Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord may say that we sold it too cheaply; I might say that he bought it too high, which is another way of looking at the £5.02. It is a fundamentally different bank to the one which was acquired then. The price which we sold at yesterday—271p—was near the top end of the present yearly average. We have signalled that we do not believe that a Government should be in the business of running these banks. The Chancellor announced in last year’s Autumn Budget that we would gradually dispose of our interest in the bank over the next five years, and that is what we are doing.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that the situation as advanced by the Opposition Front Bench and Liberal Benches is a complete distortion? The loss occurred when the decision was made to buy all the shares to support the interests of all the depositors in the bank at that time. The implication of the Question is that, if we hang on to the shares, we can be guaranteed a higher price later on. This procedure is entirely sensible. We bring in some money while we can: as we know, there are a lot more shares to go. We can continue to consider at what stage we get rid of the shares and sell them at the best price we can. That was when the loss was made, not now.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. There is a sense here of forgetting the history of what the situation was in 2008 and the incredible damage that was done to our economy—which we are still having to clear up so many years later. That is the reality of the situation. When the National Audit Office looked into how we would do this, the first sale was done on an accelerated book-build process, and it recognised that it offered value for money in the circumstances. However, the fact is that we are in these circumstances as a result of the realities of what happened in 2008, and we should not forget that.

Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I start on a rather personal note by saying to my noble friend how pleased I am—I think that the House will be too—that he is still in the job that he was doing so well before the last election. The House knows the care and consideration that he gives to this extremely difficult issue. Those of us who have tried to accelerate the process to get to where he is trying to get to now recognise the tremendous efforts that he made at that time.

I think that the House had better be ready for a pretty busy July and October, because the interest in this Bill is going to be massive. If we have a joint scrutiny committee of both Houses, then it goes to the Commons and then comes to the Lords, I think that the end of the summer is the earliest we can expect to see it here. My worry all the way through has been about the delay this involves and the risks facing this country. I was struck by the fact that two speakers on the Front Benches opposite both referred to TalkTalk, as though this was an interesting new development illustrating a new problem. I wonder what else may have happened before July and October that will condition our thinking about the range and number of threats that we face. I hope that I am not being too pessimistic, but we know that this is an extremely dangerous world.

I support the introduction of judicial authorisation, but, as somebody who used to sign a number of these warrants in my executive capacity as Secretary of State, the judges will, without question, need help in the early stages in understanding some of the background issues about national security with which they may not initially be familiar.

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to my noble friend. Of course, I recognise the work that he undertook, not only as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which led a lot of the work on this area, but thinking back to those heady days earlier this year when we were taking through the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which is now on the statute book. He is right about the urgency. DRIPA has a sunset clause of December. Sometimes I think that the House is at its best when its mind is focused. I think there is a general consensus that we need to get this in place so that those powers continue to be available and that they are strengthened and made more accountable. I believe the timetable that has been set out is quite achievable but it will require a lot of focus.

Surveillance Legislation

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I absolutely agree with the report. I received a copy of it yesterday when it was published, and it is a very readable document. It comes alongside the Anderson review, which is nearly 400 pages long, and the Intelligence and Security Committee report in the last part of the last Session. Taken together, in the round, they will enable the Joint Committee, which we hope will begin pre-legislative scrutiny early this autumn, to make faster progress than would otherwise be the case and therefore meet the important deadline of the sunset clause, to which the noble Lord rightly referred.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend’s Answer to the noble Baroness’s Question is exactly right. She is going to have the opportunity for a quite unprecedented amount of consideration of the important issue of whether warrants should be signed by judges or Secretaries of State. I welcome my noble friend’s answer that this will be discussed further against the RUSI report, the Anderson report and the pre-legislative scrutiny so that the public can see just how important these issues are and the importance that this House attaches to them.

[Lord Bates]

Absolutely, and I think we are all grateful to the business managers for having arranged time for that very important debate before the report from RUSI had actually been received. There were many helpful contributions in that debate, including those from the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who shared incredible insights from their practical experience of the dilemmas that are faced. On the issue of judicial authorisation of warrants, judgment was split: RUSI and the ISC were in favour of the status quo whereas David Anderson wanted to look at it. That will be work for the pre-legislative scrutiny committee whose deliberations will, of course, be published.

