Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I absolutely agree with the point about deterrence, and I have been making it in various debates. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, has been present at those debates, and the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, asked me about this during the previous Urgent Question we had on defence. We need to re-establish deterrence. We need people to know that there are lines which, if crossed, will result in consequences. Perhaps we have not given the priority to deterrence that we should have, but the noble Earl is right that it must play an appropriate part in future. Countries know that, with our allies, we stand up for certain things and that if those lines are crossed, there will be consequences.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register, as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. Do we not have to look at defence holistically? It has to be a whole-of-society response that includes the resilience of the nation to all sorts of attacks and measures that undermine our future. Unfortunately, that is about the scale of not merely of our Armed Forces but our investment in other resources to ensure that we are resilient. The reality is that the 2.5% figure is probably not enough just for conventional forces, let alone for that whole-of-society resilience. I hope the Minister is considering that and will discuss it with his Treasury colleagues.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Harris for his question. It is not just me who is considering that; the whole of government is considering the need for homeland resilience. Indeed, my noble friend has asked me about this issue on a number of occasions. Part of the remit of the defence review is to look at what we should do about homeland resilience; that is an important step forward. What do we do to prepare the population for the threats we may face in future? What about hybrid warfare? What about, as we have seen in Ukraine, attacks on critical national infrastructure? What about some of the other data breaches we have seen? These are wholly important issues to which we have perhaps not given the priority needed. My noble friend is absolutely right, and the defence review is looking at this. Homeland resilience will have to be a proper part of how we take our defence and security further in future.

Drones: RAF Bases

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I might build on the question from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, if I may—or not.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I think it is this side. I refer to my interests in the register as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. I too wanted to follow up the question from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. This is a widespread issue. Drones are comparatively cheap; they are easy to mobilise; they can be used, potentially, with an explosive or chemical or even a radiological payload; and they can be used for hostile surveillance. There are all sorts of uses, not just by hostile nations, but by criminal gangs and terrorists and so on.

This is not just a question for national defence against national defence assets, but it must be a question of the police around the country having the appropriate equipment and facilities. Can the Minister reassure us that we are going to have that country-wide, whole-of-government response to the threat from drones, which, as we have seen in other countries, can be extensive?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really important point. The defence review will address national resilience. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, has also said, of course air defence means missiles and other things in the conventional way in which we interpret that term. It also includes being able to deal with low- tech mass efficiently and cost effectively. Clearly, we will need to address that—and we will—as the hybrid threat and the low-cost, low-technology threat will be part of the warfare of the future.

Defence Policy: Deterrence

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue. I will talk about deterrence in the broadest sense. In so doing, I declare my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission.

Deterrence is not just about the ability to hit back hard against an aggressor, thereby making that aggression less likely. It is also about demonstrating a level of preparedness against the threat posed and a degree of resilience to recover quickly from any attack mounted. The first duty of government is to keep the country safe and protect its citizens. That is an essential platform on which the nation’s economic growth and prosperity depend.

Increasingly, hostile states pursue their objectives in the grey zone between peace and open conflict. Conventional campaigns are supplemented or preceded by tactics of hybrid warfare involving cyberattacks, campaigns of misinformation and disinformation, and disruption to civil infrastructure, the economy and the vital services on which citizens and communities depend. For example, we have seen a spate of unexplained fires in installations around Europe, and in the past 24 hours have read the news with great interest in that context.

Such grey-zone operations may take place without any associated conventional military activities. They are often conducted by proxies, non-state actors or groups that may be state-controlled, state-sponsored or state-tolerated; or they may be conducted by covert means. They may be plausibly deniable and, although they may fall below the threshold of armed conflict, their consequences are likely to be just as serious as those of a more conventional attack.

Recent years have seen attacks on undersea cables and fuel pipelines; cyberattacks by state-sponsored actors, such as those leading to the SolarWinds hack in 2020 or the Hafnium attack in 2021; the jamming and spoofing of navigation satellite systems; and various sorts of drone activity, which of course can be conducted from hundreds of miles away. A preparedness to respond effectively to such attacks, or to recover quickly from them, makes them less worth while for the adversary and therefore helps to deter them.

The consequences of these grey-zone activities are not just immediate or limited only to recovering from the event itself. Of course there are costs involved in addressing the immediate challenge but, more seriously, there may be a weakening of the nation’s ability to respond effectively to other attacks. More significantly, such attacks and the failure to deal with them effectively may undermine public confidence in the state and the ability of the Government to protect their citizens. That would be a win for any adversary.

Similarly, the objective of misinformation and disinformation campaigns is to sow discord and undermine faith in a legitimate, democratic Government. Such campaigns are fuelled by social media and ever more sophisticated applications of artificial intelligence, but the intent is to undermine citizens’ faith in their Government and the democratic process itself.

Dealing with such challenges may not necessarily involve a military response. It will need a response from the rest of government, local authorities, emergency services and, indeed, the whole of society. Such a level of preparedness and resilience is an essential part of the nation’s defence capability, and it has to be a key component of modern deterrence.

King’s Speech

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, particularly for the very apt and interesting comparison that he concluded with. I declare my role as chair of the National Preparedness Commission.

