GCHQ

Debate between Lord Herbert of South Downs and Lord Hague of Richmond

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We are in a different century now—we are 13 years into the 21st century. The challenges are different and the focus of the intelligence agencies is different from decades in the past and very different, of course, from during the cold war. It is important for Opposition Members below the Gangway to start to move with the times.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Has not our national security relied for centuries on the effective intercept of communications? The Spanish armada was said to have been averted as much by the pen of Francis Walsingham as by the Royal Navy. Surely what has changed is the nature of those communications. The threat to the public comes not from the intelligence agencies, which have no interest at all in the communications of members of the public; but they will not be able to intercept communications if those data are not retained by providers.

[Mr Hague]

Since I refused to go back into the miners’ strike, I am reluctant to go into the Spanish armada, but the wider point that my right hon. Friend makes is of course absolutely correct. Two cross-party Committees in this House have looked at proposals for a communications data Bill, for instance, and said that changes are necessary, and he is adding to that point.