Investigatory Powers

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Let me begin by echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in his closing tribute to the men and women of our security services and the work they do day in, day out, often at significant risk to themselves, to prevent the types of atrocity that we have seen all too often around the world and on our streets here in the United Kingdom.

This debate was styled as a take-note debate, in the terms that we use in this House. I do not propose to respond to each of the points made, because that was not the purpose of the debate. The purpose was simply for noble Lords to bring their incredible experience, knowledge and insight to this forum, so that we could draw upon their comments, observations and questions as we begin the process of preparing a draft Bill for consideration here. Effectively, as I saw it, the debate moved between three stages. The first stage was to recognise the nature of the threat. That was brought into very sharp focus by frequent references to David Anderson’s report. I do not think I have ever previously responded to a debate in which the report that formed the subject of it has so frequently been the basis of the contributions to it. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, will be impressed from an academic standpoint by the number of citations of the report, which shows that it is an incredibly thorough piece of work. I pay tribute to Her Majesty’s Opposition for encouraging us to undertake it. It was absolutely right that we did.

The report outlined the threat before us and identified a determined and ruthless new emerging threat. We found that in the evidence and report by the Intelligence and Security Committee into the death of Fusilier Lee Rigby. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, gave us some insights into the sophistication of the technology and urged us to be agile in our responses to it. The noble Lord, Lord Blair, gave his reflections, in particular on those horrific attacks and planned attacks. The chilling thought of the Loch Lomond effect struck us significantly.

If the threat is there, the second question is: what are we to do about it? That was a very interesting debate. The contributions on law enforcement from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others were very important—that we talk about how we track this. I was conscious of the reference in the report by the former director of GCHQ, Sir Iain Lobban, who said in his valedictory speech that we must “enter the labyrinth”. As my noble friend Lord Blencathra reminded us, that labyrinth is getting more and more impenetrable. We were distinctly helped by my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones, who comes to this from a security perspective and is doing valuable work in informing our response to the cyberthreat facing not only commerce, but society. That complexity is a very important issue.

Let me respond to the contributors who asked whether we are having conversations with internet service providers and communications service providers. That is crucial—if noble Lords go to the appendix of the Anderson report, they will see the list of communications service providers that he interviewed. This is an ongoing process: at the Home Office we regularly meet with communications service providers, both domestically and internationally. Indeed, a senior Home Office official is in the US today holding meetings with companies. We also have my noble friend Lady Shields, who is from the world of social media. She is now Minister with responsibility for internet security.

We also had the very helpful work in 2014 of Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the Prime Minister’s special envoy on intelligence and law enforcement data sharing. His role was created to work with foreign Governments—precisely the point that was asked—and with communications service providers to provide access to data across different jurisdictions for intelligence and law enforcement purposes. Since Sir Nigel’s appointment the Government have expanded their dialogue with the companies but, despite some progress and co-operation, that remains incomplete. We all agree that we need to work on longer-term solutions. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, asked whether I had an update on Sir Nigel’s report, which was presented to the Prime Minister. As we set out in July 2014 when the position was announced, the role of the special envoy has been to conduct discussions and negotiations on data sharing. Any detailed advice relating to his work as a government special envoy remains internal civil service policy advice, helping Ministers to consider a full range of options. However, the Cabinet Office published a summary of his work on its website on 25 June.

The third question is: if the threat is real and serious as virtually all noble Lords have acknowledged it is, and if our police and security services need more powers, how do we ensure that we carry public trust with us? These points were focused on by the noble Lords, Lord Strasburger, Lord Scriven, Lord Blencathra and Lord Paddick. It must be stressed that there are two elements to this answer. First, there is a plethora of people—in fact, some may say too many—overseeing the work of our security services, including the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the Intelligence Services Commissioner and Surveillance Commissioners. All their reports are available in the Printed Paper Office. There is also the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to which I will come back in just a second, and the courts more generally. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, with his significant experience, clearly outlined the way they would approach these issues and the principles they would apply in so doing. The Information Commissioner also oversees this process.

