Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill is a technical but important piece of legislation that, as my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary said in her opening remarks, we support. We support the Bill, which updates aspects of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, because it is imperative that legal frameworks are updated to ensure that our security and law enforcement services keep up with changes to communications technology in an increasingly challenging and complex landscape of threats to our safety and our national security.

At the outset, let me pay tribute to the exceptional men and women who serve in our law enforcement and security services, often in the shadows and without recognition, to keep our country safe. We owe them all a deep debt of gratitude. I also thank officials at the Home Office, who have provided very helpful briefings on the Bill to the shadow Home Office team. I hope that the Minister will join me in paying tribute to our noble colleagues in the other place, especially Lord Anderson, Lord Sharpe, Lord Coaker, Lord Ponsonby and Lord West, among many others. They have already done a lot of the intellectual heavy lifting, digging into the technical details of the Bill to improve it ahead of its Second Reading today. Those contributions are most welcome, but the Bill still needs to be scrutinised in more depth to probe any remaining ambiguity and ensure that safeguards are strengthened. I will say a little more about that later.

As the shadow Home Secretary said, the Opposition will work in the national interest with the Government on national security because, as legislators, we all have a duty to ensure that the law is one step ahead of those who seek to harm us. As lawmakers, we have a duty to ensure that when technical Bills are before us on matters relating to national security, we scrutinise them carefully and get into the detail. Members on both sides of the House have fulfilled that important duty with a number of thoughtful and considered contributions in this debate, including the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), who spoke, as always, with great authority and made important points about oversight and the interests of economic wellbeing. I am certain that we will return to those in Committee.

The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), a former Security Minister, helpfully reflected on his experience of taking the original legislation through the House back in 2016, and made some important points about the role of public bodies. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), the newest member of the ISC, made an important point about the context in which we are having this debate, with authoritarian regimes around the world constantly seeking to test the will of democracies. She also made an important point about the balance between safeguarding our security and oversight and transparency.

The chair of the ISC, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), spoke with his long-standing experience of these matters, and expressed clearly the view of the Committee. He made a number of important points, including about the safeguards that he will seek to include in the Bill. I am sure that we will return to that. He also made the important point about any increase in powers coming with an increase in oversight—a point reiterated by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who I think is the longest serving member of the ISC. He spoke about the two-and-a-half legged stool, made a number of important points and provided a constructive challenge to Government. I hope that he will work with us, the other Committee members and the Minister in Committee to make some improvements to the Bill.

The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) made a typically carefully considered speech. For someone who claimed not to be an expert, he made a number of important points, not least about surveillance needing to be proportionate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reflected, as he often does, on his own experiences of dealing with terrorism in Northern Ireland, and rightly paid tribute to all those who served to keep our country safe.

I will now turn to aspects of the Bill that could be improved. The measures outlined in the Bill continue to provide our law enforcement and security services with some of the most powerful measures that our state has at its disposal to keep us safe, intercepting private communications and retaining information where necessary. With those strong powers there must also be strong, robust safeguards, to guarantee their appropriate and proportionate use.

When the Minister responds, I would be grateful if he provided further assurances that the notices regime will be kept under constant review. Such assurances are important as the power to access telecommunications data through bulk personal datasets unlocks an individual’s digital footprints of their online activity. For those of a certain age—I do not have anybody in particular in mind—investigatory powers can conjure images of wiretapping telephone lines, and, for those of a very certain age, even steaming open letters. However, the modern reality is that the huge amounts of data produced every second could be sifted through and used by law enforcement and crime agencies when there is a lawful basis to do so. The Bill must therefore clearly establish a precedent of proportionality, such as further defining what is meant by low or no reasonable expectation of privacy, in clause 2, in relation to certain bulk personal datasets. I would be grateful if the Minister outlined how the Government intend to do that.

The UK’s use of investigatory powers should be clearly understood by our international partners. Vast amounts of telecommunications data, such as WhatsApps, are now stored in servers across many jurisdictions by multinational companies with sometimes complex corporate structures. I understand that Meta, for example, has stringent measures to protect those servers from cyber-attacks, preventing WhatsApp messages from being interfered with or accidentally deleted. If only the same stringent measures existed for some Members on the Government Benches—and the SNP Benches, for that matter.

Moving swiftly on, a warrant to intercept messages between two UK nationals in the UK could be stored on a server in another jurisdiction, leading to potential conflicts of law arising from clause 17, which would strengthen extraterritorial enforcement of retention notices. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister said something about the feedback the Home Office has had from international partners about potential conflicts of law that could arise from clause 17, and what actions have been taken to avoid potential conflicts. Can the Minister also say what recent feedback the Home Office has received from companies providing messaging services in the UK that use servers storing communications data in other countries?

Ensuring the utmost clarity in the measures outlined in the Bill must also include where they are applied in the most exceptional circumstances, such as when the Prime Minister cannot make a decision to sign off an interception warrant. The shadow Home Secretary rightly mentioned the importance of Prime Ministers treating these matters with the utmost seriousness. This was also discussed and debated in detail when the Bill was progressing through the other place, with the term “unable” being used if a Prime Minister cannot make a decision, compared with other terms such as “unavailable”. I expect the Minister will be relieved that I do not plan to spend too much time on this, but that is not to underplay its importance. The debate between noble colleagues on whether “unable” or “unavailable” was the most appropriate term may in part have been generated by the activities of two former senior figures in Government, neither of whom is still a serving Member of Parliament. For the benefit of the House, I will just say that one of them might have been a Foreign Secretary who became Prime Minister, and the other might have been a Prime Minister who became Foreign Secretary.

The Prime Minister plays a crucial role in making decisions on national security. May I remind the Minister, as other hon. Members have sought to do during this debate, that since 2014, successive Prime Ministers have failed to meet with the Intelligence and Security Committee? As we all know, the ISC is a senior Committee of Parliament that provides absolutely vital oversight on these crucial matters. We heard from the Chair, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), who made some important points. Can I again ask the Minister why he thinks no Prime Ministers have made themselves available to the Committee for a decade now?

Furthermore, recent updates to the IPA 2016 after the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom provide further safeguards to protect sensitive information relating to freedom of expression, such as journalistic material, from the usual interception and retention regimes. Other elements of freedom of expression should have similar safeguards. Does the Minister think there should be similar exemptions in the Bill for communications relating to the vital work of trade unions? That was a point also made by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry).

To conclude, this is an important Bill that demands strong and careful scrutiny. Our personal liberties and our national security depend on it. It is in the national interest to get the legislation right: to make sure it is both appropriate and proportionate in its scope. It must also be effective in maintaining the current powers our law enforcement and security services already have to disrupt and defeat criminals and malign actors who seek to harm us and undermine our way of life. On the Labour Benches, we will work with the Government as much as we possibly can in the national interest to get it right. I look forward to working with the Minister and other colleagues on that important endeavour as the Bill progresses through the House.