National Security Bill

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a long and detailed Bill which is clearly the product of much consultation and effort over a considerable amount of time by all those currently engaged in the defence of the security and well-being of our country. I am grateful for the detailed introductory letter that we all received from the Minister.

All the challenges facing us are shared by our allies. There is an issue for all parliamentary democracies of how to fight hostile state threats in all their complexity without compromising our own ethical principles and standards. All other Five Eyes partners have reviewed or are reviewing their own legislation. There will be opportunities for detailed discussion on specific points as the Bill progresses, but today in Second Reading I want to make, as briefly as possible, some general points from my own past professional experience and membership of the ISC.

Co-operation among our own security and intelligence services is, and has been in recent years, extremely close and interlinked—something that is much envied by some of our closest allies. It was not always thus. As late as the 1960s, there was much less understanding between MI5 and MI6, but happily that has completely changed, which is very much to the credit of the leaderships and members of both organisations.

On reading parts of this Bill, it struck me that much of it is codifying into law what has developed as good practice already. This seems to confirm that much which should already have been in legislation is in fact not, which validates the judgment that for decades there has been outdated and inadequate legislation in this field which has hindered rather than helped our agencies. It is indeed high time that we get our act together and produce helpful and decisive guidelines.

UK agencies are generally considered to be among the most overseen in the world. That is something to be proud of, but only as long as it never blunts or hinders their efficiency. This Bill has to deal with one of the problems that arises for all parliamentary democracies, regarding the use of material that is at risk of having been produced by others by means that would not be approved by us. In my opinion, responsibility for that decision should not be put solely on the shoulders of individuals in the field. We will see in the detailed examination of this Bill if a fair conclusion can be achieved on this problem.

It is good to be assured that our practitioners in the intelligence and security world have been involved in agreeing the contents of this Bill, and I look forward very much to the future of our deliberations.

Reading Terrorist Attack

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The answer to the first question is yes; the CT budget is always ring-fenced. I do not know whether the right reverend Prelate saw last night on the television the solidarity with which different faith communities in Reading came together immediately. It seems to be really crucial that different faiths come together in the immediate aftermath of things like that, to stand together against terror.

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this is another tragic loss of life apparently by the hand of a person recently in prison. Is the Minister confident that the Prison Service has the resources to recognise potential danger in those who pass through its hands? When I was on the ISC, that was the kind of issue we discussed with the heads of the intelligence and security services. My noble friend Lord Rosser raised the question of why the ISC has not been formed again since the last election. Can the Minister please give some reason as to why it has not been formed? When will it be? Is it not a disgrace that in these dangerous times we have no parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, amid reports in the media that one of the reasons for the delay is that the Government Whips are playing political games with who they are going to nominate from their own party?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness will know, I cannot make any comment on the individual from Sunday’s tragic events. She is absolutely right that enough resource must be given to prisons to put in place programmes—often multiagency programmes—to rehabilitate individuals and provide theological teachings to correct some of the more warped teachings they may have learned. On the ISC, I do not know the answer to that, so I will not pretend to know. I do not know when it is next due to meet, but I can certainly take that back.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale (Lab)]

My Lords, because of time constraint and the long list of speakers, I intend to be as brief as possible in this Second Reading of a vital and very detailed Bill. I hope there will be plenty of opportunity to deal at greater length with issues at the later stages of the Bill.

I speak from a base of my own professional experience in government service, where I spent some time in this precise field of activity, as well as having served in my parliamentary life twice on the ISC and later on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. Today, I would like to make a few general remarks about what are called bulk powers because, over the last decade or so, they have been absolutely essential to the three security and intelligence agencies—SIS, MI5 and GCHQ—and everyone agrees that they are bound to be increasingly important in the future.