A number of noble Lords referred to, and asked for comment on, the recent Amnesty International case that came before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to which I wish to put a response on the record. The tribunal made it clear in its judgment of 22 June that any interception that occurred was lawful, “necessary and proportionate”. We would caution against drawing conclusions from the tribunal ruling about the target of any such interception. A finding in favour of an individual or organisation does not necessarily mean that they themselves were the target. It could equally mean that they were simply in communication with the target. However, we can neither confirm nor deny specifics relating to this or any other case. I am sure that will not fully satisfy noble Lords, and perhaps plays into the caricature developed by the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, of what he anticipated we might say. However, the serious point is this: we should be proud of not only our security services but the vast swathe of individuals and organisations who diligently oversee the work carried out by our security services to ensure that it is done correctly.

I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whether I could provide some detail on the actual number of warrants that have been signed. I did have that figure to hand, but perhaps I will write to him setting out how this year’s figure compares with that of previous years.

In conclusion, I again thank all those who have contributed—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My noble friend did not answer the point that I raised. I think it is generally widely accepted that we are at risk in this country of terrorist attacks, and that at the moment our defences are not as strong as they could be. We believe that measures in legislation which could come forward would protect the nation from the sort of outrages that we have suffered in the past and would provide a better chance of protecting the country. The course on which the Government are now embarked is to go away and prepare legislation and then submit it for pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses, which will take some time. It seems to me that because of the initiative of the Opposition in initiating the Anderson report, on which I congratulate them, we have the most extensive preparation for this legislation: a report that has been very widely respected on all sides of the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who chaired the previous pre-legislative scrutiny Joint Committee, said that the Anderson report meets all the points that his committee wished to raise. Of course, I understand that there are points that still need discussion. One of them, as we know very well, is whether there should be judicial or ministerial approval. But if we have another Joint Committee, it will rehearse the arguments, which are already very well rehearsed, and it will come back to a decision of Parliament. Parliament will have to decide some of the issues that are outstanding.

The advantage of the course that I am advocating is that unless we really want to go down this very extended route, we could actually have better protection in place for all the citizens of our country sooner if we now go ahead, prepare the Bill—drawing on all the advantages of having the Anderson report available—and then put it to both Houses to decide those issues that, I absolutely accept, remain outstanding; they are a matter of debate, and can be decided by votes of both Houses. I say to my noble friend, who has given an admirable response to the debate so far, that I hope the Government will consider whether we really need to have a further, second pre-legislative scrutiny committee, which will take time and leave the country at risk for longer than I believe is necessary.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend speaks with great authority and experience. He is right to urge us to move as quickly as we can, given the statements that he quoted from the Home Secretary, which were made before the last election under the previous Government, about every day that goes by without these powers. A process has been set out here and the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have been very clear that because of the importance of taking people with us and, as far as possible, being able to bring this forward in a cross-party way—not just cross-party, but of course including the Cross-Benchers in this House—we ought to be seen to be going through a very thorough process. That involves basing it on the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Anderson report, the RUSI report which is to come and the debates that have been scheduled ahead of time in both Houses before the Recess. There will then be a period to reflect on that over the Recess and the Government can then come forward with a draft Bill that I hope, because it has been deliberated over, will not be subject to the type of criticism that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, levelled at the previous Bill. On the basis of that, one might therefore hope or think that the period of time for pre-legislative scrutiny might be shortened, and that the period of time for scrutiny through the House might be quicker than it otherwise would have been had it not been for all the evidence, reports and consideration that have gone before.

I know my noble friend will not accept that answer fully but I hope he will accept that it is an answer and a position which we have taken with great care and consideration to ensure that, as we progress down this path towards reform and to new legislation, which will go much beyond RIPA’s sunset at the end of 2016, we will carry people with us, that it will be better legislation as a result, and that we will progress down that road in a position of trust between those who carry out those duties and the citizens of this country—

Communications Data

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

If that were the case, it certainly would be; but my day-to-day experience in the House of Lords is that that could not be further from what is actually happening. We are not steamrollering any legislation through; in fact, we are going through an exhaustive process. David Anderson has taken a year to produce his report. In the mean time, we have had the Intelligence and Security Committee’s detailed report, and we are awaiting a RUSI report. We have had Sir Nigel Sheinwald’s report to the Prime Minister, and we have pledged that there will be pre-legislative scrutiny. If that is a steamroller, I am not quite sure what some of the other legislative processes are.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

