Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Alister Jack Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Terrorist financing, including of the far-right group that was proscribed 18 months ago, is worrying because actually it is not as high as people imagine. In the day of the internet, people can be groomed and inspired for very small amounts of money. Indeed, the five main terrorist attacks of 2017 cost £5,000 in total. That is the reality of a modern-day terrorist attack and the financing behind it. I do not see much evidence of huge swathes of money funding it; what I do see is growing evidence of the impact of the internet in allowing people to join up who in the past had nowhere to go. They may have been the oddball or odd one out in their village, but they now have the ability to live in a fantasy world, indulge their bigoted beliefs, learn how to make bombs and damage and hurt people, and find kindred spirits across the internet. That is what has given one of the big boosts to terrorism, including far-right terrorism.

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

What conversations has the Minister had with social media companies to try to get terrorist material removed from the internet?

[Mr Wallace]

The UK was the first country in the world to set up a counter-terrorism referral unit. It is in the Met police and has taken down over a quarter of a million pieces of material from the internet. It has been around for some years now and has been a great success, very quickly getting on to the internet and content service providers. We have also done extensive work alongside them to get them to improve their response, and we are going to go further: the online harms White Paper, a joint Home Office and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport document, will be out imminently and in it we have said that we will look at everything from voluntary measures all the way through to regulation. It is incredibly frustrating as the Security Minister to proscribe a far-right organisation only to find that its hateful website or its allies are spouting rubbish and bigotry from, for example, the United States, protected under one jurisdiction. That is incredibly difficult to have to deal with.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Alister Jack Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I could not have put it better myself. She will know that there are already some restrictions on knives; for example, there are restrictions on buying the so-called zombie knives, but there is no restriction on possessing them at present. Part of the Bill’s intention is to fill in some of those obvious gaps, as members of the public have asked why the Government have not addressed them before.

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

I think the point my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) was making is that it is the law-abiding holders of .50 calibre guns who are being made criminals yet these are target rifles. Sometimes the law of unintended consequences in Bills catches us out, such as in the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, and we should not be making these people criminals when no crime has been committed in Great Britain by using this calibre of rifle.

[Sajid Javid]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point and I hope he takes some reassurance from what I said on that topic just a few moments ago.

Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Alister Jack Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Liam Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and he is right to say that our legislation has to stand on its own two feet. It absolutely has to, and what is more, it has to be fit for the world in which we live today, which I am afraid has two significant changes afoot. One is a transformation in the power of our intelligence agencies to collect and process data, and in my view that significant advance is enough to require a change in the level of oversight, and potentially a judicial test for the way we share information. As it happens—I was careful to say this—the risk and necessity of that change is merely heightened by the fact that the rules of engagement with one of our most important allies have changed, and that has had real-world consequences. Those consequences create a heightened threat of legal challenge in foreign and indeed domestic courts to our serving personnel.

For some time, our defence philosophy has been—very wisely—that we cannot keep our country safe by defending from the goal line, and on occasion we have to intervene abroad. That is why in my view Prime Minister Cameron took the right decision to authorise lethal strikes against two British citizens. He was concerned first that there was an imminent threat, and secondly that there was no other means of stopping them. Those important tests and safeguards are not operated by our allies.

The change to the American rules of engagement, which allow a strike against someone who is no longer a “continuing and imminent threat”, means that one of our allies now operates under completely different rules of engagement to those set out before the House of Commons by Prime Minister David Cameron, which I think met with some degree of approval. If we are to continue to operate safely a policy of not defending from the goal line, if we are to protect our ability to work with allies and—where necessary and in accordance with international law—to take action abroad, and if we are to continue the vital business of safely sharing information with our allies in the Five Eyes network, a degree of extra reassurance should be built into legislation to ensure that it is fit for the future.

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

I am confused. Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that the actions by Americans, based on the data sharing, which we know is run with international safeguards, could have legal consequences for our personnel in the intelligence agencies serving here?

