In a speech, and through several interventions, in the House of Lords on the National Security (State Threats) Bill, I warned of the many security threats posed by the CCP regime – through the activities of its United Front and through transnational repression.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
House of Lords
23rd June 2026
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. This builds on the Private Notice Question which she placed before your Lordships’ House and indeed on our Second Reading debate last week where the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, which, as the noble Baroness has rightly said, is a relic of the past, became the centre of our interest because of some of those who worked there being convicted of being involved in espionage on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party regime in Beijing. That is why it is entirely relevant to this Bill and why it is good that the noble Baroness has placed Amendment 1, this probing amendment, before your Lordships’ Committee.
I have a few points I would like to make on that amendment before turning to my own Amendments 3 and 4, which deal with slightly different questions but are also linked to the malign activities of the Chinese Communist Party regime in the UK. Amendment 3 deals with transnational repression, and Amendment 4 deals with the activities of the United Front, which is not a state but works in line with the wishes and ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. That is why it is problematic in terms of the definitions in the Bill and why I have sought further clarification through my amendments.
I have a few pointers on the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office case, which might be helpful to your Lordships. In May 2024, law enforcement initially arrested 11 individuals across the UK. Only three of those were heavily linked to state funding via the London Hong Kong office referred to by the noble Baroness. Only three were prosecuted under the National Security Act 2023. Two have since been convicted and—as the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, was quite right to remind us during Second Reading last week—were subjected to very lengthy prison sentences. The remaining eight individuals suspected of acting as part of the vigilante team in contact with entities in Hong Kong and targeting an individual on British soil were released without charge.
This case highlights a common practice whereby Chinese and Hong Kong authorities blend private civil disputes, corporate debt collection and local organised crime groups—a point that I heard more about recently at a meeting organised by Tom Tugendhat MP, our former Security Minister, which pointed to the activities of organised crime linked to some of these groups promoting a political ideology. All of those are involved in the execution of transnational repression and jurisdiction overseas while evading national security prosecution.
I have four questions I would like to put the Minister on Amendment 1 before turning to those other two amendments. I am sorry they have been grouped together, but I think it is for the convenience of the House. I hope the House will therefore forgive me if I spend a bit of time speaking to the other two amendments, but here are my questions to build on what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has said already.
First, of the 11 individuals initially arrested by counterterrorism police in connection with the hostile tracking of a Hong Kong resident in Yorkshire, eight were subsequently released without trial. Can the Minister inform the House how many of those eight have since left the United Kingdom and whether any have returned to the jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China or the Hong Kong special administrative region, thereby placing themselves beyond the reach of British justice?
Secondly, is the Minister confident that counterterrorism and the Crown Prosecution Service—the CPS—possess the immediate capacity to process massive backlogs of foreign language evidence quickly enough to meet custody time limits? That has been an issue relevant to these prosecutions. Specifically, was a lack of rapid security-vetted translation capacity a contributing factor in the decision to release the other eight suspects without pressing charges?
Thirdly, is the Minister satisfied that our law enforcement agencies, including the NCA—the National Crime Agency—and regional special branches have the required resources to effectively monitor and map the nexus between Chinese state authorities, overseas proxy organisations and private contractors operating inside the United Kingdom?
Fourthly, what steps are the Government taking to bolster the China capabilities of UK law enforcement? Specifically, are we investing in the recruitment and training of security-vetted interpreters, fluent not just in Mandarin and Cantonese but in crucial dialects such as Hokkien and Fuzhou dialects, to effectively monitor and respond to issues related to transnational state repression and organised crime? This was referred to during the meeting that Tom Tugendhat MP organised in the House Commons recently and which, as I say, I was able to attend.
Let me turn to Amendment 3. I do not want to go on too much about this amendment, because I was able to have a very helpful and constructive meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, yesterday. I say at the outset that I will not press your Lordships to divide on this amendment, in the light of the very helpful assurances which he gave me yesterday. But I will just recap. On 26 February, I initiated a debate on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the privilege to chair, about our report on transnational repression. It was a thorough debate and the Minister replied in his courteous manner. However, his reply did not meet all of the questions which we raised in that debate, or indeed in the report. I returned to it on 21 May, during the King’s Speech debate, and subsequently in a balloted debate that I won, which was secured for 4 June and which dealt with atrocity crimes. This is also an amendment which Alicia Kearns, Member of Parliament, raised in the House of Commons during its six-hour consideration of the Bill.
