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Labour Party
Latest entry 11 Nov 2026
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Latest entry 11 Nov 2026
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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,942 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
The right hon. Gentleman is making an important point. As AI develops, the threshold for non-state actors to conduct cyber, physical and other attacks against our democracy is lowered further, and that is happening almost weekly. Does he agree that we need to move quickly on this legislation, and on the effective regulation of artificial intelligence?
2. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help create new jobs in Wales.
The UK Labour Government are investing across the UK in initiatives that are creating jobs and fuelling economic growth, such as Parkwood Springs and Special Melted Products in my constituency of Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough. Will the Minister update the House on the difference that UK Government growth funding is making in Wales?
Q2. I am sure the whole House will want to congratulate Sir Kevin Sinfield on his knighthood, which is fitting recognition for his work on motor neurone disease.Another champion fighting for a cure for MND is my constituent Mark Sommerville, whom I have mentioned at Prime Minister’s questions in the past. Diagnosed in 2023, Mark fights with remarkable resolve and courage. I am supporting Mark and his foundation in pushing for a new national MND strategy, with an emphasis on finding effective treatments, enhancing access to trials and accelerating novel drug discovery. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss the matter further, so that we can work to find a cure for this horrific condition?
1. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce the cost of living in Wales.
The Great British summer savings scheme announced by the Chancellor will have a positive impact on families across my constituency of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock. More people will be able to save money while taking up opportunities to visit businesses and contribute to the local economy. Can the Secretary of State update the House on the impact that these measures will have in Wales?
Although I do not sound quite like the distinguished Minister, I did in fact grow up in Teesside in sight of the mighty Redcar works, which closed in 2015 with the loss of 2,000 jobs. The Conservative party did not stop that. Does the Minister agree that we finally have a Government acting to protect our steel industry?
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 17 June.
I associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks and pay tribute to Jo Cox. I also wish the England men’s team all the best tonight—may they follow the winning example of the Lionesses and the Scotland men’s team. Does my right hon. Friend agree that our town and local centres, particularly our independent small businesses, are the lifeblood of our economy, and will he confirm that this Labour Government will do what it takes to unlock the potential of our local economies? One such example would be supporting the campaign by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) to restore the Gravesend-Tilbury ferry, which was cut by the Conservatives.
Q7. It is great to see the NHS moving forward, with a reduction in waiting lists and improving relations with our junior doctors, my colleagues. However, in order to keep our NHS working well in the long term, we must get serious about prevention. Every year, more than 30,000 deaths in our country are attributed to poor air quality. Ella Kissi-Debrah’s mum knows this all too well; her little girl was just nine years old when she died as a direct result of air pollution. Seventy years on from the Clean Air Act 1956, will the Deputy Prime Minister support a much-needed update to this essential law, to protect the future of our NHS and to keep our children healthy?
Q5. I associate myself with the remarks of the Deputy Prime Minister, and congratulate my constituent Sir Kevin Sinfield on all the work he does.Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the murder of our dear friend Jo Cox. As well as being a sister to our wonderful hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), she was a wife, daughter and mother, and we must not forget that. Jo’s mantra was always that we have“more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]Will my right hon. Friend indicate what he thinks he should do, and in fact what we should all do, so that Jo’s beliefs and her legacy are always remembered?
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate, and I know that she is a strong advocate for mental health in her role on the APPG. In the NHS, it is vital that funding for mental health keeps pace with funding for physical health care, and the mental health investment standard has been a crucial policy in driving parity of investment. Does she agree that it is vital that the mental health investment standard is retained in the NHS?
The Minister is being kind with her time, as always. As part of our inquiry into mental health services, the Health and Social Care Committee visited the 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centre pilots and Trieste, where the model originated. They have clearly been hugely successful already. The Minister mentioned the broader neighbourhood healthcare changes; can she assure us that the learnings from those hubs will be spread across the country? Will there be a clear road map for rolling out these services to every area?
