National Security Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I have a minor point to raise with the Minister in respect of part of the supplementary provision in new schedule 2, which the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East has referred to, about disclosure orders—

[The Chair]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt you, but we are discussing new schedule 1 rather than new schedule 2.

[Maria Eagle]

Sorry; it is in new schedule 1. That was my mistake, Mr Gray, and I apologise. I am not seeking to confuse proceedings any more; it is confusing enough to have to scrutinise the provision without an explanatory memorandum. That makes this kind of provision very difficult to scrutinise with any real sense. The point I wanted to make is about paragraph 3(4) of schedule 1, which says,

“A disclosure order has effect despite any restriction on the disclosure of information imposed by an enactment or otherwise.”

The words “by an enactment” seem to make it pretty clear that unless it excludes material, the provision is designed to enable the investigating authority to look at anything. Can the Minister give an example of what that aims to remedy? What lacuna is it aimed at preventing? We are talking about waving through a provision that allows a disclosure order to ignore another enactment, and that seems to me to be a large power.

The provision goes on to say, “or otherwise”, which is an absolute catch-all phrase. Can the Minister can explain why the provision is drafted so widely, as well as what kind of “otherwise” arrangement it seeks to get around and why? It seems to me to be extraordinarily wide. We might have seen the rationale for that in an explanatory memorandum, had there been one, but we do not have one to hand. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether we will have an explanatory memorandum before the completion of the Commons stages of the Bill. I think that waving through extraordinarily wide arrangements is cause for concern if we are trying to scrutinise what the Government seek to do and why.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I thank hon. Members for their comments so far. I will first touch on the point that has been raised about the explanatory notes. I am told that it is normal procedure for that to be published before the Bill is introduced to the Lords—

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[Tom Tugendhat]

People have to register under tier 1 anyway. That will be a public scheme that already identifies many areas. Tier 2 will make sure that there is an enhanced aspect that allows us to be clear what exactly is going on, rather than relying on a general identification. That is an important distinction.

[Maria Eagle]

Is my understanding correct that tier 1 is about capturing arrangements and activity undertaken for the purpose of influencing a political event or decision, but that the second tier will capture all other behaviour beyond political influencing, such as acting as a foreign intelligence officer? Is it correct that the scheme as set out at present is aimed at making everyone apply at the lowest level—the political influencing level—but that only more serious incidents will be dealt with by designating individual countries or companies? We are going to immediately run into the difficulty of upsetting diplomatically any person, company or country that is designated for more serious activity.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Lady is not noted for her shyness. I am surprised that she feels that the diplomatic repercussions of designating a company or country should dissuade the UK Government from defending themselves. I know she does not think that, and I know the right hon. Member for North Durham does not think that.

The different schedules identify the different natures of influence being used. As the hon. Lady rightly identifies, schedule 1 is about political influence. As I think we all appreciate in this House, that should be public. Those who seek to influence anyone in this House or anyone else by political means, whether through lobbying or in different ways, should identify on whose behalf they are doing so. I do not think that is a very contentious provision.

[Maria Eagle]

indicated assent.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am glad to see the hon. Lady nodding. The second point is the enhanced scheme. That is where influence may come in different ways, where co-operation and interaction with different businesses that pose a particular and distinct threat may be required. That is why—we will come to this later—the political register will be public and the second register will be private, but the identification of those who are required to be registered will of course have to be public and there will be a political and a diplomatic decision that will go with that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

I would be prepared to move that, if the Committee were supportive.

[Maria Eagle]

Would it be possible to extend the sitting by 15 minutes, so that no time is lost? If we were to do that, I would have no objection.

[The Chair]

If the Minister so moves, it would be a question of starting 15 minutes later and ending 15 minutes later this evening.

Ordered, That the Committee shall meet at 2.15 pm until no later than 5.15 pm.—(Tom Tugendhat.)

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

Why not include the UK company? I do not understand why there are different levels in the two schemes.

I support the measure—when we did the Russia report, the right hon. Member for Dundee East and I were very clear that there was a gap, where international partners had provisions and we did not, so this is welcome. I just think that the Government are making it unnecessarily complicated.

I press a final point about secondary legislation. More information about how the measures are going to work in practice before the Bill gains Royal Assent would help the process.

[Maria Eagle]

I endorse what my right hon. Friend has just said about the complexity of the proposed scheme, which concerns me as well. I very much favour our having a scheme, and I think we should have had one sooner. It is a shame that we were not able to see on Second Reading what was being proposed, because we could have had some of these debates at an earlier stage, when there was still a chance to make changes.

I have a concern about the two tiers being different. It is confusing and complex—much more confusing and complex than it needs be. It might have been more effective to have one tier applying to all countries, and a broader range of covert activity specified as having to be registrable. That might have then meant we would have needed more exclusions, but it would have had the benefit of being simple, straightforward, transparent, all on a level and more obvious, both to those to whom it applies and to those who wish to see the benefit of being able to consult the publicly available information, from a transparency point of view.

It is hard to understand the need for this level of complexity, particularly when it comes to the second tier. Why is the registration of harmful activity outside political influencing, some of which is worse than political influencing, only registrable when a foreign power is set out in the secondary legislation? What we are doing is putting an additional burden on the Government. The Security Minister might always be up for registering the right companies and organisations and countries, but he has got to persuade the whole Government. Other Departments have their own interests and their own work to pursue, which could be made much more difficult by designating in this manner. We seem to be setting ourselves a barrier that might be quite hard to overcome. The eventual outcome of the discussions within Government might not be in accordance with the best security interests. I am not talking about this particular Minister or this particular Government, but there are always competing issues and concerns.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Miss Sarah Dines.)