Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

This significant Bill has the potential to overhaul the framework that governs the use of surveillance by the intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies in obtaining the content of communications data, and it will clearly continue to garner much serious and forensic debate.

Members will clearly have their own stance on the Bill, given their knowledge of certain areas. In that vein, I would like to look at it, not as a lawyer, but as somebody who provided plenty of business to lawyers—as a former Metropolitan police counter-terrorism officer and National Crime Squad officer. I will therefore look at the issue from an organised crime and operational law enforcement perspective.

The legislation governing much of the framework on the powers of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to intercept communications—the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000—is no longer fit for purpose. I have spent many an hour burning the midnight oil trying to construct applications under the Act, and it is not easy.

When the Act was created, broadband internet barely existed; now, we have iPhones, which were a real game-changer for law enforcement, because people could access the internet almost anywhere. Indeed, end-to-end encryption is now so widespread that it is coming to a point—indeed, it may even be at a point—where some criminals are untouchable. That simply cannot be allowed to continue.

If I do nothing else in my three minutes, I should say that equipment interference is a key part of the Bill. There are hardly any investigations into major crimes that do not require equipment interference—it is that crucial to building up a pattern of criminality, determining links between people and organisations and providing key evidence to investigate and prosecute crime. Many cases I was personally involved with used equipment interference, including cases involving major currency counterfeiting, drugs importation and firearms importation. Many of the criminals involved in such cases are not caught in a matter of days; it takes months and years to build a picture of their movements and associates, and the Bill will support that.

In 1829, one of the joint commissioners of the Metropolitan police, Sir Richard Mayne, said:

“The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime”

and the detention and arrest of offenders. With that in mind, we must give law enforcement agencies the tools to do their job. There is an operational need for changes to the law. The three reviews have clearly stated that law enforcement agencies need powers to access communications and data about communications.

There has been no Paris in this country, I am pleased to say. British law enforcement is renowned as the best at intelligence gathering. If, God forbid, something did happen here, Opposition Members would be the first to ask the Government why they did not do anything. This is an opportunity to do it tonight.