Manston Update

David Davis Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for those questions. She asked how long we have been aware of diphtheria cases. When I addressed the House for the first time, on 1 November, I reported that there had been four cases. I am able now to say that that has increased to 50 cases, and I will continue to update the House as this issue develops.

The right hon. Lady asked whether Ministers have followed the advice of the UK Health Security Agency throughout. To the best of my knowledge, they have. We have always sought and followed the advice of Dame Jenny Harries and her colleagues. In fact, the measures I have announced today go beyond the UKHSA’s baseline advice, because we want to take a precautionary approach. For that reason, we will be ensuring that further individuals who have any symptoms are not transported around the country; they will either remain at Manston or go to specialist accommodation. That accommodation is readily available, because we made good use of it during the height of the covid pandemic and we will be making sure it is brought into use in the coming days.

The right hon. Lady asked about screening arrangements. Those have been in place for some time. All individuals arriving at Western Jet Foil are screened. That is, by necessity, a relatively simple screening, because on occasion thousands of illegal migrants arrive in the course of a single day, but screening is followed up at Manston and we have asked the UKHSA to advise us on whether further measures are required to ensure that that screening is more sophisticated. Dame Jenny and her colleagues will advise on that.

We have had the vaccination programme in operation for a number of weeks. It is a voluntary programme; we do not compel migrants to take it up. It began at a relatively low level of acceptance—about 45%—but that is now increasing; as I said, I am pleased to say that we have reached 100% for those who came over the weekend. We will do everything we can to maintain it at or around that level, because that clearly is a very important line of defence.

For those individuals who have already left Manston and have flowed into asylum accommodation elsewhere in the country, we and the UKHSA are now going to work closely with local directors of public health to ensure that they have the right guidance to protect those individuals. Those local public health directors will work with local NHS partners to ensure that the individuals have treatment under the NHS and that they isolate in their rooms within those hotels or other forms of accommodation. The outsourced partners will ensure that the people have food and laundry brought to the door, so that there is no reason whatsoever that they should leave their room until they are well again and can re-enter broader society.

If there are further measures that we need to take, we will do so. Dame Jenny and her colleagues are meeting directors of public health this week, as they have been doing repeatedly in recent months, to hear their concerns and ensure that these procedures are progressively improved as required.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Earlier this year, I informed the Home Office that some 30 Albanian asylum seekers had absconded from the Thwaite Hall facility in my constituency. The then Minister for Immigration, the Minister’s predecessor, informed me in his reply that asylum seekers

“are not prevented from leaving it, or legally required to stay within its confines.”

He might as well have said, “Not my problem, Guv.” Considering the reports that there has been an outbreak of a highly contagious and dangerous disease at the Manston processing facility, how can the Minister square this laissez-faire approach to asylum seeker dispersal with any serious concern for public health?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is for those reasons that I took the decision today that no asylum seeker will leave Manston if they are displaying any symptoms whatsoever of diphtheria, or indeed of other serious infectious diseases. They will either remain there or, more likely, be taken to one of our secure isolation hotels—the type of hotel that we used during the covid pandemic. They will remain there and will not leave while they are being treated. Hopefully, they will make a full recovery and then they will be transported to other accommodation elsewhere in the country. I think that is the right approach. It goes beyond the advice that Dame Jenny and her colleagues at the UKHSA have provided to us, because I want to ensure that we are doing absolutely everything we can to take this issue seriously.

National Security Bill

David Davis Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that powerful point. He is absolutely right that there is a distinct lack of consistency. If we are singling out specific criminal offences that we do not like, there is more that we could do to ensure that there is some consistency in that approach. There will be vulnerable people here who we want to check are not falling through the gaps, which would make the situation worse for us all.

What if a woman’s abuser is a terrorist? As I said, the nature of terrorist offenders means that that is often the case. For some of the lower-level offences covered by clauses 84 to 85—for example, that someone made a phone call on behalf of an abuser—it is easy for somebody to say, “I wouldn’t do that, because I’m not a terrorist,” but we all might if we were living in a household where we were terrorised. The danger is that more women in such cases will end up stuck with a terrorist making them be a terrorist, rather than being able to escape them. That is why we feel strongly that the Government should adopt amendment 6.

On some other changes that we would like to see, we have tabled new clauses 5 and 6. They were drafted in the wake of the revelations that the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), when he was the Foreign Secretary, met former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev without officials or security at the height of the Salisbury poisoning case in 2018. That was immediately after the then Foreign Secretary had attended a meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels to discuss the collective response to Russia’s use of Novichok on UK soil. We still have a series of questions about that encounter, not least who his guest was at that party and why we have not taken steps to sanction Alexander Lebedev, given the assessment of our Five Eyes partner Canada, which has sanctioned him.

Having made the case in Committee for new clauses 5 and 6, which both seek to put safeguards in place to prevent that type of security breach ever happening again, the Minister was keen to stress that he was not going to seek to defend the Administration of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, as if that time had passed and there was no need for any further changes to the law in this regard. When that exchange happened on the Tuesday, little did the Minister or I know that by the Thursday, remarkably, the right hon. Gentleman would be launching his campaign to come back as Prime Minister. None of us could have foreseen that, which is one more reason why I stress that the clauses would complement the Bill.

I appreciate that new clause 8, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), has been deemed to be out of scope of today’s debate, but I remind the Minister of the remarks of the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), on Second Reading:

“We are not shy of the issue and are certainly not ignoring it, but it is important that we focus on ensuring that individuals can make disclosures safely, which means protecting them through safeguards and proper routes. That work is still under way, and we need to go through it in the right way.”—[Official Report, 6 June 2022; Vol. 715, c. 571.]

We understand that the Home Office has engaged with trusted partners on what options look like in this space. Once again, we are all waiting for further detail on that front.

I now turn to the plethora of Government amendments. Frankly, late in the day additions to the Bill have plagued its scrutiny and Report stage is no different, as many right hon. and hon. Members have already said. I am pleased that the Government heard our concerns about places of detention and have clarified that only places

“owned or controlled by a police force”

can be used as places of detention, which ensures that they will be subject to proper inspection regimes. We are satisfied that the Government have listened, so our amendment 4 is no longer necessary; Government amendment 54 brings those places within the scope of an existing inspection regime.

