Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord West of Spithead

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 11th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I can be brief on this, currying some favour, I hope, with the Government Whip that will be taken on board when I speak in a later group to my own amendments once more. It is a great privilege to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. Your Lordships heard it from him: when is a crime not a crime—when it has been pre-authorised with immunity attached in advance? That would be a difficult thing to explain to most members of public. However, it is not so difficult, perhaps, when you compare it with intrusions into our privacy, which is where this model comes from.

The complexities of this debate just make me sadder about where we got to in the previous one. We now have to decide about safeguards, because your Lordships have potentially created a breath-taking immunity. Under existing surveillance law, there are different models: it takes a magistrate to authorise an intrusive search of your premises; it takes a Minister to authorise the tapping of your telephone; yet inserting an undercover agent—more intrusive than either of those two measures, because a human will change your behaviour, not just monitor it—is internally authorised. Now, we have gone further, and a crime can be committed, authorised by the Executive, authorised by the police for their agents, authorised by the intelligence services for their agents, and so on.

Clutching at straws for safeguards, I have to support some kind of external authorisation at the very least. If it is good enough for search warrants and telephone taps, it must be even more necessary when criminal conduct, including violent conduct, might be authorised. As for which model, I have heard the arguments either way, and I tend to think political warrantry of something so politically dangerous is problematic, and it has proved so in the past. Former Government Ministers have written in their memoirs about how tired they were when, late at night, they were making endless intrusive surveillance authorisations. It is not about hollowing out the state; it is about trying to insert independence into the realm of criminal law. I admire the thrust of the eloquent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft: if Government are to do such a thing, they should take some responsibility, not just for legislation but for authorisations.

We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Butler, with his enormous experience, his prediction that there will be some low-level warrants here and a very large number of them. This would present a real problem if it was political warrantry, because Secretaries of State have a lot to do, and there are going to be a lot more warrants under this legislation than those limited to, for example, the security services.

These are all imperfect checks and balances but, on balance, at the moment I prefer judicial authorisation, even though that will, in my view, bring dangers for the judiciary. Post-notification authorisation is a very weak protection but, if it is to happen, I agree completely with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, that Amendment 33 without Amendment 34 is pretty much a nonsense.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. She kept me well aware of civil liberties for three years when I was the Minister with responsibility for security, counterterrorism and cybersecurity, and she did it with complete purity of purpose. I do not think that anyone should have a go at her for anything other than that, so it is a pleasure to follow her.

An awful lot has been said already and time is running short. I am strongly supportive of judicial oversight of these powers. Looking at the package of amendments before us, Amendment 33 appears to be a balanced and practical proposal, and I rather like it. However, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, has convinced me that, in a sense, it has to be looked at in conjunction with Amendment 34, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, because the two sit well together. The Minister needs to look at them, as together they would achieve what we want in this very sensitive area.

On Amendment 16, I have considerable sympathy with having a Minister involved, but there is an issue with how many things one has to sign. I found that, when I was a Minister, I had all the dross and had to pass the really meaty bits up to the Home Secretary, who seemed to think that she was rather overloaded anyway—and that was after I had taken a hell of a lot of the weight away. So there is an issue there.

We also need to look at the wording of that amendment very carefully. Saying that one of these people is “employed” is quite specific and tricky. Similarly, the wording of Amendment 23 is slightly unclear, and we need to be careful. However, the amendment that I really like is Amendment 33, probably in conjunction with Amendment 34.