Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman says that there was some confused briefing. Different reports appeared in newspapers, but that is not necessarily the result of briefing. The situation on the Bill is what I have set out today in my statement—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) says that I went on TV. I said on TV exactly what I am about to say to the House in relation to the difference between the Bill and the draft Communications Data Bill, which is that some of the more contentious elements are not in the current Bill. For example, the requirement for UK communications service providers to retain and access third-party data from overseas providers is not in the Bill, nor is the web browsing provision, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and nor is the provision that would have placed on US and overseas providers the same data retention requirements and obligations that apply to UK service providers.

On judicial authorisation, the double lock provides both judicial independence, but also, crucially, public accountability. That is what we get through membership of the House.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned retrospective data. I put to him the case of the abducted child. We want to see who that child or young person was in contact with before they were abducted. We can do that through telephone records, but we cannot do it if they were using a social media app. That is what the intercept communications records enable us to do.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. The Intelligence and Security Committee will, working in co-operation with the Joint Committee, provide scrutiny for the proposed legislation. In that context, my right hon. Friend referred to the earlier report of the ISC in March, in which there were 54 specific recommendations. While I appreciate that, in part, the draft Bill may be seen as a response to those recommendations, there is a duty on the Government to provide a specific response to the ISC report. May I urge her that, in the course of the next few weeks and while the debate takes place, the Government should provide such a response—it can be in quite a short form—to those 54 recommendations, because that will enable the House and the public to identify those areas that need to be looked at in the course of the debate, and to identify what has been taken on board and what, perfectly properly, has been rejected by the Government? I seek an assurance from her today that that will happen.

[Mrs May]

Of course, the ISC report went wider than investigatory powers, but I can reassure my right hon. and learned Friend that, in relation to those aspects that dealt with such powers, in a sense the new Bill is a response to the report. As he knows, we have been considering very carefully the full set of recommendations from the previous ISC and will respond to him and his Committee in a timely fashion.