Death of Ann Widdecombe

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, just referred to the assassination of Airey Neave here in the precincts of Parliament in 1979. It was the day after I was elected in a parliamentary by-election, so some of the horrors we have witnessed in the years that have passed have left an indelible mark on me, not least because Sir David Amess was a very close friend, as indeed was Ann Widdecombe, so much so that Ann was a godparent to one of my children and a close family friend.

On one occasion, after a particularly tough battle on a Home Office Bill in another place, where she at the time was a Home Office Minister, Ann told me that I was “her favourite bleeding-heart liberal”. But as the House may imagine, we often had our differences, and as recently as last month in a curry house which was a favourite watering-hole of Ann’s—where I have seen the noble Lord from time to time and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Clarke—we argued again about so many things, respectfully recognising our differences.

Ann was intelligent, principled and kind. Yes, her beliefs were founded on those twin pillars of faith and patriotism in a very toxic environment, fuelled often, as the noble Lord, Lord True, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, have said, by hatred. We have to do far more to respect difference and diversity and uphold minorities in our community. We must work far harder to create a climate in which difference of opinion can be expressed with tolerance and respect. Now, we must do all we can to honour Ann’s memory. I hope there will be a book of condolence which we can all sign. In addition, we have to honour her memory by creating an environment where people can express their differences in tolerance and respect.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord and, may I say, he is one of my favourite bleeding-heart liberals as well. But, that said, his point is vital. Essentially, this is about expressing our political differences in a way that understands our basic humanity. Whatever the circumstances, and we cannot speculate as to how and why Ann was murdered, she held her arguments in a way that understood that humanity underneath.

I hope that we can look at how we can develop that still further. I know that other government departments will continue to look at how we can support the development of mutual understanding and parliamentary democracy in a way that respects differences and respects the individuals concerned. To reflect further on what the noble Lord, Lord True said, we want to look with the House authorities at Operation Bridger as it works currently for MPs. It is also worth us examining the lessons to be learned for individuals in this House and that is something the Home Office is quite happy to do in due course.

National Security (State Threats) Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 30th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Ludford and Lady Foster, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who has other relevant amendments in this group. Amendment 1 is a probing amendment that enables the Minister to clarify the exact breadth of the intention in the Bill—a Bill that I welcome, and I regret I was not able to be here at Second Reading to say so. The Bill is designed to address the threat posed by foreign state-linked organisations that operate here in the UK.

My amendment relates in particular to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, whose office manager, Bill Yuen, was recently convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison under the National Security Act 2023 for helping to run a CCP surveillance operation from its premises. The existence of this office dates back to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Act 1996, passed on the premise that Hong Kong was meaningfully autonomous from Beijing. “One country, two systems” was meant to mean that separate legal, economic and administrative systems would be permitted in Hong Kong, albeit as part of China. Any such pre-1997 autonomy or even post-1997 freedoms are clearly no longer the case, yet somehow the office survives, supposedly independent of the Chinese embassy but with at least one of its staff acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

This has involved surveillance of some of our own citizens and of Hong Kong dissidents resident in the UK. Indeed, Regina Ip, former convenor of Hong Kong’s Executive Council, even claimed that it was legal for the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office to gather intelligence on activists. Both sorts of surveillance are surely intolerable.

Perhaps it is possible to describe activity against UK citizens as activity involving a threat by a foreign state and therefore a threat to the safety or interests of the UK as defined in the Bill, but what about similar actions affecting Hong Kong citizens? Would they be covered if some foreign policy threat activity included espionage, given that surveillance of UK residents would be reported back to China? I assume it would count as espionage, especially as the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office funded Bill Yuen’s legal costs and its salaried staff attended most of the trial at the Old Bailey to show support for him, even while the office enjoyed the privilege confirmed by Parliament in the hopeful days of 1996.

The Bill is to deal with the threat posed by foreign state-linked organisations operating in the UK. The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office is a foreign state-linked organisation and is operating here in London. We should protect our citizens from its activities but also protect UK residents who are classified as dissident activists by the Chinese state, some of whom have bounties on their heads. I hope, in response, my noble friend the Minister can provide some assurance that this body and its nefarious activities would be in scope of the Bill’s intent. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. This builds on the Private Notice Question which she placed before your Lordships’ House and indeed on our Second Reading debate last week where the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, which, as the noble Baroness has rightly said, is a relic of the past, became the centre of our interest because of some of those who worked there being convicted of being involved in espionage on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party regime in Beijing. That is why it is entirely relevant to this Bill and why it is good that the noble Baroness has placed Amendment 1, this probing amendment, before your Lordships’ Committee.

I have a few points I would like to make on that amendment before turning to my own Amendments 3 and 4, which deal with slightly different questions but are also linked to the malign activities of the Chinese Communist Party regime in the UK. Amendment 3 deals with transnational repression, and Amendment 4 deals with the activities of the United Front, which is not a state but works in line with the wishes and ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. That is why it is problematic in terms of the definitions in the Bill and why I have sought further clarification through my amendments.

I have a few pointers on the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office case, which might be helpful to your Lordships. In May 2024, law enforcement initially arrested 11 individuals across the UK. Only three of those were heavily linked to state funding via the London Hong Kong office referred to by the noble Baroness. Only three were prosecuted under the National Security Act 2023. Two have since been convicted and—as the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, was quite right to remind us during Second Reading last week—were subjected to very lengthy prison sentences. The remaining eight individuals suspected of acting as part of the vigilante team in contact with entities in Hong Kong and targeting an individual on British soil were released without charge.

This case highlights a common practice whereby Chinese and Hong Kong authorities blend private civil disputes, corporate debt collection and local organised crime groups—a point that I heard more about recently at a meeting organised by Tom Tugendhat MP, our former Security Minister, which pointed to the activities of organised crime linked to some of these groups promoting a political ideology. All of those are involved in the execution of transnational repression and jurisdiction overseas while evading national security prosecution.

I have four questions I would like to put the Minister on Amendment 1 before turning to those other two amendments. I am sorry they have been grouped together, but I think it is for the convenience of the House. I hope the House will therefore forgive me if I spend a bit of time speaking to the other two amendments, but here are my questions to build on what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has said already.

First, of the 11 individuals initially arrested by counterterrorism police in connection with the hostile tracking of a Hong Kong resident in Yorkshire, eight were subsequently released without trial. Can the Minister inform the House how many of those eight have since left the United Kingdom and whether any have returned to the jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China or the Hong Kong special administrative region, thereby placing themselves beyond the reach of British justice?

Secondly, is the Minister confident that counterterrorism and the Crown Prosecution Service—the CPS—possess the immediate capacity to process massive backlogs of foreign language evidence quickly enough to meet custody time limits? That has been an issue relevant to these prosecutions. Specifically, was a lack of rapid security-vetted translation capacity a contributing factor in the decision to release the other eight suspects without pressing charges?

Thirdly, is the Minister satisfied that our law enforcement agencies, including the NCA—the National Crime Agency—and regional special branches have the required resources to effectively monitor and map the nexus between Chinese state authorities, overseas proxy organisations and private contractors operating inside the United Kingdom?

Fourthly, what steps are the Government taking to bolster the China capabilities of UK law enforcement? Specifically, are we investing in the recruitment and training of security-vetted interpreters, fluent not just in Mandarin and Cantonese but in crucial dialects such as Hokkien and Fuzhou dialects, to effectively monitor and respond to issues related to transnational state repression and organised crime? This was referred to during the meeting that Tom Tugendhat MP organised in the House Commons recently and which, as I say, I was able to attend.

