National Security (State Threats) Bill

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D’Souza (CB)]

My Lords, I think this is the first time ever that I have followed the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and I am delighted to do so.

I begin by thanking the Minister and his officials for meeting some of us and going through the Bill in detail. I welcome the Bill, as so many others do, but continue to believe that there is a lack of clarity on some important issues and that this may result in unintended consequences—a very well-rehearsed phrase in the context of this debate. The points that I would have wished to make have been eloquently reiterated by many of your Lordships, notably my noble friend Lord Anderson, so I am going to cut to the chase in a minute, although I would add that some of the points that have been made repeatedly are so serious that they bear repetition.

My main concern remains the danger that humanitarian organisations could fall foul of a future law that forbids supporting or assisting a designated body or obtaining material benefits from such a body. As we have heard, designated bodies could include emergency assistance and/or development aid bodies, peacebuilding bodies and demining organisations which deal with sensitive material—as indeed does Inter Mediate. These entities regularly communicate with foreign government departments that are likely, under the terms of the Bill, to be designated. One example given by the Norwegian Refugee Council concerned a tax rebate rightfully owed to it by the Iranian Government.

Another concern is the stringent bank requirements surrounding the sending of funds to dubious foreign government departments—which, again, we have heard from many different Peers. The banks, which have a low risk threshold, as is the case with suppliers, donors and trustees, have made it increasingly clear that they do not accept verbal assurances and demand explicit protection to be on the face of the Bill.

The Home Secretary in the other place cited new Section 17B(6)(b) as providing the necessary protection. She assured the House that anything that has been approved by the UK would not be caught and urged humanitarian organisations to talk to the FCDO—which they already do, at length and frequently. However, the Bill as it stands does not make it clear what exactly will be covered or how such an arrangement could be confirmed or sought. Emergency responses require licences, if operating under current sanctions, that necessarily take time: for example, humanitarian action following the earthquake in Myanmar in early 2025 took over a year to negotiate, by which time most people affected by the earthquake had either not survived or had recovered.

Furthermore, any doubts about the legality of communications with designated bodies will have if not a chilling then certainly a delaying effect on humanitarian action—which the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, referred to—and on the transfer of resources. No trustee of a charitable organisation will be happy to risk the reputation of a charity, or even legal action, unless there are clear terms of engagement. Moreover, the courts, if it got to that stage, would not be bound by the Explanatory Notes, which are subject to interpretation.

The Bill targets state bodies, and this implies that whole ministries could well become designated: for example, the interior ministry of a country subject to severe UK sanctions such as Iran. Humanitarian organisations of many different kinds necessarily have to deal with ministries to obtain official agreements to operate in a country, and to receive licences and work permits. These take time and, should a humanitarian organisation be refused permission and subsequently make an application to the Secretary of State to exercise his or her power under Section 33A to remove the designation status, this would take even longer, with no guarantee that the Secretary of State would find in the organisation’s favour.

Again, the Minister in the other place, responding to this concern, cited the “prohibited purpose” clause, which has been discussed and which serves as an additional safeguard that protects legitimate conduct, in that it requires any conduct to be prejudicial to the safety or interest of the UK—although it is not necessary for the individual involved to know that a body is designated for the offence to apply, which seems somewhat odd.

I trust that the Minister accepted our concerns at the meeting that we recently held and undertook to look again at the Bill following its completion in the other place. However, the Bill remains unamended, and our concerns have not, so far, been fully addressed.

National Security (State Threats) Bill

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 30th June 2026 Lords Chamber

Just because we cannot bring ourselves to accept that China is our enemy does not change the fact that China, Russia and Iran view us as exactly that and act accordingly. Taken together, the amendments in this group take the fight to our enemies, including non-state actors and media organs. These amendments strengthen the Bill by optimising its effect and, crucially, its message. Surely, at a time when the credibility of the free world has rarely been so undermined by its own leader in the White House, demonstrating to our enemies and our friends that we are determined to be on the front foot in addressing both state and non-state threats has never mattered more. That is why the amendments in this group deserve our support.

