National Security Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister and his officials for helping us prepare for this Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said, there has been a true demonstration of expertise in the debate that we have just had.

I want to give a general introduction and then talk in specific terms about matters that we in the Opposition will concentrate on. Much of the legislation around espionage was drawn from a time when we were at war with Germany, when the threats and capabilities of all the actors were very different. Thankfully, those threats fell away some 77 years ago, but threats from hostile and non-hostile states have not gone away, and indeed have evolved. As the Government’s integrated review makes clear, threats to government departments, national infrastructure, British business and private individuals are growing and becoming ever more complex as states become more assertive in advancing their aims. While hard-power methods of attack persist, the advent of technology has allowed soft-power methods to flourish, with electoral interference, disinformation, propaganda, cyber operations and intellectual property theft used to foster instability and interfere in the strength and resilience of the state.

Clause 28 creates an exemption under the Serious Crime Act for MI6, GCHQ and our Armed Forces when acting in the proper exercise of any function of an intelligence service or the Armed Forces. This could remove the need to get a Section 7 authorisation under the Intelligence Services Act 1994, which allows the Secretary of State to give immunity from civil and criminal liability for pre-authorised crimes abroad. We believe there is a risk that Clause 28 would remove the role of Ministers and, by doing so, remove the Investigatory Powers Commissioner from the process as he inspects Section 7 authorisations. The Intelligence and Security Committee has engaged with the UK intelligence community on Clause 28 but its members are still concerned that it is unnecessary. I will come back to that when I comment on Members’ contributions this evening.

The second matter I want to talk about is misinformation. We fully support action to protect our national security and to deal with the threats to us from hostile state activity, but we would also like to see specific measures to deal with misinformation and disinformation, specifically on social media. Although we welcome the new amendments on misrepresentation tabled by the Secretary of State during the House of Commons stages, we encourage the Government to review the extent of misinformation in the UK and take further steps to address it.

Turning to scrutiny and oversight, we support stronger powers in the Bill to tackle hostile state activity in order to protect our democracy and national interest, but these must be paired with appropriate oversight of these powers, in line with the oversight that exists for other comparable powers. The Government should introduce clauses providing for greater scrutiny from either an appropriate commissioner or an independent reviewer.

Turning to the ISC’s 2020 Russia report, the Bill delivers on some of the important recommendations proposed by the ISC and the Law Commission, but parts of the Russia report have not been implemented. We will explore amendments to ensure that the Russia report is fully implemented in order to protect the strength of our national security. We believe that the Government have been too slow to notice and react to the emerging trend towards hostile state activity over recent years, particularly in the wake of the 2018 Salisbury poisonings.

The public interest defence was extensively debated in the other place. From the responses of both Mr Tugendhat and the then Home Secretary Ms Patel, it seems that the Government continue to look at this matter. I am sure that we will come back to it in Committee, and I would be interested to see whether the Minister has anything to add on this.

Turning to the many contributions made today, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marks. for giving an extensive exposition of Part 1 of the Bill and pointing out the wide scope of many of the powers the Government seek in it. He went on to give persuasive and strong examples, such as a UK journalist working for a foreign broadcaster who could inadvertently break the laws proposed in the Bill. The noble Lord also commented on the public interest defence and the NUJ briefing, which we all received. As I said, I hope and expect that we will hear more about that from the Minister at a later stage of the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, referred to interference from other countries, both friends and allies. That goes to the heart of the Bill and the importance of trying to codify much of what should be good practice within the services already, as my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale said.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made an interesting speech, quoting the noble Lord, Lord True, saying that there were no examples of successful Russian interference in our elections. I noticed that comment as well, and it would be interesting to know what attempts there have been to influence our election results. He also spoke very persuasively about universities potentially being overwhelmed by reporting requirements and the confetti of documents which need to be presented. So many of our universities are extremely international in the nature of their staff, students and research projects. That was a very strong point.

The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, described the Bill as a doorstep of a Bill. We have heard that it is a curate’s egg and a doorstep; I suppose that is theoretically possible. She raised what she thought were the most important points, and perhaps they are the most contentious: legal aid, Clause 28 and the public interest defence. I am sure we will be coming back to these on multiple occasions as the Bill progresses.

My noble friend Lord West, the only Member of our House who currently sits on the ISC, gave a masterly exposition of the Bill. He questioned why there were two tiers of registration for foreign state actors, and whether the enhanced tier would be used sufficiently, for various reasons. He also made it very clear that the ISC questioned Clause 28 and thought it inappropriate as drafted. I look forward to working with my noble friend on that as the Bill progresses.

The noble Lord, Lord Beith, also provided some background as a former member of the ISC. It was interesting to hear about the problems he had as a long-standing member of that committee in getting to the bottom of many very controversial actions of our overseas agencies and trying to understand them. I will read his comments with interest, because he gave an interesting background to the role of the ISC and how it has developed over the years.

The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, also spoke about Clause 28. He made a particularly interesting point about the CPS’s second requirement of a public interest in proceeding with a prosecution, and he gave the example of assisted suicide. I see many similar examples in youth courts, where prosecutions are not proceeded with, even though one could argue that a crime has evidently been committed, because it is not believed to be in the public interest to do so. We see that routinely in our courts.

My noble friend Lord Stevenson also spoke about the potential for harmonising elements of this Bill with the Online Safety Bill. The Online Safety Bill is huge and we do not yet know when it is coming to us. It will be interesting to try to tie together some of those elements. He spoke in that context about the public interest defence, saying that there will be similar arguments in respect of that legislation.

The noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Kramer, spoke about the UK’s moral authority. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, spoke about whistleblowers, and I will be interested to see the amendments she tables in that regard. I am mindful of what we have heard from the experts about the internal processes, but I listened with great interest to the scepticism with which the noble Baroness spoke about those processes.

Finally, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, said something which surprised me: when he was a squadron leader, he signed the Official Secrets Act. I have a very vague recollection that when I was a university air cadet, a long time ago, I too signed the Official Secrets Act. I am not sure whether it is possible for someone to do so at such a junior rank as I suppose I was at that stage. Nevertheless, this has been an interesting debate, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. I think the Committee will be of equal substance.