Let me turn to Amendment 3. I do not want to go on too much about this amendment, because I was able to have a very helpful and constructive meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, yesterday. I say at the outset that I will not press your Lordships to divide on this amendment, in the light of the very helpful assurances which he gave me yesterday. But I will just recap. On 26 February, I initiated a debate on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the privilege to chair, about our report on transnational repression. It was a thorough debate and the Minister replied in his courteous manner. However, his reply did not meet all of the questions which we raised in that debate, or indeed in the report. I returned to it on 21 May, during the King’s Speech debate, and subsequently in a balloted debate that I won, which was secured for 4 June and which dealt with atrocity crimes. This is also an amendment which Alicia Kearns, Member of Parliament, raised in the House of Commons during its six-hour consideration of the Bill.

Without dwelling too much on procedural issues, I think all of us who have been around this place and have had the privilege to serve in both Houses know that to give the House of Commons only six hours of debate on a major Bill of this importance, and then to come to your Lordships and do all the remaining stages in one day flat, as we are doing today—Committee, Report and Third Reading—is clearly absurd, given that this is based on Jonathan Hall’s excellent report of 11 months ago, as is the idea that we have not had time during that period to debate some of these questions. Furthermore, it cannot be right that the Home Affairs Select Committee was unable to take evidence on the Bill, even though it requested it, or that my own committee, which wanted to scrutinise the Bill, was left to just write a letter to the Minister. The Minister has responded to that in his usual courteous way, and I am grateful, but how much better it would have been to have pre-legislative scrutiny and proper consideration of the Bill in the normal way. There are some questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has asked and I am asking, and I know that colleagues from the Conservative Opposition Benches, the Liberal Democrat Benches and elsewhere on the Cross Benches have legitimate questions to ask about the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I was pleased to co-sign the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. All the amendments in this group—Amendments 1, 3 and 4 in particular—are expressing frustration with the limited scope of the Bill. Perhaps the Minister might be able to give an idea as to whether the national security Bill that was heralded in the King’s Speech will be able to pick up some of these themes, if we are not successful in persuading the Government today to make amendments to this state threats Bill.

There is a feeling of concern that some threats that have been experienced, or that are pretty obvious, are not being sufficiently dealt with by the Government. This is particularly in relation to China, where we have been urged to wake up and not be naive about the underwater crocodile. Whether the Government are being naive or shaped by other considerations towards China, there is a feeling that there appears to be so much going on—demonstrated in the recent trial concerning the staff of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, and otherwise instanced by the transnational repression towards residents of this country from Hong Kong who are being persecuted by the Chinese state, while they are supposedly under the protection of this country and this Government, which is intolerable—that we need to wake up and smell the coffee in relation to China.

I would like to hear some reassurances from the Minister that if he cannot take up some of these points in this Bill, the Government will take them up in the forthcoming national security Bill, which is intended to:

“Consolidate the Government’s approach to countering state threats to align more closely with the approach to countering terrorism”.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I strongly agree with the points that the noble Baroness has just been making. She has referenced the plight of people living in the United Kingdom who now have bounties on their heads. Will she take the opportunity to highlight specifically the case of Chloe Cheung, who was 14 when she took part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong and now has a 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty on her head and is fearful of being dragged in—as some were, and attempts were made to drag others, to the Chinese consulate in Manchester in order to intimidate them? These are not illusions. There are many frightened Hong Kongers in the UK worried about the direct attacks that are being made upon them. I thank the noble Baroness for raising the general point.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Not at all. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for all the work that he has done on this topic, both individually and as chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I had the pleasure of meeting Chloe Cheung and some of her colleagues, and became even more aware of the threats they are under. It is intolerable that people to whom we have rightly given protection and residence are facing these kinds of huge, life-threatening threats from a foreign state. So far, we are not feeling reassured that this Bill is going to cover these threats.

There is a feeling among many of us that we want to hear robust pledges from the Government, even if, for whatever reason, they now want to get the Bill through incredibly quickly, having—to the bemusement of some of us—taken over a year to get to the point. They now want to rush it all through, but so be it. There is unfinished business in the Bill. If it is not dealt with today, it needs to be dealt with as soon as possible in the forthcoming national security Bill: the transnational repression, the proxy networks, the issues with the capacity of our police forces to cope with these threats, the foreign language capacity, the resources, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, called it, the “China capability”. We risk being looked at as a laughing stock if our state and its law enforcement institutions are not able to cope with the threat being directed towards our state and the people living here. So I hope that, even if the Minister does not accept some of these amendments, he will tell us that no stone will be left unturned in the coverage of the national security Bill that we are expecting.

My noble friend Lady Doocey gave a very powerful justification of her own amendment on superintelligent AI. She certainly frightened me, in as far as I understood much of it. I am a bit behind the curve on AI, it has to be said, so she will have to give me a tutorial. But, to be serious, she rightly stressed all the threats and the Bill covers only a bit of this territory. We need to hear from the Government much stronger and more comprehensive responses to all the threats that are being sponsored by foreign countries towards us and the people who live here.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions and comments and for the broad support for the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames.

I shall start on the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron has raised. This Bill is a result of a Labour manifesto commitment. It is a result of a commission we gave to Jonathan Hall KC to examine these areas in October 2024. He produced a report for the Government which they have examined in detail, and they have given commitments in this House to bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity. This is the earliest opportunity. In giving time for discussions with the Official Opposition, the Liberal Democrats, the Cross Benches and noble Lords such as the noble Lords, Lord Alton, Lord Anderson and others, I have tried to make sure that we get this Bill right. It has had a fast track, agreed with the Opposition. It was put through the House of Commons in one day. We agreed to have Second Reading in one day and now all remaining stages of the Bill today. I have tried to support the Opposition to achieve their objectives. I have to say to the noble Lord that I have been very clear, open and honest in private conversations about what I can do and what I cannot do. What I have said to him I can do I have tried to do. As we shall see in later amendments, the Government have tried to assist other noble Lords.

I have also been very clear about what I cannot do. What I cannot do are things that dilute or damage the basic principle of this Bill, which is to give my right honourable friend the Home Secretary the power to undertake some designatory actions, which have been called for by His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and others in this House and in other places, against a number of potential state threats. That is why we fast-tracked the Bill: so that this House and others can give powers for the Secretary of State to consider it.

The noble Lord and I get on well—we have friendly discussion; we have discussions inside and outside this House—but I reject wholly his allegations today that we have not engaged on this Bill. It is worth putting that on the record; we have to put these things on the record occasionally.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, raised specific questions on a number of matters. If he will allow, they need reflection and are not material to the amendments before us today, although they are tangential and important. I cannot give him definitive answers today on the four questions that he raised, but I will write to him on them.

A number of noble Lords also raised the national security Bill that is coming up shortly. I refer all those noble Lords to the King’s Speech 2026. The King’s Speech document contains four pages of detail on the national security Bill and about what we intend to do; the gracious Speech has announced that. Again, I cannot give noble Lords a date for its introduction, nor can I go above what has been said in the gracious Speech, but noble Lords need to know clearly that there will be a security Bill and that the gracious Speech’s objectives will be met. I refer noble Lords to that.

I thank my noble friend Lady Hayter for her Amendment 1. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for speaking to that amendment. I hope I can reassure my noble friend that not only was the National Security Act 2023 landmark legislation but it modernised the Government’s approach to dealing with the state threat activities that she mentioned by repealing the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the offences therein and modernising those offences as a whole.