The tone of today’s debate has been very clear. I think your Lordships all acknowledge that the world is closer to widespread war than at any time in the last 60 years, with the conflict in the Middle East, in Israel and Gaza, now threatening to involve Lebanon and Yemen. We have already seen Iran and Israel trading missiles, and they are both nuclear-capable powers. There is also Russia’s bloody and cynical invasion of Ukraine.

Let us be clear: the established world order and the post-war certainties are rapidly changing. The United States is becoming more isolationist as it surrenders its global economic supremacy, with a threat to its commitment to NATO after the elections in November, while the “deadly quartet”, as somebody called them, are becoming closer all the time.

China is investing huge sums in the critical infrastructure of Africa, Asia and Europe, buying up controlling interests in critical minerals and at the same time becoming increasingly bellicose towards Taiwan, on which we rely for semiconductors. Russia’s attacks are both kinetic, as in Ukraine, and hybrid—ask the Baltic states or Scandinavia. Remember the disruptions to pipelines or internet cables and the cyberattacks by state-tolerated groups—we have suffered some of those in the UK—to say nothing of the bot factories spreading and magnifying misinformation and disinformation. Those attacks are grey zone; they are deniable, but they are real. If they reduce the faith of our population in our elected Government and their competence, or if they undermine confidence in democracy itself, that is job done by the people who perpetrate them.

So, of course, we must be prepared to defend ourselves against the threat of war. For that, we need conventional forces and an enhanced defence budget, but we must also prepare for non-conventional disruptions inspired and caused by our enemies. A resilient nation that has preparedness built into its fabric is a nation that can recover from attacks of whatever nature. That very resilience and preparedness act as a deterrent against those who mean us harm.

The gracious Speech was based on the principle of security for all, on the basis of stability. That must mean that our other objectives should be safeguarded against being disrupted or blown off course by external challenges, whether malicious and state led or from any other cause. It means that our defence agenda must also embrace not only military threats but all the other 89 acute risks outlined in the national risk register.

Last week’s report from the inquiry of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, into the handling of the Covid pandemic showed how ill prepared we were for a risk that had been at the top of that register since its first publication in 2008. It is a national imperative that we are better prepared to respond to our increasingly volatile and unpredictable world.

That includes the extreme weather events that we are increasingly experiencing as a result of climate change. Climate change will trigger mass displacement of peoples around the world—1 billion people by 2050 —with disruption of supply chains, food supplies and everything else, and the political instability that will go with it and spill over national borders and into this country. At the same time, our critical infrastructure is ageing. Much of it is from the 19th century, inadequately maintained for decades and designed for climate parameters very different from those we now experience.

The first duty of any Government is to protect their citizens. The compelling reason for investing in resilience and preparedness is to safeguard the world our children and grandchildren will inherit. That must be at the heart of our future strategy. Defence, resilience and preparedness must go hand in hand. They must be at the core of the Government’s defence and security review. Preparedness and resilience must be a central role of all government, every department and every agency—whole of society, whole of government. Our future depends on it.

Ukraine

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I assure the noble Viscount that we have agreed mechanisms in place to ensure that these weapons will be used within Ukrainian territory to disrupt Russia’s ability to strike Ukrainian civilians and critical national infrastructure, and to relieve pressure on Ukraine’s front lines. It might be helpful for him to know that this capability is subject to the missile technology control regime. On that basis, we have in place a Government-to-Government assurance with Ukraine to facilitate the transfer.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, clearly, the whole House is behind the support that the Government are showing for the Government of Ukraine against the illegal attack from Russia. But clearly, the more that we are at the forefront of that, the more likely it is that we may be subject to some form of retaliation, whether explicitly or by grey zone means, to which it would be difficult to attribute the reasons concerned. For example, as we know from the past year or so, there has been interest from Russian submarines in the undersea cables that come into this country, and there have been issues around the pipelines. All of these things go on all of the time. Could the Minister give us some reassurance, without going into too much detail, as to the measures we are taking to deal with possible activities, potentially on a deniable basis, against us as a result of the support we are showing for Ukraine?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Lord poses an important question. Regarding recent activity, he is correct that Russian ships were operating in the North Sea. The Ministry of Defence constantly monitors activity within UK waters and the economic exclusion zone to counter and deter detected threats, and British warships frequently patrol and shadow foreign vessels throughout the UK marine area. Royal Navy vessels are routed through the North Sea where possible on increased surveillance of offshore oil and gas installations. In addition to our effective armed surface fleet, we also have multirole ocean surveillance vessels. HMS “Scott” is currently in service and operating, and very recently we made an off-the-shelf purchase to acquire at speed a new multirole ocean surveillance vessel, recently named RFA “Proteus”. It is currently being readied for operational activity, so I hope I can reassure your Lordships that we are vigilant about that threat.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 3rd December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick has added his name to this amendment. I want from these Benches to support the noble Baroness. At the previous stage of the Bill, I tabled a number of amendments, including to this clause, on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I am not suggesting that it has in any way abandoned concerns about the Bill, but I do not now speak on its behalf, simply because we have not had an opportunity to consider further where the Bill has got to.

One of those amendments would have imported “supports” rather than “supportive”. “Supportive” seems far more open to interpretation than “supports”, the former being much more subjective than the more active “supports”, which is, as the noble Baroness said, the term used in Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Like her, I looked back at the debate in Committee and noted that the term used by the Minister during much of it was “supports”.