We discussed these matters in the previous Parliament at some length in connection with the counterterrorism Bill, and the urgency and importance of the issue—that our defences are seriously at risk—was recognised by the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary. New means of communication—the internet, telephony and others—that are outside our present reach can be used by terrorists in particular. These are matters of some urgency. While I certainly do not think that the Government can be remotely accused of steamrollering, the Bill in question has already been produced in draft and been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. My concern is: how long are we going to take before we take the steps, agreed on both sides of the House in previous debates, which are very necessary for the defence of our country?

Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications Data: Code of Practice) Order 2015

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I do not want to be drawn too much, at this stage, into the content of it. I have said that I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and clarify that point. The noble Lord, Lord West, is absolutely right. Here, I tread very carefully, with my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater waiting in the wings, but the communications data Bill, which David Anderson is undertaking a review on—he will report on 1 May—will need to be considered urgently. The types of deep web communications within the communications data Bill were felt to be an important part of providing our security services with the ability that they need to tackle the growing terrorist threat against us. That will be returned to as a matter of urgency in the new Parliament.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

I am grateful for what my noble friend the Minister said. I think that he covered it in his opening remarks. I understood him to say that, as we go forward, both sides of the House now recognise the need for urgent legislation. I think that Mr Alan Johnson has just joined the club of people saying how impermanent this is. In that case, we have to make clear that there will probably need to be some form of revision of the code of practice to take account of what new forms might come forward. There is not much doubt about the speed with which they are coming forward through social media, WhatsApp and the other things that are happening. Probably a few more that we have never heard of will be in operation by the time that we tackle this legislation.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. If there is new primary legislation, it is likely that what will follow is new secondary legislation. If there is new secondary legislation, it is almost certain that the codes that we are talking about today will need to be updated to reflect that. However, I have given undertakings that I will write to noble Lords and I give my appreciation to them for their comments.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Monday 2nd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord will recognise that I am a little too junior to actually write the manifesto. What I can say for absolute certain is that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have made clear, in the most forthright terms, their personal belief that this legislation is needed and that it must be introduced as a matter of urgency in the new Parliament. I hope that that will deal with some of the scepticism which there might be about the power.

I was trying to set out that there is a particular legislative need. Whatever Government are there after the general election, they will have to start to do something very early on, simply because it will take seven to nine months to actually get it in place. However, when it does start, it will start with due consideration of the Joint Committee’s work and the excellent work of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. It will start with the excellent debates and consideration that we have had, thanks to my noble friend’s putting forward these amendments in Committee and now again on Report. It will have the benefit of the input of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, of the Intelligence and Security Committee and of other individuals who work in this area. It will be a better piece of legislation for that, providing that it is enacted.

With these comments, I am trying to be as frank as I can in explaining, in a transparent way, where we have got to—where we are—and where we need to be as a matter of urgency in the next Parliament. I hope that my noble friend will see that the Government are grateful for his urging and that we have responded by being more forthright than perhaps we have been before about our intentions. In that spirit, I hope that he will feel reassured enough to be able to withdraw the amendment at this stage.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, we have had another most excellent debate in what the whole House, I believe, recognises is an extremely serious and dangerous time. It is right that the House should be addressing this issue. I start by thanking the Minister for the way he has responded successively to two very important debates, first in Committee and now on Report. I thank him also for the extremely courteous and constructive way in which he has responded to the representations that I and other noble Lords have made. I thought that we were going to fall out for a moment, because I thought he said I had been tendentious—but I was corrected very quickly by my noble friend beside me, who told me that the word he had used was “tenacious”, which is certainly much more acceptable.

I will just address some of the comments that have been made. I do not mean to be unkind to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but he rather repeated the speech that he made in Committee. He spent some time criticising the amendments we have put down, but these are not the amendments that we wanted to move. As he knows, we tried to change them but the Government did not feel able to co-operate in that respect, so we had to make do with what we had. I also draw some comfort from this quote from his own Joint Committee’s report:

“Our overall conclusion is that there is a case for legislation which will provide the law enforcement authorities with some further access to communications data”.

