National Security Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

It is a pleasure to stand before the House today to introduce not just new clause 9, but many other new clauses that I and many others in this House have argued for at different times and in different places.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Plus a few others.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Plus a few others. So it is a great pleasure to be here today.

May I also place on record my enormous thanks to two right hon. Members—the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) will smile as I say this—who have done so much to get us to this position today? I refer to my right hon. Friends the Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), who have been extremely generous with their time and thoughts, including in private with me as well, in making sure that I am able to answer as many of her questions as I can, although somehow she has exceeded even their magisterial intellect. I am grateful that they have got us to this place, because this Bill is essential for the future defence of our nation.

The reason for that is because, of course, the world has changed. The reality is that national security in this country has changed and evolved in recent years, and the Darwinian challenge between the hunter and the hunted has led us to a position where we need to update not just our techniques, which can be done in private, but sadly our laws, which rightly must be debated in public.

I think we all agree with the core aims of the Bill. The first is to give our law enforcement and intelligence agencies the tools they need to tackle harmful activities in the United Kingdom carried out by, or on behalf of, foreign powers. However, to do that we also need to increase the transparency around those who seek to influence the politics and institutions of the United Kingdom through the foreign influence registration scheme. That is a very welcome addition. I know that many Members here, including those who have been on the Foreign Affairs Committee for the past five years, have called for it at various different points. The Bill has, at its heart, the protection of the national security of this great country that we all serve.

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[Chris Bryant]

The Minister said that once somebody has registered on a website, we will all be able to see it. That may be true if we knew that that was where we had to look to check whether somebody coming in through the door, sending us a letter or inviting us to dinner as an MP was actually somebody who was working for a foreign power. Would it not be far more sensible, once somebody has registered, to require them to declare to any Minister, MP or Member of the House of Lords that that is what they were doing, so that there is a degree of protection for this House?

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Member makes a very good point: there are many areas in which the individual concerned should certainly be doing the responsible thing and advertising it. The basis of this has to be a balance, so requiring people to register is, I think, a very good start. We need to take forward some of the recommendations that the hon. Member has made and the thoughts he has expressed, because he is absolutely right that transparency in all things is important.

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[Tom Tugendhat]

I think the hon. Lady knows me well enough to know that, having been sanctioned by three countries now, it is unlikely that I will be reticent in identifying those that I think are threats to the United Kingdom.

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman might not be in the job.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am very confident that others will also be bold on His Majesty’s behalf. Whoever is fortunate enough to be representing His Majesty in the Home Office will be able to conduct those offices in the good fashion that people expect. [Interruption.] I will move on.

The core of the Bill is, of course, national security and our intelligence services, building on the work they have done to enable us to grow in confidence and prosperity. They have provided the security apparatus that allows freedom beneath and around it. That is an extraordinary luxury and a blessing that this country has been able to enjoy for many years and generations because of the courage and intellect of so many people. They require tools to conduct those tasks, and I am delighted that the Bill will sharpen some of those tools.

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[Chris Bryant]

I, too, support the Bill, but I think part 3 is a complete mess. I do not think it will survive long in the House of Lords—I hope they do a proper job of scrutinising it, because we are certainly not able to do a proper job of scrutiny this afternoon. The Minister is a lovely chap, but if he were on the Back Benches, he would be saying exactly what I am saying now. We know that Ministers do that, because only days ago, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told the whole House that the one thing he had been proclaiming to the world—that the UK deals with Australia and New Zealand were wonderful—was not what he really believed.

Of course, we need to tackle political interference by hostile states in the United Kingdom. Some of us have been arguing that point for a very long time, which is one of the reasons why I would like to see the tier 1 visa report published—I see the Minister nodding, so let us hope that he will have produced it by the end of the week. Secondly, I would like us to have the full Russia report, so that we know exactly what the Government knew about interference in British politics.

Some interference is overt, but much of it is covert, as the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) has just referred to. Some of it comes not from embassies, but from all sorts of different people who approach MPs and Ministers and seek to influence the British political system. Some of it is online targeting through bots and trolls, which may be done from St Petersburg, Tehran or wherever, but some of it happens on our own streets. Sometimes, it happens in Parliament through all-party parliamentary groups that receive support, whether secretariat or financial, that comes directly or indirectly from a foreign power. We need to be careful about that. We on the Standards Committee have had direct advice from Parliament’s director of security that this is the Achilles heel of the British political system at the moment.

MPs and peers, of course, do not have the resources to be able to personally check whether the person who is coming through the door has legitimate bona fides; we simply do not have that intelligence resource. That is why one of the amendments I have tabled seeks to establish that, once somebody has registered that they are working for a foreign power, they should declare that when they come to see a Member of Parliament or Government Minister. In Parliament, we do not just register: we declare. That is a simple thing and I am bewildered that the Government are not prepared to accept it.

