National Security Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I do not get frightened easily, but we have talked a lot about nerves here, and walking into your Lordships’ Chamber earlier and seeing a dozen KCs, former judges and members of the intelligence community was slightly unnerving—thank goodness, they are leaving; that relaxes me enormously. I declare an interest as the mother of a journalist, although not one who works in this sort of area. A lot of journalists and organisations have contacted me to express serious concern about this National Security Bill, because things are not clear.

As it stands, there is a huge risk to whistleblowing and public interest journalism, and these legitimate activities—in fact, one could call them absolutely crucial activities for our democracy—could now put journalists at risk of serious criminal consequences. The so-called foreign power condition does not even distinguish between our allies and our adversaries. This will mean that journalists and NGOs will have to be careful when receiving information from any Government, even an innocuous press release from, for example, the United States Government or a local authority in France. Any information received from foreign sources which might reflect badly on the UK Government could put journalists at risk of prosecution under this law; worse, the journalist would commit an offence just by receiving the information, without even publishing it. That is utterly illogical. Journalists have a right to inform the public and the public have a right to know. The Bill is therefore potentially very damaging for the freedom of the press. We rely on journalists to report on corruption of all kinds, so we must amend the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I too did not speak at Second Reading. Unlike the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who is no longer in his place, it was not because I was doing other things in the Lords but because I had not read the Bill. The fact that I have now looked at it brings me to the Committee today. Before I speak, I declare an interest both as a board member of the ABI, although that is not relevant to this amendment, and as a member of the Labour Party. The reason is that I speak to Amendment 68, to which I have added my name.

We will come to Part 3 later but the definition of “foreign power” in respect of Part 3, as spelled out in Clause 81(1), is in Clause 30. Clause 30(1)(e) covers political parties in government, or members of political parties that are in government. Schedule 14 exempts these, or at least the political parties in government, from the Clause 69 requirement to register. However, on a reading of it, it sounds as though that covers only foreign parties in government and not others. Therefore, I am not certain whether the Clause 14 exemption covers political parties in opposition. If it does not, political parties in opposition in other countries are covered as foreign powers.

I confess that some of the noble and learned Lords who have just left have been extremely helpful in giving me advice on this; in case your Lordships think that these are all my own words, I have had the benefit of extremely good advice on this. It sounds as though the exemption in Schedule 14 is only for the governing parties themselves and not necessarily for individuals of those parties or for those acting on behalf of political parties. It also appears that the exemption covers only registration and influencing, and probably not the activities of overseas political parties, even those from friendly states, such as Five Eyes states, with which of course we do a lot of business. So I think that those parties come under Clauses 65 and 66, according to the definition.

I hope the Minister will have enormous clarity when he spells this out in his reply, and I also hope that either the noble Lord, Lord Marks, or the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, will speak on this and can clarify it more than I can. It is interesting whether, if an overseas party—the US Democrats, for example—organised a dinner here, perhaps at Labour Party conference, that would need to be reported, and indeed with the threat of criminal proceedings if it was not. Would any of those political parties coming over here and having meetings with any of us count as activities and would they have to be reported within 10 days, and so on?

We also do a lot of joint working, in our case with the German SPD; we work on environment and trade, and a lot of other issues, and sometimes we buy them lunch—occasionally they buy us lunch. Is that covered by what would have to be declared? Similarly, would we have to report meetings, perhaps with MEPs from across the European Union when they were over here, or is it only those from non-governing parties? Therefore, if we have a mixed group of MEPs coming here, would those from governing parties be exempt but not those in opposition?

If the Minister thinks he is fairly junior down the pecking order, I think I am the tea lady who brings in the tea to barristers, so I hope he will be able to clarify all of this and that it is just me who is confused. However, as my noble friend Lord Hacking said earlier, this legislation should be easy to read. It does not just have to be right in what we want it to say; it is incredibly important that anyone who could be affected by it can pick it up. I am not a lawyer but I am pretty involved in politics, and if I can read it and not understand a word of it—I may be at the stupid end —I doubt that anyone else will be able to.

Part of the reason for the next issue is that there has not been any pre-legislative scrutiny on this Bill, which would have clarified some of this; nor has there been any consultation on these issues. If there are going to be a lot of reports, particularly on political parties in opposition coming over here, we risk having such an enormous number of reports that they become meaningless. If all these activities get reported, the actual dodgy ones, if you like, may be hidden in plain sight.

I know that, either in giving evidence somewhere or in writing, Edward Lucas looked at the case of anti-money laundering. He showed that there are 3,000 reports of anti-money laundering a day; quite a lot of them probably come from your Lordships’ House since we are all PEPs and must be reported on. However, it means that, if you start getting that number of reports, they are meaningless because you cannot see the wood for the trees.

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[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we of course support the overall aim of the Bill. We also support the overall aims of the part of the Bill these amendments seek to address. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, introduced this group, for which I am grateful. She said that she is the mother of a journalist; I am the father of a journalist.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

Same one?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

No; I cannot respond to that gallantly, can I? I will plough on.

Interestingly, my son recently completed a master’s in journalism at City, University of London. He told me that the public interest part of the journalism course was the least attended, partly because there are fewer jobs in it, which I thought was interesting and worth reflecting on. It is a very important part of any journalist’s work, but it is not where the majority of students choose to study. I thought that was an interesting observation.

The amendments in this group relate to defining a foreign power for the purposes of its activity in the UK. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, moved her Amendment 66A, which would ensure that journalists and civil society are not wrongly included. This debate could have spread over to the group we will discuss on Monday on the foreign influence registration scheme and how that affects businesses, universities and political parties. In a sense, we will revisit a lot of these issues. Nevertheless, noble Lords have made points that will bear repeating, because they can be repeated in that context.

The noble Lord, Lord Marks, tabled similar amendments to create exclusions in certain instances. Amendments 67 and 69 would expand the definition to include corporations working on the behalf of foreign Governments. It is worth reflecting on the Government’s previous inconsistent approach to Huawei in 5G networks, and their lack of understanding of the risks. I believe that this underlines a need for a more coherent strategy. Serious questions remain following the 2020 announcement that Huawei would be removed from UK 5G networks, which we believe was long overdue, about why it was given the go-ahead in the first place. The Huawei case was sadly illustrative of how, in the past decade, the Government have allowed our national security to become an afterthought, creating risks to it. We on this side of the House believe that the Government need to invest in homegrown alternatives to end our national dependence on high-risk vendors.

