Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Ping Pong (Lords Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister, who has in part repeated what he said the last time we considered these issues. I raise again my concern that this public consultation is not, as he describes it, a serious consultation. I explained last time that Cabinet Office guidelines—I appreciate there are no rules, laws or regulations about it—say that consultations should be for 12 weeks; this consultation is for 10 weeks. Consultations should not run over a holiday period; this consultation includes Christmas and new year. Why does it not follow Cabinet Office guidelines?

I do not share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Myners. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, I emphasise that the majority in this House voted for her original amendment, and I am sure it will not be long before this House has another opportunity to vote to force the Government to implement the provisions of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 that protect innocent victims from unreasonable and unnecessary press intrusion. The Government should know that we on these Benches will support such a vote.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said that a majority in this House supported the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, in her amendment, but there is an even bigger majority in this House for ensuring that the Bill becomes law. We are now dealing with a very serious threat, a very serious situation, in which the provisions in the Investigatory Powers Bill are important. As your Lordships know, if the Bill does not make progress now, with the sunset clause on the present arrangements we would be naked in having no provision in law to govern the working of investigatory powers. There is absolutely no doubt that the noble Baroness has done the right thing. We could not possibly go on with this and provoke that risk at this time. Whatever the merits of these amendments—and I have not gone deeply into their merits—there is no doubt that I speak for the overwhelming majority in this House when I say that the Bill has got to become an Act soon so that we have proper provisions in place to defend our country and our citizens against the risks they might otherwise face.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

I express my gratitude for the responsible attitude the noble Baroness has taken in this respect. I know how deeply she feels about the amendment she put forward. Of course, there is good journalism and less good journalism. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Myners, in his place. It is possible to distinguish between what he was talking about and the feeling in respect of Section 40. I particularly want to emphasise the Minister’s words—that this is to be a genuine consultation; in other words, I take it that the Government have not yet made up their mind on this question and therefore, it will be worth while for anyone who has a point of view to express it. Even though the consultation period is slightly shorter than before, it is over Christmas and the New Year, which is perhaps the best time to generate good feelings.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

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

[Lord Oates]

I am dealing with the fact that we are granting a power under the Bill, as this House voted only a couple of days ago, for all the websites visited by every user in this country, whether suspected of anything or innocent, to be recorded. That is a matter of fact, not a matter of debate.

We also need to deal with the canard that we have heard from people such as the noble Lord who spoke from the Labour Benches earlier, which is that to question the powers granted under the Bill is somehow to question the integrity of the police or the security and intelligence agencies, to cast aspersions on them. That is nonsense. I have nothing but respect for the difficult, often dangerous and always demanding jobs carried out on our behalf by the police and security services. There is no doubt that the vast majority of them do so with absolute dedication and integrity, but it is absurd to suggest that such powers are not on occasion abused. We know they are. That is a matter of fact; it is recorded in our history. Of course, it is inevitable that that is the case: all such agencies are made up of human beings and we are all subject to frailty. That is why, over the years, those who believe in constitutional democracy have insisted on limiting the powers granted to the state and its agents.

That is why we have such concern about the power granted after our debate the other day to record—I repeat—every website visited by every person in this country. The Government will now have the power to demand that that be recorded. That is why we are concerned about that and about the bulk power in relation to it. That is why I will be supporting my noble friend Lord Paddick and my colleagues on the Front Bench: I think that is rightly a matter of grave concern for liberties in this country.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord accepts one thing: the use of these powers, which are very substantial, could in certain circumstances be essential to obstruct or prevent an otherwise very serious terrorist incident. I am not sure whether he challenges that. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, referred to the supporting evidence from David Anderson to that effect. So the noble Lord, Lord Oates, is taking the courageous position—as is the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—of being prepared to accept that risk. In the current situation, nobody in this House has any right to be ignorant that the threat at present is severe—and “severe” may be slightly underplaying the scale of the situation at the moment. We know the situation; there is no point drawing attention to it. We know what is happening in Mosul at present, where the instruction among ISIS is, “Don’t hang around here. Get into some of the capitals of the West and see what you can do”. The message is going out to try to cause a terrorist incident right on our doorstep.

[Lord Oates]

The noble Lord asks me specifically what I believe. It is very simple. I do not believe that we should record the websites visited by every person in this country. I do not think that is merited; it is not a power used by any other “Five Eyes” country or any constitutional democracy that I know of.

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[Lord King of Bridgwater]

So the noble Lord does not agree with David Anderson or with those who said that this could be an essential asset and ingredient in possibly preventing a serious terrorist attack. He is saying that he does not believe that that is true, if I understand him; if he believes that it is true, he is being extremely courageous, in the words of “Yes Minister”, in taking that position. He is taking responsibility for what might happen to people in this country, which is a very brave thing to do.

I do not want to interfere with the slight divisions of view that are appearing among the Liberal Democrats in this House, but I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in a number of these debates. He is very conscientious and he looks as though he has worked very hard in preparing his brief and making speeches in support of the amendments, but he only ever gives us about half the story. He suggested in earlier debates that we were looking for powers that the agencies have not asked for and did not want, and said that he did not know why they were in the Bill. He knows the police—it is the police who are keen to get those powers. He did not put that in his speech; he did not tell the House the background, or that this was not some quirk of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who wanted to shove stuff into the Bill for his own amusement. That is where that came from. I was disappointed by the noble Lord’s presentation of the amendment, as was exposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I do not think I heard a single mention of David Anderson or his report in the presentation of this amendment, although I may be wrong.