Bulk data are information acquired in large volume, as the Minister explained so very well in his opening speech, and are used to provide vital and unique intelligence that is unable to be obtained by any other means. Bulk data are among the most important tools that the agencies have to help them identify security threats inside the United Kingdom and threats to UK interests and citizens abroad, including in the Armed Forces, to find links between targets of interest, to establish behaviour patterns and communication methods, and to monitor attack planning et cetera. The Minister confirmed in his opening speech that the Government are committed to a review by David Anderson to assess whether the bulk capabilities provided in the Bill are necessary. I understand that the review is expected to conclude in time for our consideration of Parts 6 and 7 in Committee, so I look forward to dealing with it all then.

I conclude with one brief personal comment. Like the noble Lords, Lord West, Lord Campbell and Lord Rooker, I have some serious reservations about the so-called double lock, which involves a judicial commissioner in the authorisation process. I am quite content to have judges in oversight and judicial review but I do not feel at all relaxed about letting judges into the authorisation process. Not for the first time in this House, I say with the greatest of respect to any noble and learned Lords here tonight that I really wonder where this cult of judge worship comes from. It seems to grab legislators, especially when they are dealing with intelligence and security affairs. However, I hope we can come back to and elaborate on this at future stages of the Bill. On the whole, it really is an excellent Bill and I wish it a smooth passage through this House.

Justice: Evidence

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

There are obviously significant concerns about using intercept as evidence. It can be very useful as intelligence, but using it as evidence can create significant problems. We want to address those problems and make sure that we have got it right before we allow intercept to be used as evidence. That is why the previous Government set up the review under Sir John Chilcot and why we are continuing to look at the work that it is doing and looking forward to its report in due course.

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale]

I understand that what happened was that the first group of privy councillors under Sir John Chilcot, of which the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, was a member, made a report that was considered. It then went into the next phase, with the privy councillors liaising with an action unit, or something like that, in the Home Office. That activity has hit problem after problem. It is not the fault of the privy councillors that there is a delay in reaching a solution. As the Minister said, it is a very complicated matter.

[Lord Henley]

The noble Baroness is absolutely correct. I was not trying to imply any criticism of the group; I was saying that it has put forward a solution that we have found a number of problems with. We will continue to look at any ideas that it puts forward. If we could use intercept as evidence in a manner that was safe and appropriate, we would, but again I stress that we have to get the right balance between advantage, costs and risks.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, but I respectfully oppose the other amendments.

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale]

As a non-lawyer, I shall make some non-lawyer points. I briefly echo what I said on Second Reading, which is that I very much welcome Clause 154 and congratulate the Government on bringing it forward. I wanted the previous Government to bring it forward. Although they were preparing to do so, they came to the end of their tenure before it came near the legislature. I am very pleased to see it because, despite what has been said by those who have tabled some of the amendments to Clause 154, the status quo is not acceptable to non-lawyers—as well, apparently, as to lawyers. It is unacceptable for various reasons. One is that it exposes the English and Welsh legal systems to abuse by politically motivated individuals who just want to have a foreign politician arrested for political reasons. It cannot be good for the law to allow that to happen.

There are other reasons why the status quo is unacceptable. An unintended consequence of the current legislation is that the DPP is consulted only before the issue of arrest warrants in public prosecutions, not private ones. To a non-lawyer, that makes no sense. I do not consider that any of the four amendments do anything to improve the clause; they are unnecessary.

I shall speak briefly to Amendment 245AA. In the 15 years that I have watched Bills go through the House, I have never seen such prescriptive instructions to a DPP. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven is not in his place, because I hoped that he would explain it to me. Perhaps he can do that at Report.

I support Clause 154 and I do not think that it needs to be amended.

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House much longer. However, not having been in the Bishops’ Bar earlier and not being a lawyer, I beg leave to give the view of the common man—or the common woman doctor, if you like. It comes from experience gained in the other place and here of going to places where horrendous war crimes have been committed.

When I was in the other place, I visited Rwanda soon after the genocide. I visited Kosovo and Albania when the atrocities were going on, and I cannot describe to you the injuries suffered by some women who had managed to run down to Albania and get into the hospitals there. Southern Sudan has seen atrocities committed over decades. More recently, I was in Gaza very soon after the conflict there. People who have had that experience and who have seen what happens feel very strongly that we should do everything in our power to try to bring the perpetrators to justice. That is where I am coming from. It is not in the case of a particular country although many people may think that it is—it is not. These crimes are being committed all over the world, as my noble friend Lord Carlile has told us.

