Investigatory Powers Bill (Sixth sitting)

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 14th April 2016 Public Bill Committees

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The clause deals inter alia with interception in immigration detention facilities, and it is that which leads me to oppose its inclusion in the Bill. We can see that there is some replication of previous legislation in the provisions that deal with interception in prisons and psychiatric institutions, but the provision on immigration detention facilities is new and it is deficient in several respects. The theory underlying it is deficient, because immigration detention facilities are dealt with in a part of the Bill that includes psychiatric hospitals and the facilities are defined to include immigration removal centres, which are short-term holding facilities in which people, including families with children, are held in the so-called pre-departure accommodation.

Immigration detention has been the subject of much discussion on the Floors of both Houses because it is done by administrative fiat and without limit of time. The person detained will not have been brought before a court or tribunal to have the lawfulness of their detention or entitlement to bail considered, unless they instigate such a process; and the powers to detain are very broad and cover a large number of scenarios. The Bill states that conduct is to be authorised if it is done in the exercise of any power conferred by or under the detention centre rules or the rules for short-term holding facilities.

[The Minister for Security (Mr John Hayes)]

It may help the hon. and learned Lady to abbreviate her remarks if I say that the provision is not intended and cannot be used to deal with someone’s asylum or immigration status. That is not its purpose. With that assurance, perhaps the last point she made will not quite hold the water in her mind that it currently does.

[Joanna Cherry]

That does not really give me the assurance I seek. I was going to say that, under the clause, conduct is to be authorised if it is done in the exercise of any power conferred by or under the detention centre rules, or the rules for short-term holding facilities and pre-departure accommodation made under sections 157 and 157A of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 respectively. The latter sets of rules do not actually exist. Rules governing the regulation and management of short-term holding facilities were made in 2002, but it took until 2006 for draft rules to appear covering similar ground for short-term holding facilities as the detention centre rules do for immigration removal centres.

Back in 2006 the Home Office consulted on draft rules, to which various persons responded. In 2009 the Home Office consulted on another draft of the rules, to which there were further responses, many of them adverse; a number of freedom of information requests and parliamentary questions followed. In April 2012 the rules were described by the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), as being “still under development”.

In March 2014, during the passage of the most recent immigration Bill, which became the Immigration Act 2014, Lord Taylor of Holbeach gave a commitment to Lord Avebury, who had been chasing the rules since 2006, that

“rules governing the management and operation of short-term holding facilities and the Cedars pre-departure accommodation will be introduced before the Summer Recess.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 March 2014; Vol. 752, c. 1140.]

Lord Avebury was informed before the recess that the commitment would not be met. He continued to pursue the matter, and draft rules were finally published on 18 February this year, almost a decade after the first draft was published and some 14 years after they were envisaged. That wait does not appear to have produced a version markedly different from earlier versions or particularly tailored to short-term facilities. In those circumstances, it is very far from clear what powers are being given by the current Bill. That shall be the gravamen of my exception to the clause.

In his review of immigration detention, Sir Stephen Shaw paid special attention to the problems of short-term holding facilities and the dreadful conditions in some of them. We have all heard about that on the Floor of the House. His concerns led him to recommend that a discussion draft of the short-term holding facility rules should be published as a matter of urgency. In the meantime, after he had said that, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons published a damning report on one particular facility, the Longport freight shed in Dover, describing the dire state of the facilities there. He said:

“on various occasions Home Office staff told us that they did not consider Longport to be a place of detention…despite detainees being in possession of legal authority to detain documentation and obviously being unable to leave. At this facility, the normal mechanisms of internal oversight and accountability that should apply to any form of detention were lacking.”

Under such circumstances, the notion of any lawful exercise of the powers contained in clause 44 seems fanciful.

There are also problems with immigration removal centres. The latest version of the detention centre rules dates from 2001. They were last amended in 2005 to update the name of the tribunal hearing immigration cases and bail applications, but by the time that was done the name itself was out of date because it had already been replaced by the immigration and asylum chamber of the first-tier and upper tribunals. The rules contain a broad range of powers from powers to fingerprint individuals and powers of search, to powers to identify survivors of torture or persons with a mental or physical illness; powers on medical information and notification of illness and death; powers to segregate and use force, and powers to carry out compulsory tests for drugs. There are also rules regarding visitors to centres and contractors.

My point is that the rules cover the sorts of matters that would be covered by prison rules but they apply to a different regime and to people who have not been detained by the courts or by due process of law. The overall effect is a lack of clarity. When one is working against the background of rules that do not exist or, if they do exist, lack clarity, a clause such as clause 44 potentially has a very far-reaching impact on people whose civil liberties are already severely undermined by the circumstances of their detention. The Government do not need to take just my word for that; it is a view widely held, including by a number of Government Back Benchers and peers.

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

We will not oppose the clause but I wish to put on record our concern about immigration detention and the intercept of communications in immigration detention facilities. There is growing concern, as has already been said, about the fact of that detention, the length of it and the conditions. There have been a number of reports, to which the Government have responded. In those circumstances, it is incumbent on the Government to justify the clause, although we will not seek to delete it.

