Damian Hinds
MP for East Hampshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“There are moments in debates like the one we have had today that are difficult to sit through and listen to, but it is the most immense privilege to be a Member of Parliament and to hear some of these testimonies.”
“Today is once again a day of heavy responsibility for all of us to decide on what we in this House call “conscience issues”. Many of the people who we represent hold strong and immutable views, and we hear from them. However, we represent many others who hold much more nuanced views and we are less likely to hear from them.”
“Members who support the Bill should not have their motives questioned, Members who oppose the Bill should not have their motives questioned, and Members who have reached a different conclusion from one they reached at an earlier stage should not have their judgment questioned either.”
“We have heard from royal colleges and other professional bodies, many of whom have a neutral stance on the principle but raise significant questions about particular aspects. We know from Ministers that there would need to be some reprioritisation of NHS resources, but we do not know the extent.”
“If there is the prospect of the Parliament Acts being used, that would increase the importance and the salience of the text as it is now. Today, it is reasonable and entirely in order for hon. Members to consider information that is available now that was not available in those previous parliamentary deliberation.”
“The Government have said, rightly, that the time taken to implement other schemes is not directly comparable, because none are as in this Bill. This is a free vote on a matter of conscience—there is no party line on either side of the Chamber. No one, I suggest, finds this issue easy.”
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“To be clear on what we mean by legal professional privilege, it is communication between a client and lawyer whose dominant purpose is to seek legal advice, or a communication between a client and lawyer in anticipation of pending or actual litigation. We therefore think that if there is a foreign influence registration scheme without legal professional privilege, then solicitors acting for foreign states or foreign state-related actors, such as companies controlled by or influenced by foreign states, would have to disclose documents. We think that profoundly compromises the rule of law and the fairness of trials, and will affect the relationship between client and lawyer. I think it is easy to forget that legal professional privilege is not a privilege for solicitors or lawyers; it is for the client.”
“Q I turn to Mr Owen, briefly, to ask about the forthcoming foreign influence registration scheme. From your perspective, what would be your hopes on behalf of the legal profession for that scheme and do you have any concerns? Rich Owen: We think the solicitors’ profession should be subjected to the scheme in just the same way as any other, although we would like an exception on grounds of legal professional privilege. This is an ancient common-law right going back 400 years or more. It is also regarded as a human right and as a corollary of everyone’s right to receive legal advice and assistance and we feel it plays a crucial role in the proper administration of justice.”
“The consultation also said that a scheme would not interfere with legitimate activities. It would be a legitimate activity to seek advice from your lawyer and not have that advice disclosed. If anyone was furthering that for espionage purposes, then that would not be a privileged situation; they would be acting outwith legal professional privilege.”
“Q What would the loopholes or potential unintended consequences be to such a provision, and how would you guard against them? Rich Owen: It is important to know the limits to legal professional privilege. It cannot be used to further a crime—because of the so-called “crime-fraud exception” or the “iniquity exception”—so if a solicitor advances an assertion of legal professional privilege in bad faith, then they are not in a privileged situation and could potentially be charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Legal professional privilege would complement any scheme. The Home Office consultation on a possible scheme said it would respect the human rights framework. That privilege is an ancient common-law right. It is has also been recognised as a human right.”
“Q So you are not saying that you think that lawyers should be exempted from registering? Your objection is specifically about disclosure of documentation. Rich Owen: Yes. Well, we are looking for something similar to the Australian scheme. The Australian legislation specifically exempts legal professional privilege, as well as seeking legal advice and assistance. That sort of model, which expressly exempts legal professional privilege, would be a suitable way forward for the scheme.”
“The existing offences under the 1911 Act and its ancillary Acts are now almost quaint in the way that they perceive espionage as something that happens on our territory. Of course, that is simply not the case anymore. These extraterritoriality provisions, though relatively unusual for criminal offences, are none the less vital if we are to capture the sort of behaviour that we see now. I think the process we went through in engaging with UKIC was actually vital for the understanding of, and background to, some of the recommendations that we made.”