New paragraph (b), adding recklessness or intention to “supports”, creates a new and separate offence, although it occurred to me only yesterday that we might have amended “a proscribed organisation” to “the proscribed organisation”.

The existing Section 12 offence is very direct, referring to “invites support”, and in the context of a meeting, albeit a small, private meeting. Under new subsection (1A)(a), it will be an offence to express an opinion without mentioning a proscribed organisation. Many people in this Chamber could probably advise me of the answer to the following question. If were to say that I could understand that a 15 year-old girl in London might find herself persuaded or groomed to travel abroad to support freedom fighters in an area where Daesh was active and there had been plenty of press reports of the situation—I refer noble Lords to the splendid novel Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie if they want to be provoked to think further about what might underlie such a situation—would I be committing an offence? The answer is probably not in this Chamber, but if I did so at a meeting at a university with a young audience, I am not sure what my position would be.

Turning to “reckless”, I believe that I would be unable to rely on a defence similar to that in the existing Section 12(4) of the Terrorism Act, allowing a person to prove, with the application of Section 118, that he or she had no reasonable cause to believe that an address to a meeting would support a proscribed organisation. I would be hard put to think of a context—which I think was the term used by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, at the last stage—other than something like this debate, where one could be fairly confident of expressing an opinion and not being reckless. The Minister in Committee focused on recklessness and said little about support or being supportive, so I look forward to hearing the response today.

Like the noble Baroness, we are not happy with how the Government appear to be moving against freedom of speech in this clause, but we have the opportunity here to make it somewhat more proportionate. I thought I should look at Article 10 of the Convention, on freedom of expression. Article 10.2 reminds us that the right is qualified— understandably, of course—in such a way as is,

“necessary in a democratic society”.

That phrase really struck home to me. I would like to think that what we are doing through the Bill is necessary in a democratic society. I am not persuaded by Clause 1 as it stands.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, in considering the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, we have to look at the two new paragraphs (a) and (b) together. In the Bill, the Government seek to eliminate various routes by which an ingenious individual who wants, in effect, to incite people to support a terrorist organisation might create a defence. It is a combination of the two new paragraphs that seems to me to be important. An individual might claim that that they are not supporting a terrorist organisation, but merely supportive of its objectives. They might express that supportive nature of the objectives in such graphic and bloodcurdling terms that it might be deemed to have an effect on those listening to those descriptions. But of course, if they then went on to claim that they had no intention of making people act and follow that particular terrorist organisation, they would be permitted to do so.

By including both being “supportive of” the general objectives and at the same time being reckless as to the consequences of that, the Bill seems to attempt to avoid those ingenious individuals proclaiming that in fact they are not encouraging people to join a particular terrorist organisation, but are merely being supportive of the objectives of that organisation and have no intention at all of making people take action on that. The fact remains that that they have been supportive of the organisation and at the same time reckless as to the consequences. My concern with the amendment is that it actually allows two routes by which people can claim a defence when they have clearly, in the most common terms, been trying to persuade people to support a terrorist organisation. That is why I think the combination of “supportive” with the reckless intent makes a degree of sense.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to say that it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and that I completely agree with him.

UK Territorial Seas: Incidents

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I would be more than happy to meet interested parties to discuss those concerns. This is an important element in the tapestry of activity on which we depend for maritime security. It is important to emphasise, as the noble Baroness is aware, that we rely not just on aerial surveillance, space-based systems, radar and so on, important as those things are; human intelligence is often important as well. There is now a network of field intelligence officers working for Border Force around the country. I would be happy to take this matter forward with the noble Baroness.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Earl for the briefing that was provided yesterday. The improvements that have come with the co-ordination activity are welcome, but it is co-ordinating limited resources, as the noble Earl has admitted. He talked about it being intelligence led. Perhaps he cannot share it with us, because it would be difficult, but can he ensure and guarantee the House that he, as the relevant Minister, will have an intelligence assessment of what is actually required to prevent illicit materials, guns, people and so on entering the country, and whether that is sufficient given the resource that is available?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, Ministers collectively will have that picture presented to them because, as I have explained, it is not just the Ministry of Defence that is involved in this sector. The Royal Navy is deployed, as noble Lords will be aware, very much in a supportive role to many of the other agencies. But I entirely take the noble Lord’s point. He may be interested to know that UK Border Force has introduced into service six new coastal patrol vessels in addition to the five cutters already in service, while continuing to call on a maritime patrol aircraft contract for aerial surveillance. But that is not the end of the story: we are looking at future needs across the piece.

Multilateral Disarmament

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I completely take the noble Lord’s point. It is early days to be thinking in those terms, although he is right to do so. It is encouraging that the November IAEA report to the board of governors confirmed that Iran remains compliant with the nuclear-related measures set out in the joint comprehensive plan of action. We welcome the findings of the DG’s report. We praised the IAEA for its progress and continued work on that very challenging task, but no doubt lessons and messages will emerge from that strand of work.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Earl has talked about the need to move towards multilateral disarmament, but there are stocks of fissile material in various parts of the globe. How confident is he that those stocks, which could be turned into nuclear weapons, are sufficiently secure to avoid them falling into the hands of aspirant nuclear powers or, worse still, non-state actors that might wish to possess such materials?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, that is clearly a constant concern and the noble Lord is right to raise it. Against that background, the UK continues to push for the early start of negotiations, without preconditions, on a fissile material cut-off treaty in the Conference on Disarmament. We supported a Canadian-backed resolution at the United Nations first committee on that topic, in October. In this country we have a voluntary moratorium on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other explosive devices. We have not produced fissile material for nuclear weapons since 1995.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 19th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 196A is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. It seeks to remove internet connection records from the type of communications data that can be acquired in bulk. Noble Lords will be very well aware of my views, and the agreed view of the Liberal Democrats, on internet connection records. We believe that they are unnecessary and disproportionate, for the reasons that I have articulated in detail throughout the passage of the Bill.

