National Security Bill Consideration of Lords message After Clause
14 Foreign interference in elections: duties on political parties
20:04:00 The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat) I beg to move,
That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 22B. Madam Deputy
Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton) With this it will be convenient to
discuss Lords amendment 122B, Government motion to disagree, and
Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 122B....Request free trial
National Security Bill
Consideration of Lords message
After Clause 14
Foreign interference in elections: duties on political
parties
20:04:00
The Minister for Security ()
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment
22B.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment 122B,
Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in
lieu of Lords amendment 122B.
It is a pleasure to bring the National Security Bill back to this
House. I must once again highlight the importance of the Bill’s
achieving Royal Assent in a timely manner. Our police and
intelligence services need the tools and powers that it contains;
the longer they go without, the greater the risk to national
security.
(Garston and Halewood)
(Lab)
Why doesn’t the Minister just accept the Lords amendments, then,
so that we can move straight to getting the Bill on the statute
book?
The right hon. Lady will be delighted to hear the rest of my
speech, in which I answer her wonderful questions.
As this House will be aware, the Intelligence and Security
Committee memorandum of understanding can already be revised by
agreement, which is one of the points that the right hon. Lady is
raising. We do not believe that primary legislation is an
appropriate mechanism for making amendments to the MOU. However,
we recognise the strength of feeling on the issue, and in a
spirit of compromise we have tabled amendment (a) in lieu of
Lords amendment 122B. The Government’s amendment will achieve a
similar result and will create a duty on the Prime Minister and
the Intelligence and Security Committee to progress a review of
the MOU within six months of the provision’s coming into
force.
(North Durham) (Lab)
That is fine, but the ISC has been raising this issue for the
past two years. It takes two to tango. Unfortunately, the only
reason we have this Lords amendment is a sense of
frustration—certainly among members of the ISC, but also among a
lot of Members of this House.
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I have heard him. I hope
that the amendment will now satisfy the ISC with respect to its
concerns. I am sure that hon. Members across the House will
support Government amendment (a) in lieu.
I turn to Lords amendment 22B, which would require political
parties to make an annual return to the Electoral Commission,
setting out the details of donations from foreign powers. It
would also create a duty on political parties to write an annual
policy statement to ensure the identification of donations from
foreign powers. I understand the intention behind the amendment,
and I share the strength of feeling behind it.
The Government are very much alive to the risk that foreign
interference presents. I am pleased that we have already taken
action to address it, and I am pleased with the support that we
have received on both sides of the House for our reforms to
Companies House, which will deliver more reliably accurate
information on the companies register, providing greater powers
for Companies House to query and challenge the information it
receives. The Government are also legislating, via the Economic
Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, to enhance data sharing
between Companies House and public authorities, including the
Electoral Commission. This will help the enforcement of the rules
on donations by providing greater confidence in the accuracy of
the data held at Companies House.
(Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
(Lab)
The Minister is one of the House’s experts on the malign
influence of foreign money in this country and the creation of
Londongrad, so he knows all too well that money from foreign
powers is coming into the bank accounts of UK citizens and then
moving almost immediately—sometimes even overnight—into the
coffers of political parties in this country. That creates a risk
to the integrity of our political system. He must surely accept
that the drafting of the Bill does not yet provide sufficient
safeguards against that risk.
The right hon. Gentleman flatters me, which is always a way to
succeed in this place, but he will forgive me if I carry on,
because I will address some of those points. He will see that I
have considered them, and that there are some areas in which
there may be some conversation.
Our reforms build on the updates to electoral law in the
Elections Act 2022, which have closed loopholes on foreign
third-party campaign spending. They also include other measures
to ensure that our democracy will remain secure. The National
Security Bill will give our agencies more tools to tackle foreign
interference. The new offence of foreign interference includes
manipulating whether or how any person participates in political
processes. The Bill also provides for substantially higher
maximum penalties where a foreign power is involved in the
commission of existing electoral offences of the nature that the
right hon. Gentleman describes. That includes those relating to
making political donations, including via third parties.
In addition, the Bill’s foreign influence registration scheme,
which the right hon. Gentleman and I both championed on the
Foreign Affairs Committee, will increase the transparency of
foreign political influence activities. The enhanced tier of
FIRS, as we are calling it, allows us to list foreign powers that
act against the safety and interests of the United Kingdom. A
designation would require a person acting within the United
Kingdom at the direction of a specified power or entity to
register with the scheme.
Although I understand the aims of Lords amendment 22B, I do not
follow its approach. The legal framework in this area is
exceptionally clear: any person accepting a donation from a
foreign power, whether made directly or indirectly, is already
breaking the law. As such, the result of this amendment would be
for political parties to submit a blank return to the Electoral
Commission once a year. As I am sure colleagues would agree, this
would do little to improve transparency or enhance our electoral
security.
