My Lords, the first responsibility of any Government is to ensure the safety of their citizens, both at home and abroad. For this Government, it is not just a responsibility but an absolute priority. The introduction of the Bill is a result of the manifesto commitment to ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the powers they need to combat the evolving nature of state threats. That is why we are adopting a robust and front-footed posture. The Bill will confront and tackle state-threat activity that may seek to undermine the democratic principles of the United Kingdom and the security of its people.
I know noble Lords will all join me in paying tribute to those in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies, who go above and beyond to keep us all safe every day. They are the very best of us and they have my enduring gratitude, respect and admiration. For all that they do, we must hold up our end of the bargain and ensure that they have the necessary tools and powers to do their vital work, which is precisely what we will do through the measures in the Bill.
It is worth looking back for a moment to understand the context in which we are discussing these matters. Russia’s recent illegal invasion of Ukraine has shown the essential need to bolster our national security and ensure that we have the ability to counter state threats. The House will also recall the events in Salisbury in 2018, which are a clear reminder that we need laws that seek to deter serious harm from being inflicted on our soil. As that outrageous episode underlined, the dangers we face are real. We must continue to develop our robust and effective apparatus and act now to further harden our resilience. This is why the National Security Bill introduces enhanced powers for our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to do even more to counter state threats and strengthen the security of the United Kingdom.
States are becoming increasingly assertive and sophisticated in how they advance their objectives and undermine the safety and interests of the UK. It is therefore essential that we are able to deter, detect and disrupt state actors that seek to harm the UK by covertly targeting our national interests, sensitive information, trade secrets and democratic way of life. The National Security Bill will protect these interests and uphold our democratic principles, consolidating the safety of our citizens through essential new measures designed to address an ever-evolving threat. We are determined to advance the safety, security and prosperity of the UK, and the Bill is designed to achieve precisely that.
I will now speak to the key measures set out in the Bill. The Bill will modernise the law against espionage, replacing the 1911 to 1939 Official Secrets Acts. New offences of foreign interference have been carefully designed to tackle the threat from any foreign power that chooses to act with malign intent. It is important to stress that these offences are actor-agnostic, and any state or individual seeking to harm the UK will be met with the full force of these newly established powers and tools, regardless of their origin.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and the very helpful briefings he has given me. I also thank the services for arranging that. While in the business of thanks, I thank the services for all they do on our behalf now, in the past and in the future.
First of all, I will set some context for this Second Reading debate. We are all united in our desire to protect our country, our democracy and human rights and freedoms across the world. We agree with the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which said in its recent report that, overall, this Bill
“is a welcome attempt to modernise espionage offences … and … broadly in line with recommendations of the Law Commission’s … review”.
We support the passage of the Bill and much that is in it.
The Bill introduces new measures to update the protection of the UK’s national security, the safety of the British public and the UK’s vital interests against modern hostile activities and threats posed by state and non-state actors. Many of these threats reflect the modern age in which we live, through cyberattacks and information and disinformation campaigns that are used to undermine or destabilise our institutions or policies, with direct interference always a possibility. All of this is delivered in ways and by using methods that were unthinkable in the past, so change is long overdue.
However, in responding to these changes, in renewing our national security interventions and in reflecting on our policies, we should never undermine the very values that we cherish and seek to protect. So, as I said, in supporting the Bill, we will challenge the Government, hold them to account and challenge them to explain why certain policies and powers are needed. This is not to undermine national security but to demonstrate confidence in our institutions. Transparency and openness are, as far as possible, a strength. Shining a light on what we do—debating security in this Parliament and implementing actions that are then subject to scrutiny here and in the courts—stands in sharp contrast to other states and bodies across the world that are shrouded in mystery and operate in total secrecy in the shadows. The contents of this Bill, therefore, are to be welcomed in general, but there are areas which need further debate during this Second Reading, in Committee and beyond.
My Lords, in general we support the aims of this Bill. We agree that our national security law needs updating, and we agree that many of the threats posed by foreign actors to our national security are new and require fresh and targeted solutions. The Bill attempts to achieve all that and in many ways, which the Minister ably explained, it does so. I add our thanks to those of the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to the security services for all the brave, efficient and crucial work they do to protect our national security. However, we have a number of concerns. I shall concentrate largely on the criminal offences proposed in Part 1 of the Bill.
Our first concern is one of principle, because restrictions proposed in the Bill threaten important rights and liberties, but we are also concerned that the Government have missed serious adverse and almost certainly unintended and unforeseen consequences which follow from this proposed transformation of our national security law. These concerns overlap, where there are restrictions of our rights and liberties which were almost certainly unforeseen, and I shall deal with them together.
Our first objection in principle is that the breadth of many of the definitions in the Bill would substantially and unacceptably broaden the scope of the protections ostensibly afforded to national security. Let us consider protected information. The definition within Clause 1 is unduly wide. It covers any information where
“it is reasonable to expect that access to the information … would be restricted in any way”.
So the information does not need actually to be restricted to classify as protected information, disclosure of which is to be criminalised by the Bill.
Then there is the foreign power condition—the foundation of a major expansion of the reach of the national security provisions, and applicable to a number of the new proposed offences. I quite understand the need to replace the concept of a national enemy with the concept of a foreign power, in the attempt to update our legislation and rid it of old-fashioned distinctions between friend and foe and to make it “actor-agnostic”, as the Minister described it. But the attempt is not trouble-free.
My Lords, I welcome the introduction of this Bill. It has been very clear for many years that our official secrets legislation is extremely elderly and was set up to counter threats that have changed and developed a great deal. It is right that we should be revisiting it. I hope that, in due course, the Government will seek an opportunity to revisit the Official Secrets Act 1989, which is also in need of reform, in my view.
For most of the last 20 years, the principal threat to national security we have faced in this country has been terrorism. While the terrorist threat continues to be very significant, throughout that period we have also faced state threats and foreign interference in this country’s activities. From time to time, that has become evident—for instance, with the Litvinenko killing or the Salisbury attacks—but much of what was going on was not visible. Indeed, many people, including some in public life, did their best to turn a blind eye to foreign interference activities throughout that period. That has been much harder to do since February and the atrocious invasion of Ukraine by the Russians. However, it is important to recognise that the threat of foreign interference does not come from just one country. We have seen a variety of foreign threats from several countries over that period, including a number of countries one would have viewed as a friend or ally in any other circumstances. Therefore, we need to have the ability to push back against foreign interference that is a threat to us, from whichever country it originates. In that regard, I think the Bill gets the balance correct.