[Liam Byrne]

Yes, and it is not just me—the Court of Appeal is arguing that. The Court of Appeal’s summary in 2013 was that there was a risky legal ambiguity. Its conclusion that it is certainly not clear that UK personnel are immune from criminal liability for their involvement in these programmes is a concern for us all. The Joint Committee on Human Rights reflected on that in 2016, and it concluded pretty much the same thing:

“In our view, we owe it to all those involved in the chain of command for such uses of lethal force…to provide them with absolute clarity about the circumstances in which they will have a defence against any possible future criminal prosecution, including those which might originate from outside the UK.”

This is not a theoretical legal threat to our armed forces and intelligence agencies; this is something that the Court of Appeal and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have expressed worries about.

The new powers and capabilities of our intelligence agencies arguably create the need for greater levels of oversight. This is a pressing need because of the operational policy of one of our allies. We owe it to our armed forces and intelligence agencies to ensure a regime in which they can take clear, unambiguous judgments where possible, and where they are, beyond doubt, safe from future legal challenge. It is not clear to me that the safeguards that the Minister has set out meet those tests.

Perhaps the Minister will clarify one outstanding matter, about convention 108, on which she rested much of her argument. Convention 108 is important. It was written in 1981. The Minister told the Committee that it had been modernised, but also said that that was in draft. I should be grateful for clarification of whether the United Kingdom has signed and is therefore bound by a modernised convention that is currently draft.

Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Alister Jack Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

I didn’t start it. The point is that, when people talk obliquely about the Home Office, it is people working in the Home Office who have to make these decisions day in, day out and who have to apply the law and do their best. I think we need to bear that in mind when we are talking about the Home Office system and how bad it is.

The provision relating to data processing for the purposes of immigration control in paragraph 4 of schedule 2 has been the subject of much debate. I would like to address some of the misunderstandings that have clearly arisen during the course of the Bill around both the purpose and scope of the provision. I hope I can persuade the Committee that this is a necessary and proportionate measure to protect the integrity of our immigration system.

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

Opposition Members have expressed concern, which I would like to emphasise, that this exemption is too wide. Can the Minister provide an assurance that that is not the case?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. I will take it slowly because it is complicated and I want to ensure that the points raised today have been addressed. First, I was asked who decides the definition of effective immigration control in the schedule. That is an established term of art. It is used, for example, in the Immigration Act 2014. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 uses a similar term, namely

“the operation of the immigration controls”.

In the context of the schedule, we have adopted a wraparound term such as that, rather than set out a detailed list of specific immigration-related functions to which the exemption might be applied. Given the undoubted complexity of immigration legislation, there is a danger that any such list would be incomplete and would need to be regularly reviewed and updated. The term is either the precise term or similar to those already in law, such as in the Freedom of Information Act, which has been law for 18 years.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute seems concerned that once the Home Office system has accessed some of this information, it is lost forever and will not be revealed to the person whom it concerns. I will give case examples later, but I reassure him that the way in which we describe this exemption in the Home Office is that it is a pause on two of the data protection principles. Once the pause is lifted, because the end has been achieved—the person has been found or whatever—all those rights kick back in again, and they are able to make requests for the information that the hon. Gentleman set out. We see it as a pause, not as a long-standing and permanent exemption. It is just for the precise circumstances of enabling the immigration system and its protections.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alister Jack Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

UKVI decides 99.5% of cases within the timetable set out in its service level agreement. All of us in this House should be very clear that, if people are here illegally, we want them to return to their homes. Under the compliance environment, the ability to work and to employ people should be restricted. We are very clear that people who are here illegally will be removed.

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

5. What discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the economic effect of changes to immigration rules after the UK leaves the EU.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)]

As we leave the European Union, we will be able to control our immigration more effectively. We will make sure we do that in a way that supports our economy; after 40 years of free movement of labour, we will need to do that. We will address the situation with the evidence we get from the Migration Advisory Committee, which will be reporting towards the middle end of next year.

[Mr Jack]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Will the Home Secretary confirm to dairy farmers and other businesses in Dumfries and Galloway that they will still be able to hire migrant labourers on long-term contracts after Brexit?

[Amber Rudd]

I am aware of the issue with dairy farmers, as well as the other needs of industry for migrant workers. Rest assured that, when we decide on the right immigration policy after we leave the European Union, we will make sure it continues to support our economy.