My noble friend Lady Hayter made a number of very interesting points about political parties, which were picked up by other noble Lords in the debate. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s answer to the points she raised.

The noble Lord, Lord Black, referred to the letter in the Times today to which he was a co-signatory. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, also spoke about the potential chilling effect of the Bill’s provisions as they are currently drafted. They both spoke about the importance of a public interest journalism.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made a point that I think will be repeated on Monday but is well worth repeating. It is the problem of overreporting. That is a theme that has run through all the briefings which I have received and that I am sure all noble Lord have received. It a fear in the university sector, the business sector and political parties, and literally hundreds of NGOs are also concerned about this matter—but that is something that can be talked about on Monday, as I have just mentioned.

When the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, summed up, he put his finger on the main problem with this section of the Bill, which is defining the anomalies of political parties, whether they are in government or not, or are part of coalitions or are opposition parties, and the many sorts of relationships which all political parties have internationally and how that works with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Black, about the importance of public interest journalism, and how that is a very international approach, often dealing with leaked information and illegal information, and how journalists are to be protected in pursuing that valuable work. So this is a complex area. I am sure the Minister will, as usual, be very careful in his answer, but I hope he retains an open mind, as he did on the previous group when we were considering issues raised in this Committee.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I of course understand where the noble Lord is coming from, but the point is that this relates to the activities of these political parties and those who are working for them. Therefore, I am not entirely convinced that it would be appropriate to exclude the smaller parties in, say, a coalition.

I was going to go on to explain why certain governing political parties in the Republic of Ireland have been carved out, in answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. A political party that is both the governing political party in the Republic of Ireland and a political party registered in Great Britain or Northern Ireland is excluded from the definition of a foreign power, as noted. This exclusion is included in recognition of the fact that there are political parties that contest elections in the Republic of Ireland and in the United Kingdom to ensure that the provisions in the Bill do not inadvertently impact cross-border politics.

A further amendment has been tabled seeking to add corporate or other entities.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

Is the Minister moving off political parties? If so, he has not answered any of the questions that I posed, and I hope he is going to do so before he moves off political parties. The idea is that we are going to call in political parties—and only governing parties, although under Schedule 4 they are the ones that are excluded, not opposition ones—but other countries do not necessarily have a definition of political parties in the way that we do. In fact, until PPERA, in 1998 or whenever it was, I cannot remember, we did not have a definition of political parties or a register of them. So, in other countries that do not have them, how on earth are you going to know who is a political party?

Apart from that, there is the question I put about whether they are in opposition or in government, and what the answer is on America. If one is trying to get at agents acting on behalf of a Government, all you have to do—I used to be general-secretary of the Fabian Society—is call yourself a think tank rather than a political party, and then presumably you can do the activity. So, if this is a way of try to get at organisations that work on behalf of Governments, only calling them political parties, of which in many countries there are no definitions anyway, is, I have to say, somewhat the wrong approach. Will the Minister give me answers to the questions I posed in my contribution?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that. She will forgive me if I do not get involved in what is the correct, or legitimate, Government of the United States. I do not think that is for me to opine.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

It will be for the noble Lord or his successor to opine, because it is in the Bill. There is no secondary legislation attached to it about what the definition will be. This is Pepper v Hart. What is going to be taken is the Minister’s words at the Dispatch Box. If the Minister is saying that he cannot define which is the governing party in America, how do we know who we can meet and who we have to register?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As regards the registering point, the noble Baroness is—as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, suggested—perhaps straying into the FIRS situation, which we will discuss at considerable length on Monday. I think that will deal with a number of the questions the noble Baroness has posed with regard to registration and so on. Can we come back to that on Monday, please?

As regards opining as to the Government of the United States, I choose not to do so purely because it would potentially be a political can of worms, but I acknowledge the fact that obviously there is a President who comes from a different party from the majority party in one of the two Houses.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

So there will be meetings that we can have now, and if—God forbid—Mr Trump wins, suddenly the parties with which we are allowed to talk will change because it is Mr Trump rather than Mr Biden. Is that really what the Minister is saying?

National Security Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Option 2, the clause stand part propositions in my name, acknowledges that the repairs to these clauses are too extensive to be done in-flight and that they are an unnecessary part of a necessary Bill. Yes, our lobbying laws need tightening, but this is not the way to do it. These clauses risk diminishing our national standing without enhancing our national security. We can attempt a last-minute fudge, but I wonder whether that could really be a substitute for a clear and considered plan. We should keep the enhanced tier by all means—it is important—and put the primary tier out of its misery.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests, as I did before, as a board member of the ABI and a member of the Labour Party.

I thank the Minister for his preliminary responses to my letters. Given that I sent them to him on a Sunday, I am immensely impressed that he has already given us some answers today, even though I found the answers staggering and more worrying. There is an expression about using a sprat to catch a mackerel; I rather think that the Government are using a whale to catch a minnow. They have this completely the wrong way around.

However, in the spirit of that very rapid response to my letter, I hope that on the specific issue of political parties the Minister will agree to meet, not just with the Labour Party but with representatives of the other parties, to discuss how this could work in practice, because some of the things he said about parties influencing other parties could have absolutely nothing to do with national security. The example I gave before was that, as a member of an international party organisation, we might indeed be thought to influence who would be chosen as, for example, president of the Party of European Socialists. That has absolutely no national security implications but, clearly, from what the Minister has said, it would be caught by this. So if, when he comes to respond, he could agree to meet with the political parties, that would be helpful.

Turning to what is in front of us, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, I have added my name to the proposition that Clauses 66 to 70 should not stand part of the Bill. I am very conscious of the fact—as I am sitting quite close to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—that some of this sounds very much like familiar territory. Before the Minister was in the House, when I was on the Front Bench, I tried to amend the lobbying Bill to ensure that it included in-house lobbyists, not simply consultant lobbyists, which might have tackled some of issues that now concern the Government—that is, knowing who is lobbying Ministers. That surely is the important aspect of it, although the present Bill goes much further than that. The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, absolutely and I think very unwisely declined to take my amendments to give that Bill some real teeth. I think we got them past this House, but they were kicked back and he would not agree to them. I am therefore delighted that he is about to speak after me and I hope he will do a “mea culpa” at that point and admit that “we was right” and he was wrong.