Without dwelling too much on procedural issues, I think all of us who have been around this place and have had the privilege to serve in both Houses know that to give the House of Commons only six hours of debate on a major Bill of this importance, and then to come to your Lordships and do all the remaining stages in one day flat, as we are doing today—Committee, Report and Third Reading—is clearly absurd, given that this is based on Jonathan Hall’s excellent report of 11 months ago, as is the idea that we have not had time during that period to debate some of these questions. Furthermore, it cannot be right that the Home Affairs Select Committee was unable to take evidence on the Bill, even though it requested it, or that my own committee, which wanted to scrutinise the Bill, was left to just write a letter to the Minister. The Minister has responded to that in his usual courteous way, and I am grateful, but how much better it would have been to have pre-legislative scrutiny and proper consideration of the Bill in the normal way. There are some questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has asked and I am asking, and I know that colleagues from the Conservative Opposition Benches, the Liberal Democrat Benches and elsewhere on the Cross Benches have legitimate questions to ask about the Bill.
On Amendment 3, we recommended in our report that we should adopt a formal definition of “transnational repression” and that we should systematically collect data and develop monitoring mechanisms. We agreed with James Lynch, the co-director of FairSquare, who told the committee that we were missing a “big opportunity to … monitor and analyse the trends and then develop a coherent strategy”. He said our failure to do this “risks … emboldening authoritarian regimes to escalate TNR activities”.
The report calls for international co-operation with other democracies—we mention the example of Canada—in combating TNR, and we make some specific recommendations about the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs as they are called, and the misuse of Interpol red notices. Closer to home, the JCHR called for a national hotline for victims, more systematic, specialised training for police officers, and to identify the early warnings of TNR. I again commend that report to the whole Committee, and I urge the Minister, when he replies, to reiterate the promise that he gave yesterday: that, before the end of July, he will engage again with the Joint Select Committee on the points that are adumbrated in the report and mentioned in Amendment 3.
I turn to Amendment 4. I see that the Government Whips are looking nervous. I do not want to delay the Committee, but I did not group these amendments together; that was a matter for the Government. I did not want to ungroup the amendments, as that would take extra time. Amendment 4 seeks to introduce a vital and urgent statutory refinement to Section 31 of the National Security Act 2023. Noble Lords will recall that, when we debated that Bill, there was a collective sense of pride in the House that we were finally equipping our intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies with a framework fit to confront contemporary state threats. We are very fortunate to have my noble friends Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord Carlile of Berriew present in your Lordships’ Committee again today. In the past, they have been the advisers to the Government on these important questions.
However, as the operational reality of the National Security Act has unfolded, we have been forced to confront a significant, highly sophisticated structural vulnerability, and our laws remain ill-equipped to deal with the asymmetric, centralised doctrine of what Beijing terms its “United Front” political warfare. Let us be entirely clear about what “United Front” work is: it is not benign cultural diplomacy but a core political strategy of the CCP aimed at neutralising opposition, building coalitions and leveraging individuals outside the party to advance its domestic and geopolitical goals. Mao Zedong famously termed the United Front one of the CCP’s “three magic weapons” to defeat its enemies. Decades later, Xi Jinping has reinvigorated this weapon, describing it as an essential tool for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”.
I could go on at great length, and I know that I would be reprimanded if I thought to do so. If unamended, the statutory framework struggles to establish the necessary thresholds of state agency against actors operating out of an official, physical state trade office, so what chance does it have of dealing with non-bureaucratic proxy networks such as those exemplified by the United Front? That is why Amendment 4 is necessary. The United Front is a strategy, not a corporate organisation. Even if it were designated, it would leave the broader network entirely untouched and legally insulated. Amendment 4 would provide a surgical and precise solution. It would give prosecutors the latitude to meet the foreign power condition simply by establishing that the prohibited conduct was carried out in alignment with a formal, published and authenticated foreign power policy that directs interference.
There are no unintended consequences here. I know that the Minister has been listening to the arguments, because I met him again today and he showed enormous courtesy and patience in dealing with this. I am only sorry that we have not had longer in Committee, where we could have debated these points in granular detail, rather than at this breakneck pell-mell speed. There is an old saying that if you legislate in haste, you end up repenting at leisure. Let us hope that repentance will not be required on this occasion.
Briefing On CCP’s United Front and Amendment 4 to the State Threats Bill sponsored by Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws KC – with all-party support.
