Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Clause 3 (1) states:

“Section 5 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (power to issue necessary and proportionate interception warrants in interests of national security, to prevent or detect serious crime or to safeguard the UK’s economic well-being) is amended as set out in subsection (2).”

Subsection (2) reads:

“(economic well-being of the UK), after ‘purpose’ insert, ‘in circumstances appearing to the Secretary of State to be relevant to the interests of national security’”.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

It might be worth the Home Secretary adding subsection (4) of clause 3, which explicitly links economic well-being to national security.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, subsections (2) and (4) define economic well-being in terms of the interests of national security.

The ECJ ruling in April was critical of the data retention directive because it said it did not contain the necessary safeguards in relation to retained data. I said that to the House last week and referred to it earlier this afternoon. Of course that ruling did not take into account the different structures, regimes and domestic laws that are in place in individual member states. Our communications data access regime, primarily governed by RIPA, has strict controls and safeguards in place. The data can only be accessed when it is necessary and proportionate for a specific investigation, and access is limited and subject to a strict authorisation regime, which was specifically endorsed by the Joint Committee on the draft Communications Data Bill. Clause 3 provides an important clarification in that it makes it clear that the statutory purpose of safeguarding the economic well-being of the UK can only occur when it is in the interests of national security. That is already the position, but the Bill puts that position beyond doubt.

Part 2 of the Bill deals with the question of interception. The House will know that interception can only take place when a warrant has been authorised by a Secretary of State, when he or she considers it to be necessary and proportionate and when the information sought cannot reasonably be obtained by other means.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). I listened to him carefully, and there is a problem with what he said. His starting point was that something needs to be done, but he then listed a whole lot of reasons on why nothing can be done. Although he made a very fluent speech, I do not think that it took us any further, except in saying that he wanted more time to consider the Bill.

I will start by discussing the time we have to develop our arguments and consider the Bill. One factor to be borne in mind is whether there is enough time for this House and for concerned experts and members of the public to get their heads round what is being proposed and to have a say. That is an important question that needs to be answered.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) reminded me earlier that I was responsible for a piece of legislation called the Disqualifications Act 2000, which you will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker. Although the content of that legislation has no bearing on this Bill, it is comparable because it was a five-clause Bill that went through all its stages in the House in one 26-hour sitting. The quality of the debate as we got into the 23rd, 24th and 25th hours was probably not that good. I am not convinced that we got better legislation after sitting for 26 hours than we would have done had we sat for five or six hours.

In the time left to me, I will cover two clauses of the Bill. The first is clause 3. I will not speak about it for too long, because I tabled an amendment to it, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and other hon. Friends, that will be debated later. Amendment 1 covers the whole issue of economic well-being. The only thing I want to say at this point is that we at least need to have a debate about the scope of economic well-being. The purpose of amendment 1, which is a probing amendment, is to get the Government to give us some idea of the dimensions of economic well-being. The amendment tries to restrict it to three main areas, but there may well be other areas that should be considered. If there are, we ought to hear about them.

Clause 4 is the extraterritoriality provision. I well understand the need for it and will not speak against it, but I just fear that it might prove to be unworkable. I am looking for reassurance about how it will be carried out in practice. Let us imagine that there was a billing office for Google in Liverpool and that some relatively junior person in the organisation turned out to be the sole representative of Google in the United Kingdom. I am sure that that is not the case, but I am using it as a hypothetical example. My fear is that somebody who is well down the pay grades could, by virtue of being in an office that is owned by a parent company that is registered in Ireland or the United States, be the person on whom the notice is served to enact the warrant. That would be disproportionate. I might have misread clause 4. I will be quite happy if the Minister can ease my mind on the subject, but it does pose a bit of a worry for me.

In conclusion, when we are debating issues such as this, a couple of considerations must be borne in mind. The first is the amount of time that is available, which I have covered. The second is whether the provisions break new ground in policy terms. My reading of the Bill—I have read it carefully several times—is that it brings the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 up to date slightly to address the problem that arose as a result of the European Court of Justice decision. In so far as it breaks no new policy ground, I do not think that there is necessarily a problem with what is proposed. I am quite prepared to support the Bill on Second Reading.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—