Lord Coaker:

Moved by Lord Coaker

195: After Clause 91, insert the following new Clause—“Proscription of organisations: hostile activity on behalf of another State(1) Within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must publish draft legislation establishing a process for the proscription of actors engaged in hostile activity within the meaning of paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 3 to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019.(2) Such legislation must have reference to the existing proscription process as governed by section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (proscription).”Member’s explanatory statementThis amendment requires the Secretary of State to propose a new proscription process for actors engaged in hostile activity on behalf of other states.

My Lords, in moving Amendment 195, I will not speak at great length. The amendment requires the Secretary of State to propose a new proscription process for actors engaged in hostile state activity on behalf of other states, or indeed non- state organisations acting for a state or those who may act on their behalf.

I am moving this amendment to enable the Government to deal with any legislative problem in proscribing, among others, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the IRGC. The Government will tell the Chamber and me that existing legislation can deal with it, so it is not a problem. So why is there a delay in proscribing the IRGC? If there is no problem with existing legislation, why are Foreign Office officials questioning, as reported in the Times and many other media outlets, how the IRGC can be defined as a terrorist organisation under existing legislation, given that it is a government agency, unlike most of the other groups on the list? Foreign Office officials are being reported in the media as saying that there is a problem with the legislation. The Home Office is saying—I presume this is what the Minister will say—that there is not. Where has that come from? Why is the Foreign Office briefing the media that the reason it is resisting the proscription of the IRGC is that it is not sure that existing legislation will be adequate to define the IRGC as a terrorist organisation because it is a government agency.

There is a problem here at the heart of government. My Amendment 195 seeks to say to the Government, “Here is a legislative vehicle by which you can plug a gap so that the concerns raised by the Foreign Office can be alleviated”. The Home Office and the Foreign Office cannot both be right. So we should pass the legislation as I have laid it out here. I have read—I was advised that this was the way to give the Government a vehicle to deal with any legislative problem in the proscription of the IRGC, as laid out by the Foreign Office—the various parts of the 2000 Act and the 2019 Schedule in front of me and, as much as I can read and understand them, I will have to take the Foreign Office’s word that it is because it is a government agency that there is a problem.

As I said, something is the matter here. It is the will of Parliament, as expressed time and again in this place and in the other place, that the IRGC should be proscribed, but the Government are unable to do it. Therefore, all of us should pass this amendment to get rid of the legislative barrier that the Foreign Office says stays in the way. I am not a legislative expert, but, if the Foreign Office says there is a problem, if I were in the Home Office, I would pass this amendment and call out the Foreign Office if I wanted to proscribe the IRGC. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the Government wish to proscribe the IRGC and whether there is a problem with the Foreign Office. Clearly there is; the Minister will not say there is, but there is.

We have seen an Iranian TV station in the UK forced to shut down because of activity from Iran. Numerous plots have been foiled, thanks to our security services. The noble Lord, Lord Evans, is here, and the noble Baroness, both former heads of MI5, so we thank them. But the Government are prevaricating on the proscription of the IRGC. My amendment, as I said, seeks to help the Home Office in its disagreement with the Foreign Office by allowing the creation of an improved and clearer process for proscribing hostile state actors.

The Government are divided in the face of this worrying issue. The Government will say they are not, so I was looking for evidence to show that they were. What did I find? In Hansard, Bob Blackman MP—not me trying to create trouble in the Lords but a Conservative MP—said:

“Clearly, the threat from the IRGC to people in this country—be they opposition journalists reporting on what is going on in Iran at the moment or UK citizens—is paramount. Foreign Office Ministers have responded to all the urgent questions the Speaker has granted and the debates we have had, but will my right hon. Friend now take the obvious step, which is supported by all political parties in the Chamber, and proscribe the IRGC in its entirety?”

Tom Tugendhat, Minister, Home Office, responds with this direct quote:

“My hon. Friend will know that it is not me”—

I am quoting this—

“he has to persuade in this matter and that there are many areas where I would like to go. I can assure him that the Government are absolutely listening to exactly what he is saying. The Home Secretary and I are as one on this”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/2/23; col. 639.]