What stands out in this whole debate is that the Government know that these are very substantial powers, which nobody would wish to see if we could avoid it—and they are there because of the serious threat we face. The Government have recognised that if you are to have those powers, they must be surrounded by the most substantial safeguards there can be. I am known to be a critic of how much time the Government took before the Bill came forward. A number of us thought that there was an urgency about the matter and tried to get it earlier. But the Government have gone to great lengths, setting out the Anderson report and now, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, producing the code of practice. There was not a single mention from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, of the code of practice, and I do not know whether he has considered it. I should like him to answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. What does he think of the code of practice? It is a further safeguard that the Government have included in these proposals.

We have to protect our citizens. A number of us live with the threat of terrorism in our lives, in one way or another, and we know the tragedies it can cause in so many different fields. Sometimes we have to take tough and regrettable steps to make sure that innocent people—that everybody—is protected as far as possible. If that happens, I am determined to see that we do it in a situation and structure in which every possible protection is included against abuse and every possible system of accountability for their exercise is kept up to date and regularly inspected. The very elaborate provision that the Government have made in this Bill generally commands respect, except in one or two quarters, where people are still fighting an old battle about what old rights should be and how there should be no interference. In the modern situation in which we live, we must have proper provision to protect our nation and, at the same time, ensure that there is every possible safeguard against abuse.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I am sure we do not want to prolong this debate. As I said on Monday, I was a member of the pre-legislative scrutiny group. You might wonder why a Bishop was invited to be part of that exercise, but I think it was because of this point—the ethics of interference with privacy. I am sorry that the discussion so far has almost become too polarised, because the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is making a serious point, which I demonstrate by quoting David Anderson in his evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. He said:

“I think there is a human rights issue in relation to this Bill that dwarfs all the others, and it is the question of the compatibility of bulk collection and retention of data with Article 8 of the European convention”.

The noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Oates, make a serious point and we should acknowledge it, even if we come down on the side of the noble Lord, Lord King—as I do—that these powers are necessary and proportionate. The argument is about the safeguards—namely, that the warrant has to be personally signed by the Secretary of State, lapses after six months if it is not renewed, and is subject to the judicial commissioners. The real argument is about that. I do not think internet connection records are in principle different from other things that might be intercepted. However, I acknowledge the serious ethical point that the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Oates, raised, even if I come down on the side of the Government and the noble Lord, Lord King, in opposing the amendment.

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[Lord Paddick]

I did not suggest in any way that David Anderson agreed with this amendment, or that the lists of everybody’s websites would be read, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, suggested.

As regards the comments made by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, he referred to case studies in the David Anderson report on bulk data. I cannot emphasise this enough to noble Lords: internet connection records do not currently exist. The telecommunications companies will have to create them. Therefore any case studies in David Anderson’s report do not relate to the bulk collection of internet connection records. Internet connection records do not exist, so they cannot be collected in bulk at the moment.

I acknowledge the great experience of the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, and his passion about these issues. He emphasised that everything needs to be done to prevent a terrorist attack, and I agree with him 100%. The point that I made in my opening speech when I quoted David Anderson directly, saying that it was a direct quote from him, was that GCHQ, MI5 and MI6—the agencies responsible for keeping us safe from terrorism—say that they do not need internet connection records. Even the Minister said that at present there is no anticipated need to collect internet connection records to prevent a terrorist attack.

I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for saying that we are making a fundamental point here. The difference between today’s debate and Monday’s debate is that requiring individuals’ internet connection records has to be based on reasonable suspicion. Thanks to the intervention of the Labour Front Bench, the level of the seriousness of the crime that needs to be suspected before those records can be handed over is higher than the Government first suggested. However, this power would allow everybody’s internet connection records to be acquired in bulk by the security agencies with no reasonable suspicion at all.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Will the noble Lord—

[Lord Paddick]

I am sorry but this is Report and I do not have to give way, unless the noble Lord wishes to clarify what I have just said.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I wish to make an intervention. The noble Lord said again that nobody wants this power. Can he explain why it is in the Bill?

[Lord Paddick]

It is not for me to explain why the Government want in the Bill a power that currently does not exist, because internet connection records do not exist, and which the security services say they do not want but which the noble and learned Lord says might be needed in the future. It is not for me to justify this power; I am saying to the House why I do not believe it is justified. The noble and learned Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made the point that this is an existing power, but how can you have an existing power to acquire something that will not exist until the Bill is enacted?

I have tried to explain very clearly—although unfortunately some people have not heard what I have said—why we cannot accept this provision, and that is why I want to test the opinion of the House.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, other noble Lords have taken the opportunity in addressing this amendment to make some general comments about David Anderson’s excellent report on bulk powers, so I shall do the same in what I hope will be just a few words. In my view, Mr Anderson has made a powerful case for the need for the bulk powers that he describes. They are very much a part of the fight against terrorism. Similar powers have been used well by the security services and authorities in this country and—touching wood and crossing fingers—that is the reason why we have not experienced, for example, what happened in Nice. I agree entirely with what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, who as we know has considerable experience in dealing with and judging these matters, and I share his view that the safeguards should be as strong in every way as has been recommended by Mr Anderson.

Turning to the question of the technology advisory panel, I have complete sympathy with Mr Anderson’s menu but not necessarily with the recipe. With respect to him, I think that we might do rather better than his suggestion of the way in which a technology advisory panel is established. I suspect that he would be the first to agree that what he is concerned with is not the form of the panel, nor to whom it is accountable, but the substance: what it does and what it sets out to achieve.

My suggestion to the Government is that we could broaden the technology advisory panel’s scope and make it more acceptably accountable. The suggestion by Mr Anderson is an unusual one, in that the panel should be appointed by, and be accountable and report directly to, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. That suggests that it has a pretty narrow scope. In my view—obviously, I use my now rather historical experience as the previous Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation—a technology advisory panel would indeed be valuable, but not just to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. My suggestion is therefore that this panel should exist but that it should be appointed by the Secretary of State and, through them, should be accountable to Parliament, at least in a general sense.