[Mr Hayes]

I will be equally brief. There is a misconception about this matter. The Bill as drafted simply ensures that any interception carried out at a detention centre and under detention centre rules is lawful. No purpose is intended other than the maintenance of safety and security of the people in those centres. It is clearly right that officers should be able to intercept attempts to send contraband material, for example, such as drugs, in particularly sensitive environments. The power cannot be used to deal with the outcome of any immigration cases, asylum applications and so on.

The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 contains the power to make rules for management of immigration detention centres. Clause 44 provides that interception, carried out in accordance with those rules will be within the law. In a sense, it is as simple as that. I can see why the hon. and learned Lady might have misunderstood this, but I can assure her that that is what is in the Bill and, I put on the record, is the Government’s position. Rather than detain the Committee now, it might help if I send copies of the detention centre rules to Committee members, as they contain the essence of the argument that I have just made.

[Joanna Cherry]

My essential objection to the clause is that subsection (1) states:

“Conduct taking place in immigration detention facilities is authorised by this section if it is conduct in exercise of any power conferred by or under relevant rules”,

with the relevant rules described in subsection (2), and the underlying “relevant rules” are wholly inadequate. There has been a long history of problems with the rules, so the clause rests on a very shaky and unsafe foundation. I am concerned to protect the civil liberties of persons who are not criminals, who are not guilty of any violation of the law, but who are detained under immigration rules and whose civil liberties are already severely curtailed.

[Mr Hayes]

I have a great deal of regard for the hon. and learned Lady’s diligence, but she is tilting at windmills. The clause is pretty straightforward. The points she makes about the management of detention centres may be perfectly reasonable debating points for a different Bill at a different time, but this Bill is not really about the management of detention centres and similar places. That matter is rightly dealt with in the relevant legislation. This Bill is merely about the application of certain powers to those centres to ensure that they are lawful. It is not much more complicated than that. On that basis, I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 47 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 48

Exclusion of matters from legal proceedings

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry]

I oppose the inclusion of the clause in the Bill. Clause 48, with schedule 3, broadly replicates the existing procedure in section 17(1) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, whereby material obtained by way of an intercept warrant cannot be used as evidence in ordinary criminal proceedings.

Schedule 3 makes a number of exceptions to allow intercept evidence to be considered in civil proceedings where there is a closed material procedure in place—that is where a party and his or her legal team are excluded. Those proceedings would include, for example, proceedings under section 6 of the Justice and Security Act 2013, proceedings in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission or under the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011. Schedule 3 makes no exception for criminal proceedings, except in so far as material may be disclosed to the prosecution and to the judge so that the judge might determine whether admissions by the Crown are necessary for the trial to proceed in a manner that is fair. Deleting clause 48 would remove that exclusion, so that there would be an exception for criminal proceedings. It would also permit intercept material to be treated as admissible in both ordinary civil and ordinary criminal proceedings, subject to the ordinary exclusionary rules applicable to other proceedings, including public interest immunity and the provisions of the Justice and Security Act in civil proceedings.

I am indebted to Justice, the human rights group of lawyers that includes members of all parties and none, for its help in formulating my argument for deleting the clause. Justice has long recommended the lifting of the bar on the admission of intercept material as evidence in civil and criminal proceedings. In 2006, it published a document “Intercept Evidence: Lifting the ban”, in which it argued that the statutory bar on the use of intercept as evidence was “archaic, unnecessary and counterproductive”.

The United Kingdom’s ban on intercept evidence in criminal proceedings reflects long-standing Government practice, but it is out of step with the position in many other Commonwealth and European countries, and it has proved increasingly controversial over time. Importantly, the European Court of Human Rights has recognised the value placed on admissible intercept material, in countries where it is available. It has said that admissible intercept material constitutes

“an important safeguard; against arbitrary and unlawful surveillance, as material obtained unlawfully will not be available to found the basis of any prosecution”.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

Has the hon. and learned Lady taken into account the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, which ensures fairness of disclosure in English and Welsh courts, as practised by many Members of the Committee, and is at the centre of the arguments against admission of this evidence?

[Joanna Cherry]

I have considered it, but we are not talking about disclosure, we are talking about the admissibility of evidence. As the hon. Lady will very well know, things may be disclosed to lawyers in the course of proceedings to try, as I said earlier, to make sure that there is a fair trial, but they are not necessarily admissible. I am talking about lifting the ban on the admissibility of intercept evidence.

[Victoria Atkins]

If there is something under the code that assists the defence or may undermine the prosecution, the prosecutor is obliged to make that known to the judge. A decision is then taken as to whether the disclosure of that material is so necessary that, in effect, the trial cannot continue.

[Joanna Cherry]

Of course the hon. Lady is absolutely right. I said that that was the case earlier, but that is not the end of the matter. As the European Court of Human Rights has recognised, where intercept material is admissible, its admissibility constitutes

“an important safeguard: against arbitrary and unlawful surveillance”.

I know many Government Members are not too keen on the European Court of Human Rights; they might find the Privy Council report published December 2014, “Intercept as Evidence”, more palatable. In paragraph 84, it confirmed that a fully funded model for the removal of the ban could result in a

“significant increase in the number of successful prosecutions.”