I am not a genius at working out what that means, but I think anybody who has been in the other Chamber or in this Chamber and has listened to the debate knows that the National Security Minister is telling Bob Blackman MP that the Home Secretary and he agree that the IRGC should be proscribed, but they have a problem with other parts of government, and those other parts of government are the Foreign Office, which believes that it should keep open communication with Iran and that proscribing the IRGC will cause all sorts of other problems, presumably around the nuclear treaty and so on and so forth.

All I am saying to the Minister is that the Foreign Office is clearly blocking the proscription of the IRGC, which is what the majority of people in this Chamber and the other think should happen, and my amendment seeks to take away from it the excuse it is using: namely, that there is a legislative problem, because the IRGC is a government agency and it would therefore be difficult under existing legislation to define it as a terrorist organisation.

Amendment 195 is extremely important, because it will allow the proscription of the IRGC and will take away from the Foreign Office the excuse that it is using to block that proscription. It is in the national security interests of this country for the IRGC to be proscribed as soon as possible. From what I just quoted, it is obvious that the Government, defined as the Home Office, agree, but the Foreign Office is stopping it. This Chamber has the opportunity, in the vote on my Amendment 195, to take away the excuse that the Foreign Office is using to stop that proscription. I hope that noble Lords will take it.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for bringing this issue to the Chamber on Report. He asked very pertinent questions. If he seeks to test the opinion of the House, we shall abstain on this point, but that is not because we do not wish to hear the Minister’s answer—it is because, if we are reforming the Terrorism Act 2000 and the means by which we proscribe organisations, there are perhaps better places for a full and more fundamental review.

I have been on record as supporting the proscription of the IRGC, and I have said that this should not be done without considering the knock-on effects within Iraq and Lebanon. The Terrorism Act 2000 states that it is the Home Secretary who has the specific power to proscribe, so the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked are valid. If this is a Home Office Minister stating that to the House of Commons and it is the Home Secretary’s decision, what is the process by which government will now make decisions on this? I have also repeatedly called for the proscription of the Wagner Group, which is a non-government organisation but clearly has direct links with the Russian Government.

There are, of course, some grey areas. Before we reached this group, I reviewed the whole list of those proscribed organisations, and we have recently proscribed some that are clearly not linked with a Government but are organisations designed to destabilise that country’s Government. However, over the years, there have been other organisations where the lines are more blurred as to whether they are within the framework of aliases or associated organisations, which can be proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000, even if they are not directly part of the Government of that nation. It is obviously a large step if we proscribe part of a Government, but, in the past, we have seen that, in many areas, it has not been clear who the Government of a country are. Therefore, the statutory tests that are used, and that need to be satisfied, need to be robust.

I have raised the issue of the Wagner Group since 25 April last year, and I have seen it operating with my own eyes in Sudan—some noble Lords have heard me make this case before—and it is palpably the case that its operations are terrorist in purpose and in nature and that they are directly against the national security interests of the United Kingdom and pose a threat to British nationals and our allies. I called for its proscription last year on 25 April, 23 May, 9 June, 7 July, 15 November and 21 December, and on 26 January this year.

On 26 January, we raised questions about Mr Prigozhin receiving a licence from the Treasury to circumvent sanctions to receive legal support for a palpably malicious legal purpose. The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, said that she would write to me, and I got the letter this morning—I am grateful for her reply. There was nothing new in it, but there was an interesting line with regard to how the Home Office considers the proscription regime to

“assess if the statutory test is satisfied … taking into consideration several discretionary factors.”

I am curious about whether these factors would meet the purpose of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and I hope that the Minister can satisfy us on that.

No doubt the Minister will say shortly that the Government do not routinely comment on the issues, and I understand that case: no Government have in the past, and I suspect that no Government will in future, for good reason. But one question on the IRGC that the Minister can answer is whether, as it is constituted, the IRGC would meet the statutory test of the 2000 legislation. Another question that the Minister can answer today is whether the Wagner Group would meet the statutory test for an organisation to be considered. If so, we would have a bit more clarity. I hope that the Minister can give us positive news today.

