serve the people of Suffolk, that great east of England county upon which the sun rises first each morning. I aim to join those who live out the particular Suffolk virtue of quiet service: people getting on with the task, often without applause, motivated by a genuine desire to make their communities better places for all.

My academic literary research before ordination took me deep into the works of the great Elizabethan poet, Edmund Spenser, whose Fairie Queene examines some of the private and public virtues needed to uphold the common good and the bonds of society. Whether biblically or classically rooted, virtue is much needed. Leadership in this current age needs to refocus on the common good, the social bonds and contracts that hold individuals together as communities. Of course, I include in that a matter at the heart of our debate today in response to His Majesty’s gracious Speech: justice, with a specific interest in the realities of and responses to miscarriages of justice. I thank my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester, from whom we will hear later in this debate, for her energy, commitment and expertise over the years in urging us to reimagine a better criminal justice system for all. I welcome the Government’s desire to improve the courts and look forward to seeing their proposed legislation in these areas.

The United Kingdom has long been seen as a standard-bearer for the rule of law—yet even strong systems are not immune to error. When those errors lead to wrongful convictions, the impact is profound, not just for individuals but for confidence in the whole system. In this landscape, the role of the Criminal Cases Review Commission is indispensable. It exists as a safeguard—a recognition that the justice system must contain within it the means to correct its own errors. It is in relation to the CCRC that I draw this House’s attention to the case of Jason Moore, convicted in 2013 for the murder of Robert Darby. I mention this matter with the permission of Jason and his sister Kirsty. Both Jason Moore’s and Robert Darby’s families have spent the last 13 years campaigning to have that conviction reviewed. Amid fiascos of lost evidence and problems with the management of identity parades and vital witnesses, Jason is still waiting for the CCRC to come to a decision about sending his case to appeal. His case has been under consideration by it for six years now.

Miscarriages of justice are not abstract legal concepts but lived human experiences. They concern individuals who maintain their innocence while navigating a system that can be slow, complex and difficult to penetrate. Wrongful conviction is not simply the loss of liberty; it is the loss of years, sometimes decades. When convictions are ultimately overturned, the sense of relief is tempered by a stark reality: lost time cannot be restored. Noble Lords may be aware of previous criticism of the CCRC and the promise of a review of it by the Law Commission. Since justice delayed is justice denied, this review needs to be concluded, with any actions that follow from it considered with urgency. I therefore press the Minister for a timescale for the completion of that review.

As this House considers the legislative programme set out in His Majesty’s gracious Speech, I hope we will give due weight to those whose voices are hardest to hear: individuals maintaining their innocence over many years from within prison, and the families who stand alongside them. Any system worthy of public confidence must be able to correct and learn from its mistakes. In the words of Edmund Spenser,

“Where justice grows, there grows eke greater grace”.

If I can contribute in however a modest way to strengthening fairness, timeliness and accountability within such systems, I shall consider it a privilege to do so.

I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich for an important and moving maiden speech. The first person in her family to stay in education after 16, this tenacious Teessider has a lot to offer your Lordships’ House. When Bishop of Stepney, she was my amazing friend Reverend Alexandra’s boss, and it was following the untimely death of Reverend Alexandra’s husband, my wonderful friend Michael, that I learned that the right Reverend Prelate was at the vicarage with a bottle of gin for my newly widowed friend. When asked who was there, she simply said, “It’s Joanne”, showing her trademark humility, care and—frankly, with that bottle of gin—practicality.

She did not falter in the difficult and complex task of being the lead bishop for safeguarding. She continues as deputy leader for safeguarding and is an exemplary agent for culture change via stronger governance and processes. Having seen first hand the devastating impact of safeguarding failures, I wish her all the best in those important endeavours. I look forward to seeing the right reverend Prelate bring the rigour and compassion that have characterised her 26 years in ordained ministry to your Lordships’ House in years to come.

I very much welcome the measures outlined in the gracious Speech to improve the justice system, whether that is via changes to policing or the expedition of justice by the measures outlined in the courts modernisation Bill. It is clear that 14 years of austerity, neglect and, frankly, a lack of courage to pursue the evidence had left our justice system, from police to courts, prisons and probation, in a sorry mess. I am sorry that we have heard so much in this debate about the changes to jury systems and so little about what happens after people are incarcerated by the state.

We are all too aware, in these times, of the threat posed from outside the country and the arguments for increased defence spending to protect society, and this can be to the detriment and neglect of arguments for funding commensurate with ensuring safety for people currently inside our country, both those in our prisons and in wider society. If we cannot keep people in prison safe, how can we hope to achieve any of the other more lofty goals of recovery from addiction, education, rehabilitation, skills and training? This is about pragmatism. We do not just send people away to become non-people, never to be heard of again; we send people somewhere. We send them to prison.

Indeed, there is legislation in the gracious Speech, in the national security Bill, which will tackle the rise of accessing violent material online. This will lead to even more people being imprisoned under that legislation—but what happens then? In some cases, these prisons, smaller ones with less staff turnover, are able to help people effectively repair their lives in a variety of ways, tackling root causes. But, in too many cases, despite the best efforts of hard-working prison staff, they do not. Those prisons become a criminogenic factor in themselves. Being safe in custody is not about having an easy life—some tabloid fantasy. It is about the hard reality of prison and making it a safe place for people to live and work. In 2025, there were 79 self-inflicted deaths in prisons in England and Wales. The rate of self-harm was 837 per 1,000 prisoners. One in three women in prison self-harmed in 2025, and they were nine times more likely than men to do so.

There are all kinds of people in our prisons, as was recently vividly brought to life by James Graham’s play “Punch”, an adaptation of Jacob Dunne’s memoir about his 2011 manslaughter conviction following a single fatal punch. These people in prison could be my child or my neighbour; they are not just faceless people. Safer prisons lead to safer societies and I know that my noble friend the Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending is deeply committed and is managing to turn things round. I am proud of those achievements, yet there is still a way to go. We cannot hope to deliver this Labour Government’s bold, landmark commitments, including halving violence against women and girls, without functioning prisons and probation, without safe prisons that are equipped not just to do that basic thing of keeping people alive but to enable people to live again and to contribute to society. Therefore, I urge the same commitment in this parliamentary Session to pursuing domestic and indeed prison safety as we are showing on the international front.

My Lords, in normal times—does anyone remember those?—I would probably have focused my remarks on the gracious Speech on a number of other issues I care about: women’s health, women’s rights, violence against women and girls, pornography, childhood harms, including social media and smartphones, obesity—all topics I am more comfortable with. But today, I step outside my comfort zone, because, like many, I am so worried about the divisions in our country, graphically illustrated by the two marches in London this weekend, at a policing cost of £4.5 million. The growth of sectarian politics, illustrated by the election of hundreds of new councillors who care more about Middle Eastern politics than local issues, is extremely worrying. Measures to deal with extremism, counterterrorism and state threats included in the King’s Speech are welcome but surely do not go far enough.

Our national security, the integrity of our democracy and the cohesion of our society are all under immense pressure as never before. The extremist threat facing Britain has evolved rapidly and our response has not kept pace. As MI5’s director confirmed in his threat updates from last October and 2024, Islamist extremism remains the most significant terrorism threat to the UK and accounts for 75% of MI5’s case load. We are watching how this plays out in real time, with the increasing number of antisemitic terror-related attacks, some with clear ideological motivation and links to foreign influence networks, including those aligned with hostile states. If anyone is still in any doubt about the rise of antisemitism, they have only to look at the StandWithUs UK report, based on the testimonies of Jewish students who have been isolated, assaulted and intimidated on campus.

Evidence shows that Islamist extremist communications have generated the highest and most volatile levels of activities, often intensifying in response to geopolitical crises, particularly those relating to the Middle East. This matters profoundly because it demonstrates that threats to our domestic security are not isolated from global events; they are shaped by them, amplified by them, and increasingly imported into our online and civic spaces in real time. At the same time, extremist narratives—Islamist, far right and others—are no longer neatly separated; they are converging. They share common features: conspiracy theories, anti-establishment sentiment and hostility towards democratic institutions. We see another worrying trend: the growing involvement of young people, sometimes very young people, drawn into extremist ecosystems through digital platforms where Islamist propaganda, alongside other forms of extremism, spreads rapidly and often unchecked. This is no longer simply a matter of isolated extremist groups; it is an ecosystem enabled by technology, influenced by international events and capable of mobilising individuals at scale.

We must be willing to acknowledge the scale and persistence of these threats without fear or equivocation and, equally, without stigmatising communities who are themselves often the first victims of these ideologies. We need a modernised counterextremism framework that goes beyond terrorism prevention, one that can intervene earlier, particularly in online spaces where radicalisation now primarily occurs. Extremism thrives where trust is weak, where truth is contested and where communities feel divided and unheard, and that is certainly the case today. People are angry, afraid, suspicious and divided but still long for a country at ease with itself. They do not feel that the Government understand or share their concerns. They worry about increasing antisemitism and what feels like a tin-eared response to recent atrocities. I urge the Government to listen to them and act urgently, or we will all pay the price.

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich on her maiden speech. It is also the end of an era, with the departure from our Benches of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, who is a legend in his own lifetime, with his constitutional expertise.

I want to mention the immigration issue that faces this country, because the vast numbers of people that have come into the United Kingdom in recent years simply cannot be integrated at the rate that they are coming in. In the year to June 2023, the gross number of immigrants arriving in the United Kingdom was 23,000 people a week. How can we integrate 23,000 people a week? It is utterly and completely impossible and we have no meaningful, effective means of dealing with this throughout the country. We are creating vast ghettos, and we do not really know what is happening within them. Recent attempts to get control of this are floundering. Boats continue and have not been stopped—indeed, we have little idea who is in them—and the gangs have not been smashed. The reason for that, of course, is that the incentive to come here, using boats as one example, faces no meaningful deterrent, as 95% of those arriving have remained. In the absence of any meaningful deterrent, the Government have been trying, and the Minister has been working very hard, but the truth is that he has been playing catch-up throughout this process.

I fear, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks and others have mentioned it, that the decisions announced in Moldova over the last few days will have little impact, because of what we have brought into our national law. They are only recommendations; there is nothing in a treaty and there is nothing in legislation.

There is a massive cost to taxpayers. We talk about the plight of many of these people, and that is fully understandable, but we do not talk about the plight of the people who live here and who are paying for it. For instance, a couple of years ago, we were taking a couple of hundred pounds a year off somebody’s heating allowance, yet people who come into the country in boats are in centrally heated hotels, fully fed and taken care of. There is a fundamental unfairness, and it is a breach of the social contract between the people and the state. I have tried to get the figure as to what all this is costing. My personal opinion is that it is about £10 billion a year, and maybe the Minister in his response can tell us, but I believe that there is a fundamental underlying dishonesty in the way mass immigration is being dealt with by successive Governments and Parliaments, and it will have to stop.

I want to say just one thing about the union. In recent days, we have seen potential candidates for the Labour leadership, should a vacancy arise, talking about going back into the European Union. We had a referendum 10 years ago and, whatever our views on that referendum, the fact is that a decision was reached, whether we like it or not. If one is prepared to take away that decision now, to go back on it and perhaps consult the people—maybe not—what is the argument against the Scottish National Party, which says, “We want another referendum”, having had one only 12 years ago? If we are prepared to have one for Europe, we are opening the door to a break-up of the union.

My Lords, I approach this debate in the positive spirit of one who wholeheartedly believes in the greatness of this nation. Indeed, global recognition that this is a stellar place to spend your life is vividly illustrated by the demand to live here. Where better to savour world-class sport, opera and the arts, a no-pay health service, policing by consent, jury trial, free speech, an interesting maritime climate, and national treasures from David Attenborough to a Greggs sausage roll? Yet we have to recognise that criminality is steadily chipping away at the foundations of our civilised society.

Decline rarely starts with great crimes. Inevitably, it begins with minor transgressions such as vandalism and fare dodging being tolerated and consequence free. Now we see a growing lack of respect for the law on our own streets daily: routine parking in disabled bays, cyclists riding through red lights, balaclava-clad youths on mopeds snatching mobile phones, and mass marches of hate. The spread of retail crime is increasing too, with the flagrant stripping of goods from retailers’ shelves almost commonplace. We, the consumer, bear the cost in higher prices for food, clothing and other everyday necessities. This is the last thing we need in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

More than 70 years ago, I remember sitting in my South Yorkshire mining village home when a knock on the door announced the arrival of the local policeman, responding to a complaint of me riding my bicycle on the pavement. Supported by my father, he delivered a stern rebuke to me, while my mother sobbed tears of disappointment. It was a fine example of community policing and parenting, which produced a swift and lasting improvement in my behaviour.

I strongly welcome the police reform Bill’s proposal to ensure responsive and accountable local policing, and the action already taken in the Crime and Policing Act to remove the perceived decriminalisation of thefts from shops valued at less than £200 and to make assaults on retail workers a specific offence. While current feedback indicates that violent assaults appear to be reducing perhaps a little bit, it is absolutely vital that we build on any progress made by having local police services that actually respond to calls for assistance from stores. It is equally vital that we also grant retailers more power to help themselves. High-risk stores often employ security guards, but they have no powers to do more than act as a visible deterrent. Clearly, security guards urgently need the additional powers to restrain and detain offenders, but such empowerment will be useless without the promised investment in community policing, together with a quicker-acting justice system and meaningful punishments.

We hear a lot about apprenticeships, and I strongly agree, but retail stores are providing one that we do not need: an apprenticeship in crime that escalates from self-scan cheats and grab-and-run artists to the organised wholesale grand theft of high-value items from stores.