However, today we are talking about far more than just lobbying—although it is interesting that that was how the Minister introduced this group. We are now seeing an attempt to set up an enormously enlarged register, compared with what was set up under the domestic Act. It would not only encompass dealings with a wide range of opinion formers or decision-makers, and in fact a large number of non-decision-makers, but require registration or reporting—the Minister’s answer to me earlier was about registration; I also asked about reporting—from a swathe of bodies and individuals from across the globe.

We have heard, as my noble friend has already mentioned, of concerns from business and academia, but there are also concerns from visiting party officials, international NGOs and many others. If I have read government Amendment 98 correctly, however—which we will come to in a later group—the list of UK persons with whom communication could be classed as a “political influence activity” covers our own employees, if you are lucky enough to have any. It also includes an officer, trustee or agent, and even some members of a political party, which could even include a constituency vice-chair, whom those of us in political parties know is quite a minnow within the political hierarchy. It could include an election candidate, even in a hopeless seat—not that Labour has any hopeless seats these days. Does that mean all election candidates? It is the most extraordinary catch-all that the Government are setting their sights on. We are going to come back to that list later, but it is relevant because it explains why we are concerned about the clauses that some of us would like taken out of the Bill.

As the noble Lord said, I referred last week to Clause 30 and political parties, even those coming from our close allies in NATO. They were defined as being “foreign powers”—although, as he said, there were some exemptions if you were in government. That means that Opposition parties seem to be in a worse position, even though they may have no power in that country, because they would have to register if they tried to influence any of us or our employees, local government and all sorts of other people. So we have more questions and, if the Minister agrees to a meeting, we could discuss what exactly they are trying to get at. Is it that all political parties are bad, or are we interested in the issues on which they are trying to lobby? It would be useful to know what exactly this is aimed to catch.

In relation to business, very serious concerns have been raised by member firms of the ABI, by banks, by the pharmaceutical industry, as we have heard, and by other major importers, exporters, service providers and investors. Needless to say, many of their overseas colleagues and partners will meet with influencers, opinion formers and decision-makers while they are here in the UK. That is not just visiting politicians but many of those who turn up, for example, at our party conferences or at seminars held by a wide range of organisations. While they are there, they tend to bump into people like you and me, because that is where we are also going. So, as soon as they come here and go to a meeting and find that one of us is there, they are liable to have to report that, even though that was not the purpose of their visit.

So the question really is: do the Government really, in the name of national security, want us to either ourselves record, or ask those people coming in to record, all those exchanges, on pain of criminal sanction if we fail to do so? I know this is an aside, but this is coming from a party that has perhaps not been too fussy about the amount of money it has taken from people with very close Russian contacts. It is a little bit odd.

The Minister did refer to Russia but why, if we are aiming at Russian influence, are we going for that enormous wide range? It was this Government who refused my attempts to stop expats being able to fund our political parties. Again, if we want to cut influence on our political parties, why not go at that and overseas money rather than try to catch all the exchanges that take place in everyday life?

Whether this is a whale rather than a minnow—or whichever way round—this feels to me not even like a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but like a great big sledgehammer aimed at a tiny seed. If the Government are worried about Russian, Chinese, ISIS or North Korean activities, why not go for them? Why are we looking at Swedish investors, Belgian NGOs, Dutch political parties, EU visitors, Spanish bankers or German academics, all of whom could be caught up in this?

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[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, would she perhaps give permission for us all to receive the Minister’s response to her letter? He is saying from a sedentary position that he will circulate it; if that is acceptable to her, it would be very helpful. He said at the outset that if we, as Members of this House, carry out activities for a foreign organisation of which we might be a member which receives direct support from a foreign principal—we could be a trustee of an organisation funded by the Gates foundation, for example, and there are many other examples—for us to engage with each other, we will now have to register. That is why I think the response to her letter could be so significant, as that is what I took from his comments.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

The Minister will understand that I cannot possibly answer this question because then we would have to record the conversation. To be serious, in fact, my letter to the Minister, which included a lot of questions, did ask that he circulate it to the Committee and not just to myself.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on several of these amendments. I should perhaps say that I welcome and support those in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Two amendments of mine are also concerned with ensuring that the interests of charitable bodies, commercial bodies, universities and policy researchers should be specifically catered for and excluded from some of the purposes of the Bill.

However, I want to talk more generally about Part 3 as a whole. I thank the noble Baroness for her back-handed compliment. There are, of course, parallels between the transparency of lobbying Bill in 2013 and this Bill. There were those who pushed me as the then Minister to exclude a substantial number of bodies and persons from that Bill; others were pushing for the inclusion of a lot more than we had. It was not easy to strike the appropriate balance between ensuring full transparency on what was going on and not pulling too many people into the net. The question of identifying who the lobbyists were was one of the more difficult elements with which we had to be concerned. On that occasion we agreed to pause the Bill.

I should also say that it was not simply the Labour Opposition; indeed, concern about that Bill was very much on the Cross Benches, led by Lord Ramsbotham, sadly no longer with us, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. We paused the Bill for three months, consulted more widely and came back with amendments. The Bill was then carried in an improved form. It was not perfect; it is impossible for a Bill of that sort, or this sort, to satisfy all accounts because we are trying to strike a balance between a range of different objectives. It would be wise for the Minister to manage the policy statement and the pause for greater consultation; they should take up rather more time than is currently considered.

The Minister will have seen the Politico report last Thursday that suggested widespread concern in commercial and business circles about this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has already said how many comments and criticisms we have had from a range of different circles. I came to the Bill entirely from the point of view of think tanks, universities and the policy research sector. I had not expected to get such immediate responses from the City, law firms and others. We are now all aware of the widespread concern that the Bill will catch more than it was originally intended to. But there is more than that. I shall quote from one of the letters I have had: the Bill

“is essentially the proposed bureaucratisation of lawful and useful non-hidden international engagements. Influence is not covert just because it is not public: all policy makers and organisations rely on private interactions.”

I was thinking, as I looked at my newspaper this morning, what those Brits who will be attending the Davos Forum will do about what they report back, as one has private conversations with a range of people. Perhaps we should make sure that Keir Starmer and whoever else is going do indeed fill in all the forms as they come back.

