Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Debate between Lord Sikka and Baroness Chakrabarti

Committee stage
Monday 22nd April 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

What I am advocating to the Committee is that, in terms of our approach in this country to everyone in either category—or to people who are sometimes in both categories because they are, for example, entitled to some universal benefits but none the less must pay tax on their earnings, inheritance or whatever—the appropriate approach is a targeted approach beginning with at least some reasonable suspicion that a person’s financial matters are a cause for concern. Once there is reasonable suspicion—not even hard proof—because of their activities, that should be the trigger for an intrusion into their affairs. We have had that approach to privacy in this country for a very long time; it is the approach that, broadly speaking, is entrenched in Article 8 of the convention. Even if one does not like human rights conventions, it is none the less a tradition that people in this country—not just lawyers—have long understood.

Further, and in reference to the remarks attributed to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich—who is not in his place, which is the reason why I am also risking being sensible—it is absolutely flabbergasting that there are greater checks and balances for investigating matters of national security than for investigating what could be minor benefit fraud. An example is the allegation that the person giving a Christmas present to their pensioner relative or their relative who is not able to work should trigger a response in the algorithm that this is somebody who should no longer be worthy of the benefit or who, worse still, should face criminality or even potential incarceration.

I cannot say how horrified I am that the Government should have proceeded with a measure of this kind even as we still learn about the extent of the injustice perpetrated on the postmasters. After what we are just beginning to understand about the postmasters, I cannot understand why the Government would allow this kind of discriminatory intrusion to be turbocharged by AI and inflict the potential for the same type of injustice—not just for a limited cohort of people who were unfortunate enough to be serving their communities by working as postmasters—on millions of people in the United Kingdom.

This is what Committee on a Bill is for. I will therefore calm myself in the knowledge and belief—and certainly the hope—that, in his response, the Minister will at least offer to meet with Members of the Committee who have put their names to the clause stand part notice from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and with campaigners and experts to hear a little about the detail of the concerns and to compare this provision with the other provisions, as the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, suggested in relation to national security, or indeed for tax fraud. Nobody is suggesting that fraud should be perpetrated with impunity, but we must learn from the mistakes of injustices already perpetrated. They are perpetrated because of blanket trust in the authorities and AI and a lack of checks and balances. There were plenty of humans in the loop at the Post Office, but that is not enough. This is a sweeping power that will lead only to intrusion, discrimination and the worst kind of injustice. In the meantime, before that moment even comes, millions of people will live in fear.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, I will address, first, the exclusion of Clause 128 and, secondly, Amendment 219 in my name.

I spoke at Second Reading to oppose Clause 128. I was a little too late to put my name to the clause stand part notice in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Anderson. I would therefore like to address a few things relating to that before I move on.

This clause creates two kinds of citizen: those who are entitled to financial privacy and others who are not entitled to any privacy, just because they happen to be poor, old, sick, disabled, infirm and unfortunate. Hopefully, the Minister can explain the rationale for creating this form of discrimination. This discrimination will particularly affect women, because a lot of women receive social security benefits, and people of colour, who are generally paid poorly and often have to rely upon universal credit and other benefits to make ends meet. Hopefully the Minister will also be able to tell us how this squares with the levelling-up agenda. Certainly this clause does not really provide any fairness at all.

I have received lots of emails and letters and met individuals who are very concerned, as earlier speakers articulated, that they will be made homeless because their landlords will not want their bank accounts to be put under surveillance. What assessment have the Government made of the impact that this clause may have on future homelessness?

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Lord Sikka and Baroness Chakrabarti

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 10th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is my great honour and pleasure to join the debate. I wish to speak to Amendment 70, which seeks to constrain ministerial discretion to amend the list of relevant authorities.

We all know that, as time goes by, Ministers and Governments are tempted to expand the list of regulators. In this case, they would be tempted to expand the list of relevant authorities contained in the Bill. How would they do that? They could bring about primary legislation and allow Parliament sufficient time to scrutinise it, or they could have a rushed amendment through a statutory instrument. I do not favour the second choice.

I am a relative newcomer to the House, but a little amount of research has shown me that, in the last few years, the Government have made considerable use of statutory instruments to rush through legislation, often with little time or detailed parliamentary scrutiny. Statutory instruments can vary in length and breadth. As my noble friend Lord Cunningham of Felling noted on 10 January 2019 in the official record, one statutory instrument was 636 pages long and weighed 2.54 kilos.