The Bill also learns from a number of the legal measures that have been put in place to counter terrorism over the last generation. The introduction of prevention and investigation measures in respect of foreign interference seems to me an appropriate measure. We have been very careful in this country to apply the terrorist PIMs carefully, proportionately and in very small numbers, and I think we will learn from that in the way we apply the same mechanism to foreign interference threats.
My Lords, this is a long and detailed Bill which is clearly the product of much consultation and effort over a considerable amount of time by all those currently engaged in the defence of the security and well-being of our country. I am grateful for the detailed introductory letter that we all received from the Minister.
All the challenges facing us are shared by our allies. There is an issue for all parliamentary democracies of how to fight hostile state threats in all their complexity without compromising our own ethical principles and standards. All other Five Eyes partners have reviewed or are reviewing their own legislation. There will be opportunities for detailed discussion on specific points as the Bill progresses, but today in Second Reading I want to make, as briefly as possible, some general points from my own past professional experience and membership of the ISC.
Co-operation among our own security and intelligence services is, and has been in recent years, extremely close and interlinked—something that is much envied by some of our closest allies. It was not always thus. As late as the 1960s, there was much less understanding between MI5 and MI6, but happily that has completely changed, which is very much to the credit of the leaderships and members of both organisations.
On reading parts of this Bill, it struck me that much of it is codifying into law what has developed as good practice already. This seems to confirm that much which should already have been in legislation is in fact not, which validates the judgment that for decades there has been outdated and inadequate legislation in this field which has hindered rather than helped our agencies. It is indeed high time that we get our act together and produce helpful and decisive guidelines.
UK agencies are generally considered to be among the most overseen in the world. That is something to be proud of, but only as long as it never blunts or hinders their efficiency. This Bill has to deal with one of the problems that arises for all parliamentary democracies, regarding the use of material that is at risk of having been produced by others by means that would not be approved by us. In my opinion, responsibility for that decision should not be put solely on the shoulders of individuals in the field. We will see in the detailed examination of this Bill if a fair conclusion can be achieved on this problem.
My Lords, this Bill is clearly necessary. I welcome the intentions behind it, but I want to focus on some of its weaker provisions, specifically Clauses 13 and 14, Clauses 29 and 30 and Part 3.
In Clause 30, the definition of “foreign power” is extremely broad, covering all foreign states except Ireland, including political parties in government and agencies that are subject to effective control by government. Last week in Westminster Hall, I was talking to some Canadian Liberal MPs, currently in the governing party. On the face of it, under the provisions of Clause 30 and Part 3, I in should have declared that interaction to the Home Office. Do I need to fill in a form every time I go to meetings with like-minded politicians from foreign Liberal parties? We need to find some way of narrowing the definition of “foreign power” to prevent overwhelming the Home Office and confusing the many, many British people who interact with representatives of other foreign states. Should we not amend the Bill to exclude all members of NATO, or all states with which the UK has a security relationship?
How do we tackle foreign powers that are deeply embedded in British life, such as the Gulf states? These are anti-democratic monarchies, with a record which includes kidnapping their nationals on British soil and murdering their critics in third countries, but they are visibly present at Ascot and Newmarket, with houses in Belgravia and estates in Surrey, mixing and conversing with British society at the highest level, including MPs and Members of this House—more difficult to disentangle than the Russian connection of which the ISC report warned.
Clauses 13 and 14 deal with foreign interference in British politics and elections. I find it astonishing that action is now proposed in response to what the Government rightly recognise as a serious threat without their having followed the recommendation of the Intelligence and Security Committee to publish a substantial part of the evidence it had collected on Russian interference. When I asked an Oral Question about this last year, the noble Lord, Lord True, told the House that the Russia report had found no evidence of “successful interference” in UK elections—an admission that they had indeed found evidence of attempts to subvert our democratic processes but were nevertheless refusing to publish it.
My Lords, I was going to say quite a lot this afternoon, but my noble friend Lord Evans and I did not share each other’s speeches beforehand, and he has said most of what I wanted to say. I assure noble Lords that there are many times when I do not agree with him—we had plenty of animated disagreements in our past life together— but I agreed with everything he said a moment ago, so I will spare your Lordships a long repetition.
I start by mentioning, at my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich’s request, that he very much wished to be here but is not able to be. He hopes that, as a former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, and given his interest in this broader subject, he will be here at later stages of the Bill.
As we have already heard, this Bill is a doorstop. It is complex and long, and it attempts to do a number of things. I welcome it, as the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats have. It is important and long overdue.
Since I have been in this House, we have had plenty of legislation on aspects of terrorism but very little on aspects of what I was brought up to call “hostile states”. I have now learned that the current terminology is “hostile activity by states”—I must get that right. Either way, the defences of this country, and the work of my former colleagues in the intelligence agencies and the police, are weakened by the lack of a proper legislative framework—one that, in most cases, was drafted to deal with the run-up to the First World War and the Second World War and the threat from German espionage.
I have also heard people say that this is a new threat. To a degree, it is, in terms of its scale and what can be done by cyber, and given that there is no longer the need for small cameras to photograph documents. It is a different threat, but the reaction to the story of the Chinese agent in the Commons earlier this year showed me that there is a degree of naivety among the public about what is done by intelligence services that are hostile to this country. We should not have been as surprised that that woman was cultivating and paying money to Members of the other House; that is to be expected.
My Lords, this legislation has been a long time coming. The ISC first recommended reform of the outdated Official Secrets Act almost 20 years ago, in 2004. In the intervening period, as has been said by a number of speakers, the need for reform has become more pressing. The world has changed significantly. Threats to the UK’s national security, particularly from hostile state actors—I must get that right —have become more complex, varied and destabilising, making it more important than ever for our intelligence community to have the tools it needs to defend us.
In 2020, the ISC’s Russia report explicitly and simply stated that
“the Official Secrets Act regime is not fit for purpose”.
We recommended that new legislation be urgently introduced as,
“the longer this goes unrectified, the longer the Intelligence Community’s hands are tied.”
The ISC therefore strongly welcomes the long-awaited introduction of the National Security Bill.