Before I go further, I should comment on the Minister’s insistence, in our last sitting, that the Daniel Houghton case justifies the inclusion of the Netherlands alongside North Korea, China, Iran, Russia and others in the primary tier of foreign powers. I see that the case was in 2010. I have said at previous sittings that the issue of dual nationals and diasporas, both in Britain and elsewhere, is one of the complications of the Bill that I hope the Minister will address in our consultations. I mark, in passing, that Daniel Houghton was a Dutch-British dual national. He was a computer engineer employed by the SIS. He downloaded some SIS files and tried to sell them to the Dutch intelligence authorities. They immediately informed the British and he was arrested, convicted, given a 12-month sentence and served six months in prison. I am not sure that this one case justifies the imposition of the full regime on the Netherlands, in the same way that it is imposed on other countries.

I pick the Netherlands because traffic between it and the United Kingdom is probably closer than any other county apart from Ireland, even more than the United States, because it is so near. I recall being told by some senior Dutch politicians that a great many members of the Dutch elite have second homes in the south-east of England and send their children to British universities. I remember being told by a chief constable from North Wales Police that he needed to have more than one police officer who spoke Dutch because, when camper-vans break down in the summer, they need to have someone who can interpret. The extent to which British companies depend on the Netherlands has been increased by our leaving the European Union. I was told at a meeting of donors to my party the other week that several of them have opened offices or warehouses in the Netherlands to be inside the EU. It is not a country with which we have limited interaction.

To say that we need to have all the interactions which may involve political influence recorded is almost to suggest that, to find the needle in the haystack, you need to examine each strand of hay separately and then in time you will find the needle. You would of course destroy the haystack and damage the hay, and detract immensely from the normal business of the farm. To that extent, it is grossly disproportionate, and our concern with the Bill is that aspects of it are grossly disproportionate.

I read again through the supplementary Explanatory Memorandum over the weekend and I remain confused about many aspects of the Bill. I am worried about the imprecision of some of the language—the “informal” arrangements, the indirect control and those other phrases which, not being a lawyer, I do not entirely understand. I seek some reassurance from our legal colleagues that it is possible to make sense of some of these provisions. There is a reference at one point to the “scheme management unit”. I wonder if the Minister could tell us how large the Home Office thinks the scheme management unit will need to be when all these reports flow in. I suggest that it will need to be extremely large.

I am not entirely clear on how the specified persons come into the expanded bit. Can the Minister give us any rough idea of how many of the 190-plus UN member states it is envisaged would be specified by the Secretary of State in this? Would it be 10? Would it be 100, 150 or 190? That would clearly make a great deal of difference to the sort of regime which we are likely to have imposed. These are real concerns for those who are looking at the Bill from the outside.

The examples did not reassure me in understanding the Bill. Funding for UK think tanks is mentioned, as are NGOs from abroad attending all-party parliamentary groups and some of the activities of foreign academic institutions. All apparently come into the net. This requires much further consultation. We all recognise that there are serious foreign threats to this country, that some of these threats are new because technology and communications have enabled new methods of subversion, and that we need to deal with them. But we also recognise that the United Kingdom is an open society and an open economy, and we need to preserve the best aspects of our openness to the rest of the world. That is the balance that we have to strike.

One category left out appears to be multinational companies not controlled by foreign states, along with foreign foundations and the super-wealthy. I argue again that these are also, potentially, sources of severe foreign interference in UK politics which may well be hostile to UK interests. If one is talking about British interests in the broadest sense, as the Bill does, I recall that major tobacco companies have funded institutes in Britain to lobby against tighter control of tobacco selling and health regulation. Oil companies have funded think tanks and others to lobby against measures on, or even to deny, climate change. Foundations with political agendas have supported the establishment of new right-wing societies in British universities. Those are also threats which we should not necessarily ignore.

I suggest strongly to the Minister that, in view of the concerns which have been so widely expressed across the commercial and non-commercial worlds, we should take the time now to ensure that the Bill strikes the right balance, that we get it right and that we do not get it through necessarily as fast as the Government would have liked.

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[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I could just add a footnote to what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said—not along the lines that this paragraph of the schedule should be withdrawn but to draw attention to what I think is a defect in it, which illustrates the point that some of the details of this scheme have not been thoroughly thought through.

The point I want to make arises under paragraph (5)(4)(d), which exempts, as part of an example of “legal activity”,

“acting as an arbitrator or mediator.”

The exemption applies only if the person acting as an arbitrator or a mediator is a lawyer within the definition provided in paragraph (5)(3). Many people who act as arbitrators in technical cases are engineers or architects—people who are not qualified as lawyers but provide a valuable service in the whole scheme of arbitration on technical issues. It is quite common to find a panel of three arbitrators where one is them, perhaps, is a lawyer and the others are people with particular skills. I do not understand why, if there is going to be an exemption in relation to acting as an arbitrator or mediator, it should not cover anybody acting as an arbitrator or mediator, whatever his or her qualification might be.

Perhaps the Minister could explain at some point why it is only in the case of lawyers that arbitrators or mediators are to be exempted from the requirement to register. It would be interesting to know the reason because, otherwise, we will inhibit commercial activities and that would seem to be undesirable. I throw this out just as an example of what was referred to by some commentators as a rather slapdash approach to drafting. This issue needs to be looked at so that we can understand exactly what the purpose of this exemption is.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, as we are in Committee, I think one can intervene a second time. I just want to ask the Minister about one of the questions I put about political parties; I think it also arises now, from what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said. It concerns the confidentiality of all these masses of reports. What privacy protections will be there if this measure goes ahead?

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the best estimate of cost is £47.8 million. The high estimate is £62.4 million. In addition:

“FIRS could discourage business activities if the costs of compliance are considered too high. There is a risk of negative reputational impacts from inclusion on a public register. Other countries may introduce reciprocal measures to regulate the overseas activities of government and businesses. Persons could be prosecuted if engaged in unregistered activity, even if the activity itself is legitimate.”


“Benefits were not monetised … While there are many entities which would fall within the definition of a ‘foreign principal’ or ‘foreign power’, it is difficult to determine how many people are being directed to undertake registerable activities on their behalf, or how many people would qualify for an exemption under the scheme … There is also a lack of understanding around how likely the positive and negative impacts are … it is not known how likely it is that the benefits or impacts will occur, or how significant they are likely to be. It is also important to note that much of this feedback was provided before the scope and exemptions within the scheme were finalised.”


