National Security Bill

Baroness Manningham-Buller Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)]

My Lords, I was going to say quite a lot this afternoon, but my noble friend Lord Evans and I did not share each other’s speeches beforehand, and he has said most of what I wanted to say. I assure noble Lords that there are many times when I do not agree with him—we had plenty of animated disagreements in our past life together— but I agreed with everything he said a moment ago, so I will spare your Lordships a long repetition.

I start by mentioning, at my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich’s request, that he very much wished to be here but is not able to be. He hopes that, as a former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, and given his interest in this broader subject, he will be here at later stages of the Bill.

As we have already heard, this Bill is a doorstop. It is complex and long, and it attempts to do a number of things. I welcome it, as the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats have. It is important and long overdue.

Since I have been in this House, we have had plenty of legislation on aspects of terrorism but very little on aspects of what I was brought up to call “hostile states”. I have now learned that the current terminology is “hostile activity by states”—I must get that right. Either way, the defences of this country, and the work of my former colleagues in the intelligence agencies and the police, are weakened by the lack of a proper legislative framework—one that, in most cases, was drafted to deal with the run-up to the First World War and the Second World War and the threat from German espionage.

I have also heard people say that this is a new threat. To a degree, it is, in terms of its scale and what can be done by cyber, and given that there is no longer the need for small cameras to photograph documents. It is a different threat, but the reaction to the story of the Chinese agent in the Commons earlier this year showed me that there is a degree of naivety among the public about what is done by intelligence services that are hostile to this country. We should not have been as surprised that that woman was cultivating and paying money to Members of the other House; that is to be expected.

I remind people of various aspects of what this activity might be. There is, of course, the traditional one of stealing secrets, but there are not only state secrets but commercial secrets—we have seen the attempts to attack the work on vaccines in this country. We have also seen attacks on critical national infrastructure. I cannot remember all the aspects of it—being younger than me, my noble friend Lord Evans probably can—but it covers various sectors of British society whose continued successful operation the Government rightly believe is important for the success and safety of the United Kingdom. We have seen disinformation, including anti- vaxxer propaganda, spread around.

I know that I must not think just about Russia any more and must think more broadly. We were reminded only recently by our current head of MI5 about what Iran is doing in this country, trying to kidnap people, and about Chinese police stations. But I can remember when a key part of what the KGB did was called “active measures”. It was not stealing secrets but trying to attack us by influencing, persuading, sowing disagreement and undermining democracy. Disinformation is still very much happening.

There have been references to the murder of Litvinenko, the attacks in Salisbury and kidnaps. I strongly agree with my noble friend’s comments on the protection of the electoral process and its integrity. I do not know the facts, but I have certainly read, and believe it very likely to be true, of attacks on the British, French and American electoral systems. It is possible to know all that without knowing whether they had any effect or impact. Quite frankly, a lot of this effort may be pointless, but it is still there to be watched.

I am going to skip the next two pages and wind up with the challenges of this legislation, which I think are clear and have been extensively mentioned in the other place. They were all mentioned by my noble friend: legal aid, Clause 28 and the public interest defence. I join others in pointing out that there are some very good mechanisms for whistleblowers and others to raise issues, internally and externally, before going to the press. They have existed for many years. There is an ethics counsellor, internally, who has been there for at least 20 years. There is an external counsellor—it was previously Sir John Chilcot, but I do not know who it is today—to whom members of staff can raise ethical issues and concerns. There is the chair of the ISC and the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office. There are others, before the press, to whom people can raise concerns and be listened to.

In protecting against damage, we have to remember the human agents involved. I do not mean members of the organisation; I mean those the legislation calls covert human intelligence sources—that awful chunky expression. These people give information, in some cases at risk of their lives, for very little remuneration, to protect us and others from threats and attacks. Any public interest defence risks danger to them. Getting that right is very important.

As others have mentioned, the scope and practicality of the foreign influence registration scheme, however important it is in principle, again needs more scrutiny.

I end by saying that we can address and manage those challenges during this Session. This Bill is fundamentally important and long overdue, and I welcome it.