Secondly, as the Government have set out previously, Lords
amendment 22B does nothing to enhance the ability of political
parties to investigate donations of the nature that the right
hon. Gentleman describes. Political parties do not have the
financial investigative capabilities of the banks or security
services. They rightly cannot access people’s personal financial
records and do not have the means to trace layers of financial
transactions. They cannot themselves undertake sophisticated
forensic accounting. There is little to be gained by increasing
pressure on political parties to identify impermissible donations
without improving their ability to do so.
Thirdly, political parties are not global corporations. There are
more than 380 registered political parties, many of which are
predominantly made up of volunteers. Lords amendment 22B could be
disproportionately burdensome for smaller political parties,
disincentivising them from accepting donations and, in turn,
harming grassroots democracy.
Finally, the requirement to publish an annual policy statement
lacks utility. In previous debates on this matter, hon. and right
hon. Members highlighted concerns that parties do not have to
evaluate a donation and its perceived risk. This is not true. I
reiterate that political parties are already required by law to
take all reasonable steps to verify the identity of a donor and
whether they are permissible. Failure to ensure that
permissibility requirements are met is an offence under existing
law. As such, parties are already required to have systems in
place to mitigate the acceptance of such funds.
As to the political point: just because you can, does not mean
you should. Political judgment should always apply to
donations.
I thank the Minister for giving way once again. He is being
characteristically generous.
We may as well test the argument he is rehearsing against facts
that are now known. Mr Mohamed Amersi, for example, has given
something like £775,000 to political causes in this country. The
Financial Times has reported that a considerable fraction of Mr
Amersi’s profits are made from trade in Russia. How does this
Bill safeguard against profits made in a country such as Russia
finding their way into this country’s political system and
infecting it?
The right hon. Gentleman, as he will understand, raises an
individual about whom I will not comment. The Government will not
take a position of that nature on an individual based on such
comments. I will not address him specifically.
What I will say is that there have been reports of foreign
donations getting into political parties—that is true. What is
also true is that political parties have a responsibility to
check the sources of their donations, and all British citizens
have the right to donate. If a specific accusation has not been
reported to the Electoral Commission and investigated, and if a
person has not been found guilty, the right hon. Gentleman will
understand that I cannot make any further comment.
(Halifax) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his opening contribution as these two
additions to the National Security Bill return to the Commons
once again.
The Minister has made the case for Government amendment (a) in
lieu of Lords amendment 122B. I have a great deal of respect for
him, as he knows, but this amendment in lieu, tabled in the name
of the Home Secretary, essentially says that this House and the
other House have a point, that the Government want to give
themselves maximum wiggle room to be able to avoid doing anything
about addressing the point by tabling an amendment in lieu that
is much wishier and much washier than the clarity of our Lords
amendment.
Lords amendment 122B, tabled by my noble Friend , would have introduced a duty
to update the Intelligence and Security Committee’s memorandum of
understanding, rather than a requirement to consider whether the
MOU needs updating. What does that actually mean? Is there a
proposed framework or a timetable for deliberations? The Lords
amendment was not tabled for fun; it was tabled because the
Intelligence and Security Committee performs a vital function,
but its ability to perform that function is being eroded.
The Lords amendment followed a recommendation made by the ISC in
its 2021-22 annual report, which looked back to the Committee’s
origins, when the then Security Minister told Parliament that it
was
“the intention of the Government that the ISC should have
oversight of substantively all of central Government’s
intelligence and security activities to be realised now and in
the future.”––[Official Report, Justice and Security Public Bill
Committee, 31 March 2013; c. 98.]
20:15:00
Does my hon. Friend agree that intelligence and security
activities are now undertaken by a wider assortment of policy
Departments, including those that generally do not carry out
national security-related activities? Those teams are not listed
in the ISC’s memorandum of understanding, and therefore there is
a scrutiny gap that cannot be fixed unless the memorandum of
understanding is changed.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that important
point. The annual report lists a number of policy Departments.
Although the Select Committees do incredibly important work, they
are not able to see the same information because their members do
not have the same clearance as members of the ISC. It is quite
right that such information and such scrutiny fall to the ISC,
which alone can do that important work.
We have previously discussed that one of the starkest revelations
from that annual report is that the ISC has not been able to
secure a meeting with a Prime Minister since December 2014,
nearly nine years ago. I welcomed the Chair of the ISC’s
intervention when we debated the merit of the previous amendment,
saying that the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk () had pledged to meet the
ISC. However, given her exceptionally short tenure in office, we
will never know if that meeting would have taken place—her name
is No. 4 on the list of five Prime Ministers who have been in
office since 2014.
Such a meeting is just one of the considerations for an updated
MOU, but knowing how often this issue has come up, both in this
House and in the other place, I wonder whether the current Prime
Minister now has a date in the diary to meet the ISC. If we are
to take Government amendment (a) at its word, arranging that
meeting is the very least the Government could do to be able to
point to some progress. Alas, it appears that they cannot point
to that progress.