I welcome this group of amendments which I hope will allow the Government to look again at Clause 154. They are suggestions of amendments and Clause 154 has caused huge consternation among those who care about universal jurisdiction. I also hope that the Government will give the real explanation—and a plausible one, please—for introducing the clause in the first place. I repeat that the right to initiate a private prosecution is an ancient common law right of the people of England and Wales and it provides a valuable safeguard for people like me, not lawyers, against political interference by the Executive.

If we ever have a Bill of Rights it should surely include the right of any citizen to approach the courts with an application for the arrest of a suspect who may have committed the sort of crimes that I have seen. This right has not been abused: 10 applications in 10 years is hardly politically motivated people manipulating the law—10 in 10 years, with only two successful ones. Will the Minister explain what abuse has taken place over the last 10 years or is it, as many people outside this House feel, an attempt to regain some sort of political control over this process?

This is why I support the amendments. Amendment 245, tabled by Lord Campbell-Savours, says,

“apply to the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice”.

That implies a long wait before that advice is received —he can take his time and it might delay the process too much—but nevertheless we should consider it.

Amendment 245A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and my noble friend Lord Lester, proposes that instead of being given the right of veto over the arrest, the DPP should be allowed to give evidence of his views to the court as an additional safeguard against vexatious applications. The timing would be out of his hands and therefore there would be less delay. Amendment 245AZA, tabled by my noble friend Lord Phillips, makes this even clearer, giving the DPP the opportunity to attend the court to give his opinion.

My noble friend Lord Carlile says that there will be no delay, and this has been emphasised by other lawyers in this House: “There is no delay. The DPP does not delay. These things are very urgent. They have to be dealt with immediately”. I am a doctor and I would say that too. If anyone said to me that I might be late turning up or might delay or not make a decision on a patient in time, I would say, “No, of course not. I deal with things immediately. I always go when I am called. I am never at a dinner party when someone wants my advice. I will never, ever delay”. We all say that, in whatever profession, but sometimes there are reasons why there is delay and that is what concerns me. Delay occurs not deliberately but because of business and the pressure of work.

If the House wishes to retain a veto over applications for arrest warrants by the DPP, that will in my view be regrettable. However, if the Government insist, they must set out the circumstances in which the DPP will not use the veto, which is essential to preserve the independence of his office. I appreciate the comments that have been made about Amendment 245AA tabled by my noble friend Lord Macdonald and presented in his absence by my noble friend Lord Thomas. I think that it would achieve some of our objectives. It provides that the DPP must consent to the issuing of arrest warrants when he believes that the evidence establishes a prospect of conviction or when there are reasonable grounds to believe that such evidence will be forthcoming within a reasonable period. He will keep the case under review and take it over in order to discontinue it if the evidence is not produced. I have already dealt with the question of someone being unjustly held under an arrest warrant for a short time.

I cannot understand anyone who professes to believe in universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity nor war crimes opposing any of these amendments or seeking to improve Clause 154. I do not approve of the clause at all—I would rather the status quo was maintained. However, if we are to have Clause 154, then anyone who believes in universal jurisdiction should look again to make sure that we implement it fairly and justly, and in a way that means that we can apprehend international criminals.

Finally, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the new clause tabled by my noble friend Lord Carlile. He and I have many disagreements but that does not mean—I say this very sincerely—that I do not hugely respect him and his opinions and judgments. As I said, we have many disagreements but on this matter we agree, and I trust that the Government will find a way of accepting his amendment.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, and to congratulate her on a truly outstanding maiden speech. Of course, we would expect no less from a very talented barrister, but she presented her maiden speech with a great deal of style and wit and let us see what a valuable asset we have gained in her presence with us.

