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Terrorism Bill

moved Amendment No. 82A: After Clause 35, insert the following new clause— ““AMENDMENT OF PREVENTION OF TERRORISM ACT 2005 (1)   After paragraph (p) of section 1(4) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (c. 2) (power to make control orders) insert— ““(q)   a prohibition or restriction on his acquisition of specified property or assets (including intellectual property) or his use of rights enjoyed in respect of specified property or assets (including intellectual property); (r)   a requirement on him to dispose of specified property or assets (including intellectual property) whether by sale or otherwise; (s)   a requirement on him to disclose whether he has disposed, or is in the process of disposing, of specified property or assets (including intellectual property) whether by sale or otherwise, and, if so, to whom that disposal was made or is proposed to be made; (t)   a requirement on him to disclose whether he holds specified property or assets (including intellectual property) in trust for, or under any other fiduciary obligation to, any person or institution and, if so, what the terms of that trust or fiduciary obligation are and the identity of any beneficiary or principal.”” (2)   After subsection (8) of section 1 of that Act insert— ““(9)   The references to property or assets in subsection (3)(q), (r) and (s) include references to property held by the individual as a trustee or under any other fiduciary obligation.”””” The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the same amendment as moved by my noble friend Lady Cox in our committee proceedings on 20 December atcolumns 1653 to 1659 of Hansard. I am moving it again at her request because she is being installed as chancellor of Liverpool Hope University—which I gather is our first specifically ecumenical university—and so cannot be with us today. The amendment speaks for itself and was debated at length on 20 December. Its main purpose is to make sure that a person cannot carry out conduct for purposes connected with terrorism, as per Clause 5 of the Bill, through his control of a company or other asset which gives him influence with or access to sensitive sites in this country or to our industrial, commercial and charitable infrastructure. A particularly worrying example was cited by my noble friend Lady Cox and me at Second Reading on 21 November last year; we were joined by my noble friends Lady Park of Monmouth and Lord Elton in Committee. We all appreciate that the Minister cannot comment on particular cases, but it would be hard to think of a more worrying example of what the amendment seeks to cure than the case we have quoted—indeed, it is the inspiration for the amendment—although we fear that there may be other examples. We are not yet convinced by the Minister’s claim that the amendment is unnecessary because its purpose is met by existing legislation; nor are we convinced that the control order provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 cannot be extended in the way suggested by the amendment. If we are wrong about that, then we must ask the Government to devise another way of bringing this amendment into law, if it is not clearly covered elsewhere, and as soon as possible. If the Minister is right and the amendment is unnecessary because it is met elsewhere, perhaps I can ask her to let the House know exactly where. I should emphasise that we are not interested in existing powers to deal with money laundering or the possession of cash and valuables, which she raised in Committee. As I have mentioned, we are interested principally in major shareholdings giving the power to elect and dismiss directors and to influence employment strategy. There is one other question which the Minister did not appear to clear up in Committee: that is, whether vetting for the employees of contractors serving sensitive or important sites is generally carried out by the employer or by the contractor. The example I gave in Committee was the cleaning contract in your Lordships’ House. I ask the question again—surely the answer cannot be a state secret. The same goes for surveillance and security contracts here and for our nuclear power stations, the courts of justice, New Scotland Yard, our Armed Forces establishments, Canary Wharf, British Airways, Texaco and other blue chip companies. The Minister will be relieved that I am not here asking a specific question about the specific companies mentioned previously. I am asking the general question: are the employers in such examples responsible for vetting or are the contractors? Or is the answer that no one is responsible for vetting the personnel of such contractors? Unless she is entirely clear about these answers, I urge the noble Baroness to accept the amendment. What harm can it do? I look forward to her reply. I beg to move.