Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Baroness Manningham-Buller

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I shall make a couple of topical points in support of the noble Lord, Lord Deben. This is very complex. In the old days, in a less complex world, we knew how to finesse these things in a common-law society. Now we are moving towards statute law. The French know how to disobey the law sensibly in view of local circumstances. They know that you cannot slavishly obey every rule. We have not learnt that yet, so we should be very careful about how we set the rules in case they are slavishly obeyed. Somehow blurring the boundaries is much more sensible. I am not sure that having this whole thing of national security quite works. We have seen photographers being stopped for photographing perfectly innocent targets in the name of national security. I am very worried about the way that certain people will use these rules to stop normal activities. We regard ourselves as a free country but, if we are not careful, we might cease to be free. We have to worry about how other people, less sensible than us, may interpret rules in a very strict way in the future.

[Baroness Manningham-Buller]

My Lords, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that I certainly did not say that I knew all there was to know on the subject. I understand the concern over the misuse of this phrase to which everyone has referred. No one in this Committee would support what happened to the son of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and his dog or the use of the phrase to cover embarrassment. These things are absolutely not to do with national security, which is being used as blanket cover.