Investigatory Powers Bill

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

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

[Anne McLaughlin]

May I continue? I have already given way to the hon. and learned Lady and am conscious of the need to let other Members speak. I will possibly give way a wee bit later.

The review is welcome—of course it is, not least because it is hoped that David Anderson QC will do what Liberty and others have called for and use the opportunity properly to challenge the evidence and produce a thorough, comprehensive and unbiased examination of the necessity of all bulk powers in the Bill. However, the review was called for long ago by Liberty and other respectable organisations. The Government could and should have completed it before asking MPs to vote for the Bill.

When we are dealing with proposals that are so broad—the proposal is effectively for bulk data harvesting from mainly innocent citizens—it is incumbent on the Government to prove that there is an operational case and that the powers are necessary, and to ensure that the safeguards in place are rigorous. The Government have neither proven the operational case for the powers nor have they delivered safeguards and oversight of sufficient calibre to make the powers justifiable.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Anne McLaughlin]

I will give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman but I am trying not to give way too often.

[Mr Grieve]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. As I indicated when I spoke on Second Reading, I appreciate that bulk powers are controversial, but I am absolutely sure that we do not conduct data harvesting in this country. It simply does not happen. The use of bulk powers is not for that purpose, but for the purpose of examining material. Even though that may be done in bulk, it is done in a way that does not amount to the generalised harvesting of data for their examination. It simply is not.

[Anne McLaughlin]

My answer to that is simply that if the Bill allows for bulk data harvesting, it can still happen. We cannot sit here and say, “No, it will never happen.”

The SNP argument is not to do down our security services or anyone else working to keep our constituents safe. We argue that we would fail as a Parliament if we assert our power on behalf of our constituents and fail to place proper limitations on the scope of the state to interfere in the lives of innocent private citizens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Grieve]

It is a pleasure to be able to participate in today’s debate. I will move the amendments standing in the name of the Intelligence and Security Committee in a moment, but I would not be doing justice to this afternoon’s debate, on a matter of great and legitimate public interest and importance, if I were not to seek briefly to respond to the perfectly reasonable fears expressed by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin).

Those fears highlight the difficulty we have in this country—certainly for Members of Parliament, but I dare say also for members of the public and certainly for non-governmental organisations interested in civil liberties—in reconciling an assessment of what the agencies may be doing in relation to bulk powers, with what those of us who have become privy to classified information by virtue of our work actually see is happening in reality. I am not sure that this is a gap that is very easy to bridge. I can only do my best to explain to the House and to the hon. Lady how I see the system working.

In an ideal world, it would always be better if we used targeted interception. If we know what it is we are trying to intercept and have reasonable grounds that are necessary and proportionate for doing so, then clearly that is what we should be aiming to do. The reality, however, is that the use of the internet today, in respect of the transfer of information, is of such an order that if there were not bulk powers to enable the agencies to look to intercept bulk and then search it to find what they are looking for, it would in practice be very difficult for the agencies to defend our security against espionage and, in particular, terrorism. That is the reality.

That point has been made repeatedly, including in public by agency heads. When Sir Iain Lobban gave evidence to the Intelligence and Security Committee, the only time it held a public hearing, he explained that the idea that there is bulk harvesting of data in order to carry out a detailed examination of them is, in fact, fanciful. That is not what is happening. What is happening is that there may be the retention of a bulk group of data in which in reality the vast majority—in fact, probably over 99%—will never be looked at, except in so far as it exists as a few digits on a screen. Ultimately, the agencies are interested in the nugget—or, as he described it, the needle in the haystack—that they are actually looking for. The idea that the privacy of an individual will be compromised if it just so happens that their internet traffic is caught in that particular net is simply not real. That is the reality of what goes on.

If I may say so to the hon. Lady and to the House, I do not really think that that is very different from what was probably going on 100 years ago when somebody suspected there might be a letter in a mailbag coming down from Glasgow to London. They could identify some of the markers on it and the handwriting, so they took an entire mailbag, tipped it out and looked to see if they could find the letter they were looking for. They then put all the other letters back in the mailbag and sent it on. The only realistic difference is that at the moment we do not have to stop the mailbag, because the mail can be transferred and we can simply retain the data somewhere else.