The dismantling of our values is dangerous, and it impacts all of us. It is only one small step from a low-level offence to serious crime. While I am not so naive as to suppose we can revert to the days of PC Dixon of Dock Green, the friendly bobby on the corner 70 years ago, I strongly believe that strengthened community policing and the overdue crackdown on anti-social behaviour is absolutely key to maintaining our status as a great and safe nation of liberty, fairness and order, in which people are eager and proud to live.

My Lords, in the gracious Speech, there are two matters where constitutional principle relating to our justice system requires particular scrutiny, and they also require scrutiny in relation to the strength of our union.

First is lay participation in our Crown Courts. The jury and the magistracy have been an essential part of our constitutional structure for centuries: they date back in statute to the 13th and 14th centuries. They are a hallmark of our system of justice, underpin its worldwide reputation and give the public confidence in the administration of justice. There is nothing I have seen that can possibly be taken as an excuse for dismantling that constitutional principle.

If you read carefully the report of Sir Brian Leveson’s second volume, you will see that the causes of the problem are multifaceted but that each of them is capable of remedy. One of those issues is productivity, with which we are all familiar. The decline in the productivity of the Crown Courts, measured by the time of sitting days over the last 10 years, has been 16%. We are used to remedying this and must do so. I am glad the Government are committed to making more resource available, and I hope I can have confidence in the Minister and the Government in taking these necessary steps, so we do not destroy what underpins our justice system, namely lay participation.

Second is constitutional principles relating to the police and the great reform that is now being undertaken. There are two of particular importance: that the police are operationally independent from local and central government—just as the prosecutor, the justices and the judges must be—and that the police have and must continue to have a discretion as to the way in which they enforce the law. I hope very much that the Bill will underpin those two principles, just as principles are underpinned in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 in respect of the judiciary. I also hope that, when we look at police reform, we will look with particular care at the way in which the police have been governed over the past century or two and learn from the mistakes that have been made.

As to Wales and the strength of our union, I hope the Government will now see what, on occasion, I have raised in this House: the need for the devolution of justice to Wales. Wales is a small country, it has effective and efficient courts, and it certainly had them before this Parliament abolished them in 1830. Secondly, I have no doubt that, if policing is to be properly reformed in Wales, it must be tied very closely to the way in which the rest of the government of Wales is conducted.

My Lords, first, I support the Government’s health plans, which include a strong focus on prevention and neighbourhood, and I want to help them build on the integration of health and other services required by the Health and Care Act 2022.

We are getting there with the early years in delivering health through Best Start Family Hubs, which are thankfully now in all local authority areas. But, by definition, family hubs are for families with all children up to 19, and up to 25 if they are SEND. County councils such as Essex have pioneered healthcare for older children in their hubs and have much evidence of good practice to share.

Votes for 16 and 17 year-olds was a government manifesto commitment, but I cannot support it on child development grounds and due to its almost complete inconsistency with the rest of English law. Yes, prepare 16 and 17 year-olds to take the adult responsibility to help determine who governs this country, but do not thrust it upon children.

When I visit youth custody sites, I notice staff consistently refer to anyone in their care as children, because they are under 18. I was told it is not because they are highly vulnerable but because calling them children underlines to all concerned that children is what they are. Surely making them voters would require changing the Children Act 1989, which states that a child is a person under the age of 18. That definition is used across vast swathes of law and social policy, including safeguarding, family law, social services, education and youth justice. It is also used by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

So what if under 18s can work full-time and pay taxes? That is about training a child in the way they should go: taking responsibility and contributing. Our tax and voting systems do not completely overlap in terms of entitlement. Any further shift towards adultification needs to be strenuously resisted as it is a major threat to keeping children safe, as seen when victims were blamed in child rape gang cases. Neurodevelopment research is harnessed to argue for raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility. It shows that maturity of frontal lobes, where risk management and judgment take place, is not complete until around 25. One has to ask whether the Government are genuinely interested in children’s welfare or their votes.

Similarly, the draft conversion Bill panders more to identity politics than an objective need for a better legal framework. Violence and coercion are already illegal. This unnecessary legislation is also harmful; it intimidates those with genuinely therapeutic and caring motivations from engaging in any way with someone seeking help.

On the courts modernisation Bill, I will explore how we can improve the Children Act 1989 if this Government remove the rebuttable presumption that the involvement of both parents in their life serves the child’s welfare. Would the Family Justice Minister meet with me to discuss, for example, improving the welfare checklist?

Before I sit down, I want to say that I consider it a great privilege to have heard the valedictory speech from the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, today. I will paraphrase Dr Emma Crewe, who is an anthropologist of Parliament who has said that, in the Lords, influence depends heavily on personal relationships, reputation, civility, reciprocity and trust across parties and groups. Courtesy therefore functions almost like a social currency. Peers who are respectful, co-operative and considerate are more likely to gain influence or persuade others. Thereby, we are a model to the outside world, and I pray that we will continue to be so.

My Lords, I declare my relevant interest as an adviser to the Metropolitan Police Service, and I intend to focus on the importance of diversity in policing and the Government’s police reform proposals. His Majesty’s most gracious Speech describes how Ministers will defend the British values of decency, tolerance and respect for difference. I have witnessed the Minister defend those values from the Dispatch Box.

This country’s unique system of policing by consent is based on the Peelian principles of 1829. The principles speak of the power of the police being dependent on public approval and their ability to secure and maintain public respect. As this country becomes more diverse, the police have a duty to provide an appropriate and professional service to everyone, no matter their colour, culture or ethnic origin—to borrow from Sir William Macpherson’s definition of institutional racism—extended now to other sections of society that have particularly lost confidence in the police: women, LGBT+ and disabled people.

The police need to secure the trust and confidence, public approval and co-operation of law-abiding citizens in every community if they are to be effective in the prevention of crime, the preservation of public tranquillity and in bringing offenders to justice. The police rely on fellow citizens to inform, assist and co-operate with them. Treating everyone with dignity and respect, respecting difference, is essential to the efficiency and effectiveness of the police in a diverse society.

On the police reform proposals, it makes complete sense to brigade national policing functions, such as counterterrorism, under one leading organisation. The system of police and crime commissioners concentrates too much power—and now, without exception, party-political power—in the hands of one individual, particularly in the hiring and firing of what are supposed to be apolitical chief constables. There is always a danger of personal or political—with a small p —differences resulting in good chief constables being sacked because of these differences and good chief police officers not applying for important posts because the incumbent deputy has a close relationship with the PCC. The abolition of police and crime commissioners is a step in the right direction. However, many directly elected mayors are the police and crime commissioners for their areas, and similar arguments apply. This reform does not appear to me to go far enough. Do the Government have proposals to address the issue of potential personality differences?

The amalgamation of police forces from the current 43 has been on the agenda for decades. There are efficiency savings to be had, but there is a considerable initial cost in terms of rebadging, reorganising, culture and public perception. Police officers have an allegiance to their forces, and in Scotland many citizens felt that they had lost touch with their local police force with the establishment of Police Scotland. When crime is lower, public confidence in the police is higher, and there is money in the bank. Having learned the lessons from Police Scotland, force amalgamations may be the right way to go. What is the Government’s timetable for these reforms?

My Lords, I add my voice in expressing my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. The noble Lord gave us a great reminder of the bizarre ways in which our constitution has come into being by historically adding lots of small entities and having norms and customs. He reminded us that unpicking the glue of something can actually be hugely damaging to the relationships of what make nationhood, and his wisdom should be remembered for all time.

I want to talk today about juries, but I would have spoken on so many of the aspects of the justice system that are being reformed. However, I want to talk about the folly that I think is contained in these reforms to jury trial. I was very interested in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, who described to us the importance of educating our young about citizenship education and teaching them what citizenship means because they are going to be voting before long. One of the things that citizens value, however, is that they bring something to the justice system, which you do not get anywhere else; they bring their experience of the community to the system. It is that lay participation, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, referred to, that enriches the system, building trust and confidence in it.

Opportunities for citizens to do something in the public sphere that affects the lives of their fellow citizens are rare. They have it if they vote, but there are few other ways in which they can make that contribution. We should, therefore, be recognising that reducing jury trial is one of the fundamental ways in which citizen participation is being undermined. We talk about active citizenship all the time, and the recent elections showed us that people are increasingly feeling that their views and the contribution they could make is of little consequence. I think we are making a serious mistake in thinking that reducing jury trial is going to be the solution to the problems in the justice system.

I agree that there is an alarming backlog of cases in the criminal justice system, but everyone—including Sir Brian Leveson, who provided the recommendations—agreed that the backlog was largely a result of chronic underfunding. I see the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, sitting there, and he should hang his head in shame for the cuts that were introduced in his time. I can honestly tell noble Lords that the jury system is part and parcel of what has made our system great; it is respected around the world because it is the fairest way to determine guilt or innocence, and it has the confidence of the community.

It is wrong that we should be misleading the victims’ movement into thinking that this will provide speedy justice for raped women and girls. It is a piece of spin to secure the support of a group of people who have been failed disgracefully by the criminal justice system, and they are not going to be helped by these reforms. Reform is needed, but it is not this.

I remind noble Lords that the Secretary of State for Justice, David Lammy, said not that long ago:

“Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea”,

and he wrote a great report on securing the support and confidence of minority communities. He seems to have done a volte face. I quote again what the Prime Minister has said repeatedly throughout his life as a lawyer:

“The right to jury trial is an important factor in the delicate balance between the power of the state and the freedom of the individual”.

It really does hold that place; it is one of the pieces of glue, and if it is further restricted, the greater the imbalance. It is a serious mistake to be reforming jury trials, and my message to the Government is: think again.

My Lords, I will speak on leave to remain, but first I want to comment on the background policy papers the Government published on the upcoming immigration and asylum Bill. If you read the beginning of certainly one of those papers, it seems to suggest that somehow the UK suffers more with asylum seekers than other parts of Europe. Let me make it clear that this is not the case. The numbers of asylum seekers in Germany, France, Italy and Spain are well ahead of the number here in the UK. If you look at it on a per capita basis, countries such as Greece, and many others, are well ahead of us in terms of statistics.

Let me come on to indefinite leave to remain. I have in my close family a guy—my step-grandson, in effect—who has leave to remain. He works hard, pays taxes and has no intention of claiming any benefits whatever—that would be against his moral compass. He is well integrated into his local community and is a great father. He is able to do all this because he has the certainty of indefinite leave to remain, which gives him stability and allows him to be a positive member of British society. However, the Government have plans, via this Bill in the King’s Speech, to continue their agenda of not allowing people to acquire that position for 10 to 20 years. This is fundamentally wrong. It creates cost for those individuals and, as I understand it, everybody’s situation is going to be looked at again after two and half years. That is a huge bureaucratic burden on our Civil Service at a time when it is under great stress anyway, with backlogs of appeals and the number of asylum seekers still coming into the country, although that may be reducing. It is particularly bad, in terms of its retrospectivity, for those who are already here and now see those horizons moving far ahead to 10 to 20 years’ time.

I just wanted to make the point that changing the rules in terms of years is wrong. For those individuals who want eventually to become British citizens—and we should encourage that—and officially part of British society, it can lead to alienation rather than the integration that we want. I ask the Government to think again about those timetables.

My Lords, I want to raise briefly the issue of modern slavery and specifically the proposals in the immigration and asylum Bill that were announced in the gracious Speech last week. In the background notes for the Bill, I liked the intention to embed provisions to ensure that child victims of exploitation

“are identified and supported more effectively”.

I hope very much that this will include finally bringing into force Section 48 of the Modern Slavery Act, to make independent child trafficking guardians available across the whole of England and Wales. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether Section 48 will be started as part of these new measures.

I am, however, very concerned that the inclusion of modern slavery measures in an immigration Bill confuses an issue of human rights abuse with the knotty problem of immigration control, since this could deter victims from coming forward. I am also disappointed to hear the Government speak about “potential misuse” of modern slavery protections, when, in fact, a committee of this House found in 2024 that it had not received

“evidence of widespread abuse of the modern slavery system”,

as my colleague, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has already mentioned.

In closing, I ask the Minister to confirm whether the NRM changes will allow discretion on a case-by-case basis, and to assure this House that all modern slavery victims exploited in the United Kingdom will have access to support.

I also add my appreciation for the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. I have known him for many years. He is, in every way, a giant of a man, and it has been a pleasure to have known him and worked with him. We shall miss him very much.

My Lords, let me begin where the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, ended. It has been a huge privilege to share these Benches and this debate with my noble friend Lord Hennessy. I briefly add my own tribute. Understandably, much of the discussion has been about his role as a Member of this House, and as a historian and academic on the constitution. He is also the country’s pre-eminent historian of the British submarine programme and the national deterrent, and we—this nation, the town of Barrow-in-Furness and I personally—owe him a huge debt for the contribution he has made over the years. He will be so deeply missed, and I am humbled to be able to call him a friend.

I welcome the tackling state threats Bill. We all hope that it will deliver a proscription of the IRGC that is every bit as strong as full proscription with a different name. I hope the Minister in his conclusion will say whether the Bill will be fast-tracked, as has been suggested in recent days. It is urgently needed and has been for many years, but the sense of crisis currently, with the conflict in Iran and the explosion of violent antisemitism in our communities, means there can be no excuse for delay.

Can the Minister also explain why it was suggested that neither that Bill nor the announced national security Bill include a commitment to enact the Government’s also much-needed commitment to tackle extremism in the charity sector? This was a welcome announcement on an issue that is also urgent. Surely, the power to strike off charities will require primary legislation. Therefore, if the Government could clarify why there is no mention of that in any of the briefing on the Bills, that would be appreciated.

