My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for highlighting this issue. I pay tribute to his many years on counterterrorism matters. I am very pleased to be able to respond.
As we heard, Amendment 156 would impose a duty on the Treasury to prevent the release of assets of an individual that have been frozen under various legislative regimes by using “all action necessary”, including considering the use of a designation under the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Act 2010. The Terrorism Act 2000, or TACT, already includes a number of criminal offences under Sections 15 to 18 for terrorist financing, including the use, possession or funding of assets in support of terrorist activity. Specifically, Section 23 of TACT provides for the forfeiture of money and/or property following a conviction for these and other terrorism offences. This means that assets can be frozen by way of a restraint order during the investigation and prosecution of such offences, and subsequently forfeited upon a successful conviction, ensuring that they are not available to terrorist organisations.
The element of the noble Lord’s amendment relating to compensation is also covered by paragraph 4A of Schedule 4 to TACT, which allows for the proceeds of the forfeiture of property to be paid as compensation to the victims of terrorism.
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Finally, the Bill is amending the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 to allow for the freezing and subsequent forfeiture of funds held in bank accounts that are terrorist cash or property. A court may forfeit the funds in a frozen account if it is satisfied that this is or represents terrorist cash or property. There are therefore already a considerable number of powers available to the police in these situations.
The Government are also concerned that, as drafted, the amendment raises human rights implications. In particular, it does not make sufficient provision for due process for individuals to challenge the action taken by the Treasury, and the threshold for the Treasury taking such action may not be sufficiently robust when compared with the standard applied under the provisions of ATCSA and TAFA.
On this basis, I hope the noble Lord will see that his proposed approach is not the right one in this situation. I will take back his point about the European Union and what could be done to that end, and I will get back to him on that. I hope he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.