National Security Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

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

It is certainly encouraging to hear such sombre but sensible contributions from both senior Front Benchers in agreement on the basis for the Bill.

To respond briefly to the question posed by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on whether there is an oversight arrangement for special forces—no, there is not. If Parliament were ever to have such an arrangement, it would probably need to be on the model of the ISC, but we are not putting in a bid for that role unless anyone proposes proportionately to increase the resources on which the Committee depends to do its already quite substantial agenda of tasks.

Almost 20 years ago—in 2004, to be precise—the Intelligence and Security Committee first recommended the introduction of a new Official Secrets Act, recognising the constantly developing and evolving dangers posed to the United Kingdom by hostile state actors. That was almost a decade prior to our 2013 report, “Foreign involvement in the Critical National Infrastructure”—Cm. 8629, if Members want to look it up—which eventually led to the National Security and Investment Act 2021, so this Government undoubtedly deserve credit for tackling at least some of the unfinished business begun by the ISC.

As in the case of the National Security and Investment Act, unfortunately today’s proposals—while taking significant steps in the right direction—still fall short in significant respects. Given the complexity of the issues addressed in the Bill, rigorous parliamentary scrutiny is essential. Not every piece of major legislation can be processed by means of a Committee of the whole House, but where it is proposed to add a major new element to a Bill after Second Reading, the whole House must have an alternative opportunity adequately to debate it.

The National Security Bill was expected to encompass three principal elements. The first is to modernise the offence of espionage and provide the police, as well as the security and intelligence agencies, with appropriate new powers and capabilities. This the Bill clearly undertakes, with its substantial proposed reforms of the 1911 to 1939 Official Secrets Acts, which we broadly welcome. The second should be to reform, or to repeal and replace, the Official Secrets Act 1989, which deals with the unauthorised disclosure of sensitive information, whether by public servants or by others, such as journalists, who are not employed by the Government. There is no trace of that in the present Bill, nor any apparent intention to incorporate the topic later.

Finally, one searches in vain for the long-heralded and much-anticipated inclusion of a foreign influence registration scheme—long advocated by the ISC and others, including the Foreign Affairs Committee—requiring individuals to declare, in a Government-managed register, any activities that they undertake for or on behalf of a foreign state. That is what we are told will be introduced by means of an amendment to the Bill, presumably in Committee or on Report. I heard the Home Secretary say earlier that it would be in Committee, which is good, but it could conceivably have been introduced even later, in the Upper House. I am glad to see the Home Secretary firmly shaking her head and ruling that out. As things stand, however, we cannot even say, with the late, great Meat Loaf, that “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”, given that one of the three has yet to appear, and another—the urgently needed reform of the 1989 Act—is not going to happen at all.

It is odd, to put it mildly, that such an important component as the foreign influence registration scheme has not been incorporated in the Bill from the outset. The proposal to introduce it by means of a later amendment can only fuel suspicions that the Bill was published, for reasons unknown, before it had fully matured; or that the plan for the scheme had been dropped, then belatedly revived—the Home Secretary is shaking her head, which, again, is good; or that the Government are perfectly well aware of the details of the scheme that they intend to introduce, but wish to undermine or weaken parliamentary scrutiny by introducing it after the Second Reading debate is over, so that the Commons as a whole cannot decide on it before the Committee stage at the earliest.

Such suspicions could be at least partially dispelled by the Government’s agreeing that a Committee of the whole House will examine the Bill at the next stage of its journey through the Commons, and that plenty of time will be allocated for us all to examine the amendment on establishing a foreign influence registration scheme at the earliest opportunity. I will happily give way to a ministerial intervention now, offering an undertaking to that effect.

[Priti Patel]

indicated assent.

[Dr Lewis]

I am receiving indications that I may hear something in the summing-up speech, so I shall live in hope.

As I wish to leave scope for other members of the ISC to drill down into the detail of all three areas on which the Bill ought to be focusing, I shall confine myself to just a few comments on each. First—as we have said—we warmly welcome the repeal of the Official Secrets Acts of 1911 to 1939, with their references to century-old concepts of data targets, such as “sketches” and “plans”, which have long been superseded in the digital age. The new espionage offence created by clause 1 should enable the intelligence and security agencies more effectively to combat hostile state action in a world that has undergone a technological revolution in the modern era.

