Crime and Policing Bill

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Viscount Hailsham]

449: After Clause 185, insert the following new Clause—
“Proscription process: parliamentary involvement(1) Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (proscription) is amended as follows.(2) After subsection (3), insert—“(3A) Subject to subsection (3B) the Secretary of State may not make an order under subsection (3) unless prior to making such an order, the Secretary of State has placed before the Intelligence and Security Committee (the ISC) or any committee which by statute may have replaced the ISC (the replacement committee), a statement of the reasons for making the order and the ISC or the replacement committee has published a report regarding that order.(3B) Subsection (3A) does not apply if the Secretary of State is of the opinion that by reason of urgency the requirements of subsection (3A) cannot reasonably be complied with and the Secretary of State has made a statement to Parliament to that effect.(3C) If subsection (3B) applies, the Secretary of State must within seven days of the making of the order, place before the ISC or the replacement committee, a statement of the reasons for making the order and within a reasonable period thereafter, the ISC or the replacement committee must make a report to Parliament.”.”

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 449, I will speak briefly to Amendment 454. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, for her support for Amendment 449. I have a nasty feeling that I may be uniting my noble friend Lord Cameron and the Minister in opposition to my amendments; I will forgive them on this occasion. I am also extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for his support on the previous group—I rather hope I might get some support from him on this occasion.

The purpose of Amendment 449 is to ensure that Parliament has as much information as possible before a decision to proscribe is made. I accept, of course, that it is not possible for Ministers to disclose in general debate all the information which they may have received in private and which, in their opinion, justifies proscription. I worked in the Home Office and the Foreign Office for around seven years, so I am under no illusions. Of course, the Minister, who has a similar track record, will be under no illusions either.

Having regard to the serious consequences of proscription, we need to do all that we reasonably can to ensure that, when a proscription order is made, Parliament is as well informed as it can be and that the justification for the order is well based. Otherwise, we are wholly reliant on the judgment of officials and Ministers. Without being unduly personal, on matters of such importance, I do not wish to be exclusively reliant on the judgments of Boris Johnson, Suella Braverman or Liz Truss—however informed and considered some may suppose them to have been.

Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee could provide a way forward. Amendment 449 would create a precondition to the Secretary of State’s ability to make a proscription order. Proposed new subsection (3A) would require that, if circumstances allow, before the Secretary of State makes an order, the Secretary of State must place before the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

“a statement of the reasons for making the order”

and, in such circumstances, a report of that committee must be published before the order is made. I accept that there may be circumstances in which the urgency of the matter demands more immediate action. Proposed new subsections (3B) and (3C) address that eventuality. In effect, the procedure would be the same as that provided for in proposed new subsection (3A), but it would be retrospective.

In either event, the Intelligence and Security Committee will be able to examine the stated reasons in much greater detail than the House could do in public session. A degree of scrutiny and interrogation should be possible. The report of the ISC could be very important, reassuring Parliament as to the propriety of the order if that is the opinion of the ISC, or alerting Parliament if the ISC is not supportive of the order. I do not pretend that this would be a complete safeguard. However, it would certainly be an improvement. On that basis, I commend Amendment 449 to the Committee.

On Amendment 454, I think I can anticipate the arguments that will be advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. She and I agree on an awful lot, and I know I shall support her on this matter.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of your Lordships’ Delegated Powers Committee. Of course, I speak for myself only but very much with those concerns in mind.

As noble Lords have heard from my friend who is also noble—but I cannot call him a noble friend—the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, I will speak to his Amendment 449, which I support, and my Amendment 454. I am grateful for his support and, on the latter amendment, for that of my noble friend Lord Hain, who is very sensibly not in his place at this hour. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame.

In contrast with the previous group—I am sad that there are not more participants from the previous group here—these are modest process amendments that are capable of uniting everyone who spoke for and against the various amendments in that group. Both these amendments are about increasing parliamentary involvement in and scrutiny of exceptional executive power—in particular, the power to proscribe an organisation as a terrorist organisation under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act.

To be clear—this may surprise some Members of the Committee—I believe that such powers are capable of being proportionate. In a democracy, no one should be allowed to organise a private army, in particular one that targets humans, and a democracy is proportionately able to respond by proscribing a terrorist organisation. It is none the less an awesome and exceptional power for the Executive to say that people will be prosecuted not just for their terrorist actions but for fairly broad and loose associations with people who may or may not be guilty of terrorist offences.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, for tabling Amendment 449 and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti for tabling Amendment 454. I will try to answer the points raised on both those amendments.

