Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
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(9 years, 1 month ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following David Anderson QC’s report on surveillance legislation, whether they intend that Ministers should retain the power to authorise surveillance.
My Lords, as I said in the House on 8 July during the debate on the recent reports into investigatory powers, the Government have made no decisions on the proposals within the reports. We intend to bring forward legislative proposals in the autumn that will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny.
I thank the Minister for his reply. It is important to think that the public understand how and why such decisions are made. However, it is an offence to disclose that a warrant for authorisation of surveillance has been issued, and it is government policy not to talk about security matters, so how can the public understand exactly what the Minister has done and why he has done it? Is some sort of transparency a factor in his thinking?
David Anderson’s report, on which we had a very helpful debate last week, talks about trust, and there needs to be a balance of trust. The issues that are being investigated by our security services and law enforcement agencies are of the most grave and serious nature, so full disclosure is not possible. However, there is an Interception of Communications Commissioner who reviews the decisions taken by the Home Secretary. Should an individual feel that they have wrongly had their communications intercepted, they have the ability to take that up with the investigation tribunal to look into the decision further.