I will be the first to say that that sentence then has various other qualifications about the need for improvement—the committee had lots of worries and concerns about it—but that is the basis on which we went forward.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Jones answered the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, very well. The noble Lord’s weekend of research brought out very clearly how difficult this issue is, how complicated it is and how much will have to be done before this can actually be brought in. Some might argue that if you have all those complications before this gap—which has been generally recognised to exist—can be closed, leaving open the inability of our country and our security agencies to necessarily meet the threats that they may face, then we had better get cracking on that now. Dealing with the international complications and the issues around encryption are very important points which need to be dealt with.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, who I get the impression is against the idea of having any Bill at all—although I may be misrepresenting her—slightly misrepresented the position taken by the noble Lord, Lord Blair. He did not say that the terrorist attack in Spain caused the change of government. He made a very interesting point that I had not quite focused on. In the context of the time in which we live, as we move towards an election, I understood him to be referring on the Spanish connection to the way in which terrorists have often used election time, a time of political uncertainty, to cause an outrage. That would appear to have been the case in Madrid.

Our debate has brought out some general concerns. I do not think that there was any argument whatever about the threat. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, made a most interesting and constructive speech on the challenges that have to be faced, including the challenge of looking at both sides of the problem. Of course, we are aware at all times of the risks of overstepping the mark and of alienation. I lived through a time in Northern Ireland when the measure of internment without trial—a necessary measure at one time—had undoubtedly significantly increased the problems of terrorism that we then had to face. We in this House and others have a responsibility as legislators to get that balance right.

I am impressed by the statements of the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition, the shadow Home Secretary, the Home Secretary and both Front Benches, who make no apology for saying that the threat is severe. That is its standing at the moment. For anybody who did not understand what “severe” meant, those statements were made before events in Paris and Belgium. We are undoubtedly in a time when we need to be able to ensure that our defences are as strong as we can make them.

I understand that it is unusual for such a substantial amendment to be put down at the Committee stage of a Bill in this House. I was not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was suggesting that it is for this House only to do modest revisions to what comes from the Commons and not for it to be on occasions an initiator, inviting the Commons to give their views on what we are putting forward. I certainly do not sit in this House on the implication that I am not allowed to initiate good ideas if I think them necessary, particularly if I think that they will support the security of our nation—but I may have read too much into that.

What we have got out of this debate is not, unfortunately, co-operation on the tabling of more up-to-date amendments which might have given the House of Commons a chance to consider whether they could be incorporated in the Bill. We now move forward to an uncertain time: an election time with no certainty as to who the Government may be or how long it will take to undertake any of the new legislation which I think everybody—certainly, all those in positions of responsibility in the major parties—believes is essential. At such a time, we have to ensure that in every way we can we give support to our security and intelligence agencies in their work. My noble friend Lord Howard said in debate on an earlier amendment that the security of the nation is the first responsibility of the Home Secretary. She has made it absolutely clear that she wishes to see this legislation in place as soon as possible but has set out her own timetable for it. I am quite clear what the positions of the Government and the Opposition are in not supporting these amendments, but at least we have given the opportunity for these matters to be thoroughly examined.

I do not think that when this Parliament resumes, in whatever guise it is, people will have any excuse for not knowing what the strength of feeling is on this issue. I think that a number of us, who fortunately do not have to stand for election, will be on their tails in this matter. We will be able to resume the charge and try to ensure that, at the earliest possible opportunity, the security of our nation is supported in the best way we can. Against that background, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Monday 26th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Seven—

[Lord Bates]

His seven years’ experience there, as the noble Lord tells me, and seven years as chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee add additional weight to what the noble Lord says. We will listen very carefully to what has been said.

There does not seem to be much doubt about the threat that is faced. The threat that we face was very eloquently put in a number of contributions: the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, talked about the evidence used in real convictions; cases of communications data were given by the noble Lord, Lord Evans; and some practical, real-life examples were given by the noble Lord, Lord Blair. There are some very strong arguments that show that there is a need for us to look again at communications data.

