National Security Bill

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Julian Lewis

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I agree that it will always be difficult to man the defences sufficiently against people who apply great ingenuity and unscrupulousness in finding their way around such defences. Perhaps we should bear in mind—I say this in the context of British politics, rather than anywhere else—that, so long as we have an adversarial political system, parties that accept what we might dub “dirty donations” will be found out if their opponents are doing their job properly; or if they are not absolutely proven to have accepted money from unacceptable sources, they will still suffer general reputational damage that will not do them any favours when people cast their vote. It is very much in the interest of political parties to make sure their funds come from clean and acceptable sources.

In turning to Lords amendment 122, on the duty to update the Intelligence and Security Committee’s memorandum of understanding, I can almost hear an under-the-radar groan in the Chamber because this subject keeps coming back in one Bill after another. It featured prominently during our consideration of the National Security and Investment Act 2021, and I fear this will continue until the matter is resolved. People might be forgiven for saying, “Isn’t this all a bit unimportant, a bit introspective and a bit self-regarding of the Intelligence and Security Committee?” In our defence in insisting that the matter needs to be sorted out, I quote none other than Lord Butler of Brockwell, who, as Robin Butler, was one of the most revered Cabinet Secretaries in recent political history. In the debate on the matter in the House of Lords, he said that “the consequence” of the way the Government have been behaving

“is that in recent times the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament has not been used for the purpose for which it was set up.

If the Government are not going to use the Intelligence and Security Committee properly, they should save money and abolish it. But, of course, they will not do that because Parliament set it up, Parliament thinks it is important that this House and the House of Commons should have some insight into intelligence operations, and it would be unacceptable for the Government to abolish it. But they must choose either to abolish it or to use it properly. If they are to use it properly, they must update the memorandum of understanding and, as the noble Lord, Lord West, said, use it for the purpose for which Parliament intended: to give oversight by people who are fully screened within the ring of secrecy to report to Parliament. I think this is a much more important amendment than the face of it suggests.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 March 2023; Vol. 828, c. 745-46.]

When someone of Lord Butler’s stature makes those remarks, we can be justified in continuing to focus attention on this matter.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one curiosity of this debate is that earlier this afternoon the Minister referred with approval, as did the shadow Minister, to the ISC’s work in attempting to seek a resolution of the problems we all found with clause 28? Does that not demonstrate that the ISC’s remit matters because, if nothing else, the Government sometimes find it a useful institution to help to resolve this kind of problem?

[Sir Julian Lewis]

Absolutely. My right hon. and learned Friend is far too modest to say that his input, as a former senior Law Officer of this country, to the changes that were made was of extreme importance and assistance to the Government.

Telecoms Supply Chain Review

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Julian Lewis

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about managed risk. He will recognise that we have been managing the risk presented by Huawei’s specific circumstances within the 4G network for some considerable time. He is also right, of course, that we have to consider the potential delay to the roll-out caused by any measures we decide are necessary. I repeat that the most important criterion is that we act in our national security interest. If that causes delay, it may well still be the appropriate course of action, but we will need to decide that when we are in possession of all the facts. He has my assurance that when we do that we will make the most balanced judgment we can. As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), all commercial operators will need to take account not just of what we have said today but of what they already know about the position in the United States and elsewhere.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State accept that the phrase “manageable risk” is almost a contradiction in terms, because if it were fully manageable, it would not be a risk? Is he not absolutely right not to be taking a decision with such profound security implications for our future in the dying few hours of an outgoing prime ministerial Administration? Finally, does he accept that unlike other suppliers, which, it is true, may have contaminated supply chains themselves, Huawei is unique in being subject to article 14 of China’s national intelligence law, passed in June 2017, which empowers the intelligence agencies of the Chinese state to

“request the relevant organs, organisations and civilians to provide necessary support, assistance and cooperation”

to those intelligence services? We would be mad to enter into a direct security relationship with the agencies of a totalitarian communist state.

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s comments. Of course, he is right that we should take no risks that are not manageable. Once we are in possession of all the information we should have, we will have to judge whether we are capable of managing the appropriate risk effectively. If we are not, it is a risk that we should not take. On that I entirely agree, but that decision has not yet been taken.

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the Chinese law—it is what makes Huawei different from many other suppliers in the network—but I repeat the point I made a moment ago: a process for managing that risk has been in place for some considerable time. So far as delay is concerned, I repeat that in my judgment the right way to proceed is to delay only until we are in possession of the facts and information necessary to make the right judgment. That is the process we will undertake.

Problem Gambling

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Julian Lewis

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman started his comments with the mandatory levy. He is right, of course, that it will take time to do this. If someone is interested in how quickly they can do things, the sooner they start, the sooner they finish. All of that is true. I said it would take at least a year; it may in fact take nearer to 18 months because any of these changes will need to begin at the start of a tax year.

