I offer my support to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for his amendment (c) and his speech.
I will speak as the secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group, which is the cross-party group that speaks on behalf of journalists in the House. The union formed a coalition with the Index on Censorship and openDemocracy. Our objectives were to clarify and narrow the definitions of offences in the Bill to protect journalists, to seek a statutory public interest defence in the Bill, and to have an element of independent review and commissioning to review the operation of the Bill when implemented. We have successfully narrowed—as the Minister said—and defined the offences more clearly to protect journalists, which is helpful. An element of independent scrutiny has been introduced, which is helpful. There is no general public interest defence in the Bill, but that may well be developed in case law over time.
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On that point, I impress upon the Minister that it is critical that the implementation of the legislation be monitored closely and that the Government stand ready to revise it if evidence mounts that there are any impositions placed on journalists that will impede them in their profession. I hope that a working relationship can be established between the NUJ and the Government as we go forward.
On Lords amendment 22 in particular, I have listened to various concerns that have been raised over the last decade, including by the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), and by the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald). They listed the bodies that have expressed concerns and identified instances in which foreign money has permeated our political system and, unfortunately, individual parties, and the various expressions by numerous bodies about the need to strengthen our protections against that. I have worked on issues related to money laundering, and the lesson is that we need to go beyond just the registration of the status of the individual, company or organisation. The principles we have learned from the cross-party approach that we have taken on money laundering are to do with risk management. It goes beyond checking status and into creating greater responsibility to ensure that there is clarity about the source of funds.
To be frank, I expected the Government to give more weight to Lords amendment 22, particularly because it was sponsored by Lord Carlile, former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and by Lord Evans, former head of MI5. I am not sure that we could get more authoritative recommendations on an amendment than that, so I am concerned. As my hon. Friend the shadow Minister mentioned, the Secretary of State is charged with bringing forward the provisions to ensure the effective operation of the amendment, so they can take into the account the need for proportionality with regard to smaller parties.
Having listened to the debate, I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government are not backing Lords amendment 22. We might come to it again at a
later stage—although I am not sure whether any ping-pong will take place—but if we do not do it in this Bill, we will have to address the implementation of a risk management approach at some stage in the coming period.