The advice given by the technology advisory panel would of course be available to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, but he is not the only commissioner. It would also be available, if appointed by the Secretary of State and accountable in that normal way, to parliamentary committees and other commissioners, to which it could give advice. Indeed, my hope is that a technology advisory panel, or something with a similar name and that intent, should, like the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, publish not only annual reports but tasked reports on specific issues raised —of which the Anderson report we are discussing is a very good example.

The technology advisory panel, if appointed on a broader basis with that greater accountability, would help considerably without placing undue burdens on the security services, the police or GCHQ. Indeed, they, too, would be able to turn to it if they wished to; it would be a matter for their chiefs. We have some experience present in this House as we speak.

I hope that we can adopt the spirit of this part of Mr Anderson’s remarkable report, but perhaps look at ways of making it even more useful than he had in mind, and with forms of accountability that we in this House and the other place understand more readily.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

This is a very limited amendment in one sense, but this has become something of a Second Reading debate on the Anderson report, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on the way he introduced it. He made it clear that there is a considerable degree of common ground on the importance of these powers, which have been so carefully scrutinised by Mr Anderson. The whole House will recognise the great debt that we owe him. People not just in this country but in many others will read this report with great interest. As we have said before, there is no doubt that the threat is severe and very real, and we need to ensure that we have all reasonable methods of combating it. We will go further into this issue. I listened with great interest to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I will also be interested to hear what my noble friend the Minister has to say about the panel and the noble Lord’s recommendation. Even if it is not identical to what he recommends, something along these lines may well have considerable merit.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, if this was another forum, I might well say that I concur with the opinion of my noble friend Lord Carlile and say nothing more, but I, too, would like to add a few comments about this remarkable report. It has attracted some controversy. There was a sense at one stage, I think, that Mr Anderson was going up to the mountain and was expected to come down with tablets of stone, and to some extent he has done that.

The point I will direct my brief remarks to is where Mr Anderson says that the review does not,

“reach conclusions as to the proportionality or desirability of the bulk powers … As the terms of reference for the Review made clear, these are matters for Parliament”.

My judgment—I do not suggest that my judgment is any better or worse than any other noble Lord’s—is that from the point of view of proportionality and desirability, these powers meet those two criteria. I offer in support of that the fact that the continuing threat level in this country is severe, as well as the experience in France and other parts of Europe. In that sense, if we are to reach a judgment about proportionality and desirability, I most certainly am on the side of those who say that those two elements are more than satisfied by the requirements now placed on us all in relation to the security of this country.

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[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for making it clear that these are essentially probing amendments and I respond to them in that light. These amendments relate to the issuing, approval and modification of warrants under Parts 6 and 7 of the Bill.

Amendments 194J, 201B and 210B would remove from the Bill an important safeguard which requires that a bulk interception, acquisition or equipment interference warrant may be issued only if doing so is in the interest of national security. The Bill provides for a warrant under Part 6 to be issued where it is necessary on three statutory grounds: in the interests of national security; for the prevention and detection of serious crime; or in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom where those interests are also relevant to national security.

Clause 129(1)(b)(ii), Clause 146(1)(a)(ii) and Clause 164(1)(b)(ii), which these amendments seek to remove, ensure that one of those statutory grounds must always be national security. This is clearly an important safeguard which recognises the particular sensitivity of bulk powers and therefore limits their use to the most tightly drawn circumstances. In other words, the Bill says that a bulk warrant provided for in Part 6 of the Bill must have,

“in the interests of national security”,

as one of the statutory purposes to authorise collection. However, collection can also be authorised to prevent serious crime and to protect the economic well-being of the United Kingdom in addition to being authorised to protect national security.

The inclusion of the additional statutory grounds relating to serious crime and economic well-being remains vital. There will be circumstances where it is necessary and proportionate to select for examination data collected under a bulk warrant in order to, for example, prevent and detect serious crime, such as to detect and disrupt child sexual exploitation. However, the Bill ensures that the initial collection of data could be authorised only if doing so is necessary to protect national security, albeit that it may be necessary for one of the other two purposes that I have already described. In other words, there is a relationship between the statutory requirements for the bulk warrant and the operational purposes which will be specified in the same warrant application, some of which may relate to the prevention of serious crime or economic interest.

On that last point of economic interest, it has been asked how that can be distinguished from national security. In a sense, it is a matter of emphasis at the end of the day. The ISC looked at this in detail, and at the need to retain it as a statutory purpose in its own right. It took extensive evidence from the agencies and, indeed, from the Foreign Secretary. I believe that Dominic Grieve was the chair at that time. He made it clear during Report in the Commons that the ISC had been persuaded that there remained a need for safeguarding the UK’s economic well-being to continue to exist as a statutory purpose for the use of the investigatory powers in the Bill in their own right. Therefore, I accept that it is linked to national security but it is a matter of underlining the need to have in mind the cases in which economic well-being will be the prevailing factor.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I recall that with the noble Lord, Lord Beith, we went round this course a number of times in the ISC trying to work out where the economic well-being issue could be distinguished from national security. Will my noble and learned friend give a few illustrations now or at a later stage of the Bill to show exactly why this is the case? I think we were persuaded on this. My noble and learned friend said that the current ISC and the current chairman are persuaded. However, will he illustrate why they were persuaded?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

If I had those illustrations to hand, I would, of course, deliver them this very moment. I regret that I do not have them to hand. However, I will undertake to consider the illustrations that were given previously and write to the noble Lord. If it is necessary, I will elaborate on the examples already given by giving further examples. However, I regret that I am not in a position to cite those earlier examples.

I underline that the reference to national security in the context of the clauses to which I referred—that is, Clauses 129, 146 and 164—operates as an important safeguard. That is what has to be emphasised. In these circumstances I invite the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, not to press these amendments.