That report also reflected concerns of agencies and law enforcement bodies that removing the ban without full funding could reduce its effectiveness. I acknowledge there is a funding issue and I am sure the Government will want to talk about that.

What I am really saying is that the Bill is a lost opportunity to remove the ban on admissibility of intercept material in criminal proceedings, which could benefit all. The Committee has heard what the Privy Council and the European Court of Human Rights have said on that. Many other countries manage to operate effective surveillance systems in which intercept material is admissible in criminal proceedings in certain circumstances. As I said, there will always be public interest immunity and the provisions of the 2013 Act in civil proceedings to allay some of the concerns Government Members might have.

The Joint Committee on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill recommended that the matter should remain under review, and in paragraph 675 of its report invited the Government to take note of the “significant perceived benefits” of using intercept material in criminal proceedings. There are other arguments in favour of removing this ban. Members may want to think about how the current bar on the use of targeted intercept material relates to a new focus in the Bill on expanded and untargeted access to communications data.

[Victoria Atkins]

How would the hon. and learned Lady recommend that prosecuting counsel deal with an application from the defence to reveal the methodology used by the security services in obtaining intercept material? If the ban is removed, how is prosecuting counsel to answer that?

[Joanna Cherry]

It is not about the methodology; it is about the admissibility of the material itself. Far be it from me to lay down rules, at this stage of proceedings, for the Crown Prosecution Service or the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland. That is something that will have to be worked out, but it will not be worked out in a vacuum, because the Privy Council has looked at this detail and many other countries have a system such as this that works.

It comes back to a continuing theme in my concerns about the Bill. Let us not be inward-looking. Members of my party are sometimes accused of being narrow nationalists, but I often think that is an allegation more accurately directed at the Conservatives. We should look at practice elsewhere in the world. Britain is not uniquely placed to decide how to have the best and fairest surveillance system. Our security services probably are world leading—I recognise that, and I mean no disrespect to them—but we are not here just to please them; we are here to protect our constituents’ interests, as well as human rights in general, and to produce legislation that is balanced and fair.

I oppose the clause because I think there are good arguments in favour of making intercept material admissible in criminal proceedings. As the hon. Lady has indicated complex procedural rules would have to be built up—we have had a ban in our two legal systems in Scotland and England for so long that we would have to go back to the drawing board and think very carefully. She is right to say that this is not an easy matter, but we are not starting with a blank slate. If we do not want to look to Europe—I know that people are not too keen on Europe at the moment—we can look to the experience of other Commonwealth countries.

[Victoria Atkins]

The reason I keep rising when the hon. and learned Lady mentions other countries is that England and Wales have an extraordinarily thorough—I want to say “generous,” but that is not the right word—disclosure regime, which is not mirrored elsewhere in the world. Look at the United States: the disclosure tests that occur in this country have very little relationship to what happens in America, so it is not right to compare the two.

[Joanna Cherry]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point that England and Wales have very clear disclosure procedures. Now, thank goodness, so does Scotland as a result of a number of Supreme Court decisions. We had a long way to go 10 years ago, but we have since come a long way. This is not about disclosure; it is about admissibility. Those are two very different things, as she well knows. Frequently things are disclosed that are not admissible.

[Victoria Atkins]

If evidence is admissible, the defence is quite within its rights to ask that question of prosecuting counsel. It is a question that is asked in a different form when a defendant suspects that there is an informant. How is prosecuting counsel to argue against that?

[The Chair]

Order. If the hon. Lady wishes to make interventions, they are to be short. She has an opportunity to make a contribution afterwards.

[Joanna Cherry]

At present, in the United Kingdom intercept evidence is not admissible in criminal trials. My purpose in opposing the clause is to make it admissible in criminal trials and proceedings, but there would have to be very careful rules and procedures, and the nature of our disclosure systems both north and south of the border will need to be taken into account.

I invite Members to consider, on the one hand, how the ban on the use of such material balances the new system that the Bill seeks to introduce of expanded and untargeted access to communications data and whether lifting the ban on the admissibility of intercept evidence in criminal trials would, as the Privy Council has said, increase the likelihood of successful prosecutions and, on the other hand, whether it might also reduce the reliance on administrative alternatives to prosecution, such as terrorism prevention and investigation measures, and on the use of untargeted forms of surveillance. Members will also have to consider whether the Government’s cost base analysis is accurate and sustainable. We cannot say that the ceiling would fall down on the security surveillance system in this country if we removed the ban, because the system operates effectively in other countries.

[Keir Starmer]

It is of course the long-standing practice of all Governments to maintain this exclusion. The current form is effectively to continue the regime as it has operated until now. The regime has been reviewed a number of times, and the last review was probably in 2014. As has already been mentioned, the Privy Council said that the regime’s removal could lead to an increase in the number of successful prosecutions. The exclusion is frustrating, and I was frustrated in a number of cases when I was Director of Public Prosecutions where, had it been possible to deploy such evidence, individuals who could not be convicted and locked up for serious offences might have been successfully charged and prosecuted. So the ban is a source of frustration because the net result is that, where someone cannot be charged because of this rule, there are only two possibilities in serious cases. One is that they continue to be subjected to surveillance, which can be extremely expensive and resource-intensive. The other is that they are put through some preventive measure, which has advantages and disadvantages but also a shelf life, which is normally shorter than the sort of sentence they might have received if the evidence had been admissible and a conviction had been obtained.

