Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 31st October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Faulks for moving this amendment. I also thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson for supporting it, and I am glad to support it myself.

Many Peers spoke at Second Reading about the extraordinary changes to warfare, terrorism and espionage, and the growing risk of home-grown participants and recruiters. There is clearly a need for a modern response to these challenges, and I think the Bill does a huge amount to deal with them, but I wonder whether it goes far enough.

On the legal case for a revival of the treason law, my noble friend Lord Faulks and others have put the arguments much better than I can. I also recommend the paper by Policy Exchange, Aiding the Enemy, which has an enormous amount of support from senior figures in the law and the police. However, my angle is slightly different. I am coming at it from the point of view of cohesion and the need in this country to ensure that there is a really strong sense of trust in our communities.

We are living with a huge amount of immigration—something that I am really proud of and glad to see happen. There is an almost post-modern attitude among many people towards even the concept of a nation state, and a sense of “anywhere-ness” among a lot of people. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor, argued in 2010 that the law of treason was no longer appropriate because people might feel their strongest allegiance to be towards their religion or even towards Greenpeace. He said that we live in an era when the freedom of the individual is put above practically everything else.

That thinking, I am afraid, has contributed to our becoming embarrassed when talking about big ideas such as treason, betrayal and allegiance. We have lost a sense of what is acceptable and what is not. It is acceptable to criticise your country and to obey your God or to follow the tenets of your ideology, but it is not acceptable to aid one’s country’s enemies in their attacks. I think this confusion has contributed to 900 people, many of them young and naive, fighting for an enemy, and we are now living with those consequences.

I was greatly struck by the story of Kimberley Miners, who travelled to Syria and recently returned. She said of her experience of living with ISIS:

“People have no idea, but ISIS is actively searching Facebook for vulnerable people. People just like me. These people befriended me, I felt accepted”.


I feel a mixture of enormous compassion for her and enormous anger that she could have been so stupid in this decision. I cannot help feeling that, if our citizens and those who chose to live here had a clearer sense of where the boundaries lay, naive young people would not have made such stupid mistakes. We could then sleep with confidence that our neighbours, whatever their views and beliefs, ultimately have a peaceful intent towards their country, and further damage to trust in our communities could be avoided.

By way of conclusion, a treason law should not become a coercive or reactionary measure, and I pay tribute to the thoughtful briefings on the Bill from Liberty and the Open Rights Group, and to the contributions of my noble friends Lady Warsi and Lord Ahmed during Second Reading. But there is social merit in a narrowly drafted measure that makes clear our duty not to aid one’s country’s enemies in their attacks. That is why I am pleased to support this amendment.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I too support the amendment. When I read it, I was surprised that it did not include the words “take up arms against Her Majesty’s forces” or something to the same effect. It is, as my noble friend pointed out, a procedural point. I gently point out, however, that we in this House have great freedoms of manoeuvre and are able to table amendments that you simply would not be able to in the House of Commons. I hope that, in the end, the provision will include the words “taking up arms against Her Majesty’s forces”. We cannot have UK citizens attacking the UK or its forces in an organised way while still enjoying our way of life and the privileges of living in the UK. How do we think our security services and Armed Forces feel when they realise that a member of the enemy was brought up in the UK?

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendment 34, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, was the subject of some debate at Second Reading, and the issue has since been referred to several times. I was not persuaded then that this is the right way to proceed and, having listened to a number of noble Lords speak in favour of the amendment, I am not persuaded now.

As we have heard, the Treason Act 1351 is still in force today, although it has been amended. I believe it was last used to prosecute William Joyce in 1945 after the Second World War. As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said, it has a somewhat chequered history. There is ample opportunity to prosecute British citizens, and those who are not British citizens, who commit acts of terrorism for a range of offences, using legislation that is already on the statute book.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

If the noble and learned Lord will indulge me, I will come on to the point about hostile state activity and the place for this law in due course.

I share my noble friend’s belief that those who do harm to the United Kingdom and the people who live here should face justice. I am not entirely convinced that introducing a new offence of treason, as proposed by Amendment 34, is necessary. However, as my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, have said, this country has a comprehensive range of terrorism offences and other powers that this Bill will update for the digital age—it is ironic that we are talking about the digital age and 1351 in the same debate—to reflect modern patterns of radicalisation and terrorist offending.

The updated legislation will provide the police and intelligence services with the powers they need to protect the public from terrorism, and we do not consider it necessary also to create a new treason offence for this purpose. For example, the activities covered by subsection 2(a) and (b) of the new clause are likely already to be offences under the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006, in particular the offence of preparation for terrorism in Section 5 of the 2006 Act. This proposed new clause would therefore add little to the existing offences on the statute book. However, it is worth noting that the sentencing guidelines applicable to the Section 5 offence provide that where the conduct was with a view to engaging in combat with UK forces, this is to be treated as an aggravating factor when sentencing.

We are aware of the need to update legislation to keep it relevant for the contemporary and future challenges we face. I do not have to remind noble Lords of the phenomenon we have seen in recent years of people travelling overseas, most notably to Iraq and Syria, to engage in terrorist-related activity. That is why the Bill introduces a new offence of entering or remaining in a designated area: to prevent UK nationals and residents from travelling abroad to take part in or help sustain future foreign conflicts, and to protect the public from the risk of terrorism.

Furthermore, prosecuting terrorists for treason would risk giving their actions a credibility—my noble friend Lord Faulks referred to seeing them as martyrs—glamour and political status that they do not deserve. It would indicate that we recognised terrorists as being in some formal sense at war with the state, rather than merely regarding them as dangerous criminals.

As outlined by the Prime Minister on 14 March in her announcement in response to the Salisbury incident, the Home Office is currently leading a review of all legislation applicable to hostile state activity. It is considering the full scope of hostile state activity and, where relevant, treason offences may be considered as part of this work, which is currently ongoing. My noble friend will recognise the need to get the form of any new offences right. The policy exchange paper published in July was a useful contribution to the debate, but we should not rush it.

I hope that, having had the opportunity to debate this important and interesting issue, my noble friend will be content to withdraw his amendment, in the knowledge that there is ongoing work in the Home Office to examine whether there are further gaps in our law, and in order to help us counter hostile state activity.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am sure that the Committee is grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her comprehensive answer. She mentioned engaging Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Does she not think that engaging them ought to attract a life sentence automatically?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said, it most certainly can be viewed as an aggravating factor when sentencing is taking place.