I turn to bulk personal datasets and health records and Amendment 223B. This amendment would limit the circumstances in which the intelligence agencies can retain and examine a bulk personal dataset which contains health records under a specific BPD warrant. The Bill already requires the Secretary of State and a judicial commissioner to consider whether the retention and examination of a bulk personal dataset is necessary and proportionate for certain defined operational purposes. Following consideration in the other place, the Bill was amended, limiting the test for granting a warrant for the retention and examination of a bulk personal dataset containing health records to cases where there are “exceptional and compelling” circumstances. These are already extremely high tests.

Amendment 223B would limit the Bill even further so that retention and examination is permitted only in exceptional and compelling circumstances related to national security. By their very nature, exceptional and compelling circumstances are very rare. Restricting the use of such datasets to circumstances where national security concerns are engaged would rule out their use for any other statutory purpose, including the prevention and detection of serious and organised crime. If we were to agree to this amendment, we would be signalling, in effect, that in no circumstances do we believe that it could ever be appropriate that such data should be used for serious and organised crime investigations even when the Secretary of State and a judicial commissioner consider this is necessary and proportionate and that there are exceptional and compelling circumstances. We do not consider that this is appropriate. It is long-standing government policy not to comment on intelligence matters. However, as the then Security Minister explained in the other place, in that specific instance only he was willing to confirm that the security and intelligence agencies did not hold a bulk personal dataset of medical records, which illustrates that there would need to be exceptional circumstances for an agency to do so.

However, the Minister and the Solicitor-General rightly emphasised that we would not want to rule out the possibility of there ever being such a scenario. They gave a hypothetical example in which a group of terrorists are involved in an explosion and sustain burns. Medical evidence about where they attended—the fact that they had attended a local A&E, for example—could be relevant to that particular operation and provide the only lead to find the individuals concerned. The same circumstances could arise if criminals were similarly injured in an explosion at, for example, an illegal drugs laboratory. This would not be a matter of national security but would relate to the prevention and detection of serious crime. I therefore emphasise that no Secretary of State or judicial commissioner, who would both have to approve a specific BPD warrant to retain medical records, would underestimate the seriousness of their duty in this regard. “Exceptional and compelling” is a high test to be met; restricting this further is not regarded as necessary. Therefore, again I invite the noble Lord to withdraw this amendment.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Lords Chamber

Smaller users of communications data being mandated to request data through the single points of contact and designated senior officers in authorities that acquire communications data more frequently can be an important safeguard. That is because, inevitably, those authorities that request data most frequently will be able to build up more experience and expertise in acquiring communications data, thus reducing the possibility of errors or inappropriate use. Accordingly, the Government do not believe that it would be sensible to remove this potentially important safeguard. I hope that that is helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and gives him sufficient comfort at this stage to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Obviously, this is a very important area, which has given rise to a lot of public concern about how widely this would go in terms of all the authorities that might have access to information in this way. But it must be right that, if there is to be a list and it is to bear the power to remove names—which the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is not suggesting should be deleted—there must be a power to add to the list as well where appropriate. Knowing the way that Governments, bodies and names change, I can see without altering the impact at all that it would be necessary to exercise this power. Could the Minister say a little more about the committee that he was talking about? Is it a standing committee, special committee or advisory committee? When he mentioned the proposal to add somebody to the list, he said that that would be scrutinised by a committee. What sort of committee would that be?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I was referring to the procedure relating to the enhanced affirmative process. That procedure is set out in Clause 239 of the Bill. Importantly, it provides for a relevant parliamentary committee to report on the regulations. I do not think that I can be more specific at this stage. The enhanced affirmative procedure has been used in the past, albeit not very frequently, and is there as an additional safeguard. I endorse everything that my noble friend said in support of my remarks. He is absolutely right that we cannot foresee at this stage the need to add to the list, but we must and should provide for the circumstances where that becomes necessary.

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The storage of internet connection records is a security risk. Technology experts claim that there is no such thing as a totally secure database and that commercial companies should assume that their security systems will be breached.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I understand the importance of safeguards, but the noble Lord’s thrust is that he is against the retention of internet connection records in total. He therefore totally disagrees with the impressive Joint Committee of both Houses, which considered the matter at some length. It said:

“We consider that, on balance, there is a case for Internet Connection Records as an important tool for law enforcement”.

Does he disagree?

[Lord Paddick]

I am grateful for the chance to clarify my position. That is my position: we disagree with the conclusions of the Joint Committee. We believe, on balance, that the retention of internet connection records is disproportionate and unnecessary.

Technology experts recommend that companies should plan on the basis of their security measures having been breached, not just plan for the security of their databases. This makes highly intrusive personal data potentially available to criminals and hostile foreign powers. If a criminal establishes that a married man is accessing gay websites, or a hostile foreign Government establish that an intelligence officer is accessing lonely hearts websites, that could increase the risk of blackmail or entrapment. Knowing from ICRs when someone is not at home can increase the risk of burglary.

Internet connection records are hugely expensive to analyse and store. Based on estimates from Denmark, where the storage of internet connection records has already been explored extensively, the set-up costs alone in the UK could be around £1 billion. As in the UK, the cost estimates provided by the Government and telecommunications providers in Denmark varied widely. The Government therefore asked independent management consultants to establish the true cost, which confirmed that the telecommunications service providers’ estimates were the correct ones. Extrapolating from the independently verified Danish costs using the relative populations of both countries would take the set-up costs alone for internet connection records in the UK to more than £1 billion.

For those who think that this cannot be right, I should say that 80% of all the data ever created since the beginning of time has been created in the last two years. That is the rate of increase, and, with more and more devices being connected to the internet, such as those controlling our central heating, and with even refrigerators and ovens being connected to the so-called internet of things, the number of internet connection records is set to increase exponentially. Apart from not being able to see communications in among all these other internet connections, the storage costs alone will be enormous.