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. He is touching on broader sectors, and he is exactly right that this is an epidemic across public-facing and customer-facing roles. I recently went to a GP surgery where receptionists told me they deal with sometimes weekly incidents of racial abuse. They showed me windows that had been smashed by patients who were unhappy about the service they were receiving. It feels as though there has been a cultural shift in what people deem to be acceptable behaviour towards, for example, ticket guards at stations and receptionists. Recently, a member of staff at our hospital was seriously attacked. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to send a clear message that these behaviours are not acceptable and properly resource the police to crack down on these incidents?
A frustration I have heard about local enforcement is that even if the issues are reported—they are often not, unfortunately, because people give up—and the police come out, and an arrest is made for theft, abuse or the other things we are discussing today, the perpetrator can be back on the street that day, often committing the same sorts of offences, because they are not held in custody. They will wait a long time to go to court, and prisons are in a dire state after 14 years of Tory government left us with no places. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to think about alternative forms of punishment and deterrence? That could be banning orders from town centres, banning orders from the transport system of people who persistently dodge fares and assault and abuse staff, and other forms of deterrent to stop these behaviours blighting our town centres and public services.
It is important to note that the article in The Telegraph on the changes for rural pubs was about the fact that we published, with full transparency, the guidance used to value pubs that was signed off under the previous Government. This Government are cutting pubs’ business rates by 15% this year, freezing them for the next two years and reviewing that very guidance. We respect the press, but that article was fake news, and I do not think it should be repeated in this place.
I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the Customs (Tariff and Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 4) Regulations 2026 (S.I., 2026, No. 572). It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. This is not my home turf; the Minister for Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), has been leading on this legislation, but he is engaged on trade business in Turkey today, so—somewhat like a turkey voting for Christmas—I am here with this Committee, which is good. I am glad that the shadow Exchequer Secretary is joining us today. The instrument updates the UK’s tariff schedule to implement certain elements of the Government’s steel strategy, as set out by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade in March 2026. Specifically, the instrument will increase to 50% the standard rate of import duty on certain steel products, and it includes provision to ensure that the standard 50% rate will apply in place of any preferential tariffs agreed in trade agreements with partner countries or applied unilaterally by the UK. However, as part of the UK’s commitment to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s illegal invasion, the preferential rates agreed with Ukraine will continue to apply. The instrument also includes provisions for goods that were already under contract when the new steel tariffs were made public, so that the new, increased rate will not be paid on those that are imported between 1 July and 30 September. A strong steel sector is critical for our national security interests, but, as in many other countries, steel overcapacity is distorting markets, driving down prices and threatening the viability of our vital domestic steelmaking sector. That is a key reason why UK crude steel production has fallen by more than half in the past 10 years. Global steel overcapacity is rising; the OECD expects it to reach more than 700 million tonnes next year. Without action, overcapacity will continue to endanger our ability to produce steel when we depend on it for secure and resilient domestic supply chains. That is why the Government believe that the instrument is necessary. It introduces part of a robust new steel trade measure so that the UK steel production industry has the long-term conditions it needs to continue to play its vital role in robust and secure domestic supply chains, including in relation to our growth-driving industrial strategy sectors, defence and other critical national infrastructure sectors. The instrument will come into effect on 1 July, alongside an accompanying instrument made under the negative procedure. Together, the two instruments will legislate for the steel trade measure set out in the strategy. Taking account of the importance of steel production for the UK’s overall national security, we must ensure that the UK steel industry can survive and continue to produce the steel needed for national priorities, including defence and critical national infrastructure. I hope that colleagues will join me in supporting this instrument, which I commend to the Committee.
Well, I didn’t quite say that.
