Investigatory Powers Bill

Earl Howe Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 131A seeks to provide in the Bill for an investigatory powers commission in addition to a commissioner. I listened with care to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I understand how strongly he feels about this issue. The Government have been clear throughout the passage of the Bill that the Investigatory Powers Commissioner will lead a powerful new body—the noble Lord and I are, I think, in agreement on that principle. However, the Government have been equally clear that there is no need to create that body in statute. Our principal reason for adhering to that view is that doing so would not confer any new powers, duties or responsibilities on those working for the commissioner, nor would it affect their ability to audit, inspect and oversee public authorities.

I am the first to recognise the importance of public perception. However, as to whether it would benefit public perception to create a commission, I cannot see what advantages an anonymous quango holds over a senior, independent judge. The oversight and authorisation of investigatory powers are vital tasks that need to be performed and need to be performed well. Therefore, in my submission, it is right that an identifiable individual is ultimately responsible for them.

It is the difference between having a person with a public face and a body that risks being seen by the public as faceless. Since the oversight powers and duties are ultimately placed on the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, we logically expect that commissioner to be the public face of the body. It is the commissioner who will be called on to lead the public debate on these issues and to give his or her expert and considered legal view on the matters in the Bill. If, for example, someone receives a notification of an error under Clause 209, or if a report is made under Clause 212, it is better that such communications should come from a senior, named judicial figure rather than a faceless organisation.

Of course, it is necessarily the case that the commissioner will rely on the work of an extensive staff of expert inspectors and advisers. Again, though, I argue that that does not necessitate the creation of a commission in statute. When an inspector walks into a public authority, the fact that they are an employee of an investigatory powers commission would not give them any greater powers than if they are a representative of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. I agree with one element of what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said: it is right that, in such circumstances, those employees should wield appropriate authority. The Government have listened to concerns expressed on this point and tabled amendments, which we will come to later, to make clear that the commissioners can delegate powers under the Bill to their staff. That will make absolutely clear that when the experts and inspectors employed by the commissioner go about their work, they do so with the full force of the commissioner behind them.

Moreover, creating a new body in statute would require the establishment of a board to run that body, complete with at least three non-executive directors. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for her remarks on this point. In the eyes of many, this would muddy the waters of accountability and introduce considerable new bureaucracy into the work of the commissioner. It is much better that the commissioner’s resources and attention should be focused on overseeing the work of public authorities and providing public assurance, rather than on servicing a burgeoning bureaucracy.

[Lord Paddick]

Can the Minister reassure me that the circumstances that the Intelligence Services Commissioner found himself in—that is, with one of his investigators effectively being excluded when he was involved in investigating what the intelligence services knew prior to the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby —could not happen in the absence of a body corporate being set up, as this amendment suggests? There are concerns that people in the security services might not acknowledge the authority of the inspectors if it is not the case.

[Earl Howe]

I fully believe that the amendments we have tabled will give inspectors the authority that is equivalent to that of a judicial commissioner. Although I was not aware of the case that the noble Lord cites, I think the government amendments will put the situation beyond doubt, if ever there was any. I do not believe that the problem the noble Lord refers to has ever impacted more widely on the ability of inspectors to do the job that is required of them; I like to hope that that was a one-off problem. However, with the benefit of the government amendments, it simply should not be an issue.

I hope I have reassured the noble Lord. Certainly, we cannot overlook the point that the creation of a new body would come at significant financial cost that would be of no gain in terms of public reassurance or effective oversight. As I have argued, it might risk making the oversight regime less clear. For a bunch of reasons, I hope the noble Lord will feel comfortable in reconsidering his amendment.

[Lord Paddick]

I am very grateful to the Minister. I am not sure that he is entirely reassured that the government amendments will deal with this issue, but I accept that that is because he did not have sight of my example prior to the debate. I regret not giving him notice that I would be bringing it up. However, given all the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

132: Clause 205, page 161, line 37, leave out paragraph (b)

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[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 132 and the others in the group. The government amendments in this group address the fact that the Northern Ireland Assembly has not provided legislative consent for this Bill. Only a small number of provisions in the Bill engage devolved responsibilities in Northern Ireland. These relate to oversight and to the proposal that the role of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner for Northern Ireland, who is responsible for overseeing the exercise of devolved powers, should be subsumed into the Investigatory Powers Commissioner that we are creating under the Bill.