I shall just remind your Lordships what internet connection records mean. Internet service providers are being forced to keep a record of every website that everyone in the UK has visited in the last 12 months, whether the subscriber is suspected of crime or not. Even though only the first page of each website visited is shown, visiting www.relate.org.uk could, for example, immediately indicate that your marriage was in trouble. However there are some safeguards, including some concessions extracted by the Labour Opposition, to ensure that only the internet connection records of those suspected of crimes that could result on conviction in a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment or more can be examined by law enforcement agencies.

We are also grateful to the Labour Opposition for securing the review of bulk powers carried out by David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. We are particularly grateful to David Anderson for highlighting in paragraph 2.41(b), on page 33 of his report on bulk powers, that,

“it is not currently envisaged that the bulk acquisition power in the Bill will be used to obtain internet connection records”.

However, in a footnote at the bottom of that page, Mr Anderson states that he has been told,

“that this is no more than a statement of present practice and intention: neither the Bill nor the draft Code of Practice rules out the future use of the bulk acquisition power in relation to ICRs”.

In Committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, said:

“I can confirm to the Committee that the agencies do not currently acquire internet connection records in bulk and have no current intention to do so. It is however important to ensure that we do not legislate against the possibility of internet connection records being acquired in bulk, should agencies make a case which demonstrates that this might be necessary and proportionate in the interests of national security in future”.—[Official Report, 7/9/16; cols. 1087-88.]

Surely we should be legislating for a proven need, not not legislating against a possible but unlikely proven one.

Noble Lords will remember that the security services—GCHQ, MI5 and MI6—have all said that they do not need internet connection records in order to do their work. The power to acquire communications data in bulk, including the power to acquire ICRs in bulk, is available only to those agencies. The power to acquire internet connection records in bulk is therefore not needed. They are not collected in bulk at the moment, and there is no current intention to do so. If this were an opposition amendment to include ICRs in bulk data acquisition, the Government would quite rightly say it was unnecessary. The power to acquire ICRs in bulk also strips away all the safeguards that are in place when law enforcement agencies apply for individual internet connection records.

This is the online equivalent of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, which allowed the police to stop and search people without any reasonable suspicion. The former Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, Theresa May took that power away from the police because she considered it disproportionate.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

Surely Section 44 was for target hardening and deterrence rather than for any other purpose.

[Lord Paddick]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, but that is not what I understood Parliament’s intention was when the legislation was enacted. We can argue the point. If the analogy with stop and search sounds familiar to noble Lords next to me, including the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, it is because it is an analogy that was used by the shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott in describing the powers under the Bill, which she describes as draconian.

The pieces of this legislative jigsaw are beginning to fall into place. Telephone operators already keep a record of the details of every phone call made and every text message sent. Internet service providers are being forced by this Bill to keep a record of every website, you, I and everyone else in this country have visited over the previous 12 months, which is a provision this House agreed to on Monday in a Division when it rejected the Liberal Democrat amendment to prevent it. A request filter, operated by or on behalf of the Government will be constructed. It will have direct feeds into the databases of communications providers, including access to the sensitive personal information of every subscriber to telephone and internet services in the UK, every call they make and every website they visit. The House agreed to that provision in a Division on Monday when it rejected the Liberal Democrat amendment to prevent it. The power is then given by this part of the Bill to allow all that sensitive personal information—details of every phone call made and every website visited—to be downloaded at will by the security agencies with no further authorisation. I hope that at least some noble Lords are feeling uncomfortable at that prospect. Our amendment removes internet connection records from the data that can be acquired under a bulk acquisition warrant. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

251: Clause 229, page 181, line 32, at end insert—
“( ) For the purposes of this section, “electronic protection” does not include electronic protection applied directly by the communications device or operating system of the end user which has the effect of encrypting the communications data in transit such that the relevant telecommunications operator does not have a means to access the associated communications data or content.”

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, noble Lords who have followed my limited contributions to the Bill will know that I take a fairly robust approach in support of what the Government seek to do in it. Indeed, they may even be slightly perplexed that I have tabled this amendment, which is supported by the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, given the slightly testy exchanges that have occurred once or twice during the passage of the Bill. However, my philosophy throughout has always been clear—namely, that by and large this Bill is needed to update current legislation and to protect the public. However, all the measures have to be tested in terms of the balance that they strike between protecting the public and their potential invasion of privacy. We have debated that issue but in this case the disbenefits I am concerned about are the extent to which what the Government may be trying to do—the Minister will no doubt explain what that is in more detail in a few minutes—under the Bill as drafted will weaken the security that people would otherwise have.

