Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Alan Mak and Caroline Nokes

Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). This Bill runs to the absolute heart of Government—the duty to keep us safe. I will keep my very brief remarks to the issue of privacy, which was raised in Committee and remains a point of debate.

Nobody wishes to legislate to protect the public while at the same time unfairly and unreasonably restricting the rights of the individual. None of us wishes to give the state unnecessary powers. It was against such arbitrary authority that our first charter of rights, Magna Carta, was established, and why we can to this day find written into the stone floor of Tewkesbury abbey the words:

“Magna Carta est lex, caveat deinde rex”.

Magna Carta is law, and let the king beware. Today, as we debate the power of the state, I believe it is most certainly not the Head of State who threatens our law and safety, but those who threaten our state from within, and we must make our law accordingly.

The amendments that the Government have tabled on privacy protections go further than ever before in transparency, oversight and the safeguards that apply to the powers in the Bill. A great deal of advice has come from the Public Bill Committee, the ISC and the Opposition parties, and the Government have indeed listened. The amendments make it clear that warrants or other authorisation should not be granted where information could reasonably be obtained by less intrusive means. If the information is already on the internet—let us face it, there is plenty of such information—it can be got without recourse to the Bill’s provisions. The Government amendments also require persons exercising functions under the legislation to have regard to the public interest and the protection of privacy, as well as other principles that underpin the legislation. The amendments also make clear the criminal offences that apply to the misuse of powers under the Bill, which puts beyond doubt the severe penalties that would apply in the event of deliberate wrongdoing by a public authority.

Privacy is at the heart of this vital piece of legislation, but its point is protection. The House should remember the statistics cited by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns), which I do not intend to repeat. We must be very careful not to dilute the Bill so much that the ability of our agencies to keep up with technology and those who use it in a very sophisticated way to do us harm is itself harmed. The baby must stay in the bath, while the dirty water is thrown out.

I know there has been a lot of interest in the Bill, but I also know that the amendments to it need to be weighed, rather than counted. In my estimation, it is a sound and important Bill. It will ensure that the warning in Tewkesbury abbey can be amended for our own time: “Magna Carta est lex, caveat deinde nequam”—Magna Carta is law, and let criminals beware.

[Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). Having spoken on Second Reading, when I focused on economic cybercrime, and having followed the progress of the Bill, I want to make a few brief remarks on the first group of amendments, particularly Government new clause 5.

Privacy is the ability of an individual or a group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby to express themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but they share common themes. It was not a Latinist, but the Colombian novelist and Nobel prize winner Gabriel García Márquez who once observed:

“Everyone has three lives: public, private and secret.”

However, we all know there are some in our society whose secrecy cannot be allowed to prevail and whose privacy cannot be a shield that allows crimes to be committed, whether those crimes are terrorism, child abuse, people trafficking or cybercrime.

There are people who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) mentioned, attempt to hide from the rest of society behind passwords, encryptions and codes known only among themselves. Because of the speed of technological change, they are operating not just outside the law, but ahead of it. That is why the law must catch up, and the Bill, with the Government new clauses, will achieve such a goal.

If we are to enhance the law and to codify the powers that our security services need to keep us safe, we must ensure that the oversight regime is robust and satisfies the other watchdogs of our liberty—Parliament and the press. The Bill creates a world-leading oversight regime that brings together three existing commissioners and provides new powers and resources for a new independent Investigatory Powers Commissioner. Under the Bill, warrants must be subject to a new double lock in that they must be approved by the judicial commissioner before they can be issued by the Secretary of State.

Privacy is the mirror image of oversight, and the Bill and its amendments go very far in protecting individual rights. In particular, the Bill sets out the very specific circumstances in which the powers it provides for can be used. It makes clear the purposes for which those powers can be used, the overarching human rights obligation that constrains the use of those powers and whether each of the powers in the Bill is to be used in a targeted way or in bulk. The Bill goes on in that vein.

I believe that the Government have listened, acted and got the balance right between the powers necessary to keep us safe, the right to privacy of the individual and the oversight necessary to ensure that neither privacy nor safety is compromised. In conclusion, the Bill represents the pragmatic pursuit of safety in the modern age and an effective renewal of the law in the digital age. I urge the House to support its passage tonight and in the coming days.