The espionage offence was at Section 1 of the 1911 Act and the espionage activity that it dealt with is now comprehensively dealt with in various offences found in Part 1 of the National Security Act 2023. These include the espionage offences referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. A number of other offences are in that Act. They protect key locations and key aspects of the state against foreign activity. They include the offence of assisting a foreign intelligence service. That offence at Section 3 of the Act has already proved invaluable in countering espionage and has led to recent convictions for serious offences in relation to those who acted for the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, to which noble Lords have recently referred.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, described China in colourful terms which were echoed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Ludford and Lady D’Souza, the noble Lords, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Shinkwin, and my noble friend Lord Beamish, from his experience on the Intelligence and Security Committee. They all raised the issue of China. I am clear on this. China poses a series of threats to the UK in national security terms, from cyber attacks, foreign interference, espionage, democratic institution interference and transnational repression, which are to be condemned. Protecting our security is non-negotiable, but we have to engage with China where there are clear UK global interests. Indeed, this engagement allows us to raise issues of concern—in which we occasionally have common interests.

I hope I can reassure my noble friend that the espionage activity that she has mentioned in Amendment 1 is covered completely. With those assurances, I hope that she can withdraw her amendment in due course.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Just before the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, leaves that point—and he will know that I have raised this before—it was one of the points raised in the Joint Committee on Human Rights report, which identified China as the principal threat when it comes to transnational repression, more than any other state. We puzzled over why, therefore, Iran and Russia are in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, but China is not. I know that the Minister will say, “We continue to look at this”, but will he give us some idea of how long it will take before we get a real answer to that question?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am afraid the noble Lord will have to accept the answer I give him every time he raises this issue, which is that we keep these matters under review. If the Home Secretary believes that the power should be exercised, she will exercise it alongside the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers. I cannot give him the answer to that question now, for the reasons he knows. I hope he understands that.

The noble Lord’s Amendment 3 proposes new types of conduct to be treated as foreign power activity. As I understand it, this would supplement but not supplant the existing meaning of Section 33 of the National Security Act 2023 when making designations. I am entirely sympathetic to the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of making the UK a harder target for transnational repression. He will know it is a matter the Government take seriously and that we continue to make concrete progress, including on the helpful recommendations from the noble Lord’s own committee, the JCHR, and the detailed inquiry. This includes the continued implementation of the National Security Act 2023, the recent successful prosecutions I referred to a moment ago, the introduction of police training, practical guidance, a national protective security agency and a range of other matters.

Where a person carries out such activity with the intention of materially assisting a foreign intelligence service, it would already fall within the scope of foreign power threat activity. I think that is right and that the link back to the definition that Parliament agreed in passing the National Security Act 2023 is entirely appropriate.

Given the evolving nature of the threat and absence of an internationally agreed definition of transnational repression, we believe the broad approach recommended by the Defending Democracy Taskforce, coupled with the powers in the National Security Act and wider criminal law, is better suited to protecting potential victims. As I have said to the noble Lord outside the Chamber, I am happy to write to him by what I will term close of play in this House, 23 July, with further details of how we will respond on those matters accordingly.

I thank the noble Lord for Amendment 4, which touches on a significant issue. Outside of the Chamber, contrary to the assertions of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, I have tried to meet the objectives and to talk to the noble Lord in a constructive way. The foreign power condition is a core component of existing offences in Part 1 of the National Security Act 2023. I will explain how we will deal with the foreign power condition and its interpretation, which I hope will reassure the noble Lord.

In my view, the foreign power condition can be met. Let me be clear that it is not necessary for a person to be tasked or directed by a foreign power in order for their actions to constitute foreign power threat activity. Under the National Security Act 2023, where a person acts for the purposes of advancing or giving effect to the policy of a foreign power, the foreign power condition can already be satisfied. In intending to promote or fulfil the published policy of another state through their conduct, a person is likely to at least intend to benefit a foreign power. It is important to add that the meaning of foreign power under Section 32 of the National Security Act 2023 is not limited to foreign Governments and their constituent parts. It is broad enough to include a range of agencies, including the type of agency that the noble Lord has mentioned and the governing political party of a foreign Government.

I am happy to put beyond doubt that activities inspired by the policy of a foreign power, including the governing political party of a state, would fall within the current definition of foreign power threat activity in the National Security Act 2023. I draw the noble Lord’s attention to the fact that the National Security Act 2023 was drafted with the intention of capturing the full range of state threat activity. I have looked at the matter extremely carefully and consulted with legal advisers in the Home Office, as well as operational partners. If it helps put the matter beyond doubt for the noble Lord, including for the purpose of interpretation by the courts, I can assure the Committee that interference activity motivated by the policy of the governing party of a state is prosecutable under the National Security Act 2023.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I thank the Minister for giving that assurance. As he said, it puts it beyond doubt. It would enable that to be referred to in a court of law, should such a prosecution occur. I regard that as very significant progress, and I am grateful to the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My view is that there are powers there. However, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, I am saying that we will ask the independent reviewer to examine whether we need to make any changes. That is the settlement I am trying to reach today. If there are other points I want to add to that, I will contact the noble Lord by letter or email afterwards. That is the settlement I am trying to put on the record for all parties today, to get this aspect of the Bill agreed and the amendments not pressed.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

The urgency of dealing with the question of AI was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and, of course, by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, to whose excellent amendment I am a signatory. The Joint Committee on Human Rights is about to complete a further investigation into AI and human rights. I hope that, along with all the other referrals the Minister is going to make to the independent commissioner, he might ensure that the findings of that Joint Committee, which we anticipate will be published before the Summer Recess, will also be drawn to his attention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that clarification. It makes things much easier and will shorten the debate. The point that I was going to make, in respect of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, is that designated bodies are different from terrorist organisations, because they may be exercising public functions in certain countries. For that reason, there are a number of British nationals who will have to engage with the designated bodies for perfectly legitimate reasons. Most of the examples that we have dealt with concern precisely that scenario: that is, cases of British nationals providing humanitarian assistance, journalists or those involved in conflict resolution.

But we should not lose sight of the possibility that even businesses could find themselves caught by these offences but for the reasonable excuse defence, which has now been accepted. There may, for example, be British businesses operating in Iran for perfectly legitimate reasons that will have to sell an investment and will have to obtain information from a designated body as part of that process. There may be British-Iranian dual nationals who have to, in the same way, accept or obtain information because they have to renew a passport or such other things. The reasonable defence excuse, which has now been cast in sufficiently wide terms, captures those situations. I am a little bit unclear about Section 17B, but the Section 17B offence concerns me a bit less because it already contains an important provision, UK-related activities, so does not come with as much of a risk of inappropriate application as Section 17C. With that, I welcome the Government’s concession on both of these aspects.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 22 in the group in my name and the name of my noble friend Lady D’Souza. It touches on the issues that my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich raised in his remarks. I am very pleased with the progress that we have made around humanitarian organisations.

During the Second Reading debate last week, I specifically referred to the position of the International Committee of the Red Cross and said that it would passing strange if the united desire of this House to designate organisations such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could be used to impede the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross. I specifically referred to an amendment to the Bill which it asked should be moved. I tabled it in due course and it is on the Order Paper.

During our very helpful meeting yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, responded to another point that I raised with him and that I had also raised in correspondence with my noble friend Lord Anderson over the weekend concerning the position of journalists. I was struck by representations made by the admirable Alex Crawford from Sky News, who had given evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights during our inquiry into the activities of ISIS. The noble Lord will recall that I have raised with him the failure to prosecute any of the 400 ISIS members who committed genocide against Yazidis in northern Iraq and northern Syria and who have returned to this country. Not one of them has been prosecuted for crimes against humanity or the crime of genocide.