In the absence of legislative consent, the existing office of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner for Northern Ireland will not be abolished. Consequently, the Bill need no longer provide for the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to be consulted on the appointment of the IPC. Similarly, the Prime Minister will no longer be under a statutory duty to send them a copy of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s annual report.

Additionally, appeals arising from the Investigatory Powers Tribunal under Clause 220 will no longer be heard by the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. It will be for the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to decide whether the Court of Appeal in England and Wales or the Court of Session in Scotland should hear the appeal instead. Although this is obviously not the most desirable appeal route for individuals from Northern Ireland, our hands are tied by lack of legislative consent from the Northern Ireland Executive.

Included in this group of government amendments are regulation-making powers allowing the Secretary of State, with the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly, to reverse these amendments. Therefore, if legislative consent were given at some point in the future, the IPC could reasonably quickly take on the functions of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner for Northern Ireland and appeals could be allowed to go to the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. It is our hope that both these powers can be used in the near future. Accordingly, I hope noble Lords will support these amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make reference to the amendment that we have in this group. Clause 205 provides for the appointment of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and judicial commissioners.

As currently drafted, Clause 205(5) requires the Prime Minister to consult Scottish Ministers and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland about the appointment of these commissioners. However, there appears to be currently no duty to consult Welsh Ministers about these appointments, with the result that Wales does not feel that it is being treated equally with the other devolved Administrations in this respect.

Under the Wales Bill before the House, Welsh devolution will take a constitutional form that is much closer to that for Scotland and Northern Ireland. The First Minister of Wales considers that the mutual respect between Administrations means that drawing unnecessary distinctions in legislation between devolved Administrations should be avoided unless strictly necessary. He regards the provision in this Bill—the Investigatory Powers Bill—as at the very least constitutionally discourteous to Wales. In speaking to this amendment, I invite the Government to take the necessary steps in relation to consultation under Clause 205 to address the concern raised by the First Minister on which I have just sought to reflect.

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[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner will be taking on the responsibilities of the three existing statutory commissioners in this area. I contend that Amendment 132A is unnecessary and indeed inappropriate because it would create an inconsistency across the Bill.

The appointment of commissioners to one of those existing bodies—the Office of Surveillance Commissioners —is currently a matter for the Prime Minister, following consultation with Scottish Ministers. Scottish Ministers also have the power to appoint surveillance commissioners for the purpose of overseeing the exercise of powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Act 2000, or RIPSA.

Under the Bill, the IPC will take on responsibility for overseeing the exercise of powers under RIPSA. As a consequence, the Bill will remove the power of Scottish Ministers to appoint surveillance commissioners. To be consistent with the current position, the Bill therefore requires that Scottish Ministers must be consulted by the Prime Minister prior to the appointment of the IPC or a judicial commissioner. Similarly, the Bill currently requires the Prime Minister to consult the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland on the appointment of a commissioner. This again reflects the fact that Northern Irish Ministers currently have a role in the appointment of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner for Northern Ireland, which the Bill had originally proposed to subsume into the office of the IPC.

In the event, as I have just said, the Bill has not received legislative consent from the Northern Ireland Assembly. Consequently, the amendments that I have already spoken to in this group would remove the requirement for consultation with Northern Irish Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said that that was a retrograde step, but without legislative consent for the Bill from the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Government have no alternative. In contrast, Welsh Ministers currently have no statutory role in the appointment of the existing commissioners. As the Bill will not affect the competence of Welsh Ministers, I do not consider it necessary to introduce a new right of consultation. Indeed, doing so would create an inconsistency between the treatment of Welsh Ministers and their counterparts in Northern Ireland.

The appointment of judicial commissioners is an important matter, which is why the Government have strengthened the Bill by requiring that appointments must be on the recommendation of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and that of his devolved counterparts. So Welsh interests will undoubtedly be represented by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. Indeed, I note that the current Lord Chief Justice was in fact born in Wales. I do not consider that further changes to this process are necessary, particularly when they would serve to create inconsistencies within the Bill, as I have explained. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will agree not to press his amendment.

[Lord Rosser]

I thank the Minister for his response. The spirit of the amendment, frankly, is that in the light of the thrust of the Wales Bill the Government ought to be prepared to consider making the change sought in the amendment, which after all is about consultation. However, I note the response that has been received, which clearly indicates that the Government are not prepared to go down that road. I am sure that the First Minister will read the Government’s response carefully even though it will probably be without any enthusiasm.

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

134: Clause 207, page 164, line 23, at end insert “or the Investigatory Powers Commissioner for Northern Ireland.”