I appreciate that this is an area where people will legitimately be anxious that this could be capable of misuse. Of course, the hon. Lady is right that it could be capable of misuse. Anybody in this House who wants to raise concerns about misuse is raising a perfectly legitimate point. The question is what safeguards we can properly put in legislation, and through the framework we create in a democratic and free society, to try to ensure that that misuse will not and does not occur. The Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I am the Chairman, is part of the process of trying to ensure that there is no such misuse.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am listening very carefully to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, because he is very knowledgeable in these areas. Is he aware that during the currency of the Public Bill Committee, The Guardian published an internal newsletter from MI6 from September 2011, which said that individuals within MI6 had been

“crossing the line with their database use…looking up addresses in order to send birthday cards, checking passport details to organise personal travel, checking details of family members for personal convenience…check the personal details of colleagues when filling out service forms on their behalf”?

Is he aware that there is internal recognition of misuse of data within the security services?

[Mr Grieve]

Yes, I was aware of that. That has, I think, been public knowledge for some time. So far as I am concerned, as the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, we take that very seriously. Indeed, I believe the agencies took the matter very seriously as well, and that those involved were disciplined. The point was made that however innocent the activity of looking up one’s friend’s address might appear, it was not an acceptable thing to do. I certainly agree. That was one reason why, yesterday, I highlighted the issue of offences and was pleased to get the response from my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that they were taking this issue seriously. I worry that the penalties attached to some of the potential offences appear to be insufficient. I fully understand the point the hon. and learned Lady makes, but we must be a bit careful before we translate what appears to have happened in such cases into a belief that there is systematic abuse of the data sets that may be held—that is what we are talking about—by agencies, and that the material in them is being misused or put to some nefarious purpose that is not legitimate for the purposes of national security.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Is it not the case that there are many things in public life—the police, computers, firearms and so on—that have the potential for misuse, but that the potential for misuse is not a reason to eradicate them from public life? It is a reason to ensure there is a robust framework and—this is the point my right hon. and learned Friend is making—a proper system of penalties for misuse, rather than just scrapping a whole capability because of potential future misuse.

[Mr Grieve]

Yes, I agree entirely. I am afraid that, because human society is not perfect, eradicating every instance of misconduct by public servants is likely to be impossible. We therefore have to ensure proper safeguards and ethics. Here I simply repeat what I said before. My own experience is that the ethical standards of the agencies are very high; that is not to say that one does not have to be vigilant about maintaining those standards, or that there might not have been instances where their ethical standards slipped, but everything I and, I think, my fellow members of the ISC have seen has constantly reassured us that those ethical standards are at the heart of what they do. I recollect Sir Iain Lobban saying that if he had asked his staff at GCHQ to do something unethical, they simply would not have done it. He said they would have refused, had he made the request of them.

I simply say that about the framework. I now turn to our amendments, the first group of which consists of amendments 9 to 12 and deals with an issue that goes to the heart of bulk powers: operational purposes. In the ISC’s report on the draft Bill, we were critical of what appeared to us to be the lack of transparency around operational purposes, which are of the utmost importance—this picks up on what the hon. Member for Glasgow North East said—as they provide the justification for examining material collected using bulk powers. If it falls outside legitimate operational purposes, one cannot examine it. We therefore recommended that in some form and in a manner consistent with safeguarding security—the two things are often difficult to reconcile—the list ought, so far as possible, to be published. We also recommended that the ISC have a role on behalf of Parliament in scrutinising the full classified list of operational purposes.

We were also concerned, when we investigated the matter further, that in some cases the nature of the list of operational purposes lacked clarity, as did the procedures for managing it, which seemed largely informal, particularly those for adding an operational purpose to the list. As matters stand now, that can effectively be done by a senior officer in the organisation. Our amendments are therefore intended to give effect to our original recommendations for greater scrutiny and transparency, while also trying to create a formal mechanism for the establishment, management, modification and review of the list of operational purposes.

[Mr John Hayes]

I anticipated that my right hon. and learned Friend would raise this matter, given that he puts such emphasis on his report. I am absolutely committed to considering the matter in the way he describes, and I am prepared to say now that we will go away and consider his amendments, with a view to introducing further amendments to the Bill to satisfy him and his Committee on this issue.