Nevertheless, the committee is disappointed to see that the Government are only partially reforming the Official Secrets Act regime. The 1911 and 1939 Acts are being repealed but, crucially, not the 1989 Act, which deals with the unauthorised disclosure of sensitive information. This is a significant missed opportunity. The Government have accepted the need for change for years. In their 2021 consultation paper on the National Security Bill, they said it would,
“include, at a minimum … Reform of the Official Secrets Act 1989”.
Despite that recognition, this Bill still does not reform the 1989 Act.
If this Bill is to provide a new framework to tackle state threats, as it purports to do, it is vital that that framework is comprehensive. It must provide better protection for sensitive information, such that offenders can be prosecuted effectively. This is too serious an issue to have been put in the too-difficult pile, as it appears to have been. I hope the Minister agrees that sensitive information must be properly protected and will therefore commit to reforming the Official Secrets Act 1989 as part of this Bill or, at the very least, to introducing additional legislation in this parliamentary Session.
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These offences, and the others introduced in Part 1, will enable the disruption of illegitimate influence by foreign states intent on advancing their own interests or seeking to damage the UK. It will be an offence for foreign powers improperly to interfere with our democracy and civil society through covert influence, disinformation and attacks against our electoral process.
The Bill also has police powers designed to address the specific threat of foreign power activity. There are specific powers of arrest and detention which reflect the threats posed by such actors. There are also additional police powers to support investigations into foreign power threat activity, focusing on obtaining information on financial activity. These powers will ensure that the police have the tools they need to fully investigate state threat activity and bring those acting for foreign powers against UK interests to justice.
Furthermore, the amendment to the Serious Crime Act 2007 will provide essential protection to those who discharge authorised national security functions on behalf of His Majesty’s Government. The amendment will enable more effective co-operation with our international partners. It is about addressing operational challenges and removing the personal risk that trusted and dedicated individuals face for carrying out their proper, official duties on behalf of our intelligence community and Armed Forces. I welcome the comments of Sir Alex Younger, the former head of our Secret Intelligence Service, who correctly highlighted that it is morally wrong that the risk of liability should sit with individual officers acting on behalf of our agencies. Any risk should rightly sit with the Government and this amendment supports that aim.
Preventing and disrupting state threats is one of the Government’s prime concerns. In a very small number of cases, it will still not be possible to bring a prosecution forward. We must therefore ensure that a backstop is in place to prevent state actors conducting harmful activities in the UK. We will introduce new state threat prevention and investigation measures, enabling restrictions to be imposed, when necessary, where there is a reasonable belief of involvement in foreign power threat activity.
It is important to clarify that this will be a tool of last resort, to be used only where it is believed that there is involvement in foreign power threat activity, there is a necessity to impose measures and a criminal prosecution is not available. These measures will also remain proportionate to the specific threat posed by an individual and be subject to rigorous checks and balances, including by the courts, to guarantee their appropriate use.
The Bill will also introduce measures to prevent the exploitation of the UK’s civil legal aid system by convicted terrorists. It will protect the UK’s civil damages system by ensuring that terrorists’ own misconduct is taken into account in an award from public funds. Courts will also be provided with the ability to order that civil damages awarded to a person are frozen or forfeited where those funds might be used to support terrorism. These provisions will allow the Government to take steps to ensure that a claimant’s damages cannot be used in this way.
With regard to legal aid, access to publicly funded services is a benefit of being part of a democratic society. This Government remain wholly committed to providing legal aid funding for those unable to resolve their issues alone, but there must be a line. Individuals who commit acts of terrorism are rejecting the values of state and society and it is right that the benefit of legal aid—a benefit of our democratic society —is removed from them. These measures will help instil a rigorous process that provides greater transparency around how public funds are distributed.
The Bill will also introduce a foreign influence registration scheme, requiring certain foreign activities and influence arrangements to be registered. The scheme’s aims are twofold: to strengthen the resilience of the UK political system against covert foreign influence and to provide greater assurance around the activities of certain foreign powers or entities.
I must make clear that we will continue to welcome open and transparent engagement from foreign Governments and entities. The scheme itself will play a critical role in encouraging such transparency and, crucially, will deter foreign powers that wish to pursue their aims covertly. The implementation of this scheme delivers a key recommendation of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s 2020 report on Russia and has been assisted by consultation with our friends in the United States and Australia, which have implemented similar schemes.
The National Security Bill is a dynamic piece of legislation that reforms our approach to hostile state actors and the threats that they pose. The introduction of our foreign influence registration scheme will ensure safety in our systems and transparency in our political processes. I look forward to engaging with all noble Lords on the Bill. I welcome discussion both today and as this essential piece of legislation progresses through this House. As I hope I have demonstrated in this speech, the Government are steadfast in their determination to protect our people, our values and our democracy. With that critical objective in mind, I beg to move.
First, I say to the Minister that, in discussing such changes and details, there must be absolute confidence that the Government practise what they preach. Does the Bill make it absolutely clear that a Foreign Secretary, or any other Minister, should not be meeting former KGB officers in secret and without officials, and that, if advice is given by the Security Service about the appointment of any Peer, as reported, it is acted on? The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee said in its report, published just last Friday:
“The reappointment of the home secretary sets a dangerous precedent. The leaking of restricted material is worthy of significant sanction under the new graduated sanctions regime introduced in May, including resignation and a significant period out of office.”
In his response, can the Minister reassure us all that everyone in the Government will act according to the principles that have been have laid out, and that the Bill will help to achieve this? It seems to me that someone working for any of the services doing the same would at least have been severely reprimanded, if not sacked.
Clause 1(1)(b) refers to
“the safety or interests of the United Kingdom”,
and the term is used or implied throughout the Bill. Who decides what that is? What are the “safety or interests” of the UK; what does the term include and exclude? Sometimes there is real debate in this House as to what the actual interests of the UK are. Should we not seek to define that, rather than just leaving it to the courts? Too often, we abrogate our responsibility; we are the legislators, and we should debate such issues. Again, as the JCHR says:
“More thought must be given to how the legislation will affect whistle-blowers, protesters and journalists who are engaged in activities which are part of a healthy functioning democratic system.”
