National Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Anderson of Ipswich

3rd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I still feel quite grumpy about the Bill, but I accept that the Government have moved a little. I very much hope that, when it gets back to the other place, Members there will perhaps see fit to introduce stronger protections for journalists. I understand that something has gone into the Public Order Bill, but I think something should have been in this Bill as well.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, we on these Benches are often critical of the Government—of either colour, I understand—so it is perhaps appropriate to record my appreciation, at least, to the Minister and indeed to the Security Minister, for the patience with which they listened to us, but also for the imagination with which they reacted, not simply producing cosmetic tweaks that resulted in dogs being called off, but being prepared to go back, particularly on the political tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, to first principles and to think it out again, with the consequence, I suspect, that we are now left with something of real value, rather than the bureaucratic nightmare with which we were threatened when the Bill left the Commons.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (Continuation) Order 2021

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Anderson of Ipswich

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, here we are again: the five-yearly renewal of the TPIM scheme, which has been in place since 2006. I oppose these restrictive measures, which are an extrajudicial way of interfering with the rights and liberties of people who cannot be convicted of any crime.

I am curious to know whether the Home Office has explained to the Prime Minister that it is doing this. I ask because, while MP for Henley in 2005, Boris Johnson wrote of the Act in his Telegraph article of 10 March:

“It is a cynical attempt to pander to the many who”—


forgive my language here—

“think the world would be a better place if dangerous folk with dusky skins were just slammed away, and never mind a judicial proceeding; and, given the strength of this belief among good Tory folk, it is heroic of the Tories to oppose the Bill. We do so because the removal of this ancient freedom is not only unnecessary, but it is also a victory for terror.”

I hope that the Minister will at least pass this back to the Home Office to make sure that the Prime Minister is happy with this renewal. It must be so difficult for Ministers to do anything without Boris Johnson having opposed it somewhere at some point in the past; there is always an article somewhere that one can track down. Our Prime Minister is so very often so wrong, but on this rare occasion he was so right: it is heroic to oppose these measures, and the Greens in your Lordships’ House will register their opposition every five years when this continuation order comes round. I actually hope this will be the last time.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

As Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation in 2016, I had no hesitation in recommending the second renewal of TPIMs in that year. I share the Government’s view that TPIMs, although they involve a particularly severe deprivation of liberty and intrusion into private life, may be an appropriate tool for dealing with a small number of individuals who are believed to endanger the public but whom it is feasible neither to prosecute nor to deport.

However, close scrutiny of TPIMs is important, all the more so since the maximum duration of a TPIM was significantly increased by the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021. I am here to raise with the Minister one concerning development that has arisen since my time as independent reviewer: the refusal of legal aid to TPIM suspects who cannot afford to progress the automatic review of each TPIM that is provided for in Section 9 of the TPIM Act 2011.

Jonathan Hall QC, the current independent reviewer, reported to the Government in November 2020 that, in the previous year, three subjects of so-called light-touch TPIMs, known as JD, HB and HC, requested the court to discontinue the reviews in their cases and that

“the absence of funding was a factor”.

In each case, they had been refused legal aid. The independent reviewer’s report, published in March 2021, recommended that, subject of course to means, legal funding should swiftly be made available to TPIM subjects for the purpose of participating in Section 9 review hearings. Mr Hall informed me this afternoon that, more than eight months after publication, there has still been no response from the Home Office to this recommendation. Can the Minister say when a response will be provided?

In the hope that it may influence the substance of any response, which, I might add, I do not expect today, I shall make four points. First, on 12 October 2020, the Government wrote to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, defending the TPIM regime on the basis that, among other things,

“all TPIM subjects have an automatic right to have a court review the imposition of their TPIM and each of the measures imposed. This hearing also provides an opportunity for the subject to hear the national security case against them.”

I assume that in the last sentence the reference is to the gist of the national security case, which is now provided to the TPIM subject. It is plain from what I have said, and from what the independent reviewer has said, that there is, in reality, no automatic right to review and that there will be no such right for as long as legal aid is refused to TPIM subjects on grounds other than means.

Secondly, it would be unacceptable if funding were to be denied because of a misapprehension that a Section 9 review is a form of challenge that requires a TPIM subject to establish reasonable prospects of success. As the independent reviewer explains in his report, Section 9 review was designed not as an add-on but as an integral part of every TPIM. Furthermore, it is not feasible to apply a merits criterion to the grant of legal aid, because the requirements of national security mean that TPIM subjects do not know, and will never be told, the full reasons for the Secretary of State’s decision to impose a TPIM.