“It became increasingly clear to us that the scale of the threat was of an order of magnitude that, even in relatively recent integrated reviews, had not really been reflected. That scale really comes from the cyber-threat. I do not want to repeat what far more sophisticated witnesses said earlier in respect of that, but it also became increasingly clear to us that the way in which very capable state actors were wielding that cyber-threat meant that certain of the original provisions we had made needed to be reconsidered. One example of that would be the extraterritoriality provisions, both in relation to the espionage offences and the unauthorised disclosure offences. The nature of the way in which cyber-information is held—of course, cyber-information now basically means all information—has changed.”
“We actually changed a number of things we had said in our consultation paper, so in between the provisional proposals and the recommendations there are a number of significant differences, particularly in relation to the 1989 Act. We then published a report in 2020, which contained our final recommendations for reform. Dr Nicholas Hoggard: I will go into some specifics of what we learned, which is generously open-ended. What Penney says is correct; there were a number of changes that followed the consultation paper, come the final report. One of the major reasons for that was our engagement more substantively with confidential material and representatives from the UK intelligence community—UKIC—and across a number of Departments.”
“We can’t tell you what it is, but trust us that these are the recommendations we think will safeguard the security and interests of the UK”, and without also putting the security and interests of the UK at risk. We agreed a confidential briefing process that involved Nick and me. We then also agreed the disclosure by Government of hypothetical examples that they had drafted to represent the real threats that they told us about confidentially and securely. Throughout the report, there are hypothetical vignettes that illustrate particular risks. Those are the Government and intelligence services’ creatures, but they were the way in which we were able to reflect the reality of the threat. We then considered the consultation responses and the information we had had from the Government security group.”
“We talked to the media, because obviously they were particularly interested in the 1989 Act, and various organisations that are interested in freedom of expression and open government. We then drafted a consultation paper, which contained provisional proposals for reform. We put those out to public consultation. We had a three-month consultation period, and we had a number of consultation events during that. At the same time, we are continuing to talk to Government security colleagues, as Nick mentioned. We eventually came to an agreement with Government security colleagues about how they would brief us about the details of the threat facing us without us then being in a position where we would have to say in our report, “Well, we have heard all this secret evidence.”
“Nick joined the Law Commission in February 2019 and I joined in January 2020, so while we were heavily involved in the final report, neither of us were involved in drafting the consultation paper or in the consultation period, which happened in 2017. None the less, we have read the consultation responses, and I can also talk slightly more generally about how we go about doing a consultation. We were asked to take on this project. The way we work is that we undertake a pre-consultation investigative phase where we talk to stakeholders. That involved Government stakeholders, including Government security stakeholders. We talked to a lot of academics who work in this field.”
“Q Turning to Law Commission colleagues, you have conducted a very comprehensive review of the four Official Secrets Acts. Let us set aside the Official Secrets Act 1989, which is, as you rightly say, in a different category, because it is about disclosure rather than espionage. Looking at the Acts of 1911, 1920 and 1939, I think it would be useful for the Committee’s deliberation to hear a little about how you went about your review and what you learned along the way—perhaps about if you conferred with your equivalent commissions in other countries and what you heard about the changing nature of the threat that we are trying to deal with and so on. Professor Penney Lewis: Maybe I will start with the high level and then Nick can come in with a bit more detail. I should preface my answer with a slight caveat. This project started in 2015.”
“It should be dozens, especially if they are hiring 10,000 engineers for the metaverse in Europe. They can put some of them on elections and tracking. They say that they go far, but they could go much further. When there is pressure on them, they respond, and so far that pressure has been PR because there has not been regulation.”
“Q Hello. Earlier, you queried why something that happened in 2014 might only have been called out by Facebook in 2018. Isn’t it quite obvious that what happened was 2016 in the middle, and all the brouhaha that followed from the American elections and the congressional inquiry, and all the rest of it? It turned out that when Facebook and others went looking, it was amazing what they could find. Poppy Wood: Absolutely. If you are suggesting that they respond to PR crises, I would agree with you on that one. Of course, this about brands. We have seen with revelations from Frances Haugen that Facebook is not understaffed but just not focusing them in the right direction on this stuff. There are only handfuls of people focusing on co-ordinated disinformation for the whole world within these big technology companies.”
“I would hope that the platforms have got better, and I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the truth is that we just do not know.”