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[Keir Starmer]

Thank you for your indulgence, Mr Owen. I am grateful to the Solicitor General for indicating that he will write, and I am more than happy to have it in writing. That information is important because it is central to the debate about the roles of the Secretary of State and the judicial commissioner. It is not just me. Other people need to be assured on the role and accountability of the Secretary of State. It is one thing to say, “She can be asked in a Committee about it”, but it is another to point to the legal route by which that can happen in practice in a way that allows a degree of accountability. It is not intended as a trick question, and if it can be dealt with in a letter, I would be grateful.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 50 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 51

Offence of making unauthorised disclosures

[Joanna Cherry]

I beg to move amendment 79, in clause 51, page 41, line 18, at end insert—

“(4) In proceedings against any person for an offence under this section in respect of any disclosure, it is a defence for the person to show that the disclosure was in the public interest.”

This amendment seeks to provide a public interest defence to the offence of disclosure in relation to a warrant issued under this Part.

The amendment is about whistleblower protection and would provide a defence for the criminal offence of disclosure in relation to a warrant issued under this part of the Bill. The offence as framed in clause 51 includes disclosure of the existence and content of a warrant as well as disclosure of the steps taken to implement a warrant.

The offence is subject to a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. If committed, it is clearly a serious offence—the maximum penalty reflects that—but there are strong arguments that there should be a defence of disclosure in the public interest. By their very nature, surveillance powers are used in secret, with the vast majority of those subject to them never realising that surveillance has taken place. That means it is vital that sufficient checks, balances and safeguards are in place to ensure that the powers are used appropriately. I know that is why we are here, so apologies for stating the obvious. It is part of the checks, balances and safeguards to ensure that those who, in one way or another, witness or have knowledge of abuse or mistakes are able to bring that to the attention of individuals capable of addressing it, which may on occasion include bringing information to public attention. The provisions in clause 51 that criminalise the disclosure of information relating to the use of interception powers risk shutting down a vital route of ensuring accountability for the use of surveillance powers unless there is the defence of disclosure in the public interest.

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[Mr Hayes]

This is an interesting amendment. It deals with the tension, which I think all Committee members recognise, between allowing the proper opportunity for those who have legitimate concerns to bring them forward to be dealt with and encouraging feckless complaint. Much of what we do in this House in framing law means dealing with that dilemma, and this is a good example.

The hon. and learned Gentleman—I think that the hon. and learned Lady said it first, actually—drew particular attention to the Joint Committee report. I refer to paragraph 629, which recommends that

“the Bill should contain an explicit provision for Communication Service Providers and staff in public authorities to refer directly to the Judicial Commissioners any complaint or concern they may have with the use of the powers under the Bill”,

and goes on similarly.

That is precisely what we intend and what we have tried to set out. That said, the hon. and learned Lady will understand that it is important to create a duty, as clause 49 does, not to make unauthorised disclosures. Clause 50 sets out the exceptions to that duty, and clause 51 provides for the offence of making an unauthorised disclosure. Providing a public interest defence of the kind that she discussed is unnecessary in light of the exceptions already in the Bill. In my view, it might even encourage feckless or unlawful disclosures.

[Joanna Cherry]

The defence would not apply to a feckless or unlawful disclosure. If somebody sought to pray in aid that defence, the jury would have to decide, under legal direction from a judge, whether what had been done was in the public interest. Something feckless—which I gather means “without good reason”—would not be in the public interest.

[Mr Hayes]

There is a balance to be struck, of the kind that I described. The hon. and learned Lady is right that the route to the commissioner must be clear and straightforward, allowing people of the kind that the hon. and learned Gentleman described to know how they can bring their concerns to his attention. That is why clause 203 provides the information gateway that I spoke about earlier. That is the point made by the Joint Committee. What we have done in clause 203 is essentially give life to the Committee’s recommendations about a direct route to the commissioner.

[Joanna Cherry]

Does the Minister accept that there might be situations in which an immediate disclosure is required to prevent conduct that is seriously unlawful? That is the situation where the defence is required. Somebody might find themselves in a position of having to make a public disclosure immediately to prevent unlawful conduct. Rather than going around the houses looking for advice or being assured after the fact that what they did was all right, they need to know that there is a defence of public interest to encourage them to make a disclosure immediately to prevent unlawful conduct.

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, but I am not so sure that, in the modern age, we do not live in precisely the opposite circumstance to the one the hon. and learned Lady sets out. All kinds of information are put into the public domain, whether for right or wrong and whether for good or bad reasons. That information cannot then be withdrawn and it is often taken to be fair and true, when it is anything but. I am not so sure that we do not need a process that is sufficiently rigorous that the commissioner is better placed to take a view on what is, or is not, in the public interest.