In Dods, the noble Baroness put down her countries of interest as Ghana, Iraq, Nigeria and Trinidad and Tobago, which indicates the breadth of interest that she brings with her. She explained to us today why she is such an expert on so many different facets of what one might call multiculturalism in Britain. We look forward very much to hearing a lot more from the noble Baroness and we are sure that it will be with the excellent style and wit that she has shown us today.

The Bill is of enormous importance, with potentially far-reaching consequences for our whole system of policing, as the long list of speakers bears witness today. At this stage of Second Reading, with such a long list of speakers, I shall speak as briefly as possible on Part 1 of the Bill and on Clause 154 on arrest warrants, in Part 4.

In Part 1, the Government propose to abolish the existing police authorities and replace them with directly elected police and crime commissioners in each police force area in England and Wales. That would fundamentally change the nature of our policing by politicising police services and interfering with the operational independence of the police, notwithstanding the protestations to the contrary of those who support these proposals and of course we have heard rehearsed again today by the Minister.

I agree with the summing up of the Association of Police Authorities that this is, “the wrong reform at the wrong time”. There are great risks in concentrating power of responsibility for oversight of policing in one individual rather than, as now, some 17 or so in a police authority, who are a diverse group of councillors and independent members drawn from various communities across the whole force area.

There is also the question of costs. In the present climate of cuts and reduced police numbers, we are surely entitled to expect that radical changes should be made only when benefits will clearly outweigh costs, but that is not the case here. Analysts have suggested that the cost of the proposed reforms will amount to £100 million more than the cost of running police authorities for the same five-year period, 2011-16—the equivalent cost of some 600 police officers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, so expertly explained to us.

I also believe that there are operational risks. There are real concerns that PCCs will focus on issues that are more likely to attract public attention and enhance the chances of their own election rather than lower- profile crime issues that are still of importance in any professional scale of policing priorities.

Then there is the timing of these changes, a point so eloquently put by the noble Lord, Lord Condon. The most significant cuts to the policing budget, of some 14 per cent, are likely to hit in 2012; and huge changes to police pay and conditions are proposed in the Winsor review. To implement radical changes when the police service is trying to implement reform to police pay and conditions, create a new national crime agency and implement other reforms—all shortly before the Olympics—seems to me to make too great a demand on UK policing. It puts at risk both police resilience and public confidence.

Many sources have expressed concerns about whether the proposed new structure will undermine the political independence of the police. ACPO, while agreeing with the Government’s expressed aim of improving democratic oversight—and who could be against that?—stated that the reform,

“will, on occasion, create a clear tension where political incentives for any politician are for partiality (such as on the approach to an election) and may run counter to impartial professional policing views”.

I do not always find myself in agreement with Liberty, as Members of this House will have noticed from some of the debates I have taken part in before. However, I do on this issue, when it says it considers that the proposals,

“will politicise operational decision-making and place too much power in one place—dangerously undermining the independence of UK policing in the process”.

The so-called “Peelian” principle—after Sir Robert—of policing by consent by officers operating on principles of non-partisanship and accountability to the rule of law, not to Government, has served this country well. I remain to be convinced that the proposals in this Bill do not put that principle in jeopardy.

Very briefly, I want to welcome the long-overdue reform of our universal jurisdiction legislation in Clause 154, which I am glad the Government are now doing and which I rather wish the previous Government had done earlier, even if they did start to prepare for it toward the end of their term in office. The current legislation dangerously exposes the English and Welsh legal system to politically motivated individuals trying to obtain arrest warrants against foreign politicians for publicity purposes. The amendment would reduce political exploitation, make the system in England and Wales more robust, and bring it into line with practice in Scotland, where magistrates cannot consent to private requests for arrest warrants without a Criminal Letter from the High Court, on which the Lord Advocate would have been consulted.

An unintended consequence of the current legislation is that the DPP is only consulted before the issue of arrest warrants in public prosecutions, not private ones. That really does not make any sense. Amending the law to require the DPP’s consent to the issue of arrest warrants against foreigners alleged to have committed war crimes will strengthen our system of applying universal jurisdiction laws. Clause 154 is therefore very welcome.