Furthermore, what is the level of commitment to any measures that may be deemed necessary following the review of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, into hate crime and public order? The Government have said that they will publish that review shortly and will enact a number of recommendations from it. It is unclear where that would fit in. Obviously, many of us in this House believe strongly that there is a need for urgent changes to public order legislation, so I hope the Minister will agree to enact such measures. I hope he will also agree to enact the measures I have been banging on about in my review and subsequently, in particular a proscription-style tool, but also stronger powers to tackle the hate-infested marches that have now reached crisis point. Jewish communities in Britain are under siege from all sides: from Islamist extremism, the far left and also, of course, the far right. These measures are deeply needed, and the Government must match their rhetoric with legislative action.

My Lords, in my response to the gracious Speech, I shall focus on what is missing. Soon, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, will be missing. The noble Lord joined your Lordships’ House shortly before I did and was so gracious as I enthusiastically presented myself in front of him, grateful that I had used his books when I learnt at A-level. He laughed and invited me for tea, and shared his wit and wisdom with me, for which I remain very grateful.

In his valedictory speech, the noble Lord also made good on the missing mention of the constitution in today’s debate. The Representation of the People Bill says it will meet

“an evolving and sophisticated threat”,

but it seems to me to be too little, too late. Measures are welcome on political donations, but the ecosphere of influence is well beyond traditional political party donations. Social media, think tanks, higher education and the lack of supervision of companies limited by guarantee are worthy of investigation and legislation. These are the influence operations which the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, referred to.

Missing is serious consideration of the potential risks of not having a written constitution. There remains no limit to the number of Members of your Lordships’ House that a Prime Minister could request a monarch to create. The sensible amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, in the last Session were ignored, and I hope that such an amendment preventing any Government or coalition Government having an overall majority in your Lordships’ House will be within the scope of the removal of peerages Bill.

Yes, your Lordships’ House will face every few weeks a question on when His Majesty’s Government are going to introduce humanist wedding ceremonies in England, as there is a missing “marriage Bill”. The Law Commission report was issued in July 2024, and still, four years later, I believe we are only at the stage of waiting for a White Paper. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline the timetable for that legislation. Without this, people—mainly women—who marry in a religious ceremony which is not recognised in UK law suffer a grave injustice. This leaves—usually—women with the inadequate remedies of breakdown of a cohabiting relationship, or informal dispute resolution, often called a sharia council. The last review of these was in 2018 and needs updating. Therefore, I ask His Majesty’s Government to get ahead of the rumours and anecdotes and provide clear evidence to allay or confirm concerns. The last review, by Mona Siddiqui, could be supplemented by the recently retired president of the Family Division.

Missing from the modernisation of courts Bill is a legal definition of the duty or covenant that is owed to jurors. Modern evidence methods have changed their experience. Rapes are usually filmed, or skulls can be 3D printed and handed around the jury to show exactly where the machete went in. Jurors are compelled to be there, cut off from their usual support relationships, as they cannot speak of what they are hearing, and they are the only people in the courtroom who have no legal right to support. Court staff, lawyers and even judges now have support mechanisms in place. While I welcome the recent pilot project, having met many jurors who have been made seriously ill by jury service, I know that the matter does not have the urgency that is needed. I fear His Majesty’s Government will only act once there is a regulation 28 recommendation from a coroner. To avoid that risk, a duty should be on the statute book.

Depriving a large number of people of jury trials is not court modernisation. That is a misnomer. I remember the valedictory speech of another hero of mine, Lord Mackay, who mentioned the seriousness of appointing judges to the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland. Their life could be on the line. While that is a risk of a different magnitude, the barristers who are also part-time judges raise legitimate concerns around their safety if they make determinations of guilt or innocence in these more serious cases.

It looks like the Committee stage of various Bills will be very busy, helping to fill in so much of what is missing.

My Lords, I begin by recognising an important democratic moment in Wales: 11 days ago, Plaid Cymru secured the largest number of votes that any party has ever received in Wales, leading to the formation of the first Plaid Cymru-led Welsh Government. I hope the Minister responding to the debate will join me in wishing the new Cabinet well as they begin delivering their plan for government, focused on protecting household budgets, reducing child poverty and unlocking economic potential. The people of Wales have spoken clearly: they want a fairer deal for their communities. While there will of course be differences between Governments, there is also a genuine opportunity for constructive collaboration to improve lives across Wales.

Turning to His Majesty’s Speech, nine of the Bills announced last week apply to Wales, in addition to others carried over into this Session. I regret that time does not permit me to address them all, so I will focus my remarks on the police reform Bill. I have raised the case for devolving justice on numerous occasions in your Lordships’ House, and the Minister who will be responding to this debate knows these arguments well, so I will not rehearse them today. Instead, I wish to highlight two recent developments which, in my view, significantly strengthen that case.

First, we saw the signing of two memoranda of understanding between the Welsh Government and the UK Government very recently: one on youth justice and another on policing. These agreements reflect a growing recognition that the current settlement requires closer alignment and co-operation, particularly where devolved and reserved responsibilities intersect.

Secondly, following the recent election, the Prime Minister spoke with the new First Minister of Wales and indicated that he is open to discussions on the further devolution of powers. That is a welcome and important step. Just today, there was a Statement in the other place in which the Minister for Justice, David Lammy, also noted that the door is open when talking specifically about justice. Taken together, these developments point in one direction: towards a more coherent and accountable justice system in Wales. The police reform Bill provides a timely and practical opportunity to begin that process.

There is broad political consensus in Wales—across Plaid Cymru, Welsh Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party—that devolving policing would enable better priority setting, more effective prevention, and services properly tailored to the needs of our communities. As things stand, justice remains reserved, while key intersecting services such as health, education, housing and social services are already devolved. This fragmentation undermines both effectiveness and accountability.

If we are serious about improving outcomes, particularly for young people and vulnerable communities, alignment is not a luxury—it is a necessity. I ask the Minister, ahead of the next meeting between the Prime Minister and the First Minister, whether his department will be actively developing proposals or options to support the devolution of policing and to facilitate a smooth and orderly transition.

The instability we have seen recently is not inspiring confidence beyond it. There is an opportunity here to take a different approach—one rooted in partnership and respect. We can begin a new chapter in how we govern these islands, based on trust between our nations and institutions. I look forward to hearing more about the Government’s plans in this area.

My Lords, I will focus my remarks on the proposed changes to settlement rights for overseas workers. I recognise the need to balance compassion with control and fairness with sustainability. However, I must express my deep concern regarding the proposal to extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain for overseas workers from five to 10 years or even more, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said.

These workers came here in good faith and at our invitation at a time when our nation faced acute shortages—and those shortages have not disappeared. They have worked tirelessly to support our elderly and vulnerable citizens, often in demanding and underappreciated roles. In doing so, they have become an integral part of our communities; they are no longer strangers but our neighbours, colleagues and friends. Their children attend our schools, they contribute to our local economies and they participate fully in community life. They have begun to build their futures here, with the understanding, based on existing policy, that after five years of lawful residence and service they would be eligible to settle here permanently. An accessible path to settlement is crucial to integration. Forcing people into a state of enduring temporariness and precariousness—not fully included in this society for over a decade—is a disaster for integration.

We must also acknowledge the financial and personal sacrifices that many of these workers have made. Many still carry substantial debts as a result. For some, once in this country, their exploitation and misery do not end there. Some British employers are aware of their vulnerability and abuse the control and power of sponsorship; such is the unacceptable face of exploitation and modern slavery in our country. If they complain about their rights being violated and report their plight to the authorities, they fear being placed on the first plane back home to their country of origin.

I understand the Government’s perspective that immigration must be brought down. I also understand how some of our citizens feel about higher levels of immigration. However, those levels have fallen significantly in recent times. Fairness and integrity have long been the hallmarks of our national character. Let us ensure that these values are reflected in our decision-making. I urge the Government to reconsider this proposal, to uphold their commitment to advancing integration and protecting workers from abuse and to maintain the original pathway to settlement for those who have already given so much in service to our society.

My Lords, antisemitism is rightly at the top of the national agenda at the moment. Given the comments of both the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition, this matter clearly enjoys cross-party consensus in both Houses. This is not simply a question of physical protection; antisemitism has now also impacted on the public sector across a range of areas, including the NHS and—of particular relevance to today’s debate—the criminal justice system and policing.

Members of the House will well recall the West Midlands Police’s lamentable approach to “community engagement” during last year’s Maccabi Tel Aviv football match debacle. The handling of the matter rightly led to the involvement of the present Home Secretary and resulted in the departure of the then chief constable. The police obviously have a crucial role to play in the fight against terrorism, but when it comes to extremism more broadly, and particularly to non-violent extremism, they also have a long pedigree of getting themselves into pickles, owing to an obsession with finding what are seen as “credible” partners to reach out to vulnerable sections of some Muslim communities. Too many of these partners turn out to be sectarians and antisemites.

Perhaps the starkest example of this was the support given by the Metropolitan Police, many years ago in 2004 under the commissionership of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, to the visit of the late Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an extremist cleric and hate preacher who openly supported suicide attacks against coalition forces in Iraq as well as against Israeli civilians. Strangely, he too was seen as a credible figure who could persuade angry young people in this country not to become jihadists on these shores.

More recently, after 7 October, the Metropolitan Police’s London Muslim Communities Forum was dogged by controversy. If noble Lords have never heard of that body, it is perhaps of little surprise. A full list of its members, minutes of its meetings and record-keeping of its advice to the police have never been published. What we do know is that its chairman was forced to stand down from his role in November 2023, after footage of him chanting the slogan “From the river to the sea” went public. Subsequently, the Metropolitan Police stated that it was working on a new advisory group “charter” that would include a

“shared commitment to engage through mutual respect and inclusivity”.

Yet two and a half years later, that charter does not seem to have been made public. I ask the Minister: why not?

There are ample precedents for Home Secretaries to intervene when policing is getting it wrong. The then Home Secretary, acting under her powers contained in Section 54 of the Police Act 1996, commissioned a report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services into activism and impartiality in policing. This highlighted a lack of clarity around the purpose, administration and governance of police “staff networks”, which are too often consulted on policy matters, as well as on legitimate welfare matters.

Since the last King’s Speech, things have changed significantly for the worse. We need to re-evaluate the Government’s approach to operationally independent bodies, and their policies, in the light of the antisemitism crisis. The Government have made it clear through their recent White Paper on police reform that they intend to:

“Solidify the boundaries of operational independence”.

The key question now for Ministers, therefore, is what such a solidification might mean for holding police forces to account for the policies that they themselves forge and create, leading to bias and sectarianism in their own ranks. The present Home Secretary herself recognised the role of Ministers in her previous role as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, when she addressed the questions of the sentencing guidelines. As she pointed out, it is for Ministers to be responsible for policy. Likewise, we now have to ask whether policy on these vital matters, including the impartiality of the police, is too important to be left to the police, just as war has always been said to be too important to be left exclusively to the generals.

The firebombing of synagogues, the Golders Green stabbings, the Heaton Park murders—the whole country clearly needs to wake up to what is happening. The Government are right, finally, to proscribe the Iranian IRGC—which the head of MI5 says has been linked to over 20 deadly plots on our soil in just the past year—but timing is now of the essence. JTAC has raised the terrorism threat level to “severe”, meaning it assesses that a further terrorist attack is highly likely in the next six months. The question I pose to the Minister is: will the Government apply that same timescale to the legislation needed to ban the IRGC?

In doing so, what assessment have the Government made of the work of the Iranian embassy here in London and of the reports that the Iranian embassy is trying to enrol supporters in an official martyrdom initiative? Clearly, action on state-based threats is vitally urgent, but, as my noble friend Lord Hennessy reminded us earlier in his valedictory speech, our system of government now also depends on what he described as the “mobilisation of decency” and civility, tolerance and the duty of care.

Compare and contrast that with the anti-Jewish racism so blatantly on display in some of our political parties in just the past few weeks. We had an electoral candidate describing people as “Jewish cockroaches” and another who had said:

“Ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism. It’s revenge”.

A candidate elected in Tower Hamlets described the Holocaust as a “holohoax”. A candidate elected in Hackney said that Israel was harvesting organs to alter the “DNA of Zionists”. A candidate arrested, but elected in Lambeth, had previously said that 9/11 was not the action of al-Qaeda, but a false flag attack by Israel. What is clear in all these instances, and many more—this is just the tip of the iceberg—is that, in fact, in this Islamist fantasy world, the hatred of Israel is utterly indistinguishable from the hatred of Jews. They are one and the same.

Caroline Lucas was clearly right to call for urgency of action within the Green Party, but it is not just the Green Party. In her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath, laid out some further practical action that the political parties should take. I echo the point that the noble Lord, Lord Walney, made, which is that there is a lacuna in the law, which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, is investigating. His report was due in February, I think. Will the Government commit that, if they see that in the next month or two, they will incorporate any recommendations that require legislation in one of the Bills on the docket this Session? Can they also tell us whether the Representation of the People Bill, which will be before us, and which is apparently intended to tackle harassment and the intimidation of voters, will have anything to say about the door-to-door intimidation of voters in places such as Sheffield, Brighton and Hackney, who are being asked whether or not they are willing to disavow support for Israel?

If one imagines an equivalent situation where Tommy Robinson’s supporters were out engaging in a similar exercise in Bradford, asking whether voters there would disavow Pakistan, or in Tower Hamlets in respect to Bangladesh, that would rightly be seen as the kind of racism it is. Why should this be tolerated? This is an urgent crisis that demands action. The Government need to get on with it.

My Lords, it is a great privilege to speak today in response to His Majesty’s gracious Speech. It was a delight and privilege to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Case, and of course, that of my friend, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. She and I share a commitment to justice, and I refer to my interests stated in the register as Anglican Bishop for HM Prisons.

The gracious Speech set out the Government’s ambition for the UK to be

“a country fair for all and a place where every child is included in the nation’s highest aspirations”.

In relation to energy, defence, and economic security, it specified taking decisions for the long term. This emphasis on both the child and the long term is vital. Looking at all legislation through the lens of the child would better join up government departments and would also bring clarity to a long-term holistic vision and resist short-termism.