The amendment from the noble Viscount would require engagement with the Intelligence and Security Committee in advance of proscription orders being made. As somebody who served on the Intelligence and Security Committee for five years, I know that it is a trustworthy vehicle which does not leak, and which deals with security service issues from both Houses in a responsible manner. In the light of that, the noble Viscount will be aware that my right honourable friend the Security Minister, following the Palestine Action discussion we had, has written to the Intelligence and Security Committee and expressed his intention to write to the committee ahead of future proscription orders being laid in Parliament and, if the committee wishes it, to give a privileged briefing on the reasons why the proscription is being laid so that the committee can, in confidence, have that detailed information before it. I think that meets the objectives of the noble Viscount’s amendment.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister. That is indeed a good step forward but it falls slightly short, in that I do not think he is telling your Lordships’ Committee that the committee will be making a report to Parliament.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The time gap between informing and debate would be for the Security Minister to determine. In most cases, I would expect—without wanting to put a burden on my noble friend Lord Beamish as the chair of the committee—that the chair would probably want to contribute to that debate and would be able to inform the House if they felt there were issues they wished to draw to the attention of the House. Although my noble friend Lord Beamish is the chair who sits in this House, there will be a senior Member from the House of Commons who would also be able to answer to the Commons on any issue. So the noble Viscount is right, but the spirit of his amendment is met—though obviously that is for him to make a judgment on.

Amendment 454 had support across the Committee from the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Verdirame, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti asked for proscription orders to include one single organisation at a time. Historically, proscription orders have come in groups on many occasions. At the beginning of 2001, some 20 groups were proscribed in one order that took effect under the first statutory instrument made under that order. Four more organisations were proscribed on 1 November 2002, 15 were prescribed on 14 October 2005, and so on. In the interests of parliamentary time and the speed and flexibility needed to put those orders down, that was the case then and it was the case when we tabled the order with three organisations in June and July last year in this House and, at the same time, in the House of Commons. Security issues sometimes require a speedy response, and those issues were dealt with in that way for that reason.

I will give my noble friend one more reason, which she may want to reflect on. There is a threshold for proscription under the 2000 Act. Whether noble Lords like it or not, the decision of the Government was that the three organisations bundled together in the debate in July of last year had all met that threshold. I was available, as was the Security Minister in the House of Commons, to answer questions about each and all those organisations. The advice from the security services and officials, and ministerial examination and judgment of that advice, was that all those organisations crossed the threshold. Individuals might have wanted to vote against each one individually, but if they had, they would have been voting against exactly the same principle in each case—that the organisation had crossed the threshold.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Verdirame, have made fair and reasonable points. We group them for speed and efficiency, and historically they have been grouped because we want to clear a number of proscription orders at the same time. However, I put this point on the table for the Committee: if, in the light of the advice of the security services of officials, ministerial interrogation of that and, now, the added locus of the Intelligence and Security Committee having sight of and being able to be briefed on those orders, we brought three orders into one order, the threshold remains the same, and that threshold will have been crossed by those organisations. It might be that its members have a sympathy for the Palestinian cause rather than the Russian nationalist cause, but the threshold decided by ministerial jurisdiction, on advice from officials and the security services, is the same: they have crossed the threshold of the 2000 Act for a terrorist organisation. Making them separate orders would still mean that Members of both Houses would have to vote and say, “We do not accept that they have crossed the threshold”. That is a different decision.

I am conscious of time. Those points have been made. I hope I have put the Government’s case with the response I made to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and with my “take it or leave it” explanation of the points on disambiguation of the orders. Members can reflect on it. In the meantime, I ask the noble Viscount to withdraw his amendment.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I am conscious that the Committee wants to make progress, so I will be brief. I hope the Minister realises that we are not revolutionaries here; we are all parliamentarians. He refers to the threshold, but the truth is that Parliament never knows the detailed reasons. It is because we do not know the detailed reasons that we want to involve the ISC to a greater extent than the Minister has suggested. I would like to push him to say that there will be a report whenever possible, more than just a statement from the chairman.

As to the noble Baroness’s amendment, it is difficult to see any disadvantage to what she suggests. All in or all out is not a good way forward. The Minister talks about efficiency and speed, in his charming way. However, the truth is that we could lay three orders in one day, each with a separate object; that would be a proper way forward. That said, with your Lordships’ permission, I withdraw Amendment 449.

Amendment 449 withdrawn.