Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Rogan

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones—sorry.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I must admit that I am somewhat baffled by the Minister’s response. The argument on the technical advisory board seems to be, “Oh, we’ve got enough technical advice, so we don’t need one”—but, clearly, it seems that there is a need for this. I quoted providers—I can go into the papers that we have received from them—as saying that real issues arise out of the regulations. These are technical and relate to things such as patches and audit and monitoring issues. There is a feeling that the department is just not listening on those issues, and what is needed is someone who is rather more dispassionate and can advise on the technical issues that are arising—perhaps, if it is seen as a conflict, someone like the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, who can genuinely advise on this kind of thing. It seems to me to be extraordinarily dismissive to say, “We’ve got enough advice. We don’t need a board of this kind”.

In the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, there is a very useful technical advisory board—it is not usable for this purpose because its function is rather different under that Act. When the Minister comes to the point about the judicial commissioners, saying, “Oh, no, they are for an entirely different purpose”, I say that, actually, if you read their function, it is four square with the kind of thing that would be useful under this Bill. They are talking about not technical issues but proportionality, appropriateness and so on—very much the kind of thing that they are dealing with under the 2016 Act.

So I am afraid that I do not buy what the Minister has to say, sadly; I just think that it is pushback based on the thinking that, “Well, the Bill’s the Bill and it’s all drafted, so we don’t really want to do very much with it by way of amendment”. That is the time-honoured government response to this kind of suggested amendment, but I believe that, constructively, both these aspects—a judicial commissioner and a technical advisory board—would make a great difference to the functioning of the Bill and would lead to much better regulations and codes of guidance at the end of the day.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)]

I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lord, until the Minster replied, “nuance” was the word being used in the context of information being provided and required and so on. I am afraid that nuance was completely lost in that response. The response to Amendment 14 was that the NCSC, the Government, the Secretary of State and Ofcom know best and that is it. They have to release the information. They do not believe there are any circumstances where it should not be released. It is all there in the NCSC guidance and well, too bad—tough. That seemed to be just about the Government’s position. That is pretty extraordinary considering that the relationship with the providers is extremely important, particularly in these circumstances where there have been breaches. We have heard from noble Lords during the debate that the timing of giving the information is important but the very fact of giving the information may also be important. I am afraid that is part 1 of a rather depressing response.

Part 2 was almost worse because the amendment being put forward is the mildest possible one. Ofcom must consult the provider in question

“where reasonably practicable to do so.”

As for the idea that this is going to lead to horrendous delay, the Minister really had to scrape away to find a suitably negative response to that amendment. I am afraid that her response in both respects does not engage with the real issues and I think it is grossly unsatisfactory in the circumstances.