Shabana Mahmood

That conduct would not be caught. Again, I point the hon. Member to proposed new section 17B, where the combination of subsection (6)(b) and subsection (4) ensures that the work of NGOs is not caught by the tests set out. We have had specific advice on that point from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, I have discussed it at length with the Attorney General’s Office, and Law Officers have had a look at it. We believe that the way in which the Bill is constructed does not catch humanitarian activities. It is not intended to do so, and we have made it clear in the explanatory notes that it will not do so. Our reading of how the Bill is constructed means that it will not do so. Let me move on to the third offence in clause 2, which is of obtaining a material benefit from a designated body. An individual is outlawed from receiving a payment or a gift from a designated body either on their own behalf or on behalf of someone else. The very act of making the agreement would also constitute a crime even if no money were exchanged and no service were provided. That would cover a hacker hired to carry out a cyber-attack, a criminal gang commissioned to conduct arson attacks on British soil and a gang recruiting thugs to do their state-directed dirty work. Those two offences—assisting and benefiting from a designated body—would carry prison terms of up to 14 years alongside the sentences they may receive for any other illegal activity conducted, with sabotage and espionage offences carrying life sentences. To trigger the offences of assisting a designated body and of obtaining benefit from a designated body, an individual must know that they are aiding a body that has been designated or, crucially, ought reasonably to know that they are doing so. Ignorance is therefore not a defence. If a reasonable person should have been able to surmise who would benefit from such an attack, the individual will be prosecuted despite their professed ignorance. The new powers are significant—