Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

The noble Lord reminds us about the draft code of conduct. It spells out considerations that relate to the threat of hostile activity and lists a number of factors, one of which, in the context of the stop not being arbitrary, is to have consideration of “possible current, emerging … hostile activity”, which is understandable, and “future hostile activity”. Can the Minister explain the distinction between emerging and future hostile activity?

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

I support the words of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. As long as these powers are restricted to the extreme circumstances of national security and are not a passport to a widening of stop and search without justification, I think this is about hanging a notice around the UK—particularly, as he said, in relation to clean skins and travelling companions—saying that this is a hostile place for people with deeply malign intent.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have raised a number of important issues relating to the ports and border powers under Schedule 3 to the Bill and Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000. While it is incumbent on the Government of the day to keep the people of this country safe and respond to a range of evolving threats—as the noble Lord, Lord Blair, says, that is what it is all about—it is also critical that we are mindful of the wider impact that these measures can have if exercised arbitrarily or without due care.

As noble Lords will be aware, the powers under Schedule 3 have been introduced to address a gap in our capability to tackle the threat posed by hostile state actors. As with the equivalent powers under Schedule 7 for counterterrorism purposes, they will provide the police with the tools that they need to counter the threat from hostile states. I have listened carefully to the points made at Second Reading and today about the powers and the concerns about how they might be used. The Government share the view that the arbitrary use of any police power is objectionable, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, says, which is why they will be subject to a number of checks and balances.

Amendment 64 would ensure that an examining officer may exercise examination and detention powers under Schedule 3 only where he or she has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person is or has been engaged in hostile activity. Amendments 42 and 46 would make similar changes to Schedule 7. Noble Lords may recall that in relation to the powers under Schedule 7 the Government have consistently rejected the introduction of such a threshold. We share the view of our operational partners that to amend the legislation in this way would fundamentally undermine the utility of capabilities that the police rely on to keep the public safe.

There are three key reasons for that and they apply to Schedule 3 in equal measure. First, we would risk disclosing to hostile actors the extent of our intelligence coverage and capabilities, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, pointed out. These powers are and will be used to examine individuals who have been identified by operational partners as working with or for terrorists or hostile actors, which could also include foreign intelligence operatives or agents of a foreign intelligence service. Any person examined under a power subject to a suspicion threshold could infer that they were of active interest to the police and intelligence agencies and the tradecraft behind that intelligence coverage. Port officers may also be required to explain to these individuals the reasons for stopping them. In such an event, it is likely that terrorists or hostile actors would use this information to reverse-engineer our methods, bypass future security checks and increase their reliance on clean skins, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, pointed out.

Secondly, requiring grounds for suspicion would in effect remove a key tool to identify and disrupt previously unknown terrorists or hostile actors. In giving evidence to the Commons Public Bill Committee, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu explained that the police are often in possession of intelligence that is “fragmented” or “incomplete” and is not always focused on a specific individual. Such intelligence may instead point to trends or patterns of travel, or an active threat linked to a particular destination and timeframe. The introduction of a suspicion threshold would limit the availability of these powers to known individuals, or those who have demonstrated suspicious behaviour at a port. It would prevent port officers from selecting individuals for examination who are potentially exploiting travel routes that have been uncovered by intelligence or are heading to a specific destination within an identified threat window.