Alex Crawford went into the camps inside Syria and Iraq and very bravely interviewed some of the insurgents who were there, and she came to give evidence to our committee. She asked, “Would that mean, under the terms of this legislation, that I could be prosecuted for working to establish information and knowledge by going in directly to deal with a proscribed organisation?” I would like further clarity, just for the record and to put it beyond doubt, for people such as Alex Crawford, Lyse Doucet or many others. Last week, I referred to Kate Adie, who stood in Tiananmen Square at the time of the massacres that occurred there. Would someone like that also be placing themselves at risk under the legislation? Let us put that beyond doubt. I know that it is not the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Hanson. During our discussions yesterday, I felt that we made very significant progress in dealing with that.

I will just briefly refer to the position of the IRGC. This is not just about NGOs. The IRGC, as we all know, has to do some very delicate, sensitive and confidential work, sometimes engaging directly in places where there are organisations that we have proscribed or that we will, in the future, designate. Much of this can be funded by the United Kingdom, pursuant to the Geneva conventions, and this can include the provision of medical care of the wounded and sick. So, the idea that this could proscribe such groups solely to secure humanitarian access to civilian populations and detain persons—

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord means the International Committee of the Red Cross.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I do indeed—there are too many acronyms flying around at the moment, and it is rather late in the day. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness.

National Security (State Threats) Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 30th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the thanks given by the Minister to the officials of the House for their actions this evening in moving us so quickly to this point. I thank the Minister for, as ever, a courteous, sometimes robust, debate across the Dispatch Box. We have had two intense days debating this Bill. As I said last week, these Benches have always supported the principles of the Bill and supported its passage through Parliament. There are some unfinished areas to which the Minister alluded. We hope to return to those in due course when a new Bill—a wider national security Bill—comes before Parliament. With those brief comments, I too hope that this Bill do now pass.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, from the Cross Benches, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich, myself and my other noble friends, we too would echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and of the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, in thanking the Minister for engaging with us. He has been willing to have long private discussions outside of the House to try to find a way forward, to do what he has rightly said is the aim and objective of everyone in this House: to do everything we can to enhance the security of this country against the many threats that we face.

Going forward to the new Bill, which I am sure will already be in preparation, I hope that we will have learned one or two things from this experience. I know that the Minister shares my passion for good governance and pre-legislative scrutiny, for the involvement of Select Committees and for the chance to adequately debate measures as and when they come to the House. I thank him for his courtesy. It is always a pleasure to work with a Minister who not only knows his subject but is passionate about it. We thank him for that and, indeed, his team of officials as well.

National Security (State Threats) Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, no one should be under any illusion about the dangers facing the United Kingdom, principally from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Whether it is assassins hunting down and murdering Alexander Litvinenko, or attempting to kill Sergei Skripal in Salisbury; the attack on the Prime Minister’s London home; the hate-driven scourge of antisemitism; cyber attacks—recall North Korea’s crippling cyber attack on the National Health Service in 2017—hacking and false narratives poisoning minds through social media; the presence of Chinese spies, even inside the Government and Parliament, with two more sentenced last week; or bounties on the heads of British residents and coercive sanctions on parliamentarians, it is clear that these are dangerous times.

I have the honour to chair the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Across several reports, we have highlighted threats to both national security and the human rights of our citizens—two sides of the same coin. We condemned the failure to bring to justice 400 British citizens who enlisted in ISIS, committed genocide against Yazidis and other minorities in northern Iraq, and then returned to the United Kingdom. Not one of them has been prosecuted for genocide or crimes against humanity. How many of them have the Government assessed as a future security threat?

As we have heard, MI5’s chief says that threats have risen by more than a third in a single year, with over 20 Iranian-inspired plots to kill, maim or kidnap on our sovereign territory. Perhaps more than anything else, the depredations of that barbaric Iranian dictatorship have been reflected in our debate today and driven the need for these new measures. Having been sanctioned by Iran in October 2022, along with the noble Lord, Lord Polak, and others, I might be forgiven for saying—as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, said earlier—that this Bill has been a long time coming.

Back in April 2001, I initiated the first of several debates, dozens of Parliamentary Questions and many cross-party meetings about Iran’s egregious violations of human rights, its nuclear threat, its proclaimed wish to eradicate the State of Israel, its export of terror, and the pernicious role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, both here and in Iran. In the 2025 JCHR report on transnational repression, which was debated in your Lordships’ House on 26 February, we highlighted appalling attacks on pro-democracy activists and journalists, some of whom had been forced to flee the country and one of whom had been left bleeding on the street after an attempted assassination. Even if we cannot go as far as Sweden, where TNR is defined and illegal, I would like transnational repression to appear on the face of the Bill, at least as an aggravating factor.

Since its foundation in 1979, the Iranian regime has been based on two pillars: domestic oppression and the export of terrorism and chaos abroad. Death sentences issued by the revolutionary courts have led to endless waves of executions—some 2,159 in the last 12 months. Let us also recall the death of 22 year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the morality police for wearing clothes that had been disapproved of by the theocratic regime.

In 2023, I spoke in favour of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that called for the proscription of the IRGC, and I was happy to support the Opposition when they moved similar amendments. I recognise that there is a difference between proscription and designation, and I welcome the steps taken in this Bill, but may I ask the Minister about the letter that was sent to him on 26 June by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey? It was sent to the Home Secretary with a copy sent to the Minister. Today, I received a response from the Minister; I am grateful to him for that, but it arrived only about two hours ago. I would be grateful if he would agree to place copies in the Libraries of both Houses and circulate it to everyone who has participated in today’s debate. The response the Government have sent is important, because it deals effectively with some of the points raised by the JCHR probing the power to designate a body on the basis that it involved “foreign power threat activity”, despite there being no link in these circumstances between that body and any foreign power. We ask that consideration be given to an amendment to ensure that, under new Section 33A, only activity linked to a foreign power can be relied upon to satisfy the test for designation. We also asked about “Assisting a designated body”, about “Obtaining … material benefits from a designated body”, and for greater clarity on the “safety or interests of the United Kingdom”.

It was suggested in the House of Commons that there is inconsistency in the thresholds and a more lenient treatment of hostile states than of terrorists—it has been referred to during our debate today as well. Is that so and can it be remedied? I want also to ask about the point raised by my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich and others in the debate about humanitarian organisations operating where state-linked actors exercise territorial control. I draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, to the letter that was sent to the Home Secretary by the chair of the International Development Select Committee, the admirable Sarah Champion MP.

In a letter to me, the International Red Cross asked for an amendment so that

“The offences established in Section 17 shall not apply to exclusively humanitarian activities carried out by impartial humanitarian organisations in accordance with international law”.


I echo the remarks of others and hope that issue might be addressed before next Tuesday. It would be passing strange if Red Cross humanitarian work were to be compromised while more than 13 organisations masquerading as charities can stoke the fires of hatred and threaten community cohesion. Why are we not using this Bill to take powers to close them down?

And what about China, a point referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and others? Recall the collapsed spy case and last week’s convictions of CCP regime spies. The Bill should enable Ministers to close the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, a point I referred to yesterday in Questions. It is a spy hub, a cat’s cradle of spies and malign actors; we should have a power to close it down.

