Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): If the noble and learned Lord will indulge me, I will come on to the point about hostile state activity and the place for this law in due course I share my noble friend’s belief that those who do harm to the United Kingdom and the people who live here should face justice. I am not entirely convinced that introducing a new offence of treason, as proposed by Amendment 34, is necessary. However, as my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, have said, this country has a comprehensive range of terrorism offences and other powers that this Bill will update for the digital age—it is ironic that we are talking about the digital age and 1351 in the same debate—to reflect modern patterns of radicalisation and terrorist offending. The updated legislation will provide the police and intelligence services with the powers they need to protect the public from terrorism, and we do not consider it necessary also to create a new treason offence for this purpose. For example, the activities covered by subsection 2(a) and (b) of the new clause are likely already to be offences under the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006, in particular the offence of preparation for terrorism in Section 5 of the 2006 Act. This proposed new clause would therefore add little to the existing offences on the statute book. However, it is worth noting that the sentencing guidelines applicable to the Section 5 offence provide that where the conduct was with a view to engaging in combat with UK forces, this is to be treated as an aggravating factor when sentencing We are aware of the need to update legislation to keep it relevant for the contemporary and future challenges we face. I do not have to remind noble Lords of the phenomenon we have seen in recent years of people travelling overseas, most notably to Iraq and Syria, to engage in terrorist-related activity. That is why the Bill introduces a new offence of entering or remaining in a designated area: to prevent UK nationals and residents from travelling abroad to take part in or help sustain future foreign conflicts, and to protect the public from the risk of terrorism Furthermore, prosecuting terrorists for treason would risk giving their actions a credibility—my noble friend Lord Faulks referred to seeing them as martyrs—glamour and political status that they do not deserve. It would indicate that we recognised terrorists as being in some formal sense at war with the state, rather than merely regarding them as dangerous criminals As outlined by the Prime Minister on 14 March in her announcement in response to the Salisbury incident, the Home Office is currently leading a review of all legislation applicable to hostile state activity. It is considering the full scope of hostile state activity and, where relevant, treason offences may be considered as part of this work, which is currently ongoing. My noble friend will recognise the need to get the form of any new offences right. The policy exchange paper published in July was a useful contribution to the debate, but we should not rush it I hope that, having had the opportunity to debate this important and interesting issue, my noble friend will be content to withdraw his amendment, in the knowledge that there is ongoing work in the Home Office to examine whether there are further gaps in our law, and in order to help us counter hostile state activity.