Taking all these arguments together, the storage of the internet connection records of everyone in the UK for 12 months, whether they are suspected of wrongdoing or not, fails the proportionality test. I quote the RUSI report again, this time on proportionality. It states:

“Intrusion must be judged as proportionate to the advantages gained, not just in cost or resource terms but also through a judgement that the degree of intrusion is matched by the seriousness of the harm to be prevented”.

The advantages gained through the storage of internet connection records are limited, the costs are prohibitive, the degree of intrusion is huge and serious harm can be prevented through other means.

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[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. The Committee has listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, who was a member of the Joint Committee, which agreed unanimously—himself included—to this statement:

“We agree that all of the proposed purposes for which access to ICRs could be sought are appropriate”.

It went on to say:

“Whether ICRs are included or not”—

subject to the European Court of Justice—

“we believe that, in light of the ongoing need for communications data and the imminent expiry of DRIPA, a continued policy of some form of data retention is appropriate and that these provisions should accordingly form part of the Bill”.

A number of us have come to this Committee anxious to see the work done under the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, whose chairmanship of the Joint Committee was impressive. We were under the impression that its report was an accurate record. Now the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, stands up and says something entirely different from what was unanimously agreed in the Joint Committee.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 156A but I also support Amendment 147A, which was moved by my noble friend Lord Strasburger. I will not go into all the details set out so ably by my noble friends Lord Paddick and Lord Strasburger but there are some key issues which really have to be addressed. It is not good enough, frankly, to say that the Joint Committee may have said this or that; we need answers to the questions that have been posed.

The first question is: why is it that the United Kingdom, as far as I understand it—I hope that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—uniquely among the “Five Eyes” countries requires this power? Indeed, as far as I understand it this is unique among any equivalent western democracies. I hope the Minister will tell us what is so unique about the situation we find ourselves in. It is not shared by the United States, Canada, New Zealand or any other western democracy.

Secondly, it is important to understand that, at the moment, 25 countries around the world are considering investigatory powers legislation—countries such as India, Pakistan and many others. They are looking towards us and at what we do. We have to think extremely carefully about what we are doing and we must ensure that our questions are answered. It is incumbent on the Government to do that.

We are also in a time of quite a lot of political upheaval. As a result, I doubt many people have been paying a huge amount of attention to the Bill. I imagine the public will be absolutely horrified when they discover that Parliament has granted a power to government to insist on the retention of the details of every single person in this country’s access to every single website. They will want to know why and they will want to know under what conditions of security such information is to be held. They will want to know the cost and whether this Parliament rigorously examined the cost and the need for their data—the data of innocent people—to be held in this manner. It is not good enough for us just to say that this power might be desirable or useful at some point; we have to be clear that it is proportionate, that it can work and that it can be held securely.

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[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Does the noble Lord not remember that some of us tried to anticipate some of these problems and bring in amendments to a previous Bill? We were told then that we must not rush this. This Bill must now have been subject to the most exhaustive scrutiny of any that I can remember. It has been the subject of three independent reports and of scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses, on which the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Butler, who are present, and other Members served. The noble Lord stands there and suggests that this is some impetuous reaction to a problem that has just arisen. I have been critical—I should have liked to see earlier action—but I accept that the Government decided that the Bill should be subject to the most exhaustive public scrutiny that I can remember for any Bill. In fairness, the noble Lord might recognise that in his speech.

[Lord Oates]

If the noble Lord had been in his place at Second Reading, he would have heard me give exactly that recognition. I recognise entirely the scrutiny and excellent work. I note that it is only because of the actions of people such as the then Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, that we had that scrutiny. I am grateful that we had it and the Bill is much better as a consequence. I welcome it. That does not mean, however, that as a result of that scrutiny we should abandon our Committee proceedings; it does not mean that those of us who have not served on Joint Committees should not be able to ask questions or seek answers. That is certainly what I will continue to do in this matter.

What is being required is an extraordinary power. We must be absolutely clear about that: it is unique. The noble Lord, Lord King, the Minister or any other noble Lord needs to explain—and nobody has, certainly not in all the proceedings so far in this House—why we, uniquely, need this power. The power is one that even such eminent people as my noble friend Lord Carlile—no slouch on counterterrorism measures—have questioned in the past. Indeed on 25 May 2013, he penned an article, I believe in the Daily Mail, in which he said:

“I, Lord Reid, Lord West and others of like mind have never favoured the recording of every website visited by every internet user, though we have been accused of that ambition”.

I hope the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it that is exactly what is proposed: the retention of data on the internet connection records of every internet user in the country. I hope that the Minister will address and answer all the detailed points put by my noble friends Lord Paddick and Lord Strasburger, and tell the House why we, uniquely, need a power required by no other constitutional democracy of a similar type in the world.

[Lord Strasburger]

I assure my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord King, that the report by the Joint Committee was not unanimous. We had something like 10 divisions, and for some peculiar reason I found myself on the wrong end of most of them.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

If the noble Lord looks at the report, he will see that the paragraphs that I referred to were unanimously agreed.

Defence: Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

I very much agree with the closing comments of the right reverend Prelate that this enormous programme, which is of great significance for our country, should certainly be kept under continuous review. It has been the feature of the years of our deterrent and the changes made progressively over that time. I feel a certain nostalgia. I did the roll-out of one of the Vanguard submarines at Barrow-in-Furness and it is rather worrying to think that, if that is getting a bit too old and needs replacement, that might go for me as well.

