Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Sikka Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, and the noble Lords, Lord McLoughlin and Lord Walney, to the House. I look forward to meeting them face to face in the not too distant future and working with them.

I have a number of questions. First, the Minister and the Government have told us that we can rely on the Human Rights Act as a way of curbing any excesses of the CHIS Bill, but the difficulty is that the Government have already committed to repealing and revising that Act. We do not know what will be taken out or left in. Surely it would be more prudent for the Government to introduce the revised human rights legislation first and bring the CHIS Bill later? But that is not what they are doing.

Subsection (5)(c) of new Clause 29B, as proposed by Clause 1(5), permits authorised criminal acts

“in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.”

As the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, indicated, the Bill does not say what that actually means. How do we know what is in the long-term economic interest of the United Kingdom? Was deregulation of the financial sector really in the economic interest of the UK? Is anybody calling for deregulation now because it clashes with the government ideology of the day, perhaps? Are they really to be infiltrated by undercover agents and the organisation subverted? It is hard to know.

Some in authority will have argued—they certainly did in their day—that the general march against unemployment and poverty, the miners’ strike, the Dagenham women’s quest for equal pay or the Grunwick workers’ quest for better pay and working conditions were somehow a threat to the economic well-being of the UK. However, with hindsight, we know that they enabled many people to live a fulfilling life. They brought in an era of possible gender equality, at least over pay. Much of our social awareness is due to social organisations such as environmental activists, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, anti-apartheid movements and Extinction Rebellion, which may well operate in the margins of the law from time to time. However, these organisations can easily be classified by the Government as damaging the economic interests of society and thereby perhaps become subject to infiltration by undercover agents.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher referred to the African National Congress as a “typical terrorist organisation”; by definition, she labelled Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Whether the Government sent in any undercover agents to undermine the ANC, we do not know. Nevertheless, the idea that somehow you are going to safeguard national security and economic interests poses particular problems, because the issues tend to be seen through the lenses of the ideology of the Government of the day.

The Bill defines “relevant authorities” but omits an important fact: all the relevant authorities have been outsourcing some of their activities to private corporations. That means that other corporations would also be authorised to commit criminal acts. Where does that leave us in terms of corporate responsibility and the responsibility of corporations under international law to uphold human rights? Who will oversee these corporations? In this country, we do not even have a central regulator to oversee the enforcement of the Companies Act. What happens to the employees of these organisations if they say that they cannot go along with instructions from their employers? What happens to those conscientious objectors? The Bill provides absolutely no guide whatever.

For those reasons, it is impossible for me to support the Bill. I look forward to a number of amendments and a further debate.