Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Chris Philp and Robert Buckland

Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I want to speak briefly about clause 68, Government amendment 51 and amendment 145. Clause 68 is welcome and delivers the manifesto commitment to introduce judicial oversight of these investigatory powers over journalists. As the noble Lord Falconer has pointed out, no such protections exist under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. These new requirements for judicial consent by the commissioner are very welcome.

I very much welcome Government amendment 51, which explicitly acknowledges the public interest in protecting a journalist’s sources and makes it clear that the commissioner must weigh that against any other public interest, which must be overriding. I hope that gives the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) at least some comfort. Were we to adopt her amendment 145, I think the implication would be that the judgment would have to be made in open court, and given the difficult and potentially wide definition of journalistic material that now exists, that might impose a rather onerous requirement. Were the Government so minded, they might at some later time fine tune clause 68 to say that if the judicial commissioner found the situation slightly ambiguous, they could go to the journalist to seek clarification; if there were cases in which they were finding it difficult to make that judgment, they could seek further and better particulars. However, I think that Government amendment 51 is extremely helpful in addressing many of the concerns expressed about that important issue.

[The Solicitor General]

It is a pleasure to speak at the end of a wide-ranging but important debate about the new power on internet connection records. It is right to remind ourselves of the context of the debate. Only last week, two individuals received significant prison sentences in Britain’s biggest known gun smuggling operation. It was analysis of communications data that provided vital evidence in that case. It allowed the investigative team to attribute telephone numbers and SIM cards to the defendants and to identify key locations.

However, communications data are changing. The world in which the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and I started out practising is no longer the world as it is today. Telephone calls are very often not the means by which criminals and terrorists conduct their activity. Much of that has moved on to the internet via WhatsApp, via internet chatrooms and via the electronic internet communications that have become the mainstay of many criminal enterprises. It is vital that the legislation that we pass in this House not only attempts to keep pace with this breathtaking change, but tries to get ahead of it as far as possible.