[Mr Grieve]

I am grateful to the Minister and will keep that in mind, but so that the House might understand, I will just take it through what we proposed.

Amendment 9 sets out:

“The operational purposes specified in the warrant must be ones specified, in a list maintained by the heads of the intelligence services, as purposes which they consider are operational purposes for which intercepted content or secondary data obtained under bulk interception warrants may be selected for examination.”

That is to formalise the process, which at the moment we think is too informal. Under amendment 10, an

“operational purpose may be specified in the list…only with the approval of the Secretary of State.”

We think that when an operational purpose is added to the list, it should go through the Secretary of State and be signed off by her. My understanding—I hope that the Minister will confirm this in due course—is that the Government do not see any significant problem with introducing such a system.

[Mr Hayes]

indicated assent.

[Mr Grieve]

I see the Minister nodding; I am grateful to him.

Amendment 10 also states:

“The Secretary of State may give such approval only if satisfied that the operational purpose is specified in a greater level of detail than the descriptions contained in section 121”.

That is to ensure that the Minister understands what the agency is asking for in adding an operational purpose to its list.

[Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)]

Going back to amendment 9, is the right hon. and learned Member confident that the list will not be too prescriptive—in other words, that those who want to find a way around it, will be able to do so?

[Mr Grieve]

I do not think the list should be too prescriptive. It will clearly be flexible. From my understanding of the list and what I know about the existing lists, they do have flexibility and can be added to and subtracted from. They are the day-to-day operational purposes for examining bulk data. That is what should be there. At the moment, it is something of an informal process; there is no suggestion that it is not being followed properly, but I think it needs to be formalised a bit more, which is what the amendments are intended to do. Amendment 11 states:

“The list of operational purposes…must be reviewed at least annually by the Prime Minister.”

Amendment 12, which has caused the Government greater—and understandable—difficulty, would put in place the following requirement:

“The Investigatory Powers Commissioner and Intelligence and Security Committee”—

that is us—

“will be kept informed of any changes to the list of Operational Purposes in a timely manner.”

I always stress that the Committee is not there to monitor the activities of the intelligence agencies in real time; it is outside our remit to do so, as the Executive has to get on with its decision making, but we have the power to look at virtually everything we want—unless the Prime Minister denies us access, which has never happened in my time as Chairman—and the right to ask for material and to be briefed on what has happened in the past.

My impression is that the Government have no great objection to letting us see, on an annual basis, how the list has been reviewed, but we took the view that “timely” meant a bit more frequently than that. To make our position clear to the Minister and the Treasury Bench, we think that we ought to be kept informed of any changes not necessarily the day after they happen but certainly within a reasonable timeframe so that we might follow the changes that take place. The merit is that because we can, if necessary, call an evidence session and ask the head of an agency to come and explain to us what has been going on, we could provide reassurance to the House that the system was being operated correctly. I want to emphasise that that is the purpose of the amendment.

I do not expect the Minister to give me a completely positive response to amendment 12 today—he has kindly intervened already—but I would like him to provide an assurance that the Government will give this careful consideration and come up with a solution that enables the ISC to do its job. If he cannot, I might have to press the amendment to a vote, which I do not particularly want to do

[Mr John Hayes]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right to anticipate that this is the issue that has troubled us most of all his Committee’s many sensible proposals. From what he has said, I know he will understand that the balance to be struck is between that kind of proper scrutiny and ongoing security operations, which clearly require that consideration of operational purposes be a dynamic matter. It is critical that we strike that balance, but I hear the tone and tenor of his remarks and I am happy to say that the Government will consider the matter carefully and continue our discussions with him.

[Mr Grieve]

I am grateful to the Minister. On that basis, I think that these will be probing amendments, but I hope the matter can be properly resolved as the Bill goes through another place.

Amendment 12 states that the

“Investigatory Powers Commissioner must include in his Annual Report a summary of those Operational Purposes”.

Those would likely be more limited than the full list, but it would help to have some broad understanding.