I will go further than that. It seems to me that, if we are going to have the commissioner, we have to vest power in his or her hands. If we then created all kinds of other means for dealing with these issues, I suspect that would undermine the commissioner’s significance and discourage people from taking their concerns to the commissioner.

However, I think perhaps we can reach a synthesis around the way we make the route known. In clause 203, we have done what the Joint Committee asked us to do—I note that there are distinguished Members sitting behind me who were on that Committee. But I am not sure that we have thought enough about how to inform people about the route they can take under clause 203, so I will ask my officials to look at that again. There is an information challenge here, because it is all very well for the cognoscenti—there are many of them in this room—to know about such things, but I am not sure that that is good enough. So I will meet the hon. and learned Lady halfway—halfway in my judgment, at least, even if not in hers—by ensuring that we look closely at how well informed people are about their ability to go down the route I have set out. On that basis, I ask her to withdraw the amendment.

[Joanna Cherry]

I wish to insist on the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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“the interests of …economic well-being”.

[Joanna Cherry]

Where we have encountered the phrase “economic wellbeing of the UK” before, there has been another subsection to say that that only applies to persons outside the British islands, but there is no such corollary in clause 53. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that that is worrying? If I am wrong, no doubt I will be corrected by the Government.

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[The Solicitor General]

It is with this amendment, I am afraid, that we have a strong disagreement. To say that there are no thresholds is a misrepresentation of the situation. Putting it bluntly, the Government’s worry is that creating a serious crime threshold will miss a whole panoply of crimes that are extremely serious to victims. I am thinking in particular about crimes relating to harassment, stalking and other types of offences that would not fall within the threshold of serious criminality.

It is important that we couch our remarks carefully—the hon. and learned Gentleman has tried to do that, and I respect him for it. We are not talking about targeted interception here; we are talking about the retention of evidential leads—information that could, not of itself build a case, but which, in combination with other material, could allow investigators to build a case against a suspect. The analogy is with existing comms data, namely telephonic records and mobile phone records—the sort of material that he, I and others on the Committee have regular use and an understanding of, as prescribed by the RIPA regime. We are all familiar with it. The difficulty is that, as the days go by, the reliance by criminals on conventional methods of telecommunication changes.

The old system, where the SMS message would be the way things would be done, is increasingly falling into disuse. WhatsApp, internet chat forums and all sorts of encrypted means of communication are now being used. There is no doubt that the ability of the agencies—the security and intelligence agencies, the police and other agencies—to obtain even those evidential threads is therefore becoming more difficult. We are not talking about content, nor should we be. I draw an analogy with the sort of drugs observance case where the police officers can see people coming and going from a house that is of interest, but cannot see what is going on inside that house. That is what we are talking about here. Adopting these amendments would be entirely the wrong step to take.

[Joanna Cherry]

It is interesting that the Solicitor General chooses the example of surveillance in a drugs operation to tell us what we are talking about. That would be a serious crime, but as the shadow Minister has drawn attention to, clause 53(7) allows authorisations to obtain data not just for serious crimes, but for a whole plethora of things, including protecting public health, taxes, duties, levies and so on. Notwithstanding his opening comments, does he not accept that it is telling that the example he chooses is one of serious crime?

[The Solicitor General]

Not all drugs supply is necessarily serious. We might be talking about a particular class of drugs, which might not qualify within the criteria. Is the hon. and learned Lady seriously suggesting that we should not have the capability to draw evidential leads on cases of harassment, stalking or other offences that we all know are a particular problem when it comes to the abuse of victims?

[Joanna Cherry]

Stalking is, in my respectful submission, a serious crime. The thrust of these amendments is that the authorisation should be for serious crime, and by a judge.

[The Solicitor General]

The hon. and learned Lady wants to have her cake and eat it. The hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras said he wants a much higher threshold. I am sorry, but we cannot play around with this. The Committee is dancing dangerously on the edge if it seeks, in an ad hoc way, to try to subjectively define what serious crime is.

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[The Solicitor General]

I hear what the hon. and learned Gentleman says, but I do not agree with him about the threshold. It is set out in subsection (7). I can give another example: what about a missing person inquiry? We would not know whether it was a crime; it might well be a young person who has run away. We all have some direct or indirect experience of that.

I will address the point, but I have to be careful, because the case to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has referred is sub judice. I do not disagree with any of his characterisation, by the way, and of course I have read with care the Court of Appeal judgment of Lord Justice Lloyd Jones, but the hearing in the Court of Justice of the European Union is this week, I think. We will have to see how that develops.

I am very conscious of how case law develops in this area, and I am mindful of it, bearing in mind my duty as a Law Officer to uphold the rule of law. I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman understands that, but where we are is in a sensible place. My worry is that if we start to get too restrictive, we will in effect end up in a position in which many serious matters—matters that are serious to the victim, but might not be serious according to other criteria—are lost or missed.

