Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2019

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the order, but I am a little confused. The Explanatory Memorandum accompanying the order states that in January 2019 an application was made to the Secretary of State for the deproscription of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group—the LIFG. It also says:

“The Proscription Review Group (PRG), a cross-Government group … makes recommendations and provides advice … on the implementation of the proscription regime including the case for proscription and consideration of deproscription applications … The PRG”,


as the Minister has just said,

“has assessed that the group is now defunct and no longer exists”.

What is not clear to me, even after what the Minister has said, is who made the application for the deproscription.

We discussed the proscription of terrorist organisations at length during the passage of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill in December last year. We learned that very few organisations have applied to be deproscribed, not least because it is very expensive. In one case that was referred to during that debate, apparently it cost £300,000 to secure deproscription. Presumably in this case the application was not made by the LIFG, a defunct organisation that no longer exists.

During the debate on the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, attempted to reinstate and put on a statutory basis an annual review of the activities of proscribed organisations—something that apparently had happened routinely until four or five years ago—and the deproscription of those lacking a statutory basis for continued listing. Have the Government adopted the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, at least to the extent that they are now reviewing proscribed organisations to establish whether they meet the statutory requirement for proscription? If so, during that debate the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, also said that at least 14 of the 74 organisations proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000, not including 14 Northern Ireland groups, are not concerned in terrorism and therefore do not meet the minimum statutory condition for proscription. If there has been a government review resulting in the proposed deproscription of this organisation, when will the other organisations to which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred be deproscribed? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has largely raised all the points that I was going to refer to, so I will not detain the House for long. However, I was surprised about the application and just want to ask about a couple of further points.

First, what happens if this group, which we are told is defunct and no longer exists, reappears? Secondly, are any frozen assets held in the UK at present and, if so, will it be possible for them to be unfrozen and for people to get their hands on them? I would be very interested in hearing the answers to those two points and those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. With that, I will not detain the House further.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank both noble Lords for their questions. To the best of my knowledge, who made the application for deproscription is not in the public domain. The law states that applications can be made by proscribed organisations or an individual affected by the group being proscribed.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talked about cost. The cost of an initial application is only the cost of making an application. I think that the noble Lord is referring to the cost of an appeal. He also talked about the annual review. It was not put in the final Act brought before Parliament, but the Home Secretary keeps consideration under regular review. I am sorry to say that we do not comment on which organisations are being considered for asset freezes.