Ten months after the JCHR’s unanimous recommendation to put China on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, which we do for Russia and Iran, it has not happened. Will trade deals always trump security, human rights and even genocide? The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, referred to the point the head of GCHQ made about

“a genuine and increasing cyber risk”

—her words—and how GCHQ devotes

“more resource to China than any other … mission”,

while Parliament has been warned of infiltration of our universities and threats to our liberties via mass surveillance from Hikvision and other cameras. Chinese-made EVs incorporating Chinese cellular modules, along with SIM cards or software, raise significant espionage and national security concerns, with internet-connected vehicles described as a hostile state’s “smartphone on wheels”.

The Joint Committee is currently looking at AI and human rights. I hope the Government are also looking at the way that AI and software and internet powers can be used to undermine our public debates and indeed our security. I hope that before next Tuesday, we can have the opportunity—more than the six hours that was provided in the House of Commons—to debate these questions. I hope we will be able to come to some agreement around some of the concerns that remain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Life and diaries are fluid, but it will be before Committee, Report and Third Reading of the Bill next week. So it will not be after that. It will be before that. As we speak, representations and diaries are being co-ordinated. I will leave it at that.

The sixth vital point, which was raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Tyler of Enfield, and the noble Lords, Lord Barrow and Lord Carlile, is the issue of whether there will be a review. That is a valid and significant point but, as has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, the National Security Act 2023 already gives the Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation the right to oversight and mandates them to carry out an annual review of the operations of the provisions of the Bill. I hope that is sufficient to head off at the pass an amendment on this issue, not because an amendment would be right or wrong or unnecessary but because the Bill is already covered by the National Security Act on those particular points.

The noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, mentioned in passing the question whether the offence of assisting a designated body would not capture non-UK nationals. I say to him that a non-UK national planning an attack in the UK from overseas would be materially assisting activities taking place in the UK. It is the activities of the designated body, such as an attack in the UK, that determine whether assistance is captured. The Bill also introduces the designated body condition, which allows the existing National Security Act offences to apply to activity linked to designated bodies, not just to foreign states.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, continues, correctly, to chew at my ankles about the issue of transnational repression. I would argue that the Bill will make it easier to achieve prosecutions where there is a designated body, such as a proxy organisation, involved in transnational repression. We will continue, as I said yesterday in our Statement, to try to tackle transnational repression in a number of ways.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to chew at the noble Minister’s ankles again. I want to ask him specifically whether he will continue the discussions that the Security Minister’s office has been having about the United Front Work Department that acts on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, which would not be covered by the terms of the Bill. Although I agree that he would not want to put actors on the face of the Bill, the generic issues that it involves should be there. Perhaps he could also take the opportunity of confirming whether he will circulate the reply that he has sent to me on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to Members who have spoken in today’s debate.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Absolutely. I will make sure that the reply I gave to the noble Lord in recent times is sent out, because this is moving at a fast pace and we are trying to get the matter sorted. I will do that for the noble Lord, and I will refer the points that he has made to the Security Minister.

My noble friend Lady Dacres rightly mentioned the question of diaspora. The power is actor agnostic and applies equally to all individuals in the UK, so we are not targeting any particular diaspora. It targets conduct that is carried out for a purpose prejudicial to the UK’s safety.

The question of—I use this phrase guardedly—“useful idiots” was quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and echoed by my noble friend Lady Gill. The new offences concern various thresholds for criminals to be caught. For example, criminals can be caught by the offence of assisting a designated body where they ought to know that their conduct is materially existing a designated body. However, it is also important to put on the record for the noble Baroness that criminals do not need to know that a group has been designated for offences to be committed. I hope that deals with the issue of “useful idiots”—I call them terrorists, but “useful idiots” is also a reasonable phrase that we can attribute to them.

My noble friend Lady Gill and the noble Lord, Lord Docherty of Milngavie, mentioned the issue of how cryptocurrency used by designated bodies or individuals can be held more accountable. The Government have already committed to tackling all forms of economic crime, including the misuse of crypto assets. All UK crypto asset firms are now required to register with the Financial Conduct Authority to comply with money-laundering legislation. We have also strengthened law enforcement through the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, and we are now going to go further with the introduction of further measures, including the Financial Conduct Authority delivering a new crypto asset regulatory regime, UK crypto asset firms being required to conduct due diligence and the financial services Bill 2026 introducing targeted powers to allow more crypto asset recovery powers.

I am trying to cover all the points that noble Lords have mentioned in the time available, and I hope I have done so, but I will read Hansard and, if there are further points, I will respond to them. What I want to do, and this is the key point, is get the Bill through to Royal Assent so the Home Secretary can determine how she uses its powers to deal with the issues that have been raised on the Floor of the House today. That is an important measure. I want to ensure that, between now and next Tuesday, we deal with those points and get a consensus to pass the Bill, make it an Act, get it to His Majesty the King to give Royal Assent and then, as a matter of some urgency, determine how we tackle the many threats that are facing this country at the moment.

I thank noble Lords for their engagement and the expertise that they have brought to this debate today. Ultimately, I commend the Bill for Second Reading, and I hope that the House will support it tonight.

Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As my noble friend indicated, the two individuals concerned received significant prison sentences of eight years and 10 years for their offences. Immediately following the arrest, officials in the Home Office took steps to bolster protections across Home Office systems. This has included further strengthening access management and monitoring of systems, expanding the use of enhanced integrity checks and reviewing conflicts of interest policies. In addition, the Prime Minister set out to the House in April that Sir Adrian Fulford will undertake a review of national security vetting, which will report in due course.

My noble friend asked about Hong Kongers generally and transnational repression. The Government take the safety of individuals who may be at risk from transnational repression extremely seriously. We have recently updated GOV.UK guidance on transnational repression for individuals, and counterterrorism policing in particular has rolled out training across all UK police forces, including upskilling of 999 call handlers to improve front-line identification and response.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I welcome what the Minister just said about the updating of some of the guidelines but will he return to the report that the Joint Committee on Human Rights published exactly 10 months ago, which called for the highest enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme to apply to the Chinese Communist Party regime, along with Russia and Iran, but also raised concerns about people such as Chloe Cheung, a young woman from Hong Kong who has a 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty on her head? Surely, given what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said about the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, this is a relic from the past and it is high time that this spy hub was simply closed down.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord has raised the foreign influence registration scheme. That was introduced less than a year ago. As he knows, we have designated initial nations accordingly. It is still a relatively new tool. We have not made any final decisions as to whether we will place other countries on the enhanced tier, but we keep that under close review at all times. The noble Lord would not expect me to announce any further reviews to this House at this time, but we will announce any changes to Parliament in the usual way. It is not acceptable for individuals to have bounties placed on their heads, and the Government, as I said, take the safety of individuals who may be at risk extremely seriously, and there is always support when there are threats tailored to specific circumstances, such as those that the noble Lord mentions.

The noble Lord has looked at the Hong Kong trade office. The purpose of that office is to promote trade with the Hong Kong special administrative region. It is a legitimate activity, which may continue. However, as has been shown in this case, where people conduct state threat activity we will hold them to account. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary summoned the Chinese ambassador on 8 May and explained that the behaviour was unacceptable, and we will continue to take action when required.