I am also interested to know whether the Government have spoken
to the ISC about Government amendment (a). Given that the
amendment seeks to assure us that the Government intend to do due
diligence on engaging with the ISC, have they engaged the ISC
about the amendment? Hopefully the Minister might be able to shed
some light.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the shadow Minister for her thoughts. I suppose the
rationale for opposing Lords amendment 122B is the Justice and
Security Act 2013. Does she have any idea why the Government are
reluctant to concede to a review as the legislation evolves? That
seems to be a simple way of doing it.
It would be unwise to speculate at the Dispatch Box, but I am
grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. In the
absence of clarity, he is right to put that question to the
Government. Why have we not seen progress on this? It would seem
to be sensible and proportionate to expect that engagement
happens between the Government and the Prime Minister and the
Intelligence and Security Committee, and happens on a regular
basis.
Lords amendment 22B, tabled by Lord Carlile—once again, let me
thank him for his services to this legislation—has continued to
enjoy broad support, both across the Benches inside Parliament
and outside. We know, from examples that have been exposed and
from the most recent annual threat assessment by the director
general of MI5, Ken McCallum, that it deals with one of the ways
hostile state actors and their proxies are seeking to gain
influence within our democracy. When we debated the merit of the
previous amendment on this matter, I shared the examples of those
linked to so-called Chinese secret police stations who had been
involved in organising Conservative fundraising dinners. I also
cited the Good Law Project’s research, which claims that the
Conservatives have accepted at least £243,000 from
Russian-associated donors, some of whom were linked to sanctioned
businesses and organisations, since the start of Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine.
There is a comprehensive case for these proportionate changes.
The Electoral Commission has said:
“Enhanced due diligence and risk assessment processes would help
campaigners identify foreign money, identify potential proceeds
of crime, and establish a culture of ‘know your donor’ within
parties—similar to the ‘know your customer’ approach, encouraged
through Anti-Money Laundering regulations for the financial
sector.”
I hope the Minister is persuaded by its argument that:
“These requirements could be introduced in a way that recognises
the need for proportionality, with different requirements
depending on the size of a regulated entity’s financial
infrastructure, or the size of a donation, to prevent the checks
becoming a disproportionate burden on smaller parties and
campaigners.”
Similarly, Spotlight on Corruption has argued:
“The rules that are supposed to prohibit foreign donations are
riddled with loopholes which enable foreign money to be
channelled to political parties and MPs through lawful
donors.”
That point has just been made by my right hon. Friend the Member
for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (). Furthermore, the Committee on
Standards of Public Life, in its 2021 “Regulating Election
Finance” report, recommended that laws should be updated and
that
“parties and non-party campaigners should have appropriate
procedures in place to determine the true source of donations.
Parties and campaigners should develop a risk-based policy for
managing donations, proportionate to the levels of risk to which
they are exposed”.
We know that the risk is there, and Lords amendment 22B is a
rational and proportionate response to that risk. The Minister
has said that the Lords amendment is unnecessary and that
donations are covered by other provisions, but I ask him once
again, can he truly assure us that dirty money, with a price
attached, is not finding its way into our system and our
democracy?
My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. Does she agree that
the scale of this potential risk is now unprecedented, not least
because in 2019 we saw the most expensive election year in
British political history? More than £100 million flowed into
British political parties then. Does that not underline the
obligation on all of us to make sure that every penny of that
money is clean?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that, as he is
absolutely right. I think we can all come together to recognise
the responsibility that falls to all of us to clean up our
democracy as much as we can. The world has changed, even since we
started work on this legislation well over 12 months ago. The
role of hostile state actors and their conduct in the world, and
the interference that we are having to take every measure to
protect ourselves from, means that these proposals are needed
more than ever, so he is absolutely right to make that point.
If the Minister and the Government reject these proposals, the
electorate will draw their own conclusions as to why. I will be
listening carefully to the other contributions and to the
Minister’s closing remarks. I am pleased that the Government have
recognised the need to have a look at the updated MOU for the
ISC—I just wish there was some substance to their amendment.
Once again, in case we do not see the Bill back again in the
Commons, may I take the opportunity to thank all those who have
worked so hard on it, and the law enforcement officers and
security services who work so hard, every day, to keep us
safe?
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. Before I call the next speaker, let me say that I am
conscious that the debate has to finish at four minutes past 9. I
know that the Minister will want five minutes at the end, and we
also have to hear from the Scottish National party, so I ask
people to take that into account.
I call the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Sir
.
Sir (New Forest East) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Lords amendment 22B, accepted by the upper House last Wednesday,
21 June, requires a UK-registered political party to publish a
policy statement ensuring the identification of foreign donations
and providing the Electoral Commission with an annual statement
showing the foreign donations received. This is the second time
that the other place has amended the Bill to include such a
clause. On behalf of the ISC, I spoke in favour of the previous
version of the amendment when the Bill was last in the Commons,
and, as stated on Wednesday, the ISC’s
position remains the same: we firmly support the introduction of
this provision. It is deeply concerning that the Government
continue to oppose it.