As the Minister knows, there are still outstanding concerns about the broad nature of clauses 79 to 83 in part 4. We welcome Government amendment 51, however, which seeks to tighten the definition of those in scope of clauses 79 to 83 to those involved in “terrorist wrongdoing”, but that will warrant further exploration in the other place.

On Government amendment 60, like a number of modern slavery charities—the point has already been made by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith)—we are really concerned about the lateness of this addition to the Bill and the scrutiny that has been avoided by adding it to the Bill at the final Commons stages. Justice and Care, which does outstanding work in placing victim navigators within police forces up and down the country, was keen to stress that there has not been any consultation with modern slavery charities concerned that they, like us, have had insufficient time to fully consider the possible impact on modern slavery victims. I could have asked the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner for their views, except there isn’t one. The Government have failed to appoint a new commissioner since Dame Sara left office in April, so I take this opportunity to suggest that the Government address that now as an urgent priority. I have to ask the Minister to outline the rationale for this move, and I want to be clear just how unhappy we are with this provision at such a late stage.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is so often my partner in crime fighting, for his amendments. I know he has a great deal of understanding in this area that has shaped the detail of his amendments, so I hope the Government are reflecting carefully on those.

Once again, we have sought at every stage and with every Minister to engage on the Bill constructively. We know that our police forces and security services need the provisions in the Bill to be able to keep us safe from the hostile state threats that are increasingly testing the UK’s resilience. I hope the Minister, who to his credit had to pick up the Bill in the final stages of the Bill Committee, hears our outstanding concerns today, recognises the spirit in which we strive to find solutions and continues to work with us towards a robust and proportionate Bill we can all have confidence in.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to his post. He is very much a round peg in a round hole—despite my historic critique of the Home Office, that is meant as a compliment. I thank him for seeing me and my colleague, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), on the amendment the other day. He will be unsurprised that he did not persuade me, but I thank him for the time in any event. In view of the short time, I will focus mostly on amendment 14, which I hope we will press to a vote. It is in my name and that of the hon. and gallant Member for Bromley—not Bromley, but Barnsley Central; not quite Bromley. That amendment strikes out clause 27.

A decade and a half ago, the British public were shocked to hear stories of British complicity in American and other countries’ acts of kidnap, rendition, torture and assassination, typically but not always by drone strikes, with the collateral damage that that entailed. Collateral damage in this context is a euphemism for the deaths of innocent women and children who happen to be standing near the original target. I use this stark language to make plain the potential consequences of what might seem like bland legalistic language in the Bill.

The legal basis of those actions—I almost said atrocities, but of those actions—was the Intelligence Services Act 1994, when we first recognised the operation of the Secret Intelligence Service. Most notably, it inserted the melodramatically named “007 clause”—section 7—which empowered Ministers to authorise criminal behaviour overseas. I was one of the Ministers who took that Bill through the House. We Ministers were briefed very firmly that, in practice, that section would authorise bugging, burglary and blackmail—the normal behaviour of intelligence agencies seeking to penetrate enemy states and organisations—not kidnap, not torture and most certainly not a licence to kill.

We the Ministers on that Bill gave our word to the House that that was what it was for, but a decade later section 7 was used to authorise the enabling of rendition, torture and quite possibly assassination as well. We know the names of several victims of UK complicity: Binyam Mohamed, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, Fatima Boudchar, his wife, and Rangzieb Ahmed, to name just a few.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is worth reflecting and placing back on the record that we know the names of Belhaj and Boudchar only because somebody happened to find the papers unattended after the fall of Gaddafi. That was the only way that the truth about their cases came into the public domain.

[Mr Davis]

The right hon. Gentleman is right, and it is also true that we found out about Binyam Mohamed only because of extended legal cases in the courts, which were resisted by the agencies at every turn. We know about Rangzieb Ahmed only because I got access to the in-camera papers. So this is a general problem and I will come back to that. A most recent example is Jagtar Singh Johal, who alleges that he was tortured by Indian authorities and was detained, we believe, as a result of British intelligence. Again, we know about that only because we could spot the case inside one of the commissioner’s reports. Accordingly, exactly because of that, this is literally the tip of the iceberg.

The Intelligence and Security Committee report on detainee mistreatment found 232 cases where UK personnel

“continued to supply questions or intelligence”

to other intelligence services, after they

“knew or suspected that the detainee had been or was being mistreated.”

As I said, I have seen in-camera evidence that showed quite how deliberate some of those decisions were—absolutely in the knowledge that they would be used in the process of torture. That was done rather more broadly, even when the intelligence services did not know at all where the detainee was being held, or even whether they were being held legally or not. Those are the consequences of vague legislation that awarded too much power to the authorities.

We might therefore expect clause 27 to tighten up over-loose legislation to make Ministers, officials and agents more conscious of their responsibilities, not less. Instead, it does the exact opposite. Clause 27 would provide an exemption to schedule 4 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. Schedule 4 sets out the circumstances in which assisting and encouraging a crime that occurs overseas is still a criminal offence. Clause 27 means that it would no longer be an offence to assist a crime overseas where someone’s behaviour is necessary for

“the proper exercise of any function of the Security Service, Secret Intelligence Service or GCHQ or...the armed forces.”

In plain English, that would effectively insulate Ministers and officials from responsibility for assisting or encouraging heinous overseas crimes.

To see the potential impact of that, consider the case of Abdel Hakim Belhaj. Mr Belhaj, a Libyan dissident living in exile, was detained and subsequently tortured in both Thailand and Libya. It later emerged that UK information sharing had contributed to his detention and rendition. After years of litigation and wrangling, the Prime Minister wrote a letter of apology to Mr Belhaj, and the Government admitted responsibility for the role that UK intelligence played in his rendition. That was a civil rather than a criminal case, but if officials are certain that they will not face any criminal liability for assisting torture and other serious crimes abroad, reckless information sharing of the kind seen in Mr Belhaj’s case will occur more frequently and with more impunity.

I understand that one reason for the change in the clause is apparently to allow the easier transfer of bulk data. That is an especially risky activity to which to give legal cover. The transfer of bulk data is a euphemism for saying that we give the Americans—principally—so much data that we do not have time to check it all. That is it in a nutshell. As Edward Snowden revealed, that has historically amounted to unimaginably vast quantities of data, of course about suspects, but also about innocent people. Because of the high level of secrecy that applies to current bulk data issues, I have no current UK example to hand, but I can exemplify this by outlining the behaviour of our closest ally, and the principal recipient of bulk data, the United States.

