My Lords, Schedule 1 to the Bill provides for the seizure of passports from persons suspected of involvement in terrorism. Paragraph 2 deals with the seizure of passports at a port, and paragraph 2(8) sets out what the officer undertaking this exercise must tell the person. He must tell him that he is suspected of intending to leave Great Britain or the UK—there is a slightly different provision for Northern Ireland—
“for the purpose of involvement in terrorism-related activity”,
and that the officer is entitled to exercise the power to seize. Reciting those statutory grounds does not seem to be enough. There is no provision on the face of the Bill for the person to be informed of at least the gist of the reasons for the suspicion.
The draft code of practice, which has been out for consultation, includes some notification requirements but it does not include this one. As the Joint Committee on Human Rights pointed out, the draft code provides that,
“where a senior police officer authorises retention”—
this is at a different stage—
“the individual must be given a written notice which should … inform the person that they may … request reasons for the retention of their travel documents … Elsewhere, the draft Code provides that a police constable exercising the power … must issue the person with reasons for its exercise … ‘if requested’ and if travel documents are returned within the”,
first period which is provided by the schedule,
“they are to be accompanied by a notice reminding the individual that they may formally request reasons as to why their travel documents were seized and retained”.
None of that addresses the need to tell the person straightaway.
I should like to see in the Bill the JCHR recommendation,
“that the Code should provide that a person subject to the exercise of the power should be informed of the reasons for its exercise at the earliest opportunity in every case, and not merely where the individual makes a request”.
That is very fundamental, not only to the exercise of the power but as to how it is perceived. We rightly spent a good deal of time in Committee—and will, I am sure, spend more time—on the difficulties of perception and perceived discrimination against certain groups, which perhaps is a different issue from actual discrimination but is a very real issue.
In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, supported my point. He said:
“No one would suggest that all detailed reasons must be given, but if someone is told that their passport is being taken away they should be told the essence of the reasons why if this power is to be acceptable and not criticised as obviously unfair”.—[Official Report, 20/1/14; col. 1236.]
It was building on that phrase “the essence of the reasons” that I have provided in my amendment for a summary of the reasons and not for the detail. I am aware that there may be security issues around that.
In Committee, the Minister gave a very long response to the group of amendments of which this was one—I think that there were 24 amendments—so it was quite an achievement to cover the ground. I fear that I did not manage to extract from the response a reply to this specific point. At the end of his reply, I asked him
whether some comments he was making applied to gisting, and he said that they did not. Therefore, it seemed to me appropriate to bring the matter back at this stage in the hope that I will hear that we could include something like this in the Bill but certainly in the hope of hearing a detailed defence of the Government’s position. I beg to move.