Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I support this important Bill, which seeks to tackle this most international of criminal problems. The scale of global financial crime is mind-boggling, accounting for up to 5% of gross world product and, depending on which estimate we look at—we cannot say absolutely for certain—worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion. On an optimistic view, the confiscation rate runs at around 1%.

Economic crime is sometimes thought of as being in a separate category from other crime but, no, it is part of those other crimes. There is a particularly close link between fraud and cyber-crime. Money laundering, fraud and cyber-crime collectively—distance crime—make up the majority of crime by volume in this country. More broadly, virtually all crime with a financial motivation touches on money laundering at some level. There is a mix of organised crime groups pulling off huge cyber-crimes, down to individually small but cumulatively very large-volume frauds. Some groups have undergone a sort of vertical integration, controlling every part of the chain; others specialise in one particular part of the chain, such as ransomware as a service. There is a merging of criminal actors with a nexus to states. Then, of course, there are the kleptocrats who got filthy rich on plunder from their fellow citizens.

There is a huge amount that needs to be done in this area. Much of it needs to be done globally, but countries such as ours need to be in the lead. The world has made quite some progress in this area, and in key aspects we have been a leader, but we have also had our lacunae. High on that list is transparency about who is really behind and ultimately benefits from corporate structures and economic assets.

For some time, we have had a substantial and, in many ways, effective architecture to tackle money laundering, but there is an important question whether the suspicious activity reports regime is sufficiently efficient, and whether it is focused enough to make the most difference while minimising dead-weight. There is also the question whether we are fully harnessing the power and capabilities of banks, particularly if we compare our legislation with section 314(b) of the American Patriot Act. Should there be more direct intelligence sharing between banks, and if so, how do we manage the competition policy aspects of that? Finally, however much we improve and innovate, the criminals are doing the same, with ever more sophisticated technology, and they are increasingly bypassing the systems that we have been used to in the past by using cryptocurrency and cryptoassets.

The most important thing about the Bill is that it moves to plug the transparency gap, with reforms to Companies House and limited partnerships as its backbone. It modernises seizure by bringing cryptoassets into scope of the civil forfeiture powers, and it moves from a compliance-driven anti-money laundering system to one that is more proactive and intelligence-led, with rationalised SARs and DAML—defence against money laundering—requirements.

I welcome all the aspects of the Bill, but especially the information-sharing provisions, and in particular their broad scope to include all types of economic crime, including, importantly, volume fraud. I ask the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), to really test whether these powers go as far as they productively can. I press not just the Home Office and BEIS Ministers we have here today, but the Treasury, regulators and the private sector, to come together to ensure that we link up the different parts of our financial services sector and the wider professional services sector to best effect.

Information and intelligence sharing could be so much more powerful if we reformed the way that payments are made so that in certain circumstances, where suspicious activity is detected, it is possible to slow down or pause payments and use the system not just to track down money laundering payments or fraudulent payments after the fact, but to stop them happening before the fact. That could be a genuine game changer. As I say, I strongly encourage the two excellent Ministers present today to communicate with the Treasury and others about that.

I support the Bill and I wish Ministers well with it. It is of course part of a wider set of reforms that includes the sanctions regime, the creation of the National Economic Crime Centre, the kleptocracy cell, the overall economic crime plan, and, importantly, our international work with like-minded partners, the Financial Action Task Force, and the Crown dependencies and overseas territories. The reform of visas, which came up, is part of this too, and of course we recently passed the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022. There will be more to come, I am sure, including on corporate criminal liability.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

On that point, I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am very supportive of that, as my right hon. Friend knows, but I rise to make another point. He mentioned that putting some friction in the payments system might reduce instances of economic crime. At the moment, banks are refunding a much higher proportion of authorised push payment fraud, but all the onus is on the sending bank. Nothing is reimbursed by the receiving bank, yet it is the receiving bank where the dodgy account is held. Does he agree that we should look at that and create an incentive for the companies that host those bank accounts to tackle it more effectively?

[Damian Hinds]

I do think we need to look at this more closely, although it is even more complex than my hon. Friend suggests, because we get this ping-on system as well, where a body can be both a receiving bank and a sending bank, and so be a sort of transmission mechanism. We certainly need to look at this more broadly. Madam Deputy Speaker might get cross with me if I try to unpack it too much now, because it is a broader subject. However, as my hon. Friend rightly mentioned, we also have to address the questions of who is liable and how much of the liability now sits within the banking sector, full stop, as opposed to other parts of the consumer interface—different channels through which people come—that might reasonably be expected to share some of that burden too and be properly incentivised.

I am going to close my remarks by saying that these reforms are important and they are not in tension with the success of our financial services sector—quite the reverse. These reforms are about enhancing the reputation of both British financial services and, more broadly, the UK and our reliance on and respect for the rule of law. They are about protecting and growing our business; and doing the right thing, ceding no space to the criminals and the kleptocrats. In the unlikely event that we divide this afternoon, I will be proud to vote “Aye” for this Bill.

National Security Bill (First sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 7th July 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Holly Lynch]

Q I noted your assessment of the introduction of polygraphs. Have you been able to consider their use in any ongoing cases?

Jonathan Hall: What I have been told is that polygraphs have not been used for TPIMs, as far as I am aware, but they have been used for released terrorist offenders and some disclosures have been made. Everyone always thought that the real utility of polygraphs and the clear reason for their use is the disclosures that people make when undergoing the process. I gather that some admissions have been made that have been valuable and have led to a recall. I do not have a huge amount of data, but they seem to have had some success in the context of terrorism offences.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Q Mr Hall, thank you for being with us this morning. Coming back to STPIMs, you spoke with the shadow Minister a little bit about effectiveness but I want to ask for your thoughts about necessity. From your experience with the counter-terrorism regime, how do these sorts of devices get deployed and why? On transparency, I know there are sometimes concerns that these things may be used in large numbers. Will you say a word about how many TPIMs have typically been in operation at any one time?

Jonathan Hall: I cannot remember the total number of TPIMs. I think it is around 30, but I may be misremembering and that may also include—

[Damian Hinds]

That is over a number of years, of course.

Jonathan Hall: Yes. The maximum I remember in any year is up to six; at the moment it is down to about two. The authorities ran quite a successful campaign, using TPIMs against members or former members of al-Muhajiroun. Those have tended to drop off, and we are now looking at a very small clutch—I think it is only two now.

[Damian Hinds]

Q In terms of their usefulness in the suite of what is available in order to counter these threats in the terrorism field, which obviously is your primary area of expertise, can you say why one might elect to use a TPIM?

Jonathan Hall: First of all, where there is good intelligence that an individual is up to no good but it is impossible to prosecute them. There may be secret sources of intelligence—information coming from allies or from electronic means that could not be disclosed—that mean that the agencies know perfectly well that someone is a real risk. Having had the opportunity to read the intelligence, I know that there certainly are cases where people are very dangerous and are engaging in attack planning but could not be prosecuted. These measures allow a huge amount of control.

One of the key measures for the really serious people is moving them from their home location. They find it much harder to operate if they are outside their home location: they do not have the people around that they know, and they find it a more hostile operating environment. There will also be some people whose threat really comes from the propagation of terrorist propaganda, so the measure might be directed towards their use of electronic devices and the internet.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Given that there is obviously a lower burden of proof—there is no court case—and given the numbers of TPIMs that we have spoken about, are you satisfied that the proportionality is satisfactory?

Jonathan Hall: Up to a point. I have expressed my disappointment that because legal aid is not now available as of right for all TPIM subjects, there is a cohort of TPIM subjects who are not getting court reviews. In the absence of the court having the opportunity to test the proportionality, it is particularly important that the Home Office official who chairs the TPIM review group’s meetings is really testing, and I also feel that I have to play that sort of role myself. I have certainly seen cases in which it has been debatable whether the measures have been too strong, particularly in relation to electronic devices, and whether enough attention is being given to allowing people to live a useful life without presenting a threat to the wider public.

[The Chair]

I am going to move on to our next question now, from shadow Minister Jess Phillips.

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[Maria Eagle]

Q Do you agree, Sir David?

Professor Sir David Omand: Yes, I would agree with that.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Sir David, you have a long sweep of history to look back at, with GCHQ and your role as the first security and intelligence co-ordinator, and now in academia. Sir Alex was speaking earlier about some of the long-term trends and the blurring of boundaries. I think you used the phrase “the digital revolution”. I wondered if you might say a word about what you think are the biggest growing or evolving threats right now.

Professor Sir David Omand: From my experience, I would point to the consequences of the digitisation of every conceivable kind of information. That is proceeding apace. We have digital cities. Our infrastructure is now wholly dependent on IT.

In my recent book, I coined an acronym, CESSPIT—crime, espionage, sabotage and subversion perverting internet technology—and that perversion is going on as we speak. I will add one thought: I put “crime” in my acronym deliberately. If you take the activities of something like the North Korean Lazarus group, which was responsible for the WannaCry ransomware attack on our national health service, it is operating in order to obtain foreign exchange to pay for the North Korean nuclear programme and North Korean intelligence activity. In March, the group took more than $0.5 billion-worth of Ethereum currency from an exchange. This is large-scale larceny on behalf of a state.

My hope is that the powers in the Bill will help the police and agencies to deal with state-based criminal activity. I know that there are aggravated offences powers as well, which will help the police.

[Damian Hinds]

Q How do you see information operations working? How might foreign states seek to interfere in our democratic processes and public life?

Professor Sir David Omand: If you recall the statement made almost exactly two years ago in the House by Dominic Raab, he said that the Government had concluded that it was “almost certain” that “Russian actors” had “sought to interfere” in our election in 2019; and we had the evidence from the American elections and the French presidential election in 2017. All the techniques were deployed. I do not know whether any members of the Committee have been watching the TV series showing on Channel 4, which is as good a primer as any on how such techniques can be used to pervert our political discourse as well as actually harm individuals. This is the world we are in, these are the harms we face and I think that this Bill is a good start in helping the agencies to address some of those harms.

