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My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have expressed a wish to speak in this debate. I draw noble Lords’ attention to my role as a non-exec director at MHCLG.
Four years ago, when I left local government, there was growing concern about the rising levels of abuse directed towards councillors and council candidates. I wish I could say that the situation has got better since then. Sadly, it is worse—much worse. My purpose in securing this debate is to continue to raise awareness of the scale of the challenge faced and to ensure that we do not simply accept it as the new norm for our democracy.
The evidence before us is stark: rapidly escalating levels of abuse and intimidation are having serious and detrimental effects on who is willing to stand for elected office, how long they wish to hold elected office and how they are being prevented from serving effectively during their term. An LGC survey last year revealed that online abuse and a lack of respect from the public are the biggest deterrents to people serving as councillors. When viewed alongside parallel evidence that women, LGBT people, Muslims and those from ethnic minority backgrounds face disproportionate abuse on social media, we should be extremely concerned at the chilling effect that this is having on the diversity and talent pool of those seeking to serve their local community.
This is not a theoretical challenge; it is happening now. One Labour councillor reports three colleagues taking time away due to abuse; one of them was
“very close to a breakdown”.
Another said:
“People are vile online … Facebook is particularly toxic”.
Women councillors report doxing, stalking and AI-manipulated images. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, president of the Local Government Association, relays multiple accounts of women facing the normalising of harassment, being photographed in public and having their locations posted online, with some now
“frightened to go to meetings”.
The LGA’s 2025 Debate Not Hate survey records many severe incidents: a councillor’s car firebombed; a parish chair’s predecessor assaulted and left with a fractured skull; death threats and slurs aimed at LGBT+ and Muslim councillors; and persistent co-ordinated misinformation and harassment on social media. Disorder and intimidation at meetings are escalating. Crowds menaced councillors, objects were thrown and serious damage was done to council buildings in Swale last December. In the same month, an effigy of council leader Councillor Alyson Barnes was burned in Rossendale.
Physical assaults on individual members are not rare outliers. In June last year, Councillor Jordan Tarrant-Short was repeatedly punched in the head in Rochdale. In September 2025, Councillor Paul Kendrick was assaulted in Norwich. In October 2025, Councillor George Finch, the leader of Warwickshire County Council, was assaulted and abused in Nuneaton town centre. Just a few months ago, during the election campaign in Kent, Councillor Thomas Mallon was attacked on a doorstep and suffered lasting nerve damage as a result.
I also wish to talk about two absolutely shocking incidents in the recent local election campaign in my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne. One late evening, a couple of weeks before polling day, Councillor Stephen Barry-Stanners had eggs thrown at his house. This was logged with the police, but it was only when he left the house the next day that he spotted, daubed in huge letters in red paint, the words “Peedos”—spelt wrongly—“live here”. Stephen said at the time that he was devastated by the incident, adding that
“the abuse has been escalating since this local election campaign started. It was initially just trolling and nasty comments, and soon I couldn’t post anything without getting the vile stuff under it, no matter what it was”.
On the Sunday, after losing her seat by just 22 votes, former cabinet member Juna Sathian’s home was pelted with eggs. She was not at home at the time, but her husband and two young sons were, and they were terrified by the experience.
Is it any wonder that a quarter of councillors tell LGC that they do not plan to re-stand, while many more are unsure? Women, younger people, minority ethnic, LGBT candidates and those with caring responsibilities are disproportionately deterred, especially when abuse mixes with deepfakes and pile-ons that never quite cross a criminal threshold but corrode well-being and mental resilience all the same.
The Government have tools to address this but, so far, consistency and pace are missing. Operation Ford created force elected-official advisers as single points of contact, yet support is patchy. The Elections Act 2022 created an offence of intimidation, but the bar is often too high to deter persistent harassment. The Online Safety Act is moving towards implementation, but risks overlooking activities that are “legal but harmful” at scale: doxing, synthetic sexualised images, targeted misinformation and co-ordinated trolling.
There are a number of steps that I would urge the Government to consider taking. The first is to make support consistent and accountable. They should establish a national councillor safety co-ordination unit, with real-time intelligence sharing and standards for forces, ending postcode lotteries in response. They should require every police force to provide a named, trained adviser for elected members, with service levels, escalation routes and Home Office oversight. They should also issue CPS and policing guidance to lower the practical threshold for action against intimidation around elections, so that swift and early intervention can prevent escalation.
The second step is to put teeth into online protections. Ofcom should be instructed, in its implementation of the Online Safety Act, to recognise elected local politicians as at-risk users and give them priority pathways for the rapid takedown of doxing, synthetic or sexualised deepfakes and impersonation. It should impose sanctions for repeat abusers and publish turnaround targets and league tables of how online and social media companies perform. It should develop a no-cost “trusted flagger” route for councils to escalate malicious content and impersonation accounts affecting members. It should also work with local government to establish proportionate mechanisms that address persistent, targeted harassment that stays just below criminal thresholds but drives people away.
The third is to protect meetings and democratic spaces. The Government should update the guidance to enable councils to provide proportionate security at meetings and give them powers to expel and bar those who demonstrate violent or persistently abusive behaviour. They should fund basic security measures for high-risk venues and members, including incident-logging tools, training and rapid liaison when threats spike.
The fourth is to support victims and prevent burnout. The Government should commission confidential mental health and trauma support for councillors, including post-incident care and 24/7 advice helplines. They should ensure that councils have the resources and training at induction to help people to take down offensive material.
The fifth step is to track this problem and our progress. The Government should publish an annual report to Parliament on councillor safety, recruitment and retention, disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and age, with force-by-force performance of the police against service standards. That would go a long way towards tackling this problem.
We need to act now to make policing consistent, online platforms accountable, public meetings safe and support for those affected accessible. Local democracy should be a calling, not a hazard. Let us make it safe to serve.
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My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, for bringing forward this timely debate and for his powerful opening speech. The growing abuse and intimidation aimed at those who serve in public life is a fundamental threat to our democracy and the integrity of our democratic processes.
Having spent much of my 30-year career in political campaigning, I know at first hand that councillors are at the heart of our communities and, very often, our political parties. Yet, unlike many of those in national politics, they often operate with little support. They work from their homes, make themselves readily accessible to residents and balance public service with careers and families. That openness is a strength of our local government, but it leaves councillors uniquely exposed. We must consider the chilling message that this abuse sends to those considering public life. Why would talented people put themselves forward if it means exposing families to harassment and physical threats?