This was a warning from a cross-party Joint Select Committee of this Parliament. Do we need a public interest test in the Bill? I have no doubt that this will be debated. What protections are there for investigative campaigners and journalists? It simply will not be good enough for the Government to say that there is nothing to fear. What does it mean that an offence is committed only if the “foreign power condition”, which is explained later in Bill, “is met”? Yet, from Clause 29 onwards, the clauses do not say “hostile power”, so the scope is extended, and we will need to discuss and debate that.
Who has to register under the lately added foreign activities and foreign influence registration scheme? How were the exemptions in Schedule 14 arrived at? A lot more detail and clarity will be needed. The Minister will have to be a lot clearer than, for example, in Clause 63, which states that “specified persons” will be “specified … in regulations”.
So many bodies, groups and individuals receive foreign support quite legitimately. We are told by the Campaign for Freedom of Information that the following have recently received or receive some funding from foreign Governments for their international work: Action Aid, Anti-Slavery International, ClientEarth, Global Witness, Privacy International and Reprieve, to name a few. Are they affected by the regulations in the legislation? Who else is and why? These are serious questions. Protecting information should not be about protecting Governments from the exposure of mistakes, embarrassment or worse.
In keeping the Bill—or Act as it will be—under review, who will be the independent reviewer? Jonathan Hall, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, keeps TPIMs under review. Will it be him or his office or whoever follows him? Will they be responsible for the STPIMs in the Bill? What about other parts of the Bill? Mr Hall has said:
“My answer is that I think it actually is quite a good fit for the reviewer’s job, and I think it probably is right that the person who does the independent review of terrorism legislation should also do the state threats legislation.”—[Official Report, Commons, National Security Public Bill Committee, 7/7/22; col.6.]
Do the Government agree? What is the thinking on that?
Surely, as the Minister outlined, one of the most contentious parts of the Bill is Clause 28. It creates an exemption under the Serious Crime Act for MI6, GCHQ and our Armed Forces when acting in the proper exercise of any function of an intelligence service or Armed Forces. We believe that this would remove the need to get a Section 7 authorisation under the Intelligence Services Act 1994, which allows the Secretary of State to give immunity from civil and criminal liability for pre-authorised crimes abroad. We believe there is a real risk that Clause 28 removes the role of Ministers even when there is a reasonable defence also available. The implications that possibly result from this are clear and, at the moment, unjustified. Why do the Government believe it necessary? As the House of Commons Library briefing stated:
“The provision therefore appears to be intended to extend immunity from criminal prosecution to actions which could not be proved to have been reasonable.”
This is hugely contentious and, notwithstanding what we may hear about further reassurances given to the ISC, it clearly cannot in its present form be right. Many senior MPs of all parties have criticised the clause for allowing actions with no safeguards, such as ministerial approval. As my colleague Holly Lynch MP said, or as David Davis MP said, how will we be able to criticise other nations for laws which allow their services to conduct foreign operations in that way when we will have a law which will do the same?
There are many other aspects to the Bill, including restricting the award of damages and the granting of legal aid, which will require debate. We also look forward to associated actions regarding the online harms Bill and what liaison is taking place for that. The need for joined-up government is clear if we are to take the example of Hikvision. Does this Bill deal with a technology that has raised such security concerns that the Government themselves will exclude it from their own buildings? In Committee, the Minister also committed to considering whether the Bill should clarify whether only sites located in the UK can be designated as places of detention. Has that been clarified?
We all wish to ensure national security. We all wish to modernise to meet the fresh challenges and the new threats we face. This Bill is an important chance for us to debate where the line should be drawn between security and our freedoms and democracy. Eroding those freedoms and human rights cannot be justified simply by saying “security” or “national interest”. They need to be argued for, with careful decisions made as to the correct balance. This Bill gives us the chance—the opportunity—to do that and we should take it. In doing so openly and transparently, we can showcase our democracy and respect for freedom even in the face of the new threats we face. Of that we can, and should, be proud.
In particular, the foreign power condition must be met for an offence under Clause 1 of obtaining or disclosing protected information to be made out. The condition is defined by Clause 29 and relates, broadly, to conduct that is carried out for or on behalf of a foreign power, which may be any friendly non-UK Government. Conduct qualifies as carried out for or on behalf of a foreign power if it is carried out with financial or other assistance provided by a foreign power, so a state-backed broadcasting organisation or state-run company funded by a friendly Government would have such financial assistance. It follows that anyone who obtains or discloses information which they “ought to know” is prejudicial to the interests of the United Kingdom, however defined—and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that there is no definition available; it is a desperately controversial test—on behalf of a foreign nationally owned broadcaster is at risk of prosecution and conviction of this very serious national security offence.
The freedom of journalists working for foreign broadcasters might be substantially restricted if, for instance, they came by and used leaked information which the UK Government might prefer that they did not have and thereby found themselves at risk of being prosecuted for a Clause 1 offence. The relationship between the conduct and the foreign power may be indirect, so any such conduct meets the foreign power condition wherever it appears in the Bill. For example, it also appears in the definition of the new offence of obtaining or disclosing trade secrets under Clause 2, which carries a maximum term of 14 years. Clause 2 again is very widely drawn; it covers unauthorised obtaining, recording or retention of a trade secret, for whatever purpose, on behalf of any body deriving financial assistance of any sort from a friendly overseas government body. This presents a significant threat to a wide range of investigative journalism on matters of importance and public interest, which ought to be aired in public even if the owners of such information might regard such airing as highly unwelcome.
In the unforeseen consequences category, the Clause 3 offence of assisting a foreign intelligence service presents a serious difficulty. Under this Bill, the foreign intelligence service can be that of any friendly foreign country; an offence under the clause, again carrying a 14-year term, penalises all conduct to assist any foreign intelligence service in carrying out UK-related activities—that is, any activities, of whatever nature, taking place in the UK. So, a UK citizen who assisted Mossad within the UK to recover goods looted by the Nazis, or who helped the CIA find and arrest war criminals, would be guilty of an offence, unless they could show that they were acting under a UK legal obligation or effectively on the direction of the British Government. If they could not show that, I can see no defence under the clause as drafted. How can that be right?
The unauthorised entry to a prohibited place offence under Clause 4 is also far too wide, penalising even inspection of a photograph of a prohibited place, even for journalism, if the accused should have known that the purpose was prejudicial to the interests of the UK. And that is not just UK defence or security interests, but any interests at all. So, photographs of any environmentally damaging activity carried on by government as a matter of policy—fracking, for example, if it were ever again authorised—would count. That is not the defence of national security; that is the suppression of legitimate investigation and dissent.
