Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, there are few moments of unalloyed joy in politics but being able to endorse the splendid remarks of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham in congratulating my noble friend Lord McLoughlin is one of them. I, too, remember that visit to Cardinal Griffin school in May 1970, over 50 years ago. I, too, remember the schoolboy coming to the Palace of Westminster. I remember him becoming a splendid local Conservative, having a poster with a miner’s hat when he fought his first constituency. I am always amazed that, when I left the House of Commons 10 years ago, he was my Chief Whip. I bid him welcome with all the warmth at my disposal.

It was very splendid also to have a maiden speech from the Front Bench. My noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton spoke with an elegiac love of his constituency. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay indicated, the rest of the speech was not entirely at his disposal; nevertheless, he delivered it with a calm rationality that made me feel that we have a true learned friend in our midst.

Having said all that, while putting on record that I believe that the Bill is necessary and support it, I am troubled. We have to look at this in the context of the times. We are, through no desire of anyone, living at the moment in a benign police state. I cannot go out this evening with my son for dinner; I cannot ask him round to my flat nor go to his home with his wife and children. We are in a very difficult situation. We have the Law Commission proposing that remarks made at the dinner table should perhaps be admissible in a court of law in the prosecution of a hate crime. We therefore have to be careful how far we go. That is why I am troubled, as others have said, about the number of agencies that are allowed to have, as it were, crimes committed in their name. I shall want to look at that very carefully in Committee.

I share the concerns of many colleagues about the position of children. Although it may be tempting to use children in dealing with ghastly county lines, we have to be careful about our overall responsibility for our children.

As we go through the Bill, which lends itself to the forensic examination that it needs and deserves in your Lordships’ House, we must be extremely careful. First, how many agencies can take advantage of it? I think that it is too many. Secondly, how is the regulation on the use of children controlled? Thirdly, we have to look carefully at whether there should be specific limits—as there are in Canada, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws—on the type of crimes that we can see committed in the interests of the greater good. That we need to protect our people from terrorism and terrible crimes is self-evident, but we have to be careful how we go.