While we do not have a Bill specifically on prisons, I urge the Government not to take their eye off the ball. We have made some progress with sentencing, but when looking at matters such as prison capacity, jury trials, court backlog, legal aid, et cetera, it is short-termism simply to act to try to fix an immediate crisis. There is an urgent need for a long-term plan which is effective and evidence led.

With regard to the police and the criminal justice system, the gracious Speech referred to

“services the British people expect”.

But for far too long we have let the public narrative and media headlines shape our penal policy. It is therefore not surprising that, too often, our system leaves people stuck in cycles of reoffending. We are not being courageous in acting on the evidence regarding what enables change and transformation. Our long-term vision must be about reducing offending and reoffending with a long-term aim of building stronger communities. It must be about investing in restorative rehabilitation, braver community alternatives, valued probation and, of course, victim support, because we cannot be siloed in focusing either on offenders or on victims.

We must be clear on the purpose of prison, and we must put relationship at the heart of our legislation to enable the flourishing of individuals and communities within a diverse and vibrant society. Outside this Chamber sits the statue of Queen Victoria, flanked by the statues of Justice and Mercy. As a Christian, I believe we must hold these together. Justice is about more than punishment. The gracious Speech stated a desire for every child to fulfil their potential, yet we are constantly treating symptoms and not underlying issues. We need to take adverse childhood experiences seriously and pay attention to nurturing healthy relationships, which begins in childhood, and we need to address all that underlies so much offending. Incidentally, this also connects with the Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls.

To conclude, if we want a country that is fair for all, we must resist siloed and short-term fixes, not least in relation to criminal justice. I urge the Government to be courageous in thinking long term to ensure safe and flourishing communities. Of course, that begins with the flourishing of every child within a network of healthy relationship.

My Lords, In November 2023, in a speech about the October 7 attacks in Israel, I spoke about the escalation of Islamic extremism throughout the West. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with many other terror organisations, during the last 40 years had spread like a cancer across the globe. It was not as though there had been no warnings. In 2001, as an MEP, following 9/11, I was the rapporteur in the European Parliament responsible for the legislation on security at airports. I had spent 25 years in the airline industry and witnessed the growing threats from hijacking by the PLO and Black September in the 1970s to the horrific terrorist attack on flight Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie.

It should have been a wake-up call, but it has not been. We have had 30 years of the IRA’s atrocities, murdering civilians on our shores. However, as those threats began to diminish, they have been replaced by the terrorist atrocities we have seen at first hand—7/7, Glasgow Airport, Lee Rigby, Westminster, Manchester Arena, London Bridge, Reading, and many more—carried out by Islamic extremists, as if counterterrorism and the security services do not have anything better to do.

After October 7, the pro-Palestinian hate protests started. Week in, week out, we heard “from the river to the sea” and calls for jihad. Nazi placards and blatant antisemitism were in full view. Hizb ut-Tahrir, later proscribed, took part. Hamas sympathisers and children dressed as Hamas terrorists had their photographs taken with members of the Metropolitan Police. I complained, we complained, and nothing was done. Excuses were made, and so it continues.

Some of us met with Gold Command from the Metropolitan Police more than 18 months ago. I asked about the threshold which apparently, if reached, would mean that these protests would have to stop. He obfuscated, and so I asked him, “If these protesters shouted, ‘Kill the Blacks!’”—he was a Black officer—“or ‘Kill all Muslims!’, would there have been a second march, or any following?” I believe not.

Two and a half years in, antisemitism has escalated to a degree I thought I would never see in my lifetime. There are attacks on synagogues, restaurants and shops, murders and stabbings, and British families and children are now surrounded by a ring of steel. They are threatened daily and fear for their lives. Warm words will no longer wash.

The Prime Minister sounded very surprised when he spoke recently. Where has he been? He blamed the far right, as usual. It appears that those of us who speak out on these issues and spell out the problem are all far right. The vast majority of people who marched at the weekend in the “Unite the Kingdom” rally were certainly not far right. They were ordinary people tired of living with this Islamist threat hanging over us. There were Israeli flags, Iranian flags, and every flag from every part of the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, at the Nakba rally, they were still calling for the annihilation of all Jews and of Israel, and much more.

In conclusion, the public are sick and tired of this appeasing approach to these Islamists who actually hate our country. Unless the Government, the Metropolitan Police, the Home Secretary and everyone else involved are prepared to stop talking and take action, this will not improve. As Churchill once said,

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”

Let me be clear: those of us speaking out on this will not stay silent.

My Lords, I very much welcome the gracious Speech’s emphasis on economic security, which is of particular importance to people on low incomes, and its reference to the Government’s belief that no child should be held back due to poverty. The child poverty strategy, including the abolition of the unethical two-child limit, represents an important platform on which the Government can now build.

If economic security is our guiding principle, it must also be the aim of future social security reform. The legacy of the previous Government continues to be a social security system that does not live up to its promise of providing security through social means, and the new conventional wisdom that spending on working age benefits is out of control is simply not true. As Trussell warns, our social security system should provide a firmer footing so people can thrive, and progress on reducing food bank need can be sustained.

The promise of economic security and the chance for

“every child … to succeed to the best of his or her ability”

has implications for Home Office policy on asylum and migration, some of which will be included in the immigration and asylum Bill. Yet the Home Affairs Committee report on the earned settlement changes, echoing the concerns of civil society groups about the impact on poverty, warns that:

“The Government will need to understand and mitigate any increase in child poverty”.

Can my noble friend the Minister tell us whether the Government accept this and, if yes, how they propose to act on it? The asylum changes also spell potentially worsening poverty or even destitution.

It seems that “every child” does not include migrant children, despite the child poverty strategy’s commitment to

“ensuring that vulnerable migrant children receive the support that they require, regardless of their immigration status”.

The extension of the qualifying periods for settlement will massively increase insecurity for both refugees and migrants and their children, with damaging implications for their mental health and the Government’s aim of better integration.

Worrying too is the inclusion in the Bill of a new, supposedly independent appeals body, rejected by the Law Society as an abrupt and potentially “harmful change” when the priority should be improving the quality of initial decision-making. Can my noble friend say whether the Government will be publishing the results of the recent, somewhat rushed, call for evidence?

Finally, on a brighter note, I look forward to us receiving the Representation of the People Bill and, in particular, its extension of the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds, the success of which will very much depend on the strengthening of citizenship education, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and as I am sure the much missed late noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, would have argued. I hope, too, that we might consider following the example of Wales and Scotland by extending the franchise to foreign residents, as some argued for at the Commons Second Reading and as supported by the Prime Minister in the past.

There was also strong support at Second Reading for the establishment of a national commission for electoral reform. Since then, the local elections have underlined just how far the old first past the post system is out of sync with multi-party politics. To quote Martin Wolf in the FT,

“the great danger is … tyranny of the minority, in which a small plurality secures overwhelming power. First-past-the-post has become suicidal. The time to reform the old system is now”.

My Lords, the antisemitism emergency, as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation has described it, and the balkanisation problem of ethnic and religious division—perhaps I should say balkanisation crisis—has haunted today’s debate on the King’s Speech and clearly concerns this House deeply. Plainly, we need a more developed cohesion policy, integration policy and security policy, including stricter border controls, deportations and much swifter trials. We look forward to seeing the detail of the national security Bill and the tackling state threats Bill. However, we also need a far more developed counter-extremism policy, and I want to concentrate my remarks on what that might be.

We must at the start be able to identify the problem in order to defeat it. A key driver of the antisemitism emergency here and abroad is Islamist actors linked to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and our enemies abroad who lurk in the twilight zone between normality and terror. The first requirement of a counterextremism policy is to shine a spotlight on them—in other words, to name them in the annual state of extremism report proposed by the Government. That will require changes to libel law. The Government could usefully combine them with the action against SLAPPs that Ministers have promised. The annual state of extremism report can then be converted into a rolling register. No individual, group or organisation on that register should be consulted by Ministers or officials, be patronised by government or receive a penny of public money.

That is just the start. The Government should apply to the extremists the approach deployed in education reform by successive Conservative, Labour, coalition and other Governments: inspections on the Ofsted model, accompanied by fines, prosecutions and an enhanced right to sue. Are Jewish or other students harassed in universities? Encourage the Office for Students to issue fines and, if necessary, hold the authorities personally liable. Are Jewish, Israeli or other artists the victims of silent boycotts? Create a new ombudsman who can probe complaints and issue fines—and so on, throughout the public sector and, where necessary, in the public square.

I make three other quick points. First, in the wake of the forthcoming review from the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, we need to adopt the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Walney, already mentioned in this debate, in relation to cumulative marches and static protests. The deliberate targeting of synagogues in these marches must end. Secondly, where is the action we have been promised to extend the Charity Commission’s powers to suspend trustees and shut down charities involved in extremist abuse? Thirdly, this programme will only be fully effective when we overhaul our human rights frameworks.

Extremists do not win because most people vote for them; they win if most people stay silent because they do not want any trouble, and when democratic politicians lack the will or the wit to produce a plan. Government cannot do everything. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey, pointed out earlier, this crisis is a challenge for the whole of civil society. However, government can do something. It needs a plan. This is a plan—or at least the start of one. I commend it to the Government, to my own party and to all other democrats with the wit and the will to act.

I add my tribute to today’s maiden speech, and to the predictably exquisite valedictory speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield.

There is much to commend in the gracious Speech. However, I urge noble friends in government and all who aspire to lead it to strive towards an overarching narrative of hope, not just constant reminders of insecurity and threat. The public feel the news as acutely in their pockets as on their screens. We must be careful not to keep repeating grim diagnoses without the prescriptions for justice that people rightly expect of us.

I am proud to see the Hillsborough Bill feature but am less happy that we have not secured it to date. As the Manchester Arena victims’ families will testify, a blanket exemption for the security agencies would be no kind of Hillsborough law at all. Where transparency would compromise security, provision can be made for application to a judge for a specific exemption. Otherwise, understandably, institutions close ranks to spare blushes—but not always lives.

I believe in the importance of jury trials for three reasons. First, like voting and paying tax, they allow ordinary citizens to contribute to civic life. Without them, one class always appears to sit in judgment over others. Juries improve trust and confidence in, and the legitimacy of, our criminal justice system. Secondly, juries protect the judiciary from opprobrium where the evidence points to acquittal in high-profile cases. The demonisation of lawyers and judges has been an extremely dangerous trend in recent times. Finally, the ability of the jury to decide guilt or otherwise without reasons is a precious last-ditch safeguard against abusive laws and prosecutions.

I have grave concerns about attempts further to dilute the right to elect for jury trial. Years of underfunding courts should not become an excuse for further restricting access to them. My concerns relate to principle and practice, but also to democratic politics. Do noble friends really want such an open goal for far-right populists—an opportunity to argue that Labour is for European rights but not ancient English liberties? It is telling that immigration and asylum is grouped with strengthening national security rather than public services or even economic security. Further words are ominous. As under earlier Conservative Governments, asylum is conflated with illegal entry. The desire to tighten the application of Article 8 of the ECHR displays some distrust of courts. Just as open goals on jury trials are misguided, so is trying to compete in performative unkindness rather than administrative competence. Concerns about fairness notwithstanding, the bulk of public opinion remains committed to rights and freedoms. Why legitimise those who would tear them down?

The Representation of the People Bill, with votes at 16 and vital safeguards against foreign interference and domestic election intimidation, is an historic proposal. How wonderful it would be to mark a century of hard-won mass suffrage in two years’ time with this landmark progressive change.

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am keen to express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, whom I have known for a long time as a fellow professional historian in this House, for his work and the tremendous influence he has rightly had on the life of this House. I would also like to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Case, whom I have also known for a long time—it is the shared vibe of the Cambridge history department.

The noble Lord, Lord Case, in his role as Cabinet Secretary, was a fundamental defender of the national security of this country. He was also there when the message came from the European Union that it was looking for a way out of the protocol and the Windsor Framework. This was at the time of the Truss Government, and he played a major role in bringing back the Windsor Framework, which is a difficult and, in some ways, messy compromise that still leaves a democratic deficit in Northern Ireland; but it is still an improvement.

The King’s Speech has an important passage on the union:

“My Government is committed to the strength and integrity of the Union of the United Kingdom”.

It recalls the words of Keir Starmer when he was leader of the Opposition—that in the event of a border poll, he would campaign for the continuation of the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The remarks in the King’s Speech are in the same spirit. The most important legislation with respect to the union, however, is the legacy Bill. There is an important explanation of the legacy Bill in the glossary published by the Government alongside the King’s Speech, and there are the Minister’s important and very helpful remarks at the beginning of this debate.

I still have two queries or problems. The legacy Bill announces a new relationship with the Irish Government, but it also says that there are new protections for veterans, while the Irish Government say there are none. At some point or other—perhaps the Minister can help me tonight—this has to be clarified. Either the Irish Government are correct or our Government are correct.

On legacy, I have another point that is perhaps worth making. I was the historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday tribunal. I return to a point made earlier in the day, especially by the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Hoey, about the costs of the ICRIR. I am a supporter of Sir Declan Morgan and the ICRIR, and they need to have the money to carry out their work in Northern Ireland. It is worth remembering that the Government announced that the Bloody Sunday tribunal would cost £12 million. That was in old money; in the end, it cost some £200 million. As the Government continue to discuss the legacy question, the money needs to be made available; there is no point in having an ICRIR without giving it resources. None the less, there needs to be absolute clarity, particularly on how the legal profession in Northern Ireland may or may not share in these fruits. I speak as a former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. We now talk about duty of candour. There needs to be openness, clarity and transparency on this issue, because there is no doubt that the Government’s legacy Bill, for which they have a mandate, is going to be incredibly expensive. We have not really heard an explanation of where exactly the Government stand on that.

