Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it was on a Wednesday in July, like today, just over nine years ago, on 7 July 2005, that the London bombings took place. I am sure that all noble Lords have their own memories of that dreadful day. My memories are closely associated with this Chamber. That morning the Lords of Appeal, who were still working in this building, gathered to give judgment. We were due to give judgment at 9.45, and before we could sit, as the House, to give judgment, prayers had to be said—but we found that the Bishop was missing. Prayers were said by the senior Law Lord, Lord Bingham, on our behalf.

The rumour was that the Bishop had been unable to come here because there had been an electrical surge on the Underground, and his line had been out of operation. It was only when we got upstairs to our rooms on the west corridor that we realised the real horror of that day. Those who remember it will recall how London became completely seized up with traffic jams, no public transport was able to move, mobile phones would not work, and the general feeling was one of extreme distress—horror at what had happened to the victims, and immense inconvenience and disruption to the way of life in London.

I mention that because whenever I am confronted, in court or indeed in here, by this kind of issue, about the balance between security and the right to privacy, I seek to find where the balance should be struck, realising how immensely important it is, from whichever side one is looking at the problem.

Against that background, one must commend the security services for the painstaking work that they do on our behalf, which is, no doubt, greatly assisted by the data that we are thinking about. One should also appreciate the immense burden that rests on Ministers, who have to take some of these acute decisions on our behalf, balancing, as they have to, privacy against security.

This is an extremely difficult issue, but on the principle of the measure I am in no doubt—as I think almost all of us agree—that the Bill should have a Second Reading. Its purpose, and the principle that lies behind it, seem to me entirely beyond question. The problem, as always when one considers matters in this House, is one of detail—and it is the opportunity of detailed scrutiny that is, in effect, being denied to us by the speed with which the measure has come forward.

Speaking entirely for myself, I think it is a great shame that the Government have excited criticism of the kind that they have, which undermines public confidence in an area where, as others have said, public confidence is so important. It is a great pity, it is a great disadvantage, and it is difficult for us, who are coping with detail in an unfamiliar area, to meet the requirements we have to meet in order to contribute effectively to the debate.

For my own part, I started my study of the issue by looking at the judgment of the European Court of Justice that gave rise to all the problems, in the case called Digital Rights Ireland, reported in April this year. It is an interesting, and quite easily read, judgment, and quite a lot of it entirely supports what the Government seek to do. The basis of the criticism is Article 7 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, to which this country is not a party. However, one has to bear in mind the fact that Article 52(3) of the charter says that in so far as it,

“contains rights which correspond to rights guaranteed by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”—

the ECHR, to which we are, of course, a party—

“the meaning and scope of those rights shall be the same as those laid down by the said Convention”.

So there is a read-across between Article 7 of the charter, which the European Court of Justice was talking about, and Article 8 of the convention, to which the noble Lord, Lord West, referred, which contains the guarantee of the right to privacy. However, it is extremely important to appreciate that, as he also said, it contains the balancing provision that:

“There shall be no interference … except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society”.

One is entitled to take that into account in considering what the court was talking about.

When the court analysed the case—this is in paragraphs 41, 43 and 44 of the judgment—it was satisfied that there was a genuine national interest in what the measure sought to do, and indeed in the objective of the measure that it was considering, which was the directive. In its judgment the court clearly makes the point that in connection with such issues,

“the retention of … data may be considered to be appropriate for attaining the objective pursued by that directive”.

So far, so good. But what was the basis of the criticism? One has to examine the judgment a little bit to understand what caused concern, and ultimately led to the decision that the court gave. We find that in paragraphs 37, 45 and 46, as well as paragraphs 59, 64 and 65. It was the detail of the wording of the directive, and in particular the wide-ranging and potentially serious interference with fundamental rights that it gave rise to, that caused the problem. This is the crucial sentence, in paragraph 65:

“without such an interference being precisely circumscribed by provisions to ensure that it is actually limited to what is strictly necessary”.

We find the same phrase—

“limited to what is strictly necessary”—

in paragraph 64. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, picked up that aspect when he used the phrase “absolutely necessary” in his speech. This is a high test, and the court found that it was not satisfied by the directive.