Then of course we heard from my noble friend Lord Blencathra and we heard from the committee which reviewed the original legislation. It is important to get on record that elements of the original draft Bill considered by the Joint Committee are contained in this Bill. The IP resolution element was something that was in the draft Bill. It is not something that has been shelved; we felt that we could bring it forward with the necessary safeguards and it was brought forward. The noble Lord’s hesitations and questions very much remain, and we are very much committed to working with him and will seek to address his particular concerns.

I want to come back to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, mentioned. I preface these remarks—context is all with this—by saying that, first, we have to get a message out to people that we are talking about, in all of these things, the actual communications data and not the content. The content of the data will rightly require, whether it is an e-mail or a telephone call or an envelope, a warrant in order to be looked into. What we are talking about is tracking the communications data.

In the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, which went through last year on a fast-tracked basis, Section 7 of that relatively short Act provides that:

“The Secretary of State must appoint the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation to review the operation and regulation of investigatory powers. … The independent reviewer must, in particular, consider … (a) current and future threats to the United Kingdom … (b) the capabilities needed to combat those threats … (c) safeguards to protect privacy … (d) the challenges of changing technologies … (e) issues relating to transparency and oversight … (f) the effectiveness of existing legislation (including its proportionality) and the case for new or amending legislation. … The independent reviewer must, so far as reasonably practicable, complete the review before 1 May 2015”.

If we had such a review from David Anderson before your Lordships’ House at this point, that would be of immense benefit in reaching these judgments. Your Lordships have touched on all the areas on which the independent reviewer has been asked to undertake a review and report. Those are the pertinent issues which have concerned Members who have spoken in this debate.

In the view of the Home Secretary, in the view of the Prime Minister and certainly in my view, the case is made for a communications data Bill to come forward. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, asked us to set out the clear road map as to how we were actually going to proceed. The road map has already begun. It began with the data retention elements in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act last year and it continues in the counterterrorism Bill which is before your Lordships’ House. As a result of that legislation, it will require action once the report from the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation is received. In reality, that will probably mean that, very early in the new Session of Parliament, the House will have to turn its mind to this. Certainly, it is the absolute intent of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary that it should do so as a matter of urgency.

Some people have said that that will necessarily take a year, or a year and a half, to the period of the sunset clause, but we do not anticipate that it will be necessary to take that long at all. In fact, as far as this counterterrorism Bill is concerned, which is perhaps a wider measure as far as others are concerned, we have managed to move this through, albeit at pace, but it will still have gone through scrutiny in a period of, say, three to four months from its introduction in the other place to its receiving Royal Assent, should your Lordships choose to pass the Bill.

So our position would be one of being deeply appreciative to my noble friend for introducing these amendments and of being particularly grateful for the quality of the debate and the contributions—

Terrorist Attack in Paris

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord King of Bridgwater

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

This goes to the heart. We need to separate the issues. There can never be any excuse under any terms whatever for people using violence to raise a point. In fact, in many ways the spirit of Paris on that dreadful day was best represented by the Muslim police officer, a personal protection officer, who was murdered defending one of the journalists at Charlie Hebdo who had been under attack. It is that spirit of service that we ought to highlight. We may disagree with people, but we defend absolutely their right to speak. That is the spirit we should carry forward.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Does my noble friend recognise that while there were criticisms of the Government for bringing in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which they did well before the events in Paris, I do not think there is much criticism now of the need for steps to be taken in recognising the importance of introducing those measures? Those of us who are the survivors of last night’s marathon will recall the words of the impressive maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, a former director-general of MI5, who said that the threat level now is greater but our capacity to meet it is less. I challenge my noble friend on what he said at the end in reply to the question about the communications data Bill. We still have three months left of this Parliament. This should not be a party-political issue. These issues are our vital to our intelligence services. It does not matter how many boots we have on the ground; intelligence is our safeguard and our defence in those issues. We must ensure that in the present very dangerous situation the intelligence services have the resources they need. In the three months we have left, I hope the Government will consider that we could still do that and make sensible progress in this area.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord brings immense experience to this, not least from his chairmanship of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the oversight committee. He makes an interesting point. I repeated the Home Secretary’s Statement in which she that there is no cross-party agreement. Should that cross-party agreement emerge—of course, in your Lordships’ House party affiliation is only part of the picture as there is a distinguished coterie of expertise on the Cross Benches—then all things are possible.