If I were not here tonight I would be at the Sir Michael Quinlan memorial lecture, which is taking place this evening in the Foreign Office. There are many here in the Chamber tonight who knew him well. He was with me at the Ministry of Defence as an outstanding Permanent Secretary, but he was also known as the high priest of nuclear deterrence and was indeed credited, I believe, with writing out for Margaret Thatcher the moral case for nuclear weapons when she was looking for some reinforcement while under attack from—I observe the right reverend Prelate—certain Church leaders at the time. Michael Quinlan, as a keen Jesuit Catholic, produced the moral case for nuclear deterrence.

I was pleased to see that Michael Fallon, when speaking to the Policy Exchange a couple of months ago, quoted Michael Quinlan. He described him as the “great nuclear theorist” and former Ministry of Defence Permanent Secretary. Michael said:

“No safer system … is yet in view … To tear down the present structure, imperfect but effective, before a better one is firmly within our grasp, would be an immensely dangerous and irresponsible act”.

I would certainly like to get rid of nuclear weapons. I do not enjoy the idea that we have to have the nuclear deterrent and the continuous at-sea deterrence, with the cost that it represents. Yes, one can make the argument that, spread over the totality of government expenditure, it is not a huge sum, but it is still by any standards a large sum of money. Michael Quinlan made it clear that he was not in favour of the nuclear deterrent at any price, but he said—this echoes the right reverend Prelate—that we should stop and think at each stage about the justification and whether changes would be appropriate.

I am very conscious of something that the right reverend Prelate has just been talking about: whether we have a safer world. The Minister, engaged in his marathon tonight of the Investigatory Powers Bill and this debate, made this point very clearly indeed. We never saw the end of the Cold War coming. We never saw the Arab spring. We never saw the rise of Daesh. We never saw the extent of the danger of the proliferation of nuclear materials around the world with the break-up of the Soviet Union—the nuclear materials stored in Kazakhstan and in Ukraine—and the fact that now, terrorists are seeking any way they can to get hold of nuclear material. This is now a very much more dangerous world. My noble friend the Minister referred to a more assertive Russia. If it intends to base nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad and the Crimea, that is a significant and worrying development. The number of failed states in the world at the moment represents a danger. The situation has changed a lot just in the past 10 years.

The programme we are looking at will not put something in place for the next five, seven, 10 years: we are talking about how far we can see ahead. The system we are talking about will give coverage and deterrence for the next 30 to 40 years. It is a long-term commitment. It is our ultimate insurance policy. Of course, it has happened at a rather interesting time with the recent Brexit. If we said that we were not going on with the deterrent, it would be extremely damaging to confidence in NATO, as my noble friend has said.

Some people think we could rely on the Americans to defend us. It is not unhelpful to the debate that we have a Republican candidate for the presidency who, if we had aggressors—perhaps the Russians overasserting themselves—and he was president, it would be very difficult to decide whether he would be prepared in certain circumstances to come to our assistance. That is only an illustration—I am sure he would—but it is an uncertainty we face.

Obviously, I would like to see every possible effort being made to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, as we have been doing continuously. There are other former Defence Secretaries here today and they will know that during their time in office, we were always looking to reduce the number of warheads. I am interested to see that only last year there was a further reduction from 48 to 40 warheads in each submarine. It certainly was progress going on in my time, and that has continued.

It is very relevant that we are having this debate today, so soon after the anniversary of the launch of the Battle of the Somme. One looks at the misery of two world wars, and the ultimate and total tragedy that affected so many places. We had those two great convulsions, and have gone 70 years without another. I was Secretary of State when the Berlin Wall came down. We had very interesting exchanges at that time. I talked to my Soviet opposite number and to some of the Soviet, and then Russian, generals, and there was no doubt that there were times when they thought they might advance and do a good bit of unification of Germany on their own. They knew that they could easily do it with conventional forces, but at the back of their minds was the ultimate risk of the nuclear deterrent. It is against that background, without any enjoyment of nuclear weapons or happiness at the cost, that I have no doubt that this is the right course to adopt: that we must continue with our policy of deterrence. It has been effective, kept the peace and avoided yet another world war. We, as a responsible nation, have a duty to continue to play our part.

Iraq Inquiry

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the right reverend Prelate, because I think there has been a suggestion that perhaps things have turned out for the better in Iraq since the events of 2003, and he has rightly drawn attention to the absolutely tragic situation that Iraq now faces. Noble Lords may have seen the perceptive article by Jeremy Bowen in the New Statesman, in which he says that Iraq,

“has not had a day of real peace since 2003”.

The pressures that we face, and the damage that has been done, make us absolutely beholden to learn every lesson that we possibly can from this exercise. If I may say so, I have already heard enough speeches in your Lordships’ House today to recognise that this House has a particular contribution to make—probably rather more than the other place, because some of us lived through some of these periods, and we have a duty to bring our experience to bear.

The first lesson that I would like to pick up, which was also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is that if we want to learn lessons from an inquiry like this, it must not take seven years. Noble Lords may have seen the interesting article by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, who criticised the process of “Maxwellisation”. He said that when he conducted the Bloody Sunday inquiry—which, as we know, went on for quite long enough anyway—he had a procedure whereby, if there were criticisms to be made, they were made to the witnesses or to those who came to give evidence in front of them, at the actual inquiry, rather than going through this very laborious Maxwellisation process, which added so much to the time this exercise took.

I would like to take noble Lords back to the start of the problem, and the origin of, “We’re with you for ever”, or, “I will be with you, whatever”. The image in my mind is of the very excellent thing that Tony Blair did when, within 10 days of 9/11, he went to Washington and was present when, 10 days after 9/11, President Bush addressed a joint meeting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. There, in Congress, there was a particular moment when President Bush was trying to restore the morale of the American people, and he said, “At a time of real difficulty and danger, you know who your real friends are”. And he looked up at the gallery and said, “Good to have you here, friend”. Tony Blair stood up, and the whole of the Senate and all the Congressmen turned and gave him a standing ovation. I think that that commitment—“I will be with you, whatever”—really started right there.