My new clause 2 would, very simply, make it a new criminal offence for an MP or peer to work for a foreign power that has been specified by the Government to be a danger to the country. Why would anybody vote against such a measure? I have no understanding of why the Government would oppose it. Without my new clause, the Government might decide that, for instance, Iran or Belarus was to be one of the countries on the list and introduce that by regulation, but an MP or Member of the House of Lords would be free to work for that foreign power—all they would have to do is register the fact that they are doing so. I am sorry, but I think that should be a criminal offence. People have talked too easily of treachery and traitors in the political domain over the last few years, but this is an open door to treachery and treason, and I think we should close it.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) has said. I am incredibly supportive of the Bill overall, but I do have questions that it would be helpful to get clarity on in this debate, or—what I think is more likely—when the Bill goes to the other place. I say that because the questions and issues we want clarity on are so substantial that we cannot do them justice in the limited time we have today.

For me, those issues revolve around the foreign influence registration scheme and the exemptions to that scheme. I am mindful that the scheme was introduced into the legislation after we had taken evidence in Committee, so we did not get the chance to question some of the experts on what it would look like. I will address my remarks to clause 68 and Government new schedule 2, and to amendments 15 and 16, which stand in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). I am particularly concerned about the legal services exemption. I do not understand why such a broad exemption is required. As my right hon. Friend said, it might be that we are just copying the US legislation, but we need a level of explanation. Removing the legal exemption is not about restricting access to legal services—we still fundamentally believe in natural justice and the rule of law—but we need transparency to prevent exactly the kind of lobbying that we have spoken about. I know that we are unlikely to vote on the amendments today, but we need that kind of transparency.

If we are trying to copy or mirror some of what the US has done, I would question the lack of any kind of exemption for academia, which the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) spoke about. I have spoken to Universities UK, which is concerned about the enhanced tier proposed in FIRS and the impact it could have on UK R&D and on our competitiveness. The US registration scheme clearly has an exemption for

“religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits”

provided that no political activities are included.

I am saying not that there should be an exemption for academic services but that we in this House need to debate properly what exemptions, if any, should apply to the scheme. Should there be an exemption for legal services? Should there be an exemption for academic work? I do not think we have the opportunity to consider that properly today, but I look forward to following the debate in the other place. I ask the Minister to think about some of those exemptions and, if we are to proceed with them, to give a proper explanation to the House about why they might be necessary.

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[Tom Tugendhat]

This has been a very full discussion involving many people. Although I sympathise with those who have quite rightly made the point that we could always have more time for these debates, the truth is that we had a lot of time in the Bill Committee and we are going to have to do much more work on this subject as its various elements evolve with the technology and the challenge. The truth is that if we had had this debate five, 10 or 15 years ago, we would have been debating different subjects, different nations and different elements of technology that have evolved into the threat that we sadly face today. Although I recognise that many hon. Members have understandably raised the number of hours and days that we have had today and in the past few weeks, the Government have listened and adapted the Bill to many aspects that have been raised in different ways.

[Chris Bryant]

One thing that the Government have certainly had plenty of time to get ready is the tier 1 visa report, as promised by five Home Secretaries. When will the Minister publish it?

[Tom Tugendhat]

It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to know that one of the first things I did on arrival at the Home Office was to ask for it to be prepared for publication. I will come back to him with it, I hope, urgently—I will let him know.

Many different points have been raised. I pay enormous tribute to my many right hon. and hon. Friends who have spoken and to those who have approached the Bill with the diligence and seriousness that the subject demands, particularly the hon. Members for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), who have been extremely supportive critics and have been challenging in the right spirit. I am glad to say that those discussions have resulted in most of the Bill going through in the way that was intended, and that those challenges and changes have improved it.

I accept that there are some differences of opinion. On areas such as the Serious Crime Act and the changes to statutory requirements, I believe that the Government are right because the exercise of the functions of an officer of the state are exactly what should be the limiting functions of their powers. That is why this reform makes sense, although my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) raised some important points and challenges that we will have to look at.

My right hon. and learned Friend also asked about damages and whether they followed in the way that he described, and I agree that they do. The point is that we should neither make it harder or more applicable to have damages, nor prevent it where judges seek the discretion to do so. Where they have that discretion, they may continue to do it, but we are asking them to look and consider the situation in which those damages arose to make sure that they are truly applicable. It is merely a review policy, rather than a block. That is an important element of the Bill; judges may already have that power but this measure merely puts it on the statute book.

Much of the debate has focused on whistleblowers and the public interest defence, and the way in which various people could argue that they are acting in the interests of the wider polity in raising different objections. This is a hugely important area and I understand that many hon. Members have raised different points. The head of MI5, the heads of various agencies and many others who have engaged on it have been absolutely clear on this point, however, because we need to make sure that we are not introducing any defence that forces the Government to reveal the damage that has been done in order to provide a defence.

The reality is that forcing the publication of damages may indeed be further damaging to the initial offence. That is why although I take the point about the public interest defence, which is a wider question for the whole of Government and the whole country, and I take the point about whistleblowers, which is again a wider question and not specific to the Bill, I am afraid that I hold with the head of MI5 and others who have been extremely clear on this point.