Sir Alex Younger: On this issue, you are right to focus on the possibility of interference in our democratic process and the potential unintended consequences of what we are talking about here. Of course, one person’s interference is another person’s legitimate intervention. Perish the thought that it should be the Government’s responsibility to say what is true and what is not. That is the difference between us and our opponents.

I can understand the scale of the problem; I have seen it. I had a long chat with the Government about this, and the thing that convinced me that this was an appropriate response was, first, the foreign powers condition—to be clear, that is about people acting on behalf of a foreign power—and, secondly, essentially the use of deception to achieve your aim. It seems to me that if someone is working on behalf of a foreign power, using deception, to distort our political process, we have a pretty clear basis for taking action. That, I think, is as it should be.

[Sally-Ann Hart]

Q I want to pick up on the foreign interference point in clause 13 of the Bill:

“A person commits an offence if…the person engages in conduct intending that the conduct, or a course of conduct…will have”

a negative “effect” on the UK for or on behalf of the foreign power in question. In other areas of law, in particular the criminal law, we have intent and recklessness. Do you think that clause 13 should be expanded to include recklessness?

Professor Sir David Omand: I looked at clause 24, “The foreign power condition”, and there is quite a lot of scope in it for a successful prosecution to demonstrate that the individual who as, as you say, acted recklessly, could reasonably have been expected to know that their act would benefit a foreign power, for example, so I was not so concerned about that particular question.

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[The Chair]

We have one minute left.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I realise that we have a tiny amount of time left. It is the curse of these things that we have to finish exactly on time, because we are just getting into this very interesting and important topic. You mentioned the US elections in 2016. Do you think the word “disinformation” really covers what we are talking about? Sometimes, the most invidious and harmful activity is not necessarily saying something that is untrue; it is just winding people up to hate other people more than they did before, and to distrust the system, society and democracy more than they did before. I do not mean to lead the witness, Sir David.

Professor Sir David Omand: I recommend the use of the OECD’s triplet of “misinformation”, which is wrong, but innocently so, and should be corrected; “disinformation”, which is deliberately and maliciously wrong; and “malinformation”, which is information that is true but was never intended to enter the public domain, such as the personal emails of Members of Parliament.

Sir Alex Younger: Please hold that thought, because I spent years trying to work out whose side Vladimir Putin was on, as he was propagating all sorts of contradictory causes, and then I just realised that he wants an argument—he wants distrust and discord. I have not been to the OECD on the subject, but I entirely support that.

[The Chair]

That brings us to the end of the time allocated for this session. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our very distinguished witnesses for your time today.

Examination of Witness

Paddy McGuiness gave evidence.

National Security Bill (Second sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 7th July 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Holly Lynch]

Q Sam Armstrong, on China specifically, what types of activities should we be most concerned about here in the UK?

Sam Armstrong: The problem is that it is so broad, in that there are problems even in this building. The security services will tell you privately that—far beyond Christine Lee, who obviously was named—there are agents of the Chinese state here who are known to the security services and in whom they have taken an active interest.

There are huge problems in academia; China has made no secret of its interest in academia. When the Zhenhua database leak happened a couple of years ago—this was a database that China was using to identify potential targets of intelligence activity—it was no surprise that they had targeted think-tanks and academics very carefully.

The third and final area that China is very, very interested in is anything related to technology, and to the areas that it would like to obtain and that it set out in its “Made in China 2025” programme. Those areas are twofold. The first is universities and open research. There are researchers in the UK right now who are, frankly, working with branches of the Chinese navy to come up with devices to track nuclear submarines around the world. That is as dangerous as it comes to our national security, and that work is going on in the open. I am also aware of British companies that are making engines—or casings for engines in this case—that they have admitted are good for nothing other than for engines in tanks. There are grievous concerns about the whole level.

Where do you start first? Well, that is a choice between those that are dangerously undermining our national security and tech, and those that are dangerously undermining our democracy in accessing this building and in terms of the influence and space in which they are influencing our democratic process.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Q Mr Miller, to come back to information ops, what do we know about scale of state-enacted or state-sponsored information operations specifically?

Carl Miller: One suggestion that I was going to make today was that we have nothing like a comprehensive picture. This is often extremely sporadic project-based research, and it is usually platform-specific, even though we know that, in all likelihood, that is not how the campaigns work—they will work across tonnes of platforms all at once. We will see only certain kinds of campaigns. We are broadly better at seeing broad-based campaigns addressing quite large slices of a population, but again, if we were to put ourselves in the mind of an influence operator, there would be much more targeted campaigns directed towards—if you will—higher-value targets as well.

What we know about scale is that many more countries than those we talk about are doing it. I understand that in the last Indian election, accounts attributable to every single mainstream political party were taken down by Facebook during that campaign. It has emerged as an almost mainstream campaigning tactic.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Sorry, but are you talking about domestic actors—domestic political parties in their engagement in domestic politics—rather than foreign state involvement?

Carl Miller: Yes. One of the reasons that I am hesitating is that, for researchers like me, clear and guaranteed attribution—outside the platforms—is unbelievably difficult, and I do not want to overstate. I can tell you that there are dozens upon dozens upon dozens of incidences, scenarios and narratives that we regard—reading the tea leaves of machine-learning patterns as we do—as suspicious. With the open data that is available to me, I cannot definitively link that back to a state. However, Twitter and Facebook, for example, have both disclosed dozens of campaigns that were—at least in part—likely targeting the UK, and linked them back to what they believe to be state actors.

[Damian Hinds]

Q When we talk specifically about foreign-interference information operations in countries such as the UK, we tend to focus on elections times, big democratic events, referendums and so on, but is there any reason to believe that something of a moderately comparable scale does not go on the rest of the time?

Carl Miller: No, there is not. In fact, I am sure it does, and that is one of the big trends we are seeing. We ran an effort over COP26, and we saw that there were certainly various kinds of organised attempts to manipulate big global thematic conversations about climate action, for instance. Given the barriers of entry into this world, I also do not think that it will be national elections; it might be quite small and local events that see some level of manipulation happening, too.

I will also point out one reality about how these work. One of the difficulties in seeing how the Bill—I am sorry if I have misunderstood this—might apply is its requirement that the actors involved have to be conscious that they are working on behalf of a foreign power.

Quite often, my suspicion is that you would have a state agency with various kinds of links with online actors, and there might be a whole chain, from a PR company to another more specialist digital consultant to a much spammier consultant, and that person might be the person reaching in and actually gathering together various kinds of functionalities, capabilities or services to do overtly illegitimate and malign forms of manipulation online. It might be very difficult; they might never know that a state is at the other end of the trail. With the companies that I mention—the ones selling large amounts of digital manipulation—I cannot believe that they do any kind of “know your customer” activity. I do not think that they have any idea who is employing them.

[Damian Hinds]

Q You talked earlier about what we might call the falsehood versus division distinction, and we had a good conversation about this with a previous panel of witnesses. This question is for you both: will you say something about how the use of those techniques varies between states, and what trends we are seeing?

Carl Miller: I cannot create a profile for how each state would approach information operations, to be honest. I do think that there is quite a high degree of heterogeneity among the actors involved. You have all kinds of different intelligence agencies, and military-based and political PR comms-based actors. One of the truisms is that it is a bit of a scattergun approach at the moment, where lots of things have been tried and they are attempting to evaluate them, and they do not really know which ones are succeeding and which are not. I am not quite sure if that is true or not.

The actual nitty-gritty of the techniques and technologies involved is probably the shadowiest part of this whole area. If the Bill were to be effective, something we need in parallel to it would be almost a digital influence version of the national risk register, where we have state support to pull apart and lay out where we think the genuine threats are and the genuine bodies of capability and technology that have been built to do this kind of stuff. It is very difficult for researchers in the open to do this by ourselves.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Mr Armstrong, with your China speciality, can you say anything about how that country’s approach to information ops has changed or is changing?

Sam Armstrong: Yes. China initially began—there is some really interesting stuff that has only happened in the UK in this space. We had a university that for a very long time rather openly advertised itself as providing services and specialist media training to officers of the Chinese propaganda Ministry, among others—various branches of the Chinese state—right here in London, metres away from the BBC. You also have the Confucius centre picture, which is important.

Where China has actually done very poorly is in its direct Government-to-Government disinformation. Some of the stuff that you saw around “Wolf Warrior” or that the Global Times—its state international newspaper—puts out is very ineffective. What China is incredibly effective at is not really that disinformation or misinformation public communications picture, but identifying individuals of influence within academia, business or wherever, and building up close relations with them. They are invariably people of influence, who in turn use their own networks to say, “Well, look, I’d be careful of all this talk about China. They are the biggest-growing economy on Earth, we really need to trade with them and we shouldn’t do anything to upset them at any point.” In so far as I have seen, that is where the Chinese influence picture has been focused.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Q I have a couple of questions. My first is for both of you. You have said slightly different things about the Bill, but is there anything that is not in the Bill that you think ought to be there and that would make a difference in the field in which you are doing research?

Sam Armstrong: Yes, there are two things. The first is the foreign influence transparency register system. I note that there has been a promise that it is to come, but the devil will be in the detail on that because there is a series of policy judgments that have to be made—whether it is expansive, where the teeth bite and so on. It is incredibly important that it is seen quickly.