“I am sure we will come on to the whistleblowers, but there have to touchpoints much earlier on, from civil society, from Government, from researchers, to say “Hey, actually, the scale is much larger,” or, “You’re not even looking at this stuff.” London is one of the most linguistically diverse cities in the world, and when we are talking about counter-terrorism speech, one of Frances’s revelations was that 75% of counter-terrorism speech was identified as AI—it is terrorism speech, so it is taken down. We are thinking about the UK as an English monolith, but there is plenty of linguistic diversity that puts us at risk when those platforms are weaponised in elections, focusing on diaspora and so on.”
“Q Would it be fair to say that they have at least got better? If you take the American 2020 election, there does not seem to have been the same volume of attempted disruption as in 2016 election, or at least not in the places where we are now looking, like Facebook? Poppy Wood: We do not know, because we have not got the transparency. They may seem to have got better, but as a percentage of what, we cannot know. They will say that it has got better and that they have caught this many thousand as opposed to that many thousand last time, and those accounts have been taken down, but we have no idea if it is a percentage of what. That is why people, such as Frances Haugen, who have come forward as whistleblowers to say, “They are telling you this, but the data says that,” show that we should not be relying on those people.”
“Q You mentioned that there is not transparency, but there is at least one type of transparency with Facebook—main Facebook—as in you can see what is on it. I wonder what you think of the role of channels that you cannot see, such as private messaging that includes private parts of Facebook, WhatsApp, and what they call copypasta—copying and pasting SMS messages—and so on. How much do we know about that? Poppy Wood: I would challenge the first assumption that you can see what you can see on Facebook. They still view that as private information. Researchers cannot get access to that unless they kind of beg, borrow and steal. I understand the question—”
“But that is still more than you can see on WhatsApp, where you cannot see a post at all. Poppy Wood: That’s true. I suppose I would say they could do much more about transparency just about the public posts—that is my first point. Secondly, on encryption, there are concerns about some of the amendments in the Online Safety Bill and what that really means for encryption. I know we are not here to talk about that Bill, but encryption is an important tool. We know that those spaces are misused, but we need to be really clear about some of the benefits that encryption offers to lots of people, particularly the security services, for sharing information safely. We need to be careful.”
“They are private, but you are getting tens of millions of people and engagements on them. I am not sure that is the true definition of private, but it is certainly in an encrypted space.”
“This week, we saw it resurrected with another name, like “Discovery Dig” or something, on YouTube, where lots of the comments, imagery and language were directing people to Telegram channels where they are actively mobilising. What we see in the active mobilisation on Telegram channels is the outing of national security agents, the putting up of email addresses of politicians and saying, “Target them and say they are on the wrong side of the debate,” or, “Write to this national newspaper.” In all three of those examples, it is predominantly in the UK. They are telling them it is all fabricated. They are absolutely weaponising those private spaces. As you say, it is quite hard to get into them—but actually, it is not that hard. They are pretty open channels, with thousands and millions of engagements and followers. That is the scarier bit.”
“Q I was not trying to start an argument or even a discussion or analysis of end-to-end encryption. I was just asking, relatively speaking, how much do we know? There is a hypothesis that the reason why there was apparently less material in recent American elections on Facebook than in 2016 is that large parts of it have moved to other channels where we just cannot see it. We just do not know what is there. Poppy Wood: Let me give you a good example on Russia Today. We do a lot of work and analysis around Russia and Ukraine. Obviously, Russia Today was taken down from most national broadcast networks. It has been resurrected multiple times on social media.”
“Member for Motherwell and Wishaw spoke with compassion about a particularly compelling case. If she comes to me after the debate, I will make sure that she is put in touch with a Minister to discuss that further. When I spoke about this two weeks ago, I said that on the most recent reporting, 650 additional staff had been added to HM Passport Office since April 2021. That figure, on the most recent statistics, is now up to 850, with the recruitment of a further 350 staff in train. Suppliers and contractors have also increased their resourcing and we have added a further service desk and added capability on couriering. The service has continued to improve, and more passport applications are being processed now than ever before.”