My Lords, our country is in the grip of an extremism crisis. Whether it is left versus right, woke versus traditionalists, globalists versus nationalists, there is a growing prevalence of extremist rhetoric and activity, which is increasing social division. I will concentrate my brief contribution on the shocking rise in antisemitic rhetoric and violence, and I declare an interest as a proud British Jew.

Of course, this represents a crisis for the British Jewish community, but it is symptomatic of wider problems in Britain as a whole, and we should heed the warning signs that this could be a harbinger of looming societal breakdown. Antisemitism is being fuelled by a toxic mix of Islamist and far left anti-Israel extremism, plus some from the far right, with worrying involvement by overseas actors. We see the weekly protests on our streets, the fear in our universities, as highlighted in last week’s shocking StandWithUs report, and increasing violence against Jews on our streets. The Home Affairs Select Committee emphasised the failure of the current approaches, including Prevent, and the need for earlier intervention to tackle extremism. Well, it may be a little bit too late for that, but I welcome the Bills to ban the IRGC—why has it taken so long?—and to tackle state threats.

It is long past time to beat about the bush. Most recent anti-Jewish plots and attacks have come from Iran and its proxies. We have seen Kata’ib Hezbollah from Iraq, a relation of Iran, claiming responsibility for the latest violence on our streets. The IRGC and others of its proxies are helping to fund this and are using British banks and property purchases with impunity to pay people to commit these acts. MI5 tracked 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots last year. There is a growing use of co-ordinated unlawful tactics by direct action protest groups linked to the Middle East, engaging in extremist activity just below the terrorism threshold but incited by ideologically motivated, foreign-influenced Islamists, again linked to the IRGC.

A 2024 Electoral Commission report found that 46% of general election candidates had reported abuse, threats or intimidation, so this has spread to the core of both national and local politics in this country. Why do we have groups siding with the terror regimes that are suppressing their own people with violence, torture and murder? How has this infiltrated our political discourse? The Government must urgently follow through with sustained action to confront the hatred and the extremist Islamism fuelling it. We need stronger powers to close charities that promote extremist ideologies. We must act decisively against the British banks that have become a soft touch to help fund this violence, despite reams of money laundering rules. Companies House should properly co-ordinate and correlate names of known foreign malign actors and common directors of previously known terror-linked companies. I hope that we will be able to control these extremist threats forcefully and speedily by taking advantage of the legislation we have.

My Lords, I declare my interest as in the register: I am supported by the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project. I wish to talk about the annual event for this Parliament that is an immigration and asylum Bill. Our position on these Benches is clear: we believe that the British people demand a migration system rooted in order and compassion, one that provides a disciplined framework for entry while protecting those fleeing for their lives.

The Government, to their credit, have reduced regular migration to near net zero, but we must be honest about our national needs. With an ageing population and a falling birth rate, migration is not a choice but a necessity for GDP growth. Analysis from the OECD is clear. Well-managed migration and successful integration are critical to prevent our economy falling backwards. We agree that those who enter irregularly and do not require protection must be humanely returned. However, an orderly system requires a functional queue, and currently, beyond the micro French deal, no such queue exists. Without a legal path for entry, we cannot effectively address those who jump the queue.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Teverson, who has described the proposed Bill as being flawed. It is flawed because, first, it targets the wrong people, and, secondly, it is applied retrospectively to people who are already living and working legally in the United Kingdom, in the hope that making their lives difficult will dissuade irregular arrivals. There is no evidence that penalising immigrants living here legally through increased costs, complexities and barriers to family reunion will change the minds of those seeking to come here irregularly. There is no evidence that people seeking to come here irregularly will be dissuaded from coming if they see that those immigrants who have been given protection and are living here legally are being given a tough time. By proposing a road to settlement that favours the wealthy over other hard-working contributors, the Government are creating a system that suggests that millions of legal residents are unwelcome. This is the snakes and ladders policy described by the most reverend Primate earlier today.

There is a word cloud in a recent analysis of the problem where people who are going to be affected by this new law were asked to name the migration system in this country by giving one word to describe the UK immigration system. They were: “confusing”, “hostile”, “frustrating”, “unfair” and an expletive beginning with the letter “s”. As one EU resident said, “They don’t want to make us feel welcome and let us belong”.

As the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, commented, belonging that is just conditional is dangerous for our society. Costs, errors, complexities, family reunion, the effect on employment and education, and hampering children’s development are all problems that the Bill will make worse. Making millions of legal residents feel depressed and unwelcome does nothing to create an orderly or compassionate system, let alone help the pathway to integration. We must move beyond legislation that prioritises fear over humanity and economic common sense.

My Lords, in the gracious Speech His Majesty said only this about the thorny topic of immigration and asylum:

“Legislation will be introduced to increase confidence in the security of the immigration and asylum systems”—

nothing else. That is perhaps unsurprising, given the likely choppy reception that the trailed proposals will have from the government Back Benches in the other place and indeed, if the recent SIs that we have just passed are anything to go by, from the government Back Benches in your Lordships’ House.

The proposed Bill is a start. I welcome it and I look forward to continuing to support the Minister, but the present proposals do not go far enough. It is doubtful that the new Bill will achieve its objective to increase confidence in the security of the immigration and asylum systems. The noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, said of the Government’s policy in her opening today:

“We will not hesitate to remove those with no right to be here”.

As we will see, that resounding rhetoric does not seem to match the facts. Time permits consideration only of one issue that demonstrates these conclusions. The Times reported on 26 April and 6 May this year that FoI requests had revealed the following:

“Britain returned a total of 11,629 rejected asylum seekers last year. Over the same period a total of 80,264 asylum seekers were refused asylum”.

The figures

“revealed that migrants from countries most likely to cross the Channel in small boats were among the least likely to be returned home”.

For Eritreans, the most common nationality among small boat migrants last year, the proportion of failed asylum seekers returned was just 5%; 1,269 asylum seekers presented in the UK and were refused asylum but just 64 were returned. In relation to Afghanistan, 7,330 Afghans were refused asylum last year but just 115 were returned. From Ethiopia 876 were rejected but only 15 individuals returned, giving a return rate of 1.7%. The figure for Iran was similar, only 1.8%, and for Somalis it was 1.5%. Even for Sierra Leone the figure was less than one in 100, while for Cameroon 1.5% of failed asylum seekers were returned. Even Rwanda, designated as a safe country by statute in the last Parliament, saw a return rate of failed asylum seekers of just 2.6%.

The largest cohort of failed asylum seekers in the UK are from Pakistan. Last year 10,853 people from Pakistan were refused asylum, but only 445 Pakistanis were returned to Islamabad in the same period. This is so notwithstanding that the UK and Pakistan agreed an asylum returns deal in 2022. Indeed, it is of note that nearly 200 failed Pakistani asylum seekers were living in taxpayer-funded accommodation as of December 2025.

The central point is that, if failed asylum seekers can stay here anyway, then it renders largely useless our very expensive and time-consuming asylum application and appeals process. Further, this state of affairs plainly creates a very significant pull factor for migrants to enter illegally, by small boat or otherwise, because they know, as is abundantly clear from the statistics, they are unlikely to be removed even if their asylum claims are rejected.

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chair of the EHRC and as a fellow of the think tank Policy Exchange. The nation’s confidence and trust in our public institutions is ebbing and, as it does, it damages our constitutional and economic settlement as a country. I am very glad the Minister identified this as a priority in her opening remarks.

Britain’s reputation for honest, competent and politically neutral public administration has been a prized national asset. It underpins economic confidence, democratic legitimacy and social cohesion. Its loss has consequences far beyond Whitehall and Westminster. The 2023 ONS Trust in Government survey found only 27% of UK adults have trust in government, with Parliament at 24% and political parties languishing at 12%. This places us far below the OECD average of 39% for trust.

A recent report by Arch10, called Two Britains, sets this out. It surveyed public sector workers across the Civil Service, the NHS and education, and compared that to the views of the general public to test impartiality. It found patterns of divergence that many of us have experienced intuitively but had not seen through data and rigorous evidence as in this report. The public sector, when compared with the general public, consistently holds more negative views of Britain and our place in the world. It is 50% more likely to believe that Britain has done more harm than good, not just historically, but on current policy too—presumably in disagreement with the elected Government. For example, on attitudes to Hamas, the proscribed terrorist organisation, more than half the general public have no sympathy towards it at all, yet 30% of the NHS were sympathetic to it. When asked about our adversaries such as Iran and Russia, a significant section of public servants hold them in high regard. When evaluating fake news, public servants were more likely to believe factually incorrect anti-Britain statements than what the evidence showed.

Beyond this report, other institutions such as the BBC have been exposed over a lack of impartiality too. Rob Burley’s essay only yesterday showed how the LGBT and DEI agendas have “captured” editorial teams, where objective reporting was sacrificed in favour of a single perspective. It would be laughable were it not so serious for trust in our national broadcaster.

The consequences are not abstract. A controlled trial of 7,000 participants found that simply being reminded of verified controversial decisions by public bodies, such as “two-tier justice”, reflected precisely this kind of divergence and caused one in six people who trusted the Government to cease doing so.

No one seeks ideological conformity in reverse, but what is needed is the robust, consistent and unambiguous reassertion of impartiality as the foundational norm of public service. A revised Civil Service Code should make this explicit across all contested areas of policy, not merely in relation to party politics. Recruitment should concentrate on impartiality alongside technical competence, and we should look afresh at whether current set-ups, such as staff networks, board-level champions for causes and some diversity and equality frameworks have inadvertently entrenched the very problem they sought to remedy.

When publicly funded institutions have drifted from the values of the public they serve, this is a genuine threat to democratic governance. I ask the Government to read the report and to act on it in the public interest.

My Lords, the immigration and asylum Bill includes welcome provisions to change the modern slavery system, including better tools for law enforcement to tackle exploitation and stronger processes to identify children. However, the Bill continues to emphasise alleged abuse of the system, despite no data supporting this. That approach risks blocking survivors from support, weakening the prosecutions of traffickers and failing to deliver the reforms needed to identify and support victims effectively. Measures to improve identification and support for children are positive, but the absence of provisions to strengthen corporate accountability is a missed opportunity.

Two years ago, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who spoke earlier, I was a member of the Select Committee in your Lordships’ House reviewing the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which recommended proportionate sanctions on companies that fail to meet supply chain requirements. The Government responded that legislative change would follow “in due course”. Eighteen months later, supply-chain accountability is entirely absent from the King’s Speech. Can my noble friend the Minister explain why the Government are not building on the Modern Slavery Act to create a level playing field for responsible businesses, by introducing legislation to make human rights due diligence mandatory?

I am concerned that the Government have dropped their promise of binding legislation on the most powerful AI systems. Even the scientists building these systems warn that superintelligent AI poses threats to our day-to-day lives and national security. That is why, earlier this year, I joined over 100 parliamentarians in supporting the campaign by ControlAI to address this urgent threat. In 2024, the King’s Speech explicitly called for regulation on the developers of “the most powerful” AI models, but last week’s King’s Speech contained no mention of the risks from advanced AI and the need to regulate the most powerful AI systems. The speech did set out the Government’s ambitions on national security, resilience and sovereignty, but sovereignty and national security mean little without control over emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. The Government’s decision not to introduce legislation on advanced AI seems a concerning signal about their shifted priorities.

I also want to say a few words about the police reform Bill. The move towards a more centralised policing model must not lead to the weakening of local specialist services supporting child victims of exploitation and trafficking. Home Office estimates show that more than 15,000 children were identified either as at risk or involved in child criminal exploitation in the year ending March 2025. Too often, children who are exploited or trafficked are as likely to be criminalised as recognised as victims. Structural changes to policing will not address these systemic problems. Policy and culture change within the police is needed on this issue.

I very much welcome the proposal to include violence against women and girls as a national policing priority. But policing reform must include investment in specialist services, such as mandatory training on trauma-informed and child-centred approaches, as well as action to build trust with children, particularly those from Black and marginalised communities, who experience disproportionate harm and discrimination.

Finally, several noble Lords have expressed concern over the future of the union, particularly the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. I agree with both: the noble Baroness rightly said that the alarm expressed over the largest parties in all three legislatures now being those which want to leave the UK is overblown. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, warned of the Scottish Government’s plans to seek a second referendum; he offered wise counsel in setting out three steps which must be taken to prepare for such an eventuality producing a majority in favour of separating Scotland from the rest of the UK. Although a threat to the union is being talked up just a bit too much, that does not lessen the need for vigilance. I believe that the Government must ensure that they are sensitive to key issues within the remit of all three of those legislatures.

My Lords, I will focus on the plans in the gracious Speech to modernise hate crime legislation. I declare my interests as CEO of the Muslim Women’s Network and non-executive member of the Law Commission board. The Government must confront a growing and dangerous reality: anti-Muslim hatred is normalised. Successive Governments have failed to address this with the seriousness it demands.

One of the clearest failures lies in our hate crime legislation. The law provides stronger protection against stirring up racial hatred than it does against stirring up religious hatred. In practice, deeply abusive and inflammatory statements about Muslims, Jews and other faith communities can be made without legal consequences, unless they are explicitly threatening. Extremists understand these loopholes and exploit them deliberately to radicalise others who then go on to commit hate crimes. If the Government are serious about reform, they must implement the Law Commission’s recommendation to bring offences relating to stirring up religious hatred in line with those covering stirring up racial hatred. Social media platforms must also be held accountable.