AMENDMENT 4 – STATE THREATS BILL
GIVING ENFORCEMENT THE TOOLS NEEDED TO ADDRESS BEIJING’S UNITED FRONT WORK
Lord Alton of Liverpool
After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“The foreign power condition: amendment
Section 31 of the National Security Act 2023 (the foreign power condition) is amended as follows.(2) In subsection (2), after paragraph (d) insert—
“(e) it is carried out in alignment with, or for the purpose of advancing or giving effect to, a foreign power policy.”
(3) After subsection (7) insert—
“(8) For the purposes of subsection (2)(e), a “foreign power policy” means a formal policy, strategy, or directive that—
(a) is published, issued, or otherwise authenticated by a foreign power,
And
(b) contains information from which a reasonable person would conclude that the policy explicitly or implicitly permits, encourages, or directs interference in the affairs or interests of another state.””
This briefing provides a technical analysis in support of the amendment tabled by Lord Alton of Liverpool to the State Threats Bill, amending Section 31 of the National Security Act (NSA) 2023. The amendment inserts subsection (2)(e) and subsection (8) into the Act, establishing that conduct carried out in alignment with a published, authenticated “foreign power policy” satisfies the statutory “foreign power condition.”
Section 31 of the NSA was designed to be flexible (specifically via the general intent provisions of Section 31(5)). This analysis demonstrates that the unamended text of the NSA contains a significant structural vulnerability when applied to the asymmetric, decentralised doctrine of “United Front” political warfare. By analysing recent enforcement precedents and the mechanics of the CPS tests, this note argues that the amendment is a necessary statutory refinement to ensure triable and convictable offenses for pervasive interference work.
The National Security Act 2023 in practice
The practical application of the NSA 2023 has highlighted the acute difficulties the Crown faces when establishing that a clandestine or proxy actor is legally working “for or on behalf of” a foreign power.
Under the unamended Section 31 framework, proving a sufficient connection to a foreign state typically requires establishing an explicit chain of causation, such as direct instruction, contractual arrangement, or financial remuneration flowing from an official organ of that state. Authoritarian hybrid operations are specifically engineered to obscure these overt, discoverable links, operating instead through decentralised networks, cultural associations, based on ideological affinity.
R v. Yuen and Wai (The HKETO Case)
The recent litigation involving the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) serves as a critical warning. Despite the defendants operating out of a formal, state-funded entity, arguably representing the highest possible standard of state-backed evidence, the prosecution faced immense difficulties. Crucially, the jury failed to reach a verdict on the primary foreign interference charges, securing convictions only on the secondary, narrower offense of assisting a foreign intelligence service.
If the unamended statutory framework struggles to establish the necessary thresholds of state agency against actors inside an official, physical state apparatus, it possesses limited utility against fluid, non-bureaucratic proxy networks.
Closing the Party-State loophole
I anticipate that the Government will resist the amendment, arguing that Section 31(5) is already sufficiently wide to capture any conduct intended to benefit a foreign power, rendering specific policy-alignment clauses redundant. Taking into account the prosecutorial difficulties already on display through the operation of the National Security Act, as outlined above, this view introduces an unacceptably high level of risk.
Because “United Front” ideology is technically a political party policy (the Chinese Communist Party) rather than an explicit administrative state mandate, the conflation of party and state in hybrid regimes creates a legal grey zone. In a criminal trial, defense counsel can validly argue that acting out of ideological affinity or cultural pride does not satisfy the statutory definition of intending to benefit a foreign state power.
Because this exact defense has never been tested in a UK court, it is highly doubtful that the CPS would determine that a prosecution under the unamended text stands a “reasonable chance of conviction.” The amendment above fixes this defect by deleting this defense entirely, substituting a clear, objective statutory link.
The State Threats Bill as a tool to address United Front Work
A secondary criticism suggests that pervasive foreign interference can be checked via the State Threats Bill’s mechanism to designate hostile or foreign-backed entities. This framework fundamentally misconstrues the structural reality of the threat for the following reasons:
- The United Front is an asymmetric state strategy, not a bounded corporate or bureaucratic organisation.
- While overseen by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), the actual administrative organ accounts for a minute fraction of United Front work. Much United Front work is executed by informal, seemingly independent actors who possess no recordable or discoverable organisational link to the UFWD.
- Formally designating an entity as vast and politically integrated as the UFWD would carry severe, perhaps prohibitive, diplomatic and geopolitical consequences. More critically, because the overwhelming majority of ongoing United Front activity is not directly commissioned by or linked to the UFWD, designating the organisation would leave the broader network entirely insulated from law enforcement.