I must take a moment on new clause 3, given that it deals with such an important matter. In the ISC’s report, we recommended that class bulk personal dataset warrants be removed from the Bill on the basis that the potential intrusion into privacy was sufficient to require that each distinct dataset should require specific approval by Ministers. However, we then had further evidence—as has happened in the dialogue with the Government and the agencies—in particular from the Secret Intelligence Service, about the rationale for retaining class warrants in the Bill. In particular, the evidence highlighted the fact that many of these datasets covered the same information or type of information. In those circumstances, we considered that a class warrant would be appropriate, as the privacy considerations were identical.

However, were we to accept class warrants for bulk personal datasets, we would need safeguards to ensure that their use was limited. We therefore proposed three restrictions. The first relates to the most sensitive personal data, using the definitions in the Data Protection Act 1998, and would prohibit the retention of any dataset containing a significant quantity of data relating to a person’s race, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health, or sexual life. The second restriction relates to bulk personal datasets that are somehow novel or out of the ordinary. In those circumstances, we would not consider a class warrant to be appropriate, so subsection (1)(b) of new clause 3 is designed to ensure that such cases will be referred to the Secretary of State and the commissioners by way of a specific warrant.

Finally, we express concern that we should not end up with bulk personal dataset inflation and have suggested that bulk personal dataset warrants should be limited to 20 individual datasets. I emphasise to the House that that is a completely arbitrary figure in many ways. If the Government have an alternative approach, I am more than happy to listen. I accept that if we impose a limit of 20, it is possible that the Home Secretary might be asked to sign two identical bulk personal dataset warrants in one go, if they are expecting to pick up 40. However, it seems to me that there needs to be some numerical cap, above all to ensure that the Home Secretary or Foreign Secretary, depending on who it is, is aware of what is being collected.

I would emphasise that we have seen the entire list of bulk personal datasets and we have never been of the opinion that anything is being collected that is not legitimate, and some of it, I can tell the House, is pretty mundane as well. That said, it is right that the House should exercise some caution about the expansion of those datasets, because one can see that in some circumstances they could touch upon information that is regarded as highly sensitive.

[Mr Hayes]

I hesitate to intervene again, but I hope these exchanges are proving helpful to the House, as well as to my right hon. and learned Friend and me—and to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. My right hon. and learned Friend touches on an important issue. I think he will acknowledge that it would be undesirable to set an arbitrary figure, but it is certainly the case that the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and the Northern Ireland Secretary would want to take into account the numbers. It seems to me that the numerical case that my right hon. and learned Friend is making is not without merit. I am not sure that this is a matter to be dealt with on the face of the Bill, but it certainly should be dealt with.

[Mr Grieve]

I am again most grateful to the Minister. I entirely accept that if he can produce, for example, an assurance before the passage of this Bill through Parliament that there will be a protocol in place—which we, for example, have access to—that sets out exactly how the process will be managed in practice and that we can provide the House with the reassurance that that is being followed, that would satisfy my concerns.

However, I do think there is an issue here, because frankly the world is made up of more and more bulk personal datasets, largely being collected in digital form, and there needs to be a process in place to ensure that what is there is legitimately held and is not just being added to in a way that could be outside Ministers’ line of vision altogether, unless they specifically started asking questions. That is the sort of approach I am talking about, so on that basis I am happy to accept the Minister’s assurance.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I am less perplexed by the arbitrary nature of subsection (1)(b) of new clause 3 and more interested in subsection (1)(a). What is meant or intended by the word “large”? Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say what proportion or quantum would be considered large when considering a personal dataset? There may be some helpful read-across from the 1998 Act, but it would be useful in considering this amendment to know what is intended by that entirely non-arbitrary and open suggestion?

[Mr Grieve]

Like everything else, I tend usually to say that we give the word its ordinary English meaning. I can accept that one may collect a dataset whose content is entirely innocuous and not really sensitive personal data at all, but which for some reason might contain a nugget of sensitive personal data that has crept in in some strange and perhaps unintended way. I accept that in those circumstances the protections we introduce are unnecessary; indeed, the truth is that the agencies would not even know that that information was there at the time they were acquiring it.