I thank Members for their contributions and questions in this debate on an important statutory instrument. It is right and proper that the Opposition have the chance to question and interrogate the Government’s decision making on the significant change that we are bringing forward. It is worth understanding that the Government have been engaging in detail with industry on this since the announcement in March. My understanding is that a number of codes—nine, I think—have been changed since that announcement. That is as a result of engagement and meetings with industry—with those downstream sectors—by the Minister for Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), and others on whether or not it is possible for them to access UK-produced steel. The shadow Exchequer Secretary, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk, asked me about codes 14 and 27, which are of particular relevance to the aerospace and defence industries. The Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), was asked about that earlier today. He has been meeting with that sector today, I believe, to talk about the impact on them and to consider what the Government can do. The shadow Exchequer Secretary also asked about a review. It is the Government’s intention to keep this under review, with a formal review point after 12 months, as he noted. On the quota levels, I take the point that there is uncertainty at the moment, given that we are approaching 1 July. I hope that, in line with good policymaking principles, we will be able to set out that detail as soon as possible for the businesses affected. The hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley is always good at representing the businesses in his constituency and making his points clearly and forcefully. I commend him for his remarks today.
Yes, but I was just praising the hon. Gentleman!
I have spent some time in the Three Horseshoes!
I was just coming to that point. As the hon. Gentleman and the shadow Exchequer Secretary have pointed out, the Government are not hiding from the impacts of the measures on some downstream sectors and businesses. He has just read out the explanatory memorandum that the Government themselves produced. The Government have taken a strategic view: in the end, we need a tariff and quota system that protects domestic steel so that, if the worst happens and we need to ensure that we have domestic supply in times of crisis for vital production here in the UK, we have it. Hon. Members know that we have seen a significant reduction in steel production in the UK—I believe a reduction of 50% over the past 10 years—and the representations that the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley, and individual businesses and business groups have made to Ministers over recent months have of course been taken into account and considered, but on balance the Government’s view on this strategic assessment is that, in the end, strong production and a strong downstream sector go hand in hand.
As I said, the Government have set out in the explanatory memorandum the fact that there will be an impact from the tariffs, from the 50% rate, but the Government’s view overall is that it is important to ensure that we have a strong and thriving domestic steel sector, which can help businesses here in the UK to weather, and to minimise their exposure to, global shocks, so that we can have a reliable and secure domestic supply. That is very important, and if we had continued on the path that we were on for the long term, we would have seen a continued decline in our domestic supply and in our ability to ensure resilience and security at times when we as a country might need them most.
The existing framework falls away at the end of June. Opposition Members have suggested that where the Government wish to proceed, we should instead delay, but our concern is that that would leave the steel sector as a whole totally undefended and exposed to the significant oversupply of steel production across the world. We do not want to see continued degradation and reduction in our domestic steel production. In the end, that would be bad for our whole country—for businesses large and small, and not only those involved in steel production and manufacturing, but other businesses and our broader economy. That is the strategic assessment that the Government have made.
I thank the hon. Member for his question; he makes an important and valid point. Of course, if the different types of steel, products and manufacturing are not and cannot be produced in the UK, the 50% tariff that we are debating will not apply. Also, this House has not yet passed the quota levels, and Ministers are continuing to engage with businesses and industry. In preparation for today’s debate, I spoke to the Ministers who have led the work on this legislation, so I know that engagement has taken place in great depth over recent months to make sure that the Government account for concerns and get this difficult but important decision right. On the complexities and challenges around the operation of the Windsor framework in Northern Ireland, and goods being “at risk” or “not at risk”, it is, of course, a difficult and sensitive issue. Broadly, the Government’s approach is to continue to find ways to reduce friction and to deepen our relationship with the European Union. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister confirmed that on 22 July, there will be a summit, during which we can hopefully make progress on a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement and other areas. I am afraid I will have to disappoint the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim, as I cannot give more detail than was given in the House this morning by the Ministers leading on the policy, but the EU and the UK are committed to working together on seeking a solution, and are engaging constructively. Of course, this issue is important for businesses and communities in Northern Ireland. As a Minister for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, I have responsibility, in part, for the operation of the Windsor framework, and I have been looking with my officials at what more we can do to help.