My Lords, I have not spoken on the Bill before, and I appreciate that we are very near the end of it, but I am moved to stand by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, which, as it is written, I support.

I have only voted against the Government once and, in retrospect, I think that was a mistake, in that I got confused about what the legislation said. But in this particular instance there is an opportunity for us to stand up and say that the IRGC is an organisation that should be proscribed. It is clear that large parts of government and MPs, including the Tory MPs referenced, believe that, and it is clear that a group of people in the Foreign Office take a different view. That is not a new position. I appreciate that my noble friend is a Home Office Minister and does not have a Foreign Office Minister with him but, none the less, an inflection moment is in front of us. I hope that my noble friend the Minister might find a way of supporting this amendment or explaining how he will satisfy the questions raised tonight.

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Leigh led the way, and I shall follow. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, I am one of the two Members of this House who have been proscribed by the Iranian regime and the IRGC, and I have consistently called for it to be proscribed by the Government.

I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said and, if there is an issue with the organisation being part of the Government, how were we able, when Sajid Javid was Home Secretary, to proscribe Hezbollah, which had Members of Parliament in Lebanon? This was always the argument against it, but it was done because it was the right thing to do. I remind noble Lords that Hezbollah and Hamas, which we all proscribed, are in fact the unruly children of the parent body—the IRGC, which needs to be proscribed.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lords, Lord Polak and Lord Leigh, as well as my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. He is indeed a friend, but I disagree with the conclusion he reached today. I want to support the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, if he puts the amendment to a vote in the House. I salute the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for the work he has done on both the IRGC and the Wagner Group; like him, I have seen the consequences of their actions in many parts of the world. I think that proscription is the right thing to do in some circumstances, and I believe that it is right in these circumstances.

Just before the debate on this amendment, I was at a committee meeting upstairs in Committee Room 9, where a young Iranian woman was speaking, during this special week celebrating the rights of women, about the slogan which has been used so often in the protests: “Freedom, Life and Women”. This young woman described atrocities that had occurred to her friends and her own personal experiences. She asked what we were doing about the IRGC and why the television broadcaster Iran International has had to leave this country and go to the United States because it is not safe to operate in west London. How can that be? How can it be that BBC Persian service personnel are constantly harassed as a result of doing their job, even though Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the freedom to transmit ideas and opinions? That freedom is not permitted by the theocracy in Iran.

As the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said, he and I have been sanctioned, along with Tom Tugendhat MP, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, referred. This is trivial in comparison to the things that happen to Iranian people and to what we have seen happening to people in the protests in Iran, which are truly shocking. It is trivial when you think about the export of drones from Iran to Russia that are now pouring down on the people of Ukraine. If we fail to take this kind of action—indeed the noble Lord, Lord Polak, and I asked this question in your Lordships’ House back on 18 January, after Alireza Akbari, a British citizen, was executed—what has to happen before they are proscribed? We asked it again on 23 February, in the Moses Room during a Question for Short Debate I tabled about relations between Iran and the United Kingdom. We specifically asked about the division between the Foreign Office and the Home Office and about what was impeding a decision being taken on this matter.

I know the Minister quite well now, and I admire and respect him. I do not expect him to give us a lot of cant from the Dispatch Box, but I hope that he will take back to the Government the feelings of so many of us in this House today who want to support the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for the reasons he expressed so well.

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I have considerable sympathy for what he says in view of the appalling behaviour of the IRGC. However, this amendment, as I understand it, would open the door to the proscription of state organisations, with proscription having originally been envisaged as a mechanism principally to bear down on non-state organisations.

I wonder therefore whether the Minister, when he responds, could clarify whether the proscription of state organisations brings with it unintended consequences that would be potentially quite difficult. For instance, will we say that anybody who is a member of a hostile intelligence service—which might be proscribed—is, by definition, committing an offence? What will that do, for instance, to intelligence liaison with people who are hostile to us, which sometimes happens? Does it create problems which would not be created for a non-state organisation, because these organs will be part of a very considerably bigger state entity with which we may have to engage at some level?