The Home Secretary told the House of Commons in a Statement on national security and this Bill in particular on 1 November, a week after her reappointment:
“Now, as our markets integrate, we need to think about the future of our industry and innovation. Our economic security guarantees our economic sovereignty just as our democratic security guarantees our freedom … Britain has been on the frontline of the defence of liberty for generations”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/11/22; col. 790.]
The Bill fails to ensure that the steps we take to defend our liberty are targeted and limited to what is necessary for that defence of liberty. So, the first task for this House at the later stages in the Bill will be to cut down the scope of conduct that is unnecessarily and wrongly caught by the Bill as drafted.
However, much of the discussion on the Bill has been as to whether there should be a public interest defence to the new offences. We regard such a defence as essential. It offers the prospect of avoiding convicting journalists, investigators, campaigners, whistleblowers and many others who should not be targeted by the criminal law at all. Such a defence must be broad enough to protect the free flow of information on which democratic political discourse depends, and it must protect from criminal sanction activities that may infringe private rights of physical or intellectual property where such infringement is justified in the public interest. As the NUJ briefing, which many of us will have received, put it succinctly:
“There should be no situation in which journalists risk being classed as spies or traitors … A free press is one of the conditions of a pluralistic democracy and the UK government should not close down scrutiny of its activities.”
I do not believe that the public interest defence should be available only in Clause 1 cases of obtaining or disclosing protected information. It should be no less applicable in cases under Clauses 2 to 5 and Clause 16, and possibly Clauses 13 and 15 as well.
The possible conditions of a public interest defence have been widely discussed, but I suggest they should include, in some form, each of the following. First, it should be for the defendants to raise the defence. I leave open the question of whether the burden of proof should be on the defence to prove the defence, or whether, once that defence is raised, it should be for the prosecution to rebut it. However, if the burden is to be imposed on the defendant to prove the defence, that should be on the balance of probabilities, and it should also be specifically incumbent on prosecuting authorities to consider the prospect of such a defence succeeding before a decision to prosecute is made. Unnecessary and unmeritorious prosecutions cause untold heartache and substantial loss. The prospect of being prosecuted has a serious chilling effect on conduct in the public interest, and the risk of such prosecutions should be carefully weighed before they are ever brought.
Secondly, the manner in which the defendant has acted should always be a factor to be considered. Thirdly, so too should the good faith of the defendant be considered, and whether or not the defendant reasonably believed that their conduct was in the public interest. Fourthly, proportionality should always be a factor, whether or not the conduct was no more than was necessary to protect the public interest asserted by the defendant. Fifthly, whether or not the conduct was for personal gain should be considered, but the fact that a defendant stood to gain from their conduct should not be enough to rebut the defence; after all, journalists stand to gain from scoops. Finally, a jury should always be left to consider the overall reasonableness of the defendant’s conduct in the light of a balancing of possible harms risked against possible benefits to be derived by the public.
In an interconnected world, many of us work in a number of professional fields, collaborating with agencies of foreign Governments. Particularly sensitive is the work of journalists, academics, researchers in commercial fields, and many working directly for friendly foreign Governments and international organisations. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire will elaborate our concerns about the foreign influence registration scheme, or FIRS, and the degree to which academics will be snowed under by a bureaucratic avalanche in working out what they need to do to comply with this law’s requirements, and then in undertaking the necessary registrations to comply with an unnecessary and overcomplicated registration system which threatens to stifle and deter international academic co-operation. Journalists, broadcasters and researchers in the commercial world, as well as the media, are equally under threat.
On a happier note, it is a relief to note that the Government have excluded giving and taking legal advice from the scope of this part of the Bill; a completely justified protection of legal professional privilege and the right of all to secure legal advice in confidence. However, the Bill contains a pernicious attack on the right to equality before the law. Clauses 82 to 84 give a court power to reduce damages payable by the Crown to any claimant bringing national security proceedings against the Government. But national security proceedings include any case where any of the claimant’s evidence or submissions, of whatever nature, relate to the activities of any security service, here or overseas. So if a claimant sues the UK Government—any department—and adduces evidence of wrongdoing by, for instance, the Saudi or Rwandan intelligence services, the Crown is entitled to seek an order that the damages will be reduced, and to seek that order at any stage in advance of final judgment. Granted that one of the factors the court must take into account is whether the claimant has been guilty of terrorist wrongdoing, but the lack of that factor does not avoid a reduction in damages. That is inequality before the law. It hands the Government a tool to stifle legal claims against them. It is inimical to liberty.
So too is the proposed ban of up to 30 years on the grant of civil legal aid for anyone convicted of any terrorist offence or an offence having a terrorism connection. The ban is not just for the most heinous terrorist offences but minor accomplice offences, which may have been committed by a family member and which, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Law Society point out, may not be of a very serious nature. Further, the legal aid ban is not just for proceedings connected with terrorism but any civil legal aid to which they might be entitled for any purpose, thus largely putting them outside the protection of the law.
Although the general tenor of the Bill and its purpose are understood and accepted, at the later stages of this Bill we will be trying to make sure that it properly reflects the concerns that we have.
I welcome the introduction of a foreign interests registration system; we have had a gap in our armoury on this for some time. It has worked well in the United States and Australia, and we need now to introduce similar legislation here. I have some sympathy for some of the concerns expressed about the definition of foreign interference, and I hope that, in Committee, we will be able to refine the definition and make sure that it bears heavily on those who cause a real threat but not on those acting legitimately. There are areas of concern here.
I welcome the proposals to introduce an offence relating to interference in elections, but I do not think that it goes far enough. I declare an interest as chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. In 2021, the committee produced a report on the regulation of election finance, which made a number of recommendations to tighten up the electoral system against the risk of foreign money and inappropriate finance coming in. I regret to say that the Government accepted almost none of the recommendations made at that point, but I wonder whether there might be a greater openness to such changes post Ukraine. I note that the Electoral Commission itself—in the briefing note it prepared on this legislation—made recommendations for tightening our election finance system which were broadly similar to some of the recommendations made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
The proposals in the Bill are worth while, but they do not go far enough. They still leave a wide opportunity for, for instance, companies to donate into the electoral system even though they have not earned the money from which the donation would come in this country. Where has that money come from? It has come from abroad.