The greatly respected President of the USA, Mr Barack Obama, used to go to the White House Situation Room on a Tuesday once a month to authorise a kill list—20 people who were going to be assassinated by the United States and who were perceived to be its enemies; typically, al-Qaeda officials and the like. President Obama talked proudly of how the best technology—artificial intelligence, algorithms and, crucially, bulk data—was being used to identify targets.

However, that comes with enormous risks, most plainly shown by the case of Ahmad Zaidan, who was selected for targeting by the US National Security Agency based on algorithms using bulk data. Fortunately, he was not assassinated. I say “fortunately” because there had been analysis of his telephone contacts and he had talked to Osama bin Laden and all the al-Qaeda high command, but, before the drone strike was organised, it was suddenly realised that he was the Pakistan office head of Al Jazeera. The analysis had thrown up an innocent man who could have been assassinated.

That is why we must be careful about what is handed over without knowledge of the bulk data. If we give greater legal cover to officials sending bulk data to other countries, cases of bulk data being used in the commission of serious crimes abroad—even against innocent people—will happen more frequently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

In view of the time, I will only briefly say something about three areas of the Bill. First, amendment 14, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) seeks to remove clause 27, which excludes liability for assisting an offence overseas if the relevant behaviour is necessary for the proper function of the intelligence agencies or the armed forces. The key question being: how is that materially different from the defence to encouraging or assisting crime in section 50 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 of acting reasonably?

I am a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, as is the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). As he said, we are due to receive further evidence on clause 27 and we are, therefore, not yet in a position to provide a view on it. It is probably right that I reserve my final judgment until I have considered that further evidence but, speaking personally, I am not persuaded that, within the parameters of the reassurance and protection it is reasonable to offer those acting on behalf of the intelligence agencies or the armed forces, clause 27 achieves anything that the current section 50 defence does not. The Minister will have to explain the difference between acting reasonably and acting in the proper exercise of a function, as this clause requires.

[Mr David Davis]

My right hon. and learned Friend will remember that, when the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021 was first brought before the House, the International Criminal Court told the Government, “If you go too far with this and nobody can be prosecuted, we will prosecute.” Is there not the same risk with clause 27?

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I hope my right hon. Friend is wrong, but the Government have to consider it for exactly those reasons. It would be not only wrong but profoundly embarrassing if the United Kingdom were to find itself in that position.

I hope the Minister can clearly explain the difference I outlined, because the only difference I can see is that it could be argued that “acting reasonably” may be applicable to more circumstances and, therefore, offer arguably broader protection than “acting in the proper exercise of a function.” We have heard it argued that the current defence is not sufficiently legally certain but, from experience, legal certainty is an elusive quarry. The concept of reasonableness is very familiar to the courts in a variety of contexts. Anyone looking for absolute certainty in every case will not find it, because all cases are different and must be considered on their merits.

The second area I want to mention is amendments 8 to 12, in my right hon. Friend’s name, dealing with the potential reduction of damages in national security proceedings where a successful claimant has committed wrongdoing related to terrorism. It is worth noting in passing that such wrongdoing is not limited to convictions for criminal offences, and we need to understand from the Minister what level of wrongdoing in this context would suffice to put someone’s damages in jeopardy.

The operative measure is clause 58(3), which says

“the court must decide whether, in light of its consideration of the national security factors, it is appropriate for it to reduce the amount of damages”.

So we need to know what “appropriate” means—or should mean. Surely it should mean appropriate in all the circumstances of the case and in the interests of justice overall—it would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that—and that there is no presumption in favour of reduction, nor is there an instruction to reduce damages where the factors set out are present. That is how I understand the clause, but I would be grateful if he could confirm it.

Lastly, I wish to discuss amendment 38, which would remove clause 84 and stands in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). That clause provides that, save for in very limited circumstances, civil legal aid would not be available in any case where it otherwise would be to those previously convicted of terrorism offences. My concern is that this is a very significant shift in the principles applicable to legal aid. At the moment, we award legal aid on the basis of the merits of the case and the financial circumstances of the individual applying, never before doing so on the basis of their previous character. This change would be very significant and it would need significant discussion, which, by definition, given the clock in front of me, it is not going to get today.

We need to be clear about what we would be saying if we made that change. We would be saying that whatever happens to that individual—however blatantly their rights may be infringed, in cases wholly unrelated to their previous conduct—the state will not assist them to defend their rights as it otherwise would, because of a previous criminal conviction. I am not sure that would be right and I am not sure that if it is, it makes any sense to specify only terrorism offences, rather than any other serious criminal offending. But whether it is right or wrong, we need to discuss it properly and not have it tacked on to this Bill, which is about something completely different, with very limited time to discuss it.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Davis Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Minister, sit down.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

The announcement today is clearly a good thing, but is the Home Secretary entirely confident that she will have sufficient aerial surveillance assets in place so that we can do our half of the job properly?

[Suella Braverman]

I have visited our clandestine command and control team, headed up by Dan O’Mahoney and Border Force officials, and we have a military presence. Some very impressive technology is being used, such as surveillance drone technology, to enable and facilitate better co-operation with the French.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Davis Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend raises some really important points, and this comes back to your opening remarks, Mr Speaker, about the season of protest that seems to be taking place, which has actually become an annual thing, particularly with Extinction Rebellion and others. First and foremost, she asks about police powers. I give credit and pay tribute to the police, because they use specialist skills to de-glue or de-bond. But had we not seen the measures introduced in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 earlier this year thrown out by Labour Lords, the police would have had the powers to deal with these types of protests. Of course, the Public Order Bill, which is going through the House right now, will absolutely double down and reaffirm those powers.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

7. What steps her Department is taking to reduce the number of people crossing the English channel in small boats.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)]

Our new laws, brought in through the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, mean that we have legislated to introduce long-term solutions and to address legal entry into the UK. Of course, that means tackling the number of people coming over in small boats, but also introducing tougher criminal sentences. As my right hon. Friend will know, all these measures were opposed by the Labour party.