I will happily give way.
Of course the Government will continue to engage with industry and we will listen to any representations made. I am interested in the example from Canada, and I will personally make sure that it is passed on to the Minister with lead responsibility. Even if Members are not fully satisfied with my responses, I hope they feel that I have endeavoured to take a range of interventions and respond as well as I can to the points raised. I hope Members can see that the goal of the instrument is to implement policy in line with the steel strategy to support the UK steel sector as a whole. For those reasons, I commend the legislation to the Committee. Question put.
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. It is some of the most impressive I have seen in Westminster Hall, as you managed to keep this unruly lot to time. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) for securing this debate and for his contribution on the importance of rural pubs. I represent an urban seat here in London—it is at about midday on the clock from central London—but it has a plentiful supply of green belt, and I have 12 farms in my constituency, even though it is within Greater London. So I have some understanding of the situation for rural communities. I also grew up in the constituency of the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard), as was mentioned earlier. I spend every Christmas eve doing carols at the Three Horseshoes, so the owners have to look out for me this year. It is a fantastic pub. We want to make sure that pubs like that, and pubs in all the constituencies mentioned today, have the support they need. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for mentioning the pubs in his constituency, including the Golden Cross—I hope that England can get a golden cross in this evening and that we can score some goals. [Interruption.] Thank you, one and all. I thank all Members for their contributions and for sharing the stories of the businesses in their constituencies. Pubs are so important to so many communities, particularly rural communities. The Government have rural rates relief for pubs that are the only pub in villages with populations of 3,000 or less. There are a couple of thousand businesses across the country that make use of the rural rate relief scheme, which covers shops as well. I encourage all Members to make sure that local businesses are aware of that scheme, which was also in place under the previous Government. I know that it is welcomed by those businesses that use it. I will deal with the topics that were raised in turn. We are reforming the business rates system and have implemented permanently lower multipliers for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties, such as pubs. That is funded by a high-value multiplier on the 1% of the most expensive properties, which includes large distribution warehouses used by online giants. That change will mean that the tax rate paid by the smallest businesses on the high street will have a wedge of a third compared with the tax rate paid by the online giants. That is a permanent change, not a temporary relief that will jump up and down. Those changes are worth nearly £1 billion a year for the 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses that are the lifeblood of our high streets. Members, particularly Liberal Democrats, talked about the need for a significant change to the way that pubs are valued. As I mentioned, this Government are the first in a very long time to commission an independent review of how pubs and hotels are valued for business rates purposes. In the weeks after the Budget, we heard very clearly from businesses that they had concerns about the opaqueness of the methodology. Some who spoke about business rates for pubs mentioned the feeling of running to stand still, which Members mentioned: their turnover goes up, but then their business rates bill goes up, too. We have been clear that, as was set out in law in the 1980s, it is right for business rates to reflect rents, and we will not separate out pubs entirely. The question is: how can we best value pubs and communicate their value through the Valuation Office Agency to individual ratepayers?
I love an intervention like that one. We are looking at exactly that. Last year, in a call for evidence on how we can improve the business rate system to support investment, we set out that we would look at improvement relief. At the moment, it does give a relief if a business invests, but only for a short time. That is under active review as a result of the call for evidence, where we heard that businesses were interested in the extent to which changes to improvement relief could support them and their investment decisions. I would happily receive further representations on that from Members.