Thirdly, if the aim is to save money or a desire to avoid giving money to lawyers for suspected terrorists, that aim is not only misguided but likely to be counterproductive. The legal aid issue affects very few cases—just three in 2019, as I indicated—but is bound eventually to lead to prolonged litigation about the fairness of proceedings.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Anderson of Ipswich

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the purpose of these amendments is familiar by now: to ensure that our service personnel are protected from the risk of prosecution in the International Criminal Court. To anyone who believes that this risk is illusory or negligible, I recommend not only the legal opinions variously expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope, by former Judge Advocate Blackett and by the Joint Committee on Human rights, but the 184-page final report of the outgoing prosecutor of the ICC, dated 9 December 2020 and entitled Situation in Iraq/UK.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, has already mentioned this report, so I will refer to only two things in it: the conclusion that there was a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes including torture were perpetrated by British forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2009, and the last words of its final page, an ominous warning that the prosecutor’s office would in the future consider

“the impact of any new legislation on the ability of the competent domestic authorities to consider new allegations arising from the conduct of UK armed forces in Iraq”.

The prosecutor’s words are reinforced by the recent letter referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and echo the Australian Brereton report of November 2020—which I mentioned at Second Reading—which pointedly observed of this Bill:

“There is a large question as to whether such a law would meet the requirements of Article 17 of the Treaty of Rome.”


Of the approaches we are offered in this group, I prefer Amendment 14, on two grounds: first, as my noble and learned friend Lord Hope has pointed out, because of its less vulnerable position in the body of the Bill; and, secondly, because Article 14, if I am not mistaken, maps more precisely on to the jurisdiction of the ICC. It applies to war crimes as broadly defined in Section 50 of the ICC Act 2001 and Articles 5 and 8.2 of the Rome statute.

Amendment 39, by contrast, would exclude from the presumption against prosecution only war crimes falling within Article 8.2(a) of the Rome statute: grave breaches of the Geneva conventions. That would leave within the scope of the presumption against prosecution the 26 categories of war crimes in international armed conflict that are listed in Article 8.2(b). Therefore, under Amendment 39 there would appear to be at least some risk of ICC intervention in any case that could be brought within those categories.

That was the dry contribution of just another lawyer to a debate that has seen the case for these amendments advanced with astonishing force on the very highest military, legal and political authority. The contrary case seems to be made only weakly in the Minister’s letter of the other day. Like other noble Lords, I admire the Minister greatly, and for that very reason permit myself to wonder whether the Government will really persist in opposing these amendments.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is very unusual for a Green to be among the majority. I will take great delight in that.

I cannot compete with the erudition and rationale of noble Lords who have spoken already, but I will draw attention to the fact that the Government are trying to create this triple lock against prosecution as a safe harbour for military criminals—regardless of how serious their crime—and then, out of nowhere, the Bill says, “Ah, well, these protections apply to any crime, but not sexual offences.” I am fascinated to find out the real reason for excluding sexual offences in this way. Five years after their offence, a murderer, a torturer and a thief all get protected, but an accused sexual offender gets prosecuted regardless. Even if the murderer, torturer or thief actually did it, they can get off, but an innocent person accused vexatiously of sexual offences would be prosecuted. It really does not make sense to make this exception of one category of offences.

It is not just rape; the list in Schedule 1 includes things such as

“possession of extreme pornographic images”,

“outraging public decency” and any offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, such as Section 71, which criminalises sexual activity in a public lavatory. A soldier could have consensual sex in a public toilet, kill their partner and face the outrageous prospect under this Bill of being prosecuted only for having sex in the toilet—they might be protected from the murder charge.

Likewise, the Bill singles out slavery, but only slavery for sexual exploitation—take as many slaves as you like, after five years you will probably get away with it, but you might get prosecuted for any slaves who are sexually exploited.

It staggers me that the Government have chosen this specific exemption to their messy triple lock. Of course I support it, but we must have those other exemptions as well. I ask those noble Lords who have spoken so strongly on this issue: where were they during the spy-cops Bill, when we heard criminals—police spies and police agents—being given immunity from all these crimes? In any case, it all loops back to the obvious conclusion that this Bill is ridiculous. It creates obvious and unacceptable injustice and needs to be scrapped entirely.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Anderson of Ipswich

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB) [V]]

My Lords, nostalgia is the theme of the Government’s amendments in this group, because each of them takes us back to the wording of the original TPIM Act 2011. I am nostalgic enough for those days to have put my name to both amendments.