The provisions in the Bill do not make any changes to, for instance, associations—I cannot think of the word, but there is a particular phrase which basically means any group of people who want to get together and donate money but do not want to be accountable as to who they are. That model of donation seems to me to be extremely open to abuse, not just domestically but internationally. So there is some progress here, but we have not gone far enough.
There are a number of areas of controversy in the Bill, as has already been stated, in particular the question as to whether there needs to be a public interest defence. I have some reservations on that proposal. I cannot think of any disclosures in recent years, even those that have been extremely damaging to national security, when the person making the disclosure has not claimed to be acting in the public interest. Edward Snowden is a good example of that; happily, he has just got his Russian citizenship, on which I am sure we wish to congratulate him.
The problem here is not that action needs to be taken against people who are genuinely acting in the public interest; it is the evidential problems of demonstrating whether the public interest has been engaged. That is a really big problem when you are talking about intelligence and the intelligence investigations that may lie behind that. We do not want to compound the damage by having to argue against a public interest defence. A similar issue appears in the Official Secrets Act 1989 with the definition of harm.
On Clause 28, I have complete sympathy with anything which provides protection for individual officers in the intelligence agencies or the military who are undertaking difficult and complex operations overseas. They need our support and protection. It is also extremely important that we retain the confidence of our allies, because so much of our national security is tied up with the strong alliances that we are part of.
Nevertheless, I recognise that we do not want to put ourselves in a position where it appears that we are endorsing illegal action which would be contrary to our values overseas. I use the word “appear” advisedly. I have no doubt that the agencies operate to high ethical standards and go to great lengths to ensure that they behave in an ethical and appropriate way in their operations, whether in this country or overseas, but we do not want to be easily accused of opening the door to unethical practice. I hope it will be possible in Committee to find a way of closing the gap between those who feel there needs to be protection and the concerns as to whether that protection is too broadly cast.
Finally, the timeliness of this legislation is extremely attractive. It is nice that we are in a good position to push back against foreign interference today, given the evidence that Russia is doing everything it can not just to destabilise Ukraine but to push back against the strong international co-operation and common disgust at what has been going on in that country. From that perspective, this is timely legislation and I welcome it.
It is good to be assured that our practitioners in the intelligence and security world have been involved in agreeing the contents of this Bill, and I look forward very much to the future of our deliberations.
This is not a dead issue. Mrs Justice Steyn, giving her judgment in the libel case Arron Banks brought against the journalist Carole Cadwalladr in June this year, stated that Mr Banks had lied about his meeting with the Russians, that at least some of the meetings were covert, and that more investigation was needed into whether the Brexit campaign had accepted any funds from Russia. Earlier this year, Mr Banks reportedly wrote off a further loan of £7 million to Leave.EU when it went into liquidation. The source of the funds for his remarkable generosity over the last seven years remains unclear, except that it came from somewhere foreign. If we are to have an informed debate in Committee, the Government must now publish what the ISC recommended we should be told.
The Minister in the Commons spoke in Committee of the importance of Parliament and the public understanding and the nature of the threat. That would help us understand the nature of the threat that we recognise so far.
I have asked for advice on the interaction between Clause 14 and the Elections Act, which this House considered earlier in the year. That Act extends the right to vote in UK elections to all UK citizens resident in all other states in the world for their lifetimes. There is little provision to check the identity or status of overseas citizens applying for the register; personation will be easy, the origins of donations almost impossible to verify. This Act takes a much tougher approach, against personation, misuse of proxies and acting as a channel for funds from a foreign power. I welcome that, but Tom Tugendhat’s new Defending Democracy Taskforce, which he announced the other week, will need to rewrite parts of the Elections Act.
The Act’s references to undue influence in UK diaspora communities also raise delicate and sensitive issues that we will need to examine. I speak as someone who has done a lot of politics in Bradford. The Israeli embassy and the Indian and Pakistani high commissions, for example, work actively to maintain the links between British diaspora communities and the states they represent. Britain has many diaspora communities, and many dual nationals who have settled here, from hostile authoritarian states as well as from Commonwealth members and democracies—Iran, for example. So far as I am aware, the UK has no coherent policy on the legal rights and obligations of dual nationals, either when in the UK or in their other countries of citizenship. This suggests that greater clarity there is badly needed.
Part 3, which establishes a foreign influence registration scheme, was added in Committee in the Commons. Sir Iain Duncan Smith remarked in Committee:
“The Government seem almost to have cut and pasted some of the US legislation and possibly the Australian legislation.”—[Official Report, Commons, 16/11/22; col. 747.]
The Minister must be aware that the Australian legislation led to an unanticipated surge in reports of “foreign activity arrangements” by Australia’s eight research-intensive universities, which overwhelmed the Government’s capacity to process submissions. The UK has a great many more research-intensive universities than Australia, which are actively involved in research partnerships across the world. We also have world-renowned research institutes in Chatham House, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Royal United Services Institute and others. As it stands, Clause 62 would lead to a flood of reports from all of these to the Home Office, far beyond its limited capacity to cope.
I speak with passion on this subject because it would have hobbled my own career. I was director of research at Chatham House for 12 years from 1978 to 1990, and thereafter taught international relations at Oxford and then the LSE. At Chatham House, among other things, I was the British secretary of the Anglo-Soviet Round Table, a forum for dialogue with the Moscow institute for world affairs—a state-controlled entity close to the Politburo. Our engagement was supported by the Foreign Office but repeatedly attacked as subversive by the Murdoch press throughout that period.
My wife would still be caught by this clause. She keeps in touch with, and visits, several former students who are now in government in several countries across Europe. Some of her visits have no doubt been paid for from state funds in those countries. My son would be caught, too. He is a systems biologist at Edinburgh University, involved in a number of international collaborations with universities in Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, and with the government-funded Institut Pasteur in Paris. When attached to an American university, he was working closely with Russian mathematicians. They and thousands more academics and researchers will be filling in forms and sending them off to the Home Office. What do we do about the many foreign nationals working in UK universities? Over 40% of the staff in some of our top universities—the figure is higher in the London School of Economics—and a good deal more of the students in some of our universities are from a wide range of friendly and unfriendly countries.