In 2020, the ISC’s long-delayed Russia report highlighted the
risk of foreign state-linked financial interference in UK
politics. There is clearly a threat that needs to be tackled. The
Committee on Standards in Public Life, in a major 2021 report on
regulating electoral finance, concluded that
“the current rules are insufficient to guard against foreign
interference in UK elections.”
That committee also observed that, since 2018, the Electoral
Commission has supported the introduction into electoral finance
regulation of risk management principles that are used for
anti-money laundering checks conducted by companies. This
amendment falls into that same category.
Members from both sides of both Houses have previously spoken
strongly in support of the Lords amendment and, together with the
evidence provided by the ISC, the Committee on Standards in
Public Life and the Electoral Commission, have clearly set out
why it is needed and why the current safeguards in our law are
insufficient. By refusing to accept the need to update the law,
the Government are rejecting the non-partisan conclusions of both
Parliament and the Electoral Commission. They are inexplicably
rejecting the opportunity significantly to improve the
transparency and accountability of our political system by
requiring political parties to take modest but important steps to
identify and disclose donations received from foreign sources and
states.
The Government claim to oppose this Lords amendment on the basis
that the existing protections within electoral law are
sufficient; that the amendment would not work in practice; and
that it would place an undue burden on grassroots political
organisations. Almost everyone else disagrees. The Government
rely on the fact that existing electoral financing law requires
political parties to check that a donor is “permissible”. Yet
that misses the central point: the lack of any requirement for a
political party to check the source of the funding.
There is currently no rule that political parties must conduct
adequate due diligence on donors—not even donors operating in
high-risk countries. Citizens domiciled abroad and companies
based in the UK can donate to a political party with no questions
asked about the source of the money. That applies even to
companies that are making no operating profit. Why should a UK
charity, or a UK company, have to undertake enhanced due
diligence, under money laundering and terrorist financing law,
where a donor is linked to a high-risk country, whereas a
political party is exempt from that duty? Political parties
surely require the highest level of protection.
(West
Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
On that point, the hon. Gentleman is clear that even small and
medium-sized registered charities, whether they are in Scotland,
England, Wales or Northern Ireland, have to do as he says. I am
absolutely perplexed as to why the Government cannot agree with
him and his Committee on why that should not be extended to
political parties.
Sir
I hope he, like us, will persevere and maybe one day that mystery
will be solved. In fact, the amendment does not even represent
the highest level of protection. It is a very modest measure that
would not place undue burdens on political parties. The Electoral
Commission says that such rules could be introduced in a way that
recognises the need for proportionality, as we have heard, with
different requirements depending on the size of an entity’s
financial infrastructure and/or the size of the donation.
Guidelines would prevent this amendment, which increases
transparency and accountability, from becoming disproportionately
onerous.
The fact that due diligence measures are used in the charity
sector, and not just by commercial entities, demonstrates that it
should be entirely possible for similar steps to be taken by
political parties. We know that there is both a threat and a
vulnerability. We know that current safeguards are inadequate.
This is a modest, sensible and proportionate amendment: the
Minister should seize the opportunity by accepting it or
proposing his own alternative.
20:30:00
Amendment 122B, also passed by the upper House last week, relates
to repeated refusal by the Government to update the ISC’s
memorandum of understanding in order to ensure that we retain the
power to scrutinise effectively all intelligence and security
activity taking place across Government. The Minister for
Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and
Malling (), accepted the need for action when the Bill was
last in this House, acknowledging that an update to the ISC’s
memorandum of understanding “needs to be made”. Why is such a
process overdue? The reason is simple and has been explained,
time and again, ever since the national security and investment
legislation came before this House, as the right hon. Member for
North Durham (Mr Jones) pointed out, over two years ago.
As a result of the so-called “fusion doctrine”, intelligence and
security-related activities are increasingly undertaken by units
within a wider assortment of policy departments, including
several that have not generally carried out such sensitive work
previously. These new bodies, such as the Investment Security
Unit and the Counter Disinformation Unit, are not currently
listed in the ISC’s MOU and therefore fall outside the ISC’s
remit. Yet, there is no way in which the classified aspects of
their work can be scrutinised systematically or effectively by
departmental Select Committees.
Effective oversight of intelligence and security matters can be
undertaken only by the ISC, and that is precisely why Parliament
established it. Intelligence and security activity by parts of
Government falling outside the ISC’s independent oversight means
that such activity escapes Parliament’s democratic oversight.
That is why our memorandum of understanding with the Prime
Minister must be promptly updated.