However, if we focus on the points I raised earlier—the Data Protection Act describes sensitive personal data as relating to a person’s race, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health, or sexual life—we are probably in quite a good place. I do not think a court would have too much difficulty being able to tell what falls one side of the line and what falls the other. However, like everything else, it is all open to a degree of interpretation, so I do not offer that to the hon. Gentleman as 100% perfection, although it is a good way forward and I think most of us would understand what sort of collected bulk data are likely to contain that sort of material.

Amendment 24 concerns specific warrants for bulk personal datasets. We are far less concerned about these, but again this provision would cover data relating to a person’s race, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health, or sexual life, and would ensure that the Secretary of State authorising the warrant would have the sensitivity of the data highlighted for them as part of their overall consideration of the necessity and proportionality of retaining and examining the dataset. I believe this may well be completely acceptable to the Government. Amendment 24 would mean that if there was an intention, for example, to acquire a dataset that clearly contained a great deal of information about people’s religious or political opinions, that would be specifically drawn to the Secretary of State’s attention in asking her or him to sign off the warrant, so that they were aware that that was being sought.

Finally in this list, I want to mention amendments 22 and 23, which are really carryovers from yesterday and concern the renewal of warrants to prevent two warrants from extending over a 12-month period, which I believe the Government have accepted, although that could not be considered yesterday.

I apologise for taking up so much of the House’s time, but I hope these amendments may help to clarify some of these areas of the Bill.

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

We made good progress in the House yesterday. We now have clarity about the terms of the independent review of bulk powers, which we are looking at today; and we have an overarching privacy clause, a stricter test for the judicial commissioners, protection for trade union activities, and an undertaking from the Solicitor General to consider how to amend the Bill to make it absolutely clear that whistleblowers can make disclosures to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner without fear of prosecution. I hope we can make as good progress today.

One of the amendments made to the Bill yesterday concerned the requirement for judicial commissioners to consider necessity and proportionality with a sufficient degree of care to ensure that they comply with the general duties in relation to privacy—this is the tighter judicial review test. That amendment was made to clause 21, which relates to intercept warrants. Today we are dealing with bulk powers. The judicial commissioners have an important role in relation to bulk powers and are an important safeguard in respect of warrants involving bulk powers. It is therefore important that we have clarity in the House today that the tighter scrutiny that is now in clause 21 applies equally to all other exercises of authorisation or approval carried out by judicial commissioners, including where they are exercising their powers in relation to bulk warrants. I think that otherwise there will be a risk of two tests, one under clause 21 and one under the other clauses applying to bulk powers. There is a real danger relating to combined warrants, in respect of which judicial commissioners would be asked to carry out different tests. It is important for the bulk powers to be scrutinised every bit as closely as the intercept warrants. Perhaps, in his response, the Minister will make it clear that the test applies generally across all the functions of the judicial commissioners, whether in respect of the specific warrants referred to clause 21 or in respect of the warrants relating to bulk powers and other provisions in the Bill. That, I think, would be a helpful extension of the safeguards relating to bulk powers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Grieve]

I have no doubt at all that the review done by David Anderson will be valuable and I hope it will also inform the House about how bulk powers work. In that context—and because I have picked this up—there has been a suggestion that the examination of material under a bulk warrant is somehow a free-for-all that is left to the discretion of the official, and it plainly is not. It is subject to the operational purposes in clause 125, and if they are departed from, the official concerned would be acting unlawfully.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) made the point, which my right hon. and learned Friend has now amplified, that these powers are subject to a range of safeguards. Let me be clear: the analysis of data intercepted in bulk is subject to automated filtering to ensure that data not of intelligence value are automatically discarded. This is a safeguard set out in the code of practice. There are rigorous safeguards in the Bill for examination, and the suggestion that there are not is, frankly, simply wrong and based on a confusion between the collection of material, as my right hon. and learned Friend has implied, and its examination.

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[Andy Burnham]

There is an exchange of letters between the Security Minister and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras, which I hope is in the public domain, and which I believe allays the fears of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). To be clear, it was a sticking point for Labour that the review had to consider necessity and not just utility. That is enshrined in the terms of reference, so I hope I can reassure him on that point.

Clearly, there is further to go on journalistic material and internet connection records, although it appears from what the Minister has said this afternoon that we are heading in the right direction. I stress again that progress on the ICR points that I have made are a personal red line.