The Bill provides the Home Secretary with the power to require a communications provider to install some sort of technical capability to provide data on request, including where those data would otherwise be encrypted and are therefore not so easily available. The Bill includes an impressive array of safeguards. The Home Secretary is required to apply a series of tests before they make a decision to serve an order on a communications provider, and a process of consultation and discussion has to go forward. Those measures are all designed to ensure that not only is the Home Secretary properly informed in making that judgment but using the power is practical and reasonable. Indeed, the Bill emphasises the importance of the test of something being reasonably practical and technically feasible. I have asked for an explanation of the precise distinction between reasonably practical and technically feasible. I accept that there may be a distinction.

A whole series of tests applies under those circumstances but we do not know how those tests might be applied in future or what the Home Secretary might decide. Therefore, we cannot know how a future Home Secretary, or the present Home Secretary, would interpret what is and is not practicable and reasonable. In particular, we face an ambiguity—at least I think there is an ambiguity here—over what it will mean for end-to-end encrypted services. End-to-end encrypted services allow an end-user to send a message via a particular service which can be opened and read only by the person to whom it is sent. That is an important reassurance which we would all like to have in terms of our private communications. The company that conveys that message to the other person—the company in the middle—has no ability to see that message. The communications provider has provided that as a service because it is believed that that is what customers want.

Not all communications providers do that. Some provide a service where it is clear—it says so on the tin—that they will have the option to be aware of what is in the message because they use that to sell advertising. However, not all communications providers operate on that basis. The purpose of that encryption arrangement is to ensure that the data are protected by means of encryption against outsiders looking at them. The encryption key is held only by the person who sends the message and the person who receives it. Nobody else in between has that capacity. The potential implication of that is that the communications provider cannot find a way to discover the content of such a message, even if it wanted to and even if required to do so by the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, if I could be convinced that the same rules applied everywhere on the globe—because we are talking about a global function—in respect of the rule of law, freedom, transparency and privacy protection, then I might have a bit of sympathy with the business operators, as we will call them.

I had the privilege of being among those serving on the RUSI panel. We had a discussion with the providers, but they did not all want to come and sit round the table at the same time—I recall two or three sessions—because they are competitors. We put it to them—it was not original; it had come up elsewhere—that not one of these companies, whether Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo or Microsoft, would ever have been able to start what is now their global business in countries such as Russia, Iran and China. Yet they have become global and make enormous profits, although I will not go into the issue of them paying their taxes.

These providers hide behind the fact that the countries where they are able to start and function have the rule of law and are democracies where you can challenge Governments in the courts and get redress, yet they then go and operate in countries where they cannot do that. If they all said, “When we operate in China, we’re going to produce all our phones fully encrypted, exactly as we do for everybody else. The Chinese Government are allowing us to close end to end. They don’t want to know what their citizens are saying”, then fine, but I do not believe that that is the case, and that is part of the problem.

My noble friend Lord Harris touched on the issue of other Governments, but we can legislate only for the UK. I fully understand that, yet half of an email sent from my office upstairs to a colleague here might be split and end up travelling through the rest of Europe or America or half-way round the world. That is how the system works. Just because you are emailing someone in this country from within this country, you cannot guarantee that the entire message will stay in this country while it is being whizzed round the world. The system does not work as I originally thought it did. So we can legislate only for this country and messages get split up around the world.

The fact is that the business plans and business operations of these companies depend on open, transparent and democratic countries with the rule of law, yet they are willing to work in countries where there is no rule of law and where there are corrupt regimes, such as in Russia, or undemocratic regimes, as in China. These are countries with huge populations and the companies can do business there according to a different business plan from the one that applies here. From the point of view of those who are there to protect us, that has to lead to a suspicion that at some point we might need a bit more information than we have and that we might need to ask for that to be provided.

I take second place to no one on the protection of privacy, but the fact is that you cannot discuss this issue just in the context of the UK or Europe; it is global, and the rules do not apply equally across the globe. If we take that on board, I think we ought to have a fair degree of sympathy with how the Government will operate these measures.

I have listened to other people and have read more about this matter since finishing our work on the RUSI panel, and the fact is that there is a great reluctance to have these powers. In a democracy there is an incredible reluctance for private information to be treated in this way, but at the end of the day there will be proportionality and our people will be tested on the need for these powers. One of the raisons d’être of the Bill is to put in second and third checks, so those with the powers will be watched and the watchers will be watched, and that is how we can give the public confidence. I do not think that we ought to write the Bill to suit the business operators’ original business plans, because they are not implementing them on an equal basis across the globe. Therefore, I hope that the Government will reject these amendments.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

Before my noble friend sits down, to be honest I think that he has slightly misunderstood the point that has been made. I am not putting this forward because of the business models of particular companies; I am proposing it because of the inherent weakness that could conceivably be created. His argument, if I understood what he just said, is that because Russia or China may require, or may force because the business there is so valuable, a communications service provider to put in one of these back doors, therefore we need to have the same facility. The point is that, because it is a global provision, if a back door is built in—because Russia or China or wherever else has demanded it—then a technical capability notice would operate because the operator would have that existing facility. That is precisely the circumstance in which a technical capability notice could be served. This amendment seeks to exclude a requirement from our Government that it should be created at our behest, which other people would then use.

[Lord Rooker]

I take on board what my noble friend is saying. I fully accept the distinction he makes but, basically, although I am a customer of some of these companies, I do not trust them—they will tell us that this has been built in and is secure, but do deals with those other regimes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

We come back to the test of reasonable practicability here. I am about to come on to what the Bill does not provide for on encryption and I hope that this will help the noble Lord.