“It is acknowledged that the number of people who would be affected by the scheme in terms of registration and familiarisation is unknown … Due to the offences and penalties associated with non-compliance with the scheme, organisations that are ultimately out of scope will still need to be aware of the FIRS regulations to ensure they are out of scope, both currently and for future activities … members of the public will need support in fulfilling their registration requirements.”


“There is a risk that the scheme may have a disproportionate impact on small or micro-businesses (SMBs). There is a risk that SMBs, without established regulatory compliance procedures, won’t register with the scheme and could then be prosecuted. It is not known how many SMBs will be in scope of FIRS … With more time, a more extensive commission could have been sent to departments.”


The high estimate is that more than 371,000 individuals will need to be familiarised with the scheme, but:

“Home Office anticipate that there will be a relatively small number of cases per year for FIRS (less than five).”


Those are all direct quotes from the Government’s impact assessment on this scheme from October 2022. That impact assessment is the least ringing endorsement of any piece of legislation that I have seen in this House for 10 years. More than 371,000 people will need to be familiarised with a scheme that will have five potential cases per year and, of course, the scheme was not consulted on. To be fair to the Home Office, I read the consultation document from 2021. The principle of a FIRS was in it, but this scheme was not. It is in many parts a direct lift from FARA in the United States, or the FIT scheme.

However, the Government have been very coy about the areas where they have not chosen to follow. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, indicated the commercial enterprises. The Government have not said why they chose not to follow the United States’ example of the exemption of bona fide commercial activity and other activity not serving predominantly a foreign interest. Therefore, the whole gamut of the points that she and others have made in this House will be covered by this scheme and not that scheme, but why is not indicated. In fact, the Government’s own impact assessment goes beyond that, saying that they do not know how many small businesses will be affected by it, yet the impact assessment of the overall Bill and of this scheme says that there will be 25 people in London operating the scheme at a cost of nearly £50 million. This spider’s web is a very expensive one, and not many hornets will be covered, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said.

The other exemption that the Government have not indicated having referenced before concerns the US exemption on religious, scholastic, academic, fine arts or scientific pursuits. There has been no indication as to why the Government have chosen not to follow that route. There is not a bishop on the Bench, but any Anglican community in or established church from another country interacting with one of our bishops will have to register on this scheme, because there is no religious exemption for it. Any community in this country carrying out what they believe the Pope has asked them to do for campaigning, on what they believe are humanitarian grounds, will have to register under the scheme. Any of us, or any MP, who is encouraging others to support a Ukrainian NGO charity, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, indicated, asking us to support Ukrainians for the resettlement scheme will have to register on the scheme.

This is likely to be a scheme that helps oppressors around the world far more than it helps our Government to secure national security. It is no surprise to me that both Hungary and El Salvador cited with great enthusiasm the US scheme as a mechanism to find out what those in other countries are doing to encourage human rights and civil liberties at home.

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The Australian scheme includes former Prime Ministers—we heard the concerns about Kevin Rudd. Why did this Government choose to cut and paste from Australia but exclude former Prime Ministers?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

There are a lot of them.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

There are a few, but 25 members of the Home Office are going to be monitoring this database, and a fair amount of their time might be taken up with David Cameron’s and Tony Blair’s international activities. What was the reason for differentiating from the Australian scheme?

We have heard concerns about the British Academy, universities, INGOs and NGOs, trade, and those seeking contact with FDI and the ABPI. It will render the work of our Prime Minister’s trade envoys that much harder when any interaction with an entity from a country with which we are seeking a better trading relationship now has to register in advance their contact with a trade envoy, not only for perfectly legitimate activities but for activities encouraged by the Government. We have also heard the concern from the ABPI that it will have to register the preparation and planning of meetings beforehand.

At the start of Committee, I indicated that our Benches did not see this part of the Bill as having been properly prepared. The details have not been consulted on and we believe that the Government should pause it. We said at the start of Committee that it may find a better home in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, if it is being reworked. It may be that we move for this to go to a Select Committee for further consideration or to be taken out of the Bill. We do not want to disrupt the Government’s moves to improve national security or to weaken the ability of our country to have national security. We also do not want to weaken our interaction with trade, investment and human rights, or—I say this as someone with no faith—our proper interaction with many faith groups, which will now have to register all of this activity within the Bill.

I hope that the Minister will say today that the Government are going to think again, pause and come back, not just by saying that more information will follow but with a commitment to consult on the specific schemes and work with us to bring back workable solutions.

National Security Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

So I invite your Lordships—I am minded at the moment to test the opinion of the House on this matter in due course—to consider this with great care and to come up with some pretty good reasons if there are real objections to this and explain what they are based on broad and objective criteria, not on anything that could be suspected of being self-interest.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the reasons for supporting the amendment, to which I have added my name, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, is the Government’s recent change which allows long-term expats to continue to be on the UK electoral register and therefore to be permitted donors to UK political parties. This means that someone living —for the sake of this argument—for 40 years in, say, Russia, to take the example just given, can be on the electoral roll here. A British subject, living for 40 years in Russia, can now be on the electoral roll here, with no checks or questions asked, and that person can then donate money to a British political party—no names, no pack drill, and importantly, of course, no checks whatever on the source of the money they are able to donate to a British political party.

PPERA—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, as most of us know—requires parties to check only that the donors are “permissible”; no checks are needed on the source of their funds. They are not even required to carry out enhanced due diligence on donors operating in high-risk countries which are listed in the money laundering and terrorist financing regulations 2022. There are no obligations on political parties to do the due diligence that we would expect of anyone else handling money from any of the countries on that list.

Incidentally, that is very, very different from those of us—well, all of us in this House—who are PEPs under the AML rules. Indeed, at this moment in the Moses Room the financial services Bill is being discussed, which is trying to reduce the extraordinary number of hoops that we and our children all have to go through in our banking activities because of our presence here. However, Russian-based UK citizens, who long ago gave up paying taxes of any sort here, can donate money, without any question as to its provenance, to a UK political party, surely influencing our democracy way beyond some of the other minor activities that this Bill seeks to make transparent—an issue we will return to later.