I have already mentioned necessity and proportionality. I should also pray in aid the fact that there will have to be compliance with a detailed code of practice and independent oversight and inspection of the regime by a senior judge, currently the Interception of Communications Commissioner. The current internal authorisation regime is working well. No deliberate abuse of it has been identified in any ICC reports, which speaks volumes for the integrity of the current system.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the Solicitor General accept that there have been severe concerns lately about what turned out to be rather destructive surveillance activities by the Metropolitan police in relation to covert human intelligence sources? Does he agree that it is highly unlikely that such practices would have occurred if there had been a system of prior judicial authorisation, rather than internal authorisations?

[The Solicitor General]

The hon. and learned Lady knows, of course, that that matter is now being investigated, in an inquiry led by Lord Justice Pitchford. I am not saying that she is not entitled to mention it, but it really is a different set of circumstances. That particular means—the covert use of human intelligence sources—is not what we are talking about, with the greatest respect. We are talking about ensuring that authorities prescribed by statute have the capability to continue finding the sorts of evidential lead that until now have been almost exclusively the province of conventional telecommunications.

[Joanna Cherry]

Perhaps I can put another example to the Solicitor General. Towards the end of last year, it was revealed that, due to what a judge labelled systemic internal failings in how the National Crime Agency applied for a warrant, a number of trials were at risk of collapse. Earlier in the year, Mr Justice Hickinbottom lamented what he called an

“egregious disregard for constitutional safeguards”

within the NCA, in the case of Chatwani and others v. the National Crime Agency and others. Those are examples of where the system is not working.

[The Solicitor General]

I am familiar with what the hon. and learned Lady is talking about, but again, that involves a particular failure by the NCA on warrantry. Here we are talking about various agencies’ abilities. With respect to her, it is not the same. We are discussing a different regime. Tempting though it is to read over, that would be to frustrate the important work of many law, detection and investigative agencies in our country.

I do not see the purposes within the Bill as inconsistent in any way with the purposes set out in the exemptions from and limitations of the right to privacy in article 8.2 of the European convention on human rights. There has never been a serious crime threshold for the acquisition of communications data. No such limit is placed in article 8.2, which is why the Government’s position on this issue—I will not mention the case—is legally respectable and sustainable. That is why the provisions in the clause meet the challenge that faces the agencies in a way that is proportionate and necessary, and that keeps pace with the breathtaking rate of change of technology being taken advantage of by many people of good will, but also by people of less than good will. For that reason, I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

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[Joanna Cherry]

I beg to move amendment 228, in clause 53, page 42, line 21, leave out subsection (1)(b)(ii).

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 231, in clause 53, page 43, line 5, leave out subsection (4)(d).

These amendments to Clause 53 provide that in order to access communications data, a relevant public authority must seek a warrant from a Judicial Commissioner rather than undertake a system of internal authorisation. These amendments also provide for warrants to authorise conduct of a relevant public authority and require steps be taken by a telecommunications operator, removing the need for separate “authorisations” to public authorities and “authorisation notices” to telecommunications operators.

Amendment 131, in clause 55, page 45, line 24, leave out subsection (2).

[Joanna Cherry]

I am very much in agreement with everything that the hon. and learned Gentleman said on the last group. The Scottish National party’s position is that access to communications data should be by means of a judicial warrant. We share the concerns that he articulated about the lack of a proper threshold in clause 53(7). I do not intend to press these amendments to a vote. I associate myself with his position, and I reserve my position on this matter for a later stage. This is an absolutely crucial clause, and it is extremely concerning, as he said, that there is no proper threshold in it.

[The Solicitor General]

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for her succinct remarks. I will simply make the following observations about her amendment. It would remove the ability of the relevant public authorities to apply for communications data authorisation to test equipment or for technology development purposes. It is vital that those who are authorised to acquire communications data are able to test existing systems and to assist the development of new equipment or systems. Without that ability, we will not know whether the equipment will provide the required information in a real-life investigation, and nor will we be able to fix errors in systems where they are detected. We fear that that could have a seriously detrimental effect on our law enforcement agencies’ ability to prevent and detect crime and may lead to mistakes, which are in nobody’s interest—least of all that of the public, whom we serve. Therefore, this is a vital further safeguard. With respect, we are somewhat puzzled about why the amendment was tabled, but we heard the hon. and learned Lady and we respect her position. For those reasons, we oppose the amendment.

[Joanna Cherry]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Keir Starmer]

I beg to move amendment 110, in clause 53, page 43, line 39, after “detecting”, insert “serious”.

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[Joanna Cherry]

I do not oppose the removal of safeguards from the Bill. However, this is the first time that internet connection records have raised their head in the Bill and I feel compelled to foreshadow the more detailed arguments that will be made when we reach clause 78.

The collection of internet connection records is one of the fundamental changes that the Bill seeks to introduce, and subsections (4), (5) and (6) of the clause contain the first mention in the Bill of such records. I think that I am correct in saying that they are in fact only mentioned in one further clause—clause 78.

Clause 54(6) sets out to define an internet connection record but fails spectacularly to do so because of its widely drawn language, which clearly attempts to cover every imaginable base. The Scottish National party understands that the police and other authorities need powers befitting the digital age but, as legislators, we cannot pass a clause with such a significant impact on civil liberties—on personal privacy—without a clear definition in the Bill.