[Mr Davis]

In view of the uncertainty as to who will fill the Government Front Bench in the coming days and weeks, I will break the rules a bit by asking the Home Secretary to accept my thanks for her robust management of the most difficult Department of State. That is not to say that we always agree on everything, particularly on Rwanda, but we do agree that we must take back control, or keep control, of our own borders. The Australian experience demonstrated that pushback works, and we can learn from that. We can learn from the necessary increase in surveillance, we can learn from the increase in control and command by both the Australians and Frontex, and we can learn from the application of international maritime law. If we do all those things, I have no doubt that pushback will work with Belgium and France too.

[Priti Patel]

Despite the chuntering from the Opposition Benches, my right hon. Friend speaks a lot of common sense on these issues. This is important, primarily because when it comes to tackling channel crossings, we have specifically reviewed the whole Australian model, which, for the benefit of Opposition Members, is called Operation Sovereign Borders. That is effectively what the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 was built upon, including the proposition of pushbacks at sea—something that has been developed by the Home Office but has not been operationalised by the Ministry of Defence—surveillance tactics and many other measures.

Finally, for the benefit of our colleague on the Opposition Benches, there is no single solution to this issue, which is why, as my right hon. Friend pointed out and as I have said at the Dispatch Box many times, it takes multiple solutions to come together, including reform of the asylum system, deterrents and criminal sanctions, which the Opposition completely voted against.

National Security Bill

David Davis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his incredibly important question. The Bill will cover aspects of hostile state activity, and he will hear the details of that as I make progress with my remarks. Much of the work on organised crime and criminality in the United Kingdom is led by the National Crime Agency, and it is heavily involved in this work as well. As well as money laundering, we have debated sanctions in recent months. Some of our financial work to follow the money is embedded in the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, which is part one of the legislation, and we will introduce the economic crime Bill—part two of the legislation—in which there will be much more of that work.

Money laundering is one aspect of organised gangs’ criminality. For people to have the money to launder, a whole sequence of criminality goes with that. That could involve drugs and firearms and, tragically, as we know, people smuggling. We know that the case in Purfleet, in which 39 people died tragically in the back of a lorry, emanated from organised criminality in Northern Ireland. We were able to take that case to court through the work of the police and the National Crime Agency. There is, of course, much more that we need to do collectively.

We have to ensure that we have every possible domestic lever to keep our country safe and prevent terrible acts of criminality and harm from occupying a permissive environment in which they can fester and grow. The Bill brings together vital new measures to address the evolving and ever-changing threats that we face and to protect the British public—to protect our country and our citizens—by modernising aspects of counter-espionage laws.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I do not think that anybody would question the Home Secretary’s commitment to the safety that she is trying to engender for the British public, but I draw her attention to the comments of Andy Hall QC—her adviser on counter-terrorism—who raised concerns about some of the thresholds with respect to the use of assets and money. He oversees the equivalent legislation elsewhere, so he knows well what he is talking about. Although I think that we are all going in the same direction, can we be careful in Committee and on Report to take on board what he says to make sure that we do not undermine the rights of British people while we are protecting them?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why the Bill has been constructed in a sensitive manner with our agencies and partners, based on expertise and insight. This is about how the laws will be applied to individuals in specific cases, so the sensitivities must always be considered. A case-by-case approach is rightly required when it comes to the application of our laws, as well as to law enforcement and how we pursue these matters further.

The Bill brings together many measures, but I would like the Chamber to indulge me for a minute—particularly off the back of this weekend—as I pay tribute to our world-class law enforcement and intelligence agencies. We were all touched to see the numbers of people who came to London to see Her Majesty and celebrate the platinum jubilee. Our law enforcement and intelligence agencies came together, ensuring that in every aspect of our celebrations the British public were kept safe by remarkable people, who worked tirelessly; I pay tribute to them. It is their expertise that we are trying to preserve, enhance and develop through the Bill. We want to ensure that they have all the tools and protections they need to deal with this ever-changing and evolving landscape.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I would not want to go anywhere near what is in the hon. Gentleman’s imagination. All I can say is: yes, we are talking about information that will have an impact not only on our general security, but on the security of individual agents and others. That is why I support the Law Commission’s recommendations to introduce a public interest defence and to create an independent statutory commissioner to investigate wrongdoing or criminality where disclosure would otherwise constitute an offence under the 1989 Act.

The absence of reform means that if we pass the Bill as it is now, there will be nothing in it to guard against large, mass disclosures of sensitive information; we will still rely on the 1989 Act. Even if somebody indirectly helped foreign powers, I cannot see how we could bring them to book under this Bill. We should support the introduction of a public interest defence, because it would make it easier to bring prosecutions. I have heard some people say, “This would really give journalists and others an opportunity to throw secrets out there.” No, it would not; it would put the onus on them to argue in court that it is in the public interest that the information is disclosed. It would be welcome, as it would ensure that people thought about what they did.

[Mr David Davis]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Katharine Gun case is a good demonstration? The prosecution was dropped at the point of trial, probably because the Government could not predict how a jury would interpret her public interest defence rights without any codification.

[Mr Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. Without reform, the courts will define public interest anyway. I would sooner have this place define it than leave it to the courts or allow an ad hoc system to build up over time. I do not understand why the Bill does not take that opportunity, because it would help. Some journalists think that it would be a way of stymieing them, but I think it would clarify the position on the information that can be put in the public domain and would actually help to make that defence. I would rather have this House than a court of law setting those parameters.

The Law Commission made another recommendation that I think worthy of consideration, although we need to work out how it would work in practice:

“an independent commissioner to receive and investigate complaints of serious wrongdoing where disclosure of the matters referred to may otherwise constitute an offence under the Official Secrets Act 1989. That commissioner would also be responsible for determining appropriate disclosure of the results of that investigation.”

That would provide another valve in the pressure cooker of the system when people think that wrongdoing needs to be highlighted.

I would love to know why the Government have missed the opportunity to bring all these things forward in the Bill. I hope that as it passes we can insert some of them: that would not only strengthen the Bill, but give our security services the toolkit that they need.