I will share some examples of the impact of anti-Muslim hatred. A Muslim man was murdered in 2013, and another in 2017, by far-right extremists. More recently, there have been attempts to run over Muslims with vehicles; 19 year-old Alina Burns expressed a desire to kill all Jews and Muslims and attacked a Kurdish man in the street with an axe; men entered a mosque in Manchester armed with an axe; 60 year-old Thomas McKenna stockpiled guns and explosives and planned to kill Muslim migrants; 19 year-old Alfie Coleman planned a mass shooting and was going to target London Mayor Sadiq Khan and a mosque; and two Sikh women were raped because the perpetrators believed that they were Muslim. Muslims continue to face verbal abuse in the streets and on public transport, and mosques are being vandalised. Graves are being desecrated—even the dead are not spared hatred.

Muslims do not feel safe, and Muslim women particularly do not feel safe. We saw on Saturday how Muslim women were targeted yet again. Three women got on the stage at the Tommy Robinson rally dressed in a burka, with a crowd shouting, “Take it off, take it off”. The women then took off that clothing to a cheering crowd. It was a deliberate public display of anti-Muslim hostility, aimed at dehumanising visibly Muslim women. The action signalled that targeting visibly Muslim women with intimidation and abuse is acceptable. Where is the condemnation from Government Ministers or indeed in your Lordships’ House? We feel invisible.

Almost half of religious hatred is aimed at Muslims. More than 4,000 incidents are reported annually to the police, but 80% of victims do not report and the actual figures are more likely to be 20,000-plus and growing. They do not report because they can see that Muslim safety does not matter to this Government. Jewish communities also understand the devastating consequences of religious hatred being ignored. They too continue to face rising hostility and abuse.

I have stood here many times in the Chamber and asked about anti-Muslim hatred and about the safety of Muslim women. I get the same response from Ministers: that funding has been provided for mosque security and a national helpline. However, these initiatives were introduced by the previous Government, and the only change we have had is a different service provider for the helpline. Repeating the same examples time and again creates the impression that the Government are failing to listen to the scale of fear, anxiety and frustration felt by Muslim communities. There has been no initiative specifically targeted at Muslim women. When will the Government listen to Muslim women? Perhaps the Government also have stereotypes about Muslim women—that they can too easily be dismissed.

The Government’s recent definition of anti-Muslim hostility is welcome, but, without implementation, without a strategy and without dedicated support, communities will continue to feel that Muslim safety does not matter to this Government. I therefore ask the Minister: does Muslim safety matter to the Government, and will the Home Secretary make a Statement unequivocally condemning the anti-Muslim hatred promoted—

Can the noble Baroness bring her remarks to an end? It has been five minutes, and the time limit is four.

I had ended.

My Lords, I want to focus on dilemmas around national security at home. I fear that relevant Bills in the gracious Speech betray some confusion about who the enemy is, and this disorientation can mean laws and policy that punish the wrong people. This was brought home by the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, many hours ago now, in relation to the shocking tale of the Nova exhibition in London. I remind noble Lords that this is a commemoration of the massacre of young Jewish festival-goers, yet how morally muddled we are that the police put the onus on the organisers to hide their location and signage to stay safe. It also begs the question, safe from who?

The national security Bill identifies, “escalating threats such as Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorism”, but I must say that I cringe when I hear this overused couplet, for one reason: the Government seem far more at ease proactively taking on the extreme right as the enemy than being tough on the far greater and more serious threat of Islamism. We had a vivid example over the weekend, with the tale of two protests. It is telling that, within days of Labour’s unprecedented electoral defeat, the Prime Minister’s reset speech chose to assert his authority by targeting far-right agitators as enemy number one. He even became tough on border control, block-banning undesirable foreigners—or, rather, 11 international speakers, including European parliamentarians—from speaking at Tommy Robinson’s Unite The Kingdom gathering. We might agree that the views of those banned speakers are deeply unpleasant, and many are, but do we agree that opinions dubbed far-right are now deemed a security risk? How does treating a foundational value of western democracy, free speech, as an enemy make anyone safer?

Last week there was further No. 10 hyperactivity: ministerial denunciations of just one protest and a melodramatic filmed appeal to the nation. The Prime Minister posited that citizens’ attitudes to Robinson’s shindig were

“a fight for the soul of this country”.

This gave organisers far more credibility and free PR than merited. But targeting far-right threats in this one-sided way has backfired. Many decent people took it personally, not because they planned to go to the rally or were fans of Robinson, and certainly not because they are far right—many, to be honest, were working-class Labour voters until recently—but because they resented that their worries about mass migration, Islamist sectarianism, grooming gangs, et cetera, were being scapegoated as “dividing the nation”. Many furiously asked why there was no special broadcast denouncing the other protest, protest number two, down the road on the same day.

That pro-Palestinian hate fest even gained a new moral authority. Taking its cue from the Government, it rebranded itself as “Nakba for Palestine, against the far right”. They even wrote new chants to add to their antisemitic repertoire. To quote one:

“What do we do with Tommy’s crew? … Shoot them in the neck like Charlie Kirk.”

Hearing that bellowed out by a large baying mob should force us to ask, who is the threat or enemy here?

Finally, the national security Bill is also a response to the horrific murders in Southport. Unlike other noble Lords, I am disappointed that the Bill disproportionately falls back on targeting that old favourite enemy, online content: cue more censorship. I worry too that it will be a distraction from tackling offline, preventable violence by the likes of Axel Rudakubana or indeed Valdo Calocane. When we scrutinise this Bill, we must look closely at the evidence of the Nottingham inquiry. Calocane did not butcher Barnaby, Grace or Ian because he spent too much time on TikTok or X. Instead, at least partly, state agencies, from psychiatrists to the police, seem to have interpreted the Mental Health Act that we passed here as a signal to treat dangerous perpetrators as vulnerable and to avoid any action that can be labelled discriminatory or racist. The laws we pass have consequences. We should think of that seriously.

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, for outlining, much earlier today, the challenges that this country has been facing over a period of 20 years in the rapid rates of immigration. I am also grateful—as noble Lords will be, because I will not repeat the speech—to my noble friend Lord Murray, who outlined the number of failed applicants who arrive on boats and are not removed from this country: 41,000 people crossed the channel illegally in those boats last year alone. The deeper problem we have is not stopping the boats, which has clearly failed, but managing the system that processes the applications once they arrive. In practice, the reality, as my noble friend pointed out, is that, really, anyone who arrives on a boat ends up staying, and that is a massive incentive to keep coming.

We know that the cost of this is huge—£4 billion last year on asylum hotels housing those illegal arrivals in the country—and the pressure on the neighbourhoods, the people who have to live near all that, is enormous. It has become unfashionable and the subject of hostility, as we are experiencing on our justice committee at the moment—a matter of irreconcilable difference, some might say—to express any concerns about this whatsoever, yet the public have voted again and again to ask the democratically elected Governments to address it.

It appears that this Government are hopefully going to learn something from the failures of the previous Government, and I welcome the proposals of the current Home Secretary—the best one we have had since the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, of course—and hope very much that they will have the support of her Back-Benchers in the House of Commons and the Labour Benches in this House. They will certainly have mine, because we are already facing really weak productivity growth, mounting public debt and rising pressure on public services.

British people are some of the most welcoming and tolerant in the world. I walked this weekend from the National Gallery to see an exhibition and through Chinatown on the way home, and we went to eat Indian food afterwards. This is the most fabulously tolerant and diverse country, but we cannot sustain the pressure on our resources and the pressure that ordinary people are feeling in their neighbourhoods. We have to listen to people who have told us what they want to happen. We have seen it with the Brexit vote, the vote in 2019 and, again, in 2024, when Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, promised to smash the gangs— I am not saying that in any way to score political points; it is incredibly difficult to stop those boats. But these proposals by the current Home Secretary are reasonable and overdue, and they should be supported. I very much hope that they will be.

My Lords, I will focus on immigration, as noble Lords would expect. I hope my voice will return—it has just disappeared.

It is increasingly clear that the sheer scale of immigration has now reached the point at which it is changing the whole nature of our country and, indeed, threatening serious social tensions. The riots nearly two years ago in Southport and elsewhere, as well as recent attacks on Jews, are an indication of the underlying tensions that already exist.

Looking back in time, the 20 years between 2001 and 2021 saw the proportion of “white British” in the UK fall from 87.5% to just under 75%. Furthermore, the non-white proportion of the population tripled from 6% in 1991 to 18.3% in 2021. As for the overall population of the UK, it increased by 8 million, of which nearly 7 million was due to immigrants and their children. We cannot confine our discussion of immigration to the detail; these basic, major facts must be widely understood and acted on.

The pressures I have just described are without precedent. UK net migration in the year to mid-2023 was close to 1 million in one year, which is nearly the population of the city of Birmingham. Those numbers have declined substantially in recent years, but, none the less, it is an indication of the extent to which, frankly, the previous Government lost control of the borders, and the present Government are struggling if they are really serious about it.

Meanwhile, the birth rate of the white British population has fallen sharply. The reasons for this are not clear, but if it stays very low and net migration remains high, it will bring forward the day when the white British become a minority in England and Wales. That might sound like an exaggeration, but it is actually based on some very conservative estimates of the numbers. Such rapid population growth, which the Home Office barely mentions, would have severe social and economic impacts, with serious implications for the future stability, cohesion and very nature of our society. Indeed, this is already happening as the pace picks up; meanwhile, we are importing division and conflict from countries where internecine strife is endemic.

It is very nearly 25 years since I cofounded Migration Watch with Professor David Coleman of Oxford University. That work is now chaired by Alp Mehmet and remains as vital as ever for the future of this country. I hope, therefore, that this House will soon engage on these massively important issues for our future.

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in this debate, and I will talk briefly about two topics: one is related to the Home Office, and the other—if I have time—is related to the Ministry of Justice.

The first is the proposed police reforms, which is always a controversial topic when raised, by any Government. Speaking as the only Member of either House to have served as an elected police and crime commissioner, and, given their coming abolition in 2028, probably the only one ever—perhaps I may even be a quiz question in times to come—I have to say that the time for police reform has come. Forty-three separate police forces in England and Wales is frankly too many. Regional policing is important and has been around for a long time, dealing with serious crime, but some rationalisation is clearly necessary and with the reorganisation of local government, this is probably the right time to act.

But—and it is a “but”—there is a great amount of local admiration and pride resting with the achievements, service and traditions of each of these individual police forces. Leicestershire, where I come from, is no exception. Therefore, when reform comes—and it will—it is crucial that it not be implemented in too heavy-handed a manner. It must not tread on local traditions and local pride. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and his committee, and the Government, have a really tricky job in getting that balance right. I hope this House will help them.

Part of me regrets that abolition of police and crime commissioners, but frankly, I am not surprised. I loved my five years doing the job and was privileged to do it, but what matters now is the future. How will the new policing and crime boards be constituted and how are they to function? Much depends on getting that right as well.

My second subject is the proposals relating to immigration and settlement. There are, I believe, still decisions for the Government as to how the legislation is going to work. I do not think final decisions have been taken; it may be that my noble friend can put me right. It is my view that one proposal should be dropped straightaway, if possible, and here I share the views of the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord German, expressed earlier. I would not put it quite as they did, because I am a loyal government Back-Bencher, but their point is well made, as far as I am concerned. The plan is to change the rules so that migrants who are already in the country, have lived here, brought up families, worked hard and behaved well and were told that after five years they would be entitled to indefinite leave to remain, or settlement, will have to wait 10 years before that event occurs. That change, if it is carried out—and I very much hope that it will not be—seems grossly unfair to those individuals and may be unlawful. In any event, it is wrong in principle.

My Lords, in the gracious Speech we hear once again the aspiration for a country that is fair for all, a nation in which opportunity is widely shared, justice is consistently applied and every citizen feels that they belong. This is powerful stuff and I doubt that anybody would disagree with it, but the real question is: is it borne out in reality? Do we actually deliver on it?

If we are to test that honestly, we should begin with a hard case, and I cannot think of a harder case than the Windrush generation, one of the most troubling scandals in recent public life. Here were citizens who came to this country, often at its invitation, and contributed over decades to our economy, public services and communities. Yet many found themselves wrongly classified, wrongly excluded and, in some cases, subject to profound injustice. This was not simply an administrative error. It was a systemic error, one in which process took precedence over people and warning signs were insufficiently heeded. The lesson here is not only about correcting past wrongs—important though that is—but about embedding a deeper awareness across government of the human consequences of policy.

A country that is genuinely fair for all must ensure that its systems are not only efficient but humane, not only consistent but sensitive to where that consistency involves injustice. That requires a culture that is both accountable and willing to question itself, and where restitution happens faster than at a snail’s pace, which is certainly applicable to this case. To coin a phrase, fairness delayed or maladministered is fairness denied.

We see a different, deeply serious challenge in the current upsurge of antisemitism. This is not an abstract concern. It is about Jewish citizens being able to feel safe going about their daily lives, whether they can participate fully in public life without fear and whether long-standing forms of prejudice are being sufficiently challenged whenever they appear. Antisemitism, like all forms of hatred, does more than harm those directly targeted. It undermines the fabric of trust on which a fair society depends. A society cannot be credibly fair if a group, such as our Jewish citizens, is persistently exposed to violence, hostility and exclusion. Addressing this requires not only firm enforcement of the law but a clarity of leadership and consistency of principle, especially when those principles are inconvenient to assert.

Alongside these issues, we should also reflect on the broader condition of our political life. In recent years, we have seen a notable degree of churn and instability: frequent changes in leadership, shifts in policy direction and increasingly hostile, fragmented and sometimes scandal-riven public discourse. This looks increasingly like instability rather than normal democratic change. That instability undermines confidence—not only confidence in capital markets and business, but confidence among the citizens of this country, who, after all, have no choice but to be deeply dependent on government for the services it provides, both during their lives as a whole and particularly when they are vulnerable at certain points. How confident are they that the Government will come forward with the services and support they require?