Amendment 51, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, would capture any possibility that the money could come from a foreign power. As the amendment states, it would include donations made through an intermediary. We on this side would certainly like to know the source of donations made from outside the UK to a political party, whether in government or opposition, or to a party with no elected Members.

The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, has been very helpful on this Bill. To our surprise, in Committee, he claimed that our existing electoral law has

“a stringent regime of controls on political donations to ensure that only those with a legitimate interest in UK elections”—[Official Report, 21/12/22; col. 1166.]

can donate. I question that in respect of someone who has been out of the country for that long, does not use any of our services and does not pay our taxes. Even more, do we check the legitimate interests of those long gone who can put in money from another source?

I trust that the Government have now looked again at what was a rather complacent reply and that they share our interest in revealing full details, including instigating proper checks. I hope that they will therefore accept Amendment 51. As the Minister knows, it has the full support of the Electoral Commission. I hope that he would welcome a duty on political parties to check the true source of donations and assess the risk of accepting money from overseas, particularly from those on the list of the AML regulations. Rather along the lines of “know your customer” which the banks have to do, there should also be a “know your donor”. This should be a culture in all our political parties. It would mean assessing the risk that donors might pose, especially those from overseas countries. There would be an enhanced due diligence on new donors and proper recording of such checks.

I received a letter from the Minister today which I think has not yet been shared with the House. It says that it is in the national interest to have greater openness about the influence on British politics by foreign powers. We agree. Amendment 51 would ensure that all overseas donations were openly made and disclosed.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 51, which would help increase the transparency and accountability of our political system. The ISC’s Russia report of 2020 recognised that the UK had clearly welcomed Russian money, including in the political sphere.

The Government have previously assured the House that the protections within the electoral financing laws are “sufficient”. However, as other noble Lords suggested in Committee, there are clear differences between the requirement on companies to undertake due diligence when receiving foreign money and that on political parties, which have no such duties. This would help close the gap.

I note that the amendment requires a political party to publish a policy statement within three months of the passing of the Bill. The Secretary of State also has three months to produce the accompanying guidance. It may be advisable for the Secretary of State to publish the guidance before political parties are required to produce their policy statements. I simply raise that as a practical point. It does not affect my support for the amendment.

As regards the government amendments, it is not clear why they seek to exclude parliamentary proceedings from the definition of political processes, thereby moving them outwith the scope of any new foreign interference offence. I appreciate that the Government have said that it is to clarify that the Bill does not intend to interfere with parliamentary privilege, but I do not see that the answer is to remove the concept entirely.

To commit the foreign interference offence, one needs to conduct “prohibited conduct” which has an “interference effect”. “Prohibited conduct” includes a variety of unacceptable behaviours—from a criminal offence to threatening to damage someone’s reputation or causing financial loss. Surely, it is critical to prevent any foreign interference in parliamentary proceedings which involves a person conducting such unacceptable behaviour. Perhaps the Minister could explain how including parliamentary proceedings in the foreign interference offence would undermine parliamentary privilege, given the need for the prohibited conduct of the offence to apply. Even if the amendment is warranted, could the Minister explain why the Government have not replaced it with wording similar to that in Clause 70, as amended. This refers to interference with

“a Member of either House of Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament”

rather than “parliamentary proceedings”, which would ensure that no gap was created.

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I hope the Minister will assure us that the way in which contacts with the American, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and other Governments are treated will be of a qualitatively different order. I hope he will say that we need to change that part of the Bill. On a previous occasion when I criticised some of what this Government have done in the last few years, the Minister responded, “Yes, but now this is a different Government”. Happily, it is. We now have a Prime Minister who understands diplomacy and understands that we gain more by treating our neighbours as friendly Governments. I congratulate him on the achievement that he has just managed to negotiate. In that case, we need a different approach in this Bill as well. This amendment is a way of pushing us in that different direction, towards the foreign powers that are our closest friends, allies and neighbours. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 74 in my name. It deals with the definition of “foreign powers”, which clearly is a key part of the overall Bill.

However, I first need to talk about this part of the Bill in relation to FIRS, which we will cover next week—or maybe the week after, or the week after that, given the rate at which we are going; I hope not. I need to do that because the definition of a foreign power in Clause 32 determines who will be covered by the scheme we will come to later. In doing so, I make it clear that I greatly welcome the changes to FIRS contained in the government amendments, which again we will come to later, as they take account of the arguments made in Committee.

However, there is an anomaly that remains which particularly worries me. Many external political parties, including those from friendly states—not only NATO, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, mentioned, but New Zealand and Australia—will find themselves subject to registration and reporting requirements on issues completely unrelated to Government policy, let alone security issues. This is the National Security Bill we are discussing, not a lobbying Bill. These states will be caught on issues that have nothing to do with government policy or security.

Clause 32(1)(e) defines a foreign power as a political party whose members form the Government. At the moment, that would mean, for example, the Democrats in America, the Labour Party in New Zealand and Australia, and En Marche!—or whatever it is now called—in France. The Minister will know better than I do which of the Conservatives’ close associates are also in Government in various countries and therefore would be caught by this. The definition in Clause 32 covers the whole Bill, which might be appropriate for some parts of the Bill but certainly not for Part 3. The registration and reporting of activities in Part 3 has an enormous number of requirements—if we leave this definition to cover that—for political parties on non-security issues.

Assuming the Minister’s amendments go through, perhaps most worrying is the new Clause 70(3)(d), which means that FIRS covers any communication by a relevant overseas party—one whose members form the Government—which could affect, or is about,

“the proceedings of a UK registered political party”.

Stop and think about that. This will cover a political party in a friendly country having to register its activities in this country. The Minister will immediately pop up and say, “No, not if they do it directly—only if they do it through a third party”, but that is what happens, as we do these things through third parties. For us, it means if a fellow member of a sister party that is in Government—I do not know if the Conservatives call their friendly parties “sister parties”, but we always use the phrase—uses a consultancy, for example, or a PR firm, to ask us to support the change in the venue for the next Party of European Socialists Congress, or our work on the environment or an equality manifesto, the publication of something in a newspaper, an ad about a disaster or anything completely internal to our party-to-party relationships; but if is done by an intermediary, it becomes reportable to the Government, not of our political persuasion at the moment, of course, and published.