The foreign influence registration scheme, which we called for in the 2020 Russia report and which is supported by the agencies, would make it unlawful to be an undeclared intelligence officer. I accept that there are issues with definition, but the consultation on the Bill described it as a key component of the new regime, yet for some reason it is not in the Bill. I hear the Home Secretary’s promises, but—call me old-fashioned—I think we should have it before us today to debate on Second Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Let me start by saying that, unusually, I agreed with every word that was said by the right hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie). He will have to get over that in his own time! Indeed, I can make broadly the same comment about nearly all the Back-Bench speeches that have been made so far. There has been considerable consensus on both sides of the House.

There is no doubt that the Bill is needed, and it is probably overdue. However, like all national security legislation, it is written from the point of view of the enforcers. The enforcement agencies’ lawyers will have done most of the drafting, so it is no surprise that it leans towards the state, and no surprise that parts of it are drafted in vague terms. I can best exemplify that by referring to one of my own mistakes.

Clause 23 allows Ministers effectively to authorise criminal acts. I was one of the Ministers who took through the Intelligence Services Act 1994, which created the Intelligence and Security Committee. It also created a number of rights. Section 7, which was known as the “007 clause”, conferred the right, in effect, to commit crimes on behalf of the state.

I went to see the then head of MI6, and I said to him, “Why do you need this? You do not even kill people any more.” His response was “That’s because you do not ask us to, Minister.” I resisted the temptation to pursue what I assume was a joke. Nevertheless, the presumption at the time was that the legislation would be used for bugging, burglary and blackmail and little else, as those are the three crimes typically used by the agencies. In practice, within a decade or so it was being used to excuse rendition, and subsequently, of course, torture and all the things that followed from that. I am not sure what the limits of its actions are today, but that demonstrates clearly to me that we have to be very precise indeed about what the House is authorising Ministers to do within the limits of the law.

What is more, this carve-out—which, as I have said, could be used for purposes that we are not considering today—could end up being extremely damaging to us. After all, we criticise nations from Russia to Turkey for the things that are done there, including the assassinations of journalists, presumably authorised by Ministers within those Governments under their legal systems, and here we are creating the equivalent within our own legal system. It is not too hard to see how that could be turned against us in propaganda terms.

This is not the first time that we have done that in recent years. Just a couple of years ago, with the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, we had a proposal that would have exonerated British soldiers who had committed crimes abroad, including murder and torture and war crimes. I proposed an amendment to the Bill, which did not get very far until Lord Robertson, the ex-head of NATO, and six Chiefs of the Defence Staff signed up to it in the Lords whereupon the Government had to pay attention. The ICC said that if we did this, it would prosecute. That is the other thing that we need to bear in mind with this—we are not necessarily the last port of call in judging what can and cannot be prosecuted.

My view on clause 23 is that we should be very careful about defining exactly what it is that we are attempting to permit. We should not leave any doubt whatever, or we will find that it will both fail and do us harm, let alone the moral breach that we will be committing.

My second issue relates to the matter raised by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, whose statements are more authoritative than those of anyone else because the Bill is effectively modelled on legislation that he reviews. He says that it is unclear why we need an additional regime for the forfeiture and freezing of assets intended for use in terrorism, when such a regime already exists in law. His concern about it is that the new regime would use a lower threshold, requiring only a “real risk” that the funds would be used in terrorism, rather than that they were “intended to be used” for those purposes, He says that that “goes further than necessary”. Nobody in this country knows better where the appropriate line should be drawn than him, and we should be very careful to pay attention to what he says.

Jonathan Hall also questioned, as did my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), the need for “symbolic” restrictions on access to legal aid based on something other than reducing the risk of terrorism. It would run the risk of the farcical situation where someone convicted of terrorism-related offences perhaps 20 years ago would be unable to rely on civil legal aid in seeking an injunction against a domestic abuser. I am quite sure in my mind that that is not what the Minister or the Government intend, but we should make it very plain that that is not the case, and amend it accordingly.

I agree with everything said by virtually everybody who spoke on the need for an update of the Official Secrets Act 1989. I am not remotely surprised that the Government are hesitant about that; there is a huge dammed up resistance to changes because they have to get it right first time.

[Bob Seely]

I am very aware of my right hon. Friend’s background. What would he do about oversight of DSF, because it does seem to fall between two Committees, and, as such, it seems to exist in a bit of a black hole when it comes to oversight.

[Mr Davis]

Can my hon. Friend explain the point?

[Bob Seely]

I am talking about the oversight of the DSF—Director Special Forces. Arguably, at the moment, it does not fall within the remit of the Ministry of Defence. It does not fall within the remit of the Foreign Affairs Committee and it does not fall within the remit of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Does my right hon. Friend think that it needs oversight, and how would he provide oversight of that rarified world that exists between the agencies and traditional defence?

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is tempting me into an area in which I will lose all my friends, as he well knows. My off-the-cuff response—and it is just an off-the-cuff response—is that it is an appropriate area for oversight by the ISC, not by the Defence Committee, simply because of the confidentiality and classification elements that apply.

Let me return to the question of the Official Secrets Act 1989. I agree with everything that has been said so far. I agree that we should look very closely at the Law Commission proposals, because we need certainty. What we have at the moment is an interpretation of the law by juries—whether it is the Ponting case, the Katharine Gun case, where we did not even get to the point because the Government ran away from the case on the first day of trial, or the Derek Pasquill case. In each case, we had an interpretation of the law on a commonsensical basis by juries. Thank heavens for that, frankly, because they have more sense, many times, than the Government have in these areas, but we need predictability on both sides. We need officials to know that if something is done that they think is against the public interest, they can be reasonably confident that the provision will be carried out. That, if it operates properly, will improve the public service. On the other side, the Government should also have a right to know what is coming in that area.

I will make one or two other small points. On the foreign power conditions in the Bill, Reprieve, Privacy International, Transparency International and other excellent organisations that do very good work have received some funding from other nations’ Governments. It does not seem to be the intention that the Bill would have them fall foul of this law, but that might be the effect, so we have to be very clear about how that works. Perfectly legitimate organisations could be left committing an offence, under this area of the Bill, if they use leaked information—which may not even be classified—to challenge Government policy. That requires a closer look.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is covering clauses 24 onwards, on the meaning of foreign power and influence thereon. There have been instances involving Members of the House during the past few turbulent years, when we had negotiations during the European Union; I did not agree with where they were going with their negotiations with the other side, outside Government channels, but I still believed that they had the right to do so. I am a little concerned that the Bill might capture that type of behaviour. Has he considered that? I would be interested to know Front Benchers’ thoughts on that as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes a point about something from which I have scars. I had to go and negotiate while I was being undermined by Opposition Members. I agree, of course, that that is their right and power. Indeed, it is no great secret that I recommended the current Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), for a Privy Counsellorship so that he could be properly briefed—not so that he could undermine me, but so that he could do his job properly. Obviously, democracy has rough edges and we must respect that in the Bill, as we do elsewhere.