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

135: Clause 207, page 164, line 40, leave out from “to” to end of line 2 on page 165 and insert “any of the following functions of a Judicial Commissioner—
(a) deciding—(i) whether to serve, vary or cancel a monetary penalty notice under section 7 or paragraph 16 of Schedule 1, a notice of intent under paragraph 4 of that Schedule or an information notice under Part 2 of that Schedule, or(ii) the contents of any such notice,(b) deciding whether to approve the issue, modification or renewal of a warrant,(c) deciding whether to direct the destruction of material or how otherwise to deal with the situation where—(i) a warrant issued, or modification made, for what was considered to be an urgent need is not approved, or(ii) an item subject to legal privilege is retained, following its examination, for purposes other than the destruction of the item,(d) deciding whether to—(i) approve the grant, modification or renewal of an authorisation, or(ii) quash or cancel an authorisation or renewal, (e) deciding whether to approve—(i) the giving or varying of a retention notice under Part 4 or a notice under section 228 or 229, or(ii) the giving of a notice under section 86(10)(b) or 233(9)(b),(f) participating in a review under section 86 or 233,(g) deciding whether to approve an authorisation under section 200(3)(b),(h) deciding whether to give approval under section (Additional safeguards for items subject to legal privilege: examination)(4),(i) deciding whether to approve the giving or varying of a direction under section 203(3),(j) making a decision under section 209(1),(k) deciding whether to order the destruction of records under section 103 of the Police Act 1997, section 37 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 or section 15 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Act 2000,(l) deciding whether to make an order under section 103(6) of the Police Act 1997 (order enabling the taking of action to retrieve anything left on property in pursuance of an authorisation),(m) deciding—(i) an appeal against, or a review of, a decision by another Judicial Commissioner, and(ii) any action to take as a result.”

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

139: Clause 210, page 167, line 22, leave out “Subsection (3) does” and insert “Subsections (3) and (3A) do”

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

140: Clause 211, page 168, line 35, after second “Commissioner” insert “or the Investigatory Powers Commissioner for Northern Ireland”

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

141: Clause 212, page 169, line 33, at end insert—
“( ) information about the operation of the safeguards conferred by this Act in relation to items subject to legal privilege, confidential journalistic material and sources of journalistic information,”

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[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as we have discussed in previous debates in this House and in the other place, the use of thematic warrants is crucial to our law enforcement and security and intelligence agencies, but we welcome these amendments, which will provide reassurance that these warrants will be subject to specific scrutiny by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and enhance transparency about their use.

The noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, invited me to comment on the degree of disclosure I would expect to see in the commissioner’s report. In my view—and I hope the noble Lord will understand this—it would not be appropriate for the Bill or indeed government to fetter the independence of the commissioner by specifying the detail of what he may choose to publish in relation to the use of thematic warrants. In due course the commissioner will wish to consider whether his duty to publish information about the use of these warrants is best satisfied by the publication of data such as the number of thematic warrants issued during a limited period or other information relating to the way in which thematic warrants are used in practice. These decisions will rightly rest with the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. However, I welcome the amendment which imposes a very clear duty on the commissioner to ensure that these warrants are subject to particularly robust scrutiny and that information is regularly put in the public domain about their use. Indeed, I would expect the commissioner to ensure that his report serves to illuminate any areas that cause him particular concern.

The process by which the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament can refer issues to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner was previously discussed in this House. It is right that the committee can bring issues that merit further investigation to the attention of the IPC, who may then decide whether to take further action. In addition, it is important that the right balance is struck between the independence of the IPC on the one hand and respecting the remit of the committee on the other hand. By requiring that the Prime Minister provides a copy of any IPC report that follows an investigation, inspection or audit carried out following a committee referral in cases where the report falls within the remit of the committee, this amendment finds that balance. Accordingly, I am happy to accept both these amendments.

[Lord Janvrin]

I thank the Minister for his helpful response. I take his point about the importance of the independence of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner.

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

143: Clause 212, page 169, line 36, at end insert—
“( ) information about the work of the Technology Advisory Panel,”

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[Earl Howe]

146: Clause 213, page 171, line 10, leave out “member of” and insert “person who holds, or has held, an office, rank or position with”

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

147: Clause 216, page 172, line 2, after “facilities” insert “and services”

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[Earl Howe]

150: Clause 218, page 172, line 19, leave out paragraph (c)

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

158: Schedule 7, page 231, line 13, at end insert—
“( ) the Technology Advisory Panel,”

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Amendment 160 is a probing amendment, and the debate should be short. Schedule 7 provides for codes of practice. Our debates on the previous day of Report on journalistic material, which is referred to in paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 7, made me have a look at the personal records which are also referred to in that paragraph as being “relevant confidential information”. I was concerned about health records, because the information is described as that,

“which is held in confidence by a member of a profession”.

