King's Speech 2026: National Security Bill

National Security Bill

“[My Government] … will respond to the horrific tragedy in Southport with measures
to protect the British people from extreme violence, and honour the victims, the
injured and their families”

● The UK faces national security threats that are evolving and escalating.
Long-standing threats such as Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorism
endure. Foreign powers are increasingly deploying new hostile tactics in our
communities and on our streets, including using proxies to do their dirty work.

● But we face new risks too. Violence-fixated individuals. Cyber attacks on an
unprecedented scale. These threats are not atomised but inter-related, and all
of them are enabled and multiplied by the online environment.

● To give ourselves the tools to tackle them and keep this country safe, we must
bolster our defences through a new National Security Bill.

What does the Bill do?

● The National Security Bill will make the UK a harder target for states,
dangerous groups and individuals seeking to attack the UK.

● The Bill will create new offences to protect the UK from the proliferation of
extreme violence online, amend existing legislation to reform the cyber
landscape and close gaps within our state threats legislation, aligning it more
closely with terrorism legislation.

● It will enhance our ability to counter the full range of threats waged against us
by providing law enforcement and security services with new, stronger powers
to keep our country safe – online and offline.

● The Bill will:

○ Criminalise the creation and sharing of the most harmful violent
material to stop the spread of content that glorifies, trivialises, or
normalises serious violence. The Bill will enable law enforcement to
disrupt individuals who are encouraging violence, and reduce the
circulation and supply of this material online. The Bill will take a
proportionate approach that protects freedom of expression and
legitimate public-interest activity while ensuring that those who create,

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 share, or use extreme violence content to encourage or glorify violence
can be held to account.
○ Criminalise planning a mass casualty attack, closing a clear gap in
the current law by capturing cases where a lone individual undertakes
preparatory steps towards a mass casualty attack without an
ideological motive. This is not currently covered by existing conspiracy,
attempt, or terrorism offences. By closing this gap, the Government will
strengthen operational partners’ ability to disrupt the most serious
threats posed by violence-fixated individuals, and to intervene before
such plans result in real-world harm. The offence will contain
appropriate safeguards to ensure the mass casualty offence captures
only those who pose a genuine risk to the public.
○ Reform the cyber landscape, including by updating the Computer
Misuse Act 1990. This will provide law enforcement with updated
powers and capabilities, so they remain effective in the digital age. This
will include the creation of a Cyber Crime Risk Order to place robust
controls on the behaviours of cyber criminals, alongside new powers to
search individuals believed to be concealing evidence on behalf
of suspects. It will also unlock the power of cyber security professionals
to better enable them to secure computer systems. It will also seek to
tackle the pervasive threat to the UK economy and businesses, posed
by ruthless cyber criminals
○ Consolidate the Government’s approach to countering state
threats to align more closely with the approach to countering
terrorism. This includes making the most serious state threat offences
eligible for an extended determinate sentence (EDS) and adding
polygraph testing as an available licence condition for state threat
offenders.
○ Complement the separate Tackling State Threats Bill, where we are
introducing a new state threats proscription-like tool to combat hostile
powers and their proxies.

Territorial extent and application

● The majority of the Bill will extend and apply to England and Wales. The
Government is considering the extension of measures to Scotland and
Northern Ireland with the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland
Executive.

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Key facts

● In a review following the Southport attack, conducted by the
Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation (Jonathan Hall KC), gaps
were identified in current legislation in relation to lone individuals who
plan mass casualty attacks without an ideological motive. An offence of
planning a mass casualty attack is needed to ensure that individuals who plan
an attack can be stopped and held to account.

● Children frequently encounter violent content online, often
unintentionally; TikTok and X are common exposure points. Ofcom
research in 2025 found that children aged 13-15 may be most likely to
encounter violent content online; 16-17 year olds may be at greater risk of
encountering more extreme violent content and be more desensitised to such
content. Independent research in 2024 found that TikTok is the social media
platform where children are most likely to encounter violent content.

● Adults as well as children express concern over viewing violent content.
Ofcom research shows that 74 per cent of adults (alongside 53 per cent of
children) have expressed high levels of concern over content depicting or
encouraging violence or injury existing online.

● Gore sites (websites that host graphic and violent content such as cartel
violence, beheadings or extreme animal cruelty) attract UK traffic. The
top 24 gore websites, primarily in English, collectively have an average of 1
million monthly visits from the UK, with the most popular sites drawing up to
334,000 UK visits per month, with spikes around real-world violent events;
audiences skew young and male.

● Five per cent (469) of Prevent referrals from April 2024 to March 2025
were due to concerns regarding 'fascination with extreme violence or
mass casualty attacks’, where no other ideology was listed. This category
recorded a large increase in referrals in the latest quarter (January to March
2025), rising by 240 per cent compared with the previous quarter (from 82 to
279).

● Cyber crime is significant, financing hostile actors at a huge cost to the
UK taxpayer and businesses. Recent industry and DSIT research estimates
significant cyber crime attacks cost UK businesses £14.7 billion in 2024. In
2025 a single cyber incident is estimated to have cost the UK economy £1.9
billion, the costliest cyber attack in our history. Frontline public services are
also subjected to serious cyber attacks: three London councils were hit by an
attack that led to “weeks of disruption” to services in late 2025.

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● Security partners support stronger sentencing and post-release
arrangements for state threat offenders, to manage the risks they pose,
better protect the public and deter attacks from states and their proxies.
This is particularly important considering the recent rise in arrests and
convictions under the National Security Act 2023 , and states’ increased use
of entities or individuals to carry out hostile activity on their behalf. In 2025,
the Director General of MI5 said that the UK had seen a 35 per cent increase
in state threat activity from the previous year. Over the same period, MI5 had
tracked more than twenty potentially lethal Iran-backed plots.

● In his previous role as Interim Independent Prevent Commissioner, Lord
Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC, said “While terrorism is often presented
as a uniquely serious threat, crimes falling outside its definition can bear many
of its hallmarks: grievances reinforced in online echo chambers, victims
chosen at random or for their shock value, extreme or mass violence, desire
for notoriety or revenge…Some of the risk factors, including social isolation,
mental ill-health and the widespread availability of violent and extremist
content online, appear to be on a steadily worsening trajectory.”

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