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

My Lords, I will remark briefly on the excellent intervention by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and others, on the sleeping crocodile and toothbrushes. I ask the Minister to say, in summing up, why it is so very difficult for the UK Government to be extremely firm with China on the issues we are discussing today, which involve vast trampling on international norms and human rights. China itself has made it clear that if it wishes to continue trade with the UK, it will do so. China acts in its own best interests. No matter how firm we are on other issues, if it is in China’s interest to trade in toothbrushes or whatever, it will continue to do so. I do not understand why the Government are so reluctant to build and publish a strategy that is extremely and overtly firm regarding the kind of transgressions we are discussing throughout this Bill.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I regret that I was unable to take part on Second Reading owing to a long-standing family commitment, but I am very grateful on behalf of both the Liberal Democrats and many others for the Minister’s engagement with us before Second Reading and since. It has been extremely helpful, and his Bill team have been extremely helpful. The fact that most of the issues we face are now resolved owes a great deal to that commitment.

As was made clear at Second Reading, we support the aim of the Bill, in the light of the advice given to the Government by Jonathan Hall KC that further legislation is needed to enable appropriate action to respond to damaging activity by foreign state actors, as opposed to private bodies, that is prejudicial to the United Kingdom’s security and national interests.

We also understand the urgency of the Bill and the reason why it has been taken, effectively, as emergency legislation. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that the degree of hurry and the haste overall have, sadly, reduced the amount of scrutiny we have been able to give it. The speed does not obviate the need for Parliament, and this House in particular, to give the Bill as much scrutiny as it can in the limited time available. But we do so in the light of the Government’s commitment, given in the King’s Speech, and to which my noble friend Lady Ludford referred, to introduce legislation to tackle the growing threat from foreign state entities and their proxies and to improve the country’s defences against cyber security threats. The Minister has mentioned those again in recent days, and we therefore accept that this Bill is not the end of the story in relation to those commitments, and that its structure requires further development to respond adequately to these ongoing, complex and ever-changing threats.

In this group I will add only briefly to my noble friend Lady Doocey’s careful and comprehensive explanation in her speech on Amendment 5—to which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I have added our names—of the dangers of artificial intelligence and superintelligence. Such developments would enable artificial intelligence and superintelligence systems to exacerbate foreign power and foreign state threats. Were Amendment 5 to be passed, they would be specifically subject to the National Security Act. The amendment addresses the particular threat of hostile or potentially hostile foreign state actors and their proxies developing and exploiting these new systems, which are capable, as my noble friend Lady Doocey said, of wreaking untold damage to our national infrastructure and our economic and military interests.

The extent and forms of such damage, the scope of the threats proposed and the potential shape of future attacks are unforeseen and unforeseeable today—and therein lies a great part of their danger. The dangers outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, to our academic life and our universities are all exacerbated by the growth of AI and ASI alongside them. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, in a lighter moment, said that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, had frightened her; well, she has frightened us all, and rightly.

Until this morning, we found the Government’s response to this amendment slightly inadequate. However, following our meeting yesterday with the Minister, the Government have given a strong indication that they recognise the development by foreign powers of highly advanced AI systems that pose risks to our cyber security and our national security. The Government will therefore seek and take into account the views of the Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation as to whether amendments to our legislation are necessary to redefine power threat activity accordingly.

That undertaking goes a long way towards meeting our objective. However, I am keen to see—and I hope the Government will add to this—the involvement of others going wider than the independent reviewer. For all that he is widely respected, his term is in any case due to end shortly. But real expert input in this area is necessary, and the Government need to take advantage of it. I would be keen to know that the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament is to be consulted on this issue, and it should have the remit to consult with wider experts on AI development as needed.

As to the need for further legislation on this issue, we need look no further than the statement issued by our Five Eyes allies, including the leaders of our National Cyber Security Centre, on 22 June—only last week. The statement was headed, “The AI shift in cyber risk: why leaders must act now”. It made the urgency clear:

“While AI will help us improve cyber defence over time, it also accelerates the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyber threats.


Frontier AI models are anticipated to exceed current industry expectations, fundamentally transforming both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. The timeline is not years, it is months”.


This is a threat to take seriously, and we underestimate it at our peril.