The aspiration of a country that is fair to all remains both right and necessary, but its credibility will be judged not by its wording but by its application: by how faithfully we learn from past failures such as Windrush; how firmly we confront prejudice in all its forms, particularly antisemitism; and how effectively we bring stability and consistency to our political life. Fairness is not a slogan; it should be something which affects every aspect of our activities.

My Lords, I am encouraged by the King’s Speech to believe that there will be strong measures to tackle racism, in particular antisemitism. Noble Lords will agree that the Government’s first and foremost duty is to protect British citizens. In the wake of the attack in Golders Green on two innocent members of the British Jewish community, it is time to stop importing conflicts into our country with serious consequences for our race relations and social cohesion.

I am not a Jew, but I acknowledge the contribution this tiny community makes to the world. Jewish individuals won 220 Nobel Prizes in economics and sciences between 1901 and 2025. Some 22% of all Nobel laureates have Jewish roots, while the Jewish population worldwide is less than 0.02%. As a result, they have touched the lives of almost everyone in the world, including those who wish to harm them.

It is a sad indictment of our nation that high-achieving Jewish students are scared for their lives in our colleges and universities. This is the time when students should cherish their journey of acquiring knowledge to serve humanity.

Britain has historic links with many countries around the world, and citizens of those countries are now British citizens. Most of them are making a positive contribution. However, we are not obliged to turn Britain into a war zone by allowing rivalries between nations bringing their conflicts to the United Kingdom, affecting the lives of every British citizen, not to mention the colossal cost of policing disputes. Our police forces are under enormous strain to maintain law and order at home; to ask them to take on the additional responsibility of dealing with international disputes is not sustainable.

As a result, our foremost duty is to maintain cordial relations among our citizens by preventing foreign rivalries becoming a cause of conflict in the United Kingdom. We have one King and one country, and as a result, we have become one. We must keep out of our nation those influences that divide us.

The role of every Government is to instil British values in new arrivals so that they integrate easily into our society and make the most of what Britain has to offer. The qualities of tolerance and respect for every faith, for women and for the rule of law have made us a great nation. Britain must ensure that every citizen moves in the same direction to maintain social cohesion and keep our country functioning in perfect harmony.

We should apply the rules equally and rigorously to every community and every faith to move our nation forward with minimal diversion. We must avoid costs that burden the police and taxpayers and, above all, create animosity and disharmony among our own citizens, with dire consequences for us and our next generation.

Finally, the King mentioned that a two-state solution in the Middle East is the way forward. Rival forces should be encouraged to promote peaceful coexistence, as death and destruction do not benefit anyone.

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, for his brilliant valedictory speech. He will be greatly missed, both for the warmth of his company and for his combination of erudition and deep understanding, in contributions not only here but to our national debate. He warns us to take care to protect and nourish our constitution—and how right he is.

We also enjoyed two excellent maiden speeches: the philosophical approach of the noble Lord, Lord Case, to the working of our constitution, and the clear commitment to fairness and justice of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, who also reminded us that the sun rises first over Suffolk. Both demonstrated the qualities they will each bring to our future debates.

The Hillsborough law Bill has been a long time coming, but we fully support it. At last, public officials will have a specific duty to tell the truth about mistakes made, unchecked faults and tragedies suffered in consequence. The offences of misleading the public and misconduct in public office should reinforce accountability and reduce the culture of cover-up and self-exculpation that is its very opposite. The increase in legal aid for inquests should also help level the playing field between bereaved families and those allegedly responsible for their loss. We support the principles of the national security Bill and the tackling state threats Bill, though we will always take care to protect individual liberties.

Central to today’s debate has been the emphatic recognition of the scourge, even in our still overwhelmingly tolerant and inclusive country, of widespread antisemitism, so powerfully expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and echoed by the noble Lords, Lord Reid and Lord Pickles, and very many others. The noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, also reminded us of the appalling prevalence of anti-Muslim hostility. The proscription of the IRGC—long demanded by us but resisted in the Crime and Policing Act through three rounds of ping-pong, but now at last promised by the Government—will demonstrate our commitment. As the noble Lords, Lord Cryer, Lord Sherbourne and Lord Stevens of Birmingham, and others have said, the evidence of Iranian involvement in antisemitic attacks in the UK is overwhelming and now unchallengeable.

On SLAPPs, we will support the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on her Bill to restrict this abuse, and we urge the Government to support her too. We have long called for control of the bullying use of threatened or actual litigation to close down legitimate criticism. My noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford previously introduced a Bill on SLAPPs.

We welcome the commitment to increased investment in criminal justice, but the proposed restrictions of jury trials are wholly out of kilter with that commitment. The Government claim that the right to jury trial would be only minimally affected. Certainly, 90% of criminal trials are heard by magistrates, including nearly all motoring offences. But the Government’s proposals are concerned with serious offences, however Ministers may try to underplay them. How can the Government justify denying citizens of unblemished record a jury trial for almost any offence of dishonesty? On what criterion is that based? It is based on an arbitrary assessment that a three-year sentence is likely.

As such, a seasoned criminal with a long criminal record is to be permitted a jury trial, while a person of good character—who stands to lose career, family, friends, self-esteem and mental health if convicted of theft—is not. What is the reason? It is because the seasoned criminal is at risk of three years plus, whereas the person of good character is not.

Judges differ. A hearing before a prosecution-minded judge is a world away from a hearing before a different, more sympathetic judge. These differences between judges cannot be eliminated in the essentially human world of judicial decision-making on guilt or innocence. Judges cannot leave their leave their differing classes, lifestyles and racial prejudices outside court, so in these proposals we have the perfect recipe for unfairness and widespread resentment.

The virtue of jury trial is precisely that human differences are largely ironed out by the collective decision-making of a jury of 12 in the privacy of the jury room. Rightly, we never get to know how jury decisions are reached, but we do know that both criminal lawyers and the public at large respect and trust the jury process far more than they do the individual decisions of judges.

Juries are an essentially democratic institution, bringing lay decision-making into our justice system—a point powerfully made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy and Lady Chakrabarti, and others. Public trust in juries is further enhanced by the racial and gender diversity of juries, and these proposals represent the most extraordinary about-turn by David Lammy, who, in his 2017 review, described juries as a major protection of defendants against racial disadvantage.

The Government rely on the need to reduce the backlogs and waiting times for trials caused by years of underresourcing by previous Governments. Certainly, we must radically cut the backlogs and waiting times to trial. The delays are intolerable, but attacking the system as a response is a desperate counsel of despair. In reality, there is no convincing evidence that these restrictions would indeed reduce waiting times. The Criminal Bar Association has demonstrated that the Government’s impact assessment overstates the cuts in waiting times by a factor of two. The Institute for Government assessed the reduction to be achieved as negligible. Furthermore, no one has been able to cost the extra time to be needed by judges to write reasoned judgments for every verdict, and no one has assessed the likely number of extra appeals from disputed judicial convictions or the extra time they would involve.

We have done so little to tackle the waiting lists by other, more sensible means. We have had an artificial cap on sitting days. That is now thankfully abandoned. As the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, pointed out, that step is already reducing waiting times. Then successive Governments have allowed the court estate to fall into dreadful disrepair, leaving courts unusable and shuttered. We have failed properly to resource sufficient judges or lawyers of high quality to deal with cases efficiently. As Kirsty Brimelow KC, the Bar Council chair, trenchantly argues:

“Priority listing of cases comprising vulnerable witnesses is an approach that’s already been shown to reduce delays in those cases. There is growing evidence that the Crown court backlog is being brought down simply by the action of opening up closed court rooms”.

Then we have pre-trial systems that are inefficient and often paper-based when they should be digital. We regularly have cases adjourned and days wasted for lack of counsel to represent the parties because the work is paid too little to be viable. We still have the absurd position that defendants in custody are being brought to court late or not at all, causing lost court days. The combination of all these inefficiencies has brought judges’ average sitting times per day down from 3.8 hours to 3.2 hours since 2016-17. Restoring that to 3.8 hours, an increase of 18.75%, would massively outweigh any possible cut in waiting times from these proposals.

Furthermore, all these trials have to be paid for eventually, so the cost of accelerating trials is only deferred by delays, not avoided. The exception is that it is sadly true that some victims feel driven by despair to abandon cases because the waiting for trial is interminable, but that is clearly not an acceptable way of saving money.

The Liberal Democrats propose for courts to sit on two trials in a day, with different judges and juries in two sessions, for 3.5 hours or so in the morning and the same in the afternoon. The current sitting day of 4.5 hours or so is about the maximum length for witnesses’ and juries’ concentration, and lawyers’ preparation for the next day. With two sessions a day, juries would work half days, so jury service would be less of a burden. Court staff and buildings would be better used. About 50% more trials could be heard. The increase in immediate cost would be offset by savings later. Two-session days were successfully trialled during Covid and greatly increased the throughput of trials. So-called Maxwell hours—single-session, four-hour days—worked for the Maxwell fraud trial in the 1990s.

There is much else we can do. Some minor offences could be redesignated as summary-only, triable only by magistrates. Some complex fraud cases could possibly be tried by judge alone if the defendants consented, which in some cases they might. But there really is no argument for hacking away at the jewel in the crown of our criminal justice system in a fruitless exercise that will be profoundly damaging when there is so much else that could be done.

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to close this debate on behalf of the Opposition, and as ever I express my gratitude to His Majesty the King for delivering the gracious Speech.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Case, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich on their excellent maiden speeches. If that is a taste of what is to come, we are exceedingly fortunate. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, on his valedictory speech and wish him well and many years of enjoyment outside your Lordships’ House.

The country was promised tough action to “smash the gangs” and bring down illegal migrant arrivals. We were promised that Labour would “take back our streets” and a Government who would put our national security first. Yet what has actually been delivered? Has illegal immigration come down? Have the gangs been smashed? Do British people feel their streets are safer? From the recent campaign, I have to say that the answer on the doorstep is unfortunately a resounding no. Small boat arrivals are at their highest ever level: 77,076 people have crossed the channel since this Government took office—a significant increase. Far from reducing small boat crossings, the actions taken by the Government have increased them.

The Minister of course talks up the Government’s record on increasing returns, but he will know that the vast majority of that increase has come from voluntary returns, not enforced deportations. Labour ripped up the Rwanda deal immediately upon entering office and has been floundering ever since, but we know now that the Government are exploring a similar system. Would it not have made more sense to persist, perhaps, with the Rwanda deterrent, which was oven ready, rather than unceremoniously ending it before it had even started?

In the last Session, we passed the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act. It contained some measures that we supported but, as I warned then, it is nowhere near strong enough to get a grip of the scale of the problem we face. We heard the Government boast about their new counterterror-like powers for border officers, but at the same time they repealed the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and refused to back our plans to deport all illegal migrants within one week and leave the ECHR.

The latest crime statistics offer the Government some solace, but overall police numbers are down. There has been a reduction in the police workforce of some 1,334 as of 30 September 2025 compared to March 2025. How is the Government’s neighbourhood policing programme coming along? Well, according to police workforce data, they have hired approximately 2,500 new neighbourhood officers, but were we not promised 13,000 by the end of this Parliament? If growth continues at its current rate, the Government will almost certainly not hit their target by 2029. Much like their promise to build 1.5 million homes, I fear that this is just another target that this Government will fail to deliver on. On the issue of policing, I was heartened to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, talk about police discretion and police independence, something which I fear has almost disappeared. I am afraid that I must disagree with him on the other aspect of his speech on devolving policing to Wales.

I express our support for the measures to increase the baseline qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain, introduce the earned settlement pathways and make refugee status temporary. However, we know from the experience of the previous Session that the Government have struggled immensely with getting their agenda past their own Back Benches. There have already been U-turns on winter fuel payments, wealth reform and business rates for pubs, which were forced by the parliamentary Labour Party. Resistance from Government Back-Benchers to the indefinite leave-to-remain reforms is already palpable. Not content with torpedoing the efforts of the previous Government to enact the wishes of the British public and end illegal migration, the left-wing zealots on the Labour Back Benches now want to torpedo their own Government’s very sensible and vital immigration reforms. In a rare turn of events, I say to the Minister that I genuinely hope the Government succeed. The Home Secretary is to be commended for having the courage to propose these reforms and I sincerely hope that the Government have the backbone to stand up for what is right and face down the challenges.

Where they face difficulty, as my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition has said, we on these Benches stand ready to help the Government pass their immigration and asylum reforms. That does not mean that we will not challenge the Government and seek to amend the immigration and asylum Bill when it comes to your Lordships’ House. I have been clear for many months that we do not believe that the Government’s plans go far enough. They are a welcome start, but these measures alone will not be enough to tackle the scale of the problem.

Unfortunately, though predictably, this Government do not have the vision or the political will to do what is necessary. We know that the immigration and asylum Bill will seek to reform the domestic interpretation of the qualified rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but this is merely tinkering around the edges. If we alter our interpretation of Article 8, illegal migrants, human rights lawyers and immigration advisers will simply turn to other parts of the convention such as the absolute rights under Article 3 and 4 to prevent their legitimate deportation.

The only solution to taking back control of our laws is to leave the ECHR in its entirety and to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998. There is no other way. Until we do that, until we end the legal merry-go-round of appeals through the immigration tribunals and judicial review, we will not be able to end the crises at the border and restore order to our system. That is why, in our alternative King’s Speech, we have a fully worked-out plan to leave the ECHR and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, repeal the Human Rights Act, ban illegal migrants from obtaining asylum, deport them within a week and end all judicial review and legal appeals for these cases. The Minister can rest assured that we will be bringing forward amendments to that effect.

The Government’s failures do not just extend to immigration and border security. Crime remains a deep and growing concern. Too many people no longer believe that the law operates swiftly, visibly or fairly. Too many offenders regard punishment as uncertain and deterrence as negligible. What is the Government’s response? A programme that appears increasingly to confuse administrative reform with public protection. The Government have introduced their plans to limit our ancient right to jury trials—already referred to by a number of noble Lords this evening—and restructure the courts. We hear the endless drone of the managerialists talking of modernisation and efficiency, as if modernisation has ever solved a problem.

