National security is the first and foremost responsibility of any Government, and for that reason I warmly welcome the thorough, insightful and eloquent fashion in which colleagues on both sides of the House have made their contributions this evening. I join the Home Secretary, Opposition Front Benchers and colleagues from right across the House in putting on the record at the start of my remarks my admiration for our security services and for law enforcement, particularly at the end of this most marvellous jubilee celebration.
The threat of hostile activity from foreign states is persistent, but it is not consistent. As a result of technological change and the greater interconnectivity of the world, among other factors, that threat manifests in ways more diverse and often more sophisticated than ever. We must therefore equip our world-class law enforcement and intelligence agencies with modern tools and powers commensurate to that challenge, and this Bill enables us to do exactly that. This is not just about the here and now. The Bill is designed to be future-proof, so that we can harden our resilience against these threats today and for years to come. We have a responsibility to ensure that our systems and laws are agile, effective and robust, and that is what this legislation is about.
The bulk of the Bill is about countering state threats, and a critical aspect of parts 1 and 2 is the link between the activity covered and the foreign state. That is vital in ensuring that the provisions in the Bill are appropriately constrained to state threats and do not capture legitimate activity or non-state criminality, as has been mentioned a number of times during the debate. The foreign power condition could be met in two scenarios: first, where an activity is carried out that a person knows, or ought reasonably to know, is for or on behalf of a foreign power, and that includes a wide range of different types of relationship, including activity at the request or direction of a foreign state; and secondly, where an activity is carried out with the intention to benefit a foreign power, and that includes cases where a person’s primary motivation may be, for example, financial, but where there can be virtually certain knowledge that a foreign power will benefit.
Three new offences in the Bill will combat the modern threat from state-linked espionage and related harmful conduct. Those are a new protection of trade secrets offence, which might otherwise be known as economic espionage; a new assisting a foreign intelligence service offence; and an offence of obtaining, or disclosure of, protected information where it is for, or on behalf of, a foreign power and where the individual ought reasonably to have known that their conduct was prejudicial to the safety and interests of the United Kingdom.
Let me turn to the points made by colleagues in the debate. I will try to get through as many of them as possible, but I will concentrate particularly on the themes that came up a number of times. Let me start with something that is not in the Bill—I will have to beg your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker—although I would say that it is in scope for the debate because it came up so many times, and that is the Official Secrets Act 1989. Colleagues will have heard the Home Secretary say earlier that we continue to look at the 1989 Act, acknowledging the difficult aspects therein. We wanted to prioritise and press ahead with the wider package of measures before us to tackle state threats and to be able to do so now.
I also want to talk specifically about the public interest defence, which was raised eloquently by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and others, but before I do I just want to clarify how all these different things fit together. We talk about whether we are or are not reforming the Official Secrets Act, but of course there are four Official Secrets Acts, and we are reforming the Official Secrets Acts of 1911, 1920 and 1939—we are not, in this Bill, reforming the Official Secrets Act 1989. The Law Commission’s recommendations on a public interest defence came in the context of discussing overall reform of the Official Secrets Act 1989, and they have to be seen in that context.
It is important to note that using the term “public interest defence” does not of itself mean that, on balance, something is in the public interest. I suggest to the House that the existence of any public interest defence would without doubt lead to more unauthorised disclosures. It is impossible for an individual at that moment to have the full picture of what harm could come from their disclosure. That point can be exploited by people who have malicious intent.