Reports into Investigatory Powers

James Morris Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to follow the maiden speeches we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) and the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson)? Given their contributions, I am sure they are both embarking on very solid parliamentary careers.

One of the most striking things about the Anderson report was the early chapters describing the technology landscape that we face across the world and that is faced by our security and intelligence services. That landscape is changing almost daily in its innovation and capabilities: new applications are emerging; new methods of encryption are being developed as we speak; and more and more data are travelling around the world, connecting people together and often connecting our enemies together. In the past 25 to 30 years, technology has provided massive opportunities for our society, but it also represents a profound threat to our future national security. It provides opportunities for our enemies—for countries operating and wanting to develop cyber-attacks against our infrastructure; it enables terror groups to communicate below the radar in encrypted chatrooms on the dark web; and it allows networks to develop which are difficult to detect and to analyse.

Before I came to this House, I worked in the IT and technology industry for 20 years and I have seen the changes taking place. Our enemies are very skilled in the use of this technology. They use it to disseminate their message through social media and through other networks. They are very skilled at creating methods of cyber-attack and at avoiding detection, and they are becoming increasingly skilled in collaborating across the world. The key challenge facing us, therefore, is: how do we respond to that ever-changing and complex landscape, and how do the Government and the state respond?

As other hon. Members have said, David Anderson’s review is an excellent, magisterial piece of work, which really sets out the landscape. He focuses on the fundamental principles we need to be following to ensure that our security and intelligence services have the tools necessary to do the job, within a legal framework that not only protects privacy and the freedom of the individual, but, as other hon. Members have said, is integrated under a single new law which is comprehensible. Our enemies can use technology flexibly and innovatively, and can respond to new trends without constraint, so the Government and the state face a challenge because we cannot afford to be static and unresponsive in the light of the new challenges we face, as ultimately our citizens will pay the price.

The Anderson review is therefore right to call for a new set of laws—or a new law—that consolidate the myriad different pieces of legislation that have built up over time; clearly articulate the correct balance between enabling our security and intelligence services to do their jobs and having the necessary transparency; are written in a language that a layman can understand and which is comprehensible; and that ensure that we have a framework where not only can the security and intelligence services operate, but where the police and other public bodies are clear about their legal responsibilities and operate proportionately.

The freedom of the individual and freedom of expression are absolutely fundamental to our democratic society. But a mature democratic country such as Britain, with all the connections that we have around the world, needs to have the capability and the framework to combat its enemies, wherever those enemies may manifest themselves.

As David Anderson says in his report, it would simply not be acceptable for a modern democratic society to allow paedophiles, for example, to operate on the dark net with guaranteed impunity, or to allow terrorists to render themselves undetectable simply by selecting an application that encrypts their communication history so that it is inaccessible. It would not be acceptable for a modern democratic society and Government to cede responsibility, and say, “All this is too complicated and we will allow our enemies or criminals to act with impunity.” But we do not have to become a totalitarian society to achieve our goal. As David Anderson also says, if the UK is to set an example to the world, it will not be by withdrawing from those dark spaces that we see emerging on the web, but by demonstrating that our democratic society has the ability to patrol those spaces in tightly defined circumstances and with sufficient safeguards against abuse. That is one of the fundamental underlying principles that needs to drive our thinking when we come to debate the new legislation that will be introduced in the autumn.

As the Government consider the recommendations made by Anderson, the challenge for us all is to enable a debate to take place, so that the state can engage in the complex battle against very intelligent enemies, especially those operating in this newly emerging dark space on the internet. That dark space has the danger of allowing our enemies to act with impunity. Fundamentally, we need to create the appropriate legal framework to ensure that our enemies are held accountable for their activities, because that is what a democratic society demands.