Thursday 7th July 2022
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesNational Security Act 2023 View all National Security Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 7 July 2022 - (7 Jul 2022)
Holly Lynch
Q
Jonathan Hall: What I have been told is that polygraphs have not been used for TPIMs, as far as I am aware, but they have been used for released terrorist offenders and some disclosures have been made. Everyone always thought that the real utility of polygraphs and the clear reason for their use is the disclosures that people make when undergoing the process. I gather that some admissions have been made that have been valuable and have led to a recall. I do not have a huge amount of data, but they seem to have had some success in the context of terrorism offences.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Q
Jonathan Hall: I cannot remember the total number of TPIMs. I think it is around 30, but I may be misremembering and that may also include—
Damian Hinds
That is over a number of years, of course.
Jonathan Hall: Yes. The maximum I remember in any year is up to six; at the moment it is down to about two. The authorities ran quite a successful campaign, using TPIMs against members or former members of al-Muhajiroun. Those have tended to drop off, and we are now looking at a very small clutch—I think it is only two now.
Damian Hinds
Q
Jonathan Hall: First of all, where there is good intelligence that an individual is up to no good but it is impossible to prosecute them. There may be secret sources of intelligence—information coming from allies or from electronic means that could not be disclosed—that mean that the agencies know perfectly well that someone is a real risk. Having had the opportunity to read the intelligence, I know that there certainly are cases where people are very dangerous and are engaging in attack planning but could not be prosecuted. These measures allow a huge amount of control.
One of the key measures for the really serious people is moving them from their home location. They find it much harder to operate if they are outside their home location: they do not have the people around that they know, and they find it a more hostile operating environment. There will also be some people whose threat really comes from the propagation of terrorist propaganda, so the measure might be directed towards their use of electronic devices and the internet.
Damian Hinds
Q
Jonathan Hall: Up to a point. I have expressed my disappointment that because legal aid is not now available as of right for all TPIM subjects, there is a cohort of TPIM subjects who are not getting court reviews. In the absence of the court having the opportunity to test the proportionality, it is particularly important that the Home Office official who chairs the TPIM review group’s meetings is really testing, and I also feel that I have to play that sort of role myself. I have certainly seen cases in which it has been debatable whether the measures have been too strong, particularly in relation to electronic devices, and whether enough attention is being given to allowing people to live a useful life without presenting a threat to the wider public.
The Chair
I am going to move on to our next question now, from shadow Minister Jess Phillips.
Maria Eagle
Q
Professor Sir David Omand: Yes, I would agree with that.
Damian Hinds
Q
Professor Sir David Omand: From my experience, I would point to the consequences of the digitisation of every conceivable kind of information. That is proceeding apace. We have digital cities. Our infrastructure is now wholly dependent on IT.
In my recent book, I coined an acronym, CESSPIT—crime, espionage, sabotage and subversion perverting internet technology—and that perversion is going on as we speak. I will add one thought: I put “crime” in my acronym deliberately. If you take the activities of something like the North Korean Lazarus group, which was responsible for the WannaCry ransomware attack on our national health service, it is operating in order to obtain foreign exchange to pay for the North Korean nuclear programme and North Korean intelligence activity. In March, the group took more than $0.5 billion-worth of Ethereum currency from an exchange. This is large-scale larceny on behalf of a state.
My hope is that the powers in the Bill will help the police and agencies to deal with state-based criminal activity. I know that there are aggravated offences powers as well, which will help the police.
Damian Hinds
Q
Professor Sir David Omand: If you recall the statement made almost exactly two years ago in the House by Dominic Raab, he said that the Government had concluded that it was “almost certain” that “Russian actors” had “sought to interfere” in our election in 2019; and we had the evidence from the American elections and the French presidential election in 2017. All the techniques were deployed. I do not know whether any members of the Committee have been watching the TV series showing on Channel 4, which is as good a primer as any on how such techniques can be used to pervert our political discourse as well as actually harm individuals. This is the world we are in, these are the harms we face and I think that this Bill is a good start in helping the agencies to address some of those harms.
Sir Alex Younger: On this issue, you are right to focus on the possibility of interference in our democratic process and the potential unintended consequences of what we are talking about here. Of course, one person’s interference is another person’s legitimate intervention. Perish the thought that it should be the Government’s responsibility to say what is true and what is not. That is the difference between us and our opponents.
I can understand the scale of the problem; I have seen it. I had a long chat with the Government about this, and the thing that convinced me that this was an appropriate response was, first, the foreign powers condition—to be clear, that is about people acting on behalf of a foreign power—and, secondly, essentially the use of deception to achieve your aim. It seems to me that if someone is working on behalf of a foreign power, using deception, to distort our political process, we have a pretty clear basis for taking action. That, I think, is as it should be.
Sally-Ann Hart
Q
“A person commits an offence if…the person engages in conduct intending that the conduct, or a course of conduct…will have”
a negative “effect” on the UK for or on behalf of the foreign power in question. In other areas of law, in particular the criminal law, we have intent and recklessness. Do you think that clause 13 should be expanded to include recklessness?
Professor Sir David Omand: I looked at clause 24, “The foreign power condition”, and there is quite a lot of scope in it for a successful prosecution to demonstrate that the individual who as, as you say, acted recklessly, could reasonably have been expected to know that their act would benefit a foreign power, for example, so I was not so concerned about that particular question.
Damian Hinds
Q
Professor Sir David Omand: I recommend the use of the OECD’s triplet of “misinformation”, which is wrong, but innocently so, and should be corrected; “disinformation”, which is deliberately and maliciously wrong; and “malinformation”, which is information that is true but was never intended to enter the public domain, such as the personal emails of Members of Parliament.
Sir Alex Younger: Please hold that thought, because I spent years trying to work out whose side Vladimir Putin was on, as he was propagating all sorts of contradictory causes, and then I just realised that he wants an argument—he wants distrust and discord. I have not been to the OECD on the subject, but I entirely support that.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of the time allocated for this session. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our very distinguished witnesses for your time today.
Examination of Witness
Paddy McGuiness gave evidence.