“Members may recall my acknowledging that although 98.5% of UK passport applications are being processed in 10 weeks, some of our constituents have clearly not received the level of service that they rightly expect. It is incumbent on us to do everything we can to address that. To give some background, in a normal year before covid, some 7 million people would apply for a passport. During the period of covid, that number came right down. The projection is that 9.5 million people will apply for a passport this year, which is an unprecedented rate of year-on-year growth. The hard-working staff in HM Passport Office really have stepped up to the plate. In March, April and May, around 3 million applications were processed. I acknowledge, absolutely, that there have been difficulties with specific cases. The hon.”
“She rightly spoke with great respect of national health service clinicians and staff in her constituency, and she covered some of the innovation they are driving in Southend. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) spoke of the importance of employment, and I echo and wholeheartedly agree with what he said about the hard work of staff at Her Majesty’s Passport Office, particularly in his constituency. Let me turn to some issues that came up a number of times, starting with passports. We discussed the subject of passports across these Dispatch Boxes during an Opposition day debate two weeks ago. On that occasion, hon.”
“Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes), in a very perceptive speech, noted the repetition we sometimes hear from Opposition Members, who do not always match it by voting with us to support investment in our key public services. He rightly said that every Member should acknowledge the problems we face and should work together on the issues, and I strongly agree. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly), in a similar vein, pointed out some of the issues facing both the Welsh Government and the Westminster Government, including on the national health service. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) spoke of the great success of the vaccine programme.”
“Members for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), for Stirling (Alyn Smith), for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali), for Reading East (Matt Rodda), for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). I also thank my Conservative colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), with his Treasury Committee background, spoke with great authority and knowledge. He acknowledged some of the changes we have made to help the travel trade, to which I will return in a moment, and he reminded us of the lesson of history on wage price spirals and the ultimate importance of driving productivity to make sustainable rises in real wages. My hon.”
“Central to that effort is the £37 billion to help households, especially those most in need, with the cost of living. We know that the best approach to managing pressures in the long term is helping people into work, supporting them to increase their income and helping them to keep more of what they earn, hence the reforms to universal credit and the taper rate, the increased national living wage and the higher national insurance thresholds. This has been an important debate, with good contributions from both sides of the House, and I thank everyone who has contributed. I thank the Opposition spokespeople, the right hon. Members for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) and the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), and I thank the hon.”
“We must never forget that by far the most important thing for living standards, for fighting poverty and for the dignity of families throughout the country is having a job, and it was the decisive action of this Government that kept so many people in jobs through the pandemic. The furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme, which together went to an estimated 14.7 million people, helped to protect jobs, businesses and livelihoods. Some £100 billion of loans and grants were made available to support businesses of all sizes. And now, as we find ourselves in another global phenomenon, the Government are rightly stepping up once again. We understand just how hard the rising cost of living is for families across the UK, and we are taking significant steps to ease these pressures.”
“Our priority is ensuring people get the support and help they need, continuing our responsible economic management and helping people to stay in jobs. It is important to note what has happened in the labour market. Economists had projected that unemployment would peak during covid at somewhere close to 12%. In the event, it peaked at 5.2% and is now down below 4%. The unemployment rate is now close to historic lows, and youth unemployment is at near record lows, at nearly half the rate during the same period of 2010. Redundancies are at the lowest level since records began in the mid-1990s. Total real wages are 3% above pre-pandemic levels.”
“The Government absolutely recognise the difficulties that families across the country are facing. It is a concerning time, and that is why we are taking concerted and wide-ranging action, the details of which I will come on to highlight, to ensure that people and businesses get the support that they need. Countries around the world are seeing slowing growth and higher inflation, and I am afraid the UK is simply not immune. This month’s OECD economic outlook says: “The world is paying a heavy price for Russia’s war in Ukraine. It is a humanitarian disaster, killing thousands and forcing millions from their homes. The war has also triggered a cost-of-living crisis, affecting people worldwide. When coupled with China’s zero-COVID policy, the war has set the global economy on a course of slower growth and rising inflation”.”
“Resolved, That this House notes that UK economic growth is forecast to grind to a halt next year, with only Russia worse in the OECD; further notes that GDP has fallen in recent months while inflation has risen to 9.1 per cent and that food prices, petrol costs and bills in general are soaring for millions across the country; believes that the Government is leaving Britain with backlogs such as long waits for passports, driving licences, GP and hospital appointments, court dates, and at airports; and calls on the Government to set out a new approach to the economy that will end 12 years of slow growth and high taxation under successive Conservative governments.”