Secondly, there should be an ability for the Secretary of State, either of the Home Office or the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, to intervene in known problematic institutional relations. There are excellent powers here, such as the individual prevention and investigation measures, but there is very little capacity when that is done more corporately—to go in and say not just to universities but to companies, which would be an expansion of the Australian power, “This arrangement is not in the UK’s interest, and we are ordering you to terminate it.” To say that is a glaring omission is perhaps overstating it, but those are the two powers I would really like to see.

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[Damian Hinds]

Q You mentioned a moment ago that we know of no examples of successful interference in elections. Can you unpack what you mean by “successful”? Do you mean changing the outcome?

Louise Edwards: The intelligence community have not notified us of any successful attempts to interfere in UK elections. As I mentioned, the Electoral Commission is not a national security body—we do not have intelligence functions—so when it comes those matters, we receive the information rather than creating it or analysing exactly what it means.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I realise that this is not your end of the business, but I do not think anybody would claim that there has been no small “s” successful interference in the democratic process in the sense of—I do not know if you heard our earlier session—winding people up, making them think they have less in common than they really do with others in society, and all those sorts of things. I do not want to put words in your mouth, but I think what you mean is actually changing the outcome of an electoral process. Is that right?

Louise Edwards: That is my understanding of what the intelligence community mean when they tell us that, yes.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I have questions about a couple of things that you have been talking about. I suppose that money coming into the political system depends on our definition of “political system”. A lot of the activity we are talking about probably involves a lot of money in one way or another, but it never actually penetrates the boundaries of what we call our political system.

We talk in other contexts about regulating political advertising—meaning adverts placed by political parties that are registered under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—but in reality, political parties’ advertising is a very small fraction of the total online influencing that goes on in the run-up to elections. What is your expert assessment of how the whole political arena is changing? How do our institutions and our legislative approach need to change to keep up?

Louise Edwards: That is a very interesting question—how long do I have? The political finance side of the regime—I will unpack what I mean by that in a moment—is very much focused on the concept of regular and routine transparency that is enhanced significantly around an electoral event—an election, essentially.

When we talk about the political finance regime, we are talking about a defined set of actors: registered political parties, third-party campaigners, candidates or other members of political parties, and those who have specific responsibilities under law, including regular donation-reporting obligations. For example, political parties have to tell us about their substantial donations on a quarterly basis, and we then publish all that information.

When it comes to elections, as I am sure you know, there is a period in the run-up to elections called the regulated period. Any spending on campaigning that happens during that period—obviously, it gets more intense the closer you get to polling day—also has to be reported to us and gets published so that people can see it.

However, you are right that that is only one side of the nature of influencing or of the wider concept of political campaigning in the UK. There are some really interesting questions there around whether it is sustainable to look only at detailed spending in the run-up to an election, when you might well argue that political campaigning these days is year-round rather than in the run-up to particular polls.

There is also another side to it: how do you define regulated political campaigning and the spending that has to be reported? Back in 2018, we did some work with voters looking at what they thought about online campaigning specifically. One thing we found was that quite often voters did not realise that something they saw online was actually trying to influence their vote, because it was not immediately obvious on the face of the piece of literature that that was what was happening.

In terms of how things might change or develop in the future, there was a bit of thinking done about this in the Elections Act 2022, which introduced what we call “digital imprints”. They are a little bit of text that goes on a message online and says, “This was produced by this person, on behalf of this person, paid for by this person,” so you can see that it is a political advertisement. It is that level of detail and transparency that now needs to be applied.

[Damian Hinds]

Q To be clear, to which actors does the digital imprint requirement apply?

Louise Edwards: It applies to anybody who is putting out regulated political material, so it would be political parties, third-party campaigners and candidates. The regime is fairly comprehensive, although not entirely comprehensive. I realise I am going slightly outside the scope of this Bill, but there is opportunity to make it more comprehensive and to really make it clear to voters every time they see a little bit of campaign material online who is paying for it. So it is those established actors who are—

[Damian Hinds]

Q Exactly, as long as they are part of our regulatory framework.

Louise Edwards: Yes.

[Maria Eagle]

Q We seem to have fairly decent regulation for participants in elections. We all know what imprints are, let us put it that way—anybody who has been elected knows what an imprint is. Some of the effort to perpetrate disinformation—to use a blanket term—whether that is successful or not, does not come from people who want to abide by the rules or who are keen to get their imprint on their material; that is precisely what they are not doing. Do you have any views about how we make it clear what is going on? In that respect, do you think that the foreign influence registration scheme that we are promised will be brought in during the Commons stages of the legislation will have a positive impact on identifying people who are trying to do this, or not?

Louise Edwards: You have hit upon one of the hardest issues here. Broadly speaking, people who are within the regime already—the established actors we have been talking about—comply with the law. Many of them, in fact, already put digital imprints on their online material, even though it is not yet a legal requirement to do so. The challenge is those who are perhaps based overseas or who do not want to play by the rules, basically. There are real enforcement challenges there, particularly when you are thinking about organisations or individuals based overseas.

If I go back to the recent Elections Act, one of the provisions that the Government brought in at that point was to lower the spending threshold in elections for people who are based overseas to £700: if you are an overseas entity, you can spend up to £700 campaigning in our elections, then that is it—that is your spending threshold. The problem is that, from our point of view, that can only really be symbolic, because it is virtually impossible to enforce spending at that low level. Even if we were to identify an overseas organisation spending in UK elections, they are overseas, so we have no enforcement powers that we can use to try to stop them.

I am painting a fairly awful picture, but there are some ways to tackle it from a slightly different perspective. For example, we have recently started launching a campaign before elections that is helping voters to look at online material with perhaps a more critical eye, to try to assess whether they should let it affect their vote and to give them a place to find out how to express concerns about that material, with the hope then being that we can perhaps raise confidence in legitimate digital campaigning while at the same time giving people an outlet if they see something they think is illegitimate. There is also a fair amount of work that you could do around political literacy at a very young age with voters, to help them to have that kind of critical perspective.

You mentioned the registration schemes. As a civil political finance regulator, our remit does not extend to matters of lobbying and influence, but one thing I would say, if I may, is that when it comes to the integrity of our democracy and voter confidence in it, transparency is key. Any registration scheme that brings more transparency around who is seeking to influence those involved in our democracy can only be to the benefit of the confidence of voters.

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[The Chair]

Damian Hinds, very briefly.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Professor Martin, one of the core aims of this legislation is to bring our counter-espionage capability up to date with the modern world. You spoke a little earlier about data theft in the context of the US Government and police. Will you briefly say something about how technology has changed states’ espionage capabilities and how we need to respond?

Professor Ciaran Martin: Why is so-called data sovereignty such an issue? There are all sorts of reasons in economics, but one of them is that the location of the storage of data is really important. Data centres are massive strategic assets and a vulnerability for any sort of country, and you can see that combined effort. Why did we have such a big debate about the role of Chinese technology in UK infrastructure? It is because of the potential—never mind 5G and so on, but rather in things like smart cities—for data to be siphoned off covertly and so forth. It is possible.

There are stats to show, if you had compromised the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and you went in there, how much you could photocopy versus how much you could steal electronically. There is now the possibility and, in some cases, the practice of comprehensive strategic compromise of huge, important datasets and sensitive strategic knowledge across all sorts of sectors by a combination of mostly digital but sometimes human-enhanced means. Until now, as you say, Mr Hinds, we have not really had a legislative framework for it. This Bill does provide a no doubt improvable such foundation.

[The Chair]

That brings us to the end of this section of questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witness, Professor Ciaran Martin. Thank you very much.

Examination of Witnesses

Dr Nicholas Hoggard, Professor Penney Lewis and Rich Owen gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Holly Lynch]

Q Thank you. Can I ask for your thoughts on clause 23, which is on the extension of powers to the security services? The security services feel quite strongly about that and we have heard from them earlier today around encouraging or assisting offences. Did you have any thoughts at the Law Commission about that?

Professor Penney Lewis: Sadly, no. That was not within the scope of our project. It really exceeds the focus of our project on official Government data, so we did not make any recommendations in relation to those kinds of powers and we do not have a view.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I turn to Mr Owen, briefly, to ask about the forthcoming foreign influence registration scheme. From your perspective, what would be your hopes on behalf of the legal profession for that scheme and do you have any concerns?

Rich Owen: We think the solicitors’ profession should be subjected to the scheme in just the same way as any other, although we would like an exception on grounds of legal professional privilege. This is an ancient common-law right going back 400 years or more. It is also regarded as a human right and as a corollary of everyone’s right to receive legal advice and assistance and we feel it plays a crucial role in the proper administration of justice.

To be clear on what we mean by legal professional privilege, it is communication between a client and lawyer whose dominant purpose is to seek legal advice, or a communication between a client and lawyer in anticipation of pending or actual litigation. We therefore think that if there is a foreign influence registration scheme without legal professional privilege, then solicitors acting for foreign states or foreign state-related actors, such as companies controlled by or influenced by foreign states, would have to disclose documents. We think that profoundly compromises the rule of law and the fairness of trials, and will affect the relationship between client and lawyer.

I think it is easy to forget that legal professional privilege is not a privilege for solicitors or lawyers; it is for the client. Of course, clients want to be open with their lawyers when they are seeking advice, and we think this scheme would inhibit that openness. Of course, very often, the reason why they want to be open with their lawyers is that they want to know how to comply with the law, rather than breach it. That is why an exemption is needed in any such scheme.

[Damian Hinds]

Q What would the loopholes or potential unintended consequences be to such a provision, and how would you guard against them?

Rich Owen: It is important to know the limits to legal professional privilege. It cannot be used to further a crime—because of the so-called “crime-fraud exception” or the “iniquity exception”—so if a solicitor advances an assertion of legal professional privilege in bad faith, then they are not in a privileged situation and could potentially be charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Legal professional privilege would complement any scheme. The Home Office consultation on a possible scheme said it would respect the human rights framework. That privilege is an ancient common-law right. It is has also been recognised as a human right. The consultation also said that a scheme would not interfere with legitimate activities. It would be a legitimate activity to seek advice from your lawyer and not have that advice disclosed. If anyone was furthering that for espionage purposes, then that would not be a privileged situation; they would be acting outwith legal professional privilege.

