Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Gavin Newlands

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Grieve]

If we are seeking ways to find daisy chains, I can assure my hon. Friend that there are probably other ways in which they might be found. If the House wants do something by resolution, a motion must be tabled. Therefore, either we will get to the point where we never, ever table a motion again—meaning, effectively, that our operation is completely brought to a standstill, which would be a total absurdity—or, I am afraid, he, like everybody else in this House, will have to live with the possibility that people may use a motion to raise matters that they want to raise. Of course, the question of the amendability of a motion, and all that, is not in our hands but those of Mr Speaker.

My hon. Friend brings me back to what worries me, because in what he said there is that little echo of the suggestion that it would all be so much better if this House could just disappear—vaporise—for the next three months so that whatever he thinks should happen is what ought to happen. As I was trying to point out, if we do not meet and debate and moderate each other’s views, we are not a working democracy, and that is what we should at all times strive to be. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I rise to offer the SNP’s support for amendments 14 to 17, which stand in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). I commend him for tabling these amendments and ensuring that there is a chance to debate this issue.

It is incredible that it has come to this—that this Parliament requires an amendment to legislation on the governance of Northern Ireland to stop the Executive riding roughshod over the democratically elected Chamber. More and more, the UK Government are like a Marx Brothers film, but without the laughs—a parade of wannabe comedians trying their best to recreate Freedonia in their own image, with the biggest joke of all reserved for when the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) enters No. 10, perhaps by zipslide. But at least Freedonia was fictitious.

Of course it would be easy for those on the Treasury Bench, now or at some point after the right hon. Gentleman takes his place, to finagle the use of the royal prerogative to prorogue Parliament—that is the benefit of the uncodified, antiquated constitution we have—but there can be no shortcuts to democracy. There can be no running away from the mess the Government have created for themselves and for the country, and no attempt to silence democratically elected Members, no matter how much the Government of the day wish to do so. I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, who said:

“If you decide that parliament is an inconvenience, when in fact it is the place where democratic legitimacy lies in our constitution, and therefore it’s acceptable to get rid of it for a period because it might otherwise”

stop

“you from doing something that parliament would prevent, then it’s the end of democracy.”

Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Gavin Newlands

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

[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.