“Calmly and determinedly, this Government are stepping up to face these challenges head on. We do not underestimate the scale or complexity of them. We will not waver. We will weather these storms. With the fortitude of the British people, the creativity and belief of British business and the innovation of British entrepreneurs, we will emerge stronger than ever. The British people know that dedicated public servants are working flat out for them. They can be assured that they have a Government who are taking the difficult decisions and who are on their side. Question put and agreed to.”
“The Government plan to spend more than £8 billion to support the NHS to provide the elective care that was delayed by the pandemic. With the additional £1 billion that we announced for the second half of 2021-22, that could fund the equivalent of approximately 9 million more checks, scans and procedures. There is no doubt that these are difficult times. Covid-19 was a major, indeed unprecedented, time in global history. The war in Ukraine is devastating for the people of Ukraine, and the economic shockwaves are felt far beyond, too. As Ministers, we are here to be held to account for the Government’s response, quite rightly, but I must say to the Opposition that they cannot just will away these huge global challenges with wishful thinking and fantasy economics.”
“In the meantime, the DVLA continues to recruit more staff and utilise overtime to reduce medical application delays, and has opened further customer service centres in Swansea and Birmingham. On the national health service, it is true that following the disruption of covid, the elective waiting list has grown in England, in Wales and across the United Kingdom, as it has grown in other countries. I place on record my enormous appreciation, gratitude and admiration for everybody who works in our national health service: their contribution throughout the pandemic has been absolutely exceptional. GP appointment numbers have now recovered to pre-pandemic levels; as of April, there were 1.26 million GP appointments per average working day.”
“Member for Dundee East comes to me with the case that he mentioned of the community mental health nurse in his constituency, I will make sure that a conversation takes place with the appropriate Minister. More than seven in 10 people apply online for driving licences; there are no delays in those applications. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is also back to normal times for vehicle registrations and non-medical driving licence paper applications. The remaining area in which more improvement is needed is applications from those with a medical condition. As colleagues may know, that part of the operation was hit by industrial action, but it is anticipated that it, too, will be back to normal timings by September.”
“Having listened carefully to the industry, we were also able to agree that HMRC employment history letters could be used for a time as a suitable form of reference check, with safeguards, to reduce the time that recruiting takes. On the inbound side, which is an area of Home Office responsibility, Border Force is working to a projection that demand will go back to pre-pandemic levels and is staffing accordingly. Our collective focus must be on ensuring that people can get away for business travel, to help to create prosperity, and for their well-earned summer breaks, on time and as hassle-free as possible. On driving licences, let me first say that if the right hon.”
“Although the private sector—the aviation industry—is responsible for resourcing airports and airlines, we rightly work with that important sector, which supports a lot of jobs and prosperity, sustains business travel, brings tourists to this country and generates a lot of export earnings. We have worked with the sector to support it in a number of ways. On 29 April, we laid a statutory instrument to make use of our new Brexit powers to allow Ministers greater flexibility over regulation. That allowed for temporary changes to permit certain training to be undertaken while background checks are completed, helping to speed up recruitment but without a change in security assurance.”
“Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle. There has been a sharp increase in passenger demand after a very suppressed period. That has put considerable pressure on the aviation sector, resulting in some passengers experiencing unacceptable delays and, in some instances, airlines cancelling flights. As Members on both sides of the House have noted, we have seen some of these effects in other countries, including members of the European Union. A number of operational challenges have contributed to the situation, including staff shortages, crew availability and issues relating, in some cases, to covid restrictions still being in place in other countries.”
“It would be quite wrong for Ministers to stand at the Dispatch Box and give analyses of and running commentaries on what is a sensible and important exercise to go through— [ Interruption. ] Well, it is. We have just been through two enormous events—leaving the European Union and the coronavirus pandemic—which have involved all manner of changes in how the civil service operates, some of which are temporary, whereas some are more sustained. Meanwhile, there have been opportunities, as there always are, to look afresh at how we do things. It is right for Government to do that on behalf of our taxpayers and all our electors, to whom we have a duty to spend taxpayers’ money as efficiently and effectively as we can. Let me turn to airports, which a number of colleagues spoke about, and particularly my hon.”
