Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Lord Strasburger and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 25 and declare an interest as the mother of a journalist. I also apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading; I was not able to be here. My only concern with Amendment 25 is that it does not go far enough and there is no “reasonable suspicion” test. We must remember that journalists often uncover some pretty heinous crimes and pretty awful stories. While we often talk about the damage they do and the crimes they commit, they also do some incredibly valuable work for our society, so I think this an extremely important amendment.

[Lord Strasburger]

My Lords, my name is also to this amendment. I shall not detain the House for very long. There is one aspect of this that I do not think has been mentioned: without protection for the anonymity of whistleblowers, far fewer will come forward and expose themselves to the revenge of their employers or others in powerful positions. There is ample evidence of whistleblowers being severely victimised, so anonymity is essential. Without whistleblowers, wrongdoing and cover-ups in the private and public sectors will go unreported and uncorrected, and that outcome is to the detriment to all of society, particularly those who lack a loud enough voice to be heard when things go wrong.

In recent years we have seen many cases of legislative arbitrage by the police in order to use powers that were never intended for the purpose of discovering journalists’ sources, finding ways to do so with the fewest protections. The “plebgate” scandal was a particularly graphic example, where RIPA was misused to find the source of a story in the Sun. Journalist’s phones on the Sun’s newsdesk were investigated by the police and their communications data were obtained. Under RIPA this was, of course, completely self-authorised; there were no external checks on what they were doing.

I believe that the Bill actually reduces the protection for journalists’ sources in the case of interception of communications and communications data. It provides no protection at all against the use of other surveillance powers, especially equipment interference. Amendment 25 seeks to rectify these shortfalls; I do not believe it is perfect yet, but it is a good start.