[Damian Hinds]

Q So you are not saying that you think that lawyers should be exempted from registering? Your objection is specifically about disclosure of documentation.

Rich Owen: Yes. Well, we are looking for something similar to the Australian scheme. The Australian legislation specifically exempts legal professional privilege, as well as seeking legal advice and assistance. That sort of model, which expressly exempts legal professional privilege, would be a suitable way forward for the scheme.

[Sally-Ann Hart]

Q I just want to look at the provisions relating to arrests without warrant, which is in clause 21 and schedule 3. The provisions relating to that include the ability to delay access to a solicitor and delay notifying a person’s family of their detention. Based on similar provisions for terrorism suspects, do you regard that as proportionate and necessary? Can I go to Dr Hoggard first?

Dr Nicholas Hoggard: You can, although I am afraid I will have to be very boring. Speaking with my Law Commission hat on, we are limited in what we can say with respect to those things that did not form part of the scope, regarding the protection of Government data. I am very sorry; I do not mean to be deliberately unhelpful, but we do not really—

--- Later in debate ---

[Holly Lynch]

Q Perhaps I can return to my previous discussion with Professor Lewis on the issue around UK interests and Government interests? Putting aside the issue around leaks, I want to think about the “Assisting a foreign intelligence service” elements in clause 3. I will use a hypothetical. If there is a Foreign Secretary who has met with a former KGB officer, and you have that information and want to put it in the public domain—an outrageous example that would never happen—would the Government have grounds to say that, in disclosing that, you have acted against UK interests rather than Government interests? That is despite the fact that there was no material advantage to a foreign intelligence service or detriment to UK interests.

Professor Penney Lewis: I am sorry but I am going to be very boring again. The offence in clause 3 is not the implementation of one of our recommendations. It is one of the offences that was outside the scope of our project. The main espionage offences that are in the existing Official Secrets Act, which implement our recommendations, are in clauses 1 and 4 of the Bill.

Dr Nicholas Hoggard: I will add to that without going outside our own remit, but thinking more broadly about the distinction between UK interests and Government interests. To re-emphasise a point that Penney made earlier, the essence of espionage offences lies in that purpose prejudicial. That is why we see in those offences that have the purpose prejudicial element—where your purpose is prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom—that the sentence is so much greater.

The mens rea—the fault element—of those criminal offences lies in that purpose prejudicial. You need not only your purpose but to have known, or ought to have known, that your purpose was prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK. Also, you must have known, or ought to have known, that you were acting to benefit a foreign power on behalf of a foreign power. Taken together, it is that essence that makes those offences substantively different from the sort of behaviours that might embarrass a Government—or a Government Minister. That sort of thing often falls for consideration within unauthorised disclosure offences, but it is not really the meat of an offence focused on the active interference with the proper safety or interests of a state.

Regularly throughout the project we met with a number of the UK intelligence community in Cobra with the Government security group. The evidence we heard of the nature of hostile state activity does not really have a bearing on the sort of material that sometimes gets disclosed that might embarrass Government Ministers. They are two quite different creatures.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Turning to Law Commission colleagues, you have conducted a very comprehensive review of the four Official Secrets Acts. Let us set aside the Official Secrets Act 1989, which is, as you rightly say, in a different category, because it is about disclosure rather than espionage. Looking at the Acts of 1911, 1920 and 1939, I think it would be useful for the Committee’s deliberation to hear a little about how you went about your review and what you learned along the way—perhaps about if you conferred with your equivalent commissions in other countries and what you heard about the changing nature of the threat that we are trying to deal with and so on.

Professor Penney Lewis: Maybe I will start with the high level and then Nick can come in with a bit more detail. I should preface my answer with a slight caveat. This project started in 2015. Nick joined the Law Commission in February 2019 and I joined in January 2020, so while we were heavily involved in the final report, neither of us were involved in drafting the consultation paper or in the consultation period, which happened in 2017. None the less, we have read the consultation responses, and I can also talk slightly more generally about how we go about doing a consultation.

We were asked to take on this project. The way we work is that we undertake a pre-consultation investigative phase where we talk to stakeholders. That involved Government stakeholders, including Government security stakeholders. We talked to a lot of academics who work in this field. We talked to the media, because obviously they were particularly interested in the 1989 Act, and various organisations that are interested in freedom of expression and open government. We then drafted a consultation paper, which contained provisional proposals for reform. We put those out to public consultation. We had a three-month consultation period, and we had a number of consultation events during that. At the same time, we are continuing to talk to Government security colleagues, as Nick mentioned.

We eventually came to an agreement with Government security colleagues about how they would brief us about the details of the threat facing us without us then being in a position where we would have to say in our report, “Well, we have heard all this secret evidence. We can’t tell you what it is, but trust us that these are the recommendations we think will safeguard the security and interests of the UK”, and without also putting the security and interests of the UK at risk. We agreed a confidential briefing process that involved Nick and me. We then also agreed the disclosure by Government of hypothetical examples that they had drafted to represent the real threats that they told us about confidentially and securely.

Throughout the report, there are hypothetical vignettes that illustrate particular risks. Those are the Government and intelligence services’ creatures, but they were the way in which we were able to reflect the reality of the threat. We then considered the consultation responses and the information we had had from the Government security group. We actually changed a number of things we had said in our consultation paper, so in between the provisional proposals and the recommendations there are a number of significant differences, particularly in relation to the 1989 Act. We then published a report in 2020, which contained our final recommendations for reform.

Dr Nicholas Hoggard: I will go into some specifics of what we learned, which is generously open-ended. What Penney says is correct; there were a number of changes that followed the consultation paper, come the final report. One of the major reasons for that was our engagement more substantively with confidential material and representatives from the UK intelligence community—UKIC—and across a number of Departments. It became increasingly clear to us that the scale of the threat was of an order of magnitude that, even in relatively recent integrated reviews, had not really been reflected. That scale really comes from the cyber-threat. I do not want to repeat what far more sophisticated witnesses said earlier in respect of that, but it also became increasingly clear to us that the way in which very capable state actors were wielding that cyber-threat meant that certain of the original provisions we had made needed to be reconsidered.

One example of that would be the extraterritoriality provisions, both in relation to the espionage offences and the unauthorised disclosure offences. The nature of the way in which cyber-information is held—of course, cyber-information now basically means all information—has changed. The existing offences under the 1911 Act and its ancillary Acts are now almost quaint in the way that they perceive espionage as something that happens on our territory. Of course, that is simply not the case anymore. These extraterritoriality provisions, though relatively unusual for criminal offences, are none the less vital if we are to capture the sort of behaviour that we see now. I think the process we went through in engaging with UKIC was actually vital for the understanding of, and background to, some of the recommendations that we made.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions, can I thank our witnesses? We will now move to the next panel.

Examination of Witness

Poppy Wood gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Holly Lynch]

Q We will be tabling an amendment that would require the Government to commission an independent review every year on the prevalence of disinformation and the impact that it has on elections. Who would you imagine would be most suited to undertake that report?

Poppy Wood: That is a brilliant idea. It goes back to the point about grip. We are seeing really good work being done by the Home Department and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I think the DCMS counter-disinformation unit is an important tool, but it is very small, as is DCMS, and it is lacking the transparency that such interventions require. It should probably be a body like the Intelligence and Security Committee—some kind of cross-party body, quasi-independent of Government, thinking about the issues, with input from expertise in the relevant services and relevant Departments. I know that the Home Department and DCMS work together closely on this, and I think the Cabinet Office also has a role to play. Instinctively, I feel that something like the ISC would be the best place for it, but I am sure that is to be worked out.

One of the issues with a lot of this stuff is the role of the Executive, and making sure that the body is that far removed from political interference.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Hello. Earlier, you queried why something that happened in 2014 might only have been called out by Facebook in 2018. Isn’t it quite obvious that what happened was 2016 in the middle, and all the brouhaha that followed from the American elections and the congressional inquiry, and all the rest of it? It turned out that when Facebook and others went looking, it was amazing what they could find.

Poppy Wood: Absolutely. If you are suggesting that they respond to PR crises, I would agree with you on that one. Of course, this about brands. We have seen with revelations from Frances Haugen that Facebook is not understaffed but just not focusing them in the right direction on this stuff. There are only handfuls of people focusing on co-ordinated disinformation for the whole world within these big technology companies. It should be dozens, especially if they are hiring 10,000 engineers for the metaverse in Europe. They can put some of them on elections and tracking. They say that they go far, but they could go much further. When there is pressure on them, they respond, and so far that pressure has been PR because there has not been regulation.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Would it be fair to say that they have at least got better? If you take the American 2020 election, there does not seem to have been the same volume of attempted disruption as in 2016 election, or at least not in the places where we are now looking, like Facebook?

Poppy Wood: We do not know, because we have not got the transparency. They may seem to have got better, but as a percentage of what, we cannot know. They will say that it has got better and that they have caught this many thousand as opposed to that many thousand last time, and those accounts have been taken down, but we have no idea if it is a percentage of what. That is why people, such as Frances Haugen, who have come forward as whistleblowers to say, “They are telling you this, but the data says that,” show that we should not be relying on those people. I am sure we will come on to the whistleblowers, but there have to touchpoints much earlier on, from civil society, from Government, from researchers, to say “Hey, actually, the scale is much larger,” or, “You’re not even looking at this stuff.”

