Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Judd

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 11th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am associated with Amendment 7 and shall speak in support of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti’s amendment on agents provocateurs. I am one of those who believes that however much, from an idealistic position, a Bill such as this should be unnecessary, in the reality of the world, what the Bill covers is desperately needed. That is why I am convinced that we should not inadvertently get into a position in which we are undermining public understanding and goodwill towards the need for the Bill and for those who courageously do the work to which we are referring.

I am therefore certain that Amendment 7 is highly relevant. I have already spoken on a previous group about the word “serious”. We must not let this become seen as a convenient system at the disposal of the security services, and the rest. The gravity and seriousness of the work when it is necessary must be free from such misunderstandings and from having created situations in which people’s anxieties can be exploited by those with whom we have nothing in common. Believe you me, there are people who are determined to exploit every opening to try to disprove the validity of the Bill and what it is about. For that reason, I believe it is not superficial to insist on the word “serious”. It is extremely serious because it is key to keeping the maximum positive attitude.

On the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, in the same way, we need to be very careful about counterproductivity. I cannot think of anything much more easily exploited for stirring up doubt and anxiety about what the security services are about and why legislation of this sort is necessary than to prevaricate on an issue such as agents provocateurs. It is all right to say “Well, it’s covered in other aspects of the Bill”; it may well be, but I believe that the concept of agents provocateurs and the counter-productivity if misused makes it absolutely essential that we spell out that the activity of agents provocateurs is just not acceptable. The more we underline that, the better.

I am therefore firmly with my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti on this, and some of my colleagues who have carried responsibilities in this sphere and who see this from an administrative and top-down point of view have to understand the dynamics which are there in society and which work to undermine what they seek to achieve on our behalf. From that standpoint, the amendment is necessary and highly relevant.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I join so many noble Lords in paying a warm tribute to James Brokenshire and sending our best wishes to him. It is very sad to hear the news. I hope for a good and speedy recovery and to hear better news shortly.

My approach to these amendments is already pretty clear because we are setting up a completely new system. It is now on a statutory basis and has a new and I think generally respected code of practice. It has to report through the judicial commissioner and then the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, to the Prime Minister and Parliament, and to try at this stage to put in all sorts of qualifications seems quite unnecessary.

Take the issue about adding “serious” to “crime”: it seems that in many cases when the police first get some source—some possible informer—they may not be at all clear how serious the crime may be. However, I think we would all feel pretty silly if later on, when very serious crimes were reviewed, they said, “We knew about that, but because we couldn’t tell how serious it was going to be at that time, we never took any action.” That would be pretty unforgivable. Therefore, I do not support adding “serious” to these issues.

I will not say any more about how the issue of economic well-being is linked to national security, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, covered the point admirably. There is no question that many things could happen, as the noble Lord, Lord Beith, addressed; he is a former member of the ISC, who took evidence with me. And the noble Lord, Lord West—poacher turned gamekeeper that he is—said that we now see a situation in which many extremely serious things could affect economic well-being. That could involve perhaps many people losing their jobs and significantly higher unemployment, but you could not claim that that is linked to national security.

With the confusions and uncertainties of the world at present, the cyberattacks and the data war that is going on, I would not wish to qualify, limit or restrict a properly set up and statutorily approved new system with too many qualifications, which may limit the effectiveness of its vital work.