HL Deb 04 July 2003 vol 650 cc1216-7

3.30 p.m.

Lord Filkin

rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th June be approved [23rd Report from the Joint Committee].

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this order is made under the Official Secrets Act 1989. Under that Act, it is an offence for a Crown servant to make damaging disclosure of any information which is in his possession by virtue of his position, unless he has lawful authority to do so. Persons who are not Crown servants can be treated as such by designating them in an order. The Act also allows us to designate by order those organisations which can give official authorisation for disclosure to those who would otherwise be committing an offence under the Act. The order before us does both of those things.

The order will designate as equivalent to Crown servants the board and employees of three new subsidiaries of the company Urenco Ltd; they are Enrichment Technology Company Ltd, Enrichment Technology UK Ltd and Urenco Enrichment Company Ltd. The board and staff of the parent company, Urenco Ltd, were designated in 1990 because of the sensitivity of the technology they deal with. They produce enriched uranium for nuclear reactors, and the technology they use is cutting edge. In 1993 a subsidiary company Urenco (Capenhurst) Ltd was also designated. These two companies will shortly be transferring some staff from their employment to these three new Urenco subsidiaries. As Urenco Ltd or Urenco (Capenhurst) Ltd staff, these employees are currently prescribed by earlier prescription orders. This order is needed to ensure that they remain prescribed after the transfer.

The draft order has a second purpose. It will designate the tribunal set up under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 as one which can authorise the disclosure of information for the purposes of the Official Secrets Act. The tribunal deals with complaints from those who are concerned that they may be affected by the activities of the intelligence services. It is an important avenue of redress for those who believe they may have been treated improperly by those services. It is possible that in order that their complaint can be properly heard certain complainants and witnesses to the tribunal may need to disclose to the tribunal information that is protected by the Official Secrets Act. For example, it would be an offence for a former member of the intelligence services to disclose information about those services to the tribunal. Similarly, any third party who has had information disclosed to them in contravention of the Official Secrets Act 1989 would themselves commit an offence if they disclosed that information to the tribunal. So the tribunal must be able to authorise such disclosures. It will authorise disclosure of information only to the extent necessary to investigate the complaint. This is needed so that complainants and witnesses are not exposed to the possibility of committing an offence by disclosing information to the tribunal.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal replaced three tribunals set up for similar purposes under the Interception of Communications Act 1985, the Security Service Act 1989 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994. Those three tribunals were all previously designated as authorising organisations for the purposes of the Official Secrets Act for the reasons I have given. The draft order will replace references to the old tribunals with a reference to the new one.

As we can see, this order is needed to keep the references in the Official Secrets Act up to date, and as such I hope that it will be acceptable to the House. In our view it is entirely compatible with the ECHR convention rights. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th June be approved [23rd report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Filkin.)

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

My Lords, I simply thank the Minister for his explanation. We accept that it is absolutely right that references should be kept up to date within the terms of the Official Secrets Act. Given the nature of the sensitivity of the technology employed by the companies in uranium enrichment, we support the order.

Lord Goodhart

My Lords, the Minister may be glad to know that, on this occasion, we support the order, too. It is merely a matter of updating to take account of a changed corporate structure, so there is nothing in our view to make it inappropriate.

Lord Filkin

My Lords, it is a pleasure to continue to deal with Home Office legislation after I have left the department. It is even more of a pleasure when I find that such an order meets the approval of the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.