During the passage of the Justice and Security Act 2013, as we
have heard, the Government gave the clearest possible undertaking
to Parliament that the ISC should have oversight of all of
central Government’s intelligence and security activities, both
now and in the future. It was clear that the ISC’s MOU was
designed to be a living document that could be updated easily to
reflect any changes to the security and intelligence activities
being undertaken by the Government. Yet, the Government have
consistently refused to abide by that authoritative commitment
made to this House by our late and much-missed colleague, , the then Security
Minister.
That failure is genuinely troubling. Statements by Ministers are
critically important—Parliament, courts and the public rely on
them. I am sure I speak on behalf of this House when I say that
we expect the Government to meet the commitments that they make
in Parliament. Their obstinate refusal to do that in the case of
the MOU, which began under the premiership of but which so far seems to
have outlasted him, shows at best an apathetic approach to public
accountability and, at worst, an intention to obstruct
non-partisan oversight of intelligence and security matters.
At Lords’ Report stage, in opposing a very similar amendment, the
Government’s position was that it was not necessary as the Prime
Minister was already considering the changes to the ISC’s remit
that the ISC had itself proposed. It was stated that the PM would
respond in due course and that it was not appropriate to mandate
him to update the MOU in a specific timeframe “so soon” after a
change had been proposed.
However, when that argument did not prevail, the line changed.
Last Wednesday, their Lordships were told:
“His Majesty’s Government consider the current MoU to be
sufficient to allow the ISC to discharge its statutory oversight
duties of the agencies and the wider intelligence community. The
MoU is subject to continuous review and His Majesty’s Government
welcome the ISC proposing changes that it would like the PM to
consider.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2023; Vol.
831, c. 245.]
In his opening remarks, the Minister in the Lords threw in for
good measure the extraordinary assertion that the “true driver”
of this amendment was to compel the Prime Minister to attend a
session of the Intelligence and Security Committee. The
attribution of an ulterior motive of this sort is as discourteous
as it is inaccurate. The Minister also told the Upper House that
my right hon. Friend, the present Security Minister, had met me
to find
“an agreeable resolution to the issue.”—[Official Report, House
of Lords, 21 June 2023; Vol. 831, c. 226.]
That was also incorrect. Although we had a typically amicable
conversation, he will recall that he simply reiterated the
Government’s rigid opposition to the amendment, and no solutions
were proposed to resolve the issue.
This morning, ISC members and staff discovered that, sadly
without consulting or even notifying us, the Government were,
after all, tabling their own version of the Lords amendment,
despite having resisted any such thing in all previous debates
and discussions with us. This is strange and inconsistent
behaviour, and I intend to abstain in the absence of a
satisfactory explanation.
Perhaps the Government hope that their amendment might supersede
the existing provision in the Justice and Security Act 2013,
which explicitly states that our MOU
“may be altered…with the agreement of the Prime Minister and the
ISC”.
We believe that this was always intended to be a simple and
straightforward process. Unfortunately, all our efforts from 2021
onwards to secure the necessary changes have relentlessly been
blocked.
The issue ought not to be controversial, and the Committee has
been baffled and exasperated by the Government’s negative
attitude. We do not know precisely who in Government are seeking
to erode proper parliamentary oversight, nor what it is they are
trying to hide, but behaviour of this sort only fuels conspiracy
theories, and that is in no-one’s interest. I ask my right hon.
Friend explicitly to confirm that the Government support the
existence and work of a fully independent ISC that can
effectively scrutinise their work—as originally intended—in
relation to all the intelligence and security matters undertaken
across Government.
Each piece of new legislation devolving intelligence and security
matters away from the bodies already overseen by the ISC must
come with a commensurate expansion to the ISC’s memorandum of
understanding. The Government’s last-minute amendment falls short
of that and will not resolve the underlying recurrent
problem.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the SNP spokesperson.
20:37:00
(Glasgow Central)
(SNP)
As the observant among you will know, I am not the hon. Member
for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (), who is indisposed. I
am sure that we all send him our best wishes for a speedy
recovery.
I am very pleased to be in front of the Minister again. For those
who were not paying close attention to the Home Affairs Committee
last week, his delivery, rather than the content of what he was
saying, was so soporific as to put my children to sleep in the
Committee Room. So, for all parents who missed CBBC’s Bedtimes
Stories, I recommend the Minister’s speech from this evening.
I rise to support these Lords amendments. I wish also to agree
with the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir ) and what he has proposed this
evening. I am disappointed to hear that he will not vote on this
issue, but I understand his reasons for so doing.
In reading the Lords debates from last week, it really does seem
quite odd to me that the Intelligence and Security Committee has
to come to this House and beg for things that it should have by
right and by prior agreement. The Committee should not have to
come to the Chamber to lay amendments to try to get the
information that it ought to have. In recognition of the widening
landscape across different Departments and the need for
accountability, it seems very sensible that the Committee should
have access to the information that it seeks.
I also find the Government’s amendment a bit curious:
“The Prime Minister and the Intelligence and Security Committee
of Parliament must consider whether the memorandum of
understanding…should be altered (or replaced)”.