My last point relates to the foreign influence registration scheme, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam spoke about. At present, that is not in the Bill. The Government have assured us that it will be introduced at a later stage. I hope that it is introduced early enough for proper and adequate scrutiny. This will not be easy to get right, partly because of the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) made. It is clearly a very different issue if someone is working on behalf of China, and we should not paint them with the same brush as those who are working for—my notes say “reliable allies like France”, but I should say “allies like France”. The simple truth is that we have to get this absolutely right.

I welcome the Bill, which, overall, is overdue. However, I make this point to the Front-Bench team: I hope that the Government will allow plenty of time—I will not say “sufficient time”—for the consideration of those elements. The Government have not brought some things to the House because they are not ready yet. That means that they have to respect the House by giving the Bill a large amount of time on Report, so that we can debate carefully every single issue that I raised.

Nationality and Borders Bill

David Davis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the evidence that we heard from the Australian representatives advocated the policy approach that was taken in that country. I would argue that the approach that we are taking in relation to these matters is important, too, and will help us to tackle this issue head on and help to disrupt the work of these evil criminal gangs.

On the reference to the screening process, I must go back to the fundamental point, which is that people will be relocated only if it is safe for them. That consideration will be taken in relation to every case, taking proper account of people’s circumstances. At all times, we will act in accordance with our obligations, through both the European Court of Human Rights and the refugee convention, and those obligations apply on the other side as well.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Tom Pursglove]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend, but I am very conscious of the time.

[Mr Davis]

I will make this point quickly. Yesterday, the erstwhile Prime Minister made the point to the Home Secretary that any group identified as protected will then become incentivised to cross the channel, so, for example, if we say that families are protected, then that will create an incentive for families to cross the channel. How will my hon. Friend square that particular conundrum?

[Tom Pursglove]

I will not say any more over and above that which I have already set out this afternoon. Moreover, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary provided further detail on this yesterday, and I refer the House to the points that she made.

This bespoke international agreement is in full compliance with domestic and international law. Rwanda is a state party to the 1951 refugee convention and the seven core UN human rights conventions, with a strong history of supporting refugees. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made it clear yesterday that this partnership is the type of international co-operation that we need to make the global immigration system fairer, keep people safe, and give them opportunities to flourish. This is just one part of the system-wide reform that we promised to deliver in the new plan for immigration.

The objective of the Rwanda partnership announced last week is to create a mechanism for the relocation of individuals whose claims are not being considered by the UK—the inadmissible—to Rwanda, which will then process their claims. However, in future, we may wish to extend eligibility for overseas processing to those who have otherwise abused the UK’s asylum system, beyond undertaking dangerous or unnecessary journeys. That is the intention of this measure, which will make it easier for us to remove those who have pending asylum claims to another country for their claims to be processed.

Let me remind the House—I have set this out already, but it bears repeating—that the powers set out in clause 28 via schedule 3 are not new. For nearly 20 years, it has been possible under UK law to remove individuals from the UK while their asylum claim is pending if a certificate is issued under schedule 3 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004. The measure in the Bill amends existing legal frameworks to make it easier to remove such individuals without going through a certification process, provided the country to which they are being removed meets the safety criteria that we have set out in the Bill. It is important to bear in mind that the asylum system is already very expensive. At an annual cost of around £1.5 billion, it is the highest in more than two decades. Every day, the cost of the broken system on hotels alone is nearly £5 million. We therefore cannot accept these amendments.

I thank hon. Members from both sides of the House for their attendance at this important debate today. I urge them to consider that this Bill is what the British people have given us a mandate to deliver and to vote with the Government to send a message to the other place that what has been proposed is not accepted by this House. The Bill secures our borders, ensures that those who need our help will receive it and, as each of us here sincerely want, will save countless lives being risked crossing the channel each and every day when people traffickers realise that this is not a viable occupation for them any more.

Global Migration Challenge

David Davis Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question is yes. The scheme is uncapped and that is exactly what we have negotiated with the Rwandan Government.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

The Home Secretary is quite properly focused on saving lives, so may I ask her a practical question? The World Bank has said that Rwanda has one of the highest incidences of malaria in the world. Our own Government website warns travellers about hepatitis A and B, tetanus, typhoid, cholera and tuberculosis, not to mention rabies and dengue fever, which cannot be vaccinated against. What are the Government going to do, both from an ethical and moral point of view and to protect the British taxpayer against compensation claims, to protect the asylum seekers who go to Rwanda?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend makes some important points. The partnership we have undertaken with the Rwandan Government is based not only on direct support, technical expertise, education and training but, as I said in my statement, on providing care in terms of individuals’ health and resettlement needs.

Nationality and Borders Bill

David Davis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. As the House can see, a great many people wish to speak. I will try to manage without a formal time limit because it is not normal to have one at this stage of dealing with Lords amendments, but I will introduce a time limit if we cannot have a bit of discipline. If everyone speaks for around four minutes, all colleagues will have a chance to speak, so let us try to do it without a formal time limit.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I will be as quick as I can, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Unlike the Opposition, I take the view that this Bill is a serious attempt to deal with an almost intractable problem. Nobody should challenge that point. Nevertheless, we are a great nation, and our greatness rests on the fact that we take a moral stance on most things. That is not a formula for softness but it is an argument for rigour in what we do. Lord Kirkhope’s amendment 9 strips out the Government’s plans to create an offshore asylum-processing system, and I believe he is right. Asylum offshoring would be a moral, economic and practical failure. Previous international experience shows that to introduce it here would be an unmitigated disaster.

The first problem with offshoring is an ethical one. To get a sense of the issue, we have only to look at what happened in Australia when it adopted the same approach in 2013. It meant that children, modern slavery victims and torture survivors could be detained offshore. The Refugee Council of Australia has documented gut-wrenching stories of sexual, physical and mental abuse in the processing facilities. A 14-year-old girl who was held offshore for five years doused herself in petrol and tried to set herself alight. A 10-year-old boy attempted suicide three times. Another child starved themselves near to death and had to be removed back to Australia.