I am neither in favour with nor against the amendment. I am not quite sure exactly how it would work, and I would be very grateful if the Minister could clarify those aspects.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this very brief debate.

I think it would be helpful to give a brief overview of the concept of proscription as outlined in Part 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Put simply, proscription can play an important role in degrading the ability of terrorist organisations to operate effectively, and it sends a strong message that the UK is a hostile operating environment for such groups. The Terrorism Act 2000 gives the Home Secretary the power to proscribe a group if she has a reasonable belief that it is currently concerned in terrorism and it is proportionate to do so. The amendment seeks to replicate this within an explicit state threats context and requires that the Government develop and publish appropriate draft legislation.

The Home Secretary’s decisions on proscription can be legally challenged. As such, those decisions are supported by a comprehensive, evidence-led process which involves close consultation with other government departments and partners. This House will fully appreciate that developing a state threats proscription power will need to be considered fully.

Before I go on, I will refer to the IRGC, as it has come up in all contributions. I remind the House that the United Kingdom already sanctions the IRGC in its entirety. The separate list of proscribed terrorist organisations is kept under very careful review, but we do not routinely comment on whether an organisation is or is not under consideration for proscription.

In response to the illustrative points from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on whether there is a legislative gap in this area, I say that the National Security Bill creates a wide range of offences, tools and powers to counter state threats activity. In many respects, they cover very similar ground to a proscription-like power. For example, any person materially assisting a foreign intelligence service in their UK-related activities would commit an offence under Clause 3. Under the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme in Part 3, the Government could require the registration of all activities being conducted with those specified under the scheme. The Government will, with the agreement of Parliament, be able to specify a foreign power, part of a foreign power or an entity controlled by a foreign power. That means that those who are in arrangements with such organisations must register their activities or risk prosecution. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, referred to my right honourable friend in the other place, the Security Minister, and I know that he is reassured by this.

However, as the Government have previously set out, we see the Bill as forming a new baseline for state threats legislation from which the statute will inevitably build over time as the threat evolves and diversifies. I am therefore grateful to the noble Lord for raising the issue and giving us the opportunity to debate it. I reassure him that I understand the reasons behind the amendment and the concern about the activities of state groups such as the IRGC. The Government of course share the noble Lord’s concerns, as was made clear in the Government’s statements on Iran International —to which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, also referred—which highlighted the potentially lethal operations of the IRGC taking place in the UK.

The amendment raises an important question of whether more needs to be done in this space, and I can reassure all noble Lords that this is a question that the Government are already considering carefully. The Government are committed to tackling all forms of state threats and to ensuring that our police and security services have the right powers to keep the UK safe.

Given, as I have said, that the measures in the Bill already have a similar effect in the state threats context to that achieved through the proscription for terrorism, we need to fully consider, alongside our operational partners, whether and how additional tools such as a state threats proscription power would add to the offences and measures in the Bill. We are committed to ensuring that any future legislation we pursue in this area has maximum effect.

Returning to the amendment itself, while it does not seek to set the ultimate scope of any legislative provision, I am afraid I am unable to accept an amendment that too tightly constrains our thinking in this important area. Linking proscription to hostile activity as defined in Schedule 3 to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 would need careful consideration. I very much take on board the points of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, on this and on the scope. While that definition was considered suitable for that legislation, a different approach was taken in the National Security Bill, reflecting the differing nature of the tools and powers it contains. I would not want to pre-empt what might work best in the context of a potential proscription-like power. Furthermore, it is possible that to deliver an operational benefit, the tool may need to be created in a different way, and as such proposing a link to existing proscription processes may be unhelpful.

For these reasons, the Government cannot accept this amendment as drafted. I am also going to have disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Purvis: I am unable to comment on the Wagner Group; I am not qualified to do so. I hope the noble Lord is reassured that the Government are already looking carefully at this area and will therefore consider withdrawing his amendment.