Well, the ISC has already considered that; it has done that work.
It is for the Government to take that ball and to do something
with it, rather than to table amendments for further
consideration perhaps six months down the road. That does not
seem to me something that the ISC should be waiting any longer
for; it should have that information as soon as it requires
it.
Let me move on to amendment 22B on political donations. Reading
the Lords debate last week it seemed that there was very wide
agreement on the need for this measure, with Lord Carlile, Lord
Evans, and all agreeing that it was
necessary, along with the Electoral Commission, the Committee on
Standards in Public Life, the ISC itself and Spotlight on
Corruption. The question is not the eligibility or permissibility
of donors, but rather the source of those donations in the first
place.
As others have said, charities and companies have to have “know
your donor” and “know your customer”-type checks; “know your
donor” checks for political parties ought already to happen
automatically. Parties already carry out various checks, so there
is no reason why that should pose an additional burden upon them.
I note that a June article in Politico outlined the scale of the
problem and the loopholes in the rules. The article mentioned
that an unincorporated association has a threshold of £25,000 a
year, after which it is subject to an additional Electoral
Commission requirement: it has to report any gifts of £7,500 in a
12-month period, but only if the donations that make up that
figure are of £500 or more.
Someone could have £24,999.99 and not have to report anything,
but if they go over by one penny, suddenly they have to report
it—and if they are a bit fly, they will know exactly what they
are going to do in those circumstances. Furthermore, if someone
gives £499.99, again it does not hit the threshold and it does
not count. According to the Politico article, only one single
group hit that £7,500 threshold, despite millions of pounds going
through unincorporated associations. Some £14 million has gone
through them in the past five years, and only one donation hit
that threshold. That is indicative to me of a loophole, and if
the Government will not do something about that just now, we have
to ask why.
The Scottish Unionist Association Trust has been noted for some
of the dark money funnelled through it; indeed, according to
openDemocracy, it took a donation from another unincorporated
association. We have layers upon layers of unincorporated
associations and money sloshing through them. There needs to be a
wee bit more curiosity about where that money is coming from, and
a lot more accountability in accounting for that. Certainly, in
the election campaigns I have been part of, none of the donations
we have received have hit the £25,000 threshold. That is a lot of
money for certain political parties in this country.
I note that Spotlight on Corruption has also provided a helpful
briefing on those loopholes for this debate, pointing out how
difficult things become in terms of the accountability and
integrity of the whole system. I urge the Minister to explain why
he thinks that that is not worth tackling, because it seems to me
that that loophole opens up certain political parties in this
country to serious risk and that we should certainly know where
that money is coming from and whether it is accountable.
I would like to thank the Lords for the amendments they made to
this Bill. As a person who does not really believe in the House
of Lords, it should not be the case that they are improving
legislation in this place, but they have done so, and the
Government should take account of that, rather than continuing to
undermine the good and sensible amendments made in the other
place.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
We still have three more speakers, so I would urge brevity.
(South Holland and The Deepings)
(Con)
Brevity is my middle name, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I shall
illustrate in this short, pithy but powerful address.
I have only three points to make. The first is that, as members
of the ISC know and as the Security Minister knows, the threats
to this country are dynamic. They change rapidly and the means of
countering them must change accordingly. It is critically
important therefore that we understand, as the shadow Minister
said, that there are foreign powers—many of them state powers,
though not exclusively so—who are determined to effect things in
this House through contacts with political parties, with the
institution itself and with politicians. Being aware of that, we
need to counter it using all the necessary methods, including
legislation.
The second point is that, in order to exercise the power to
protect us, those missions to do so must act in a way that is
secret.
Their work cannot be transparent. They need to protect their
sources, their methods and, most of all, information. To
legitimise that kind of power, which is by its nature extreme, it
must be accountable and it must be scrutinised. A body that does
so must, by definition, have a very particular kind of
constitution, in that it has to have a means and method of doing
so that is itself secret.
20:45:00
That is why the Intelligence and Security Committee was born, why
it deals with matters that would otherwise not be considered
because they would not be available beyond its confines, and why
those appointed to it are Privy Counsellors and security cleared.
We hold our security services to account and, in so doing,
empower them to do what is necessary to protect us all. That is
not a permissive function. It is not something to be spread
around the Committees of this House, nor is it something that we
can deal with in such detail on the Floor of the House. To
reinforce the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee
through its memorandum, responding to the very dynamism that I
described at the beginning of my speech, is essential. It is
essential to empower the Government to do what is right.
St Matthew’s Gospel says:
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.”
I am grateful for the Government’s small mercy in respect of
their amendment in lieu, which is a recognition of much of what
has been said. I, like others, preferred the West version, but
then I am a great friend of , so perhaps I am a little
prejudiced in that respect. It would have been simpler to deal
with it in that way, but I understand that the Security Minister
has responded. We now need him to be as good as the amendment he
has put forward by dealing with this matter promptly. The
amendment says it will happen within six months, so let us deal
with it well within six months—that might mean within six weeks;
within six days would perhaps be asking a little too much. None
the less, let us deal with it promptly and so have a pertinent
and sensible amendment of the MOU to give the ISC the powers it
needs.