Those were not isolated cases. In fact, there have been numerous reports of assaults and sexual abuse relating to Australia’s processing facility on Nauru. Between January and October 2015 alone—just a few months—there were 48 reports of assault and 57 reports of assault against a minor. That is what we appear to be trying to copy. We cannot risk creating a similar situation here. I ask the House to remember what happened to the views of migration around Europe when we saw the body of a drowned child on a Turkish beach. That is what would happen if such stories started to come out of a British offshoring facility.

The second problem with offshoring is its staggering cost. Australia ended up spending over £1 million per person detained offshore—around £4.3 billion for 3,127 asylum seekers. That is 25 times higher per head than what we spend now. We would expect to have many more applicants than Australia had. Last year alone we had 50,000 applicants. Despite what was said earlier, the Australians have learned the lesson. They have wound down their policy, shut down their processing centre in Papua New Guinea and have not sent any new asylum seekers there since 2014.

[Tom Hunt]

It is right that I point out that Australia may not be using Papua New Guinea but it still uses another island, and its approach continues to be very robust.

[Mr Davis]

The one that I was citing was Nauru, not Papua New Guinea, which turned it down itself and refused to take any more. That is the actual fact of it. By the way, I talked to Tony Abbott about this issue last week and will recount a bit of that discussion in a moment. Since that centre was closed, there were 92,000 asylum applications, so it is not as though the story went away.

There is also a major practical problem: where is this facility going to be? Will it be in Ghana, which referred to the policy as “Operation Dead Meat”? Rwanda? We have heard more on Rwanda today, and I will leave it to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) to talk about Rwanda, as he knows more about it than I do. Albania? Moldova? Gibraltar? All these places have all been talked about—none has said yes. Even if we do find somewhere, we will have to pay it a spectacular bribe to get it to take in our dirty washing; that is what it is, in effect. The Government are simply proposing shifting responsibility for our problems to another country. That does not fit with the behaviour of the great country that I believe we are.

Given the time limit, I will finish on this point. I spoke last week to Tony Abbott, who was Prime Minister of Australia for some of the time we are discussing. We did not talk primarily about this policy, but I asked him what was most effective. I am afraid that he rather agreed with what the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) said—that the really effective policy was pushback.

Frankly, what we have to deal with, in the Home Office and with our French allies, is a series of practical problems, alongside the legalities of how we handle the channel, which is not yet resolved either. What we cannot do is put aside ethical standards in order to drive people away from our shores.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

When people look back on this debate, I think it will be in the same way that we look back on debates around the Poor Law. They tried to solve poverty in those times by being cruel to the poor; I think that is what we are trying to do here. We are not addressing the real issues we face.

I fully concur with everything the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said. I find it bizarre that we are even considering offshoring at this point in time; I think we all know that, practically, it is never going to come off—it is never going to happen—and this is a wasted debate.

I want to concentrate on employment rights. In my constituency, I have two detention centres, which house nearly 1,000 people. Most of them will be detained, but will then come into the community, and will eventually be allowed to remain. There are 1,700 asylum seekers in hotels in my constituency as well. They are not a burden—I welcome them. They may be a financial burden on local authorities and others—central Government need to support them—but, socially and emotionally, I welcome them completely.

The problem that these people have is that, most of the time, they are trapped in the system. Hon. Members just need to look at the figures from their own casework. Cases take at least six months or a year; I have dealt with cases that have been waiting for four or five years before there is a result. In the meantime, people are denied the right to earn a living. They are told to live off £5.40 a day, and that means they live in poverty.

Someone mentioned Syrian asylum seekers; those I have met are some of the most qualified people I have ever met. They have gone through universities and training; they have skills that they could use to give the country so much, and yet they are trapped in the system, living in poverty. And, tragically, what does living in poverty do, in some instances? People try different angles. Sometimes, unfortunately, they end up in criminality. This system, which refuses to allow people to exercise their skills and devote their talents to our community, forces them into poverty and, in some instances, criminality. All Lords amendment 7 said was, “Just allow these people to work—allow them to support themselves and their families, and to give something back to this country.”

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

David Davis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I said that unexplained wealth orders were one of several tools, but we have other tools that have to be deployed. Registration, beneficial ownership—all those aspects are covered in the legislation, and rightly so. By accelerating the legislation, we are concentrating on the sharpest tools we can use and the powers we can bring into force in the most focused time. Expediting this legislation will send a very strong signal that the UK will not be a home for corruption.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Priti Patel]

I will give way shortly, but first I will make some progress, if I may.

This will be about hurting Putin and his vicious regime, which has robbed the Russian people of their chance for democracy, peace and prosperity—not only that, but even their own wealth has been used and abused by these kleptocrats and oligarchs. The reforms in the Bill will give us greater power and more information to identify and investigate the illicit wealth of Russian criminals, their allies and their proxies. The new property register will have an immediate effect, dissuading those intending to buy UK property with illicit funds. Oligarchs could be slapped with an unexplained wealth order—one of the tools that we will have at our disposal—and the Treasury will be better able to act when financial sanctions are breached. We are implementing the most severe package of sanctions ever imposed on Russia or on any major economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he has also pointed out the vast drafting that has taken place over the weekend, with various amendments. I am grateful to all colleagues, on both sides of the House, for their co-operation on many of those amendments. He is absolutely right to say that people have an intent, which is what we are going after.

[Mr David Davis]

The Russia sanctions regime is across eight different sets of regulations, and even the Commons Library could not disentangle them for me. In some cases, simply stopping people using their assets does not go far enough. For those found to be working on behalf of Putin and his elite, we should be expropriating their assets. Does this Bill simply allow freezing or does it actually allow us to confiscate assets?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head, and I am going to come to some of that in my remarks shortly. If he will just bear with me, I would like to make some progress. I am conscious of the protected time we have today, so I ask all colleagues to bear with me.

This legislation is concise and tight for very good reasons, hence the number of amendments that have been made; we want to move at pace. But we cannot stop there, and for the benefit of this House—I know colleagues are aware of this—let me say that there will be a second economic crime Bill, a follow-on Bill in the next parliamentary Session, with further measures. We simply cannot get all the measures in right now. We have focused on the ones that will have the greatest impact and enablement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Given the nature of the debate, I will try to make my simple points in three minutes. [Interruption.] There were cheers from the Government Benches, anyway.