Victims of crime do not lie awake at night worrying about administrative structures. They worry about whether criminals will be caught, prosecuted and punished. Unfortunately, we know that, under this Government, thousands of criminals have been released from prison and thousands more will never even set foot in one. The Sentencing Act passed in the previous Session means that the vast majority of short sentences have been abolished. So, in future, shoplifters will almost never see the inside of a cell and even some sexual offenders and domestic abusers will instead be let out to roam the streets. This does not seem like the action of a Government who are determined to make the British public safer.

On that note, I wholeheartedly echo the comments made by my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar about the appalling rise in antisemitism. I am sure the Minister will have seen the excellent recent report from StandWithUs, which shows that Jewish students are being followed home, abused in the streets and sent death threats by their fellow students at our universities, as already referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. That report lays bare the sheer scale of antisemitism among students—and let us remember these are the very same people who claim to be anti-racist. They rally against anyone they perceive to have done or said something racist, and yet they think it perfectly acceptable to abuse and intimidate Jewish people. It is evidently the case that for some people it is not racism if it is directed at Jews. I ask the Minister what interaction there is between the Home Office and the Department for Education to address this.

In what is perhaps another olive branch to the Minister, it is welcome to see the inclusion of the tackling state threats Bill and the national security Bill. I am sure the Minister will not have forgotten our efforts last Session to force the Government to proscribe the IRGC. I once again thank the Liberal Democrats, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, for their support in that. While I remain unconvinced that a specific regime is required to ban organisations such as the IRGC, and disappointed that it took the Government so long, it is none the less welcome to see that the Government have signalled their intention to make good on their word. We have offered to help the Government expedite this legislation to ensure that the IRGC and other entities that seek to promote Islamist terror and antisemitic hatred on our streets are swiftly prohibited and so that those who support them are appropriately punished.

When the Government act, however late, in the national interest, the Conservative Party will support them. But I would not want the Minister to start thinking that any of this will be easy for him—oh, no. While we will support many of the immigration and asylum reforms and while we will help the Government pass the state threats Bill, I remain resolute in my criticism of their record. Too much of what they have announced is too little, too late. They whisper warm words about ridding the country of the scourge of antisemitism. They refuse to acknowledge that the problem is with Islamist extremism. They bury their heads in the sand when small boat crossings reach a record high. They free thousands of convicted criminals and then legislate to prevent even more being put behind bars. And they still believe that passing ever more legislation is a substitute for political resolve. But the problem is not a shortage of Acts of Parliament; it is a shortage of political will, of competence and of strategic direction.

We were told that the creation of a Border Security Command would transform enforcement. We were told that enhanced powers and data sharing arrangements would dismantle organised immigration crime. Yet the criminal gangs are still flourishing, crossings persist, and confidence in the system continues to erode.

This country deserves better than perpetual crisis management masquerading as reform. It deserves a Government willing to make difficult decisions. The Government may announce Bills in abundance, but until they demonstrate the courage and competence to enforce the laws already on the statute book and to do what is necessary to regain control of our borders, the British people will remain unconvinced.

It is a pleasure to be able to wind up this aspect of the gracious Speech and to listen to the contributions that have been made over the six or so hours that we have had of this discussion to date. I want to begin, if I may, by just paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, for his service, for his award of the Garter, for his statement that politics of decency should prevail, and for his work to date. If he can write a book for me now on how to respond to 75 contributions over a six-hour period, that would be really helpful as well.

I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Case, for his maiden speech. He was confident, he brings experience to this House and he made a strong defence of the union. He joins the long list of Permanent Secretaries from the Civil Service who are in this place, and he will bring undoubted experience to the Chamber.

In the same way, I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. She spoke very fluently on the key issues that she faced and brought criminal justice issues to the fore, including the issue of wrongful convictions. I say in response to her question that the review that she mentioned from Dame Vera Baird is independent and will report accordingly.

We have had a very good debate today. As well as those maiden and valedictory speeches, we have had some 70-plus contributions, which I will try and respond to in due course. This is important because the issues that we are discussing on security, policing, criminal justice, immigration and the union are essential to the lives of everyone in this country.

I say to the noble Lords, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar and Lord Dholakia, that we will do the things that we say we will do. We have a commitment to do them, whatever little political difficulties there are at the moment. This is a programme for government that the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice are committed to seeing through with the support of colleague Ministers.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, that we have made significant progress over the last two years. Since taking office, the Government have made it a priority to restore neighbourhood policing. We have put 3,000 additional neighbourhood police officers in place as part of a potential 13,000 by the end of this Parliament. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, welcomes those police officers on the ground. We have a policing guarantee to do exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham, mentioned in his contribution, which is to look at the issues that matter to people on the ground: anti-social behaviour, knife crime, homicide and theft, all of which are falling. Through the Crime and Policing Act 2026 we bolstered powers for anti-social behaviour, retail crime, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham, knife crime, online stalking and exploitation.

On immigration and border security, this King’s Speech will build on our activity to date. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, that net migration is down, asylum decisions are being made more speedily and more people with no right to be here are being removed. I welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, but it is a pity he did not do those things when he was in office himself, when he had the chance to do so only 18 months ago. We have stopped 40,000 attempted channel crossings in partnership with the French. On national security, we have introduced Martyn’s law and youth diversion orders. We have ensured that we have put in place a range of important measures.

We have an ambitious delivery programme. Among the things that we have talked about today, the issue of antisemitism has been key, and I want to touch on that first. The noble Lords, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, Lord Ranger and Lord Godson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, all quite rightly raised the challenges of antisemitism. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury made the welcome suggestion that we need to bring communities together to deal with that scourge. The noble Lords, Lord Morse and Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, and my noble friend Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath and the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, suggested that we need a cross-party approach to tackle this issue. It is extremely important. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, mentioned the Jonathan Fisher review, which was also mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cryer. It is important that we try to bring that into play. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, talked about the bans on recent marches; I think they were fair and reasonable, and we will debate that in due course.

The noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Altmann, all raised the subjects of extremism and the scourge of antisemitism. I say to my noble friend Lady Berger that it is not acceptable that her children have to go through barriers to school, but we have put that resource in to help protect the community and we have done it in a fair and effective way. I say also to the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, that Muslim hate crime is equally important, and the Government will take a stand on those issues.

We are ambitious with this legislative agenda. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Morse, that we understand and want to look at the question of delivery. I start with national security, which will always be our first priority. In the gracious Speech there are two Bills that are extremely important in defending our national security. One of them is the fast-track response to equip the Home Secretary with powers to designate organisations engaged in threatening activity linked to a foreign power. The issue is to do with a range of bodies. Noble Lords have talked about the IRGC. We do not comment on proscription as yet, but the Bill will give the Home Secretary powers to tackle terrorist organisations under state regimes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and my noble friend Lord Reid of Cardowan recognised that those state threats are changing. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and my noble friends Lord Cryer and Lady Berger have supported and looked at the issue of those Bills. The noble Lords, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, Lord Walney, Lord Stevens of Birmingham and Lord Goodman of Wycombe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, all raised the important issue of how we deal with those state threats. I say to all those noble Lords that the Macdonald review will be reporting very shortly, in May; the issue of charities is kept under continual review; and we will ensure that we have a national security strategy that we will revert to in due course. Those are important issues that we need to take place. I say to the House as a whole that the national security Bill, bolstering defences to counter the full range of threats waged against us, and the Bill on proscription are two important measures that will be brought before this House as soon as practicable to ensure that we put that national security footing on a stronger base.

The police reform Bill that has been mentioned will directly challenge policing in the modern world to look at how we can improve our response to the ever-evolving threats. The Home Secretary has laid out a significant programme of reform, based on the White Paper, to secure trust and confidence, to abolish PCCs, to strengthen local policing, to look at a national response and, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned, to make sure that independence remains vital. The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and my noble friend Lord Bach have welcomed the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, supported by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and my noble friend Lady Martin, talked about the prevention of reoffending. That is extremely important and we need to look at how we can improve it. The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, talked about ensuring that we have consultation on and consideration of these matters, and he is right. My noble friend Lady Hyde of Bemerton and the noble Lords, Lord Kirkham and Lord Paddick, welcomed in broad terms the direction of travel.

We had a discussion around the devolution of policing and how we can look at that from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. I say to them both that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, is currently looking on behalf of the Government at how we can deal with those issues, and he will report back in the summer.

There has been significant discussion of the Courts and Tribunals Bill. We are not going to achieve consensus here today. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, mentioned IPPs, and my noble friend Lady Taylor touched on that issue as well. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, gave us a heads up on a future Private Member’s Bill. The noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter, Lady Berridge and Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, all expressed concerns about the Bill, while my noble friend Lady Mattinson supported the proposals.

The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, mentioned that he is concerned about rape trials. I say to him that rape trials will still have a jury before them. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, worries about the three-year plan that was in place. That is going to be produced, and I think my noble friend will write to him very shortly on these matters.

On justice and reoffending, we are in favour of strong community punishments, we are investing in probation, we have increased the number of sitting days and, through the Victims and Courts Act, we have invested £550 million over the next three years in victim services. They are important issues but, quite rightly, there are concerns that will be debated and we will reach some conclusions in due course.

Immigration has been central to the debate tonight. It is right that our borders are secure, our rules are enforced, there is fairness, and we take steps to remove people who have no right to be here. There are plans in the proposals to look at a new model for Article 8, which was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Faulks. We will discuss in due course how we can make some tweaks to Article 8 of the ECHR, but we are not going to withdraw from the ECHR as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, wishes. [Interruption.] The noble Lord is not in government at the moment, so we will see.

The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed concerns, which we will obviously look at and reflect on. But I am pleased that I have had support from my noble friends Lord Reid of Cardowan and Lord Watson of Invergowrie.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, raised issues relating to modern slavery. We will look at how we can examine Section 48 in due course.

Integration issues were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. We understand the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friends Lord Bach, Lord Sahota and Lady Lister. I hope that I will be able to persuade colleagues during the passage of the Bill that it is the right course of action. That is what this Chamber is about. I understand those concerns and we will return to them in due course. I welcome, genuinely, the support of the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, for those proposals. But we will have to revisit them, test them and have that discussion in due course, because we have to have order and control in the immigration system.

We also have the Hillsborough Bill, which I am particularly pleased to have before the House, as a supporter of Liverpool Football Club all my life, and because it is the right thing to do.

We will rebuild public confidence in the justice process and, through my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, introduce that statutory duty of candour. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller raised some issues. I hope we can resolve them in an amicable way for all parties. I welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady O’Loan, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, for the principle behind the Bill. The measures in the Bill will apply to all public authorities and services, including the intelligence services, but we have to work through the concerns and find some solutions to the issues that have been raised, and we will do in due course.

There has been a lot of discussion and debate on the union, on votes for 16 year-olds, on devolution, and on the issues in the gracious Speech as a whole regarding trust in politics. There are really important issues around the union. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made a sterling defence of the union and the role of the Government, as did the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave of North Hill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Foster.

The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, raised some issues which I will get back to her on, because I want to look into them in more detail.

The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord, Wallace of Saltaire, on how the patchwork fits together is important.

I do not necessarily agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, on the direction of travel on PR, but there are always issues that we can reflect on and look at.

My noble friend Lady Hayter raised the important question of donations and how we organise them. This was also touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere. We need to ensure that we take money out of our political system.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, tempted me to look at Brexit. I think I will leave that one for tonight, if I may, but we will obviously have some further discussions on that and how we get a working relationship with the European Union. That is being looked at in relation to a range of issues.

As part of that section of the debate, the noble Lords, Lord Carter of Haslemere and Lord Farmer, talked about votes at 16. They have made their points and I refer them, if I may—I hope this will find favour with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, who I spoke about earlier—to Wales, where we have introduced votes at 16. A week last Thursday, people in Wales who are 16 voted. I am not even sure that they voted for my party, but we introduced this and they voted. There is a model to look at, and the concerns raised by the noble Lords, Lord Farmer and Lord Carter, can be examined in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of—of somewhere I cannot read my own writing on now—hit on the really important point of trust being key. Trust in politics is absolutely key, which is why I also want to refer to the Northern Ireland Bill, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lords, Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard and Lord Bew. The Government have had to look at this issue again and there is a carry-over Bill. The points raised today are extremely important. We will examine that again, but we have to try to reach a resolution on this issue with the Irish Government, the people of Northern Ireland and the parties here today. I hope that we can examine that in due course.

In essence, this King’s Speech is about reform. It is about continuing the work that we have done in government to make a difference on key issues. It is about reducing crime; it is about keeping our society secure from terrorism; it is about managing our borders effectively; it is about speeding up justice and supporting reoffending being reduced. It is also about ensuring that we give justice with candour and put that public trust in our society through the Hillsborough law. This is reform for a purpose. It is to ensure that we have better policing by supporting local policing and giving a better national focus. It is about providing security to keep us safe in an age of growing and diverse threats, as have been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. It is about strengthening our borders, improving efficiency and speeding up justice to restore the ability of courts to deal with cases and give justice to victims.

I suggest that as a second-term programme in government, this is a solid amount of work. We have to deliver on the gracious Speech, but I commend the elements in it on the Home Office, justice and the union to this House. I look forward to arguing, debating and, I hope, agreeing on a number of elements of the programme during the next Session of Parliament.

As ever, my door is open to discuss any concerns. I will read Hansard tomorrow in detail and if I have not covered questions and points that have been raised—because there have been an awful lot of points—I will return to those in writing. I hope that noble Lords can, at least tonight, welcome this King’s Speech and support the general objectives of the Government.