The Bill does not ban encryption or do anything to limit its use. The Bill will not be used to force providers to undermine their business models, to create so-called back doors or to compromise encryption keys. It will not be used to prevent new encrypted products or services from being launched and it will not undermine internet security.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am very grateful for the detailed exposition that has been given. The Minister says that the Bill will not be used to do those things. Can he confirm that it cannot be used to do those things?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, some noble Lords have suggested the Bill’s provisions cause a weakening in encryption, which I think is the central point that the noble Lord is getting at. Many of the biggest companies in the world rely on strong encryption to provide safe and secure communications and e-commerce, but retain the ability to access the content of their users’ communications for their own business purposes, such as advertising, as we have heard. These companies’ reputations rest on their ability to protect their users’ data. This model of encryption can, and does, maintain users’ security. I do not think that anyone would dispute that.

Before I come on to the individual amendments, it would be helpful to address a number of specific points that were raised in relation to encryption. There was a suggestion that a company should never be asked to do something that it does not already do. Such an approach would of course, at a stroke, remove our ability to use any of the powers in the Bill, including carrying out any interception of terrorists’ and serious criminals’ communications, because companies do not do this in the normal course of their business.

There was a suggestion that equipment interference would do away with the need for these provisions. It will not. Equipment interference is no substitute for having a company’s assistance. Even if it were, there are only a very small number of very clever people who are able to carry out equipment interference. There will never be the capacity to deploy them on each and every operation.

Finally, there was a suggestion that encryption is not a problem for the security and intelligence agencies. The heads of those agencies have repeatedly made clear that ubiquitous encryption is one of the most difficult challenges they face.

I now turn to the individual amendments, because I hope that this will clarify the picture further. Amendment 251 seeks to preclude an obligation to remove encryption from being imposed under a technical capability notice in relation to end-to-end encrypted services. I hope that the points I have already made make clear why the proposed amendment is not necessary and indeed why it is not desirable. As I have set out, the Government recognise the vital importance of encryption. Nothing in the Bill does anything to limit its use, and that of course includes the use of end-to-end encryption. But I have also set out the dangers of creating a guaranteed safe space online for those who would seek to do the public harm such as terrorists and other serious criminals, and I am afraid that that is exactly what this amendment would do. The amendment seeks to make explicit provision in law for there to be certain online services that criminals can use to go about their business unimpeded with no fear of being caught. That is not a position that any responsible Government or, I hope, Parliament could support.

What we must ensure is that the Bill enables us to work collaboratively with individual telecommunications operators to establish what steps are reasonably practicable for them to take, considering a range of factors including technical feasibility and likely cost. Any decision will have regard to the particular circumstances of the case, recognising that there are many different models of encryption, including many different models of end-to-end encryption, and that what is reasonably practicable for one telecommunications operator may not be for another.

As I have already said, this is not about asking companies to undermine their existing business models; it is about working with them to find a solution to ensure both that their customers’ data remain secure and that their services cannot be exploited by individuals who pose a threat to the UK. So in answer to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I can confirm that these provisions cannot be used to introduce back doors or undermine internet security.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

We already have a wide range of safeguards which I have listed. I do not see that it is necessary to go down the road the noble Lord is advocating because of the dangers that I have pointed out. These amendments would create safe spaces which I am sure that neither he nor any noble Lord would desire to occur.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful to the noble Earl for his detailed response and for reiterating the welcome and voluminous safeguards that are set out in the Bill. They are important and valuable, and they give me confidence about the context of the whole Bill. However, the argument with which he concluded does not quite hold together and there is an elision between different issues. The noble Earl has given an absolute assurance, I think on the basis of a piece of paper that was handed to him, that it cannot be used to require a communications service provider to build a back door or to create one in a future area. But then he said that we must not put in the Bill something that creates a safe space. Either the Government’s position is that this cannot be used to require a company to produce a back door, in which case the safe space exists and presumably the Government are not happy with their own legislation, or it is the case that the Bill could require a communications service provider to build such a back door.

We have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, that what we are trying to do here is balance two national security concerns: the national security concern to prevent terrorism and so on and the national security concern about making it slightly easier for cybercriminals. These are very important issues. If the Government are clear that, as a result of the Bill, a technical capability notice could not require an operator to build a back door that would otherwise not exist, it is important to set that out in the Bill. If we are in a position where techUK says—as it has in the briefing it circulated to me and, I am sure, to other noble Lords—that this is ambiguous, perhaps it is the responsibility of the Government to remove that ambiguity and make the position clear. I do not really want to have to divide the House on this matter, so between now and Third Reading, is the noble Earl prepared to turn the unequivocal assurance he has given that it cannot be used in this way into an amendment to the Bill that will remove that ambiguity?

[Earl Howe]

With the leave of the House, I hope I can help the noble Lord on this because I do not believe that the Bill is contradictory. First, the term “back door” has been used, but I do not think that is a helpful or accurate way of describing the Bill’s provisions. “Back door” is in everyone’s judgment a loosely defined term. It is used incorrectly to imply that the Bill would enable our law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies to gain unrestricted access to a telecommunications operator’s services or systems, thereby undermining the security of those services—to force that to happen. That is absolutely not the case. The Bill enables our agencies to require telecommunications operators to remove encryption themselves, only in tightly defined circumstances: where they have applied the encryption themselves; where it has been applied on their behalf; where it is reasonably practicable for them to remove it; and where doing so is required to comply with a relevant warrant, notice or authorisation.