A mandatory levy would deliver a return of 1% of gross gambling yield. What is being put forward today—except by only five companies, but that represents about half of the commercial gambling industry—is exactly for that: 1% of gross gambling yield. We would not derive any more income from a mandatory levy than we will from this process, but via this process we will derive it more quickly, and that is a real advantage for the problem gamblers whom I know he and I are both very concerned to help.

I do not accept that this is a piecemeal commitment. It is a four-year commitment, which we—all of us; not just the Government—will have the opportunity to monitor. If it is not being met in the way we all expect, we can and will take further action.

The hon. Gentleman is right that the Gambling Commission receives its funding from the industry; that is generally the case with regulators. If we had a mandatory levy, it would still fund the same activities. However, I believe the Gambling Commission is the right body, as the regulator, to be able to give us the assurance, which the Opposition spokesman properly raised, that the money is being spent on the right things, not simply ploughed back into the activities of the five companies.

The hon. Gentleman knows I take the view that there is more to do in relation to gambling on credit. He knows, too, that the Gambling Commission is in the process of looking at this in detail. I want to see what it concludes, but I believe a lot more can be done on gambling on credit to make sure that those who are particularly vulnerable do not find themselves more vulnerable by gambling on credit.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The Opposition spokesman mentioned an estimate of 55,000 children addicted to gambling. Do the Government accept that this terrifically large figure is accurate? If so, what proportion of it is a result of the advent of online gambling and what age verification measures are in place to supply at least part of the solution?

[Jeremy Wright]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is difficult to be precise about the number of young people in particular who have problems with gambling, as my right hon. Friend will recognise, but it is a fair assumption that online gambling contributes significantly to that problem. As a result, we have already seen improvements in identification and age verification. We need to see further improvements to make sure that the trend decreases.

Online Harms White Paper

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Julian Lewis

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

On anonymity, as the hon. Gentleman has heard me say and as he recognises, there are powers available; the issue is how quickly they can be used. When we come to consider a duty of care, it seems to me and my colleagues that one of the advantages of the duty of care approach is that it should bring about a change of attitude across a whole range of activities among the online companies. It will no longer be sufficient for online companies to say, “Well, we’ve met this rule or that rule.” Instead, they must demonstrate to a regulator that they are doing all they reasonably can to keep their users safe, and that includes being safe from some of the activities the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I do not promise that any of this will be a magic bullet or that things will be transformed overnight, but I do think that the approach we are setting out will start to change the culture of these companies and start to make them think about how they meet their responsibilities more effectively.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The briefing for this statement mentions, correctly, that all five terrorist attacks in the UK during 2017 had an online element, and online terrorist content remains a feature of contemporary radicalisation. Given that some of these companies have created applications with end-to-end encryption that they claim they cannot get into themselves, let alone the security services being able to get into them, what will these measures do to prevent online harm being done through these inaccessible applications?

[Jeremy Wright]

My right hon. Friend identifies one of the most troublesome aspects of online harm—that encryption is extraordinarily difficult for us to wrestle with. That is of course because there are advantages to encryption, and we use it all the time in our daily lives, but he is right that those who choose to use it for criminal purposes must also be challenged. In relation to this White Paper, I would say to him that harms at the top end of the seriousness spectrum, including the promotion of terrorism, will receive the greatest possible attention from the regulator, and our expectations from the Government will also be higher, hence the Home Secretary’s close interest in the way in which codes of practice are developed, so that online companies are doing their utmost to ensure that this kind of behaviour is challenged.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Julian Lewis

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman will not be shocked to learn that I do not have that figure in front of me. As I said to his hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), the Opposition need to think carefully about what they are really worried about. If they are worried about prisoners having access to books, I have reassured them that they do not need to worry about that. If, however, they are worried, as the shadow Secretary of State told us he was, about the influx of drugs and other contraband substances into prisons, they might want to reflect on the sense of restricting packages as they come into prisons. That is what we are proposing to do. What are they going to do?

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

What progress have the Government made towards their aim of greater honesty in sentencing so that the public at large and victims of crime in particular know that when a sentence is handed out, the time served will correspond to a greater degree to the sentence handed out?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Julian Lewis

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Given the renewed threat that convicted terrorists will pose to society on release and the amount of security and intelligence resources that will have to be devoted to monitoring them, will the Minister confirm that the use of automatic early release would be entirely inappropriate for them?

[Jeremy Wright]

Our expectation would be that people receive an extended determinate sentence for an offence of terrorism, under which release would not be automatic. I hope that reassures my hon. Friend.