4. Statutory Precision and Proportionality Safeguards
The mechanism I am seeking to introduce provides prosecutors the latitude to fulfill the foreign power condition simply by establishing that the prohibited conduct was motivated by or aligned with a published, authenticated policy.
Crucially, the amendment introduces these powers without any risk of overbreadth or unintended consequences. The language in the proposed subsection (8) establishes a two-pronged, objective statutory safeguard:
- The policy must be formal and authenticated by the foreign power.
- A reasonable person must conclude that the policy explicitly or implicitly permits or directs interference in another state’s affairs.
Because no democratic or cooperative international partner explicitly publishes and broadcasts a formal, institutional strategy of foreign interference, the clause is surgically isolated. It creates a robust, predictable mechanism for security services to confront pervasive, subterranean grey-zone operations executed by Beijing, while fully preserving the rights of legitimate international actors.
Understanding United Front Work
United Front work is a core political strategy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aimed at neutralising opposition, building coalitions, and co-opting individuals outside the Party to advance its domestic and geopolitical goals. Mao Zedong famously termed it one of the CCP’s “magic weapons.”
A Total-Party Responsibility: A common misconception is that this work is strictly confined to a single agency. As China scholars Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg clarify in their book *Hidden Hand*, “United Front work is not confined to the activities of the UFWD [United Front Work Department], but is the responsibility of every Party member.” It is a decentralised, system-wide mandate.
The UFWD simply anchors a “sprawling infrastructure of Party agencies, and organisations linked to the Party.” Every PRC state ministry, embassy, and state-backed entity operates with a United Front directive.
United Front work blurs the line between legitimate cultural diplomacy and covert political interference. It builds networks of non-CCP proxies – business leaders, academics, and community groups – who may not even realise they are being leveraged to align foreign policy with Beijing’s interests.
Presence in Britain
There are no public statistics on the number of United Front personnel active in the UK. The UFWD has approximately 40,000 employees, and the associated organisations account for millions worldwide. In 2023, the Intelligence and Security Committee said that China had “penetrated every sector of the United Kingdom economy”, in part due to pervasive United Front work.
A few examples:
Politics: In January 2022, MI5 took the rare step of issuing an Interference Alert regarding a UK-based solicitor, Christine Lee. The alert stated she was covertly engaging in political interference activities on behalf of the broader United Front system, facilitating significant financial donations to British politicians to foster a favorable political environment.
Academia: Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) operate across dozens of UK universities. While functioning as student social clubs, experts note they are heavily guided by Chinese embassies. They have been used to monitor overseas students, suppress anti-regime campus protests, and pressure universities into censoring sensitive topics like Xinjiang or Taiwan.
Transnational repression: Investigations into unofficial “overseas police service stations” in London and Glasgow revealed they were operated under the guise of United Front-linked hometown associations and community centers. These hubs have been accused of tracking, intimidating, and forcing the repatriation of Chinese dissidents living in the UK.
Further Thoughts About the CCP’s United Front
This week in Parliament I moved moved Amendment 4,t o introduce a vital and urgent statutory refinement to Section 31 of the National Security Act 2023.
When Parliament debated and passed the National Security Act 2023, there was a collective sense of pride we were finally equipping our intelligence, security, and law enforcement agencies with a framework fit to confront contemporary state threats. Yet, as the operational reality of that Act has unfolded, we have been forced to confront a significant, highly sophisticated structural vulnerability. Our laws remain ill-equipped to deal with the asymmetric, decentralised doctrine of what Beijing terms its “United Front” political warfare.
We need to be absolutely clear about what United Front work is. It is not benign cultural diplomacy. It is a core political strategy of the Chinese Communist Party aimed at neutralising opposition, building co-opted coalitions, and leveraging individuals outside the Party to advance its domestic and geopolitical goals. Mao Zedong famously termed the United Front one of the CCP’s three “magic weapons” to defeat its enemies. Decades later, Xi Jinping has reinvigorated this weapon, describing it as an essential tool for the “Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation.”
Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee’s landmark report on China laid bare the sheer scale of this challenge. The ISC warned in unequivocal terms that the Chinese state has “penetrated every sector of the United Kingdom economy.” A massive driver of this subterranean infiltration is the pervasive, system-wide mandate of United Front work.