Clause 2 is a worthwhile attempt to protect valuable trade secrets, although we feel that there are issues of complexity and breadth of definition which will require simplification if this new system is to succeed. Clause 3 is strongly to be supported, both for criminalising the giving of assistance to a foreign intelligence service and for empowering the agencies and the police legitimately to unravel the hostile networks involved. Clause 12 creates a new offence of sabotage, at home or overseas: causing damage to vital UK assets or infrastructure, whether intentionally or recklessly. Clause 13 introduces an offence of foreign interference, but only for conduct that involves an intention to have a negative impact on the UK, for or on behalf of the foreign power in question. We suggest that it be broadened to cover those who behave recklessly, even if an intention to aid a foreign adversary cannot be proven.

Secondly, the failure radically to reform the Official Secrets Act 1989 leaves in place a requirement to demonstrate that actual harm has been caused by a civil servant or someone outside Government service when publishing classified information. However, the act of disclosing and specifying what harm has been done will often compound the problem and increase the damage; some prosecutions thus have to be dropped in order to prevent such further harm. Although the Law Commission has offered recommendations to cater for disclosures made genuinely in the public interest, those recommendations cannot even be considered other than in the context of the repeal, replacement or at least root-and-branch reform of the 1989 Act.

[Mr Steve Baker]

I absolutely support what my right hon. Friend says about the 1989 Act, section 1(1) of which states:

“A person who is or has been…a member of the security and intelligence services; or…a person notified that he is subject to the provisions of this subsection…is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority he discloses any information”.

There is no caveat about “damaging”. Is not the fundamental problem that a distinction is drawn between categories of person in how they are treated?

[Dr Lewis]

There is such a distinction. One could certainly argue that it is a graver offence for someone entrusted officially with secrets to breach that trust than for a journalist who thinks he has a scoop but knows that he might be harming the national interest to proceed nevertheless, recklessly or with deliberate intent to do harm. However, we are not talking about a spy rifling through a filing cabinet and taking pictures with his Minox camera; we are now in an age when a technician can download a gigabyte of information in a short period and have it published worldwide, unread even by the people who have published it. That is where there are huge gaps in the legislation, and closing them will require revisiting the 1989 Act.

The third leg is that there will be many practical issues with the contents and the proper parliamentary scrutiny of any amendment to the Bill to initiate a foreign influence registration scheme. Careful drafting will be required to catch those who are consciously and deliberately, or unreasonably and recklessly, acting on behalf of another state and its interests, without criminalising every parliamentarian who runs a bilateral international friendship group, for example. High on the agenda must be the issue of dodgy donations from questionable sources to political parties and campaigns—another good reason for the closest possible examination of the provisions that the Government eventually bring forward. Nevertheless, as has been pointed out, our Australian friends enacted their foreign influence transparency scheme as recently as 2018, while our US allies introduced their own legislation as long ago as 1938, so there is no shortage of precedents on which we can draw to get the legislation right and close at least one more gap in our national security arrangements.

--- Later in debate ---

[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?

[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.

National Security Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

I think the right hon. Member will find that espionage is illegal in the United Kingdom, whoever is carrying it out.

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

Will the Minister give way?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will.

[Dr Lewis]

The Minister is very forbearing, and I am glad of the opportunity to warmly congratulate him on his appointment and thank him for the positive way in which he has been reaching out to the ISC.

On the question of the second tier, there appears to be some sort of discrimination between countries that are friendly and those that are hostile, and—unless I misunderstand the Bill—only the hostile ones are going to appear in the secondary designation. If that is the case, could it not lead to some anomalous situations when diplomatic relations improve with a country, so we take it off the second tier, or they worsen and we put it on? There is bound to be a time lag in that sort of thing, so how practical is the second tier scheme as it is currently constituted?

[Tom Tugendhat]

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point. The challenge that we have, as he knows very well, is how we balance the responsibility to inform and how wide we go. I have spoken about this issue with my right hon. Friend in the past, and his judgment on this is something I have always valued, so it has always been very important to me that we share a view on it. However, I think we all agree that where a foreign power is seeking to influence our political life in the broadest sense, we should know about it, whoever is exercising that influence.

I take my right hon. Friend’s point about enhanced registration. Sadly, there is inherently a delay between the way that life changes and the response of Government —that is the reality of existence—but it is important for us to recognise that some countries and entities do require enhanced awareness. That is why it is important for us to have an extra tier.

National Security Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Member underplays what the amendment would do. It would be much more than simply filling in a form and would place a greater burden of a need to check, which would be a major requirement for small political parties and grassroots organisations. I am surprised that he, as a champion of local democracy, would require smaller parties to do that.