The industry has made it clear that it is willing to work with the Government to try to help implement ICRs. The trouble is that the industry does not know what ICRs are—and it looks like the Government do not know either. I addressed that point in quite a lot of detail on Second Reading. It is interesting that the Internet Service Providers Association says:

“The Investigatory Powers Bill deals with highly complex technical matters, however, our members do not believe that complexity should lead to a Bill lacking in clarity.”

I very much associate myself with those comments.

We cannot legislate in a vacuum and if the Government cannot provide further detail and clarity so we all know what an internet connection record is and what we are legislating for, we will have no option but to try to remove the collection of such records from the Bill through our amendment to clause 78. But the Scottish National party objects to the inclusion of internet connection records not just because of the difficulty of defining them—in my speech on Second Reading, I suggested that they are not at all a sort of internet replication of a phone record, as the Home Secretary seemed to think they were—but because of their intrusiveness. They would provide a detailed record of every internet connection of every person in the UK over 12 months, with a log of websites visited, communications software used, systems updates downloaded, desktop widgets used and every mobile app used, and logs of any other device connected to the internet, such as games consoles or baby monitors. I said in that speech that that would be “fantastically intrusive” and I stand by that.

Law enforcement bodies can currently obtain similarly extensive internet connection data for specific surveillance targets in several ways. First, they can request that telecommunications operators in the future retain the data of specific targets. Secondly, they can request retrospective internet connection data on specific targets from operators who temporarily store such data for their own business purposes. Thirdly, if they are seeking to prevent or detect serious crime, they can request data or assistance from GCHQ, which has a remit to provide intelligence for those purposes. Intelligence sharing to tackle online child sexual exploitation will be fortified by the establishment in November last year of the National Crime Agency and GCHQ joint operations cell.

The Intelligence and Security Committee noted in recommendation I of its report on the draft Bill that the delivery of ICR proposals

“could be interpreted as being the only way in which Internet Connection Records may be obtained. However, this is misleading: the Agencies have told the Committee that they have a range of other capabilities which enable them to obtain equivalent data.”

The ISC recommended that the Bill be amended in the interests of transparency, but no transparency has been provided.

The Scottish National party believes that the case supporting this huge expansion of data collection by internet service providers and its benefit to law enforcement is deeply flawed and contradicted by the available evidence, and that it has been accurately described as overstated and misunderstood.

I reiterate that there are no other “Five Eyes” countries in which operators are or have been forced to retain similar internet connection data. In Europe, as we heard the Danish tried it and decided that it was not of any utility. They thought about trying it again recently, but decided not to repeat the experiment. David Anderson noted in his report “A Question of Trust”, on page 265, about the collection of that sort of internet connection data that

“Such obligations were not considered politically conceivable by my interlocutors in Germany, Canada or the US.”

He therefore said that a “high degree of caution” should be in order.

There is also a legal issue with the mooted collection of internet connection records, because in 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in the Digital Rights Ireland case that indiscriminate collection and storage of communications data is a disproportionate interference with a citizen’s right to privacy. I therefore argue it is unacceptable that the Government are attempting to bypass that ruling to extend their policy of blanket data retention.

It will no doubt be argued that, provided there are sufficient safeguards, the Court’s concerns from that case do not apply. However, as we just heard, there are not independent safeguards because we do not have judicial authorisation for access to internet connection records. We have instead a long list of public officials who have access to such records through internal procedures. I want to make it clear that I do not seek to impugn the integrity of public officials, but the reality is that their primary concern will relate to the operational capacity of their agency. That is a perfectly understandable matter of organisational culture, but that is also a reality that mitigates in favour of independent third-party authorisation.

If we collect internet connection records, we face falling foul of European Union law. We will also face falling foul of European Union law if we collect them without proper independent authorisation. I oppose clause 54 because it is the first point at which internet connection records rear their head in the Bill and the Scottish National party is not convinced that the Government have made a case for internet connection records. We are not convinced that there are not alternative routes to get at the necessary information and we are concerned that the collection of such records will be in violation of the law and of civil liberties.

[Keir Starmer]

We shall not seek to vote down the clause, but I want to raise some serious concerns about internet connection records because, as has been said, I think this the first time that they appear in the Bill. Subsection (6) is important because that provides the definition that

“‘internet connection record’ means communications data which…may be used to identify, or assist in identifying, a telecommunications service to which a communication is transmitted by means of a telecommunication system for the purpose of obtaining access to, or running, a computer file or computer program, and…comprises data generated or processed by a telecommunications operator in the process of supplying the telecommunications service to the sender of the communication”.

That is a wide definition. I listened carefully to the evidence of senior law enforcement officials about their ask on internet connection records, and they made it clear that they were concerned to have the who, the how, the when and the location.

I appreciate that there are other provisions—in fairness, I will come to those—but my concern is that that definition is much wider than their ask. That is important because subsection (4) deals with the point of access to internet connection records and what the designated senior officer can authorise. I accept that that subsection contains the restriction that internet connection records cannot be obtained or accessed unless one of the purposes identified is complied with—

“which person…which internet communications service…where or when”.