A common misconception—one that I fear is shared by the Home Office—is that this activity is strictly confined to a single, easily identifiable administrative agency called the United Front Work Department, or UFWD. But as the scholars Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg meticulously document, United Front work is a total-party responsibility. It is the active duty of every single Party member, every state ministry, every embassy, and every state-backed entity. The UFWD merely anchors a sprawling, fluid infrastructure of proxy organizations.
If we look at the CCP’s own official United Front Work Regulations, the language is chillingly explicit. The directives explicitly command the party-state to “absorb,” “guide,” and “mould” representatives of overseas Chinese communities, student bodies, and foreign professionals. The policy overtly directs cells to carry out work targeting foreign political figures, businesses, and academic institutions to, and I quote from their own directive, “form a broad unified front to fight against the enemy.”
We are seeing this play out on the streets, in the lecture theatres, and within the democratic institutions of the United Kingdom.
In politics, we remember the rare and sobering step taken by MI5 when it issued an Interference Alert regarding the UK-based solicitor Christine Lee. The alert stated explicitly that she was covertly engaging in political interference activities on behalf of the broader United Front system, channeling substantial financial donations to British politicians to buy influence and foster a favorable political environment.
In academia, Chinese Students and Scholars Associations operate across dozens of our finest universities. Ostensibly student social clubs, they are heavily guided by the PRC embassy. They have been deployed as tools of digital and physical surveillance to monitor overseas dissidents, suppress campus protests, and pressure university administrations into censoring any discussion of Xinjiang, Tibet, or Taiwan.
Perhaps most egregiously, we have witnessed the terrifying reality of transnational repression on British soil. Investigations into unofficial, clandestine “overseas police service stations” in London and Glasgow revealed they were operating under the guise of United Front-linked hometown associations and community centers. Just recently, a damning report highlighted by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, published in The Times, exposed that there are as many as 75 of these covert “stations” or associated hubs operating across the United Kingdom. These illicit centers are actively used to track, intimidate, and coerce Chinese dissidents and pro-democracy Hong Kongers who have sought sanctuary in our country.
What are we going to do about this threat? I concede that it is not easy to address: A hybrid threat motivated by ideological alignment, rather than commission. I proposed a proportionate way, amending the NSA through the State Threats Bill. Although the amendment was not incorporated this week I was very encouraged by what the Home Office Minister, Lord Hanson of Flint, told the House and his openness to coming back again when the proposed Security Bill is laid before Parliament.
Undoubtedly, we need to give our agencies a bit more help. Yet, when our law enforcement agencies try to use the tools we gave them in the National Security Act 2023, they find themselves legally hamstrung.
Consider the recent landmark litigation in R v. Yuen and Wai—the HKETO case – referred to at some lengeth in our debate on Tuesday.
Here, the defendants were operating out of an official, state-funded entity, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office. This represented the highest possible density of state-backed evidence imaginable. Yet, the prosecution faced immense hurdles. Crucially, the jury failed to reach a verdict on the primary charges of foreign interference under the Act. Convictions were only secured on the narrower offense of assisting a foreign intelligence service.
If the unamended statutory framework struggles to establish the necessary thresholds of state agency against actors operating out of an official, physical state trade office, what chance does it have of dealing with non-bureaucratic proxy networks like those exemplified by United Front work?
Under the unamended Section 31 framework, proving the “foreign power condition” requires establishing a direct chain of causation—a transaction, a direct instruction, or financial remuneration flowing from an official organ of a foreign state. But United Front operations are engineered precisely to sever these discoverable links, relying instead on ideological affinity and decentralised cultural groups.
The Government believes that Section 31(5) is broad enough to capture anyone intending to benefit a foreign power. That introduces an unacceptably high level of legal risk. Because United Front ideology is technically a political party policy—the policy of the CCP—rather than an explicit administrative state mandate, a sophisticated defence counsel in a criminal trial can validly argue that acting out of ideological affinity or cultural pride does not satisfy the statutory definition of intending to benefit a foreign state. This defence has never been tested. I find it highly doubtful that the CPS would ever take the risk of prosecuting, concluding that such cases fail the threshold of standing a “reasonable chance of conviction.” Parliament can delete that defence entirely if the law does not allow sustainable prosecutions – and the door has been left open to do that.
Under the State Threats Bill, which will allow long overdue designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps it is clear that similar designation is unlikely to work for United front activity. The Government has no plans to designate the United Front Work Department, and even if they did, the organisational link that would be required would preclude prosecution, because there is often NO LINK.