I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue; it is one that publicans in my constituency have raised with me as their MP. Of course, there are benefits to having a link with a major supplier, and I understand why many publicans choose that route, but it is clear that there are significant challenges, too. DBT has looked at this, and I am sure that conversations are ongoing with the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), about what reforms could be made. This is not my policy brief, so I do not want to speak too far out of turn, but I totally understand the issue. I will raise it personally with my hon. Friend. I have done so in the past, after being asked to by my constituents. On a related point, guest beers and access to the bar for guest beers in tied pubs was mentioned. DBT has met the parties involved in the beer market access review to hear their evidence directly, and it is giving due consideration to all the evidence, along with input from competition policy experts. This is under active review by the Government, and we are committed to making sure that we can have a diverse and competitive beer market. On a personal level, I hope that the Government can look really closely at this so that we can improve competition and choice, but it is being led by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax. As has been mentioned, in January this year we went further to support pubs, with a further 15% off their business rates bills and a real-terms freeze in business rates for pubs in the next two years of this revaluation period. That support is worth £1,650 for the average pub this year. It means that three quarters of pubs are seeing their bills either fall or stay flat this year and, as a sector, pubs will pay 8% less in business rates in 2029 than before the revaluation took effect. Moving on from business rates, the Government recognise that pubs often serve as crucial community assets, particularly in rural communities, as the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East and many others have mentioned. They support local economies and communities, provide spaces for gatherings, support those in need and foster a great sense of local pride.
I have not managed to have that conversation, but the hon. Member is very welcome to write to me, and I am happy to consider those representations. Of course, I have heard calls from Members to cut VAT for hospitality, and I am aware that there is a campaign on that matter. I just say that cutting VAT for hospitality from 20% to 10% would cost £11 billion. A range of policy ideas have been raised, all of which involve cutting tax. The right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) was right to acknowledge that there are important fiscal considerations for the Government. It is important that we manage the public finances and bring down Government borrowing, and we are forecast to have the fastest reduction in Government borrowing of any G7 economy, with our deficit falling below the G7 average for the first time in a very long time. Of course, I will listen to the representations made and the asks from campaigners, but I caution that we have to ensure that we have sufficient revenue to fund our public services in a sustainable way.
We consider our policies in the round, on a sector-by-sector basis, as well as looking at measures tax by tax. The right hon. Gentleman is right that, as politicians in the Treasury, it is important for us to push the civil servants to make sure that we look not just at individual measures in silos, but at them in the round. There are some cross-cutting measures that particularly help hospitality. For example, if a hospitality business wishes to employ a young person, aged 21 or younger, as long as their wage is less than around £50,000, the business is relieved from NI. That is up to 25 years if it hires a young apprentice. Of course, the Government are always considering the impacts of their policies on sectors as a whole.
Thank you, Mrs Hobhouse. We continue to look at the impact of tax policies across sectors. The Chancellor and I will keep tax policy under review in the run-up to the Budget later this year. Let me make a couple more points before wrapping up in sufficient time for the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East to conclude. We want to make sure that we cut the stifling red tape that is holding our pubs back across the country. At the Budget, we announced the first iteration of the national licensing policy framework. That does not sound very exciting, but it is very interesting. I have been pushing colleagues across Government on it, so that we can provide more clarity in our licensing framework to give pubs that want to open in certain ways or do certain things the flexibility to do so, to support their growth and wider economic growth. There is the world cup game tonight, and pubs across England and Wales can soon benefit from extensions to licensing hours, as we are letting pubs stay open later for home nation games in the knockout stages. It is encouraging that Scotland did well the other day; hopefully, both teams will make it through to the knockout stages. We are also backing pavement pints, with a commitment to make it easier for pubs to serve food and drink outside by cutting unnecessary bureaucracy. At present, many businesses are forced to reapply repeatedly for pavement licences to continue serving customers outdoors. That process can cost up to £350 each time, creating an avoidable and costly burden for businesses. I hope that the reforms we have announced will bring that to an end. Finally, in January, the Chancellor announced a £10 million package of funding for hospitality support over three years, up from £1.5 million for one year announced last April. We understand the need to make sure that we do all we can to support pubs and our hospitality sector, particularly in vital rural communities. I thank Members for their contributions, which I will take back with me to the Treasury in the weeks and, I should hope, months to come.