I have been told that the proposals in Part 3 were floated by the Home Office before and then withdrawn after sustained criticism from other Whitehall departments and outside bodies. I have the strong impression that the Home Office has not considered the overlap and duplication of this provision with clauses in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which the House will consider on Report tomorrow. I understand that there has been very little consultation with universities so far. One academic told me yesterday that the Bill as currently drafted will transform the UK from a science superpower to a scientific bureaucracy superpower.
A concern with real threats must nevertheless consider that Britain’s universities are among its greatest international assets and that Clause 62, as drafted, could severely damage their reputations and future operations. Can the Minister assure the House that Part 3 will not be considered in Committee until the Home Office has ensured that other Whitehall departments are content with what is proposed; that it does not contradict other Bills or Acts; and that our research universities, our leading international institutes, the Royal Society and the other academies have all been properly consulted on its implications?
The Bill focuses on state threats, rather than on non-state threats. It is fuzzy on quasi-state enterprises—companies owned by sovereign wealth funds in Malaysia or Qatar, or companies with a substantial and sometimes controversial presence in the UK, such as DP World—and does not touch on the role of immensely wealthy private persons, whether Russian, American, Arab or Asian, attempting to influence events in the UK by penetrating British society and through money.
Right-wing authoritarians such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary have made much of what they regard as the malign influence of George Soros and his open society foundations. I am concerned about the malign influence of the American Koch family foundations and their attempts to influence British politics through their close links with right-wing think tanks here. I read footnotes to Koch foundation publications in the Policy Exchange papers that shaped the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. Policy Exchange does not publish where its funds come from. Nor does the Institute of Economic Affairs or the Adam Smith Institute, which together exerted such strong and malign influence over the Truss Government. We know, however, that they have received funds from American multinational companies and foundations, and we have a right to know more about all their foreign funders.
The Boardman review of the fallout from the Greensill scandal in 2020 recommended to the Government that they
“should consult on whether think tanks, research institutes and lobbying academics should be required to disclose their sources of funding and whether there are circumstances when they ought to be required to register as consultant lobbyists.”
I am surprised that this proposal is not in the Bill, at least as far as foreign funding is concerned. I will attempt to amend the Bill to force political think tanks to declare all overseas sources of funding.
This is an important and necessary Bill but it has been badly drafted and inadequately thought through. It is better to get it right than to rush it on to the statute book.
I remind people of various aspects of what this activity might be. There is, of course, the traditional one of stealing secrets, but there are not only state secrets but commercial secrets—we have seen the attempts to attack the work on vaccines in this country. We have also seen attacks on critical national infrastructure. I cannot remember all the aspects of it—being younger than me, my noble friend Lord Evans probably can—but it covers various sectors of British society whose continued successful operation the Government rightly believe is important for the success and safety of the United Kingdom. We have seen disinformation, including anti- vaxxer propaganda, spread around.
I know that I must not think just about Russia any more and must think more broadly. We were reminded only recently by our current head of MI5 about what Iran is doing in this country, trying to kidnap people, and about Chinese police stations. But I can remember when a key part of what the KGB did was called “active measures”. It was not stealing secrets but trying to attack us by influencing, persuading, sowing disagreement and undermining democracy. Disinformation is still very much happening.
There have been references to the murder of Litvinenko, the attacks in Salisbury and kidnaps. I strongly agree with my noble friend’s comments on the protection of the electoral process and its integrity. I do not know the facts, but I have certainly read, and believe it very likely to be true, of attacks on the British, French and American electoral systems. It is possible to know all that without knowing whether they had any effect or impact. Quite frankly, a lot of this effort may be pointless, but it is still there to be watched.
I am going to skip the next two pages and wind up with the challenges of this legislation, which I think are clear and have been extensively mentioned in the other place. They were all mentioned by my noble friend: legal aid, Clause 28 and the public interest defence. I join others in pointing out that there are some very good mechanisms for whistleblowers and others to raise issues, internally and externally, before going to the press. They have existed for many years. There is an ethics counsellor, internally, who has been there for at least 20 years. There is an external counsellor—it was previously Sir John Chilcot, but I do not know who it is today—to whom members of staff can raise ethical issues and concerns. There is the chair of the ISC and the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office. There are others, before the press, to whom people can raise concerns and be listened to.
In protecting against damage, we have to remember the human agents involved. I do not mean members of the organisation; I mean those the legislation calls covert human intelligence sources—that awful chunky expression. These people give information, in some cases at risk of their lives, for very little remuneration, to protect us and others from threats and attacks. Any public interest defence risks danger to them. Getting that right is very important.
As others have mentioned, the scope and practicality of the foreign influence registration scheme, however important it is in principle, again needs more scrutiny.
I end by saying that we can address and manage those challenges during this Session. This Bill is fundamentally important and long overdue, and I welcome it.
Before I address the detail of the Bill, I want to emphasise the words of my ISC colleagues in the other place. They made it clear that they felt the Government’s handling of this Bill had been disgraceful and had significantly undermined Parliament’s ability to scrutinise the proposed legislation. There has been a catalogue of problems, including multiple Security Ministers responsible for taking the Bill through the other place; the Government’s introduction of the most significant aspects of the Bill by amendment at a very late stage, reducing the time available for scrutiny; and the limited time made available for debate, preventing any serious consideration of the proposed changes to the Bill in the other place. This Bill is about our national security; it is too important to be handled in such a haphazard manner. I am sure that I speak on behalf of all noble Lords when I say that we expect the need for effective parliamentary scrutiny to be taken seriously by the Government.
I turn to the detail of the Bill. Many of the changes proposed were recommended by the ISC and therefore we broadly welcome them. Clause 1 incorporates updated language to reflect the modern espionage threat. It replaces the outdated existing legislation with provisions that are tailored to the radical technological changes that have taken place since the Official Secrets Act early in the last century. Clause 12 is also sensible, creating a new sabotage offence. This is an important change, particularly given the risks of foreign involvement in critical national infrastructure, which the ISC first publicised in its report of the same name in 2013. Clauses 3 and 15, which create new offences for assisting or obtaining material benefits from a foreign intelligence service, are valuable additions. Together with Clause 16 —the preparatory conduct offence—these will provide law enforcement with additional tools to disrupt foreign agent networks at a much earlier stage, making the UK a more difficult environment for foreign intelligence services to operate in.
