Overview of the Structure of the Act
7.This Act is in 7 parts.
8.Part 1 of the Act brings forward measures on temporary restrictions on travel. Chapter 1 provides police officers, designated immigration officers and customs officials, and Border Force officers acting under the direction of a police officer, with a power to search for and seize a passport at the border and retain it for a period of time, when it is suspected that an individual is travelling for the purpose of involvement in terrorism-related activity outside of the United Kingdom. Chapter 2 provides for the creation of a temporary exclusion order to disrupt and control the return to the UK of a British citizen reasonably suspected of involvement in terrorist activity abroad.
9.Part 2 of the Act amends the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011. The provisions allow the Secretary of State to require a subject to reside in a particular location in the UK; restrict a subject’s travel outside their area of residence; prohibit a subject from obtaining or possessing firearms, offensive weapons or explosives; and require a subject to meet with specified persons or persons of specified descriptions as part of their ongoing management. It also amends the wording of the test for issuing a TPIM and amends the definition of terrorism-related activity in the TPIM Act.
10.Part 3 amends the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. It enables the Secretary of State to require communications service providers to retain the data that would allow relevant authorities to identify the individual or the device that was using a particular internet protocol address at any given time.
11.Part 4 of the Act brings forward a number of measures on border and transport security. These provisions extend the scope for authority-to-carry (“no fly”) schemes; allow the Secretary of State to make regulations in relation to passenger, crew and service information; and to give directions in relation to security measures to aviation, shipping or rail transport operating to the UK. The Act also introduces powers to make regulations which impose penalties for failure to comply with requirements to provide passenger, crew and service information; an authority-to-carry scheme; or, in the case of aircraft, screening requirements.
12.Part 5 addresses the risk of being drawn into terrorism. Chapter 1 creates a duty for specified bodies to have due regard, in the exercise of their functions, to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. It also gives the Secretary of State a power to publish guidance to which specified bodies must have regard when fulfilling this duty. The legislation puts the existing Prevent programme on a statutory footing. Chapter 2 provides that each local authority must have a panel to provide support for people vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. The legislation puts the existing voluntary programme for people at risk of radicalisation on a statutory footing (in England and Wales this is the “Channel Programme”).
13.Part 6 of the Act makes amendments relating to the Terrorism Act 2000. Section 42 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 to provide that an insurer commits an offence if they make a payment under an insurance contract for money or property handed over in response to a demand made wholly or partly for the purposes of terrorism, when the insurer knows or has reasonable cause to suspect that the money has been handed over for that purpose. This clarifies the intent of the original legislation to prohibit such payments. Section 43 introduces Schedule 8, which amends paragraph 9 of Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding the power to examine goods at ports and the border, together with amending other enactments relating to that power. The amendments in this Act clarify the legal position in relation to where this power may be exercised and the examination of goods which comprise items of post.
14.Part 7 of the Act relates to miscellaneous and general provisions. In the miscellaneous provisions, sections 44 and 45 make amendments to the role of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation by extending his statutory remit to cover other counter-terrorism legislation, including Part 1 of this Act. They also amend the reporting arrangements for the Independent Reviewer, requiring him to set out a work programme at the beginning of each calendar year specifying the matters which will be subject to review in the following 12 month period and to notify this to the Secretary of State or, in the case of reviews of the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc Act 2010, the Treasury. The Terrorism Act 2000 will continue to be subject to annual review. Section 46 provides a power enabling the Secretary of State to establish a Privacy and Civil Liberties Board which will support the statutory role of the Independent Reviewer. Section 47 provides for the review of certain naturalisation decisions by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission; specifically applications for British Overseas Territories citizenship. The general provisions at sections 48 to 53 relate to matters such as consequential amendments and territorial extent.