Transnational Marriage Abandonment

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I would be grateful if my noble friend would write to me with the specifics of that case. I cannot comment on the reasons why any particular entry was refused at that time. Self-evidently, the Government want to see families reunited, and I am not aware of the circumstances of that case. That is not transnational abuse in the way in which the noble Baroness raised it, which is a deliberate act of malicious behaviour. This may be an issue that I will have to investigate, and I am happy to do so.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, just two nights ago in Parliament, there was a two and a half-hour session organised by one of the all-party parliamentary groups at which a number of women and girls gave evidence. Evidence that was given by Professor Javaid Rehman and Professor Mariz Tadros is germane to my noble friend’s Question, and I hope that the Minister might be willing to meet both those reputable academics to talk about some of these associated issues as part of the review that he has said is under way.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am always happy to meet when possible external bodies via Members of this House, and I will ensure that is arranged accordingly.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: Proscription

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I have had a detailed letter from the noble Lord raising a number of points that I will respond to. I am hoping to see him before the Bill comes to this House, for a private discussion on some of those matters. We have acted upon recommendations from Jonathan Hall KC, whom we asked to review this legislation. The Bill before Parliament is what he has assessed is a workable piece of legislation.

On including issues such as a membership offence, Jonathan Hall has judged that that is not workable because of international law considerations. We will have to debate that detail, but I hope that ultimately we can settle on a Bill that gives the Secretary of State—the Home Secretary in this case—the power to act against any state threat in a way that we are not able to do now. The House has pressed me about this on many occasions. We have not been able to do it because of the failings in the legislation to date. To deal with those challenges, this Bill will make that difference. I am grateful for the noble Lord's support.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly welcome the role that the Minister has played in ensuring that this legislation is brought forward. I remind him of the debate that we had in in your Lordships’ House on the Joint Committee on Human Rights report, Transnational Repression in the UK. We took evidence from Iranians who had been left bleeding on the street after being attacked by members of the IRGC, and BBC Persian journalists who were targeted in the way that the noble lord, Lord Cryer, described.

Can the Minister ensure that the recommendations in that report are acted upon? Will he also look at what more can be done to hold to account those who have been executing Iranians in Iran at an unprecedented rate—some 2,159 in the last 12 months, 52% based on the death sentence issued by the revolutionary courts? Of course, in our minds is the young woman, Mahsa Amini, who was arrested and died in police custody because she offended the dress code.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support as well. I know he has a long-standing interest in this matter and has put pressure on the Government accordingly, which I welcome. We are trying to put in place a framework for legislation where we can act on any potential state threat. The type of incident that he has mentioned are ones that we will reflect upon. The Bill itself, unless amended by both Houses, means that there must be a UK connection of some sort for any designation to take place. Those are matters that we will discuss. I do not want us to get ahead of ourselves. I want this Bill to be an Act so that the Secretary of State can legally act to take action against any actor who is providing a state threat against this United Kingdom and its citizens.

Concealed Surveillance Equipment in Government Offices and Vehicles

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the reported discoveries of concealed surveillance equipment in Government offices and vehicles, what assessment they have made of the implications of this for (1) national security, and (2) public policy.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

In line with the practice of successive Administrations, this Government do not comment on the detail of internal security matters, but I can confirm that an electronic device was found in a communal area of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government during a routine security check. The device was not in or near ministerial offices, and it is currently being investigated by the appropriate agencies. The Government have also looked into the Daily Mail report and previous coverage and have not discovered any evidence of a tracking device being placed in Prime Ministers’ cars. This is based on inquiries made at the time, and more recently.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, and to the Minister for that reply.

That disclosure was made yesterday to a Select Committee in another place—that a Chinese cellular module was discovered in the then Prime Minister’s car—and on the previous day, there was a report of secret cameras being discovered in government offices. Surely that raises serious questions about the security of government departments, and the systematic use of both surveillance and indeed transnational repression by hostile states, including those states described by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, as being part of a “deadly quartet” of our country’s enemies.

Is it true that the location of the cameras was where consideration of the proposed embassy of the People’s Republic of China was taking place? Will the Minister make an assessment of whether there has been undue influence as a result? When will the Government give effect to the unanimous call from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the honour to chair, that the People’s Republic of China should be listed with Russia and Iran in the upper tier of the foreign influence registration scheme?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

In short, no. I am trying to be helpful, as is my nature, but there are certain things I cannot be helpful with. One of them is anything that may give further information about or prejudice investigations into the important matter of the location of any device found. As I have said to the House, it was not in or near a ministerial office, but we are investigating and there will be an examination of what happened. I would hesitate to speculate as to who, what, where, why or when until such time as the investigation has occurred.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister is always helpful in the replies that he gives to the House, but I press him further on the second limb of the question I put to him about the discovery of cellular modules in a former Prime Minister’s car. This was not something just reported in a newspaper, as he said to the House. This was mentioned yesterday at the Business Select Committee in another place by Mr Charles Parton, who served as one of our senior diplomats and is one of this country’s leading experts on China—and also on cellular modules. At a meeting that I chaired last night in your Lordships’ House, Mr Charles Parton said it again. Will the Minister at least look at the record of the Select Committee, and undertake to have a conversation with Mr Parton?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will repeat my answer in the interests of clarity for the noble Lord. We have looked into the reports and previous coverage and have not discovered any evidence of a tracking device being placed in Prime Ministers’ cars. That is based on inquiries made at the time and again more recently. I cannot be clearer than that. An investigation has taken place and no evidence has been provided. I saw the individual make these allegations on television last night, but I can only repeat my understanding of the security services’ follow-up of those investigations. What I have said to the House today is my current understanding of the position.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and others; I commend them on bringing them forward. Social media companies have captured our children’s attention, and now AI chatbots are coming for their affection—and worse. In legislating against harms caused by technology, we are always going to be playing catch-up, but we need to learn quickly to play catch-up much faster. These amendments offer us the opportunity to do that, and we should seize it.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, brevity is the order of the day but, like some of my noble friends, I would like to add my support to the amendments that have been laid before your Lordships’ House by my noble friend Lady Kidron.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the privilege of chairing, is currently conducting an inquiry into AI and human rights. We have concluded our evidence taking, and I commend to your Lordships the evidence given by, in particular, Google, Meta and Microsoft. I also highlight some of the concerns that have been raised around child safety.

My noble friend Lady Kidron gave me, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and others the opportunity to meet the parents of Sewell Setzer. It was an extraordinary moment. He was a 14 year-old boy who took his own life because he had been befriended by a chatbot. I was struck by a report from Internet Matters that said that two-thirds of UK children aged between nine and 17 have used AI chatbots, with many engaging often. More than a third—35%—of them say that it is like talking to a friend; that figure rises to 50% among vulnerable children.

It is the obligation of your Lordships’ House to take this issue seriously. We should all be greatly indebted to my noble friend Lady Kidron for laying these amendments before us.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose government Amendment 429B in this group. I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union. Like my noble friends, I will try to be brief.

As several noble Lords have already pointed out, this amendment would grant the Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology sweeping Henry VIII powers at a very late stage in our consideration of the Bill, thus giving this House far too little time to scrutinise them. Subsection (1) of proposed new Section 216A would grant the Secretary of State the power to

“by regulations amend any provision of this Act”—

the Online Safety Act—

“for or in connection with the purposes of minimising or mitigating the risks of harm to individuals in the United Kingdom presented by”

among other things, “illegal AI-generated content”.

That will presumably include content that breaches Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, meaning that it is grossly offensive. This can include memes. In 2024, a man called Lee Dunn was sentenced to eight weeks in jail for reposting three “grossly offensive” memes on Facebook, having pleaded guilty to a Section 127 offence. How will Ofcom monitor whether AI chatbots are generating grossly offensive content?

Will the Secretary of State use the powers granted to her by this amendment to insist that spyware is installed on personal computers and mobile phones? Perhaps your Lordships consider that too remote a risk, but what about requiring technology companies to carry out client-side scanning of people interacting with AI chatbots on their devices—much like how Section 121(1) of the Online Safety Act grants Ofcom the power to require companies, including those that own private messaging apps such as WhatsApp, to scan content on people’s personal devices and report certain categories of illegal material to the National Crime Agency?

