Police given new powers to target hostile foreign agents
POLICE have been granted powers to stop and search individuals they suspect of being hostile foreign actors.
As of today, specially trained officers will be allowed to stop, question and, when necessary, detain and search individuals travelling through UK ports to determine whether they are involved in hostile state activity.
The new Schedule Three powers were introduced in the Counter-terrorism
and Border Security Act 2019 and created in response to the 2018 Salisbury nerve-agent attack.
The UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats, and the US expelled 60, in retaliation for the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March 2018.
Dawn Sturgess, a Salisbury woman, died after coming into contact with the nerve agent in a discarded perfume bottle. Charlie Rowley, her boyfriend, and Det Sgt Nick Bailey, a police officer, were left with serious health problems.
The Daily Telegraph understands that accredited officers granted the powers will at times be acting on intelligence regarding an individual. “It won’t just be a hunch,” a Home Office source said.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, warned that the powers had come into force at a time when “the threat posed to the UK from hostile state activity is growing and ever changing”.
“These new powers send a very clear message to those involved in it that this Government has zero tolerance for those acting against British interests,” she said. “But I am clear more must be done and we are developing legislation to bring our laws up to date and create new ones to stay ahead of the threat.”
Until now, an officer had to have a reasonable suspicion of any criminality in order to detain a person. “This is a power where you don’t need a suspicion threshold at UK ports,” the source added.
“It is a mirror power to Schedule Seven, which has been in place for 20odd years to deal with terrorism.”
In the Queen’s Speech, the Government announced plans to introduce legislation to provide security services and law enforcement agencies with the tools to tackle the evolving threat of hostile activity by foreign states.