Amendment 14 on the standard of proof, in the name of the Minister, is a tribute to those noble Lords from all parts of the House who spoke so compellingly to the similar amendment that I had the privilege of moving in Committee. They include the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, each of whom advised—rightly as it turned out—that my amendment did more than was necessary to accommodate the Government’s legitimate concerns. Gift horses should not be looked in the mouth, still less kicked in the teeth. Ministers have listened and have acted decisively. I thank them for that and welcome the retention of a standard of proof, whether expressed as reasonable belief or as balance of probabilities—between which I see no real distinction in practice—that has by the Government’s own account caused no unnecessary difficulties and exposed us to no avoidable danger over the past 10 years.

With a little more hesitation, I put my name also to the Government’s Amendment 22. This reinstates the original requirement in Section 20 of the TPIM Act 2011 for an annual review of the operation of the Act by the independent reviewer, which in turn succeeded a similar requirement in relation to control orders. Section 20 was amended in 2015 to allow the independent reviewer an increased degree of discretion as to the timing of those reviews. That was not unwelcome to the independent reviewer at the time—I declare an interest—who had, as I recall, been given a number of commissions additional to his normal annual duties. However, I understand that the current independent reviewer is content, and on that basis I support Amendment 22 on two conditions. The first is that the independent reviewer should have the necessary resources to perform his various important tasks with the frequency that will now be required and with the promptness that is so desirable. The second condition is an acceptance that, useful as these reports are to those of us concerned with policy in this area, they can be no possible substitute for the scrutiny of individual cases on the evidence that is properly the function of the TPIM review group, to which the Minister alluded, and of the courts.

However, this group is concerned with more than nostalgia. TPIMs have moved on since 2011. These notably harsh measures are harsher than they were then and will soon become harsher still. The toughest measure of all, relocation, with or without one’s family, to a distant town or city—colourfully described by Liberty as “internal exile” and removed by the 2011 Act —was restored on my recommendation in 2015. A range of other new obligations has been added to the list of available measures. Assuming that Clause 37 goes through, notwithstanding Amendment 18, TPIM subjects will for the first time be able to be confined to their houses for substantial parts of the day, while no doubt being tagged, limited in their social contacts and obliged to report to the police station during the periods that they are allowed out. That is rather a different proposition from observing a night-time curfew only in one’s home borough, which is how things were in 2011.

The cumulative effect of numerous measures under a TPIM, even under the existing law, was explained in this way by LF—a TPIM subject, anonymised like the others into a pair of initials—in recent evidence to the High Court. That evidence was summarised by Mrs Justice Farbey in the judgment handed down on 10 February this year:

“He says that he felt as if he was being asked to do something which is not humanly possible: to fulfil multiple and often changing obligations over possibly a two-year period without making one single mistake. He felt as if he was in a trap: if he were to breach any of the TPIM, he would be convicted and imprisoned. The TPIM would then be re-imposed, perhaps with even more requirements, and he would once again be at risk of breaching them.”


For, of course, while the basis for a TPIM can include conduct falling short of the criminal threshold—support, assistance and encouragement more broadly understood than in the criminal law—even the most trivial breach of a curfew or reporting requirement is a criminal offence for which the maximum penalty is five years in prison.

That is the context in which we have to consider the remaining amendments, Amendments 16 and 17. Your Lordships have three options, and I emphasise that none of them is a liberalising option. The Liberal Democrats, with their Amendment 17, offer a continuation of the status quo: a two-year maximum limit in the absence of new intelligence, as initially proposed by my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, save in exceptional cases, and as supported by the current independent reviewer.

The Government, with Clause 35, offer an unlimited extension, which would allow radicalisers in particular—whom the Government told the independent reviewer are

“the likely targets of enduring TPIMs”—

quite simply to endure forever, even if the intensive monitoring of the subject turns up not a single scrap of evidence or intelligence suggestive of re-engagement.

My Amendment 16 takes the middle path. It recognises that, as I reported in 2013, it is tempting to wish for longer than two years in the most serious cases. However, it recognises also that TPIMs must not be allowed to become a more attractive option than prosecution, that the authorities must be incentivised to work on an exit strategy—and not simply to warehouse TPIM subjects—and that in a free country, our fellow citizens, however odious we might consider them, cannot be indefinitely confined by the state in the absence of any attempt to put them on trial.

