Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Gower and Baroness Neville-Jones

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, especially Amendments 360 and 362, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friend Lord Holmes.

Like others, I welcome that the Government appear to have seen value in the introduction of a statutory defence for cyber security researchers. I hope that this will result in the updating of the Computer Misuse Act, for which, like others, I have been campaigning for about a decade. When it was passed, that Act was perfectly valid, but the market conditions, which have been described by colleagues, were extraordinarily different. As my noble friend Lord Holmes has rightly said, the Act is now not just neutral in the scene but actively doing damage to our national security.

The Act prevents or discourages those professionals whose work lies in researching things such as vulnerabilities in the system or threat intelligence from doing that work, because of the possibility of finding themselves in trouble with the law. It is therefore very important that we organise ourselves so that such challenges, if they exist, can be defended against as they come forward, and that the activities of our professionals can be both supported and encouraged.

I hope that, in drafting the legislation, the Government will ensure that they cover all aspects of this particular difficulty—not just vulnerabilities in the system but particularly threat intelligence, which, if we think about it for a moment, is becoming increasingly important. We need to know what is wrong with the system, and we need to know it early and before it is capable of doing real damage in each case.

This is an important amendment. When he replies, can the Minister give an assurance that the amendments that the Government will bring forward, I hope, will cover both the question of vulnerabilities and the issue of threat intelligence?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond for tabling the amendments in this group.

To start with Amendment 360, I welcome the noble Lord’s aims. When a crime is detected or prevented, it is a sensible principle that the individual responsible for detection or prevention should not be punished. That said, the amendment is perhaps too wide in its scope. It mentions nothing of proportionality, which leads me to worry that it could end up being used as a defence for an individual who has committed a far greater crime than that which they claim to have been preventing. Similarly, “public interest” is broad and undefined, and I would appreciate it if the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, could clarify what would fall under this defence.