My own experience goes back some way, because I was involved in the first Gulf War. I was involved on that last day, when the very successful Left Hook land campaign expelled the Iraqi armed forces from Kuwait. They were fleeing for their lives—I remember Medina Ridge, and it was just a turkey shoot: “Mr President, shall we go on?”. I understand that at a meeting at the White House, after that, there was consideration as to whether they should go on—that is, go on to Baghdad and remove Saddam Hussein. The diplomatic advice was, “Well, you could do it. You’ll lose a few votes in the UN, because you’re invading another sovereign country, and it’s not the same as expelling somebody from a country that they shouldn’t be in”. From the military point of view, the advice was, “You could do it, but we may have rather more casualties, because we haven’t yet really faced the full Republican Guard divisions, which are a completely different kettle of fish from some of the less formidable Iraqi forces. But you could do it”.

One voice then said, “Well, you can certainly do it, but there are two questions you need to answer. If you have decided to get rid of Saddam Hussein, who will you put in his place? The second question is: how long are you prepared to be there?”. What a pity those questions were not asked.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, made an excellent contribution to this debate. I strongly agree that President Bush was not necessarily in the lead on this. My former opposite number, Dick Cheney, was the most powerful vice-president America has had, with his considerable international experience gained before President George W Bush came to office. The Americans also had Donald Rumsfeld. There is no doubt that Secretary Rumsfeld was completely committed to regime change. Some may have heard General Tim Cross on the radio recently saying that Rumsfeld would listen to nobody. He would not listen to the State Department or the US military and he certainly would not listen to the UK. I do not think it is conceited to say that we have some knowledge and experience of Arab countries and the Gulf area. That knowledge and experience go back a long time. Our duty in these situations is not just to be a loyal, supportive friend, but a candid friend. I do not think there is a proper understanding in the Pentagon of the real depth of the problems of the Sunni/Shia issue, Arab/Kurd hostilities and conflicts and the sort of problems that could be unlocked. I say to the right reverend Prelate that when one looks at the situation now and the conflict that has broken out, and one thinks of the situation of the Christians, one has to note that for all the awfulness of Saddam Hussein, his Foreign Minister—Tariq Aziz—was a Christian. How different the situation is now in that regard.

I agree very strongly with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, in his most interesting contribution as regards the absence of proper Cabinet discussion or of any War Cabinet. I think that the Cabinet Secretary and Sir David Omand, as he was then, were excluded from discussions—the people who could have contributed significantly to the discussions and analysis of some of the intelligence that was coming in. The officials involved in the sofa government activity—David Manning, Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell—were, after all, loyal to the Prime Minister. They had a duty to support him but I do not think they provided the degree of critical approach that was needed at the time. I pay tribute to the speech made by Robin Cook in that fateful debate in the House of Commons. He was the only Minister to ask why there had been no discovery so far of any weapons of mass destruction, and called for more time for inspection. As he said, the Government had tried so hard to get a second resolution. They showed how important it was to get it and they could not then say the fact that they had not got it really did not matter at all. He pointed out that there was no agreement to support us on the part of others. We did not have NATO, the European Union or the Security Council on our side in undertaking these activities.

As regards the failure properly to analyse the intelligence, those of us who have had top secret intelligence files put in front of us know that this information is tremendously seductive. You want to believe it; you think that you are extremely privileged to have access to this information but then you need some wiser old heads around to tell you that there may be a few other considerations that need taking into account. They can ask whether the information has been checked and whether there is corroboration. I certainly found that that was the case in Northern Ireland, where a wonderful new source of intelligence appeared one day, but after a pause of a few months, when one asked what had happened to it, one was told that, for one reason or another, the source had been found to be a complete fraud. However, that sort of challenge and check did not exist in this case.

The tragedy of this sofa government approach, which has been referred to, is that no proper minutes were taken. The fact that they were not taken is as alleged by one official to have been because the people concerned were worried that if they were taken they would be leaked to either Gordon Brown or Clare Short. That shows the tragedy of the dysfunctional nature of that Government and that Cabinet situation.

Those are just a few points drawn from my own experience of these problems with regard to the lessons that have to be learned as we gradually plough our way through the Chilcot report.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on LPP and I was absolutely fascinated by that comment about lawyers being told by their clients where the loot was hidden. What a much more exciting job being a lawyer must be than I had appreciated.

I join other noble Lords in welcoming the Bill. I heard the comments about the Bill having been rushed but if ever there was a Bill that had never been rushed, we have it here today. My noble friend the Minister made the point extremely well in his absolutely excellent introductory speech to this Second Reading. Has any other Bill ever had the scrutiny of three Joint Committees and three independent reviews? Given some of its important provisions, there are those of us in this House who wish to see the Bill moving much faster than the timetable we are presently enjoying. We obviously know that we have to have it finished by the end of the year.

My worry about the Bill and the question I will raise, following previous legislation, concerns the challenge to keep up with new technology. I stand here as an avowed ignoramus on many of these amazing technologies, such as WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook. I see that the latest route that has been used by terrorists is the chat network on PlayStation. That will give Sony a few thoughts about how it organises its business in future and about the requirements that the Bill may impose on it. Without any question, the challenge is that while it might seem to be an amusing paradise for geeks, we know that there is a very dark side to this and that it offers a huge range of opportunities for some very sinister elements, be they terrorists, organised criminals, paedophiles or child abusers. All forms of evil can thrive and operate within this. We have known for some time the use that ISIS—the so-called Islamic State—has made of WhatsApp and the incredibly efficient communication that it has given it. When one hears surprise news that ISIS has attacked some town which people previously thought was safe, one knows that that has been achieved because it has very good communications through the new systems of technology which we are trying to keep up with.

