Crime and Policing Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 357

On 14 April 2026, the House of Commons voted 278 to 73 to reject Lords Amendment 357 to the Crime and Policing Bill, passing the government's motion to disagree. The amendment, moved in the Lords by Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee, would have removed the "historical safeguard" from the terrorism glorification offence in the Terrorism Act 2006. The government instead committed to commissioning an independent review of the encouragement of terrorism offence within six months of Royal Assent. The historical safeguard limits the scope of the offence of encouraging terrorism, which criminalises statements that may encourage others to commit terrorist acts. By excluding glorification of acts by proscribed organisations where those acts are historical and no longer pose a current risk, the safeguard prevents the offence from capturing political or historical debate. Removing it, as the Lords amendment proposed, would have made it easier to prosecute individuals for glorifying past terrorist acts regardless of when they occurred, affecting communities across the UK where such glorification is alleged to occur openly. The vote divided largely along party lines, with Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs voting unanimously for the government position and the Liberal Democrats voting almost entirely against it, alongside the DUP, Traditional Unionist Voice, Ulster Unionist Party, Plaid Cymru, and most smaller parties. The DUP's opposition was particularly vocal: party MPs and their allies argued that no prosecution has ever been brought under the existing glorification provision in Northern Ireland despite 20 years of what they described as open glorification of republican terrorism, including by senior political figures. The government countered that the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, had strongly advised against removing the safeguard following his review after the 7 October 2023 attacks.