I come back to the point I made earlier. This is about the Government being able to sit down with companies and reach agreement with them on the basis of what is reasonably practicable, affordable and so on. It would not be responsible for any Government to deny themselves the possibility of doing that and discussing what in all the circumstances is reasonably practicable for the company, and for the company to agree to do it.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

Again I am grateful to the noble Earl. I do not think anyone here has misunderstood the point that this is not about giving the Government uninterrupted access. It is about requiring companies to create a facility so that if they are asked, after all the suitable warrants have been gone through and all the safeguards have been fulfilled, to gain information and pass it back to the Government. I accept that that is the position and that is what is intended here. However, the Minister has still not been unequivocal on whether technical capability measures could require such a facility to be created, so that, in those circumstances and with all those safeguards in place, something could be done. It is a critical issue that we need to clarify. Otherwise, we do not know where we stand as far as the amendment is concerned. The Minister needs to provide the House and the IT industry with as much clarity as he can on this point, because the danger is that it will become the subject of continual argument.

Were the Bill to be amended by any of the amendments in this group, the Government would still have the option to say that they were minded to serve a technical capability notice on a particular company. That would then trigger a series of discussions, because it is what the Bill provides for, and a communications service provider might come back at that point and say, “Look, we literally cannot do it. We do not have the facility”. However, it is not clear whether the Government could none the less say, “Well, we understand that, but we are requiring you to do it”. The question then is: what is or what is not feasible? I happen to believe that some of the biggest communications service providers in the world have more computing expertise than any nation state. If they are told, “You are legally required to do this”, they could do it; they could find a way of making it happen. We have to be explicit as to what the Government’s expectation is. Are they saying, “No, that is not what we are requiring”, or are they saying, “Well, we might”? If they are saying, “We might”, that clarifies the position, if not helpfully. If they are saying, “No, we are not”, which is what the Minister said earlier, perhaps we could put that in the Bill—if not in the form of words proposed, then in some form of words that the Government could craft between now and next week. That would be a helpful way forward and provide absolute clarity as to the extent to which technical capability notices could be served. If I am not able to get that assurance from him—I appreciate that bits of paper have been flying backwards and forwards between him and the Box—we are in a very difficult position.

[Earl Howe]

I can state categorically to the noble Lord that it is absolutely not the case that the Bill would force a company to insert a back door, thereby undermining internet security. We might ask a company in certain circumstances to decrypt particular data if it was reasonably practicable and feasible for them to do so.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I understand that that is the case; that is, if they have the encryption key—we will not use “back door”; we will find another form of words—and the capability to do it, and it is not too complicated and all the relevant warrants are in place, yes, they will do that. As I understand it, most tech companies are perfectly understanding of that and willing to do it. The question is whether, if the Government were presented with a situation they were concerned about, they could say to one of the biggest communications service providers in the world, “We are asking you to build something which is not there at the moment, but we’ll provide that facility for those circumstances that might arise in the future when we’ve gone through all the relevant warrants and so on”. I am looking for an assurance from the Minister that that is not sought here, because of the dangers that we have already discussed. If he wishes, I can reiterate the question to give the Minister the opportunity to read the piece of paper that has just arrived.

[Earl Howe]

Of course, a technical capability notice can require a new capability to be built; that is what they are there for. If it was neither practicable nor feasible, they would not have to do it. The problem here is that it is very difficult to generalise, because any decision about these things would have to have regard to the particular circumstances of the case. As I said, there are many different models of encryption, including many different models of end-to-end encryption. Any decision has to recognise that what is reasonably practicable for one telecommunications operator may not be for another. That is why I have referred repeatedly to the need for the Government and industry to have that easy interchange which they do at the moment. It is important to emphasise that these powers already exist in law today. We should not do anything that undermines the basis for the constructive discussions that we are having.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

The Minister reminds us that the ideal arrangement is one of easy interchange and discussion—I understand that that carries on and works very well. He is right to say—this is why the wording of the current legislation is ambiguous and therefore a problem—that building a technical capability could mean simply putting in a piece of equipment, which means that, at the point at which the Government ask, having gone through all the voluntary processes, it is quite a straightforward matter to provide the information that the Government have legitimately and lawfully requested. That is one definition of technical capability.

What I want to know is whether “technical capability” could apply to a very secure end-to-end encryption process which no communications service provider could break but where, if they devoted thousands of person hours in California or wherever they operate from, they could develop something which might do that. If that is what the Bill is saying, we need to know.

[Earl Howe]

That would not be reasonably practicable in that particular example.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I accept that it would not be reasonably practicable; it would also be very expensive—as I understand the Bill, the Government would have to pay for it and I am sure that technical experts in California or wherever might be very expensive. If that is the case, and if it is not possible to write it into the Bill—I would have thought it could be—it would be helpful for the Minister to write and make very clear what the Government’s intentions are in that regard and confirm that such circumstances are precluded by the Bill. If the Minister is prepared to do that, I am prepared not to press the amendment to a vote.

