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House of Commons
Friday 31 January 1997
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Jurisdiction (Conspiracy and Incitement) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
9.34 am
Mr. Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to promote the Bill, which will give the courts throughout the United Kingdom jurisdiction over acts of conspiracy and incitement in this country which relate to acts intended to take place abroad. I am most grateful for the support that I have had from hon. Members on both sides.
I have a particular concern with terrorism. It is a sad fact that nowadays, it is an international business and is no respecter of national boundaries. Indeed, terrorist activity in one country is sometimes financed and organised by an unfriendly Government of another. Terrorism is capable of touching the lives of all of us, whether in Northern Ireland or in the quiet Sussex lane where my predecessor, Ian Gow, was murdered by the IRA. Like other hon. Members, I thought long and hard before deciding on the subject for my Bill. The House will not be surprised to hear that a major factor in my decision was the assassination of my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Eastbourne.
I think that we would all agree that if people use this country as a base for committing crime abroad, we cannot allow that to go unchecked. There is currently a significant gap in our law, which means that those who plan the commission of offences or seek to encourage others to commit offences, where those offences are intended to take place in other countries, can do so in the United Kingdom without risk of prosecution here. I believe that that is a serious loophole, which must be closed. My Bill is intended to do just that.
The Bill will help to control the activities of foreign extremists who use this country as a base to plan or encourage serious offences abroad. It will also enable action to be taken against international organised crime, such as drug trafficking and fraud, as well as against organised football hooliganism. Those are the sorts of activity that have given rise to particular concern, but which can fall outside the scope of the existing law. I hope that the Bill will rectify that situation.
The aims and objectives of the Bill were foreshadowed by a report by the international maritime fraud research sub-committee of the Society of Conservative Lawyers in 1985. I am pleased to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway), who is in his place, was chairman of that committee. The committee spoke of
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The report made the point that English common law rules are basically territorial and that in the case of conspiracy, jurisdiction would apply only if the contemplated crime was indictable in England. Reference was made to the case of Treacy v. the Director of Public Prosecutions in 1971, when Lord Diplock stated that the basis of the rule was international comity. That leans against the English courts punishing those who do something in another country that has no harmful consequences in this country. In the case of Board of Trade v. Owen in 1957, Lord Tucker took the view that it was the function of the English courts to aid in the preservation of the Queen's peace within the realm.
The report makes much of the comments of the trial judge, Mr. Justice Donovan, who was overruled in the Owen case. He said:
The Society of Conservative Lawyers made the point that it was important to protect the integrity and good reputation of the City of London. I agree with that wholeheartedly, but there is an even wider issue--whether Britain should be able to be used at all as a safe haven for those planning criminal acts abroad.
The report concluded:
Last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) introduced a Bill to extend the jurisdiction of the courts over acts of conspiracy and incitement here in respect of sexual offences against children abroad. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his success with that important Bill, which I am pleased to say, subsequently became the Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act 1996.
The Act responded to widespread concern about the sickening acts of those who travel abroad for the purpose of sexually abusing children in other countries--a problem known as sex tourism. It addresses that despicable practice by making it possible to take action against those who organise sex tours or encourage others to travel abroad to exploit children sexually. For example, it catches tour operators organising travel abroad for paedophiles for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts against children, and groups of private individuals who might together plan a trip for that purpose--for example, a paedophile ring--or who might incite each other to travel for that purpose.
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I am delighted that our law now provides for the prosecution of such people. Because of the serious and obnoxious nature of the offences concerned, it was clearly important to ensure that our courts had jurisdiction over those who, in the United Kingdom, conspire or incite others to commit such offences.
Sadly, however, sexual offences against children are not the only offences committed abroad that may be planned or encouraged by people in Britain. I have already mentioned a few examples. I propose that we should go further, by taking the same approach in respect of other crimes.
Lest anyone believes that my Bill is of academic interest only, let me give a concrete example. Hon. Members will recall the recent trial at the Old Bailey of those responsible for bombing the Israeli embassy in London. One of the defences put forward by learned counsel was that the defendants were indeed planning to cause explosions--however, not in Britain, but abroad. The time has come to end such legalistic nonsense. If my Bill becomes law, it will be significantly less likely that defendants will claim that as a defence.
My Bill, therefore, does for all criminal offences what the existing Act does in respect of child sex offences and it follows the same broad principles in its formulation. The Bill will subsume the provisions of the 1996 Act and repeal it.
It is a significant step to extend the approach taken in the Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act to all other offences. That is why the implications of doing so were fully investigated by the interdepartmental review of extra-territorial jurisdiction, which reported last year.
Among other issues, the report considered various options to extend the law of conspiracy and incitement. It pointed out:
The committee considered a number of possible objections to its proposed course, but rejected them all. It felt that none of them was sufficient to outweigh the advantages of extending the law on conspiracy and incitement.
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My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary announced last July that the Government had accepted that conclusion. My Bill will implement the recommendations of that very thorough review.
It would be quite wrong for me to introduce my Bill without making some reference to the inquiry into legislation against terrorism carried out by Lord Lloyd of Berwick and published last October. While the report covers a wide range of issues related to terrorism, it has a section dealing with those who commit terrorist acts overseas. Chapter 12 talks about any country--such as the United Kingdom--which has substantial expatriate communities from trouble spots around the world being potentially implicated in international terrorism. It refers to
"remembering that it is the agreement which constitutes the crime, whether the unlawful object is effected or not, I cannot on principle see how the conspiracy constituted by such an agreement becomes untriable here simply because the crime or tort has been committed abroad . . .
They were wise words indeed.
It would be of no benefit to this country if it became the sanctuary for conspirators provided only that they concluded their unlawful plots abroad."
"It is our opinion that . . . consideration should be given to at least amending the English law relating to conspiracy so that conspiracy in England to commit a crime relating to maritime fraud in a convention country will be triable in England if the acts constituting the crime amount to a crime in England and the country where it has been agreed those acts shall be performed."
My Bill takes up that challenge and goes further.
"If an Act of conspiracy or incitement which takes place here, relates to an act which is committed, or planned to be committed outside this country, then, notwithstanding that conspiracy and incitement themselves are criminal offences, UK courts would not have jurisdiction unless the substantive acts were, exceptionally, ones for which extra-territorial jurisdiction already existed."
The committee referred to sexual offences against children abroad, foreign nationals fomenting politically motivated violence in their own countries and football hooligans planning acts of violence at venues abroad. As the report concludes:
"This has a negative and unhelpful impact on our bilateral relations with many of the countries concerned."
Having considered whether it was possible either to take no action or simply to extend the law in relation to specified offences, the committee rejected those options. It concluded that the simplest and most effective way forward was to extend the scope of incitement and conspiracy generally. Otherwise, as the committee pointed out, it would be possible to find that although the activities of particular individuals were objectionable, there was no jurisdiction over the substantive offence that they were planning or encouraging. The committee also drew particular attention to the principle of dual criminality, to which I shall refer in a moment.
"safe havens for terrorists on the run"
and states:
"Britain is no exception, having been accused of harbouring Algerian, Indian, Palestinian and Turkish terrorists, and no doubt others besides. The UK has a responsibility not to allow its territory to be used as a base for violent activity against a foreign government, and the Government's record and pronouncements show that it takes this duty very seriously."
I am sure that the whole House will agree with that sentiment.
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