London is one of the most linguistically diverse cities in the world, and when we are talking about counter-terrorism speech, one of Frances’s revelations was that 75% of counter-terrorism speech was identified as AI—it is terrorism speech, so it is taken down. We are thinking about the UK as an English monolith, but there is plenty of linguistic diversity that puts us at risk when those platforms are weaponised in elections, focusing on diaspora and so on.

I would hope that the platforms have got better, and I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the truth is that we just do not know.

[Damian Hinds]

Q You mentioned that there is not transparency, but there is at least one type of transparency with Facebook—main Facebook—as in you can see what is on it. I wonder what you think of the role of channels that you cannot see, such as private messaging that includes private parts of Facebook, WhatsApp, and what they call copypasta—copying and pasting SMS messages—and so on. How much do we know about that?

Poppy Wood: I would challenge the first assumption that you can see what you can see on Facebook. They still view that as private information. Researchers cannot get access to that unless they kind of beg, borrow and steal. I understand the question—

[Damian Hinds]

But you can see public postings on Facebook. That is my point.

Poppy Wood: On your page, you can, but researchers cannot.

[Damian Hinds]

But that is still more than you can see on WhatsApp, where you cannot see a post at all.

Poppy Wood: That’s true. I suppose I would say they could do much more about transparency just about the public posts—that is my first point. Secondly, on encryption, there are concerns about some of the amendments in the Online Safety Bill and what that really means for encryption. I know we are not here to talk about that Bill, but encryption is an important tool. We know that those spaces are misused, but we need to be really clear about some of the benefits that encryption offers to lots of people, particularly the security services, for sharing information safely. We need to be careful.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I was not trying to start an argument or even a discussion or analysis of end-to-end encryption. I was just asking, relatively speaking, how much do we know? There is a hypothesis that the reason why there was apparently less material in recent American elections on Facebook than in 2016 is that large parts of it have moved to other channels where we just cannot see it. We just do not know what is there.

Poppy Wood: Let me give you a good example on Russia Today. We do a lot of work and analysis around Russia and Ukraine. Obviously, Russia Today was taken down from most national broadcast networks. It has been resurrected multiple times on social media. This week, we saw it resurrected with another name, like “Discovery Dig” or something, on YouTube, where lots of the comments, imagery and language were directing people to Telegram channels where they are actively mobilising.

What we see in the active mobilisation on Telegram channels is the outing of national security agents, the putting up of email addresses of politicians and saying, “Target them and say they are on the wrong side of the debate,” or, “Write to this national newspaper.” In all three of those examples, it is predominantly in the UK. They are telling them it is all fabricated. They are absolutely weaponising those private spaces. As you say, it is quite hard to get into them—but actually, it is not that hard. They are pretty open channels, with thousands and millions of engagements and followers. That is the scarier bit. They are private, but you are getting tens of millions of people and engagements on them. I am not sure that is the true definition of private, but it is certainly in an encrypted space.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Q I want to touch on the whistleblower issue you raised. There have been some concerns that the Bill might not sufficiently target those with malicious intent. Is there a risk that it potentially criminalises whistleblowers?

Poppy Wood: The role of whistleblowers in society is really important. I know the Government understand that. There are some good recommendations from the ISC about whistleblowers that I do not think have been adopted in this version of the Bill. That is about at least giving some clarity to where the thresholds lie, and giving a disclosure offence and a public interest defence to whistleblowers so they can say, “These are the reasons why.” My understanding is that at the moment it sits with juries and it is on a case-by-case basis. I would certainly commend to you the recommendations from the ISC.

I would also say—this was a recommendation from the Law Commission and also, I think, from the ISC—that lots of people have to blow the whistle because they feel that they do not have anywhere else to go. There could be formal procedures—an independent person or body or office to go to when you are in intelligence agencies, or government in general or anywhere. One of the reasons why Frances Haugen came forward—she has been public about this—is that she did not really know where else to go. There were no placards saying, “Call the Information Commissioner in the UK if you have concerns about data.” People do not know where to go.

Getting touchpoints earlier down the chain so that people do not respond in desperation in the way we have seen in the past would be a good recommendation to take forward. Whistleblowers play an important part in our society and in societies all round the world. Those tests on a public interest defence would give some clarity, which would be really welcome. Building a system around them—I know the US intelligence services do that; they have a kind of whistleblower programme within the CIA and the Department of Defence that allows people to go to someone, somewhere, earlier on, to raise concerns—is the sort of thing you might be looking at. I think a whistleblower programme is an ISC recommendation, but it is certainly a Law Commission recommendation.

Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 Codes of Practice: Consultations

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Written Statements

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

The Proceeds of Crime Act contains a comprehensive package of measures designed to make the recovery of unlawfully held assets more effective. The operation of certain powers within POCA are subject to guidance in various codes of practice issued by the Home Secretary, the Attorney General and the Advocate General for Northern Ireland, the Department of Justice and Scottish Ministers.

An existing code of practice needs to be updated to reflect changes made to the UWO regime following the commencement of the expedited Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act on 15 May 2022.

POCA provides that before a revised code of practice is issued, I must consider any representations made and modify the codes as appropriate, and subsequently lay the codes before Parliament for approval.

I intend to consult on changes to the following code of practice:

The Investigations Code Of Practice issued under s.377 of the Proceeds of Crime Act, which provides guidance for investigators in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General (Suella Braverman) will also launch a consultation in tandem with this one, to seek a view on one further code, which provides guidance for prosecutors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I will arrange for a copy of the consultation on the Investigations Code of Practice to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

The Attorney General will arrange for a copy of the consultation on the code providing guidance for prosecutors to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Following the introduction of the upcoming Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, I will launch another consultation on further changes to the same code in relation to new powers to support the recovery of crypto-assets.

I then intend to lay a statutory instrument to issue an updated code of practice under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to reflect both sets of changes once the ECCT Bill is in force.

[HCWS155]

Draft Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (Consequential Provision) Regulations 2022

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 General Committees

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (Consequential Provision) Regulations 2022.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Sharma.

Following the horrific terrorist attack at Fishmongers’ Hall in November 2019, the Home Secretary commissioned the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, to review the multi-agency public protection arrangements—commonly known as MAPPA—which are used to supervise terrorist and terrorism-risk offenders on licence in the community.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 established three new powers for counter-terrorism policing: a personal search power, a premises search power, and an urgent power of arrest. These powers were taken in response to recommendations made by Mr Hall following his review of MAPPA. The draft regulations relate to the new power of personal search, the creation of which was also recommended by the Fishmongers’ Hall prevention of future deaths report. The personal search power was inserted into the Terrorism Act 2000—it is new section 43C of that Act—by the 2022 Act. The new search power commences tomorrow, 28 June.

As the Government set out during the passage of the 2022 Act, the new search power will apply across the UK, enabling the police to stop and search terrorist and terrorism-connected offenders released on licence who are required to submit to the search by their licence conditions. The officer conducting the stop and search must be satisfied that it is necessary to exercise the power for purposes connected with protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism.

The Government are clear that sensitive powers of stop and search should be subject to a code of practice setting out the basic principles for their use. Section 47AA of the Terrorism Act 2000 imposes a requirement on the Secretary of State to prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the exercise of search powers that are conferred by that Act. The draft regulations amend section 47AA so that it extends to cover the new search power inserted into the Terrorism Act by the 2022 Act. Subject to Parliament’s approval, this consequential amendment will create a requirement for the Secretary of State to prepare a revised code of practice that includes guidance on the exercise of the power conferred by new section 43C.

In anticipation of section 47AA being amended, I can confirm that we are already in the process of engaging relevant stakeholders and updating the code of practice to reflect the new section 43C stop-and-search power. We plan to lay an order next month, alongside the draft revised code of practice itself, for Parliament’s consideration and approval. As such, Parliament will have the opportunity to review and debate the revised code and its contents in due course.

The draft regulations being considered today simply relate to the technical and consequential matter of whether to amend section 47AA of the Terrorism Act 2000 to enable the Government to update the relevant code of practice in the manner I have outlined. I very much hope that hon. and right hon. members on both sides of the Committee will be able to support them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I thank the colleagues who have spoken. I acknowledge what the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire says about the importance of consultation with the devolved Administrations. To the hon. Member for Bolton South East, I say simply that we are committed, as she knows, to tacking terrorism in all its forms. This power to conduct a search will apply to any terrorist offender who is subject to the relevant licence condition, which is irrespective of someone’s religious background or ethnicity. The legislation is clear that such searches cannot be conducted unless the police officer is satisfied that the search is necessary for the purposes of protecting members of the public from the risk of terrorism.

I thank the hon. Member for Halifax for her comments. I echo what she says about the importance of the work of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and I assure her that the effectiveness of such legislation is continually reviewed.

In conclusion, I thank all colleagues for their presence here at this important scrutiny session—

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Maybe I misheard the Minister, but did he say that when somebody is searched, that search will be recorded, and also that the records will show the ethnicity and religion of the person? That is the information I was talking about. Perhaps I misunderstood him, but I would like clarity on that.

[Damian Hinds]

Of course, the code itself will be laid before Parliament in due course and the House will have, in a session such as this, the opportunity to debate it. I can assure the hon. Lady that that sort of recording is indeed part of the process.

I reiterate that the regulations provide a technical consequential amendment to section 47AA of the Terrorism Act to reflect the introduction of the new personal search power and to ensure it is governed by a code of practice. I emphasise again that today’s regulations will not amend the content of the relevant code of practice, and our draft revised code, as I was just saying, will shortly be laid before Parliament subject to its approval. As such, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to ensure national security.

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

Our national security is the first responsibility and priority of the Government, and we are ensuring that our world-class security and intelligence services and counterterrorism police are supported in their work with the tools and the legislative framework they need to keep us safe. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to them for all they do.

