National Security Bill

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Committee stage
Wednesday 21st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 37A on treason and aiding a foreign power is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who is extremely frustrated that he cannot be here today.

This is an excellent Bill. It is clear from the proceedings in this Chamber that it is welcomed, and I very much echo those sentiments. However, I have moved this amendment because I believe that there is a significant gap in the legislation. An important signal to the British public is needed in an era of hybrid warfare and mass migration. These points were very well made in the Policy Exchange publication Aiding the Enemy, authored by Professor Richard Ekins and current Home Office Minister Tom Tugendhat, with a foreword by my friend the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge.

We are living in an age of rising great power competition. As noted in the proceedings on this Bill, hostile states such as China and Russia are actively looking to suborn our nationals into actions that undermine our national security. As it stands, the law of treason applies only to international armed conflicts. That is where the gap is. The law of treason should pick out and condemn people who betray the UK where preparations for international armed conflict are being made or where attacks on the UK, such as cyberattacks, may fall short of the threshold required for international armed conflict. This would recognise accurately the wrong being done, which is typically worse than merely mishandling official information, and punish it accordingly. For example, in the Cold War there were British nationals who betrayed our country by passing secrets to the Soviets; they certainly deserved to be punished as traitors but were not because the law of treason was in a poor state. It remains in a poor state now, as a new cold war could be beginning, so it is time that we fixed it.

We need to speak to the hearts and minds of our citizens, to bind the British people and make it clear to those who seek to assist foreign powers to do us harm that they will be designated by law as traitors to their country. This is not about requiring patriotism; it is about the law clearly setting out that to assist a group or country to attack the country in which you are a citizen is a crime. It is for these reasons—that appeal to the heart—that similar arrangements have been recently introduced by other common-law jurisdictions such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

I was very struck by the story of Kimberley Miners, who travelled to Syria and returned. She said of her experience living with ISIS:

“People have no idea, but ISIS is actively searching Facebook for vulnerable people. People just like me. These people befriended me, I felt accepted.”


I feel enormous compassion for her but also enormous anger that she was so stupid as to make this decision. If our nationals had a clearer sense of where the boundaries lay, naive people would not make such mistakes.

Treason reform was dropped from the final text of the National Security Bill when it was placed before Parliament, which is a great shame. The consultation on legislation to counter state threats, with which many noble Lords will be familiar, claimed that significant historical analysis would need to be done to enable reform of treason but that that would significantly delay the Bill. I never like the idea that we should avoid good legislation because it is too time-consuming to draft; given the support for this straightforward, clearly drafted measure in many corners of the Committee, I do not think it need delay the Bill or overstress the resources of the MoJ.

One objection to a refresh of the treason laws was made by the excellent Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, who suggested that

“in order to prosecute an individual for aiding a hostile state or organisation, you have to label that state or organisation as such. Doing so could legitimise their cause and give them ‘special status and cachet’.”

I take a different view. Treason is not about labelling your enemies or legitimising their status; they put all their efforts into doing that themselves, without our help or otherwise. Jonathan Hall also suggested that juries would be worried about convicting on such a contentious crime with a controversial history. That is an important point to address, because it is exactly this squeamishness about considering treason a crime that means that we need to bring it back from the legal freezer and make it a commonly understood and demystified concept.

The incidence of treason is not going down—it is quite possibly becoming more frequent. We cannot live in a country in which a sense of social awkwardness prevents prosecution of a heinous crime. Therefore, it would be wise to leave it to the prosecuting authorities to decide which crimes can be most effectively prosecuted, as they are both qualified and rightly responsible to make these decisions. As a parliamentarian, I do not think that good law-making is best achieved by second-guessing juries. There are a number of horrible crimes for which, as noble Lords know, it is sometimes difficult to gain convictions, but we do it because they are important.

I am also conscious of the misuse of treason accusations by autocracies such as Russia. Accusations of treason can be abused and used to silence dissenters, but it is not logical that the misuse of a law by a tin-pot regime elsewhere means that we should not have it in this country, which values the rule of law. The best protection is good, workable legislation. That is why I ask the Minister to reconsider the decision to drop treason provisions from the Bill and to consider supporting this constructive amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I have great respect for any new clause proposed by the noble Lord, and with the name of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. It is therefore with some trepidation that I may strike a discordant note. I am almost intimidated by the compelling ad majorem argument which the noble Lord used, and some of the names he referred to in support of his proposal. I read the Policy Exchange document at the time, which seemed to me both ambitious and, to an extent, misguided. I will give four or five reasons why I am of that view.

First, what is described as treason in this proposed new clause is in every instance already prosecutable under existing offences. In my view, duplication of conduct under different headings is a disadvantage to the courts and creates potential difficulties with juries, which are sensitive to the labels that would be placed by conviction upon those prosecuted.

Secondly, the clause refers generally to an “attack”. Does that include cyberattacks, which are now being conducted on a very large scale by countries which have hostile intent towards the United Kingdom? Is it proportionate that a cyberattack should be punishable as treason as opposed to under the available existing legislation?

My third argument is about symbolism in criminal justice legislation. I know that some of us sat in this building in another place during the content of the Westland affair, as a result of which the jury failed to convict somebody who in law had been held by the judge to be guilty of the offence as charged. That is a result we would all wish to avoid. Others here were in very senior official positions during what proved to be a very uncomfortable episode. I look in particular at my noble friend Lord Butler, to whom I give way with pleasure.

Brain Tumour Research

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Thursday 19th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful for a briefing given by Professor Richard Gilbertson earlier today on the specific question raised by my noble friend, which is grants for brain tumours in children. The NIHR system is a gold standard that is envied by the world and does not necessarily need to be broken and restarted. However, the point made by my noble friend is a good one and we are looking at ways of ensuring that more and better recommendations for grants go into the system in the first place so that, basically, we can spend the money more quickly.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB) [V]]

My Lords, on 6 November this year, the Government spoke of developing quality research and funding through a successful partnership and sustainable alignment with the charity sector. When can we expect to see some results from that initiative, with work and funding to achieve those goals?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the work of the charity sector in medical research is absolutely fundamental to national progress in this area. However, it too has been hit incredibly hard by Covid. We are having a number of dialogues with medical research sector representatives on how we can help. There will need to be a short, medium and long-term approach to getting back to where we were at the beginning of the year. How we bridge the current funding gap is a source of enormous concern to the department and the NHS. I cannot guarantee that we can necessarily embark on exactly the same framework that we envisaged at the beginning of the year, but I can reassure the noble Lord that we are very committed to the research community and we engage with it regularly on how we can help.

Covid-19: Medically Vulnerable People

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend Lord Lucas makes a completely reasonable plea. On a personal level I completely understand where he is coming from. I have elderly relations who I would like to see, hold, touch and socialise with. But, as I said, I cannot hide from the House that this virus is an extremely predatory killer that has in its sights particular demographic groups, including the elderly and in particular those with conditions. It would be wrong of me to mislead the House by pretending that there was an easy way out of this epidemic for those who the disease seeks to attack.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, given that some very healthy older people have mistakenly received 12-week lockdown letters, including inaccurate and anxiety-causing assertions that they have underlying medical conditions, will the Government permit an arrangement whereby the relevant GP practice can confirm or refute the issue of the letter and certify to that effect?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord makes a very reasonable request. I have sought clarification from the department on this point, because his suggestion seems eminently reasonable, and as soon as I have a reply I will write to him and share the contents with the Library.