Turning to the long-awaited foreign influence registration scheme, one of the cornerstones of the new regime, the ISC firmly supports such a scheme to increase the transparency of foreign influence activity in the UK. It was a key recommendation of the ISC’s Russia report in 2020, which assessed that such a scheme would be helpful in countering overt Russian influence. It is perhaps a case of better late than never. The United States first introduced such a scheme in the 1930s, over 80 years ago. By contrast, despite the Government describing it as a key component of the new Bill, it was introduced only by amendment late in Committee in the other place, driven, I understand, by the last-minute events in Ukraine. This delay has meant that there has not been sufficient time to scrutinise this very complex regime. We now have time to consider it and, as an aside, bearing in mind thoughts of abolishing this House, thank goodness for our Chamber’s ability to actually do that.
I believe that noble Lords will find the same as the ISC, that, as it stands, the scheme is too complex, compared to similar schemes in the United States, for example, while at the same time not going far enough. It is separated into two registration tiers: the first captures all arrangements and activities that are undertaken on behalf of any foreign power for the purpose of influencing a political event or decision. This is a welcome provision, providing an additional tool to disrupt clandestine foreign activity that is intended to influence our democratic institutions. The second, enhanced tier of registration will capture all other activity beyond political influencing. It will capture, for example, acting as a foreign intelligence officer. For arrangements or activity to require registration, such activity has to be undertaken on behalf of a country set out in secondary legislation. It therefore does not apply to every country automatically.
It is difficult to understand why, unlike with comparable schemes in the US, there are two tiers and why the registration of harmful activity outside political influencing applies only where the foreign power is set out in secondary legislation. It is possible that harmful operations will be undertaken by countries that are not named in the regulations and so will not require registration. Requiring all countries to register such activity would act as a far stronger deterrent, helping the authorities prosecute such behaviour and making the UK a more challenging environment in which to operate.
Listing countries by regulation will also be a challenge to use in practice. It will take time for the Government to agree which countries to add, particularly given the potential diplomatic ramifications, when flexibility and pace may be required. These flaws will inevitably lead to the enhanced tier, which could have been a valuable tool, not being used. As the Security Minister recognised in Committee in the other place, the use of this enhanced registration requirement will be “limited”. This is a wasted opportunity, undermining a potentially effective tool. It must be more effective to have one tier that applies to all countries and a broad range of covert activity. That may require there to be a greater number of exemption categories, but it would surely be a simpler and more practical system of registration.
Little thought also appears to have been given to the transparency of the scheme. While the Security Minister has said that the registrations under the primary tier will be published, he confirmed in Committee in the other place that those relating to the enhanced tier, reflecting the most damaging activity, will not be published. There is no reason for that disparity. While there may be a national security reasons justifying why certain information cannot be made publicly available, that will not always be the case. Transparency is at the heart of the scheme and, in order to avoid it being fundamentally undermined, details relating to the secondary tier must be published.
For the scheme to work effectively, the Home Office team supporting it must be properly resourced. That unit will be responsible for scrutinising submitted documents, identifying risks and updating the register, yet in Committee in the other place the Security Minister said:
“It is unlikely that every registration will need to be scrutinised. More likely, the register will be a resource for public scrutiny.”—[Official Report, Commons, National Security Bill Committee, 18/10/22; col. 401.]
The Government clearly believe they can save money by not resourcing a team at the Home Office and relying on the public, a position completely undermined by the fact that details relating to the enhanced tier are not going to be published so the public will not know what to report. We believe that a failure sufficiently to resource this crucial unit or an overreliance on public scrutiny will fundamentally undermine the regime’s effectiveness.
I turn to the important Clause 28, about which Members of the other place had serious concerns and which the ISC cannot recommend to this House. Clause 28 disapplies the offence of encouraging or assisting offences overseas under the Serious Crime Act 2007 when the activity is deemed necessary for the proper exercise of any function of an intelligence service or Armed Forces. Put simply, it provides a rare carve-out from liability for the intelligence agencies and armed services when working abroad. Colleagues in the other place, particularly those from the ISC, question the justification for such a broad exception from criminal liability. There is already an offence of acting reasonably under Section 50 of the Serious Crime Act. Further, the agencies can already seek immunity from liability for any act committed abroad under Section 7 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994. The lack of a proportionality requirement and the absence of an oversight mechanism were also criticised.
The Bill Committee in the other place recognised that there may be highly classified information underpinning the Government’s rationale for the clause that could not be disclosed to it, and the Government committed to provide the ISC with that highly classified material. The ISC has now considered that highly classified material, which was taken in evidence, and I can tell the House that the committee is of the view that Clause 28 potentially identifies a legitimate problem, which is that, despite the existing legislative protection, there may still be a risk of criminal liability for junior members of the intelligence community and the military, even when acting within the remit of their duties, which could have an impact on operations. Indeed, to be fair, there have been historical instances where military and agency junior ranks in the field have effectively been hung out to dry when doing their best to fulfil what they see as their duty. The ISC therefore sympathises with the aim of the clause.
Nevertheless, the ISC is also firmly of the opinion that the clause goes considerably beyond what is needed and is not appropriate as drafted. While the existing mechanisms to avoid liability may not be comprehensive, that does not justify such a broad automatic exemption with such limited accountability. The clause must be either significantly amended or replaced entirely. The ISC has been given an assurance that the Government are looking to find a way to meet its concerns. They must work quickly to identify a more appropriate approach, as the current clause is unacceptably broad, and we cannot support it as it stands.
If there were time, I would draw noble Lords’ attention to a number of other important points that were raised by the ISC and other colleagues in the other place; no doubt we will consider these as the Bill progresses. I particularly note the need to consider simplifying the “trade secrets” definition in Clause 2 to make the offence more effective in practice; the need to expand the “foreign interference” offence to cover recklessness as well as intent; the concern that the state prevention and investigation measures be used only as a last resort; and exhortations to extend the oversight provisions in Clause 54 across the rest of the Bill.
The ISC firmly supports the aims behind the Bill, but it requires careful analysis and considerable improvement if it is to strengthen the ability of law enforcement and the intelligence community sufficiently to manage the significant threat posed by hostile state actors, and if the UK’s new national security regime is to be comprehensive and effective. We echo what was said about the bravery and efficiency of the agencies, and what they achieve. The Bill will be very useful for them in making our nation safer, but it needs a certain amount of amendment.