UK Offence Report

Foreign power threat activity and involvement in that activity

paragraph 33(3) of Schedule of The National Security Act 2023 (Sovereign Base Areas) Order 2024

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

3 References to acts or threats within this subsection are to—

a acts which constitute an offence under—

i section 1 (obtaining or disclosing protected information);

ii section 2 (obtaining or disclosing trade secrets);

iii section 3 (assisting

a foreign intelligence service);

iv section 4 (entering etc.

a prohibited place for

a purpose prejudicial to the United Kingdom or the Sovereign Base Areas);

v section 12 (sabotage);

vi section 13 (foreign interference: general);

vii section 17(1) (obtaining material benefits from

a foreign intelligence service);

b acts within subsection (4) in relation to which the foreign power condition is met;

c threats to carry out acts within subsection (4), where the foreign power condition is met in relation to the threats.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach paragraph 33(3) of Schedule?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the National Security Act 2023 (Sovereign Base Areas) Order 2024.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
2 October 2024
In force from
23 October 2024
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order in Council) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order extends to the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia certain provisions of the National Security Act 2023 (c. 32) (‘the UK Act’) with modifications for the Sovereign Base Areas. The Schedule to this Order sets out the provisions extended, in their modified form, to the Sovereign Base Areas. The numbering of provisions in the Schedule replicates that of the UK Act for sections and schedules, for convenience in referring to that Act, but the numbering of paragraphs within the schedules and of subsections within the sections does not replicate the UK Act due to the nature of modification required to extend those provisions. In particular, the provisions as extended in the Schedule: create offences to safeguard protected information and trade secrets and criminalise assisting a foreign intelligence service (sections 1 to 3), establish a separate regime to protect sensitive sites from espionage and other state threats by criminalising specified conduct in relation to those sites and providing powers to police officers to deal with such conduct (sections 4 to 11), create an offence of sabotage to capture state-linked saboteurs (section 12), create offences to protect against foreign interference (sections 13 to 15), create offences relating to material benefits obtained from foreign intelligence services (section 17), create an offence relating to preparatory conduct (section 18), provide to police officers powers relating to entry, search and seizure (section 23 and Schedule 2) and arrest (section 27 and Schedule 6), and allow for courts to make disclosure orders (section 24 and Schedule 3), introduce a duty for a court to consider whether it is appropriate to reduce an award of damages to reflect terrorist activity on the part of a claimant in national security proceedings where an application is made by the Crown (sections 84 to 87), allow for freezing and forfeiture orders to be made by a court to prevent the payment of damages to a claimant where it is satisfied that there is a real risk of the funds being used for the purposes of terrorism (section 88 and Schedule 16), and repeal the Official Secrets Act 1911 (c. 28), the Official Secrets Act 1920 (c. 75) and the Official Secrets Act 1939 (c. 121) in the Sovereign Base Areas (section 94 and Schedule 18). Article 4 of this Order saves the repealed Acts for conduct taking place before 23rd October 2024, including offences suspected of being committed. An Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this Order. The territorial extent of this Order is the Sovereign Base Areas and no, or no significant, impact is foreseen on the private, voluntary or public sector in the United Kingdom.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.75.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “constitutes an offence”
Confidence
0.75 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source