Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord Pannick

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

I share the concern about the breadth of the definition of “hostile act” as covering acts which threaten “national security” or,

“the economic well-being of the United Kingdom”.

These concepts are vague to the point of absurdity. No doubt some people would say that the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal threatens the economic well-being of the United Kingdom. I would not share that view, but some people might. Because of the vagueness of these concepts, they would inevitably confer extensive discretionary powers, which are inimical to the rule of law. Because they are so vague, they would inevitably also inhibit perfectly lawful activities.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I do not want to add to the comments that I made in the debate on whether Clause 21 and Schedule 3 should stand part of the Bill, which echoed the comments of other noble, and noble and learned, Lords.

As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, has said, regulations that we recently considered that were made under the Investigatory Powers Act radically redefined “serious crime” to mean offences which carry a minimum sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment but also all offences involving communication or the invasion of privacy. The Government are quite capable of redefining—and in fact have redefined—serious crime to fit more precisely the powers referred to in different pieces of legislation, even regulations made under a piece of legislation in which the definition of serious crime is different. So I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, who mentioned earlier that it would not capture Official Secrets Act offences, because the Government, as has been suggested, can change, have changed and could change the definition of serious crime in relation to Schedule 3 powers.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord Pannick

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 31st October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for his support, and for the comments of the Minister. I welcome the fact that the Government will look carefully at Amendment 38. On Amendment 36, I ask that the Government also look at whether, when somebody hires a car, the contract says effectively that the person does not have the right to use that vehicle for an illegal purpose; that could be a gap in the legislation as drafted. I hope that the Minister will appreciate that we are trying to be helpful and supportive in suggesting these amendments.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I suggest to the noble Lord that the provision in the Bill is concerned with “a right to use”, which must mean any right to use. It is not confined to a right to use the vehicle for the terrorism purpose that we are concerned about. Therefore, it is not necessary to pursue an amendment here, given that there is a notification requirement if there is any right to use the vehicle; clearly the person has a right to use the vehicle.

[Lord Paddick]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I am not sure whether the point I am about to make is contrary to what he has just said but our concern is that that there could be a line in the contract, when somebody hires a car, that says, “You are not entitled to use this car—you have no right to use this car—if you intend to use it for an illegal purpose”. In other words, the contract between the renter and the company will be null and void, and therefore someone has no right to use this vehicle if they intend to use it for an illegal purpose. I am not sure whether words to that effect are part of a vehicle hire contract but it perhaps at least needs to be looked at before we come back to this issue. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group. I have added my name to Amendments 39 and 41 but, for some inexplicable reason, not to Amendment 40. I assure the House that that is a mistake. All I will say is that I am sure that the Minister has listened carefully to the noble Lords, Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord Carlile of Berriew.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, perhaps I may add my name to the long list of noble Lords concerned about the width of the provision in the Bill. I too hope that the Minister will say to the Committee that she and the Government will take this matter away, think about it and come back to it on Report.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord Pannick

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak on these amendments, although we support them from these Benches, but I have to take issue with what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said—I think, quoting the noble Lord, Lord Black, from the previous debate—about how we do not need any of this stuff because people can sue the newspapers and achieve redress through those means.

When I was a commander in the Metropolitan Police Service, I was subjected to a kiss and tell story on the front page and eight inside pages of a tabloid newspaper. The story was a mixture of lies and intimate details of my private life and my relationship with somebody I loved and lived with for three and a half years. We broke up in acrimonious circumstances and subsequently he was paid £100,000 by the tabloid newspaper to tell these lies and intimate details of my private life. Thankfully, a group of solicitors and barristers agreed to a conditional fee agreement to pursue the newspaper. However, half way through the preliminaries leading up to the court case, it became apparent that I was unable to secure insurance against losing. Therefore, I was faced with a situation where if I pulled out of the action I would have to pay both sides’ costs—the newspaper’s costs and my own side’s costs because the conditional fee agreement would happen only if the case went to court and I lost—and could have lost my home.

The point is that there are many ordinary people, less high-profile than even I was at that time, who cannot get conditional fee agreements. They do not have the means to sue newspapers. Certainly, I would not recommend anybody going through the stress that I was put through by that newspaper and its lawyers, who tried every trick in the book to try to get us to fold before the court case happened. As it happens, two weeks before the case was due to be heard, they agreed to settle, although they claimed that it was not on the grounds of a breach of privacy but because everything that had been printed in the newspaper was untrue.

For noble Lords to say that there are sufficient safeguards at the moment for ordinary people to take the newspapers to court is, in my respectful submission, completely untrue.

[Lord Pannick]

I am very sorry to hear about the noble Lord’s personal experience and of course I accept everything he says. But will he accept that hundreds of people have brought legal proceedings against national newspaper groups for their wrongful, unlawful action in accessing personal data—for example, by listening to their mobile telephone calls—and publishing articles in consequence of that, and they have recovered very substantial damages, and rightly so, against those newspapers?

[Lord Paddick]

I completely accept what the noble Lord says but there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of other ordinary people who have not been able to claim redress for the wrongs that have been meted out to them by the press.