I suspect that we will all vote for this Bill. The House is of one in wishing to stop the murderous behaviour of Putin in Ukraine and to punish him and his elite for carrying out such evil crimes against humanity. That is not to say this is a perfectly crafted Bill. To some extent, that is inevitable; it has had to be constructed in a hurry from an original economic crime Bill that was designed for a different purpose under different circumstances. Worse than that, in some ways, it is being operated by three or four Departments, some of which are operating in areas that they are not used to, which is often not a pretty sight, and I speak as an ex-Minister in that respect.

The Government, I think, will do two sensible things. First, they will accept most, or many, of the amendments that have been tabled, which is sensible because most are thoughtful and all are well intentioned. Secondly, the Home Secretary said that there will be a second economic crime Bill and of course we are making plans and projections for that. One of its functions will be to correct the mistakes that we make today, of which there will be many, because we are dealing with a difficult and sophisticated adversary and we are making decisions quickly.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I want my right hon. Friend to extend his speech slightly. Does he agree—I hope my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is listening too—that whatever happens with the Bill, we are clear that those in the other place who deliberately amended previous legislation to water down the provisions that would have seen us go after many of these people, have some warning not to do that ever again?

[Mr Davis]

I am pretty sure that they will hear that warning when they look back at this debate.

I do not often quote Lenin, but it is probably appropriate. As he famously said,

“A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends,”

which is also true of the Bill. It will do great harm to the Russian economy and to our adversaries in Russia, but it will also do some harm to us—or at least, the retaliation will—and it will particularly hit the least well-off. We will see greater price inflation, less growth, less trade and therefore fewer jobs. We must recognise that when we undertake what we are doing here. We can make Russia a pariah state but Putin will retaliate, and we must be ready. We need to be ready for fuel crises, cyber-attacks and ludicrous threats from the Kremlin.

Beyond the Bill, there are many further things that we can do in the west and we should be ready to do them. To pick one example, the allies should be ready to reduce every Russian embassy to a bare minimum—to skeleton status—by the expulsion of diplomats at the first sign of retaliatory action from Russia. It must be clear to Russia that it will pay if it retaliates again.

We have said, and we must keep saying, that the Bill is not aimed at punishing the Russian people—that is incredibly important. It should target the Russian Government, Putin and his henchmen, which is why the actions in the Bill against oligarchs are as important as the actions against Russian banks and commercial institutions. There was some briefing from Whitehall over the weekend that implied that they are not, but that is wrong.

We have all heard the rumours that Putin has something like $200 billion of personal wealth. He does not hold any of it himself; it is held by the 140-plus oligarchs around the world. Targeting them, therefore, is at least as important as targeting the Russian state banks. To do that properly, we must act fast, which is the thrust of my new clause 29, which I will speak to later in Committee.

We should not kid ourselves. This is not an economic crime Bill, but an economic warfare Bill, and it is a war that liberal democracies cannot afford to lose.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call SNP spokesperson Alison Thewliss.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I understand the right hon. Member’s scepticism, and he is of course right to acknowledge, as we have heard many times in this debate, that any measures are only as good as the enforcement mechanisms that exist and the resources behind them. What is significant about a register of property is that, if we do it properly, we can essentially prevent the sale of a property, because we can refuse to register the new ownership unless the measures have been followed. However, his argument about the wider reform required, certainly in relation to Companies House, is absolutely well made, and that is why the second piece of this legislation—the second Bill—is so essential.

[Mr David Davis]

The issue of the register is obviously important, but I do not think it answers all the questions that the Government assert it does, because we may want to refuse the re-registration of a sale, but on what basis will we do it? If the individual concerned—the oligarch or whatever—is already being sanctioned, we can of course do that, but if they are not being sanctioned and it is taking six months or a year to get to that point, we can do nothing about it.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The right hon. Member pre-empts my comments about the timescale for implementation and the worries relating to that, and there have been some very interesting and valid speeches from all sides pointing out such dangers.

However, I want to address the fact—we have not actually heard about it in the debate today, such is the seriousness of the issues—that there is, and we should acknowledge this, an argument against the transparency that all of us are seeking. It is that there are some celebrities or people of high net worth who will cite concerns about privacy in relation to this measure. They would say that they are worried there will be potential risks to them from this register coming into effect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am always happy to be of service to the hon. Gentleman, and we will be looking to do that. He will of course know that a comprehensive spending review is imminent.

[Mr David Davis]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I feel I must proceed so we can go into Committee, given how important this is.

To conclude, the measures in this Bill are necessary. They are overdue, but I am pleased that they will make progress today. There is much more to do, but I hope that this legislation will mark a turning point in the UK no longer being known as a destination of choice for hiding ill-gotten gains. The measures will have an effect, and it is possible some people will argue that they will limit foreign investment in the UK. I would say that any money stopped by this Bill is money we should never have been open to in the first place. As the journalist Edward Lucas wrote a decade ago in his book “The New Cold War”:

“If you believe…money matters more than freedom, you are doomed when people who don’t believe in freedom attack using money.”

Too many parts of this country have been compromised by their proximity to the extreme wealth and influence the oligarchs can wield. The perception that the UK has been willing to turn a blind eye to this has been of considerable detriment to our reputation and legitimacy. If this Bill marks the moment when that starts to change, it will be very welcome indeed.

Ukraine

David Davis Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I want to get everyone in, so let us help each other because this is a very important statement. Please hold your fire until it is your question, and then make sure that you put the question. Let us work to help each other.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s response to the calls for generosity from many of us, which is what I expected. This is a much more generous system, but, quite properly, she has taken time to make it work practically. However, I want to raise a practical issue. As she said, the numbers are not clear. Some have forecast a total of 4 million will come out of Ukraine, and it may be 5 million or 6 million, so our share of that burden would probably be about half a million people. A significant number of them—perhaps a majority—will be women and children, not whole-family units, so the burdens on housing, education and social support will be bigger than anything we have seen before. Has she had discussions yet, or will she have discussions, with our European colleagues to ensure that that burden is shared across the whole continent? That is the only way in which we can look after these people properly.