[Chris Clarkson]

When it comes to the Rwanda policy, the Labour party is all over the shop. The left hand does not know what the far left hand is doing. The other day the Leader of the Opposition’s spokesman said that they could not rule out maintaining this policy, while the shadow immigration Minister told the BBC that they would definitely scrap it. While the Labour party works out if it has a policy at all, can I ask my right hon. Friend for an assurance that we will be working to break the vile business model of people traffickers by making sure that the Rwanda flights get off the ground soon?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is quite right that we hear plenty of opposing from the Opposition, but not much proposing: they complain, but they do not have a plan. Our partnership with Rwanda is strong and supports a proportionate, humane approach. We are determined to deter the wicked people smugglers and the great damage that they bring to human life.

[Paul Holmes]

The MI5 director general recently said:

“It must be right that Parliament looks at modernising the powers the State has to protect us all from the full range of today’s threats.”

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that we are heeding the director general’s advice, and that our National Security Bill will protect us from a range of emerging threats, including cyber-attacks and interference in elections?

[Damian Hinds]

I can. May I take the opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for all his work in support of our national security while he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary in the Department?

The National Security Bill will keep pace with the changing threat and will make the UK an ever harder target for states that seek to conduct hostile acts against us. It will be an offence for foreign powers to improperly interfere with the UK’s democracy. The Bill will address the serious threat from state-backed attacks on assets, including sites, data and infrastructure critical to the UK’s safety or interests.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Has the Home Secretary considered the dangers to freedom of the press that the National Security Bill presents? Many of my constituents are concerned that measures that could prevent journalists from publishing stories of public interest are undemocratic.

[Damian Hinds]

No, I do not see a danger to journalistic freedoms. Indeed, the Government are taking stringent steps to ensure, for example, that in the Online Safety Bill journalistic rights and freedoms are absolutely to the fore, because of the vital and irreplaceable role that a free and sometimes boisterous media plays in underpinning and challenging us in our democracy.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

Canada, one of our Five Eyes partners, recently announced sanctions against Alexander Lebedev as one of 14 people who

“have directly enabled Vladimir Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine and bear responsibility for the pain and suffering of the people of Ukraine.”

I have asked this question of the Government six times now, but I have not had anything resembling an answer: did the Prime Minister meet Alexander Lebedev without officials and without close protection during the Salisbury poisonings in April 2018—yes or no?

[Damian Hinds]

I do not know the detailed contents of either individual’s diary. What I can tell the hon. Lady and the House is that this Government have acted on sanctions against Putin-linked elites—the people who have propped up and supported that regime—without fear or favour. That extends to more than 1,000 individuals, entities and subsidiaries, and we will do more as required.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures: 1 December 2021 to 28 February 2022

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Written Statements

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

Section 19(1) of the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIM) Act 2011 (the Act) requires the Secretary of State to report to Parliament as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of every relevant three-month period on the exercise of her TPIM powers under the Act during that period.

The level of information provided will always be subject to slight variations based on operational advice.

HM Passport Office Backlog

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

While 98.5% of UK passport applications are being processed within 10 weeks, it is clear that some of our constituents have not received the level of service that they rightly expect. I assure colleagues that the efforts to improve delivery of passport services continue. The further 550 staff still to be added going into the summer will further increase the capacity for processing applications and build on the record numbers being processed now. HM Passport Office’s current projection suggests that by the end of this month more applications will have been processed in 2022 than throughout the whole of the previous year.

I am grateful to colleagues across the House for their contributions to this debate. We heard from the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), my hon. Friend—and almost neighbour—the Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes), and the hon. Members for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith), for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), for Blackburn (Kate Hollern), for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali), for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), and for Newport West (Ruth Jones). Many of them, including the hon. Member for Newport West, rightly paid tribute to staff working in HMPO offices. I echo what they said to hard-working staff working in difficult circumstances.

Many colleagues across the House rightly asked what we have done and what we are doing on resourcing to make sure that the operation is commensurate with the task at hand. I can tell them that 650 additional staff have been added since April 2021 and 550 more are being recruited. The hon. Member for City of Durham helpfully outlined the use of agency staff and overtime in order to increase the capacity. I think at one point she was suggesting that we should not be deploying extra agency staff and overtime, which would of course make matters worse. The telephone operator, Teleperformance, has also added hundreds of staff, and other suppliers have increased their capacity, too. We have opened an eighth service counter and run extensive proactive communications, including issuing 5 million reminder texts to people with passports expired or soon to expire.

A couple of colleagues asked whether staff working from home is causing delays, and it is not. Whether staff work from home or from the office does not impact on the capacity within the digital system, which is accessible from home. The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) asked from the shadow Front Bench specifically about courier services. I can confirm that through constructive work with FedEx, which is the parent company of TNT, delivery delays have been resolved and TNT is currently delivering within the contractual service levels.

In anticipation of the surge in demand and to provide greater resilience to the delivery network, a percentage of domestically delivered passports are now also arriving via HMPO’s partner for international deliveries, which she will know is DHL, with supporting documents being returned by Royal Mail. More than one Opposition MP asked about the TNT contract. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on such commercial matters from the Dispatch Box, but I will say that the relationship between the Passport Office and FedEx is constructive and the current performance is as required.

The hon. Member for Halifax also asked about Sopra Steria and the back-office processing. I confirm that it has doubled its workforce supporting Her Majesty’s Passport Office since the start of 2022, alongside opening up a number of new processing centres. Its efforts have enabled the registration of applications and supporting documents on our system and the return of supporting documents to keep pace with the unprecedented demand.

The question of privatisation or otherwise has been raised multiple times in the debate. Again, to be clear, elements of the process, such as the printing and the delivery of the passports, are already contracted to private suppliers. We are committed, naturally, to ensuring that public services are run as efficiently and effectively as possible, and that gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to our hard-working staff.

We are living through the aftermath of a pandemic that has been at once an unprecedented medical and healthcare shock, an unprecedented peacetime economic shock and an unprecedented travel and movement of people shock. It is one with multiple uncertainties, adverse turns and false dawns. It has disrupted supply chains, interrupted business continuity and thwarted projections at every turn throughout this country and throughout the world. It has specifically thrown the travel trade off course and everyone’s planning of its usual pattern far off course.

In 2020, there were roughly 4 million passport applications in this country. In 2021, it was about 5 million. This year—2022—we project it will be 9.5 million. In the face of this enormous change, everyone’s focus has been on trying to make sure that Britain—our constituents—can get back travelling, whether that is taking their hard-earned holidays or doing that business travel, which underpins our national prosperity, or those visits to be with loved ones, both in the happiest of times and in the saddest of times, when their personal in-person support is so important.

Amid the overwhelming volumes, it is true that sometimes things have not been fast enough and call waiting times have been too long, and I am sorry for that, but it is not for want of will, effort or commitment. I pay tribute to the dedicated staff of Her Majesty’s Passport Office working under this pressure.

I also want to say a word about the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster). I must say that I am rather disappointed by the wording of the motion. What is happening with passport applications is an entirely legitimate, worthwhile and relevant subject for debate, but it is quite wrong to channel that into a personal criticism of him. He is an extremely engaged and active Minister working with officials to deal with these unprecedented issues. I have heard many accounts, and we have heard more today, of his personal work to help to expedite some of the most difficult cases by doing casework out of hours and at weekends for hon. Members on both sides of the House.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

My constituent went to Durham passport office to collect his passport only to be told that there was an issue with the photo that had previously been approved. He has just been to deliver new photos, but staff told him that they have no record of his interview, despite the Home Office telling me two hours ago that it was on the system. He flies to America on Monday. What do I tell him?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. This is the Minister’s winding-up speech; it is not the place for a new speech. I let the hon. Lady finish because—[Interruption.] Do not argue with me. I let her finish because she was speaking on behalf of a constituent, and it matters, but that is not how we conduct debate.

[Damian Hinds]

I think the hon. Lady will appreciate that it is impossible—literally impossible—for me to comment on the details of that case and the particular issue with the photograph and so on from the Dispatch Box of the House of Commons, but if she speaks to our colleagues in the hub in Portcullis House, or with me or the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay after the debate, we will be sure to pick it up.

The difficulties that we have heard about today absolutely must be taken with great seriousness, and that is happening. I assure hon. Members that we will continue to look at ways to further improve performance. I also remind them that 98.5% of UK applications across March, April and May were processed within the published processing time. Indeed, the overwhelming majority were processed more quickly than that, with more than 91% of those completed in May having been processed within six weeks.

I certainly do not seek to minimise the frustrations that have been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House during the debate, but I assure the House that everybody at Her Majesty’s Passport Office is completely focused on meeting the needs of customers ahead of their long-awaited and hard-earned summer holidays.

Question put.

Draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Examining Officers and Review Officers) Order 2022

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 General Committees

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Examining Officers and Review Officers) Order 2022.

This statutory instrument will give effect to the draft code of practice that covers the exercise of counter-terrorism port examination powers under schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000. The powers were amended by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.

Counter-terrorism officers who use schedule 7 port examination powers must do so in accordance with the relevant code of practice. While the code largely reflects the primary legislation, it also includes further procedural guidance for those exercising the powers and additional safeguards for those subject to them.

In passing the Nationality and Borders Act, the House approved amendments to the powers under schedule 7 that have necessitated changes to the code of practice. The code now reflects the amended provisions under schedule 7, which allow officers to examine individuals away from port areas in the following circumstances: first, the individual must either be detained or in custody under relevant provisions of the Immigration Acts; secondly, the individual must have arrived in the UK by sea and been apprehended within 24 hours of their arrival; and, thirdly, a period of five days beginning on the day after their apprehension must not have expired.

