Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Bill

Nicola Richards Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)]

We in this House should all be proud of this country’s international reputation for upholding the rule of law. In the current global climate, and following the recent murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, that is a freedom that we cannot take for granted. Navalny was an incredibly brave man, and his wife should be an inspiration to us all. Navalny wanted the world to know the truth about what kind of man Putin is, and today, we are helping him in that aim. The protection of our legal system must be a priority for all in this House, ensuring that this country’s reputation continues long into the future. For that reason, I thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) for bringing this Bill before Parliament today, and I urge all colleagues to support it. We are here because we have to beef up the law to further ensure that we do not allow our legal system to be manipulated and abused by bad-faith actors wishing to shut down freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

In 2021, an investigation by The New York Times found that in four of the six prior years, litigants from Russia and Kazakhstan had been involved in more civil cases in England than any other foreign nationals. Those cases sought orders to freeze the assets of people worldwide. Individuals and corporations—many from countries where the freedoms we enjoy in this country do not exist—use strategic litigation against public participation claims to harass and intimidate journalists and authors out of sharing information that those parties do not want seen or known. The prime example is a case brought by multiple Russian billionaires, including former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, who attempted to sue the author and publisher of the book “Putin’s People”. That book delved deep into the relationships between those oligarchs and Russian President Vladimir Putin—a relationship that those individuals cared deeply about when it suited them, but journalists can face legal action for pointing that out.

As has been mentioned, a Kazakh mining company brought a case against another journalist, Tom Burgis, over the contents of a book that he published about illegally gained money in the global economy. Thankfully, that attempt to silence a journalist failed. I have raised the issues surrounding “Putin’s People” before in this Chamber, alongside many colleagues from across the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), whose work on this issue I commend. The point of these lawsuits is to threaten the defendants with colossal legal costs—we are talking about amounts that no normal person can afford—and harass and intimidate them into capitulating. “Putin’s People” author Catherine Belton and her publisher were left with a staggering £1.5 million legal bill following the case brought against them.

Today’s Bill presents us with the opportunity to further prevent such attempted silencing of authors and journalists by Russian billionaires, or any other bad-faith actor. It would put in place new rules, so that claims deemed to be SLAPPs could be dismissed and defendants could be protected from paying the claimant’s legal costs, unless that was justified. The Government have been strong in their condemnation of SLAPPs, and I was proud to see the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 recently receive Royal Assent. That Act allows judges to throw out SLAPPs relating to economic crime, which is a good first step: at least 70% of the SLAPP cases identified by the Foreign Policy Centre in 2022 were connected to financial crime and corruption. However, we cannot and must not stop there, so I welcome the fact that the Government are supporting the Bill. We need to prevent all forms of SLAPPs once and for all, and this Bill is the mechanism for doing that.

The urgency of this issue cannot be overstated. The Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe found that 820 SLAPPs took place in Europe in 2023, compared with 570 in 2022—a 44% increase. The United Kingdom was named a SLAPP hotbed, and the forum of choice for would-be SLAPP initiators. A Birmingham Law School professor has said that the high costs of defamation litigation and the ability of foreign claimants to resolve disputes in the UK has made this country an ideal location for SLAPPs.

Other legislatures have already taken action. Several US states have introduced similar laws, and the European Parliament is expected to approve similar anti-SLAPP directives next week. As a result, if we do not pass this Bill today, Britain risks being left behind in an area in which we should be proudly leading. As more places prohibit SLAPPs, the chance that more cases will be brought in the UK increases further.

We must be clear that the only purpose of SLAPPs is to silence critics; they have no legal merits. We must act to protect this country’s international reputation for upholding the rule of law, and our hard-fought freedoms of speech, justice and the press. We must ensure that journalists and publishers can publish information, backed by sources and facts, concerning any individual, no matter the size of their bank account.

We in this country are proud of the leadership we have shown following the bloody Russian invasion of Ukraine, and passing this Bill would be a small but important way of contributing to that leadership. I again thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly for bringing this Bill to the Chamber, and I look forward to supporting its passage through the House.