I doubt that is what the Government want because this is not about transparency now. We are into Big Brother land. I ask the Minister whether, if members of a party in Government, not the Government itself, contact any of us—if you look at Schedule 14 it could be not only us but, for example, councillors, even candidates, mayors via a conference organiser or a public affairs adviser—about any issue, such as a free trade agreement or a completely non-government issue such as an upcoming internal seminar being run between parties, where we tend to use intermediaries such as conference organisers, and they want to invite a party member as a speaker, it would have to be reported because it is via an intermediary. That is how I have read it and it is what he said when we had a very helpful meeting: if you use an intermediary, it is reportable.

Similarly, if party staffers from the party in Government organise a stall or a workshop at a party conference, and do so via a conference organising company, they are paying these intermediaries; therefore, they are acting under their direction. Those were the very helpful words the Minister gave me. They are therefore doing it on the order of the sister party in that other country. They are being directed by that party; the party is paying them to contact us to appear in a seminar or whatever it is. Is that reportable, and is there a criminal penalty if they fail to do it?

If they use an intermediary, who could be an interpreter or a translator, and they pay for that expertise, and they are again directing that party as to what they should do, would that be reportable—not just reportable, but reportable, for us as the Labour Party, to a Conservative Secretary of State, and a lot of this published? Non-governing parties are not covered, so the French socialists can come over and do what they like with us, and that is fine because they are not in Government, but it applies if we start holding seminars which the German Social Democrats, for example, set up using an intermediary such as a conference facilitating company.

For the Minister’s own party, some of their sister parties would also be covered by this when they go to Birmingham, or wherever the Conservatives have their party conference. I doubt very much that, at the beginning, it was the intention of the Government for their definition of foreign influence to get down to this level.

Over the weekend, or perhaps on Monday, some of us were sent very helpfully all the draft regulations and the forms that have to be filled in with people’s private mobile numbers and all sorts of details about what is going to happen, the dates of it, its purpose, the desired outcome, the individuals involved, contact details, the contact for the intermediary, and the invitations and which MPs they are going to. For possibly one meeting on the fringe of a party conference, or a TV interview, or the drafting of an article done by a party via an intermediary, all this would need to be reported.

I am not asking Ministers tonight to redraft this. I am asking—and I think there may be some willingness to do it—for the Government to look hard at whether it is really the intention that FIRS should include this party-to-party relationship, or party-to-politician relationship, where it is done via a third party. I hope that we can get some satisfactory answers or an undertaking that we could perhaps meet, and, if necessary, that some further tweaking might happen to this part of the Bill.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, ruling parties are the foreign power. As I have tried to be clear and have stressed twice now, registration will be required only where an individual or entity is directed by a foreign power—that is the condition. Therefore, if a think tank was being directed by a foreign power, the answer would be yes. If it was not, the answer would be no.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that an intermediary could be a conference-arranging organisation? If he is coming to that, I would be grateful.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I noted the noble Baroness’s questions about intermediaries, and I promise that I will address that.

I know that we have had some debate about what it means to be directed by a foreign power. I want to reassure all noble Lords that this is a high bar. The natural meaning of “direction” is an order or instruction to act. It is possible that such direction could be delivered in the language of a request but only where there is a power relationship between the person and the foreign power which adds an element of control or expectation to the request: for example, through a contract, payment, coercion or the promise of future compensation or favourable treatment. It is not enough for a foreign power to fund an activity, so generic requests, joint collaboration or simply an alignment of views, absent the power relationship, will not meet the test for direction.

I will quote directly from the letter I sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter—I apologise for not sharing it more broadly with the House but I was cleared to send it only this morning:

“In terms of what activity would be registrable, we consider that where a parliamentarian is to be directed by a foreign governing party, for example, being paid or on the promise of favourable treatment, to influence Government Ministers or fellow parliamentarians, this would require disclosure under FIRS.”


I will come back to my quote in a second. I digress briefly into the subject raised by my noble friend Lord Balfe and his quick canter through the Stiftungen of Germany. We are in touch with the German Government on this issue and are grateful for their constructive engagement. We do not consider that, for example, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung would constitute a foreign power under Clause 32 of the Bill. A person acting under the direction of such an institution would not be in scope of the foreign influence registration scheme. We will have another opportunity to debate these issues next Tuesday. Konrad Adenauer should be reassured that it is not covered.

I want to be clear that there is no requirement for the activity to cease, only for it to be transparent. In these circumstances, there is a strong national interest in greater openness on the influence of British politics by foreign powers. It should be clear not only to the Government, but to parliamentarians and to the public, where this influence is being brought to bear. FIRS seeks to address the gap, providing us all with more information about the scale and nature of foreign political influence in the UK.

I will answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, directly. In the example she described, the intermediary would have to register, if directed by a foreign power. The noble Baroness herself, or a foreign power, would not.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

This is at the heart of it. If the German SPD engaged somebody to set up a stall at our party conference, they would be directed, be paying and have a contract for it. This would then have to be registered. I have seen the draft regulations which the Minister kindly sent me. They would have to disclose which MPs they had invited to the event and all of that. As the Minister has just said, as soon as the intermediary—the conference arrangements organisation—is paid by an outside political party to organise this, according to the form that I have been sent, we would have to fill in our names. We may not be the ones registering, but it would be wholly disclosable. It has nothing to do with the Government nor with national security. It is a party-to-party issue. It is simply because they have used an intermediary—a conference arrangements organisation or interpretation.

I think it is clear and that we agree on this. I am not asking that we should be able to bring it back at Third Reading, but I am asking the Minister to leave a little chink of light. Having thought about it, in consultation with his colleagues, the Government might be willing to look at whether this is really what they want to achieve.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments. I am more than happy to continue engagement on this subject.

The final amendment in this group, concerning the definition of a foreign power, was initially tabled in Committee and has been retabled by the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Wallace. It seeks to exclude members of NATO and other nations, via regulations, from the definition of a foreign power. I want to put it on record that we do not consider all foreign powers to be hostile. When this amendment was initially tabled, I put forth that the National Security Bill focuses on the harmful conduct undertaken by a person and not the foreign power they seek to benefit. I continue to believe that this is the right approach.