[Earl Howe]

I think I have made the Government’s position as clear as I possibly can and I am not sure what I can do to amplify the remarks I have already made. While I want to be as helpful as possible to the noble Lord, I am struggling to see how a letter from me would make the position clearer.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I understand the Minister’s dilemma and I am sure that a letter from him to me would have far less force than the words appearing in Hansard. I appreciate that the courts can look at the debates in Hansard to try to interpret them. However, I ask that the Minister spends the next few days just thinking about some further modification to the Bill to make sure that this ambiguity, which I think genuinely exists—because techUK tells me so—is cleared up. On the basis that I am sure he will spend his waking hours between now and next Monday thinking about precisely these matters, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 251 withdrawn.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Fear not, though; noble Lords are not alone. When I asked a former GCHQ chief whether ICRs would work in practice, he said, “I don’t know but that shouldn’t stop us trying”. That simply is not good enough. There are numerous other technical issues that I could raise about ICRs giving false positives that show ICRs to websites that the individual is completely unaware his computer is accessing, for example. Or I could cite the experience of Denmark, where attempts to introduce such measures have failed. I could ask why no other European Union or Five Eyes country has such a facility. I could raise the fact that David Anderson’s conclusion was that such provisions would be ruled unconstitutional in both Canada and the United States of America. This is a classic case of, “This looks like a good idea”, where the consequences have not been properly thought through. I beg to move.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that the entire House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for giving us a comprehensive list of ways in which we can try to keep our communications secret and away from prying eyes. I am sure that every Member of the House is grateful for that tutorial, but the noble Lord does rather elide the question of those people who perhaps have not had the benefit of his tutorial. I realise that the whole world of terrorism and organised crime is listening with intent to every word that he says on these matters, but there will be such. He gave a specific example, saying that communications data in the past would have demonstrated that X had contact at a travel agent. When I book train tickets, I usually do not use WhatsApp or a VPN—I simply go online and connect to the relevant train company. So if somebody wanted to find out whether I had been booking a train ticket, my internet connection record would provide that information. I therefore do not quite understand the argument that, because there are ways that you can avoid the state knowing what you have done if you are really determined, you should therefore prevent it knowing what you have done if you are not really determined.

My understanding is that not all terrorists and not all organised criminals are terribly good with this stuff—that they make mistakes—so the horrifying consequences that the noble Lord describes therefore might not actually occur, and instead, a lot of very nasty people will be caught, because they do not have the noble Lord’s encyclopaedic grasp of ways of keeping communications secret.

[Lord Strasburger]

Amendment 118A seeks to prevent the creation and collection of internet connection records. My noble friend Lord Paddick has explained why ICRs are of little security value, and that they would be very difficult and expensive to collect and make use of. The only democracy to try was Denmark, which gave up after years of fruitless effort. It tried again at the beginning of this year with a project almost identical to the one planned by the Home Office, but quickly abandoned it when independent auditors confirmed that it would be prohibitively expensive.

I wish to draw the House’s attention to two other serious drawbacks that would arise from creating and storing internet connection records. The first is the serious impact on the privacy of every user of the internet in this country. We must remember that internet connection records do not currently exist, and until quite recently—say, 25 years ago—all the electronic data that would have to be collected together to create ICRs did not exist, either. In those days, our private interactions with those close to us left no trace. A conversation over lunch, a cash purchase at a shop, a visit to a library to do some research, attendance at a political meeting, a romantic assignation—all left no record of having happened. They were ephemeral. What happened between your four walls was between you and your God.

Fast forward to today, and we find that all the interactions I have just mentioned now leave an electronic trail behind them. A combination of credit card records, location services on our phones, our emails and text messages and records of every website we visit will give the whole game away—including the identity of whom we met at our assignation. If internet connection records are created and kept by our service provider, all these electronic trails will be available to hundreds of public authorities, not just the police and security services, on demand and simply by self-authorisation.

The Government have given this data the name “internet connection records”, which is technically accurate, but what they really are is private activity records: a log of everything we do and when and where we do it. The problem is not that the surveillance can occur at all, but that it happens indiscriminately to all of us, all the time. My second topic is the ironic fact that ICRs will actually reduce our security, rather than improve it, because of the virtual certainty of thefts of some of that private and personal data about every internet user in the country. If you do not believe me, consider just a few of the thousands—and I mean thousands—of recent data thefts from high-security establishments. I mentioned in Committee that SWIFT, the fulcrum of the global financial payments system, has had $81 million stolen from it by hackers. Last week, it emerged that it has been penetrated a second time. A gang of five eastern Europeans is believed to be behind the theft of 3 billion sets of customer data worldwide from many of the world’s leading tech companies, including the data of 500 million Yahoo! customers. As I mentioned earlier, powerful hacking tools belonging to the NSA, the American equivalent of GCHQ, suddenly appeared on the internet in August having been stolen from it, and two Israelis and an American stole 100 million people’s records from 12 US financial institutions. Those are just a few examples—as I say, there are many more—of thefts from sites which, dare I say it, were seemingly far more secure than those of UK service providers.

Internet connection records, or private activity records, will be stolen and the consequences will range from embarrassment to blackmail and fraud for the unfortunate victims. In the case of people in positions of responsibility, including government officials, the consequences could be catastrophic. Far from making us safer, ICRs would compromise our security and, as I have explained, seriously intrude on our citizens’ privacy. We should have nothing to do with them.