That said, I thank the Home Secretary, the Solicitor General and the Security Minister for the constructive way in which they have approached our discussions. Because of the consensus we have been able to find, the legislation is more likely to succeed and to stand the test of time.

[Mr Grieve]

I say to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) that, as far as the review is concerned, I have no doubt that the Intelligence and Security Committee will respond positively and provide input if David Anderson wants to discuss those matters with us. I certainly look forward to seeing his conclusions in the review on bulk powers, which I hope will be helpful to Parliament in identifying what improvements we can make.

Amendment 13, which is in my name and those of my colleagues on the Intelligence and Security Committee, concerns clause 54, on the additional restrictions on the grant of authorisations of communications data. In the Committee’s report into privacy and security published in March 2015, we recommended that, just like the police, the intelligence agencies should always ensure a separation of roles between those requesting access to communications data and those who provide the authorisation. Previously, that has not been the case. I am grateful that the Government accepted that principle, and that it is enshrined in clause 54(1). That is an important safeguard that the Government have added to the Bill.

I hope the Minister will forgive me, but notwithstanding that, the Committee, having looked carefully at the Government’s amendment, believe that, although it is 90% of the way there, 10% might do with some improvement. The Bill provides that there may be exceptional circumstances in which a separation is not required. I entirely accept that that is the case. There will be a small and probably very infrequent number of such examples where there is an imminent threat to life, which is provided for in clause 54(2) and (3). However, clause 54(3)(b) simply cites

“the interests of national security”,

which I should tell the Solicitor General is rather a broad concept, particularly as it features in all sorts of places in the Bill and can be extended to encompass almost anything that falls within the agencies’ remit.

The Committee believe that it is too vague and potentially too broad. Therefore, in amendment 13, we have proposed a measure that tries to narrow the matter down without in any way affecting operational effectiveness. The amendment would limit exceptional circumstances to those where the operation is so sensitive that knowledge of it must be kept to an absolute minimum, or where there is an unplanned, time-critical but very significant opportunity to obtain information that might be lost owing to any delay in obtaining a separate approval.

The Committee very much hopes that the Government are in a position to accept the amendment.

[The Solicitor General]

There is more debate to be had about whether the phrase “absolute minimum”, as opposed to plain “minimum”, should be used, but I am happy to assure my right hon. and learned Friend that, in principle, we accept the amendment. We will commit to returning with a technically adequate amendment in the other place.

[Mr Grieve]

I am grateful to the Solicitor General for his comments and I will not take up any more of the House’s time. I think that “minimum” might well be acceptable. The key thing is the next subsection, which I think tries to encapsulate very clearly the sort of exceptions we are talking about.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman and I may be on different sides of the House, but I have the highest regard for the clarity and erudition with which he approaches matters. The Intelligence and Security Committee, which he chairs, said in its recommendation I on the draft Bill that the Bill did not make it clear that getting internet connection records

“through a specific request to a Communications Service Provider under Part 3”

is not the only way in which the agencies may have access to internet connection records. He said that that was “misleading” and that

“the Agencies have told the Committee that they have a range of other capabilities which enable them to obtain equivalent data”

to internet connection records. He said the Bill should make that clearer. Has the Bill been amended to his satisfaction on that point?

[Mr Grieve]

The hon. and learned Lady raises a relevant point. The Bill has not been amended, but we received sufficient assurances from the Government that the way in which the system would be operated, in terms of the internal workings of the agency, would be such as to meet the concerns we expressed. Indeed, the Solicitor General or the Minister may be in a position to confirm that. On that basis, despite the fact that we raised the point, we did not table an amendment on it. The hon. and learned Lady is quite right to pick it up. I have not wanted to detain the House for too long, otherwise I could take her through a list of areas on which, having had further discussion, we decided amendments were not required. She is right to focus on that and I hope very much the Minister is able to provide some confirmation. I am grateful to her for having raised it.

[Gavin Newlands]

Along with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), I represented the SNP in Committee. I am grateful for the opportunity to take part on Report.

