Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill (First sitting)

Matt Warman Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Wallace]

Q Would that breadth of suspicion being challenged as not narrow enough, also apply to a method? Let’s say that we had intelligence that a hostile state agent was moving a radioactive substance in a flask but we did not know which flight, so we decided to target all people carrying flasks. That would be too broad because that would potentially cover every flight coming into the country. So, we would not be able to do that if we had a suspicion test.

Assistant Commissioner Basu: Yes.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Q Earlier you mentioned the prospect of extraterritorial powers and that Australia has them and we do not. As you know, a lot of MPs brought that up on Second Reading. Could you say a little more about how helpful they would be and how they might be used in practice? Would you just like to cut and paste the rules that Australia has or would you like to do something slightly different, if you could start with a blank piece of paper?

Assistant Commissioner Basu: Do you mean the designated area offence that we discussed earlier?

[Matt Warman]

Yes.

Assistant Commissioner Basu: I think the Australian approach is the more sensible one from our point of view. If you start introducing any kind of rules and notification procedure, there is bureaucracy and difficulty that would go with that. We know how people react. If you put in any kind of way of stopping somebody travelling, if they succeed and travel that would be a huge propaganda coup. That is not something that we would like to see. There is obviously a huge reputational risk in that happening and then them going on to commit atrocities, because somehow they had passed a notification requirement and travelled under the guise of something else, which has happened in the past. They have arrived and then fought and committed an atrocity. It would look like we had effectively licensed them to do that. We would rather have very clear legislation in the first place that prohibits the travel, and that people were then responsible for doing whatever it is they do and they took that risk, and we were able to prosecute in the future.

[Matt Warman]

Q Do you have a sense of how many people have been inspired to travel and how many people, if you were implementing an Australian-type system, you might have had the opportunity to prosecute already?

Assistant Commissioner Basu: I do not have those figures off the top of my head, but I could get those for you and it is substantial. One figure I do have is that we prevented 100 minors from travelling to a theatre of war. The other fact I have is that despite the collapse of the caliphate, we still see people inspired to travel.

[Matt Warman]

Q Is there anything you would add, Mr McGill?

Gregor McGill: I adopt everything my colleague has said. I would say, in respect of the Australian experience, is that although it is on the statute book, it is not often used. It is something that, like most offences, has to be—in accordance with the law—it has to be necessary in democratic society but it also has to be proportionate. It is an offence that would be a useful addition to a prosecutor’s armoury, but we would have to be careful how we exercised it because there are ECHR implications, and prosecutors would be alert to that. The Australians are looking at their first case at the moment for dealing with such an individual.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Q This question is to Mr McGill. We have heard a number of questions on the three viewings. With the viewing itself, does that mean whole or part? What proportion would have been viewed to be counted as one, two, three?

Gregor McGill: That would depend on the particular circumstances of the case and the particular evidence put before the prosecutor. If you went straight to a very criminal—if I can use that word—part of the streaming, that could constitute one. Just a very brief look could constitute one click.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill (Second sitting)

Matt Warman Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Q Turning from that issue to the retention of biometric data, do you think there should be additional safeguards to protect those who are wrongly arrested as a result of mistaken identity or poor intelligence?

Corey Stoughton: Yes, I do. Viewed against the context we currently live in, where the Government have struggled to correct existing deficiencies in databases such as the police national database of custody images, it is deeply concerning that the Bill’s provision on biometric data retention extends the powers on retention of data, including fingerprint data and DNA data, of people who are arrested but not charged—that is to say, innocent people—and also removes the critical safeguard of requiring that retention to be proved by the Biometrics Commissioner.

Arguably, the current system has insufficient safeguards and, against the backdrop of the repeated pattern of an inability to correct databases that have already been ruled by courts not to be complying with human rights standards, there should be great caution and a pause before expanding the Government’s power to retain the data, particularly when that data belongs not to people convicted of any crime, but to people merely arrested, which would include those who have been falsely or wrongly arrested for terrorism-related crimes.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Q Again to Corey Stoughton, your briefing says that clause 3 risks criminalising academics or journalists. I used to be a journalist, and I cannot myself recall a case where a journalist has been prosecuted for the kind of things that you are worried about, and which we would all be worried about. Is there a case that I have not noticed, or is this a theoretical inquiry, in which case, are you simply arguing for responsible prosecutions?

Corey Stoughton: It is not theoretical. I have to say that, although concern about wrongful prosecution is a legitimate concern, the real concern here is with the chilling effect that this has on journalistic activity. The question is not, do we believe that prosecutors will prosecute a Guardian journalist who clicks three times on extremist content. The real question is what journalist—what independent journalist, what citizen journalist—would be deterred from engaging in valuable journalistic activity? They will now, given the sentencing enhancements in this Bill, face a potential 15-year penalty for clicking on extremist content, which they may have done over the course of any unlimited period of time.

So we are concerned with that chilling effect and the fear of what that does to a journalist. It is a very brave journalist who would risk a 15-year sentence for anything, but you should not even require that level of bravery to be a journalist. Many journalists who are out there pursuing important critical activity are not protected by the legal teams that people at established journalistic institutions are, but that journalism deserves protection and respect, no less than other journalism.

[Matt Warman]

Q Is it your argument that that chilling effect is immeasurable because we do not know what it is, or do you have any sense of what that chilling effect might be?

Corey Stoughton: We have heard Index on Censorship reporters and press freedom groups that represent journalists say that they have serious concerns about that. That establishes quite well that the journalist community itself is concerned about it.

[Matt Warman]

Q Are those concerns backed up with evidence, or are they concerns about what the future might look like?

Corey Stoughton: I think they are both. It is one thing when you can say, “As long as I don’t download, I can engage in my journalistic or academic activity”—whatever mode of investigation a person is deploying in their life—but under the Bill the offence is merely clicking on something. That, I think, raises the bar a substantial degree over the current offence, which requires downloading. In point of fact, to date there has not been a stand-alone prosecution of the existing offence. It tends to be brought as a corollary charge when people are engaged in other acts that indicate they are participating in planning acts of terrorism.

To lower the bar further and to risk bringing legitimate activity under the criminal law compounds an error that, frankly, already exists under the UK’s current criminal regime. That error would be massively compounded by the Bill, which would make an offence of acts that are not themselves crimes or terrorism—there is no sense in which viewing or even downloading something is actually terrorism, according to the definition in the Terrorism Act 2000. They are acts that, in certain circumstances, can be associated with terrorism. We have already taken quite a few baby steps along the road of turning acts that might legitimately lead law enforcement to suspect that a person is preparing terrorism into criminal acts themselves. This takes another dramatic step in the wrong direction and, along the way, creates the risks we have discussed.

[The Chair]

Order. This is very engaging, but I have loads of Members who are trying to get in, so I am going to have to ask that answers be quite concise. I am also conscious that there are two other members of our panel who have given of their time today. The Minister and the shadow Minister now also want to come in, and I do not want to miss them out either.