Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, my remarks on this Second Reading of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill will pose some critical questions about detailed aspects of the Bill, but they should in no sense be considered to signal opposition to the Bill—quite the contrary. The Government’s case for strengthening current counterterrorism legislation, faced as we are by a whole range of new threats—for example, by lone wolf terrorists, by the possibility of even more sophisticated conspiracies of the 9/11 or 7/7 types or by events such as those that occurred in France last week, which seemed to be somewhere between the two—has been entirely convincing.

I hope, too, that in debating this we will condemn the appalling and odious misuse of language that comes up all the time in the publicity from the jihadis—when, for example, they are claiming completely erroneously that they are supported by their religion, which fortunately in recent days has been contradicted by many, or when they misuse the word “martyr”, which, in my understanding of the word, means someone who is killed by someone else for their principles, not someone who blows themselves up along with a lot of innocent civilians. In any case, I think that the emergence of new terrorist organisations in Syria and Iraq, operating under the umbrella label of an Islamic State and totally impervious to the international conventions on the rules of law, clearly strengthens the case that the Government have made. The provisions in the Bill seem broadly proportionate to those threats and should avoid the criticism of overreaction. The case for fast-tracking this legislation also seems to be a convincing one.

The Government’s contention that a sunset clause for the Bill as a whole would not be practical seems to make good sense, as some of the provisions are indeed intended—and justifiably so—to make lasting changes to our counterterrorism legislation. As the Government point out, some of the measures on TPIMs and data retention will already be caught by sunset provisions in the basic legislation that is being amended. However, it is not clear to me that the provisions on, for example, the seizure of passports or the making of temporary exclusion orders should change our laws in perpetuity, even if it is difficult to predict at this stage exactly how long they will be needed and will be justifiable. Therefore, I hope that the Government will take a careful look at that issue of sunset clauses in the context of at least those two rather important parts of the Bill and will address that issue in our further debates.

There is a tricky issue that has not yet come up in this debate: to whom are these various fairly draconian provisions to be applied? Which categories of people are they to be applied to and who will decide to whom they will be applied? Can we, for example, assume that someone going to Syria to help the Free Syrian Army or other groups seeking to overthrow the Assad regime—an action that the Government approve of and support—would not have these provisions applied to them? Can we assume that an ethnic Kurd from London going to help in the defence of Kobane would not be caught by them? Indeed, can we assume that a person of Ukrainian ethnic origin, going to support the voluntary militias resisting the Russian-sponsored efforts to destabilise and fragment Ukraine, would not be caught? Perhaps the Minister could throw some light on these rather difficult judgments, which have quite important foreign policy implications as well. I hope that the Government will agree that there needs to be some process of transparency and a means of informing Parliament on the judgments that they make as to who falls within these interdictions and who does not. Otherwise, we could end up in the bizarre situation that the United States ended up in at the beginning of the Second World War, when they were prosecuting people who came to serve in the RAF. This is not a clever place to get ourselves to and I hope that some thought will be given to how we clarify that we are not going to go there.

Like my noble friend Lord Evans of Weardale, whose remarkable maiden speech I listened to with great pleasure, I have concerns about Part 5 of the Bill, which relates to the Prevent programme and the moving on to a statutory basis of the Home Secretary’s guidance, with some extremely wide-ranging and totally unspecified powers to issue guidance in this respect to schools, universities and local government. It seems from what Ministers said in the other place that this is certainly intended to apply to universities. I wonder how the Government consulted the universities ahead of reaching that conclusion. It is not going to be enough to say that they are now consulting the universities about how to apply it, because the consultation that the Government are now carrying out does not give the universities the option to say that they would rather do it voluntarily; they are simply being asked to comment on how the guidance should be applied once this Bill becomes law. It would be good if we could hear a bit about whether there was any consultation and whether the Government share some of the concerns about academic freedom and freedom of speech at universities. Is this not an area where the willing co-operation between the Government and the universities is likely to be more fruitful and more effective than wielding the sledgehammer of a statutory obligation, backed up—so I understood from Mr James Brokenshire in another place—by the possibility of criminal prosecutions? Perhaps the Minister could address that point.

My final detailed point—I think that I am the only person so far who has raised this—relates to Part 6 of the Bill, which deals with kidnap and ransom insurance. I wholeheartedly commend this proposed change to the law. It has always seemed quite perverse that the Government’s policy of refusing to pay ransoms for people taken hostage—a policy that I believe, on balance, is clearly preferable to entertaining such payments—should sit alongside treating as perfectly legal insurance activities aimed at assembling such ransom. So I support the provision, but what is not clear to me—perhaps the Minister can make it clearer—is just how far-reaching the proposed changes to the law in the Bill will be. Will those who assemble ransoms for Somali pirates be caught by it? Hitherto, the Government have seemed to take the view that they have no evidence of such ransoms assisting terrorism. That was a pretty heroic assumption, if I may say so. We have only to look at the activities of al-Shabaab in Somalia—nobody doubts that al-Shabaab is a terrorist organisation—to see that it is extremely dubious to say that it is not laying its hands on some of the ransoms being paid to Somali pirates.

Can the Government therefore say whether those in the private sector to whom the amended law will apply can really be sure that moneys paid to Somali pirates never reach al-Shabaab? Will the Government now issue guidance on the obligation to file suspicious activity reports for any payments that could reward criminal activity? That is a matter on which your Lordships’ EU Select Committee has had a long and rather unprofitable correspondence with the Home Office over several years. I hope that the matter will now be put to rest. I am of course perfectly happy for the Minister to reply in writing on this point, because it is fairly complex, but it would be wrong if we missed this opportunity at least to require by law private sector operators who are assembling ransoms in circumstances that do not provide funds for terrorism—which clearly will be outlawed by the Bill when enacted—to file suspicious activity reports. Perhaps the noble Lord can address that matter when he winds up the debate.

Broadly speaking, I support the Government on the Bill and I very much hope that in the course of Committee and Report some of the increased safeguards that have been called for around the House will be inserted by the Government. As for the guidance on how Part 5 is to be applied to schools and universities, the very least that could be done is for the Government to undertake that the guidance will be finalised before the Bill completes its passage through Parliament, so that we and all those to whom it will apply know precisely what is to be applied.