Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I should say at the outset that I am satisfied that the Government need the legislation before the House today. But like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and others, I am very critical of the way in which Parliament has been treated on this matter. Taken with the subject discussed in the Private Notice Question earlier, this is a bad day for the relationship between Government and Parliament.

The Intelligence and Security Committee, on which the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, and I represent this House, was warned a week ago today—last Wednesday, the day before the Home Secretary’s Statement—that this emergency legislation was to be introduced. The imminence of that Statement was widely reported in the next morning’s media, ahead of the Home Secretary’s Statement, so it appears that the media were briefed at the same time.

Why has Parliament been given so little time to consider this Bill? The two issues that it addresses have been apparent for weeks, indeed months. The ruling of the European Court of Justice was issued on 8 April. It was clear from that moment that the regulations that the intelligence agencies and the police in the United Kingdom use to seek details of communications from providers had become vulnerable to challenge. So the need for action, which this Bill addresses, has been known about for three months.

The second issue that the Bill addresses is the assertion that powers to require data from providers abroad have extraterritorial effect. But several of the communications providers based outside the United Kingdom have made no secret of the fact that they are willing to respond to requests for communications data only if they are required to do so by legislation. There is nothing new in that. Nor did it only become apparent last week that some of the major providers were based outside United Kingdom jurisdiction, or were about to move there. That, again, has been known for a long time.

The House may remember that following the Home Secretary’s Statement last week, which the Minister repeated, I raised this issue with him. He gave me a reply that at the time seemed good to me. However, on reflection, I find that I am not persuaded by it. The Minister explained that the delay between the ECJ judgment and the announcement of this legislation was due to the fact that the Government had been working with the law enforcement agencies and the data providers to get the details right. That is very understandable. Therefore the Government were discussing this problem with Microsoft, Yahoo! and other providers. Why were they not willing to discuss the issue similarly with Select Committees of Parliament when they were already discussing it outside the House? If the Government could reach a conclusion about the necessity for this legislation one week before the House of Commons went into recess, it beggars belief that they could not have reached that conclusion three weeks before the Recess, thus giving Parliament proper time to consider the Bill.

In 2012, when faced with the growing difficulty of getting access to communications data, the Government published a draft communications data Bill, as the House will remember. That Bill provided for a substantial extension of the Government’s powers, and the Government, very properly, provided the opportunity for a Joint Committee of both Houses and the Intelligence and Security Committee to examine the Bill and report on it. Both committees made some criticisms of the draft Bill, and the coalition decided not to go ahead with it as a result of the reservations of the Liberal Democrat members of the coalition. Unlike that Bill, this Bill does not break new ground, so the Government’s failure to give Parliament longer notice of it and enable Parliament to satisfy itself about its details is more difficult to explain. Those who take a conspiracy view of government might be tempted to speculate that having burned their fingers through consultation on the communications data Bill, the Government thought it wiser to bounce Parliament rather than to run the same risk again. The Minister owes the House an explanation of that.

I criticised the Government for their delay in consulting Parliament about the Bill. I have also asked myself whether the Bill is so urgent that it has to be treated as emergency legislation in the few days remaining before the Summer Recess. On this I believe the Government have a more convincing story to tell. I understand that the Government take the view that the UK regulations based on the European directive do not automatically lapse as a result of the ECJ judgment. One might therefore take the view that it could be several months before they could be challenged in a UK court, which would enable Parliament to consider the Bill properly in the autumn. However, I am advised that following the ECJ judgment, and ahead of a challenge, communications providers might feel obliged to destroy data that are no longer needed for their own operational purposes, and that evidence valuable for the prosecution of crime or prevention of terrorism might be lost. Similarly, the co-operation of communications providers outside the jurisdiction is sufficiently valuable in the prevention of serious crime and terrorism that I accept that the assertion of extraterritorial coverage should not be delayed. Therefore on the substance of the legislation, as I said at the outset, the powers in the Bill are necessary, subject always to the reservation that there has not been time to study its provisions in the detail that would have been desirable.

When the Intelligence and Security Committee examined the communications data Bill, which extended the Government’s powers, we were satisfied with the case in principle for extended powers, subject to important issues of detail. Although our committee has not had as much opportunity as it would have wished to examine the present Bill, it would be odd to cavil at the maintenance of existing powers which have been shown to be very important for the investigation and prevention of serious crime. Therefore, with regret that the Government have not given Parliament the time to examine the Bill properly in detail, I support the legislation.