It is against that background that we realise the incredible challenge that the police and intelligence agencies have. The Minister referred to the scale of the threat, which takes so many different forms. I have often talked in this House about how terrorism has changed since the time I was in Northern Ireland. We did not have suicide bombers in Northern Ireland. The challenge they pose to new systems of security is very real. While we have suicide bombers, we also have the willingness to engage in appalling massacres of innocent civilians. We know that some of the very evil people who exist in the world at present no longer have any interest in war crimes, Geneva conventions or anything else.

My noble friend referred to the anniversary yesterday of perfectly innocent people being mown down on a beach in Tunisia. We know that we have every finger crossed in this country against the risk that we could face at any time. In those situations, static guards, sentries and armed police have a role to play, but the core of so much of this is intelligence. If we are to be successful against this, we need access to intelligence. I was very interested to see that in 95% of prosecutions of organised crime, communications data have been vital; and that bulk powers have been significant in every counterterrorism investigation in the seven plots that there have been in the past 10 years, and vital to detecting 95% of the cyberattacks that we have faced in this country. I was not previously aware that 90% of our military operations have been conducted successfully without casualties by access to information under the systems that we are discussing today.

I warmly welcome the last comment of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I was about to attack him for the phrase “snoopers’ charter”, but he managed to get out in time. Part of the problem with the Bill is that people often do not understand the importance of what is happening, because the intelligence agencies in particular and the police are very inhibited in what they can say about why some of this information is so vital to the defence and security of our country, as too often that runs the risk of revealing methods or techniques that it is vital to protect in the interests of the security of our country. It is still cited as a “snoopers’ charter” by some, but that is a cheap, silly and dangerous remark. It is insulting to the police and our intelligence agencies to use such a phrase. As borne out by the comments Dominic Grieve, the current chairman of the ISC, made in another place on this Bill, we know the high sense of responsibility that is generally shown by our intelligence agencies and the police. Of course there can be mistakes, and there are occasions when people do not live up to those high standards, but to suggest that in general the organisations do not seek to observe scrupulously the proper use of these powers is grossly irresponsible.

We will certainly seek proper scrutiny of the legislation as it goes through. The noble Lord leading for the Opposition referred to the substantial changes made in the Commons and the number of important undertakings that have been made which will have to be put into effect here. I welcome that. It is a question of proportionality and of achieving that proper balance between protecting public security and legitimate privacy. It has been claimed that the Bill is a world first in the scale and range of what it seeks to achieve. I could not help being amused today by the comments of Mr Edward Snowden, who finds that the Russians are operating some pretty intrusive activities, and without all the provisions that exist in this legislation, as far as I am aware. I welcome the dual lock that is being introduced, which is important.

I end simply with one comment. As we go through the Bill, I shall look at whether it has the flexibility to cope with the accelerating pace of technical change. We have to make sure that it remains effective as the years go forward. We know that the speed with which new technologies, systems and techniques are coming in poses a major challenge to our agencies. It is our duty as legislators to provide for the introduction of properly scrutinised and properly protective regulations, under which the agencies can protect our country and at the same time properly respect the privacy of its citizens.

Queen’s Speech

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved on Wednesday 18 May by

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

Yemen

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as I said, we do monitor reports of humanitarian violations, but it is important for Saudi Arabia, in the first instance, to conduct thorough and conclusive investigations into incidents. It will have the best insight into its own military procedures and will be able to conduct the most thorough and conclusive investigations. That will also allow the country to really understand what went wrong in a particular case and to apply the lessons learnt in the best possible way. That is the standard we set ourselves, and we set it for our allies. We would not expect Saudi Arabia to be treated any differently.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that there is absolute urgency about the peace talks taking place in Kuwait and that the risk of starvation among many of the Yemeni population is very real in spite of the massive United Nations efforts to alleviate the situation, particularly as there are disturbing signs that al-Qaeda may be entering into the issue and that there is a real risk of its resurgence in the Arabian peninsula, which is the last thing we want to see?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Yemen’s is now one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world. Of the world’s population in need of humanitarian aid, one-fifth lives in Yemen, totalling 21 million people. Aid is being co-ordinated through the United Nations, as my noble friend is aware, and is being delivered through UN agencies and NGOs. The UK is the fourth-largest donor, I am pleased to say, and we have more than doubled our commitment to Yemen over the past financial year to £85 million. But there is much more to be done, including ensuring the flow of commercial goods into Yemen and access for humanitarian agencies.

National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend Earl Howe on his presentation of a very substantial report, which the House will want to study. One thing that concerns me in it are the completely new elements that have come into our defence strategy. Drones, cyber and the interception of communications will play a much bigger part in the defence of this country than might previously have been the case. I am concerned about where we will be by 2025 or maybe—it may be better to look this far—by 2030. That is quite a long way away. My noble friend has already partly answered this but my concern is on how soon some of these capabilities, which in the present frightening state of the world are very desirable, will be ready and how the manpower challenge will actually be met.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend puts his finger on a central issue that we have been wrestling with over these past months. It is impossible to predict the threats that we will face in 10 or 15 years. We know that there are many uncertainties. The national security strategy sets out a quite different threat picture from that of 2010. In particular, the threat from terrorism has increased substantially and aggressive Russian behaviour means that state-based threats are more prominent. As the Statement said, we cannot choose between conventional defences against state-based threats and the need to counter threats that do not recognise national borders. We have to tackle both. We have attempted in this document, I hope successfully, not just to address the threats in order of priority but to plan for an array of capabilities that will make us much nimbler on our feet, more flexible and able to respond globally to any threat that materialises. My noble friend is right to put his finger on cyber and drones as new elements of this strategy. We must invest in these things but we must also ensure that the skilled manpower is there so that the equipment can be utilised to its best effect.