Do not forget that this amendment would allow the Secretary of State to amend “any provision” of the Online Safety Act in order to minimise or mitigate the risks of harm posed by illegal AI-generated content. I dwell on this to illustrate just how wide-ranging and open-ended are the powers that this amendment would grant to the Secretary of State—powers that could have far-reaching consequences for civil liberties and freedom of speech.

Another risk is the definitions part of the Amendment. Subsection (17) disapplies Section 59(14)(a) of the Online Safety Act when it comes to illegal AI-generated content. Section 59(14)(a) qualifies the scope of illegal content in Part 3 of the Act, and disapplying it gives the Secretary of State enormous scope to enlarge the definition of illegal content and impose proactive suppression duties on AI chatbots to make sure they comply with the new draconian censorship regime.

If the Government believe there are specific harms that users of AI chatbots are currently exposed to and should be protected from—and I certainly do not say that there are not—let them bring forward primary legislation so we can consider the remedies they propose and factor in the trade-offs, particularly when it comes to free speech.

Transnational Repression in the UK (JCHR Report)

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

That this House takes note of the Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights Transnational repression in the UK (7th Report, HL Paper 160).

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, before the debate gets under way, I want to highlight the four-minute advisory time for Back-Bench contributions. This is designed to ensure that the debate can finish within two hours, in line with the usual timings for Thursday debates, and that the House can rise at a reasonable time. I therefore urge noble Lords to keep their remarks within four minutes to meet these ends—of course, with the exception of the mover, the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is an honour to open today’s debate on the Joint Committee on Human Rights report Transnational Repression in the United Kingdom. As chair of the JCHR, I pay tribute to my committee colleagues from both Houses and thank the terrific JCHR team, headed by our clerks Rhiannon Hollis, Moriyo Aiyeola and Lauren Marchant. I also thank the Library for its briefing note, the Minister and the officials who have briefed him for the work that has been done by him and his colleagues in the department, but especially the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, who will make his maiden speech today. We greatly look forward to hearing that.

Our report highlights the absence of a universally accepted definition of transnational repression—TNR. We recommend that the Government adopt a formal definition, systematically collect data, and develop monitoring mechanisms. We agree with James Lynch, the co-director of Fair Square, who told our committee that we are missing a

“big opportunity to properly monitor and analyse the trends and then develop a coherent strategy”.

We query the way in which TNR is treated in diplomacy with hostile states, and contend that failure to incorporate it as part of the UK’s diplomatic engagement with perpetrator countries

“risks … emboldening authoritarian regimes to escalate TNR activities”.

The report calls for international co-operation with other democracies—we mention the example of Canada—in combating TNR, and we make some specific recommendations about the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, and the misuse of Interpol red notices. Closer to home, we call for a national hotline for victims, and more systematic, specialised training for police officers to identify the early warning signs of TNR.

In paragraph 96 of the report, we say:

“The UK’s response to TNR would benefit significantly from more structured and consistent coordination across government departments”.


Andrew Scurry, the director of the homeland security group at the Home Office, told us that:

“We are looking still with the police … at how best to gather data and more information, and indeed intelligence”.


It would be good for the House to hear how that is going.

During a discussion this morning with academics from Bristol and Oxford Universities, facilitated by the international affairs parliamentary hub, I was struck by their finding that TNR is profoundly on the rise in the UK. This chimed entirely with our own committee’s view that TNR is not a peripheral or minor issue. MI5 says that, in 2024, the number of its state-threat investigations jumped by some 48%, with more than 20 threat-to-life cases relating to Iran alone, since the start of 2022. The true scale, though, is likely to be far greater still, given the significant underreporting and the often covert nature of TNR criminality.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights commends the National Security Act 2023, which created new offences relating to foreign interference in the UK, and did not identify any significant gaps in criminal law related to TNR. We do, however, want the existing laws to be better used and more effectively enforced. It is essential that the legal framework remains agile and responsive to evolving threats. We recognise the rapidly evolving nature of digital technologies, and the increasing sophistication of methods used to conduct TNR. We call for the Government to keep relevant legislation under regular review, and have asked for an annual update to the JCHR on the effectiveness of current legislation in addressing evolving digital forms of TNR.

Our country has a long history of giving protection to courageous dissidents being hunted down by dictatorships. During my early days as a young Member of Parliament in the 1980s, I met extraordinary heroes who had escaped the Soviet bloc and continued to work for the liberties that would ultimately come with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Back then, and today too, dictatorial regimes had a long reach.

Let me draw on the evidence given to our inquiry to illustrate the nature of the threats that people resident in the United Kingdom now face. A number of noble Lords have experienced a small dose of transnational repression themselves: in my case, collecting sanctions from Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. But this is small beer in comparison with some of the appalling intimidation experienced by others. Perhaps the Minister could tell us whether China has lifted sanctions on parliamentarians’ families, and on others, including Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who chaired the Uyghur Tribunal, Dr Jo Smith Finley, Essex Court Chambers, and the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

Will the Minister also comment on the 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty placed by the CCP on the head of Chloe Cheung, a 19 year-old young woman, and others in the United Kingdom? Read Chloe’s courageous testimony to our inquiry, waiving her anonymity, in which she described the profound effect that this CCP targeting has had on her. She spoke recently against the proposed CCP mega-embassy in London, fearful that, if it is built and she is snatched, she will, to use her words, “never come out”.

Read the evidence of the brave Uyghur activist Rahima Mahmut, whose relatives in China have been subjected to intimidation and coercion, forced to publicly condemn her in order to safeguard themselves from reprisals. She movingly described to the committee what she called the “human cost” of speaking out. Read the evidence of the disgraceful treatment of Professor Michelle Shipworth by University College London, and the shameful mistreatment of Sheffield Hallam’s Professor Laura Murphy following her brilliant work on Uyghur slave labour in Xinjiang.

Their treatment is an affront to British sovereignty, to academic freedom and to free speech. It is transnational repression driven by overreliance on Chinese money. Let us note too that, earlier this month, MI5’s Ken McCallum identified threats to universities, students and academics at a meeting he convened with 70 vice-chancellors. How will the Government implement a direct reporting route on foreign interference, implement the complaints scheme in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act and strengthen overseas transparency regulatory powers?

Unsurprisingly, the JCHR received a large amount of evidence recommending the designation of China under the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme—FIRS. It was an issue raised by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC the lawyer of British citizen Jimmy Lai, incarcerated in Hong Kong for five years and in solitary confinement. She told our inquiry that, as his lawyer, she had been subjected to threats and harassment. She criticised the feeble response to bounties and sanctions against parliamentarians and described how peaceful protestors in Manchester had been assaulted by CCP diplomats. She said:

“We send such a terrible message if we have a situation where a diplomat can drag an activist by the hair into the Manchester consulate … and the use of language such as calling individuals rats who need to be hunted down worldwide, and yet … China is not in the enhanced tier”.


The JCHR concluded:

“Decisions on which countries to specify under the enhanced tier of FIRS must be guided by objective assessments of threat, not influenced by broader foreign policy considerations. We recommend that the Government specify China under the enhanced tier of FIRS”;


and that

“The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 do not capture the full range of TNR tactics”;


and that China’s omission from the enhanced tier

“risks undermining the credibility and coherence of FIRS”.

The JCHR found:

“China conducts the most comprehensive TNR campaign of any foreign state operating in the UK”.