The increased length of secondary legislation has not been accompanied by commensurate increase in the time and resources available to Parliament. The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in its report published on 20 February 2019, expressed considerable concern about the extensive use of secondary legislation and argued that it prevents Parliament effectively fulfilling its scrutiny function. The participants in such debates often receive little briefing to help them prepare for the debate beyond the standard explanatory memorandum provided with the draft secondary legislation. This is often at very short notice. The impact assessments which have accompanied some of these statutory instruments have been deficient.

On 22 May 2019, in the other place, the Shadow Chancellor pointed out, at Hansard col. 6, that statutory instruments often contain “deficiencies, ambiguities and errors” which cannot be properly scrutinised by a rushed passage through Parliament. The deficient parliamentary process in turn leads to more statutory instruments to correct previous errors, and thus an overload is created.

The use of statutory instruments diminishes parliamentary powers to scrutinise the Government and their legislation. During the debate on the present CHIS Bill, many noble Lords have indicated their unease at the daunting list of relevant authorities contained in the Bill and their possible scrutiny and public accountability. There have been concerns about the use of children and vulnerable people who may be used and then discarded, left alone with their families to face private nightmares, flashbacks and mental health problems. Noble Lords have raised concerns about the rule of law, the rights of negatively affected individuals, human rights, and much more. Any future amendment to the list of relevant authorities will raise the same issues again. Such matters cannot be dealt with through statutory instruments and minimal parliamentary debates. They require public consultation, primary legislation, full debate and scrutiny by Parliament, which forces Ministers to justify their policies and practices. For these reasons, I urge the House to support my amendment.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow all those who have spoken in this group. The size of the group and the number of speakers are indicative of the seriousness with which the length of the list of agencies is viewed by Members of the House. I thank the Minister for her fortitude and patience on this fourth day in Committee on this important Bill, and for her letter earlier today inviting Members of the House to further briefings.

I repeat that she has made the case for the value of putting this kind of policy on a statutory footing, and I do not think anyone is really disagreeing with that in principle. The problem is that the detail of the Bill, by accident or design, creates a real constitutional over- reach with a grave risk of what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, called unintentional consequences. That is not to impute the Government with bad motives in this respect but it is to be really concerned about the unintended consequences of the overreach contained in various components of the Bill, in part because it grafts a criminal conduct regime on to what was previously just a surveillance regime, with no extra safeguards to speak of in terms of authorisation; in part because it creates no statutory limits on the types of offences that might be authorised; and of course in part because of this very long list of agencies that do very different work.

Ultimately, I say that the real overreach which makes that combination of challenges particularly problematic is that what is at stake is that the status quo, whereby an authorisation leads to a public interest defence—in practice, almost a presumption that the person authorised would not be prosecuted—will be replaced with total landmark immunity, lawful for all purposes, civil and criminal. That is what makes the list of agencies and the ability to amend it by Henry VIII powers so very grave and ripe for abuse well into the future by a Government of any stripe, whether, as I say, by accident or design.

I ask the Minister to reflect on whether Amendment 63, which is my favourite in this group, can be considered for adoption by the Government. I ask the Government to reflect and adopt some constitutional humility rather than overreach, and to accept that we are genuinely trying to help to improve this legislation so that it can do what it needs to, which is to put criminal conduct on an open, accessible, primary legislative footing, but not create the graver dangers of abuse well into the future.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Lord Sikka and Baroness Chakrabarti

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. My concern is about authorising corporations to commit criminal acts and the consequences for the individuals who have been somehow enrolled to commit criminal acts and subsequently discarded. Through this amendment, I seek to address those issues.

The Bill permits the relevant authorities to enrol and authorise state and non-state actors to commit criminal acts. None of the relevant authorities listed in the Bill is hermetically sealed; they are not self-contained. They use corporations—private organisations—to further their aims. They interact with others, and there is evidence to suggest that over the years corporations have been authorised to commit what some would say were criminal acts, while others might perhaps say those acts were dangerous. Corporations have become an arm of the state, and all Governments in recent years have had an appetite for outsourcing things. I can see nothing in the Bill that would prevent a Government from outsourcing the commission of criminal acts.

There is a fair bit of research into some of these companies. I want to draw attention to an article, dated 20 December 2018, that is easily accessible on the openDemocracy website. I shall quote part of it:

“G4S, one of the UK’s biggest private military companies, provides pivotal ‘operational support’ to Britain’s military in Afghanistan and such incidents bring back into focus the extent that private military and security companies are present – and sometimes directly involved – in combat … Britain has led this privatisation of modern warfare. It leads the world in providing armed contractors to ‘hot spots’, be it combating terrorism in the Middle East or fighting pirates off the Horn of Africa. Some of their biggest clients are governments; since 2004, the British state has spent approximately £50 million annually on mercenary companies.”


