I welcome the Minister’s statement, and advance sight of it. The appalling and intolerable rise in antisemitism in Britain in recent months, as set out in the report of the Community Security Trust last week, is a stain on our society. We must never relent in our work to root it out—something that I know the whole House will want to affirm.

The more than 4,000 incidents in 2023 alone are an urgent reminder of the responsibility that we all have to stamp out the scourge of antisemitism wherever it is found. I join the Minister in thanking the CST for the remarkable and tireless work that it does each day, alongside the police, to keep our Jewish community safe. Having supported and worked with it over many years, I know the incredible forensic work that it does in monitoring antisemitism, and the physical protection that it provides for Jewish schools, synagogues and other community events. We owe it our thanks.

We welcome and support the Government’s commitment of additional funding for the CST. The incidents that it reports include a violent, abusive attack on a Jewish man on his way home from synagogue, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, and a 200% increase in antisemitic incidents at universities. Just 10 days ago, a Jewish student residence in Leeds, Hillel House, was vandalised with antisemitic graffiti. For the years they are studying, universities are students’ homes. No one should ever feel unsafe in their home, or wherever they are. Everybody has the right to live in freedom from fear.

The CST’s report also found the number of online incidents of antisemitism rising by 257%—an ancient hatred being resuscitated through modern means, to proliferate and promote extremism. I agree with the Minister that it is unconscionable that one of the steepest surges in antisemitism came in the week following Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October—the deadliest day for Jews since the holocaust—with individuals in this country celebrating those scenes of unimaginable horror. There must be zero tolerance for the glorification of proscribed terrorist groups on Britain’s streets. We support the proscribing of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and ensuring that those who commit antisemitic hate crimes always face the full force of the law.

In the weeks following 7 October, I met the CST together with Tell MAMA, which monitors Islamophobia and has also identified a huge increase in Islamophobic incidents and hate. They were united in their call for an end to hatred and prejudice, to antisemitism, and to Islamophobia. We must never allow the terrible events and conflicts in the middle east, which cause deep distress across our communities, to lead to increased tension, hatred, prejudice, abuse or crimes in our communities at home. I welcome the points that the Minister made about ensuring that extremist incidents on marches are also addressed with the full force of the law, but I press him to go further in a few key areas.

First, the counter-extremism strategy is now eight years out of date. There are reports that the work has been delayed again. When will the Government come forward with an updated strategy? The Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Government’s own experts have warned that there is a gap in the law around hateful extremism that is allowing toxic antisemitic views and conspiracy theories to be spread, and making it harder to police them. I have asked this of Ministers before: will the Minister update us on what action is being taken?

Will the Government also urgently look again at the decision that Ministers took around a year ago to downgrade the reporting of non-crime hate incidents, particularly around Islamophobia and antisemitism, to ensure that those who engage in vile and vitriolic religious hatred can always be properly monitored and identified by the police?

Finally, I ask particularly about online antisemitism, which has increased. We have seen a huge increase on X, formerly Twitter, at the same time as some of its monitoring and standards have been downgraded. Have the Government raised that directly with Elon Musk and X? I urge them to do so, and to set out how the Online Harms Bill will address that, because there are real concerns that it will not go far enough to address the changes.

We stand ready to work with the Government on this. Those on both sides of the House will want us to stand together with Jewish communities across the country, in solidarity against hatred, prejudice and antisemitism in all its forms. All of us must stand together and say that antisemitism must never have any place in the United Kingdom.