I wanted to check that health records would fall within this. A health authority obviously does not cover all of this. There are health records which are held for entirely proper purposes but not by people that one might describe as being professionals—or certainly not members of a profession. So I decided, even at this late stage, to table this amendment in order that we could understand precisely what is meant by confidential information when it consists of personal records. I beg to move.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, Amendment 160 would amend Schedule 7 to the Bill to require that every code of practice made under the Bill must provide guidance in relation to personal records held by a health authority. I hope I can convince the noble Baroness that this amendment is unnecessary. Schedule 7 already requires that the codes of practice must make provision relating to personal records held by a member of a profession, which would include health records held by a medical professional.

The Government do not believe that it is necessary to impose a similar requirement for personal records held by a health authority, as that is a discrete issue which will not be relevant to all of the codes of practice. For example, it will not be relevant to communications data. Of course, that does not mean that the codes cannot include such material should it be necessary to do so. There is already a reference to a health service body in the draft personal datasets code, for example.

The codes of practice have been published in draft to help facilitate parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill, but they will be subject to consultation and separate further scrutiny by Parliament after Royal Assent. That will provide noble Lords and others with the opportunity to consider the detail contained in the codes, including to argue the case for the inclusion of particular issues in particular codes of practice. On that basis, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, that is helpful and it has enabled me to make my point, which may of course be one that we will come back to, depending on how we view the codes when we come to deal with them. I thank the Minister and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

161: Clause 220, page 173, leave out line 23

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

163: Clause 221, page 175, line 33, after “system;” insert—
“(bb) the issue, modification, renewal or service of a warrant under Part 2 or Chapter 1 of Part 6 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (interception of communications);”

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

177: Clause 223, page 177, line 27, after “Part 4” insert “, national security notices under section 228”

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[Earl Howe]

178: After Clause 223, insert the following new Clause—
“Technology Advisory Panel
(1) The Investigatory Powers Commissioner must ensure that there is a Technology Advisory Panel to provide advice to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, the Secretary of State and the Scottish Ministers about—(a) the impact of changing technology on the exercise of investigatory powers whose exercise is subject to review by the Commissioner, and(b) the availability and development of techniques to use such powers while minimising interference with privacy.(2) The Technology Advisory Panel must provide advice to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner about such matters falling within subsection (1)(a) or (b) as the Commissioner may direct.(3) Subject to this, the Panel may provide advice to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner about such matters falling within subsection (1)(a) or (b) as it considers appropriate (whether or not requested to do so).(4) The Panel may provide advice to the Secretary of State or the Scottish Ministers about such matters falling within subsection (1)(a) or (b) as it considers appropriate (whether or not requested to do so) but such advice to the Scottish Ministers may only relate to matters for which the Scottish Ministers are responsible.(5) The Panel must, as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of each calendar year, make a report to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner about the carrying out of the functions of the Panel. (6) The Panel must, at the same time, send a copy of the report to the Secretary of State and (so far as relating to matters for which the Scottish Ministers are responsible) the Scottish Ministers.”

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 178.

Amendments 178A to 178C (to Amendment 178) not moved.

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Moved by

[Earl Howe]

179: After Clause 223, insert the following new Clause—
“Members of the Panel
(1) The Investigatory Powers Commissioner must appoint such number of persons as members of the Technology Advisory Panel as the Commissioner considers necessary for the carrying out of the functions of the Panel.(2) Subject as follows, each member of the Panel holds and vacates office in accordance with the member’s terms and conditions of appointment.(3) A member of the Panel must not act in a way which the member considers to be contrary to the public interest or prejudicial to—(a) national security,(b) the prevention or detection of serious crime, or(c) the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.(4) A member of the Panel must, in particular, ensure that the member does not—(a) jeopardise the success of an intelligence or security operation or a law enforcement operation,(b) compromise the safety or security of those involved, or(c) unduly impede the operational effectiveness of an intelligence service, a police force, a government department or Her Majesty’s forces.(5) Section 213(2) and (7) (information powers) apply to a member of the Panel as they apply to a Judicial Commissioner.”