The imposition of tariffs on black-painted and zinc-painted steel banding—products that are not manufactured in the UK, and are therefore imported from the EU—and the scramble for quota at the beginning of the year will increase costs for our steel producers, and will have a serious impact on importers’ cash flow. Will the Minister look at the tariffs again and do all that he can to ensure that those particular tariffs and quotas do not go ahead?
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in today’s Second Reading debate. We have had a very powerful and relevant debate, with a great deal of expertise in the Chamber from both sides of the House. State threats are overt or covert actions by foreign Governments that fall below the level of armed conflict, but go beyond legitimate diplomacy to harm UK interests. They present a persistent and evolving risk to the UK and our allies, and that evolution and the hybrid nature of the threats we face today has come across in all the many excellent contributions we have heard from Members on both sides of the House. There is cross-party recognition that the threats we are dealing with are increasingly complex, and rapidly changing and evolving. They manifest across a wide spectrum of activity, including interference in democratic processes, acquisition of sensitive information, threats to public safety and disruption of economic security. We all know—it has been mentioned by many hon. and right hon. Members—that certain states have the intent and capability to conduct such activity to advance their objectives. We have talked about Iran, Russia and China. Such activity is often opportunistic. It is adaptive, and it is increasingly integrated across multiple domains, combining physical, cyber, economic and international tools. Increasingly, as has been pointed out, it involves new and emerging tools such as AI, as well as TikTok, cyber, AI and a range of other things. In December 2024, the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), commissioned the independent reviewer of state threats legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, to conduct a review into the tools available in terrorism legislation to see how they might be applied to the problem of state threats. He proposed that there should be legislation to create a state threats power equivalent to that of proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000, and although the Bill does not deliver the recommendations of the entire Jonathan Hall report, it does deliver that proposal. To that extent, it is a narrow, not a comprehensive Bill. It is important that Members from all parts of the House understand that that is what the Bill does. Rather than trying to shoehorn everything else into this Bill, it is important that we understand the nature of the Bill and what it actually does. It strengthens the Government’s ability to disrupt hostile intelligence services and their proxies by adapting counter-terrorism tools to tackle state-based security threats to the UK. It seeks to close that loophole. It creates a new power for the Secretary of State to designate organisations involved in foreign power threat activity, modelled on the Terrorism Act 2000. It introduces three new criminal offences of supporting, assisting or obtaining benefits from designated bodies. The Bill will enable proxy organisations to be treated in practice like foreign intelligence services, making it easier to prosecute those acting on their behalf. It strengthens the overall national security framework so that the UK becomes a more difficult operating environment for foreign intelligence services and their state-linked proxies. Individuals acting for a designated body will feel the full force of our national security legislation and the potential accompanying prison sentences of up to 14 years. Designation will send a clear public signal to bodies and those prepared to assist them that their malign behaviour will not be tolerated in the UK. Our manifesto committed to adapt the approach used for dealing with terrorism to state-based security threats, and that is precisely what the Bill does. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) is a passionate responder at the Dispatch Box, and her interest in this area and her commitment to getting it right are clear. The Government have been working on this legislation since Jonathan Hall made his recommendation. The Prime Minister, in the light of the arson incidents that we saw in north London earlier this year, gave a firm commitment to legislate in a matter of weeks, and we are doing just that to close this loophole on state or proxy-based threats. To be clear, this legislation is no less robust than the Terrorism Act 2000. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, Jonathan Hall said that using terror legislation is “shopping in the wrong department”. This Bill will ensure that we are shopping in the right department.
I think that there are some necessary differences between a terrorist organisation and a state-influenced or state proxy organisation, which the differences between the Bill and the National Security Act—which deals with terrorism—seek to bring out. Jonathan Hall said that the Bill “does the job” in closing that loophole. He also told the House that he thought it would be harder to achieve the prosecutions for designated organisations than those for terrorist organisations. The Bill builds on a tried and tested series of measures in the National Security Act, and we have developed it closely with operational partners. It does the job. We do not believe that it is tougher to get appropriate prosecutions up and running in this context.