That will allow officers to examine those who, following their irregular arrival in the UK, have been moved from a port location or are encountered inland. In short, those who have arrived irregularly by sea will now be subject to the same powers as if they had arrived through conventional means, adding a further protective layer to our existing precautions. The draft code before us includes changes to cover the exercise of that amended power, as well as several other minor changes to clarify language around existing safeguards.

The code was subject to public consultation earlier this year. In response to feedback, we clarified officers’ responsibility to inform those being examined that the purpose of the examination is not to gather evidence or information on any potential immigration offences.

The UK and its citizens continue to face the threat of terrorism from those who are intent on harming and dividing us. The provisions within this statutory instrument will support the police in their tireless efforts to keep us safe from such threats. I commend the draft order to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I thank all members of the Committee for this important scrutiny sitting and our debate. Several important points were made by the hon. Member for Halifax who speaks for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Falkirk of the SNP and the right hon. Member for North Durham, and I will address them now.

We have to look realistically at the situation we are dealing with: the vast majority of people who arrive on small boats have no documentation with them to indicate who they are or where they are from. Enabling officers to examine those who are being processed for immigration purposes away from the ports, as well as at the ports, means that we can fulfil our duty to safeguard national security, while allowing those individuals to be moved from a port environment to more appropriate facilities.

We do not publish statistics on the results of schedule 7 examinations, because to do so would risk disclosing whether a stop was targeted, and that is an operational matter for the police. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman, however, that there is extensive record keeping and analysis, as he might imagine.

[Mr Jones]

That is reassuring, but does that go to Ministers? It is important for Ministers to have at least oversight of what is going on. If there are blips in statistics, he or she could then at least intervene and ask the questions why.

[Damian Hinds]

I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that such operations have extensive ministerial oversight, and rightly so.

On a number of previous occasions, a well-rehearsed debate on the powers under schedule 7 has been considered in depth, as colleagues know. For now, I reiterate only that those powers have been absolutely integral to the work of the police in detecting and disrupting terrorists for more than two decades. The police do that—I reassure everyone—in a way that is compliant with article 6. Oral answers, as colleagues know, are of course excluded from criminal proceedings.

The hon. Member for Halifax asked specifically about locations and what should be in scope. The key practical operational point here is that people will be in custody or immigration detention, so scope should not arise in general as an issue.

Various colleagues asked about training, and we continue to work closely with the police to ensure that the independent reviewer’s recommendation on training is included. I am grateful to the hon. Lady and others for mentioning the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, because it gives me another opportunity to put on the record my thanks to him for his extremely diligent work.

The code of practice has long been clear that selection of a person based solely on ethnicity or religion is unlawful. It also directs officers to exercise the powers fairly and responsibly, with respect for the people to whom they are applied. All examinees are provided with details of how to make a complaint should they wish to do so, and those detained for more than an hour are entitled to private consultation with a solicitor.

It is important to note that, to date, no independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has suggested that the existing schedule 7 powers are being applied inappropriately. We will continue to work with the reviewer to ensure that the powers are applied proportionately and in the most effective and targeted way, and to minimise disruption to those subject to their use where possible.

I hope that my comments have underscored the importance of the powers and of the code of practice that provides guidance and safeguards on their exercise. I thank all members of the Committee—right hon. and hon. Friends and colleagues from the Opposition parties—for their presence today for this important scrutiny debate. I also thank you, Ms Elliott, and everyone else who has enabled the debate. Keeping the UK safe is the Government’s foremost responsibility, and the provisions within this draft statutory instrument will support that vital endeavour. I commend it to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

National Security Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

National security is the first and foremost responsibility of any Government, and for that reason I warmly welcome the thorough, insightful and eloquent fashion in which colleagues on both sides of the House have made their contributions this evening. I join the Home Secretary, Opposition Front Benchers and colleagues from right across the House in putting on the record at the start of my remarks my admiration for our security services and for law enforcement, particularly at the end of this most marvellous jubilee celebration.

The threat of hostile activity from foreign states is persistent, but it is not consistent. As a result of technological change and the greater interconnectivity of the world, among other factors, that threat manifests in ways more diverse and often more sophisticated than ever. We must therefore equip our world-class law enforcement and intelligence agencies with modern tools and powers commensurate to that challenge, and this Bill enables us to do exactly that. This is not just about the here and now. The Bill is designed to be future-proof, so that we can harden our resilience against these threats today and for years to come. We have a responsibility to ensure that our systems and laws are agile, effective and robust, and that is what this legislation is about.

The bulk of the Bill is about countering state threats, and a critical aspect of parts 1 and 2 is the link between the activity covered and the foreign state. That is vital in ensuring that the provisions in the Bill are appropriately constrained to state threats and do not capture legitimate activity or non-state criminality, as has been mentioned a number of times during the debate. The foreign power condition could be met in two scenarios: first, where an activity is carried out that a person knows, or ought reasonably to know, is for or on behalf of a foreign power, and that includes a wide range of different types of relationship, including activity at the request or direction of a foreign state; and secondly, where an activity is carried out with the intention to benefit a foreign power, and that includes cases where a person’s primary motivation may be, for example, financial, but where there can be virtually certain knowledge that a foreign power will benefit.

Three new offences in the Bill will combat the modern threat from state-linked espionage and related harmful conduct. Those are a new protection of trade secrets offence, which might otherwise be known as economic espionage; a new assisting a foreign intelligence service offence; and an offence of obtaining, or disclosure of, protected information where it is for, or on behalf of, a foreign power and where the individual ought reasonably to have known that their conduct was prejudicial to the safety and interests of the United Kingdom.

Let me turn to the points made by colleagues in the debate. I will try to get through as many of them as possible, but I will concentrate particularly on the themes that came up a number of times. Let me start with something that is not in the Bill—I will have to beg your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker—although I would say that it is in scope for the debate because it came up so many times, and that is the Official Secrets Act 1989. Colleagues will have heard the Home Secretary say earlier that we continue to look at the 1989 Act, acknowledging the difficult aspects therein. We wanted to prioritise and press ahead with the wider package of measures before us to tackle state threats and to be able to do so now.

I also want to talk specifically about the public interest defence, which was raised eloquently by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and others, but before I do I just want to clarify how all these different things fit together. We talk about whether we are or are not reforming the Official Secrets Act, but of course there are four Official Secrets Acts, and we are reforming the Official Secrets Acts of 1911, 1920 and 1939—we are not, in this Bill, reforming the Official Secrets Act 1989. The Law Commission’s recommendations on a public interest defence came in the context of discussing overall reform of the Official Secrets Act 1989, and they have to be seen in that context.

It is important to note that using the term “public interest defence” does not of itself mean that, on balance, something is in the public interest. I suggest to the House that the existence of any public interest defence would without doubt lead to more unauthorised disclosures. It is impossible for an individual at that moment to have the full picture of what harm could come from their disclosure. That point can be exploited by people who have malicious intent.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

My word, what choice! I will give way to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland).

[Sir Robert Buckland]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. He is right to caution against the danger here, but a carefully calibrated reverse burden defence deals with the mischiefs that he rightly outlines. None of us wants to see Julian Assange and his type carry sway here; we just think that we need to do something before it is done to us. That is the point.

[Damian Hinds]

I hear what my right hon. and learned Friend says, and I fully acknowledge not only his legal expertise overall, but specifically how much thought he has put into this subject and how he has written upon it.

[Stewart Hosie]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, and then I can deal with both questions at once.

[Stewart Hosie]

Will the Minister accept then—this point was made in the debate—that having the independent statutory commissioner receive information, so avoiding it being put into the public domain, is as important a part of the package as the public interest defence itself?

[Damian Hinds]

I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes).

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to the Minister. I hear what the right hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) says. It is a compelling case, although I do not agree with it. The Official Secrets Act 1989 deals with the unauthorised disclosure of sensitive information by civil servants; giving information to journalists; a WikiLeaks-type disclosure dressed up as being by a guardian of liberty or some such other nonsense. This Bill does not deal with that unless those people are working directly for a foreign power. They might not be working directly for a foreign power, but they might be aiding a foreign power or acting indirectly for such a foreign power, and surely that needs to be included in the Bill.

[Damian Hinds]

I will come back to my right hon. Friend’s point in a moment. To the point that the right hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) made, our position is that a public interest defence is just not the safest and best way for people to make disclosures, for some of the reasons I gave a moment ago.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

If my right hon. and learned Friend will forgive me, I will not.

The existence of a public interest defence could mean that damage from the original disclosure could be compounded by further disclosures that had to be made to argue against and defeat that use of the public interest defence. That could itself then in turn be misused and mean that in some circumstances, even where there were egregious breaches of the law, in effect they could not be prosecuted. That is why, to respond to the point made by the right hon. Member for Dundee East, it is important that we look at the safe and proper channels and methods for making disclosures, where that is important, and there are times when it is. We are looking carefully at that.

To come back to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings—this is an important point in general—the defences in part 1 of the Bill provide law enforcement with several options for prosecuting disclosures where the person is acting for or on behalf of a foreign power or where the disclosure would materially assist a foreign intelligence service. That can include bulk disclosures. To be clear, with this Bill, the maximum sentence for an indiscriminate disclosure—a bulk data dump—will be higher than it is today if that act is done for a foreign power or the disclosure would materially assist a foreign intelligence service, even if not procured by that foreign intelligence service itself.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to forgive me—

[Mr Jones]

Why?

[Damian Hinds]

Oh go on then, one last time.

[Mr Jones]

I am intrigued by what the Minister has just said. Which Act will we use? Will we use this new Act, or will we use the Official Secrets Act 1989? They are clearly mutually contradictory.

