Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between David Davis and Stephen McPartland

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

[Stephen McPartland]

I shall speak to four different sets of amendments. As I said earlier, it is a difficult Bill to support, but I acknowledge the work that Ministers and the Government have done in trying to work with Government Members and Opposition Members to produce a Bill with which we can all begin to start to feel comfortable. I am not a lawyer, but amendments 147 to 152, which stand in my name, are designed to leave out clauses that provide for the modification of warrants. In my view as a non-lawyer, these changes seem, through a major modification, to have the potential to change the key components of a warrant. I wonder at what stage a new warrant should be drafted instead. How far can the warrant be modified before it needs to become a new warrant? The warrant provisions seem to be very wide ranging and very ill defined.

The next set comprises amendments 178 to 186, which try to refine the matters to which targeted equipment interference warrants may relate by removing vague and overly broad categories, including equipment interference for training purposes. People outside this place may not be aware of it, but when we talk about “equipment interference”, we are basically talking about hacking devices that can hack into mobile phones, computers, email systems, or the apps that people use for their banking. “Equipment interference” is a nice way of saying state-authorised hacking, which is what we are talking about here. To me, this is an incredibly intrusive power, permitting real-time surveillance, as well as access to everything we store on our digital devices, from text messages to address books, calendars and emails, along with the websites people visit, which apps they use and how they use them.

The Bill also seems to me to provide for thematic hacking warrants, which amount to general warrants to hack groups or types of individuals in the UK. Hacking is not restricted in the Bill to equipment belonging to, used by or in the possession of particular persons or organisations. Even the director of GCHQ has apparently raised concerns about the breadth of the current definitions, which could apply to the equipment of a hostile foreign intelligence service. We here might say, “So what? So be it. That’s what they’re there for”, but what would we say if those warrants allowed all employees and family members of a particular company or the people who visit a particular religious venue or who live in a particular road to be hacked? Would we still say, “So what? Should we be bothered?” This may sound unlikely, but the draft equipment interference code of practice permits the targeting of people who are “not of intelligence interest”. If that is not carte blanche, I do not know what is, because it is in effect allowing hacking of the equipment of anybody anywhere in the UK or overseas, if the agencies choose to do so.

[Mr Davis Davis]

I am entirely in agreement with my hon. Friend on this. He says that it might not involve hacking a whole street, but it could easily involve hacking two layers of contacts. If I call 100 people, and then the people called by those 100 people are investigated, that would be a very typical intelligence exercise, pursuing the two rings of contacts. That could involve 100,000 people, most of whom have nothing to hide but could become under permanent surveillance by the state.

[Stephen McPartland]

I totally agree with my right hon. Friend’s point. As a Master of Science and Technology, I, of course, have never hacked anything in my life and would never dream of doing so, but it is not a particularly difficult thing to do at the moment. Many people do not appreciate that the measures in the Bill are authorising the state hacking of equipment. Combined with other measures in the Bill, this is not just about hacking the equipment of somebody who may be of particular interest as part of a terrorist organisation; we are talking about every man, woman and child with an electronic device inside the UK. That is where my concerns arise.

Tax Credits

Debate between David Davis and Stephen McPartland

Thursday 29th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

That is a possible solution and I am sure that the Treasury is looking into it. I would like to work with the Treasury on how the mitigation could work, and I hope that it will listen.

[Mr David Davis]

Give him a job!

[Stephen McPartland]

I would like to point out that I do not want a job.

Getting back to the people who are on £11,000 a year or thereabouts and who will be particularly punished by the policy as it stands, I am pleased that the Chancellor is now listening. Although I do not agree with what the House of Lords did, I accept that it has brought us to this position. I want the debate to focus not on constitutional issues but on the loss of income for people who have no ability to make it up elsewhere. How can we help those people?

I have talked about the increase in the personal income tax allowance from £11,000 to £12,500, which will cost about £9 billion. The Government spend over £700 billion a year, yet it seems as though if we cannot find this £4.4 billion it will be the end of life as we know it. We all know that that is not the case. There is a way in which the effects can be mitigated.

How do we reform tax credits without punishing those who are trying to do the right thing—those who get up, go to work and try to move their families forward? Some £3 billion of the £4.4 billion saving is down to the change in thresholds that I spoke about—the initial £1,200 cut. It is an incredibly broad instrument that will punish people whether they earn just over £6,420 or £19,000 and it must be mitigated and changed. We have to find a way around that initial £1,200 cut. It is too much and it goes too far.

There is talk of a discretionary hardship fund. I would certainly welcome that for people who are struggling in one way or another. There has been a lot of talk about national insurance. I would like people not to pay any tax on the first £11,000 or £12,000 of their income, but that will not be looked at fully because it would be incredibly expensive. For me, this debate is about how we can help these families.

Basic macroeconomics suggests to me that if we take £4.4 billion off the people who earn the lowest incomes, that is £4.4 billion that will be taken straight out of the economy, because it will be taken out of the pockets of people who would have spent it right away. Every pound that is taken off those people is a pound that is taken out of the shops in their local economies. It just does not make sense.

I do want to work with the Treasury. I can be a prodigal son and be returned to the fold, I am sure.