Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham]

That is true but there are many aspects of the law where it is not true. I look nervously at my noble friend Lord Faulks, but I think privileged communications to journalists are not covered by the definition of confidential and privileged information in the ordinary and criminal courts. I would therefore be very chary about extending the privilege to journalists qua journalists. There is also a serious point: who is a journalist? When does a career become spent and when is it still operational? There are quite a few problems along that line. I will bring my remarks to a conclusion so that the noble Baroness can respond to the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Carlile and many others.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

Just before the Minister responds, can I add a word, I hope not too tiresomely, on Amendment 5? If you suggest that it would be a good idea to deproscribe a particular organisation, can you do so only on the basis that it is better to deal with it in the open, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and indeed, by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, so as to discourage recruitment, or can you say that it is because you regard the organisation’s aims as essentially innocuous or perhaps even beneficial overall? If the latter, surely that would risk destroying much of the effect of Clause 1 as a whole. You would simply couple your remarks with a suggestion for deproscription. If the former, surely the amendment, if it is to be incorporated in this legislation, had better build in the need to make it plain that at the same time as promoting deproscription, you continue to condemn the aims of the organisation.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not having spoken on Second Reading, but I came to this debate on the basis that I had one point to make. Having heard such a range of views, I am afraid that I now have three or four.

To keep the flow going, I shall pick up on Amendment 5 and the argument that there should be an exemption for organisations that cease to be proscribed. I start from the same position as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, that by and large it is better not to proscribe organisations, but to have them out in the open. When they are proscribed, they tend to reformulate and call themselves something else, and it all becomes a bit silly.

Amendment 5 could create a rather large hole through which those who wish to circumvent the purpose of these clauses would get through. People could say, “I am not arguing for what they want; I am simply saying that it is wrong for them to be proscribed because they are rather excellent people whose objectives are entirely understandable, which any sensible person in that part of the world would think is a good thing”. We could run the risk of providing a defence for people and allowing them to do things that we are trying to prevent them doing.

Moving on to Amendment 6, the question of who is a journalist is wider than has already been suggested. We are all citizen journalists now. We all have the option of putting stuff out on the web; we can blog and tweet; we can put things on Facebook, YouTube or whatever we want. Increasingly, people now define themselves as citizen journalists. Unless we go back to something very old-fashioned such as saying that journalism is a controlled profession and you are a journalist only if you have a card issued by the National Union of Journalists, which is probably unlikely, then anyone can say, “I’m doing this for the purposes of journalism, or to further journalism”—whatever it might be—“because I am a journalist; I am a citizen journalist and I am putting this material forward”. While I do not want to undermine what we would all regard as legitimate—we are all rooted in the past and think of journalism as being about newspapers and producing seriously researched articles and investigations—the word no longer means what it used to mean. Therefore, if we are going to say that there should be some sort of exemption for journalism, we need to define it much more closely than it is in Amendment 6.

I pity the Minister who has to pull all these threads together. I understand the concerns about freedom of speech; we all share them, in principle. This is all about proportionality: balancing that freedom against the harm that may be being done. It is apparent that, as the law stands, it has been impossible to pursue people who are palpably causing a great deal of damage. That is why the Government are seeking to amend it. I assume that they have not gone down the route of saying that someone must have the “intent” to do this because proving intent is rather difficult. Under those circumstances, if we put proving intent in we will be back where we started and not able to pursue some of the individuals who do so much harm.

This is why I rather like the phraseology of my noble friend Lord Rosser, who talked about a “pattern of behaviour”. This exempts people who just express an opinion on one occasion and suddenly find they have fallen foul of the law. However, somebody who has a systematic approach to pushing people in a certain direction would fall foul of it. For that reason, I hope that the Government will carefully consider Amendment 1, or something akin to it, which indicates that what should be prosecuted is not a simple isolated act—a mere expression of an idle opinion—but somebody pursuing a course of action which is designed to have this effect.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. I find it shocking that the Home Office should be continuing the proscription of organisations which it recognises do not satisfy the statutory criteria. I have only one suggestion to those who tabled the amendment for their consideration for Report. In new paragraph (d), should it not require the Minister to publish not simply each such decision but the basic reasons for such a decision? That would add a further level of accountability and discipline of the Secretary of State in this context.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment—looking around, it would be almost eccentric not to. The reasons already given are, I suggest, compelling, but in addition we had a debate in Committee on Clause 1, which is intimately linked with this issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, made plain at the time. Floating around at the time was Amendment 7 to Clause 1 which provided that it would not be an offence to support the deproscription of an organisation—on the face of it an altogether more compelling argument if the present amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is accepted. If one has a defence to Clause 1 supporting deproscription, think what damage—some of us made this point in Committee—that does to the basic objective, which is that you should not be expressing an opinion supporting such an organisation, something which would inevitably be linked with any attempt to have it deproscribed. This is very important also for Clause 1 purposes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

They could have done. I do not know whether or not it is a consolation, but they could have done.

The point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, does not conflict with Clause 1 because there is no offence to suggest that a group should be deproscribed under Clause 1. Is that what he was referring to?

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

Unless you are saying that it should be deproscribed because it is actually doing good work and certainly no harm.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The first part of that would not conflict with Clause 1, but the second part of that statement would, as you are then promoting it as an organisation. Perhaps we can talk about that subsequently.

I move on to Northern Ireland, because I want to talk about the amendment in that context. Any change to the current regime must be carefully considered, paying particular regard to the unique historical and current security context and challenges in that part of the United Kingdom. Paramilitary activity has a greater impact in Northern Ireland than in any other part of the UK. Because of this complex environment, proscription remains an essential tool in the wider, strategic approach to tackling the continued and widespread existence and impact of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.

Terrorism legislation, including the proscription regime, is of course an excepted matter in Northern Ireland—it is reserved to the UK Government—but the impact of this amendment cannot be divorced from what is happening at the devolved level. Any change to the proscription regime would have a significant impact on wider efforts to tackle paramilitary activity currently being undertaken at a devolved level and supported by the UK Government and multiple agencies and bodies through the Tackling Paramilitarism programme. A decision to change the proscription regime in Northern Ireland could not, and should not, be taken in isolation from these other initiatives and without detailed prior consultation with the devolved Administration and security partners.

Given the current suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, the opportunity to undertake such consultation does not present itself at this time. We simply cannot ignore the operational, policy, resourcing and wider political ramifications of this amendment. These implications arise in relation to the proscription of international terrorist organisations, but are particularly acute in relation to Northern Ireland-related terrorist organisations. I know that this is a sensitive area, and that this House is rightly concerned to ensure that we strike the right balance, both in relation to the proposed new clause and to the other clauses in the Bill which amend proscription offences.

Finally, I suggest that noble Lords proceed with great caution in this area, given the considerations which I have just outlined. The learned position which the noble Lord has set out needs to be balanced against the reality that these are serious and, in some cases, unpleasant terrorist groups. They have been proscribed with good reason and the Government are anxious to ensure that they do not pose a resurgent threat to the public. I hope that, at this stage, the noble Lord will be content to withdraw the amendment.