It is said that TPIMs of indefinite duration will in reality be no such thing because Ministers will volunteer their discontinuance and because the courts can be counted on to intervene if they do not. Yet, with respect, the evidence casts doubt on both propositions. I understand from the independent reviewer, who on his own initiative asked officials about this, that every TPIM imposed since 2015, unless revoked for extraneous reasons, such as imprisonment or a court order, has been extended by the Secretary of State on the one and only occasion that this is normally permitted under the existing law. That is hardly surprising. If a released TPIM subject were subsequently to reoffend, who in active politics would want to be the Home Secretary who had chosen voluntarily to release him from constraint?

As to court proceedings, it is not just that closed material proceedings make them slow and cumbersome, that they do not allow the subject to instruct his special advocate or to call evidence on the full national security case against him, or that the Home Secretary asks for and is generally accorded—as her predecessor was by the Supreme Court last week in the Shamima Begum case—a high degree of judicial deference for her decisions relating to national security. There is also, most regrettably, a funding and hence an access to justice issue. I am again grateful to the independent reviewer for the information that of the handful of current TPIM subjects, no fewer than three—JD, HB and HC—sought funding from the Legal Aid Agency to enable them to be represented in review hearings but were turned down, after which they requested the court to discontinue those review hearings.

It is said that indefinite TPIMs will keep us safer. On that, I first invite noble Lords to reflect on the severity of my own amendment. It would mean that the Secretary of State’s initial belief that a subject has probably been involved in terrorism is enough to justify four years on a TPIM, with every move tagged and every conversation potentially monitored. If further intelligence emerges of involvement in terrorism, at any stage during those four years, under my amendment a fresh TPIM could still be imposed, again extendable up to a further four-year limit—and so on, ad infinitum. That, surely, is draconian enough.

Would we be kept safer by the indefinite warehousing of TPIM subjects beyond the four-year mark, without the need for intelligence derived from what is, after all, not just a terrorism prevention measure but a terrorism investigation measure? Such people could readily become martyrs to a certain audience as, in a small way, one or two control order subjects did. As my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd said in Committee, by reference to the IPP regime, of which he has great experience,

“indefinite detention often makes someone more dangerous because you take away hope.”—[Official Report, 9/2/21; col. 273.]

This country has a long tradition of combining high levels of national security with a vigorous defence of individual liberty. We never imposed indefinite house arrest, relocation and other similar restrictions on those who preached communist revolution, and we have never imposed TPIMs, although we have the power to do it, on radicalisers of the extreme right wing or the Irish republican persuasion. Nor are we where we were in 2005, when it was widely feared that al-Qaeda-directed plots would take tens of thousands of innocent British lives. Existing measures have helped ensure that the total death toll from terrorism this century, in Great Britain, stands at less than 100. To introduce indefinite executive detention in response to this miserable bunch of ideologues would, I suggest, be a signal not of strength but of what the terrorists most want to see from us: fear and overreaction.

National security law must be more than a series of proportionality assessments performed by the Executive and observed by respectful courts. Something more is needed—checks and not just balances—or how else can Parliament offer guidance on where the limits should be? Your Lordships’ House has already this year greatly improved the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill, whose original version suggested that this important truth may have been forgotten. This Bill, on a similar theme, was described by the independent reviewer as

“conspicuous for its lack of safeguards.”

Amendment 16 extends the reach of these always controversial TPIM measures, but it at least retains a tangible check on the executive power to constrain—a power of which the TPIM is the strongest example known to our law. I hope that the good sense of this amendment will commend it to your Lordships. With that in mind, my intention is to test the opinion of the House.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I feel much more educated than I did half an hour ago. Today, I found myself not only supporting but signing a government amendment, which is a first for me—what a pleasure. I was in the prestigious company of two QCs and a privy counsellor. I will support any and all amendments that are moved. I find the four-year limit a little tougher to accept than that of two years, but anything that is not indefinite is an improvement.

In normal times, this issue would get much more coverage, but Brexit, Covid and everything else are taking the public’s attention away from these issues. Anything that would implement unending government surveillance and intrusion on someone’s life is, frankly, terrifying.

The amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, to remove various clauses, and those of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, would significantly improve this Bill. I hope that noble Lords who have been involved in this Bill will continue to work with us. They have shown that they are prepared to improve the Bill and I think that further improvements are possible. I hope that they are listening and will accept these amendments.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Anderson of Ipswich

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 21st January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, noble Lords can imagine that there is a lot of legislation going through this House that I oppose. In the past, I have exercised restraint and have not been disruptive with procedural Motions, but there are times when we all need to make a stand, and this Bill, for me, is one of those situations. It is a terrible piece of legislation and I cannot be complicit in it, nor in future acts of state oppression that will be the result of our passing it, and I will, therefore, divide the House.