“The draft regulations being considered today simply relate to the technical and consequential matter of whether to amend section 47AA of the Terrorism Act 2000 to enable the Government to update the relevant code of practice in the manner I have outlined. I very much hope that hon. and right hon. members on both sides of the Committee will be able to support them.”
“Subject to Parliament’s approval, this consequential amendment will create a requirement for the Secretary of State to prepare a revised code of practice that includes guidance on the exercise of the power conferred by new section 43C. In anticipation of section 47AA being amended, I can confirm that we are already in the process of engaging relevant stakeholders and updating the code of practice to reflect the new section 43C stop-and-search power. We plan to lay an order next month, alongside the draft revised code of practice itself, for Parliament’s consideration and approval. As such, Parliament will have the opportunity to review and debate the revised code and its contents in due course.”
“The officer conducting the stop and search must be satisfied that it is necessary to exercise the power for purposes connected with protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism. The Government are clear that sensitive powers of stop and search should be subject to a code of practice setting out the basic principles for their use. Section 47AA of the Terrorism Act 2000 imposes a requirement on the Secretary of State to prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the exercise of search powers that are conferred by that Act. The draft regulations amend section 47AA so that it extends to cover the new search power inserted into the Terrorism Act by the 2022 Act.”
“These powers were taken in response to recommendations made by Mr Hall following his review of MAPPA. The draft regulations relate to the new power of personal search, the creation of which was also recommended by the Fishmongers’ Hall prevention of future deaths report. The personal search power was inserted into the Terrorism Act 2000—it is new section 43C of that Act—by the 2022 Act. The new search power commences tomorrow, 28 June. As the Government set out during the passage of the 2022 Act, the new search power will apply across the UK, enabling the police to stop and search terrorist and terrorism-connected offenders released on licence who are required to submit to the search by their licence conditions.”
“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (Consequential Provision) Regulations 2022. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Sharma. Following the horrific terrorist attack at Fishmongers’ Hall in November 2019, the Home Secretary commissioned the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, to review the multi-agency public protection arrangements—commonly known as MAPPA—which are used to supervise terrorist and terrorism-risk offenders on licence in the community. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 established three new powers for counter-terrorism policing: a personal search power, a premises search power, and an urgent power of arrest.”
“I echo what she says about the importance of the work of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and I assure her that the effectiveness of such legislation is continually reviewed. In conclusion, I thank all colleagues for their presence here at this important scrutiny session—”
“I thank the colleagues who have spoken. I acknowledge what the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire says about the importance of consultation with the devolved Administrations. To the hon. Member for Bolton South East, I say simply that we are committed, as she knows, to tacking terrorism in all its forms. This power to conduct a search will apply to any terrorist offender who is subject to the relevant licence condition, which is irrespective of someone’s religious background or ethnicity. The legislation is clear that such searches cannot be conducted unless the police officer is satisfied that the search is necessary for the purposes of protecting members of the public from the risk of terrorism. I thank the hon. Member for Halifax for her comments.”
“Of course, the code itself will be laid before Parliament in due course and the House will have, in a session such as this, the opportunity to debate it. I can assure the hon. Lady that that sort of recording is indeed part of the process. I reiterate that the regulations provide a technical consequential amendment to section 47AA of the Terrorism Act to reflect the introduction of the new personal search power and to ensure it is governed by a code of practice. I emphasise again that today’s regulations will not amend the content of the relevant code of practice, and our draft revised code, as I was just saying, will shortly be laid before Parliament subject to its approval. As such, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.”
“Our national security is the first responsibility and priority of the Government, and we are ensuring that our world-class security and intelligence services and counterterrorism police are supported in their work with the tools and the legislative framework they need to keep us safe. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to them for all they do.”
“My hon. Friend is quite right that we hear plenty of opposing from the Opposition, but not much proposing: they complain, but they do not have a plan. Our partnership with Rwanda is strong and supports a proportionate, humane approach. We are determined to deter the wicked people smugglers and the great damage that they bring to human life.”