Member

438: After Clause 213, insert the following new Clause— “Submarine Telegraph Act 1885: potential amendment of penalties(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend section 3(2)(a) of the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885 (punishment for violation of Article 2 of Convention) to substitute for the current penalty a term of imprisonment not exceeding 15 years and a fine at level 5 on the standard scale.(2) Regulations under subsection (1) may make such incidental, supplementary, consequential, transitional or saving provision as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(3) The Secretary of State must, within one year of the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a report—(a) assessing whether the penalties under section 3 of the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885 remain appropriate in light of the risk posed by sabotage of undersea cables forming part of the United Kingdom’s critical national infrastructure,(b) setting out the government’s decision on whether to exercise the power under subsection (1), and(c) if the government decides not to exercise that power, explaining whether it instead intends to bring forward alternative legislation to update the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885, including in relation to matters such as scope, extraterritorial application and interaction with other relevant enactments.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment targets serious sabotage of critical national infrastructure by conferring a power to increase Submarine Telegraph Act 1885 penalties to 15 years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine, aligning penalties more closely to the parallel offences relating to power cables. It requires a one-year report to Parliament on exercising that power or instead to bring forward alternative legislation to modernise the 1885 Act more comprehensively.