Noble Lords have spent many days trying to improve the Bill, and we have made a few positive steps, but even if the other place does not remove most of those amendments, the Bill is still so fundamentally flawed that it should not be allowed to pass. Scotland has had the sense to refuse the Bill and I wish that we would do the same. I was subject to police surveillance for more than a decade. I did not know about it, it did not affect me, and even when I found out, it really did not affect me very much—but others in your Lordships’ House were subject to similar but much worse surveillance, and many will not even know whether they were observed and under surveillance or not. The Bill does nothing to improve that situation; in fact, it will make things worse by granting total legal immunity to undercover officers, spies and informants.

There is also the fact that the Bill has been brought forward while the Undercover Policing Inquiry is still going on. Not far from here, that inquiry is hearing evidence about police infiltration of peaceful campaign groups and unions, and undercover officers forming sexual relationships with women. The Bill learns no lessons from that inquiry and does nothing to support the victims. It actually grants much broader legal immunity to the wrongdoers.

I am also concerned that I did not get a proper answer to my repeated questions about the proceeds of crimes authorised under the Bill. My conclusion is that the police will be able to authorise people to profit from criminal activities, and that there is no way for the state to recover those profits. I hope there will not be too many miscarriages of justice and abuses of power before we revisit and repeal this legislation. With all that in mind, I am sad that I am in a minority in opposing the Bill, but I cannot in conscience abstain and accept its passage. I beg to move.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as one of the many Cross-Benchers who has applied themselves to this Bill, I record my thanks to the Minister for her explanations and for the discussions with her, which I have enjoyed—no 48-hour weeks for her—and James Brokenshire, who continues to have all our good wishes; to the Bill team; to the police and MI5; to IPCO, whose monitoring function is so vital; and to the NGOs and individuals who campaign on these issues and do their best to keep us all honest. I am particularly grateful to those who brought the Third Direction case. There are issues of great public concern which simply do not come to the attention of Parliament without the spur of litigation, and this is one of them. I have also appreciated not only the speeches of other noble Lords but my informal dialogue with them, intensive at times, which in my experience can be achieved just as easily, if not quite so pleasurably, in a virtual House as in a physical one.

This Bill was not widely consulted on and went from Committee stage to Third Reading in the other place during a single day. It needed the time we were able to give it, and I believe that after seven days of debate we have achieved significant improvement and clarification. I thank the Minister in particular for working with me on real-time notification. I hope we can achieve a satisfactory result on the other excellent amendments that we have passed, including those of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, which improve notification and the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on juvenile CHIS, while still enabling the Bill to be enacted by the start of the Court of Appeal hearing on 28 January, which I know is the Government’s ambition.

I have great respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and understand her regrets, which are underlined by the withholding of consent by the Scottish Government, but I will not be voting for her amendment to the Motion. For all its difficult and controversial features, the Bill is a clear improvement on the opaque and poorly safeguarded arrangements that preceded it, and it has my support.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Anderson of Ipswich

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendments 35 and 51, which have a number of near relatives in this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, reminded us earlier today that the purpose of the Bill is to facilitate trade and that different rules in different jurisdictions create costs to business and so may operate against the consumer interest. That is a highly respectable economic argument against devolution, but devolution has been implemented and the logic of devolution is diversity—including, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, the ability to experiment.

A devolved power to regulate is valuable only if it can be used to give effect to a policy objective of a devolved Administration. Its use will be pointless and damaging to businesses in the devolved territory if non-conforming goods, unencumbered by the higher local standards, have to be admitted from elsewhere. A single market that inhibited the rational, proportionate and non-protectionist use of devolved powers in pursuance of vital policy objectives would put devolution into reverse. This is shown by the fact that it was deemed necessary to exempt existing measures from the market access principles. It would also, of course, be a never-ending source of grievance for nationalists and separatists.

In connection with that, there are two puzzling features of the Bill. The first is the small number of aims that it even acknowledges as legitimate. I do not, myself, insist on all the drafting of Amendment 51—I recall that the European concept of sociocultural characteristics mystified the courts during the Sunday trading litigation—but why is there no place in the Bill for aims as basic as environmental protection save, curiously, in relation to fertilisers and pesticides, and consumer protection? If aims as important as the protection of public safety and security may justify indirect discrimination, as Clause 8(6) provides, why must those same aims, however compelling the circumstances, give way to outside business interests in every case of direct discrimination or mutual recognition of product requirements?