Finally, I said at the outset that the threats to us are profound
and dynamic. It is in recognition of that fact that members of
the ISC go about their work. We should thank those in the
intelligence and security services for all they do. They are
remarkable people who do a remarkable job. All we seek is the
power to help them do that job by holding them to account.
In a democracy, the ability of Parliament or others to scrutinise
the activities of our security services is not a “nice to have”
but a vital part of the confidence that our citizens have in
them. We have the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the
Investigatory Powers Tribunal, and then we have the ISC, which is
the parliamentary arm that ensures that there is full
accountability.
The Justice and Security Act 2013 extended the powers of our
security services and, in return, increased the powers of the
ISC. The important thing is that it has to be independent. I have
been on the Committee the longest—six years now—and what has
happened over the past three years has been an attack on the
Committee’s independence and our ability to scrutinise. It
started with Boris Johnson’s attempt to rig the Committee by
giving the Conservative party a majority on it and the
chairmanship of it. That failed. We also had the delay of the
Russia report for no apparent reason other than to avoid his own
embarrassment.
The Minister asks, “Why have we got this amendment to the
legislation?”. The reason is a sense of frustration. Our
Committee has been trying for the last two or three years to get
the MOU changed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston
and Halewood () said, because the remit for
considering departmental policy has grown, but at every turn we
have been refused. It is not about a lack of willingness on the
part of our Committee.
There are other aspects in which the Committee’s work has been
frustrated. I mentioned the unnecessary delay of the Russia
report, but it is still happening. We have just done a major
report on China. It has gone to the Prime Minister and been
through security clearance. He had 10 days to publish it; a month
later, we are still waiting for a date for it. The report we
completed on international partnerships was sent to the Prime
Minister on 6 September last year, and we are still waiting for
it to be published, so the Government have form when it comes to
trying to frustrate the work of the Committee.
We on the Committee get frustrated, but the important thing is
that Parliament is being frustrated. For some reason, the
arrogance that was around when was there seems to have
continued. The Minister can say all those nice warm words—as he
does in his nice, flannelly sort of way—but frankly it does not
wash with us. The Prime Minister or whoever in Government is
trying to stop this needs to recognise that it is not about
whether the Committee gets access; it is about proper scrutiny,
as laid down in an Act of Parliament. This is serious for our
democracy.
I want to add a few final points about the passage of the Bill,
during which I think we have had four Ministers. The Committee
approached the Bill in a constructive way and worked with the
security services to come up with amendments. However, that was
not helped by the Minister’s Department, which frankly did
everything it could to stop the positive amendments that we had
agreed and that were put forward by the security services. They
valued that, but were amused, frankly, that the Home Office was
so incompetent, or for some reason did not want to give the
Committee any credit for coming up with anything.
All I say to the Minister is that I can agree to this proposal,
but frankly it means nothing unless there is a change of attitude
among the higher echelons of this Government. The point that
needs to be remembered is that democracy is important and our
constituents need to have that confidence. Our security services,
who work day in, day out in very challenging situations on our
behalf, need the security and support of knowing that there is
independent oversight and that the public can be satisfied with
it. Unfortunately, the way that the Government are carrying on in
this area is damaging that oversight.
Sir (Kenilworth and Southam)
(Con)
I want to make a few brief comments about both the amendments
before us. Let me start with Lords amendment 22B and the
Government motion to disagree with it. I find it very difficult
to disagree with this amendment. I was a member of the Committee
on Standards in Public Life when the 2021 report that has been
referred to was produced, and I am a member of the Intelligence
and Security Committee now. Both those Committees, as the House
has heard this evening, take the view that further measures are
required to protect our democracy from the influx of
inappropriate foreign money, and I think both would say that the
amendment is the bare minimum of what needs to happen.
Lords amendment 22B does two things. It says, first, that a
political party should be able to identify donations from a
foreign power and, secondly, that it should be transparent with
the Electoral Commission about such donations. It is worth
stressing that the donations we are talking about are those from
a foreign power—not necessarily from an individual, but from a
state, perhaps funnelled through an individual. It is surely
important to recognise the significance of such
donations—potentially, at least—on our democratic process. It
seems to me that there are two scenarios here. Either there are
hardly any such donations in British politics, in which case the
work involved to identify and deal with them appropriately is
hardly likely to be onerous, even for smaller parties; or there
are substantial numbers of such donations, in which case the case
for greater transparency is overwhelming.
