National Security Bill (Ninth sitting)

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury (Scott Mann)]

I beg to move,

That the Order of the Committee of 7 July 2022 be varied by the omission from paragraph 1(e) of the words “and 2.00pm”.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

May I put on the record my great sense of regret and disappointment that the Committee is not progressing today? There is a great deal of support for the Bill, because we all recognise that our security services need the new measures to keep our country safe. At every opportunity, we the Opposition have sought to be constructive and to undertake our due diligence in providing the level of scrutiny that should come with the powers in a Bill such as this.

We have sought to work with the Government, but it is disappointing that we will now have a fourth person acting as Minister in a Bill Committee on the matter of national security. We very much look forward to meeting again on Thursday so that we have the appropriate opportunity to scrutinise and debate every last bit of the Bill and the new clauses, ensuring that the security services have what they need from us. Despite a real sense of disappointment, we look forward to ensuring that we meet again on Thursday to progress without any delay.

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

I am surprised by the difficulties caused for the Committee by what has happened. I have before me the letter by the Minister for Security, the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), which he has kindly placed on Twitter. After all the niceties, and saying that he will not carry on, he signs off his letter by saying quite clearly:

“I will continue to serve until a new Security Minister is appointed and look forward to supporting our new Prime Minister.”

So where is the Minister? A new Security Minister—if one is to be appointed—has not been appointed. The hon. Member for Stevenage is still the Minister, and in his letter indicating his wish to resign in due course, he has undertaken to continue to serve until a new Security Minister is appointed. We have business this morning on one of the most important Bills before the House in the current Session—one that has been delayed for years because the Government had not got on with producing it.

Not only that, but we started Committee stage in chaos, when a former Minister suddenly resigned. The poor old Whip, to whom I extend my greatest sympathies —it is not his fault; he is just doing his job—has now been placed in an utterly invidious position on two occasions in one Bill Committee. We started out with a Minister resigning, and now this Minister has indicated his intention to resign but has made it quite clear in that letter that he intends to continue in post until a new appointment is made by the new Prime Minister. Let me remind the Committee that that appointment has not yet been made, although we expect that to happen later today.

So where is the Minister? Has he been asked not to turn up by the Government, or has he chosen not to turn up? If the latter is true, he is not doing as he undertook to do—continue in post until a replacement is appointed. It is an important part of any Minister’s job to take a Bill through the House and answer the questions of the Opposition and their own Back Benchers. This Minister has been working on that; I have no doubt he will have spent the whole of August reading through the Bill and getting his head around it in a way that he had perhaps not quite managed in July, when he was quite honest about being new to it. He will be an absolute expert on it by now. He could have been here this morning, and this afternoon, for us to make progress on it.

I would like the Whip, because he is a Minister, to explain to us in replying, which I hope he will, whether the Minister for Security was asked not to turn up today or whether he chose not to. If the latter, it is a dereliction of duty; if the former, Opposition Members would like to know why. I for one deplore the way in which the Committee has been treated by the Government. We are trying to consider a very important Bill, which is about the future security of this country, and we have been treated shabbily. Government Back Benchers have been treated shabbily, the Committee has been treated shabbily, and the House has been treated appallingly. The Government should resign en masse and let us have a new Government. Then we might be able to make some progress on the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman is ranging very wide of the topic of discussion. Perhaps he might bring himself back to the motion.

[Holly Lynch]

rose—

[Mr Jones]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Holly Lynch]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful point. The Government act as if they are presenting the finished Bill, but we have had the worst of both worlds: there have been significant additions to it at quite late stages of the Committee, in addition to the Ministers changing throughout the process. We are really keen to work with them. Give us everything that we need to be able to do that.

[Mr Jones]

Mr Gray, I will come back to the point like a boomerang, as you know I always do. My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is the other side to the Bill. Foreign agent registration was announced the other day; why that was not done on Second Reading is baffling. It is not as though the Bill has not had a long gestation period; that has been longer than an African elephant’s. It has all been worrying for those people who treat national security with importance.

Let me say publicly that I understand from speaking to some people in the civil service and others that they want the Bill to make progress. I cannot understand the delay. When the Bill was introduced it was incomplete, but somehow the Government had the attitude that it was the final product. No—scrutiny in Committee is very important. I predict that if the Bill does not go through some changes in Committee it will be absolutely carved up when it gets to the other place, because there are bits in it that we know will not survive that process. We could have avoided that by consensus. I am committed, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax—