My Lords, the Green Paper suggested that there might well be the category of the prevention of serious crime. That was considered by the Government. I indicated earlier in my remarks that the Bill deliberately omitted from the definition other aspects of the public interest from the CMP clauses, such as international relations and the prevention or detection of crime, although they do apply in other statutory CMPs. But the consideration of the representations received in response to the Green Paper was to make it solely matters that would be damaging to national security.
The policy of successive Governments and the practice of Parliament has not been to define the term “national security”. As a number of your Lordships accepted, it has been to retain the flexibility needed to ensure that the use of the term can adapt to changing circumstances —for example, changes to the threat environment and advances in technology. The nature of national security threats and risks is constantly evolving. That, in turn, requires the Government and the security and intelligence agencies to maintain their ability to evolve.
My noble friend Lord Lothian suggested that it would be better to leave this open and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, accepted that it was not always possible to be definitive. The current approach is based on the recognition that this is a flexible concept which evolves in the light of changing circumstances. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said, we want to avoid a legal straitjacket. The risk of any attempt to be precise and exhaustive would be to constrain the ability of the security and intelligence agencies to adapt their operational approach and develop capabilities to meet new and unexpected changing threats.
I will conclude with a pertinent example. Neither weapons of mass destruction proliferation nor cyber attacks feature in what is fortunately a non-exhaustive list of threats to national security which the Security Service is specifically charged with countering in Section 1 of the Security Service Act 1989. But who could deny that, some 23 years later, these activities represent serious
threats to the UK’s national security? The flexibility is there for the security services to be charged with responsibilities without there being an exhaustive list.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, accepted that there might not necessarily be a statutory definition and he raised a question about guidelines. I will certainly consider guidelines, but I am not entirely sure where they would fit into the guidance being given to the court, even with the help of the ISC in devising them. However, I know that the suggestion was made in a constructive manner and I will certainly think about it in a constructive way. I do not readily see how it will fit in, but I will certainly consider it. He may wish to elaborate on what he had in mind.