Let me turn to Lords amendment 122B and Government amendment (a)
in lieu. It is worth being honest: there is very little
difference between the Government amendment in lieu and the
amendment from the other place, but both, as others have said,
are operating on the margins of the real issue. The real issue is
that there needs to be the capacity for the Intelligence and
Security Committee’s remit, and the memorandum of understanding
that relates to it, to adapt as the processes and structures of
Government adapt. If that is not the case, all the consequences
flow that have been described so well by my Committee colleagues,
which I do not need and have not got time to repeat.
My last point relates to a deficiency in both Lords amendment
122B and the Government’s amendment in lieu. Both say that the
consideration or the review—depending on which version we
choose—of the memorandum of understanding must begin within six
months of the passage of the Bill. The problem with that, it
seems to me, is that it is far from inconceivable that the
Government may make a machinery of government change or a process
change beyond that six-month point. It does not seem sensible to
artificially limit the capacity for having that review or
consideration of the memorandum beyond that point. For that
reason, I am afraid, I do not think that either the Lords
amendment that we have received or the Government’s amendment in
lieu are sensible responses to the challenge we face. In my view,
both are flawed.
I thank all Members of the House for their comments this
evening—there have been some important contributions. I pay
particular tribute to the hon. Member for Halifax (), who has been not only a
powerful critic, but a very able debater and participant in
improving the Bill and getting it into a position where I think
it is ready to be enacted. As she and the House are very well
aware, this is a Bill that is somewhat overdue. It updates the
powers that our fantastic intelligence services require in order
to keep this whole nation safe. We have, sadly, seen various
different efforts by nations and—as my right hon. Friend the
Member for South Holland and The Deepings ( ) put it—some non-state actors to
use our freedoms against us. It is very welcome that the House
has worked so helpfully in bringing the Bill together to make
sure that we are as protected as possible.
I now turn to some of the areas in which criticism has been
raised, and I understand that criticism. As a former Committee
Chair myself, I start by praising the Intelligence and Security
Committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East
(Sir ) has regularly been in my
office of late, and indeed in the past. We have worked extremely
closely on many other areas, so I am delighted that he has raised
his challenges. I will seek to answer them, because he
understands as well as I do that parliamentary scrutiny is not
just essential for the country, but for good government. The
areas that he challenges us on are incredibly important.
It is also very good to see the hon. Member for Bristol North
West () in his place. There are other
Committees that have responsibility for some of the areas we are
discussing today, and as Chair of the Business and Trade
Committee, he is charged with overseeing some of the areas that
require some understanding of the nature of business in our
society today. That, I am afraid, does include some classified
information, so the Government are committed to finding ways in
which we can make sure that not only the Intelligence and
Security Committee, but relevant departmental Committees, can
have appropriate oversight. I repeat what I have said separately
to him and to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest
East: this issue is extremely important to me, and I know that
the whole Government share my view.
I will now turn to the question of foreign donations, and the
reason why I do not think that Lords amendment 22B quite works.
As the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill () has put it in the past, I do
not resile from saying that the nature of foreign donations to
this country is certainly not something to be taken lightly. When
it is found, it is a crime, and a crime that must be punished. We
should be very clear that interfering in our democracy is
completely unacceptable, and I am very pleased that working with
others in this House, we have made some progress in different
areas through the defending democracy taskforce. I thank all
Members of this House for that, and I particularly thank Mr
Speaker for his assistance in making sure that we are in a better
position today and will, I hope, be in an even better position in
a few months’ time as various elements come forward.
May I say that there are differences between charities or
businesses and political parties? One of those important
differences is that charities and businesses, quite correctly, do
not have to make public their donations. They do not have the
obligation that political parties have to state exactly who is
funding them. Political parties do have that obligation, and that
is one reason why there is a difference. Transparency is provided
not only by the political parties checking who is permissible and
therefore who is actually giving the money, but by their making
that donation public so that the media, who scrutinise us all,
scrutinise those who donate and seek to influence or promote
ideas by supporting any of us. I think that is an important
difference that we should recognise.
May I, however, add that there is clearly a question on scrutiny?
I say again that this amendment does not address that question,
because any lawful political party should give a nil return,
according to the amendment. I do not think that quite answers the
questions that right hon. and hon. Members are asking, but I do
understand the question of scrutiny that has been raised across
this House, and I can assure Members that I am listening.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment
22B.
Division 271
26/06/2023 21:00:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 289
Noes: 199
Question accordingly agreed to.
Lords amendment 22B disagreed to.
21:12:00
One hour having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on
the Lords amendments, the proceedings were interrupted (Programme
Order, 3 May).
The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary for the
disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing
Order No. 83F).
Lords amendment 122B disagreed to.
Government amendment (a) made in lieu of Lords amendment
122B.—(.)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No.
83H(2)), That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be
assigned to the Lords for disagreeing with their amendment
22B;
That , , , , , and be members of the
Committee;
That be the Chair of the Committee;
That three be the quorum of the Committee.
That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(.)
Question agreed to.
Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and
communicated to the Lords.
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