The Government do not seek to create gaps in the legislation which could allow states to act through proxies and thus undermine what the Bill seeks to do—to take necessary and appropriate action against harmful activity. Again, no doubt to groans, I will bring your Lordships’ attention to the case of Daniel Houghton. He is the dual British-Dutch national who attempted to sell sensitive information to the Dutch intelligence service in 2010. If this amendment were to be accepted, and NATO states excluded from the definition of a foreign power, cases such as Daniel Houghton’s would not be captured by the offences and measures in the Bill. This would not be an appropriate outcome which could undermine the Bill. I believe that the Dutch came to us on this particular occasion and I commend them for it. I ask again that these amendments tabled by noble Lords be withdrawn.

National Security Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I have my name on a number of amendments in this group. I will start by saying, which I had not prepared to say, that when the Minister looks at the speech he has just made, I think he will find that there were some drafting errors—I hope there were—at the beginning. He said that FIRS would apply now only to a foreign Government. I think he said that twice and afterwards went on to talk about a foreign power. He knows very well why I pick up on the difference because one of my ongoing concerns is about the definition of a foreign power, which includes political parties. I hope that was just an oversight because I think that this captures political parties as well as foreign Governments.

There are two or three points I want to make very briefly but before I go on, I want to add my thanks for what the Minister has done, not only in the incredible change. The Minister has sent me the Keeling schedule that shows that we have ended up with a FIRS that is very different from what we started with. I should declare my interest, as I sit on the board of the ABI and it is very content with where we have got to. It did however make the point that this is no way to make a sausage—I have to say that they were not its words; it was far more polite. The way it started was not the best way to make legislation. The ABI and others are very content with where we have got to, and it is right to record that we have ended up with something very different, so I thank the Minister.

My name is on three amendments. I will not press Amendments 114 and 121 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. But on Amendment 115 I am second to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, and I think it is an indication of the approval of what he has done that one of the delete clause amendments is in his name—only because he got there first because I was about to do that. I think it is a symbol that we do it.

I have that one remaining query about a foreign political power that happens to be in government engaging with any of us or councillors or parliamentary candidates, even on internal, party-to-party issues, using an intermediary such as the conference arrangement. I have looked at the draft regulations again as the Minister helpfully said. There is no de minimis there, even if they pay £1,000 to a conference organiser to book the stall at a Labour Party conference or a Tory Party conference—I am sure they have stalls; I have been to their conference and they do in the same way as we do. There is no de minimis for a political party abroad seeking to engage with a political party or anyone else here using an intermediary which is simply a facilitator. Therefore, I wonder whether there is a possibility of looking at the guidelines or the forms. There will be a contract. It may be only for £1,000 but there are the implications of having all that to be declared. I am not saying that simply because we have stalls at our conference, it could happen to the Government as well. It captures things that I know the Minister never intended. I know that at the moment he will not give me an answer and a promise written in blood, but some acknowledgement that there is a small ongoing problem would be very helpful. For the moment, I think we have ended up in a much better place than we started.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 166A in my name. I also thank the Minister for the way in which the Bill has been discussed and amended between Second Reading, Committee and Report. It is a model of the way in which the Lords should operate, and we all appreciate the way in which the Minister and his team have responded to reasoned criticisms as we have moved forward.

Amendment 166A merely draws attention to some of the definition problems we have all struggled with, wanting to catch all the problems but not to overload the necessary and highly desirable international co-operation with other Governments and other countries, many of which are governed in ways we do not entirely approve of. As somebody who used to work for an international think tank, I am particularly concerned with the opacity of the funding of some of our political think tanks, which as charities do not have to declare their revenue.

In the United States there is much concern with the extent to which some foreign Governments, in particular the Gulf states, put enormous amounts of money into institutes operating as political think tanks, intending to influence and therefore reshape the American political debate. Although that is outside the scope of the current Bill, I and others are much concerned to insist that there should be much greater transparency about the funding of think tanks that set out to deliberately influence the way in which our politics take place.

That is an example, but we all know that there will be a substantial grey area between direction and influence, which we and the Minister have all grappled with. We are not entirely sure that we can draw the line clearly as we go. This amendment asks the Government actively to keep under review and to consult on where that line needs to be adjusted as we move forward in implementation. I hope the Minister will respond in that way.

National Security Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 21st June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Motion A1, having had my name on the original amendment—I think it was Amendment 22 at the time—from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile.

There are two reasons for being concerned about foreign influence in UK politics. One is indeed the ISC Russia report, as it highlighted what was going on and gave good evidence of malign attempts to affect our politics and our elections—the same could be said about China. The other reason is this Government’s decision to give long-term expats the vote, no matter how long they have lived abroad. By doing so, they enable those expats to become permitted donors to UK political parties. Someone living for, say, 40 years in Russia can be on our electoral roll—no checks, no questions asked—and thereby be free to donate to a political party, with no checks on the source of these fundings, nor even whether they belong to that permitted donor. In fact, there is no way to ascertain whether the said donor is in fact in prison, whether they have properly earned income or whether such money that they donate is actually their own or has been given on behalf of a political power.

In the Guardian today, we read of a wealthy Chinese couple banned from Britain after they were accused of donating to British political figures on behalf the Chinese Communist Party. They happen not to be permitted donors but were no doubt able to put their money through somebody who was. Interestingly, that story seems to have come to light following an immigration tribunal, rather than by checks by a political party of the sort that would be required if Motion A1 were agreed by this House.

As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, PPERA—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act—requires parties to check only that the donors are permissible. The Minister said again today—as all his predecessors did—“Oh, but we’ll check that the donors are valid people”. That is not the point that we are making. We are saying that, by being able to be on the electoral register, they become donors and we do not check the source of the money that they give. We are not asked as political parties to carry out due diligence on donors, even those operating in high-risk countries of the sorts that are listed in the 2022 money laundering and terrorist finance regulations 2022. As a political party, we can take a donor from one of those countries and are not required to do any checks—in fact, we are not required to check anything other than that the donor is legitimate. So overseas-domiciled citizens—who long ago gave up paying taxes here, of course—can donate to a political party without any questions about the money.

Motion A1 would effectively introduce a “know your donor” culture and would make a political party responsible for showing how it would identify and look at donations from a foreign party and for sharing that information with the Electoral Commission. Back in the summer—on the day that we debated this, I think—the Minister wrote to me and said that

“it is in the national interest to have greater openness about the influence on British politics by foreign powers”.

I could not agree with him more. Motion A1 would ensure that foreign donations were properly scrutinised and openly made.