I have many concerns about the Bill, and my hon. Friends have already outlined a number of areas where the SNP is sceptical about the Government’s case. This is a wide-ranging and complex Bill and time constraints prevent me from speaking to everything I would like to. However, I will focus my contribution on communications data and internet connection records. The measures in the Bill are not limited to internet access, email or telephony and include, explicitly, communication without human intervention. As it stands, the definition of communications data can tell us an awful lot about someone’s life. Stewart Baker, former senior counsel to the NSA in the United States, states that the content of a person’s communications data is redundant when we consider the amount of metadata that is already collected.

Communications data can be key in obtaining leads, solving crimes or preventing crime. However, I have a real issue with the length of the list of public bodies that would be able to access such personal and sensitive information on an individual without sufficient oversight in place. As we heard at the end of the previous debate and again at the start of this debate, from the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), schedule 4 currently provides for a list of bodies that would be able to access retained data, including a range of regulatory bodies. Among them are the Food Standards Agency, the Gambling Commission, the Office of Communications, and the Health and Safety Executive. No fewer than 47 bodies are listed, a reflection of the tightly drawn nature of the Bill—or otherwise. That suggests that access to communications data may be granted for a range of purposes, which will almost certainly be disproportionate and inconsistent with the guidance offered by the European Court of Human Rights.

It is only appropriate that the correct level of protection and oversight is in place. The SNP tabled amendments 320 to 327 and 328 to 350 to ensure sufficient judicial oversight. The relevant public bodies must seek a warrant from a judicial commissioner, replacing the Secretary of State in the process where necessary. They also ensure that a threshold of reasonable suspicion would be necessary before a warrant is issued.

The arguments on judicial warrantry have already been rehearsed at length and I do not intend to detain the House long on this issue, particularly as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West speaks with a lot more authority on that subject than I do. Suffice it to say, I think hon. Members should pause and reflect on the lack of oversight. Decisions concerning necessity and proportionality can only be made properly by someone who is truly independent from the operations of the organisation.

Clause 54 contains the first mention of internet connection records. Subsection (6) defines ICRs in such general terms as to render the definition pointless. In that regard, I welcome some of the comments from the shadow Home Secretary and the Minister in their courting across the Dispatch Box a little earlier.

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[Mr Grieve]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). We have co-operated on civil liberties matters in the past, and the hon. Gentleman has shown great courage in many of the approaches that he has taken, including those to legislation when his own party was in government. I hope he will accept, however—just as I accept the principles that underpin his opposition and, indeed, that of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry)—that those of us who will support the Bill on Third Reading are not acting in an unprincipled fashion.

As was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the simple fact is that this is not just some opportunistic gimmick employed by the Government in an attempt to acquire more power. The existing legislation was doing positive harm; indeed, allowing it to remain would have been far more likely to undermine civil liberties than ensuring that it was properly replaced. It seems to me that, during its passage in the House of Commons, the Bill has been immeasurably improved. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for listening and responding to the concerns expressed by the Intelligence and Security Committee and for accepting virtually all our amendments, although I recognise that we shall need to negotiate on some areas of detail.

The ISC has always taken the collective view that this legislation is necessary, and that that necessity applies to bulk powers of collection. We look forward to and will accept David Anderson’s report, and will consider whether there are indeed any alternatives that might be advanced, but I have to say that, on the basis of everything that we have seen up to now, we believe that bulk powers are needed, although sensible and proper safeguards are required to ensure that they cannot be abused. The Bill contains such safeguards, and I believe that when it comes back from the other place, it will be in an even better condition. Parliament, it seems to me, has been doing its job rather well.

If I have any complaint to make about the Bill’s passage, it is this: the quantity of amendments tabled on Report has rendered the Order Paper entirely inadequate. Until we have an Order Paper that marries the amendment numbers to page numbers—which is vitally needed—we shall be wasting a great deal of our time in the Chamber faffing around when we might have been doing other things. I hope that that complaint is passed on. I might even suggest that someone should consult GCHQ if there is a difficulty in finding the necessary formula on a computer to do the page numbering and the amendment numbering at the same time.

With that thought, I just want to say that it has been a privilege to participate in the passage of this Bill, and I hope that when it comes back to this House we will be able to reassure the hon. Member for Walsall North and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West that they have a piece of legislation that will actually stand the test of time and be a credit to this House.