As I have said, Lords amendment 22 is not needed. The law already makes robust provision in relation to donations to political parties. Foreign donations are banned. It is an offence to accept them and there are strong rules safeguarding against impermissible donations via the backdoor. Parties can accept donations only from permissible donors. As such, the Government will not accept the amendment.

Amendment 122 imposes a duty on the Prime Minister to amend the memorandum of understanding between the Prime Minister and the Intelligence and Security Committee to account for changes to intelligence or security activities

“as a result of this Act”.

It also requires engagement on these revisions to begin within six months of the Act coming into force.

The power to make revisions to the MOU between the Prime Minister and the ISC is not limited to changes resulting from a specific piece of legislation. Adding the amendment risks creating the erroneous impression that explicit legislative provision is required in order for the ISC to propose amendments to the MOU. Further, the power to amend the MOU is already included in the Justice and Security Act 2013. I would be happy to meet with the chair of the ISC, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East, on this matter. Indeed, we have spoken about that in the past.

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

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend—and he is a friend—who I know is saying what he has to say. We know that the memorandum of understanding can be amended as developments in the organisation of Government require it to be amended, but the trouble is that the Prime Minister has been reluctant to amend it and it is not being amended. The reason this amendment was introduced in the other place is to force the Government to do what they should be doing voluntarily.

--- Later in debate ---

Ten years on, intelligence and security activities have continued to fall under the remit of different policy Departments, yet those Departments have not been added to the ISC’s memorandum of understanding. I think it fair to say that as a result, the ISC is not functioning as originally intended. Indeed, one of the starkest revelations from the report is that although, in the 20 years following the ISC’s establishment in 1994, the ISC met the Prime Minister annually to discuss its work, the ISC has not been able to secure a meeting with a Prime Minister since December 2014. There have been five Prime Ministers in the intervening time.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

For the record, I think I should say that during her very short tenure the current Prime Minister’s immediate predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), did offer to come and meet the ISC. I hope that is an example that her successor will follow soon, but we are waiting for a similar commitment to be made.

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to the Chair of the ISC for that clarification. It was indeed a short tenure, and we will never know whether that meeting would have come to fruition, but I hope the spirit was there then and is continued. Beyond the spirit, however, let us hope that we can nail down some of this today.

It has been argued that Select Committees should instead have primacy in fulfilling the role. Pages 42 and 43 of the annual report list numerous Departments that have various security and intelligence functions that they are expected to oversee. However, these Committees, while no doubt providing robust scrutiny, simply do not have the same powers and security clearance as the ISC members and so cannot fulfil that duty to the same level. The Minister might well say that this amendment is not required, but the problem remains, as we have already discussed, and there is a need to address the issues raised by the ISC’s most recent report, so I look forward to the Minister reflecting once again on his position on that in his closing remarks.

Lords amendment 22, tabled by Lord Carlile, to whom we have already paid tribute today, enjoyed broad support in the other place. The amendment would require UK political parties to publish a policy statement to identify donations from foreign powers, either directly or indirectly. Moreover, the amendment would bind political parties to making an annual statement of risk management to the Electoral Commission and create a duty for the Secretary of State to publish guidelines on these provisions. In the most recent annual threat update, the director general of MI5, Ken McCallum, said:

“We see the Chinese authorities playing the long game in cultivating contacts to manipulate opinion in China’s favour—seeking to co-opt and influence not just prominent Parliamentarians from across the political landscape, but people much earlier in their careers in public life, gradually building a debt of obligation.”

We know that offering donations to individuals and political parties is unfortunately a tried and tested approach used by hostile state actors. That is not in doubt. The Minister might tell me that Lords amendment 22 is unnecessary and that it is covered by other provisions, but can he tell me that those other provisions are effective and that dirty money, with a price attached, is not finding its way into our system and our democracy? The need for such provisions is both pertinent and serious. In 2020, a report by the Intelligence and Security Committee found that members of the Russian elite linked to Putin had donated to UK political parties.

This amendment would also guard against undue Chinese influence. The Minister was in Belfast when we had an urgent question in the House in April on Chinese police stations in the UK—the second urgent question on that issue. The shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), stated that it had been reported in The Times that

“a Chinese businessman linked to an alleged Chinese secret police station in London has attended Chinese Communist party political conferences, is linked to the united front work department and has organised Tory party fundraising dinners and attended events with Conservative Prime Ministers.”—[Official Report, 19 April 2023; Vol. 731, c. 248.]

