Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

We have had a useful debate today, in which the House has had to reach a balance in making a judgment on the Bill. The balance has been between two main concerns: the privacy of information and the need for agencies such as the police and others to know about that information and access it; and the need not to let criminals off the hook. There is a real dilemma that I know all hon. Members are examining, but I hope that it is one that the Bill can resolve.

As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are here because of the European Court of Justice and its decision to strike down regulations to enable internet providers to retain communications data for law enforcement purposes for up to 12 months. That is an issue we must address for the reasons the Home Secretary and the Minister have outlined. We also need to ensure that the Government respond to the needs of the companies calling for a clear legal framework. The Home Secretary also outlined that view.

Members on both sides of the House have shared the Government’s balanced view, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, has endorsed that balanced approach, as has my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. Indeed, the Home Affairs Committee has written to the Home Secretary today saying:

“The Committee’s view is that the retention of communications data, subject to appropriate safeguards, is an important tool in the fight against terrorism, organised crime and child sexual exploitation, and the Government is right to bring forward urgent legislation”.

I accept that my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) has dissented from that view and in his speech he clearly put his dissent on record. However, the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis) about the protections and freedoms that his Committee has examined are also important. He has put on record his concerns while, again, taking a balanced approach.

There are those in the House today who have fallen more on the side of privacy than of crime fighting, and I respect that view and understand why it is taken. I do not necessarily share it, but the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) talked about ensuring that we have safeguards in place and the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) argued for the sunset clause and about the question of what national security is, and those are issues that we should explore. I hope that Ministers will deal with these issues not just now but as the Bill goes through the House today and through the other place, so that there are safeguards and powers to review the legislation. I hope that later in our consideration the proposals put by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford and other Opposition Members, will be considered seriously.

Members such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) have expressed real concerns and might not support the Opposition’s view in the Lobby tonight. I respect that view, but I cannot share it today, and I urge my right hon. Friend, even at this late stage, to consider supporting the Opposition as well as the Government. I paraphrase what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has said on other occasions, when he said he was not happy, he was not happy at all. That broadly summarises his position today. It is shared by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). I accept his point that smaller parties—I represent a constituency in Wales—need at least to be involved in the discussion on these matters, even if the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire remains not happy, not happy at all.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has raised the terms of engagement, and she made a good, solid contribution, but ultimately the Opposition have to make a judgment, and the judgment that my right hon. Friend and I have formed supports the Government’s view on these matters. Even though we think that the Government should have looked at this earlier, we support that judgment for the reasons given by my right hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) and for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who are former Home Secretaries and know the difficulties that the Home Secretary faces now. They have been in office in the Home Office, as indeed have I, and have seen the challenges that we face. They have understood that the retention of data records is important. I am pleased that that view was also shared by, for example, the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell), who made a strong case from a criminal prosecution point of view that retention of data was necessary for court cases.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) made some important points, which he will raise again in Committee. He recognised, again as a former Home Office Minister, the importance of the Bill in the round. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) drew an interesting analogy with Robin Hood and being in the forest. I hope that I am not Friar Tuck in this, Madam Deputy Speaker. She made the point that it is a simple regulation of dark issues in relation to the use of evidence in court.

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) made important points in support of the legislation, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller). In summary, all investigations into online child sex abuse, major investigations into terrorism and organised crime, and the prevention of young people from travelling to Syria would be severely jeopardised if the legislation did not pass in its current form. Without it, the police would not be able to catch paedophiles sharing child images. Mobile phone records helped the police find out about the attempted terrorist attack on Glasgow airport in 2007. Without the legislation, those records would no longer be available. The security services would not have been able to check who the Woolwich attackers had contacted when they undertook that murder.

The Minister has our support. We will examine the Bill in Committee, but on Second Reading we give him our unqualified support.