National Security Bill

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 21st June 2023 Lords Chamber

The purpose of the Bill is to stiffen the safeguards against foreign power interventions in Britain’s democratic politics. It does so successfully in many other areas. Some of us thought that the efforts it intended to make to interfere with interaction between international companies, international policy researchers, universities and other Governments were almost too onerous. With political parties, it was too far in the opposite direction. I do not understand how the Minister justifies leaving this particular part of the stable doors open when the Bill rightly moves to close so many other doors. There is a problem here. It has been drawn to our attention by several of the respected committees which advise us on the rules of politics, and the Government should recognise and accept that. If they do not, I hope this House will insist on supporting the amendment.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, there is no doubt that a number of foreign Governments seek to subvert our democracy and in many cases that means seeking to influence political parties, particularly the governing parties. All parties are looking for finance; the temptation is to accept that money. I rise mainly to applaud the colleagues who have spoken before, and particularly to adopt what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said so well about the inadequacy of the current safeguards.

I congratulate the Government on organising the two-day conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine. Understandably, it is focusing mainly on financial reconstruction, but I have just come from a parallel conference on restoring, or improving, democracy in Ukraine, which involves looking particularly at the political parties. What sort of example are we giving to Ukraine if we allow these loopholes to continue? How do we inoculate Ukraine against possible subversion from Russian oligarchs and others? How do we inoculate ourselves and our own democracy from similar attempts? I think of the phrase “sunlight is the best disinfectant”, which is attributed mainly to the great American jurist, Justice Brandeis, who was so towering in his intellect and legal knowledge. If we are to have the sunlight, the onus must surely be on the Government, or anyone else who seeks to block that sunlight, to give good reasons why they should do so, because we know that there are malign forces seeking to subvert our democracy.

We need an active citizenry and a committed democracy to counter these sorts of attempts. I believe the response of the Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and others have shown so well, is inadequate to that task.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will take just two minutes, because when I vote against the Government, I generally listen to the debate and have a clear view. Democracy is being bought. This is part of a very difficult proposition that we have. I completely support the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, but I am also concerned at the amount of money that goes into political parties in Britain, because it is just not true that people pay for nothing. We need to look at the whole structure of party financing.

I have been many times to Ukraine, which has just been mentioned. It is not just foreign financing; one of the curses of Ukraine was oligarchs buying political parties and buying seats in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. We have to look at what we call democracy and how it functions if we are allowing so much money to go into it from basically pretty covert sources.

I would like to see a very strict limit on donations. I am delighted in some ways that the Labour Party is now reported as getting millions every quarter—but this is not the way forward, any more than it is for our party. We have to find a better way of doing it. To all those people who deride state funding, I say that at least it is in the open and is based on the number of votes.

I will support the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, but I see this as a much wider thing. I will also support the Motion about the Intelligence and Security Committee. The noble Lord, Lord West, made an excellent speech outlining why we should, and I have nothing to add to it. We need a fundamental look at the way we fund democracy in this country.