National Security Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Priti Patel

2nd reading
Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

Our intention is to bring forward foreign agent registration and it will be brought forward in the Commons; let me give that assurance. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman asks what is so difficult about it. There are a number of difficulties. It is not just a case of lifting and shifting what the US and Australia have done. We have been working with our Five Eyes colleagues. There have not just been many debates but we have working with colleagues who have themselves had difficulties in some parts of enforcement. We have had very close links with our Australian counterparts in terms of workability. We want to get it right. There will be an open debate about it in Committee and everywhere else, and we look forward to working with the right hon. Gentleman on that.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment because the foreign influence registration scheme is very important. May I commend to her the details of the Australian scheme, particularly the specific provision that that makes consistent with our commitment to the rule of law, which is a specific exemption for legal professional privilege? This is not a technical point. It is very important to make sure that the scheme is legally robust, nationally and internationally. The Australians make it work, so I hope that we have time to debate that issue.

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. These changes and measures are not straightforward. I can say to colleagues from the Floor of the House that, having had many discussions directly with our counterparts in Australia over the past 18 months, some aspects of the scheme work, but some do not. It is in our interests to make sure that we get this right. Colleagues need to come together on this. We need to work collectively—not just on the technicalities, but on the legal points. It is the legal application that will matter in terms of making a material difference.

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[Priti Patel]

I look forward to many debates with my hon. Friend on this issue. When it comes to TPIMs, there has been a considerable journey. Based on the work of our intelligence and security services—I am privileged to see, I am afraid, too much of the threats and insights, right down to the reconnaissance on certain individuals and their characteristics and the behaviours in which they participate—as I have said, this is a tool of last resort, which will be used only when intelligence confirms that highly damaging threat activity is under way. That will mean restricting the liberty of individuals if they pose a threat to the British people, to a local community and to our country.

It is important, as I have said, that these measures are proportionate to the threat posed by an individual and are subject to rigorous checks and balances, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) will provide, and by the courts. We should never negate or ignore that, because the courts have a significant role to play.

Changes to schedule 3 powers in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 will give police officers the ability to stop individuals at ports to ascertain their involvement in hostile activity by foreign states. The authorisation process enabling officers to retain confidential information is being streamlined to match the process using counter-terrorism laws. There are other measures, not currently in the Bill, on which we have touched. We will introduce a foreign influence registration scheme that requires individuals to register certain arrangements with foreign Governments, to deter and disrupt state-threat activity in the UK. It will bring our country into line with similar schemes run by allies, but we clearly need to ensure that that is workable here. The scheme will be included in a Government amendment, as I have highlighted.

A consistent message from respondents to our public consultation last year was that any scheme of this nature must strike the right balance between highlighting foreign influence in the UK and protecting those involved in legitimate activity from disproportionate compliance and regulatory matters. The scheme will follow precedents from the US and our Australian allies, requiring registration of certain arrangements with foreign Governments. It will strengthen our efforts to deter and disrupt state-threat activity through greater transparency and the scrutiny that it requires, with penalties for those who seek to obfuscate and hide such arrangements. It will increase the risk to those engaging in covert or malign activities for or on behalf of any country, including those identified by the UK intelligence community, such as Russia, China and Iran.

That includes the type of activity described by the Intelligence and Security Committee in its Russia report, where individuals with access to UK political institutions and public officials covertly exert influence at the behest of foreign intelligence services. It also includes the activity represented by the deeply concerning case of an individual engaged in political interference on behalf of the Chinese Communist party, as touched on earlier.

The scheme will make the UK more resilient to threats. Those who work covertly will face a choice between registering with the scheme, thus exposing their activity, and risking prosecution for not doing so. Both options present risk to state-threat actors. There is no intention, however, to create unnecessary barriers or to discourage those engaged in legitimate activity in the UK. Foreign Governments routinely engage in efforts to influence UK domestic and foreign policy. Where undertaken in an open, transparent way, this will continue to be welcome.

As I have mentioned already, we intend to bring the scheme forward before the Bill leaves the Commons. Following feedback received during the Home Office’s public consultation on this issue, and following Russian attempts to undermine European stability, it is right—we welcome all views and considerations on this—that we take the time to ensure that it is an effective and proportionate tool to counter state threats activity and to protect the UK’s interest.

On measures not in the Bill, I have already touched on the Official Secrets Act 1989 and the work that needs to be undertaken. To confirm, I will look at reform of the OSA, along with other work that the Government are doing to strengthen whistleblowing practices and transparency. In the context of Russia’s terrible invasion of Ukraine, it is essential that we prioritise measures that strengthen our defences against state threats, which this Bill does. Likewise, the Government have been considering reform of the treason laws, but right now we do not have plans to do so through this Bill.

The House passed the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill in a day, because we recognised the severity of the situation, and we recognise that at a time of crisis, we must act collectively in the national interest. However, good legislation in such complex areas must be undertaken effectively as well as efficiently to achieve the desired outcome of bolstering our agencies and protecting our nation.

The National Security Bill restricts convicted terrorists from access to civil legal aid and will enable the courts to freeze civil damages awarded to terrorists where there is a risk those funds might be used for terrorism purposes. Where that risk is ongoing, the courts will be empowered to permanently withhold those funds. When an individual commits an act of terrorism, they are rejecting the democratic state that provides the benefit of civil legal aid, and it cannot be right that the same individual can then go on to receive civil legal aid funded by that very state. These changes will end that abuse of our legal aid system.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I understand the point that my right hon. Friend is trying to make on this issue, but I urge her to be careful that there is a measure of proportionality in how we approach it. In the way the clauses are currently drafted, there could be no connection at all between the matter for which legal aid is applied and the behaviour of the terrorist. It could be many years into the future. For some lower level cases of terrorism, if there be such a thing—those who have been released back into the community and whom we seek to rehabilitate—that could be counter-productive and not consistent with our commitment to access to justice. Can we look at how we work the detail of this, rather than the principle?