[Damian Hinds]

Prosecuting authorities have to make judgments. The Bill is specifically about national security, but within that it is about countering state threats. It gives us a whole new set of tools and weapons to add to our arsenal, and, notwithstanding the right hon. Gentleman’s body language, I think that that is much to be welcomed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) asked a specific question about police stations. Because of the new arrest power in the Bill that can last up to 14 days, the Secretary of State may be required to designate specialist sites to meet the operational need, but I want to reassure my hon. Friend that this has nothing to do with extraordinary rendition. The provision mirrors those in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Terrorism Acts to ensure that appropriate facilities are available. However, it is not possible to designate such a place outside the United Kingdom. The Government are clear about the fact that torture, mistreatment and arbitrary detention are contrary to human rights law.

[Mr Steve Baker]

Will my right hon. Friend give way? I did ask another question on this point.

[Damian Hinds]

I have not finished my speech, but go on.

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. The other question was, where are these sites, and why are they necessary? What is the standard of the places in which people are being detained? I could name some forts and other secure places owned by the Army. Is that what we are talking about, and if so, why?

[Damian Hinds]

I do not think that this is an appropriate forum in which to discuss the detail of such measures, but I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend on that particular point. As I have said, this is to allow for cases in which such capacity is required owing to operational need, and it cannot be outside the United Kingdom.

A number of Members on both sides of the House have referred to the so-called STPIMs. These are a tool of last resort to prevent, restrict and disrupt an individual’s involvement in state threats activity. In the most serious cases, that could include restricting where an individual can reside, whom they can associate with, and where they can work and study. An STPIM will be used when intelligence exists to confirm that highly damaging threat activity is planned or being undertaken but prosecution is not realistic. As my hon. Friend said, with such measures it is extremely important to have the appropriate safeguards.

I want to reassure the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) that STPIMs will not be imposed through ministerial decision making alone. There will be a process through the courts. A decision by the Secretary of State to impose an STPIM, once they are satisfied that the five conditions set out have been met, will be referred to a judge, and the court’s permission will be sought before an order can be made. The court is specifically tasked with checking that the ministerial decision is not flawed.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) and others spoke about civil legal aid for terrorists. Through the Bill, we will take action to restrict access to civil legal aid in England and Wales for individuals convicted of terrorism or terrorism-connected offences since 2001. However, I can assure my right hon. and learned Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and others who have spoken about this that the restriction of access of civil legal aid applies only to offences involving a sentence of more than two years. In any event, all individuals subject to the restriction can apply for exceptional case funding, and applications will be assessed according to the legislative framework of whether an individual’s human rights may be breached without legal aid. The type of terrorism offence that had been committed would not have bearing on the exceptional case funding decision.

I need to spend a couple of minutes going through the amendments to the Serious Crime Act 2007, an important subject that a number of colleagues have brought up, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe. The context, of course, is that our intelligence and security services and armed forces do and must work in close partnership with international partners to maximise UK capabilities and their ability to protect national security on our behalf. A key part of that is sharing intelligence and data to support joint objectives.

However, it is possible that such intelligence, when shared in good faith and in accordance with all domestic and international law, could still be capable of contributing, even in a very small or indirect way that was not intended at the time it was shared, to an international partner’s engaging in activity that the UK would not support. The Serious Crime Act 2007 creates an offence where an act is done that is

“capable of encouraging or assisting…an offence”.

That means that in this scenario there is a risk of individuals facing criminal liability, even when they have operated in good faith and in accordance with the guidance and proper authorisation.

Put simply, the Government believe it is not fair to expect the liability for that unforeseen eventuality to sit with an individual officer of our intelligence services or member of the armed forces who is acting with wholly legitimate intentions. Instead, the liability should sit with the UK intelligence community and the military at an institutional level, where they are subject to executive, judicial and parliamentary oversight. The amendment at clause 23 therefore removes that liability for individuals, but specifically only where the activity is necessary for the proper exercise of the functions of the security and intelligence services or the armed forces. It does not remove liability at an institutional level for any activity.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I think there is no dispute across the House that some protection should be available for individuals in those circumstances. The question we have been asking is how different what clause 23 provides for is from what already exists in law. Clause 23 will ask for consideration to be given of whether there has been a proper exercise of a function. That must logically, therefore, relate to the behaviour of an individual, must it not?

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. and learned Friend anticipates my next point to some extent. In instances where an individual has operated in good faith in compliance with domestic and international law and all proper process, they would then not face the risk of liability under the 2007 Act for something they could not have foreseen. In effect, we are adding greater certainty and specificity to an existing defence—the reasonable defence contained within that Act—by detailing scenarios where the offence will not apply, whereas the current defence is untested and imprecise.

The amendment means that, where an individual is working properly on behalf of our intelligence and security services and armed forces with an international partner to protect national security, they do not personally risk criminal liability if their work is later found to have been capable of contributing to unlawful activity in a way they would not have intended. That risk should remain with the Government, the services and the armed forces at corporate level, and that is what this amendment seeks to ensure.

A number of colleagues have raised the question of disinformation. They are correct that information operations are now a firm feature in the set of devices available to hostile states. There is direct disinformation, where talking points are put out on those states, on foreign affairs or on our domestic politics and society, but there is also the terrible technique of indirect disinformation, which is not necessarily intended to make anybody believe a particular line or narrative, but is simply aimed at causing division and discord in our country, to undermine our democracy and the cohesion of our society.

This Bill deals with people who carry out disinformation for a foreign state, but I want to be clear that legislation on the material itself belongs in the Online Safety Bill. We are looking at how to amend that Bill to account for disinformation material where that disinformation amounts to foreign interference, so that it can be treated as illegal material.

[Liam Byrne]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and appreciate the way in which he is stepping through these points. Is an offence created by the provider of a social media platform if it enables someone to spread harmful messages? Does it count as a proxy, in effect?

[Damian Hinds]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to open up a very wide debate, somewhat outside the scope of Second Reading. He is absolutely right to identify the significance of disinformation and wider information operations as undertaken by foreign states and the obvious role of social media in that. The American election of 2016 remains the textbook example—there are plenty of others around the world. What I have set out is the way in which the Bill deals with people doing that on behalf of foreign states. As for platforms’ responsibility for what they do with the material and the steps that they must take—he will know about the principles in the Online Safety Bill not only to remove material but to minimise its presence in the first place—that is rightly subject matter for the Online Safety Bill.

Finally, on the foreign influence registration scheme—this has been raised by many colleagues across the House, including my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and others—as the Home Secretary indicated when opening the debate, we are committed to introducing a foreign influence registration scheme through a Government amendment. It is important that we take time to ensure that such a scheme is effective and proportionate in the way in which it counters state-threat activity and protects UK interests. That was a clear message in the public consultation, and we continue to review requirements in the light of Russian attempts to undermine western and European state stability.

If I may say so, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight illustrated rather well the great complexities of trying to deal with this subject. I absolutely commit to communicating with the Opposition parties and the Intelligence and Security Committee as we introduce this measure. We want to do it as soon as possible, and we absolutely recognise the importance of scrutiny in both Houses. However, I want to make it clear that we cannot commit to doing that for the beginning of the Committee stage; but we want to do it as soon as possible thereafter.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The Minister will recall that when I asked for a commitment from the Home Secretary about a Committee of the whole House, she indicated that he might be able to give that commitment when responding to the debate. Will it be a Committee of the whole House?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I hear the request from my right hon. Friend. That is a question partly for the business managers and the usual channels, who have heard the request and have to balance it against all the other things that they need to balance for the operation of the House. Overall, I can assure him that I have heard colleagues—him and others—on the importance of having time for scrutiny.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Will the Minister give way again?

[Damian Hinds]

Very briefly.

[Dr Lewis]

We have nearly half an hour. I do not know why this Minister is making such a fuss about the urgency to conclude a debate that is scheduled to run until 10 o’clock if necessary.

For some very unclear reason, the Government decided to introduce what should be a major plank of the legislation not at the beginning, so that we could include a proper debate on Second Reading, but through an amendment, when the process was under way. All we want to know is that the whole House can debate properly something that we have not yet seen, so there must be a Committee of the whole House, otherwise we will have only the meagre opportunity offered by Report. He should not be blasé in dismissing that suggestion.

[Damian Hinds]

I do not think that I have been blasé in the slightest. I have spent my winding-up remarks trying to cover as fully as I can the various themes—[Interruption.] I have taken quite a few interventions, including, I think, from the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), which was important. The decision about the timetabling of debates on the Floor of the House is not mine fully to make. In terms of this debate, I am not trying to rush things at all. Normally, Ministers would take the same amount of time, broadly speaking, as Opposition Front Benchers, and I am simply trying to follow those conventions.

[Dr Lewis]

One last time: the Minister has taken a lot of interventions about the matters that are in the Bill, but there is a whole tranche that is not in the Bill that will be introduced in an amendment, and he has only briefly touched on that. That is inevitable, because it is not in the Bill. When that tranches comes into the Bill, the whole House should have an opportunity properly to debate it.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. As I have said, I have heard those points, as, I am sure, have the business managers.

In closing, I want to repeat my earlier thanks to everybody for their insightful and eloquent contributions to this debate. I thank the Opposition and the Scottish National party for the spirit and the attitude with which they have taken part in this debate. I look forward to further debate and scrutiny from them and from colleagues across the House as we go through Committee. These are issues of the very greatest importance for our country and for the Government. The stakes are high. It is about protecting our security and our prosperity. It is about preserving our democracy and our way of life. It is about keeping our citizens safe. This Bill will enable us to achieve those most critical of aims and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.



National Security Bill (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the National Security Bill:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 13 September 2022.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Scott Mann.)

Question agreed to.



National Security Bill (Money)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the National Security Bill, it is expedient to authorise:

(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:

(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by a Minister of the Crown; and

(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided; and

(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—(Scott Mann.)

Question agreed to.