The United Front is a strategy, not a neat corporate organisation. Even if the UFWd were designated, it would leave the broader network entirely untouched and legally insulated.
So we may still need a surgical, precise solution, like that prosed this week in Amendment 4. It gives prosecutors the latitude to meet the foreign power condition simply by establishing that the prohibited conduct was carried out in alignment with a formal, published, and authenticated “foreign power policy” that directs interference.
There are no unintended consequences here. The language of the amendment provides a strict, two-pronged safeguard: the policy must be formal and authenticated, and a reasonable person must conclude that it explicitly or implicitly directs interference in another state’s affairs. Let me be blunt: no democratic or cooperative bilateral partner publishes an explicit, institutional ideology of foreign interference. Beijing does.
United Front work is a persistent, toxic problem in the UK. Our enforcement agencies want to act, but they lack the legal apparatus to do so. There is widespread agreement that we must close the party-state loophole, honour the warnings of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, and ensures that those who seek to undermine our democracy using the “magic weapons” of authoritarianism are held fully accountable under the law.
In response to Amendment 4 the Home Office Minister, Lord Hanson of Flint said:
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for Amendment 4, which touches on a significant issue.
Outside of the Chamber, contrary to the assertions of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, I have tried to meet the objectives and to talk to the noble Lord in a constructive way. The foreign power condition is a core component of existing offences in Part 1 of the National Security Act 2023. I will explain how we will deal with the foreign power condition and its interpretation, which I hope will reassure the noble Lord.
In my view, the foreign power condition can be met. Let me be clear that it is not necessary for a person to be tasked or directed by a foreign power in order for their actions to constitute foreign power threat activity. Under the National Security Act 2023, where a person acts for the purposes of advancing or giving effect to the policy of a foreign power, the foreign power condition can already be satisfied. In intending to promote or fulfil the published policy of another state through their conduct, a person is likely to at least intend to benefit a foreign power. It is important to add that the meaning of foreign power under Section 32 of the National Security Act 2023 is not limited to foreign Governments and their constituent parts. It is broad enough to include a range of agencies, including the type of agency that the noble Lord has mentioned and the governing political party of a foreign Government.
I am happy to put beyond doubt that activities inspired by the policy of a foreign power, including the governing political party of a state, would fall within the current definition of foreign power threat activity in the National Security Act 2023. I draw the noble Lord’s attention to the fact that the National Security Act 2023 was drafted with the intention of capturing the full range of state threat activity. I have looked at the matter extremely carefully and consulted with legal advisers in the Home Office, as well as operational partners. If it helps put the matter beyond doubt for the noble Lord, including for the purpose of interpretation by the courts, I can assure the Committee that interference activity motivated by the policy of the governing party of a state is prosecutable under the National Security Act 2023.
I thank the Minister for giving that assurance. As he said, it puts it beyond doubt. It would enable that to be referred to in a court of law, should such a prosecution occur. I regard that as very significant progress, and I am grateful to the Minister.
In respect to my Amendment 3 which sought to take further action on transnational repression, the Minister said:
The noble Lord’s Amendment 3 proposes new types of conduct to be treated as foreign power activity. As I understand it, this would supplement but not supplant the existing meaning of Section 33 of the National Security Act 2023 when making designations. I am entirely sympathetic to the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of making the UK a harder target for transnational repression. He will know it is a matter the Government take seriously and that we continue to make concrete progress, including on the helpful recommendations from the noble Lord’s own committee, the JCHR, and the detailed inquiry. This includes the continued implementation of the National Security Act 2023, the recent successful prosecutions I referred to a moment ago, the introduction of police training, practical guidance, a national protective security agency and a range of other matters.
Where a person carries out such activity with the intention of materially assisting a foreign intelligence service, it would already fall within the scope of foreign power threat activity. I think that is right and that the link back to the definition that Parliament agreed in passing the National Security Act 2023 is entirely appropriate.
Given the evolving nature of the threat and absence of an internationally agreed definition of transnational repression, we believe the broad approach recommended by the Defending Democracy Taskforce, coupled with the powers in the National Security Act and wider criminal law, is better suited to protecting potential victims. As I have said to the noble Lord outside the Chamber, I am happy to write to him by what I will term close of play in this House, 23 July, with further details of how we will respond on those matters accordingly.
As Parliament debates Transnational Repression, the CCP has introduced a new law accelerating the destruction of diversity and ethnic, racial and religious difference and which also enable the further targeting of diaspora in countries like the UK.
