Once again, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to scrutinise what we recognise as an extremely important piece of legislation. Like both the Minister and the shadow Minister, I wish to start by paying tribute to all those who are involved in protecting us and our security.
The National Security Bill has had SNP support from the outset, but we have also highlighted significant problems with it: things that were not in the Bill that should have been; things that were in the Bill that needed fixing; and things that were in the Bill that had no place in there at all. I welcome that many of those concerns were also raised in the House of Lords, and recognise that the Government have responded positively to several of them.
We welcome the amendments that have added clarity to the scope of some of the offences in the Bill, particularly around the state of knowledge required before offences are committed. In general, we welcome the changes to the registration schemes, which will make them more targeted. We also welcome the broadening of the oversight provisions to ensure that the measures in part 1 of the Bill are properly scrutinised.
On omissions, we continue to think that the failure to reform the Official Secrets Act 1989 is a major opportunity missed, and we regret that there has been no addition of a public interest defence, which is something to which a number of Members have alluded. That is an issue that will have to be returned to urgently.
Some improvements have been made to the Ministry of Justice’s clauses in the Bill relating to legal aid. However, we remain of the view that the legal aid provisions should have been taken out altogether. In relation to the award of damages in clause 83, improvements have been made, but, yet again, not enough. It is welcome that reductions in awards of damages now can happen only where there is a direct link between the alleged act of terrorism and the claim for damages. However, there is still concern about how this will operate when foreign Governments—Governments who have carried out torture based on UK intelligence—simply use the smear of an unproven terrorism allegation to justify or defend their actions.