I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to my previously voiced proposal—which appears at paragraph 90 on page 37 as a JCHR recommendation—that the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which the noble Lord himself served with great distinction, should have confidential oversight of FIRS and sanctions and which, like appointments of high-level British ambassadors, or the expulsion of diplomats connected to TNR, should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Such scrutiny should also extend to issues of proscriptions. Let us consider Iran and the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We heard shocking evidence of the lethality of Iranian transnational repression. We heard about an Iranian journalist left seriously wounded on the streets of London and about intimidation of BBC Persian journalists and their families. One witness, Hossein Abedini, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, almost lost his life in a vicious brutal attack by Iranian operatives. He told the JCHR that “cultural centres” in the UK are used as fronts for surveillance operations targeting members of the Iranian diaspora. Reporters without Borders told us:

“Iranian women journalists have been subjected to gendered and sexualised abuse, including explicit threats of rape or sexual violence towards them or their families (including children), the circulation of fake stories designed to ruin their reputations and photoshopped pornographic images”.


In this week marking the fourth anniversary of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, we should consider also how Putin’s regime has engaged in the most terrible war crimes and egregious forms of transnational repression. We can recall the Salisbury nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. But Russian TNR comes in other form too. The JCHR received evidence relating to the misuse of SLAPPs to intimidate and silence journalists, activists, and other critics.

Although SLAPPs are typically initiated by private individuals rather than states, we heard that they are often used as a TNR tactic. Susan Coughtrie, the director of the Foreign Policy Centre, told us that individuals “closely aligned” with the state are utilised to carry out TNR through legal harassment. She cited the case of Catherine Belton, the journalist and author of the book Putin’s People:

“She was pursued originally by five oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, but also Rosneft, which is the Russian state gas company, so there was a very direct link there … to the Russian state”.


The inquiry found that SLAPPs are increasingly used to silence and intimidate people who expose or criticise the actions of authoritarian regimes.

The committee would also like the Government to look at the cost and stress of lengthy legal action, provide a clear timeline for a review of the effectiveness of the SLAPPs provisions in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and ensure that future legislation deals with SLAPPs that are not related to economic crime.

Our inquiry also found that Interpol red notices had been issued without the knowledge of those targeted, leaving people uncertain about whether they can travel without risk of detention. We concluded that red notices are being systematically exploited to pursue political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists beyond national borders.

Beyond Russia, Iran and China, the committee received credible evidence that a number of states had engaged in acts of transnational repression on UK soil. The evidence included allegations concerning Pakistan, India, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

I draw particular attention to the evidence and testimony given to our inquiry concerning Eritrea by Martin Plaut, the accomplished former BBC journalist, author and academic. The UN special rapporteur on Eritrea told the inquiry that those who refuse to contribute a tax that is levied on the diaspora are

“considered government opponents and face harassment, intimidation and ultimately social isolation”.

I welcome an update on what the Government are doing about this.

In the last few days, I have received additional disturbing depositions, one of which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, will refer to in her remarks. I received evidence also about a Burmese artist who has been targeted, and I will send the depositions to the Minister, because they are outside the scope of the inquiry.

Let me end. With our national security interests and way of life threatened on a scale unparalleled since the 1930s and 1940s, democracies must act together in strong alliances to combat multipolar threats to our way of life. We are fools to take for granted our privileges and freedoms, including the right to think, to speak and to believe—even to live. All over the world, the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are under concerted attack. We have been far too complacent and dependent on the states which threaten us, and insufficiently focused on resilience. Transnational repression is a harbinger of far worse to come.

Our committee concluded that transnational repression risks undermining the UK’s ability to protect people who have sought safety within our borders, such as the witnesses to whom I have referred. But we also found that a failure to deal robustly with TNR and the malign activities of hostile states will also increasingly put the UK’s indigenous population at risk today. Debates such as this will bring the JCHR report to a wider audience and I hope that noble Lords who have participated—and I am grateful to them all—will circulate its findings far and wide. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I start by saying how grateful I am to noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, for the way in which he has engaged with the JCHR on this issue, and indeed to his colleague, Dan Jarvis, Member of Parliament, another Minister in the Government, who gave evidence to the committee. It has been constructive and we have made progress.

The noble Lord has felt some of the frustration around some of the issues, such as FIRS and sanctions—things on which he cannot give running commentaries, including the proscription of the IRGC. However, that begs the question I raised earlier on about how we as a Parliament deal with such difficult, sensitive and often controversial questions. They cannot be dealt with on the Floor of the House, but they can be in places such as the Intelligence and Security Committee. I hope that he will talk to his colleagues about how some dedicated moment in the course of the year might be set aside to look at those things, because he knows as well as I do that if the avalanche of issues that come before a committee rumbles on, you never get round to doing some of the other things you might like to do. Perhaps he can take that away specifically so that some of these questions could be looked at in more detail in more confidential surroundings, in camera and safeguarding national interests. That is something constructive that could come out of this.

The Minister said that this is a safe, open and democratic society. There is unanimity across your Lordships’ House that we want to keep it that way. I do not agree with him about the numbers. In fact, he said we need to look again at the data. We have underestimated the scale of transnational repression. If anything, this report and the debate have helped us to see the scale.

This is an excellent report. I congratulate everyone involved in its compilation. I only regret that my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, who is such a hard-working member of the committee, has now rotated off it. We were grateful to him for the contribution that he made to the report’s compilation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said that few people know what transnational repression is. She is quite correct. I hope that the report and today’s debate will help to put that right. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, complimented the witnesses who came before the committee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, emphasised the courage that many have shown, specifically those who wanted to waive their anonymity so that people would know what has happened to them.

Maiden speeches always give special definition to debates, and the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, certainly raised our debate. The noble Lord, Lord Cryer, said that we would all have to look to our laurels as a result of the noble Lord’s maiden speech; I agree. The noble Lord, Lord Isaac, brought together two things: his commitment to education and to human rights. Curiously, those two have conflated as we have heard about the threats to our universities. We heard that from the noble Lords, Lord Moore and Lord Young of Acton, and other noble Lords who contributed. This is something we have to return to. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, the Universities Minister, is looking at this. She could do no worse than go back to the report compiled several years ago by the then Universities Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone. When I drew that report personally to the attention of his brother, who at the time was the Prime Minister, he said he was not even aware of it. Things have moved on and we need to be much more aware of the systemic subversion of our universities, which has been referred to today.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who is a long-standing friend, always emphasises the importance, as he did in his intervention a few moments ago, of resilience and getting rid of the dependency we have—billions of pounds of national debt every year. But it goes beyond the funding to the very heart and nature of our society. We have heard about FIRS, SLAPPs, red notices, Magnitsky sanctions, common definitions, the collection of data, how to reset diplomatic engagement, proscription of the IRGC and the rest. These are all important themes and I am glad that our committee was able to bring some of them out. I am grateful to all noble Lords who developed the arguments and delved deeper as we have proceeded.

I shall end on a personal reflection, which is that I always enjoy listening to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. We have talked today about maiden speeches. He may not remember but in 1979, a brash new young MP who had just been elected in a by-election and became the shortest-ever lived MP, for two and a half days flat, had to make his maiden speech within two hours of arriving because the House was being suspended so that people could go back and fight a general election. It fell to the noble Lord, then Jeff Rooker, to respond to the new youngest Member of the House of Commons and say nice things about him. He has always given me encouragement as the years have proceeded, and it is always a pleasure to hear him speak in debates such as our own today. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, will also feel encouraged by all the commendations that have been made to him from around your Lordships’ House. With those words, I conclude my remarks.

Motion agreed.