I would add that lots of details are very rarely provided by government officials to Parliament or the public. Over the years, I have tried to look at some of these companies, but it is almost impossible to track them. They are formed and then very quickly dissolved. It is very difficult to track their operations. The article that I have referred to goes on to say:

“Despite the size of this mercenary industry, the entire sector is marked by secrecy. Men trained in the arts of subterfuge and counter-intelligence dominate this sphere, and the result is an industry that operates from the shadows.”


How will the CHIS Bill make this industry accountable? There is clear evidence that these companies have been used for the commission of criminal acts.

One example of this is that in 2007, employees of Aegis Defence Services, based in London, posted footage on the web showing its guards firing their weapons at what was reported at the time as “civilians”. The company said the shootings were legal within the rules of protocol. That company has also been criticised for allegedly employing former child soldiers from Sierra Leone as mercenaries in Iraq. This is a company that is headquartered in London.

As far as I am aware, there is no central database of private military and security companies operating from the UK, and I do not think that there is even any legal requirement for them to register with a governing body. Yet these companies, both in the past and possibly even now, are authorised to commit criminal acts. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent a relevant authority from authorising such companies to conduct these acts.

My concern is that we must not authorise private profit-maximising corporations to commit criminal acts. You could argue that, the more terror they unleash and the more criminal acts they commit, somehow the higher their profits will be; their executives and shareholders will be that much richer. This is simply unacceptable. Their victims receive virtually no compensation or justice, and Governments have simply pretended that they know nothing about the criminal acts being committed in their name. The murk surrounding them was touched upon in the 1996 report of Lord Justice Scott’s inquiry into the arms to Iraq affair, but there was very little clarity.

Corporations provide not only mercenaries and related services; they also operate much of the local infrastructure, including the operation of prisons. Their employees may be persuaded to go undercover into a prison to learn about drug dealing and much more. Presumably, they would need to be authorised to do so by the Home Office to commit such acts. These undercover agents can, intentionally or unintentionally, injure others. In those circumstances, who exactly is to be held accountable? Is it the corporation which has been authorised to commit the criminal act, or is it the relevant authority? As far as I am aware, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner does not have access to the documents and the personnel of these corporations.

There is also the unedifying scenario of a relevant authority authorising a corporation to commit criminal acts, which in turn holds training sessions for its employees, training them to commit murder, torture and other heinous acts. What would happen to those individuals who refuse to obey the instructions of their employers? Would they be able to say that they cannot go along with that? Would they be able to access an employment tribunal to secure redress? I cannot see anything about that in the Bill.

At the moment, people can refuse to commit criminal acts but if the Bill becomes law certain criminal acts would be normalised, though they would need to be authorised. That presents an enormous danger, and we have not sufficiently discussed the implications of corporations being licensed or authorised to commit these acts. Over the years, government departments have not come clean at all about how they have interacted with such corporations.

Today, and in previous debates, many noble Lords have drawn attention to the fact that children and vulnerable people may be enrolled to commit criminal acts. They can be used by the relevant authority and then discarded, perhaps being paid a small sum. However, many of these individuals will have flashbacks for years. They will have nightmares and suffer mental health problems; where exactly will they be able to turn for help? On the other hand, if these individuals are employees of the relevant authority, the employer will owe them a duty of care. They will then have recourse against the employer—namely, the relevant authority—so that they can be supported and compensated. Again, that is an issue.

Corporations should not be authorised under any circumstances to commit criminal acts. In the UK, we do not even have a regulator to enforce company law, never mind anything else the corporations might do—there is no central enforcer of company law in this country. Another benefit of restricting the commission of criminal acts to persons employed by the relevant authority is that that would protect very young children: children under a certain age cannot be employed at all. This will provide extra protection for those individuals. If the vulnerable people are used, the relevant authority has to be accountable for their action.

It is with this kind of issues in mind that I have proposed Amendment 53, which suggests that only individuals directly employed by a relevant authority can be authorised to commit criminal acts. We do not have the power to fully look into what corporations do, and, as I said earlier, there is not even a central regulator.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

I can be brief. My noble friends pose two very important questions that become even more unnerving when run together. I look forward to what the Minister says about, first, the exact detail of this conduct in relation to CCAs—it is vague language; can it be sharpened?—and, secondly, the ability under the legislation as drafted for corporations, rather than individuals, to be licensed to commit criminal conduct or to run CHIS and criminal conduct themselves. If she thinks that the Bill is too broad compared to government policy, will she consider ruling out on the face of the legislation that kind of sub-delegation or outsourcing to corporations?