Just last month, the Good Law Project published damning revelations that since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the Conservatives had accepted at least £243,000 from Russian-associated donors, some of whom were linked to sanctioned businesses and organisations.

The Electoral Commission has produced a helpful briefing on Lords amendment 22. It states:

“Enhanced due diligence and risk assessment processes would help campaigners identify foreign money, identify potential proceeds of crime, and establish a culture of ‘know your donor’ within parties—similar to the ‘know your customer’ approach, encouraged through Anti-Money Laundering regulations for the financial sector.”

It goes on to stress:

“These requirements could be introduced in a way that recognises the need for proportionality”—

this speaks to the Minister’s concerns—

“with different requirements depending on the size of a regulated entity’s financial infrastructure, or the size of a donation, to prevent the checks becoming a disproportionate burden on smaller parties and campaigners.”

Spotlight on Corruption argues:

“The rules that are supposed to prohibit foreign donations—in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—are riddled with loopholes which enable foreign money to be channelled to political parties and MPs through lawful donors.”

The Committee on Standards of Public Life, in its 2021 “Regulating Election Finance” report, recommended that laws should be updated and that

“parties and non-party campaigners should have appropriate procedures in place to determine the true source of donations. Parties and campaigners should develop a risk-based policy for managing donations, proportionate to the levels of risk to which they are exposed”.

There is an evidence base for such action. We know that the risk is there, and this is a rational and proportionate response to that risk. If the Minister and the Government reject these proposals, the electorate will draw their own conclusions as to why.

I have set out the case for the Lords amendments before us today. Before closing, I want to join the Minister in paying tribute to the incredible work that our security services and police forces do every day. We very much recognise that the additional tools in the Bill will assist them in that important work. We have not agreed with every detail of the Bill, but I am pleased that we have made a great deal of progress in the areas where we have had differences. We are in no doubt that many of the new powers within it are necessary and needed urgently. I hope that the Minister will be persuaded by the arguments he has yet to hear in the Chamber today, and that he will reflect again on the merits of Lords amendments 22 and 122.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

It is clear from the opening contributions of both Front Benchers that there is a considerable degree of common ground on this legislation, and I would like to congratulate both of them on the way they have made their presentations. The Intelligence and Security Committee strongly welcomes the National Security Bill. The Committee has long called for reform of the Official Secrets Acts regime and highlighted the grave dangers posed by hostile state actors to the UK’s national security. Most recently, as we have heard, the ISC’s Russia report of 2020 made it clear that the Official Secrets Acts regime was outdated and not fit for purpose. It recommended that new legislation be urgently introduced to provide new tools to help our law enforcement and intelligence community, who work tirelessly to defend the UK’s national security.

The Bill modernises the Official Secrets Acts espionage regime and creates important new offences such as sabotage, foreign interference and assisting a foreign intelligence service. As recommended in the ISC’s Russia report, the Bill also creates the long-awaited foreign influence registration scheme. That must be a cause of particular satisfaction to the Minister for Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), who strongly promoted that policy during his very successful term as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Together, these changes will increase the transparency of those threats and help to make the UK a more difficult operating environment for foreign intelligence services to act. They will help to deter hostile foreign powers from undertaking harmful activities and disrupt them at a much earlier stage. There have been several justified concerns about the way in which the Bill was handled, but after considerable scrutiny, especially in Committee and in the upper House, it has been greatly improved.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I very much agree with everything my right hon. Friend has said. Does he agree that we will need to look at further reform of the Official Secrets Act 1989 in order to complete the excellent reform process in this Bill?

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend, a fellow member of the Committee, because that is one of the points I am about to come to and it is good to have it reinforced by someone with her status and experience.

We were very engaged in the legislation and three members of the Committee formed part of the Commons Bill Committee. Since then, the Committee has considered classified information on behalf of Parliament from the Government and held constructive sessions with the intelligence community to explain the rationale behind important parts of the Bill, such as clause 31 as it now is—it was previously clause 28. We have focused on ensuring that the Bill is as effective as possible in providing the intelligence community and law enforcement with the required tools while incorporating the necessary safeguards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Julian Lewis]

My understanding of the legislation—someone from the Intelligence and Security Committee is due to speak after me who has a better perspective of the detail of this than I have—is that there are safeguards against anything that could possibly be used to justify or facilitate torture. This was debated in considerable detail in Committee, and I am concerned that the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a great deal of respect from our time together on the Select Committee on Defence, still feels that the safeguards may not be strong enough. Perhaps we will hear from him later.

