National Security (State Threats) Bill

Consideration of Lords amendments

[Relevant documents: Correspondence between the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Minister of State for the Home Office, on the National Security (State Threats) Bill, reported to the House on 1 July and 17 June.]

I can inform the House that nothing in the Lords amendments engages Commons financial privilege.

Clause 2

Offences relating to designated bodies

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments 2 to 6.

The first duty of any Government is and will forever be to secure this country and keep all its inhabitants safe. It is a mission that has challenged us relentlessly, but it has grown and evolved in recent years. The threat posed by foreign powers will be known by all here: physical threats against individuals and property; theft of trade secrets; attempts to interfere in and influence our democracy; and cyber-attacks targeting both the state and the private sector that disrupt critical infrastructure and compromise sensitive data.

As the House has heard many times before, the source of those threats has come predominantly, though not exclusively, from three countries: Russia, China and Iran. The threats from each present differently, but those threats are very real, and they are evolving. The Bill before us will strengthen the Government’s ability to disrupt hostile intelligence services and their proxies by adapting counter-terrorism tools to tackle state-based security threats to the UK. In developing this legislation, we have worked closely with the police, security and the intelligence agencies. The Bill gives our operational partners the powers that they need, and it does so in a way that reflects the differences between state and non-state actors. As Jonathan Hall himself has said, this Bill “does the job”.

As the Bill progressed through its stages, the Government listened carefully to the arguments about legitimate humanitarian assistance, as well as concerns expressed by non-governmental organisations and the International Development Committee. The Government’s position remains that the Bill should not criminalise legitimate humanitarian aid work or the important work of journalists and diplomats.

I welcome Lords amendments 1 to 6, which clarify the Bill. However, as the Bill stands, journalists could still face a prison sentence of 10 to 14 years for working with or even approaching sources in hostile Governments. Will the Minister consider pausing the legislation so that we can go back to the drawing board?

I do not agree with my hon. Friend’s interpretation of the Bill at all. The threats that we are facing mean that this Bill ought to be on the statute book sooner rather than later, so that we can begin to deal with them.

As I was saying, the Government’s position remains that the Bill should not criminalise legitimate humanitarian aid work or the important work of journalists and diplomats, and it remains our view that the Bill does not have that effect. However, to avoid a potential chilling effect, the Government felt that it was better to accept amendments to the Bill to put that matter beyond doubt. That is why the Government supported amendments 1, 2, 4 and 6, tabled by Baroness Northover in the other place.

I am pleased that the Minister is accepting the amendments. This will hopefully give some comfort to journalists in every war zone who are in incredibly precarious situations, where somebody usually accuses them of being terrorists for what they are reporting. The number of journalists killed around the world is rising year on year, so what practical support will the Government be able to give to the journalists or journalists’ unions that face these very real threats?

We are very confident that the Bill as it is written does not place journalists in any jeopardy. In fact, these measures allow us to act against those who are conducting harmful activity in the UK, including targeting journalists here in the UK because of their attempts to expose activities in other regimes. The right hon. Gentleman makes a more general point about the jeopardy in which journalists put themselves in war zones, and I would agree that their news reporting is some of the bravest. We all support a free press and journalists’ ability to report in war zones, but I would say respectfully to him that these things are slightly different and he is combining the two issues. We are convinced that this Bill does not and will not put journalists in any more jeopardy in this country—certainly not for reporting.

Baroness Northover tabled amendments 1, 2, 4 and 6 in the other place. They introduce a new defence into the offences at new sections 17B and 17C of the National Security Act 2023, specifically to cover legitimate humanitarian aid activity. This means that non-governmental organisations that have to engage with a designated body in order to carry out legitimate humanitarian activity will benefit from the same protections under the Bill as do UK diplomats.

The Government also supported amendments 3 and 5, which were tabled by Lord Anderson. These amendments were based on the advice of Jonathan Hall KC and also had the support of Lord Carlile. They add a reasonable excuse defence in new section 17C of the 2023 Act for obtaining, accepting or agreeing to accept information from a designated body. This means that where a person has a reasonable excuse for receiving information from a designated body, they benefit from a defence. This might include, for example, a journalist conducting an interview or a charity receiving information on the location of landmines. The Government considered the case for exempting humanitarian NGOs from the offences, but we were advised by our operational partners that this would provide a loophole that hostile actors would seek to exploit, which in turn could make the NGOs themselves a target for infiltration. In fact, that is the case that I made to this Chamber in Committee.

I call the shadow Minister.

As it stands, political reassurances alone are simply not good enough to prevent a catastrophic chilling effect across the sector—for example, driving banks to de-risk and forcing NGOs to pull out of regions where millions rely on UK-supported aid. I therefore welcome the Lords amendments that provide a statutory defence as a significant step forward, and I thank the Minister and her Department for their full engagement on that.

The Government’s decision to allow alterations to this Bill will come as a surprise to many who followed it through its earlier stages. As colleagues in the other place observed, this came as a surprise because, throughout the interregnum, the Government repeatedly informed the official Opposition that they were unable to make further policy decisions. That position even extended to measures confirmed as Government policy, such as passport seizure powers. Given that even fundamental issues relating to countries such as China could not be addressed then, it surprising that we are considering further amendments to this Bill now.

Nevertheless, we are where we are, and we are considering the Government’s amendments on humanitarian activities. I understand the intention behind them. Nobody wants genuine humanitarian organisations that are carrying out vital work in difficult parts of the world to be caught by legislation never intended to target them, but we also have to recognise the reality of the threats that we face. As the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation recently pointed out, hostile states are willing to hide behind legitimate activity. Just as they might exploit legal or journalistic cover, they might also seek to exploit humanitarian cover. That is why the amendment he suggested was narrower than the one before us today.

My concern is that the Government’s wording is capable of broader interpretation, particularly around conduct said to be for the purpose of

“the carrying out of humanitarian activities”.

That risks creating uncertainty and opportunities for abuse. What is striking is that this is not the position the Government took a short time ago. On Report, the Minister made it clear that genuine humanitarian work would not be prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom. Indeed, when rejecting amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), she argued that the prohibited purpose test would protect legitimate conduct without creating loopholes for hostile actors. If that was the Government’s position then, what has changed?

I rise to welcome Lords amendments 1 to 6 and to support the progress being made regarding the implications of this Bill on the vital work of the humanitarian sector. I place on record my thanks to Baroness Northover, Lord Alton, Lord Anderson, Baroness Helic and Baroness D’Souza for all their work in the other place. I would also like to pay credit to the courageous NGOs operating on the frontlines of global crises, who I know are following the progress of this Bill carefully to understand how it might impact on their work. With them in mind, I would like to express my regret that measures covering the humanitarian sector do not go further to provide robust, full legal protections.

As Chair of the International Development Committee, I wrote to the Home Office on this matter on 17 June as the sector was facing a terrifying landscape of legal uncertainty. Under the original drafting of the new offences, particularly on assisting or obtaining material benefit from a designated body, humanitarian actors were at risk.

In conflict zones, where state-linked or designated actors hold territorial control, neutral humanitarian organisations are often required to engage in dangerous circumstances. That sometimes means that they must negotiate access, pay routine local utilities or permits, or provide medical care to all sides working in accordance with international humanitarian law. Under the Bill, humanitarian workers could have been prosecuted.