Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Harris of Haringey and Lord Armstrong of Ilminster

Monday 2nd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)]

My Lords, at this stage there is no need for me to rehearse all the arguments in favour of this group of amendments. The terrorist threat has increased and is increasing, and those upon whom we rely to prevent and detect terrorist crime depend on access to the communications data of those intending and planning to commit terrorist crime. I will not go in detail into everything that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has said, although I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, or I could agree with all of it.

Those agencies have been increasingly conscious that the provisions in RIPA 2000, now nearly 15 years old, badly need updating to take account of technological changes. The agencies have enjoyed the voluntary co-operation of many of the service providers, but many of the companies concerned, as we heard in the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, would like to see that voluntary co-operation underpinned by statutory provision. There are no doubt some who are reluctant to co-operate without there being statutory provision.

The Bill provides us with an opportunity to put in place some of the statutory provisions which would have been provided by a revised—“Blencathrated”, if I may call it so—communications data Bill, for the introduction of which we shall now have to wait until the next Parliament. These amendments are designed to take advantage of that opportunity. Their scope has been reduced since similar amendments were proposed in Committee. We have been denied the possibility of Blencathrating these amendments because the Home Office is not willing to produce a revised communications data Bill or the relevant parts of it. Therefore, these amendments are no more than a stop-gap, as the noble Lord, Lord King, described them, and they are no more than temporary to fill a stop-gap because there is a sunset clause which ensures that they will disappear in their present form in December 2016. Most of this limited stuff is taken up with safeguards, and more than three pages are taken up with an interpretation clause of definitions.

We know that the police and the intelligence and security agencies feel the need for these provisions and would welcome these amendments, limited and imperfect though they are. As has already been said, in passing these amendments your Lordships would not be deciding that they would be part of the Bill before us when enacted; we would be giving the other place the opportunity to take that decision. Surely that is where the final decision should lie.

If the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, were to decide to press these amendments, I would support them because I would not wish to have on my conscience any sense of shared responsibility for what might ensue if failure to include these provisions in the Bill resulted in failure to prevent a terrorist attack which might have been prevented, as well as all the consequences which might result from such an outrage, as was vividly and notably referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, this is something of a mess. I was certainly alerted—and I know that other noble Lords will have been alerted at the same sort of time—to the developing problem of a gap in terms of communications data eight or nine years ago. It was so long ago that I can no longer remember exactly when it was. The gap is occurring because of the nature of the way in which communications take place using the internet, and it is a gap which is worsening and getting bigger.

Communications data, as opposed to intercept, are used in virtually all major crime and terrorist cases. They are an essential component, concerning who was there, who was where and who was communicating with whom. That is nothing new; what has changed is the way in which those messages are transferred from one place to another. It is a fact that it is no longer easy, using conventional means and conventional mechanisms, to keep track of that information, and that is causing the problem. It is a problem and a gap which has been getting worse over the last few years.

Something urgently needs to be done to remedy that gap, but it has not happened. The previous Government and this Government have failed to do something about it. We are now moving inexorably towards a general election, which is a few weeks away, and it will be down to whichever Government are in place after that to deal with this. I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord King, that, following the election, that may not be a rapid, simple or straightforward process.

What do we do now? The first thing is not to oversell the importance of either these amendments or the mythical Blencathra’d amendments that may or may not exist somewhere else. The amendments will not be a magic bullet. The mere passage of these proposed new clauses, or a version of them, does not mean that terrorism will be prevented or that serious crime will stop, but they would be an essential and necessary tool in trying to minimise the risk. Let us not pretend that the failure to include them will automatically mean that there will be a terrorist atrocity. However, it will mean that such an atrocity will be that bit more likely and that it will be that much more difficult to deal with it and stop it.

This is not just a question of the legislative provisions and the fact that we are being dilatory in getting round to dealing with this issue. I understand and have all sorts of sympathy for Ministers in the context of a coalition where one side of the coalition is less keen on such a provision than the other and starts to position itself in advance of a general election. I have lots of sympathy for all that, but the fact is that collectively Governments over the past eight to 10 years have failed to address and deal with this issue.

There is a second vital element, which is that there is a degree of public support for and public buy-in to the changes that have been made. That is why not pretending that this is a magic bullet is so important. In the past, security measures have been oversold as the one necessary thing that will stop all these atrocities, and every time that excuse is used it has bred public cynicism about these measures.

Part of what has to happen is a proper public debate about why these powers are needed, why they matter and why they do not constitute the infringement of civil liberties and personal liberty that some people assume. Failing to have that debate has been a wasted opportunity over the last few years. When the Joint Committee produced its report, the Government should have used that as the opportunity to say, “Let’s have that public debate”. Had they done so, we might now be in a position where there was a public understanding of these issues and a readiness to go forward.

The reality is that if the noble Lord, Lord King, presses his amendments, people will say that the parliamentary process has been abused, and we have no doubt already had dozens and dozens of emails and letters saying precisely that. It is an abuse of the process because it does not allow the normal times for debate, but we have failed to give ourselves the time for that, and that is why we are in such a mess.

Should we agree to these amendments? No, because they do not incorporate the views of the Joint Committee; no, because we have not had an opportunity for the public debate; and no, because we have not had the report of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. I do not want to get into why we have not had all those things but the fact is that we have not. It would therefore be wrong to press ahead with these amendments at this stage, much as I personally believe that something along these lines is necessary and much as I personally believe that we should have taken action much sooner. However, the reality is that those other things are not in place. I blame the Government—of course I would because I am on this side of the House—for failing to have those other elements in place and for failing to ensure that there has been the necessary public debate. However, to press today without public support and public debate, and in the absence of having the views of the independent reviewer, clearly would be a mistake, particularly in the context in which people would see that the legislation had been rushed through by some sort of legislative sleight of hand.

The noble Lord, Lord King, gave the Government a week’s opportunity to move forward. The Government have not taken that opportunity. For the very reasons I have given about not having public support or having built things up, I do not believe that they should have responded to the noble Lord’s amendment last week by bringing forward their own amendments to do all this overnight. But it would have been an enormous step forward, and still would be an enormous step forward, if before Third Reading the Government were to publish the revised versions of the legislation that they have, even if they are not the final product, so that that public debate can start. Some of the myths about communications data and what the Government are trying to do could be dispelled.

We are in a sorry mess. Frankly, I do not think that the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord King, solve the problem. They could conceivably make it worse. But for goodness’ sake, we need to treat people like adults, not pretend that this is a magic bullet, and allow the public debate to take place.