I thank the noble Lord for his response. Of course the Government are carefully considering this. I do not for one moment believe that they are not thinking about or carefully considering it—that would be an insult to the British Government. Of course they are concerned about national security and worried about various issues, including the one before us. That is a given. I have never accused the Government of not being concerned about it, of not considering it, of not deliberating on it, of not thinking about what they should do.

My amendment is saying that there is a real problem at the heart of government because the Foreign Office is blocking what the Home Office wants to do. There was not a word about that from the Minister; not a word about the fact that the Foreign Office is saying, “You cannot use existing legislation because it means that the IRGC”, to use that as an example, “is a government agency and not within the definition of a terrorist organisation under the legislation as drafted”. That is the core of it.

The noble Lords, Lord Leigh, Lord Polak, Lord Alton, and others who have spoken are saying that if there is a legislative problem, which the Foreign Office thinks there is, sort it out or come before this Chamber and say, “We do not want to proscribe the IRGC. We do not want to take that sort of action”. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to argue. “We do not want to proscribe the IRGC because we think the better way of sorting this problem out is to maintain open communications with the Iranian regime, to talk to them, to embrace them. We are not going to take any hard action against them because we think that undermines the policy objectives of the British Government.” It is a perfectly reasonable policy position, but I do not think that that is what is going on. I think the Government are having a row. I think there is a clash between the Foreign Office and the Home Office, and I am on the side of the Home Office. The IRGC should be proscribed, and I think that is what the majority of people in this Chamber, and in the other place, think. If so, it is the Government—or part of the Government—who are the problem, and my Amendment 195 gives them a legislative vehicle to sort it out.

What sort of a response is it, on something as serious as this, to say it is a drafting problem and “I did my best with it”? If there is a drafting problem, the Government can accept it and sort it out. They can change it, bringing in their battalions of lawyers, barristers even—I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—to sort it out. I was a teacher; I played football; I was a politician; I am not a lawyer, but that was the best I could do, because I know how important this is. The IRGC is operating within this country, to the extent that MI5 and others are having to foil terrorist plots. It forced a TV station to shut down, and the Government’s reaction to my amendment is to say, “There is a drafting problem with it”. It really is not acceptable.

The noble Lord, Lord Evans, is right in saying that there is a balance to be struck. Well, strike a balance by accepting Amendment 195, sorting the legislation out and allowing the will of this Parliament to be expressed through its directly and properly elected Government. It is saying to the Government that the IRGC is simply and utterly unacceptable. I do not care if the legislation says there is a problem with defining it. It is a terrorist organisation. “No, it is not”, because Schedule 58 to some Act somewhere says it is not. That is ridiculous. It is the tail wagging the dog. The IRGC is causing damage in our society and the Foreign Office is blocking this, according to the Times and other media outlets, because its officials are saying there is a definition problem because it is a government agency.

The noble Lord, Lord Evans, is right that this takes us into new territory. It does, and there are problems, but all I am saying is that it cannot be an excuse for the British Government to say, “We are not going to proscribe the IRGC because the Foreign Office says there is a problem with it being defined as a terrorist organisation when it is a government agency”. What do we say to people? Bring it down from these heady clouds of the House of Lords Chamber. Bring it down to the fact that terrorist plots are having to be foiled by our security services because of its actions. An international Iranian TV station has been forced out of our country: the United Kingdom cannot guarantee the safety of people who work for a TV station, in the face of actions by the IRGC and the people who support it, and the British Government prevaricate on whether to proscribe it. It is unbelievable.

The Government are whipping their Members to vote against that proscription and the Liberal Democrats, for their own reasons, are going to abstain. So, we are going to have people voting against and abstaining on the proscription of a body that poses a very real threat to our country. Good luck with explaining that. Good luck with explaining to people why that is something Parliament should accept and why my amendment should fail. “A drafting error”. “Not properly written”. Goodness me, is that the best we can do? I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Ayes 132, Noes 180.

Amendment 195 disagreed.