That has a resemblance to what senior law enforcement told us was their ask, but the problem is that the definition in subsection (4) is much wider. It might be asked whether that matters. Well, it does matter because clause 78—the retention clause—as we have observed, provides that the Secretary of State may issue a retention notice in relation to relevant communications data. Clause 78(9) makes it clear that relevant communications data may be used to do a list of things—I will return to the list—and that internet connection records are included. That definition of internet connection records crops up again in clause 78(9). Therefore, anything within that description, so long as it also complies with the other bits of the subsection, may be retained.

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[The Solicitor General]

As a preface to my remarks, which will have to be succinct, I do not want to stray into the debate on clause 78. I do not want to criticise the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, but she has made points that will properly be answered when we come to that debate. She is right to raise the point about the Danish experience and, like me, she has read the evidence in the Committees, but there are significant differences between what we are trying to do in the UK and what happened in Denmark. The Danish experience was not a great one. There are significant operational, financial and other differences that mean that the Danish Government are looking carefully and with a great interest at what we are attempting to do in the UK. This is not straightforward and it is not easy, but it is our duty as legislators to get ahead of the curve when it comes to the development of technology and to make sure we are not playing catch-up when it comes to criminals’ increasingly sophisticated use of the digital sphere.

[Joanna Cherry]

Setting the Danish experiment to one side, can the Solicitor General tell us why the other “Five Eyes” countries are not requiring operators to retain similar internet connection data? Why are no other western democracies doing that?

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Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry]

I wish to speak briefly on clause 58. I indicate that I will also cover clauses 59 and 60, which I also oppose. The clauses provide for the establishment and use of a filter to gather and analyse communications data. They provide for a communications data request filter, which was a feature previously proposed in almost identical terms in the rather unpopular draft Communications Data Bill. The only change made is that under clause 58(5), which states that the Secretary of State

“must consult the Investigatory Powers Commissioner about the principles on the basis of which the Secretary of State intends to establish”

the filter.

The request filter essentially is a search mechanism that allows public authorities to conduct simple searches and complex queries of the databases that telecommunications operators will be required to build and hold. The Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill described the request filter in that Bill as

“a Government owned and operated data mining device”,

which, significantly, positions the Government at the centre of the data retention and disclosure regime. Access to the filter and the data it produces would be subject to the same self-authorisation processes as all communications data. In practice, the request filter would be a search engine over an enormous federated database of each and every citizen’s calls, text records, email records, location data and internet connection records. Those would be made available to hundreds of public authorities.

I am sure the Government will, as they have in the past, be keen to portray the request filter as a safeguard for privacy. However, the processing of such a huge amount of personal data, as permitted by the request filter, is a significant privacy intrusion. It is not only me who thinks that; the Joint Committee on this Bill noted that there were

“privacy risks inherent in any system which facilitates access to large amounts of data in this manner.”

When I asked the Solicitor General why other countries do not do that, he said that the lead must start somewhere, but I do not want my constituents to be guinea pigs for such a system. I can tell from my mailbox that many of my constituents are very concerned about such huge amounts of personal, private data being held and analysed in that way. They want to see serious crime tackled, but not at the expense of their privacy.

A balance has to be struck, and I fear that the request filter is more of an intrusion into privacy than a safeguard for it. It is a portal with the power to put together a comprehensive picture of each of our lives. We should not misunderstand that that is what the filter can do. It raises many of the same concerns as a large and centralised store, with the added security concerns of protecting multiple distributed databases.

Public authorities will have a permanent ability to access the request filter, which will make it an enticing and powerful tool that could be used for a broad range of statutory purposes. The ability to conduct the complex queries that the request filter will allow for could increase the temptation to go on fishing expeditions—that is, to sift data in search of relationships and infer that concurrences are meaningful. That was one of the many concerns expressed by the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill about the request filter proposal.

With the request filter power, authorities could use communications data to identify attendees at a demonstration and correlate that with attendance at other public or private locations in a 12-month period, or identify those regularly attending a place of worship and correlate that with access to online radio websites, inferring risk. Those examples show that the new ability risks casting undue suspicion on thousands of innocent citizens and mining their personal contacts for patterns, which is an unacceptable intrusion into the privacy and civil liberties of our constituents and British citizens generally.

[Keir Starmer]

I will not be long, but I want to raise some concerns about the provisions. It is clear—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the arrangements are to assist a designated senior officer who is considering whether to grant an authorisation, and therefore has got to that stage of the exercise, and more broadly to provide for effective ways of obtaining communications long before there is serious consideration of a particular authorisation. Subsection (1)(a) applies in relation to the contemplation of a possible authorisation, whereas subsection (1)(b) is a much wider way of organising the data so that someone can later find what they want more easily.

The arrangements are made by the Secretary of State but then exercised by the designated senior officer, and we have discussed who will be doing that. It is so concerning because the provision allows for the designated senior officer, who in many cases will be not a high-ranking individual in a public authority, to start to organise the data that have been obtained under a retention power. It is therefore a very wide ranging power indeed.

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Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry]

I oppose the clause for the same reasons and I do not think I need to elaborate further.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry]

I oppose the clause for the same reasons.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.