I am grateful to my hon. Friend for intervening. His constituent’s case is one that I had in mind when drafting this part of my speech. We do not need to look too far to think of other possible examples. I hope the provisions that he is referring to do not have those implications, but more could have been done to make that absolutely clear. What would be useful today at least would be to have assurances from the Minister that mere assertions by foreign Governments will not be enough to allow that clause to apply. It must be for the courts to interrogate whether assertions that somebody was involved in torture are made out.
Let me turn to the amendments under discussion today. Lords amendment 22 would place additional duties on political parties in relation to risks of donations from foreign powers. In the interests of transparency, I should declare an interest: I have recently had the great honour of being appointed the national treasurer of the Scottish National party, so this amendment would add to my already rather full in-tray. Notwithstanding that, we must acknowledge the serious dangers posed by such donations to our democratic political systems and indeed to our security.
We have been warned by the Intelligence and Security Committee in its Russia report, by MI5 and by various other bodies about the dangers of foreign influence being sought through donation. Yes, we do have the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, but we cannot seriously think that we are remotely in a position to say that the risk has been dealt with. Far from it, the repeated and significant circumvention of those rules is precisely why we continue to receive the warnings that I have just referred to. We need to think about going beyond basic status checks on donors to investigating—where an assessment of risk requires it—the real source of donations. There is support for that type of approach from the Electoral Commission and the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
We welcome this amendment by Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, with support from the former head of MI5, Lord Evans, and others. As the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee has said, this is a modest rather than revolutionary proposal, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. Frankly, opposition to the amendment seems rather fishy indeed.
On Lords amendment 122 and the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee, my general approach is to give colleagues on the ISC all the support that they request. The job that they do is utterly crucial, and I have never had any reason to doubt how seriously and assiduously they go about their task. Their annual report highlighted the need for an updated memorandum of understanding, particularly given the outsourcing of intelligence and security activities to different policy Departments, but there is no sign of that update happening. The support of ISC colleagues for Lords amendment 122 therefore attracts significant deference and weight. Frankly, if nothing else, the Government need a metaphorical kick up the backside in their approach to the ISC—an
approach exemplified by the failure of any Prime Minister to meet the ISC since 2014. Therefore, we support Lords amendment 122.
Finally, we welcome the significant change in approach to the offences under part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, and thank all involved in the drafting of the new clause. In particular, it is welcome that the provision now takes the form of a defence rather than an exemption or a carve-out. However, we do remain concerned that there is no specific exclusion in relation to serious harms, such as torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and sexual offences. If anything, we are even more concerned now than before. Obviously, the Government have spent a lot of time redrafting the Bill in the light of the concerns that have been raised, yet they have still decided to exclude such serious harms from the scope of the defence. It seems a very deliberate and conscious choice that they have made and the Fulford principles do not provide sufficient safeguards on their own.
We therefore support amendment (c) to Lords amendment 26, tabled by the right hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). At the least, it would be very useful to have the Minister say at the Dispatch Box that the Government do not see any circumstances in which such activities could be deemed necessary for the purposes of an intelligence function. On that note, we welcome amendment (c).
We do support the Bill, but we still think there is further to go to get it to where it needs to be.