I am more than happy to create a circumstance in which we can do that. I think there have been some misunderstandings about what protections are offered in the Bill, and some of the amendments seek to address gaps that are not actually there. However, I am more than happy to deal with that, and I will be in touch with the right hon. Gentleman to organise it before the Bill goes to the House of Lords. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) said that the Bill did not take into account activity outside the UK. She was wrong to say that that was not covered. The offences capture activity outside the UK where it is contrary to the safety or interests of the UK, and case law has made it clear that the definition of “safety and interests of the UK” is wide. As I have said, we have worked closely with operational partners to shape the Bill, and we are confident that it will provide the powers that are needed. There have been successful prosecutions under the National Security Act, which demonstrates that powers of this kind work.
I suspect that lawyers often use words like “likely”, because they are very rarely ready to commit to “absolutely”. Perhaps we need to deal with some of this in more detail in Committee, but we are assured that overseas activity will be covered in the interactions of this Bill, and case law makes that more likely. I am loath to go through in detail the Committee-style points that were made during the debate. What I will say is that designation is the closest we can get to state-inspired and connected proxies or organisations, so that we can prevent them from behaving in the way that they are behaving on our streets day in, day out. A designation will allow us to ensure that we capture and prosecute the malign activity in which hybrid and state actors involve themselves, so this Bill closes the gap that Jonathan Hall discovered in the National Security Act. We wish to get the Bill on the statute book so that we can deal with the rising threats on our streets, which many Members on both sides of the House mentioned in their Second Reading speeches. I am extremely grateful that all Front Benchers support the Bill and will not vote against it, and I look forward to dealing with some of the amendments in much greater detail in Committee. I urge the House to give this Bill a Second Reading. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).
I have to commend the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) for doing her homework. I wish to explain why we do not think these amendments are needed at the moment. There are a couple of themes that run through my response to the hon. Lady’s amendments. The first is that it is not possible to treat a state body the same as a terrorist organisation, because one cannot abolish a state body. One has to think about the differences between the two, which is why we have called the measure closing the loophole in this Bill designation, rather than proscription. It is also the case that we clearly have other international obligations, both under international law, for the sovereignty of individual states, and under diplomatic law, with the Vienna convention, so that we can enable diplomatic relations or other arrangements with states that we might not approve of particularly. Within that difference lie some of the different approaches in the Bill and in the hon. Lady’s amendments. The other common theme, which perhaps divides us in our approach to the Bill, as well as explaining the differences and why we will not be accepting the hon. Lady’s amendments, is that we are not trying to put all of Jonathan Hall’s recommendations on to the statute book in this Bill. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in her opening remarks, we have accepted all the recommendations in Jonathan Hall’s report and will be legislating for them subsequently. What we wish to do with this quite narrow Bill is close that loophole with state-sponsored or proxy organisations as quickly as possible so that we can deal with the rising threats present on our streets as we speak. It may help to bear those two things in mind as I lay out the Government’s position regarding the amendments that the hon. Lady has just spoken to. Through amendments 3 to 6, the hon. Lady seeks to remove the prohibited purpose test. The test is there precisely to cover the difference in treatment between terrorist organisations and states, which we cannot proscribe and with which we may have to have some kind of arrangements. While the Bill is modelled on the provisions in the Terrorism Act 2000, it has to reflect the realities of dealing with state entities. That is what the prohibited purpose test is about. There may be some cases where UK persons need to have legitimate dealings with a state entity; it might be a British diplomat or a non-governmental organisation delivering humanitarian aid. The prohibited purpose test is necessary to protect legitimate conduct without creating loopholes that can be exploited by hostile actors.
Action that is prejudicial to the safety and interests of the UK is the test that we are talking about. If one were delivering humanitarian aid and had to deal with part of a state that we did not particularly approve of, that would not be prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK. It would be in line with what the UK wished to do, but if it were prejudicial, because it was hostile activity, the test would be passed.