That leads me to my first point for the Minister. In Clause 1(1) of the Bill, everything depends on the view taken by the Secretary of State about the requirement being imposed. The phrase used is “necessary and proportionate”. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain where that phrase comes from. It is not the phrase used by the European Court of Justice, and one might be forgiven for thinking that it does not constitute quite as high a test as the strict test that the court laid down in the phrase, “strictly necessary”.

The wording is important, because any court that is testing the ability of the scheme that the Bill contains to satisfy the requirements of the convention will look at the precise wording and see whether the guidance given to the Secretary of State, who has to take the decision, is sufficiently accurate and precise to enable him or her to fulfil the requirements of the directive. I am disappointed, I must say, that the carefully chosen wording of the court was not adopted here, and I would be grateful for an explanation of why that was not the case.

This is not an opportunity to go into detail, but one of the unfortunate aspects of the procedure being adopted is that we are being asked to rest on the basis of amendments to a code of practice and no doubt further regulations, which we have not seen. So a great deal of this has to be taken on trust. I am prepared, in this area, to repose a great deal of trust in Ministers. But the wording of the test that they are being asked to apply is absolutely crucial. If one is seeking a sound foundation—a legal basis that puts the matter beyond doubt—one needs to choose the words extremely carefully.

Finally, I come to the question of extraterritoriality. Like others, I have been given suggestions—including a considerably detailed one—that there is an extension of the investigatory powers. I think I owe it to Jack Straw, as the noble Lord, Lord Howard, mentioned earlier, to make this point: in Section 2 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act there is a definition of one of the expressions in the Act—“telecommunications system”. That definition says that a “telecommunications system” means a system,

“whether wholly or partly in the United Kingdom or elsewhere”.

Jack Straw stressed the words “or elsewhere”, and said that built into the definitions in RIPA from the very beginning was a recognition that such systems operate widely well beyond our own shores, so it was wrong to think that extraterritoriality was something new. I accept that, and here is the foundation for that proposition, right in Section 2 of RIPA. I also accept that since then there has been some informal method of imposing extraterritoriality—no doubt very properly, with the co-operation of overseas bodies—but that, the way things are nowadays, there is a need for that to be regularised. That is what Clause 4 is all about. However, I have a word of warning. Warrants are all very well; you can write a warrant and get it issued. The problem is in its enforcement.

I will give two examples, one of which takes us back to 1987 and the Zircon affair, which may not mean very much to us nowadays. The journalist Duncan Campbell was working with the BBC to present a series of programmes called “Secret Society”. One of his programmes was about the funding by government of a spy satellite, which in those days seemed a horrifying thing to do—perhaps we are now so used to them that we do not mind them. Nevertheless, Duncan Campbell thought that something extremely sinister was going on, and the BBC, in Glasgow, as it happened, had in its possession a great deal of material on that. Special Branch knew about that, got a warrant in London, went over the border to Glasgow and delivered the warrant to the BBC, which caved in and gave a lot of material to Special Branch. The BBC then consulted its solicitor, who looked at the warrant and said, “This is no good, because it hasn’t been passed through the system for the enforcement of warrants in Scotland—no sheriff has been asked to look at it”. So all the stuff had to be handed back. Special Branch went back over the system, tried a second time—got it wrong again—and the third time got it right. All sorts of things could have happened, although I do not suppose that much happened, because they were dealing with paper copies. However, nowadays it is so important to get the system right. Has thought been given—as has obviously been given to the mechanism for the creation of the warrant in the first place—to its enforcement?

The other example is a reported decision of this House in a case called Granada Television, in 1999, which was the reverse problem. The Scots were trying to enforce a warrant or to obtain material in Manchester under a warrant for use in Scotland. They ran into all sorts of difficulties, which are described in that case, because of the problems of cross-border warrants. Therefore, while a great deal of thought has been given to the design of Clause 4—which I admire, as it deals with many of the problems—has thought been given to how you can enforce these warrants on people overseas? What about their enforceability in the United States or in China and the mechanisms which are necessary to make them effective? There is enough here that goes so far within our own shores, but the enforceability of warrants overseas may matter at the end of the day if we are to move beyond the informal process into an area that stands up to scrutiny in a court of law.