We are pleased to see that the Government have incorporated various changes recommended by members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, including on strengthening the Bill’s independent oversight provisions and replacing the “exemption” under clause 21 with an improved “defence”, with stronger safeguards and accountability provisions.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) flagged a moment ago, there has been a missed opportunity, namely the failure to reform the 1989 Act. As the ISC has said since the Bill’s introduction, it does not go far enough, despite reforming the espionage regime under the OSA, because it fails to reform the 1989 Act, as both we and the Law Commission recommended. That is despite a previous Government commitment that reforming the 1989 Act would be a key part of the Bill. This means the problems with the 1989 Act, which the Government have already acknowledged, will persist. Among those problems is the requirement to prove that damage has been done by unauthorised disclosures, which acts as a barrier to prosecution because showing that disclosures have done damage risks increasing the damage.

The recommendations include increasing the two-year maximum sentence, which we feel is clearly insufficient to deter or to respond to the most serious unauthorised disclosures. Will the Minister commit to introducing legislation to reform the 1989 Act in this or the next parliamentary Session? I would like an answer either now or at the end.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The problem is that classified information sometimes has to be used to prove something like this, and it is just not acceptable to use classified information in an open court.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

My right hon. and gallant Friend underlines my point, which is that, in proving damage has been done, the mere fact of displaying why something has been damaging can increase the damage and adverse impact by many multiples.

Both Front Benchers focused on Lords amendment 22, on foreign interference in elections, and Lords amendment 122, on the duty to update the MOU of the ISC. Like Admiral Lord West, who spoke in favour of Lords amendment 22 on the ISC’s behalf, I firmly support the introduction of the proposed new clause, which would help to increase the transparency and accountability of our political system. The ISC’s Russia report of 2020 recognised that the UK has clearly welcomed Russian money, including in the political sphere. It found that several members of the Russian elite with close links to Putin have been identified as being involved with political organisations in the UK, including by making large donations to political parties. That clause would require a UK-registered political party to create a policy statement, and to provide the Electoral Commission with an annual statement of risk management, identifying how risks relating to donations from a foreign power are being managed to ensure such donations are properly identified. This should not be controversial, and it is still not clear, despite the Minister’s best efforts, why the Government would wish to oppose that clause. Indeed, the Government said in the other place that the current electoral finance legislation is sufficient.

Several Lords also noted that, unlike companies or charities, political parties do not have to examine the source of the funds they receive. As those Lords explained, that means it is perfectly possible for companies to make significant donations to political parties despite clearly not making operating profits—so with limited explanation of how they can afford such donations or where the money comes from. That means that, unlike companies and charities, there is no enhanced due diligence even when a donor is operating from a high-risk country listed in terrorism-financing or money-laundering legislation.

As was also suggested in the other place, incorporating this modest amendment would mean that political parties develop a culture of knowing their donor, just as companies, particularly financial and legal entities, are required to know their customer. It is entirely appropriate for political parties to do more to determine the source of donations. The additional measures proposed would not be over-onerous. Lords amendment 22 is eminently reasonable, and it should not be controversial for political parties to want to ensure the transparency of their foreign political donations. We must protect against covert, foreign state-backed financial donations if we are to defend our democratic institutions from harmful interference and influence.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I absolutely agree that we should be guarding against this. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree there is also a problem with incorporated associations that donate money? It is very difficult to trace where the money has come from, despite the efforts of organisations such as openDemocracy.

[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.

[Bob Stewart]

In short, we have to revise the MOU because at the moment we on the ISC cannot do our job properly and it is a job that everybody in this Chamber wants us to do.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I am grateful for that strong support. It should not have been necessary for people in the upper House to bring forward a legal requirement to update the MOU. For the benefit of people not buried in the intricacies of these arrangements, let me say that the MOU means that at any one time an exchange of letters between me, as the Chairman of the ISC, and the Prime Minister can modify the range of organisations that the ISC has the right to scrutinise. As we will be hearing in a few moments, that is because when that arrangement was initiated, it was recognised that from time to time changes in the structure of Departments mean that different parts involving classified intelligence-related activities would pop up here and there in different Ministries, so we would need an ability to adjust the MOU to approve our scrutinising the classified parts of those activities. That is precisely because ordinary—I know that my colleague on the Front Bench does not like my using that word—departmental Select Committees are not able effectively to scrutinise highly classified material in any systematic way. If they were, it would not have been necessary to set up the ISC in the first place.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

