Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Howard of Lympne Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

My Lords, in view of the support for the proposals in the Bill, which has been voiced by the last three speakers—hedged around with caveats though that support was—I hope that I can be relatively brief in my support for those proposals. It is, of course, for my noble friend the Minister to reply to the criticism made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, but it does not seem to me to be wholly unreasonable that the Government waited until they knew how they were going to proceed before putting proposals to Parliament or its committees. They could not know how they were going to proceed until they had completed their consultations with the companies to which the noble Lord referred. That does not seem to me to be unreasonable. However, that is really a matter for my noble friend the Minister. I propose to address my brief remarks to the substance of the Bill and the general proposals. They have not yet been challenged, but the debate is young and there may be those who may yet wish to challenge them.

One of my honourable friends in another place said yesterday that we should be cautious about allowing technology to infringe our freedoms. I would put it rather differently: I believe that we should embrace technology in order to protect our freedoms. The greatest freedom that any citizen can have is the freedom to carry out his or her lawful business without the danger of being blown up or being the victim of some other serious criminal offence. If the law enforcement authorities are to be able to carry out their job and protect that fundamental freedom, it is essential that they have the powers which are contained in this Bill.

The point was put extremely eloquently yesterday in another place. If noble Lords will permit me, I shall do something which I do not believe I have ever done before, which is to quote—with approval—from the observations of my immediate successor as Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw. He said that,

“where there is a suspect for a crime, it is for a crime that has been committed in the past. The police will not know who that suspect is until they come to the police’s attention, at which point they have to get historical evidence. These days, part of that historical evidence will be in data records. They have to be able to access everybody’s data records in order to find those of one particular person, because the police, no more than the rest of us, are not given powers of clairvoyance with which to anticipate who is and who is not to be a suspect. Unless or until I hear from opponents of this Bill and of data retention how the police can be expected to identify in advance those who are going to be suspected of crime, I have to say that the whole logical basis of their argument completely falls away”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/07/2014; col. 734.]

Mr Straw was absolutely correct in those remarks. They go to the nub of the need for the powers contained in this Bill. He went on in his speech to explain that the supervisory powers over the authorities which have the ability to exercise the powers contained in the Bill has been extended and strengthened in recent years. I believe that that supervision is robust, and that it is adequate to protect the essential liberties of the citizen. I commend these proposals to the House.