The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said earlier that we need not slavishly copy the EU single market and he is right—successful, as I am sure he will acknowledge, as that single market has been. However, with respect to him, that is not a sufficient answer. The issue did not go away when we left the EU, and it needs to be addressed on its merits and with proper respect for our own devolution settlement.

The second puzzling feature is the patchy treatment of such aims as are acknowledged, particularly public health. That aim is most broadly expressed in Clause 8(6), but as a potential justification only for indirect discrimination. Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 provides a general exclusion relating to the movement of pests and disease but paragraph 2, on the movement of unsafe food and feed, applies only to mutual recognition while paragraph 5, on public health emergency, applies only to direct discrimination. The problem with defining permitted public health derogations in such a limited and piecemeal fashion is that, outside the scope of those derogations, policies motivated by public health, however necessary and well-designed they may be, must always give way to trading interests, without any ability to balance the competing factors.

An injection of principle is needed here. That principle, I suggest, is that:

“All the exceptions should apply to the entire panoply of market access rules.”


Those are not my words but those of Dr Peter Oliver, practitioner and author of the leading academic text on the free movement of goods, commenting on the Bill on the “EU relations law” blog. The same principle infuses Amendment 52A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and I support it for that reason. Its list of legitimate aims is disappointingly short, but since the noble Lord has also put his name to Amendment 35, perhaps there is nothing between us on that. To accept that all the exceptions should be capable of applying to all the market access rules need not cause trade to suffer, because the application of those derogations would be regulated, as it is in federal and devolved jurisdictions across the world, by strictly expressed constraints based on necessity, rationality and proportionality.

If the Government are concerned about their ability to include devolved markets in a US trade deal, I add that countries from Canada to Switzerland—and, indeed, the EU—have proved perfectly capable of entering into international trade agreements irrespective of their internal allocation of powers. Consultation, consent and co-ordination are surely the keys.

Most of the amendments in this group would function as shock-absorbers. Their purpose, as I see it, is not to wreck the Bill but to remove genuine grievances on the part of the devolved Governments, weakening the case for separatism and rendering the market access principles, in the areas where they may be necessary, operable in the long term. I hope they will be viewed as the constructive proposals that I believe them to be.

Finally, I endorse the strong comments of our committees, and of other noble Lords, as regards the excessive and extremely troubling powers given to the Secretary of State by, among others, Clause 8(7) and Clause 10(2). In this group, Amendments 39A and 47A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, would retain those Henry VIII clauses, but restrict their use to the adding or broadening of legitimate aims and exclusions. We would be authorising King Henry to act benevolently, but not, in the phrase attributed to Sir Edward Leigh, as “a bastard”. That course, though not for the constitutional purist, has a certain pragmatic attraction, at least for me.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I have listened to the vast majority of the debates today and I have actually been shocked by some of the speeches: they were, unusually, wonderfully tough and very critical. Therefore, I hope that Ministers are actually listening and understanding that we are trying to help. It thrills me to be speaking alongside so many incredible noble Lords; in particular, the forensically brilliant noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the amazing legal minds of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. It is very comforting to be in agreement with them.

Noble and learned Lords will go into the intricacies of EU law, which is, of course, incredibly important, but to me there is one very simple principle, which is that the Government have taken a decision not to be part of the EU’s single market, saying that it is a bulldozer and prevents our Parliament legislating on important policy areas. However, the Government then seek to create their own bulldozer, a new single market that flattens everything and does not even have the carve-outs and reservations that EU single market laws protect, such as legitimate environmental and health policies. There are times when a bulldozer is the perfect machine, but not in this legislation. It is totally false of the Government to make any comparison of this UK internal market with existing EU arrangements without including any of these policy protections and derogations. The Bill actually represents a huge centralisation of power in the UK Government, and tramples over existing legislative rights of the devolved Parliaments, as many noble Lords have said already.

It also demonstrates what I see as the extremist view of this Government—that the free market and capitalism should override everything else, and that there is no legitimate policy that can challenge the free market. That is completely wrong and fundamentally at odds with what the majority of people in this country believe. For me, this legislation is a dangerous wolf that the Government are trying to dress in populist sheep’s clothing as somehow defending us from the hostile manoeuvres of the European Union. The truth is something else entirely: this is an important building block in the extremist ideology of a hypercapitalist future in which the market subverts and consumes everything else. Noble Lords must oppose this.