As a relatively new member of the ISC, I am finding it extremely perplexing to try to understand why the Government have such a resistance to updating the MOU. Does our Chair agree that it would be particularly useful if the Minister gave his commitment to backing the Committee’s calls to update the MOU, using his good offices, and to trying to move that forward as quickly as possible? Like others, I can find little understanding of why the Government would be so resistant to doing that.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support and I take this opportunity to pay tribute to both him and his predecessor for making an extremely valuable and valued contribution to the Committee. We draw such authority as we have from the fact that party politics does not enter into our work. I think I heard the Security Minister say that he accepted that the MOU needs to be updated—

[Tom Tugendhat]

indicated assent.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I see that he is nodding. Should he wish to elaborate on that a little more, that would be even more welcome.

National Security Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, let me say that I am conscious that the debate has to finish at four minutes past 9. I know that the Minister will want five minutes at the end, and we also have to hear from the Scottish National party, so I ask people to take that into account.

I call the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Sir Julian Lewis.

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Lords amendment 22B, accepted by the upper House last Wednesday, 21 June, requires a UK-registered political party to publish a policy statement ensuring the identification of foreign donations and providing the Electoral Commission with an annual statement showing the foreign donations received. This is the second time that the other place has amended the Bill to include such a clause. On behalf of the ISC, I spoke in favour of the previous version of the amendment when the Bill was last in the Commons, and, as Lord West stated on Wednesday, the ISC’s position remains the same: we firmly support the introduction of this provision. It is deeply concerning that the Government continue to oppose it.

In 2020, the ISC’s long-delayed Russia report highlighted the risk of foreign state-linked financial interference in UK politics. There is clearly a threat that needs to be tackled. The Committee on Standards in Public Life, in a major 2021 report on regulating electoral finance, concluded that

“the current rules are insufficient to guard against foreign interference in UK elections.”

That committee also observed that, since 2018, the Electoral Commission has supported the introduction into electoral finance regulation of risk management principles that are used for anti-money laundering checks conducted by companies. This amendment falls into that same category.

Members from both sides of both Houses have previously spoken strongly in support of the Lords amendment and, together with the evidence provided by the ISC, the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the Electoral Commission, have clearly set out why it is needed and why the current safeguards in our law are insufficient. By refusing to accept the need to update the law, the Government are rejecting the non-partisan conclusions of both Parliament and the Electoral Commission. They are inexplicably rejecting the opportunity significantly to improve the transparency and accountability of our political system by requiring political parties to take modest but important steps to identify and disclose donations received from foreign sources and states.

The Government claim to oppose this Lords amendment on the basis that the existing protections within electoral law are sufficient; that the amendment would not work in practice; and that it would place an undue burden on grassroots political organisations. Almost everyone else disagrees. The Government rely on the fact that existing electoral financing law requires political parties to check that a donor is “permissible”. Yet that misses the central point: the lack of any requirement for a political party to check the source of the funding.

There is currently no rule that political parties must conduct adequate due diligence on donors—not even donors operating in high-risk countries. Citizens domiciled abroad and companies based in the UK can donate to a political party with no questions asked about the source of the money. That applies even to companies that are making no operating profit. Why should a UK charity, or a UK company, have to undertake enhanced due diligence, under money laundering and terrorist financing law, where a donor is linked to a high-risk country, whereas a political party is exempt from that duty? Political parties surely require the highest level of protection.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

On that point, the hon. Gentleman is clear that even small and medium-sized registered charities, whether they are in Scotland, England, Wales or Northern Ireland, have to do as he says. I am absolutely perplexed as to why the Government cannot agree with him and his Committee on why that should not be extended to political parties.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I hope he, like us, will persevere and maybe one day that mystery will be solved. In fact, the amendment does not even represent the highest level of protection. It is a very modest measure that would not place undue burdens on political parties. The Electoral Commission says that such rules could be introduced in a way that recognises the need for proportionality, as we have heard, with different requirements depending on the size of an entity’s financial infrastructure and/or the size of the donation. Guidelines would prevent this amendment, which increases transparency and accountability, from becoming disproportionately onerous.

The fact that due diligence measures are used in the charity sector, and not just by commercial entities, demonstrates that it should be entirely possible for similar steps to be taken by political parties. We know that there is both a threat and a vulnerability. We know that current safeguards are inadequate. This is a modest, sensible and proportionate amendment: the Minister should seize the opportunity by accepting it or proposing his own alternative.