Part of National Security Bill - Report (1st Day) – in the House of Lords at 6:45 pm on 1 March 2023.
Lord West of Spithead
Labour
6:45,
1 March 2023
My Lords, I support Amendment 51, which would help increase the transparency and accountability of our political system. The ISC’s Russia report of 2020 recognised that the UK had clearly welcomed Russian money, including in the political sphere.
The Government have previously assured the House that the protections within the electoral financing Laws are “sufficient”. However, as other noble Lords suggested in Committee, there are clear differences between the requirement on companies to undertake due diligence when receiving foreign money and that on political parties, which have no such duties. This would help close the gap.
I note that the amendment requires a political party to publish a policy statement within three months of the passing of the Bill. The Secretary of State also has three months to produce the accompanying guidance. It may be advisable for the Secretary of State to publish the guidance before political parties are required to produce their policy statements. I simply raise that as a practical point. It does not affect my support for the amendment.
As regards the government amendments, it is not clear why they seek to exclude parliamentary proceedings from the definition of political processes, thereby moving them outwith the scope of any new foreign interference offence. I appreciate that the Government have said that it is to clarify that the Bill does not intend to interfere with parliamentary privilege, but I do not see that the answer is to remove the concept entirely.
To commit the foreign interference offence, one needs to conduct “prohibited conduct” which has an “interference effect”. “Prohibited conduct” includes a variety of unacceptable behaviours—from a criminal offence to threatening to damage someone’s reputation or causing financial loss. Surely, it is critical to prevent any foreign interference in parliamentary proceedings which involves a person conducting such unacceptable behaviour. Perhaps the Minister could explain how including parliamentary proceedings in the foreign interference offence would undermine parliamentary privilege, given the need for the prohibited conduct of the offence to apply. Even if the amendment is warranted, could the Minister explain why the Government have not replaced it with wording similar to that in Clause 70, as amended. This refers to interference with
“a Member of either House of Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament” rather than “parliamentary proceedings”, which would ensure that no gap was created.
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