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention on this very point. This is an area of great interest, primarily because of the type of cases we have seen. There is no question about that. I am afraid I have been subject to too many examples of cases of this nature. I am more than happy to speak to him and others about this. We need to get the approach right, and we will. People do move forward and change in life, but that is a separate issue. As was mentioned earlier, currently we are trying to address specific lacunae.

This Bill will amend the Serious Crime Act 2007 to better protect those in the security and intelligence agencies and the Ministry of Defence when discharging vital national security functions. It will also enable more effective joined-up working with international partners to improve not only our operational agility, which my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) has already touched on, but how we can be flexible going forward to address the changing landscape of threats.

It is worth remembering that things and situations can change for the better, as well as for the worse. Some of the UK’s closest allies today are countries with whom we have fought wars in the past, and we regularly develop new tools to keep us safe. The point is that none of this happens by chance. We should all reflect that when the Berlin wall fell back in 1989, some people thought that liberal democracy had won and history as we knew it then was at an end, yet this year, as we all know, Russia launched an unprovoked war against a neighbour.

It is right that we are vigilant, and we have to be vigilant every day, all the time. We cannot think in terms of just keeping up—we have to be several steps ahead. That is why the Bill is state-agnostic, but we need to be ready to face threats from wherever they may emanate, and the threat landscape is changing.

Keeping our country safe is not exclusively a matter for Government. It is also a matter for us as legislators. It is vital to come together on these measures and, as I have said several times, the measures in the Bill were drawn up after extensive consultation. They will mean that our courageous law enforcement and intelligence agencies will have the powers they need to keep us safe. We will have the ability to bring those who mean us harm to justice and, at the same time, to evolve and respond in an agile way to those threats. I urge the whole House to send a clear message to our adversaries that we will put the safety of the British people first by getting behind the Bill. I commend it to the House.

Global Migration Challenge

Debate between Robert Neill and Priti Patel

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

Under this agreement, as I have said, Rwanda will process claims in accordance with the UN refugee convention and national and international human rights laws. Importantly, it will ensure that individuals are resettled in the right way. Over 130,000 refugees have been resettled in Rwanda, and it is not just a safe country, but one where both the UNHCR and the EU have resettled individuals. Finally, with all partnerships—[Interruption.] If hon. Members would like to listen, I will answer the question. We have thorough discussions in all partnerships, and in these negotiations, including those on human rights, we have worked closely with the Rwandan Government on the need to protect vulnerable people seeking safety and a new life.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The Home Secretary is right to deal with the issue of criminal people trafficking and to recognise the frustration of many at the length of time it takes to remove people who are here unlawfully from this country. The caveat many of us would enter, however, is whether this scheme will achieve either of those objectives. Can she tell me how she can assume that a set of criteria to determine claims, as clearly must be drawn up, is likely to be free from legal challenge, if the criteria are not published and transparently available? Would it not be much better to invest the significant amounts of money we are talking about in speeding up the work of our current immigration system, in recruiting more immigration tribunal judges and in more investigative resource for the Home Office, so that we can achieve the objectives without the financial and potential legal risks that the current scheme involves?

[Priti Patel]

We are doing both. My hon. Friend will know that the legislation for the new plan for immigration does exactly that by introducing the one-stop shop for immigration courts and tribunals, stopping the merry-go-round of various legal practices being used to prevent the removal of individuals with no legal right to be in the United Kingdom and the constant right of appeal in the immigration courts, which slows down the processing of cases. That is the purpose of the new plan for immigration. There are clauses in the Nationality and Borders Bill that, I repeat for the benefit of the House, the entire Opposition voted against, because they do not want to see the issue of illegal migration and reform of the asylum system addressed at all. Those are many of the challenges we are confronted with every single day.

Health Measures at UK Borders

Debate between Robert Neill and Priti Patel

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her important question. Border Force staff are on the frontline day in, day out trying to protect the public from the spread of the virus. They are doing exceptional work, and yesterday I thanked them for the work they are doing. In terms of measures that are in place to protect them, I am absolutely focused on protecting our Border Force staff. It is absolutely right that that takes place. The head of Border Force and my colleagues across the Border Force team have been working assiduously with all Border Force colleagues, particularly at Heathrow airport, because it is a busy airport as we saw that on Saturday night, when queues formed because we are enforcing 100% compliance checks. With that, of course, I come back to my point about working with Heathrow Airport Ltd on the measures it is putting in place for social distancing, keeping passengers distanced from Border Force staff and, of course, ensuring that my staff are protected. That is my No. 1 priority.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con) [V]]

I support the proportionate approach my right hon. Friend has adopted, but can she help me in relation to two linked matters? She said that she will be looking urgently at the exceptions. Will she particularly bear in mind the need to make provision for those who may be repatriated for urgent medical treatment? Should the extension—we hope it does not—involve any British overseas territory, will she bear in mind the need for early consultation with them? We hope it never comes to it, but we have medical and other obligations in some cases to them.

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Cases of medical exemptions and emergencies have always been on the exemption list, and the exemption list is under review right now. Colleagues across all Government Departments are reviewing the exemption list. When changes are made, they will be publicised through the usual channels. Anything that would also affect overseas territories will also be under consideration, and that will also be put in the public domain.