The National Security (State Threats) Bill has completed its passage through Parliament after MPs voted to accept Lords amendments protecting humanitarian workers and journalists from its new offences, clearing the way for the government to designate hostile state-linked organisations.
The Commons agreed the first of the six amendments by 394 votes to 85 on Monday evening, with the remainder agreed without division.
The Bill adapts counter-terrorism tools to state-based threats, creating a power for the Home Secretary to designate organisations involved in foreign power threat activity, backed by new criminal offences of supporting, assisting or obtaining benefits from designated bodies, allowing proxy organisations to be treated in practice like foreign intelligence services.
Security minister Dame Angela Eagle told MPs the threats the Bill addresses come “predominantly, though not exclusively, from three countries: Russia, China and Iran,” spanning physical threats against individuals and property, theft of trade secrets, interference in democracy and cyberattacks on the state and private sector. She said the legislation gives operational partners “vital tools capable of addressing the sharpest threats that they are tackling,” and quoted the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Jonathan Hall KC as saying the Bill does the job.
The amendments, tabled in the Lords by Baroness Northover and Lord Anderson, introduce a defence for legitimate humanitarian activity and a reasonable excuse defence for receiving information from a designated body, covering cases such as a journalist conducting an interview or a charity receiving information on the location of landmines. Eagle said the government’s view remains that the Bill never criminalised genuine humanitarian or journalistic work, but accepted the amendments to put the matter beyond doubt and avoid a chilling effect, describing the change as “belt and braces, nothing has changed.” The government rejected a full exemption for humanitarian organisations on the advice of operational partners, who warned it would provide a loophole for hostile actors and could make NGOs targets for infiltration.
Sarah Champion, chair of the International Development Committee, welcomed the amendments as a significant step while pressing for more, noting that a defence does not stop an aid worker being investigated or prosecuted and having to shoulder the legal, financial and reputational burden of proving it, and secured a commitment from the minister that the point would be examined as guidance is developed.
From the opposition benches, shadow minister Matt Vickers argued the government’s wording is capable of broader interpretation than the narrower amendment suggested by the independent reviewer, warning that hostile states hide behind legitimate activity and citing warnings from the Charity Commission and ministers themselves about Iranian-backed charities operating in the UK.
Pressure to use the new power quickly centred on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Liberal Democrat spokesperson Will Forster, noting that MI5 state threat investigations have surged 48 per cent in the last year and that the security services have responded to 20 Iranian-backed plots since the start of 2022 targeting dissidents, journalists and the Jewish community, called for the designation regulations to be made before the House rises on 16 July.
Labour’s Mark Sewards said the IRGC “is a threat to the British Jewish community in the UK” and that failing to designate it now would risk the safety of fellow citizens. Eagle gave no commitment on timing, telling MPs that designation would make for “a harder operating environment for those who wish us ill and are directed by state actors.”
The Bill, a manifesto commitment developed with the police and intelligence agencies, now awaits Royal Assent.
