Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I have received a request to speak from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for what the Minister has said and appreciate that she has to stick to her script, but it gives the impression on occasion that there is no point in making contributions to debate because what I have said appears, from what she has said, to have been completely ignored. I will repeat exactly what I said. I said that of course the Government may say that in addition to being necessary the granting of a CCA must be proportionate—the issue that she mentioned—and it would not be proportionate to deploy a CHIS if the criminal activity was minor. That is almost word for word what she said. However, I went on to say that the same argument applies to the interception of communications in RIPA, where necessity is limited to serious crime, as defined in our Amendment 31. That second point seems to have been completely ignored by the Minister. I accept that that is probably because she has, understandably, just stuck to her script. It comes back to the point that I made, which is: what is the point of making speeches in debates if what noble Lords say is ignored by the Minister?

The Minister said that these amendments would limit how CHIS could lawfully be deployed and seek to restrict their deployment, and authorities would be less able to investigate crime. This Bill is about criminal conduct by CHIS, not their deployment. It is about giving authority to agents and informants to commit crime, and grant complete legal immunity to CHIS in those circumstances. There is a world of difference between deploying a CHIS and authorising them to commit crime, and then granting them immunity from prosecution. Yet the whole basis of her argument, from what I understood her to say, is that there is no difference between the two. In which case, what is the purpose of the Bill?

I say again: why is the interception of communications limited to serious crime if there is no need to limit the deployment of CHIS, who are going to be authorised to commit crime? Why should they not be limited to serious crime? That is a question that the Minister has failed to answer.

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Amendments 23 to 26 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 27. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division should make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 27

Moved by

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I will start with the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Chakrabarti, and the point about listening to what each other is saying. I have never tried to skirt around the issue of the disgusting behaviour of some 30 years ago. I do not know whether police officers were not told that it was illegal and the inquiry is clearly establishing the ins and outs of that. But it was not acceptable and it was never lawful, and it cannot be authorised under this Bill. I hope that I have made that very clear. I do not dismiss what those women went through—including, indeed, what the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, went through—and I hope that the inquiry will vindicate an awful lot of the people who suffered, complained and were simply ignored in the past. The inquiry will get to the bottom of something that was never lawful in the first place. I digress, but I must add that operational partners are very clear that that sort of behaviour could not be authorised under this Bill.

I shall move on to the substance of Amendment 27. I will not repeat the points I made in response to the last set of amendments, but I will emphasise that economic well-being is one of the established statutory purposes for which covert human investigatory powers may be deployed by public authorities. We recognise that threats to the economic well-being of the UK could be immensely damaging and fundamental in their effect. That might include, for example, the possibility of a hostile cyberattack against our critical infrastructure, as I said earlier, attacks on financial institutions or on the Government themselves. I gave examples in my previous speech of the victims of CSA, cash and drugs activity, so they may not be solely related to issues of national security.

We have agencies such as HMRC, the NCA and the Serious Fraud Office whose mandate includes mitigating broader threats to the UK’s economic well-being. These threats are real, emerging and go beyond the remit of national security. We cannot tie our hands in response to such threats by limiting the statutory purposes available to tackle these issues. Of course, there are also examples of where economic well-being is not restricted to national security, as set out in other parts of the Investigatory Powers Act and the Security Service Act.

I hope that I have given a full explanation of why Amendment 27 should be withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to those noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. My noble friend Lord Beith posed a number of new scenarios and he is right to prompt us to be thoughtful about these issues.

I have to say that I find it difficult to envisage what economic interests there might be which would justify a criminal conduct authorisation that do not fall within national security interests or the prevention or detection of what we think should be limited to serious crime. I do not want to repeat the arguments that I and others made in the previous debate or indeed in this one, but I will say in response to the Minister that she has introduced an element that perhaps we have not dealt with before: the need to anticipate what might happen. I may have got her words wrong, but that is the meaning I took from them. I would point to the word “preventing” crime as set out in subsection (5)(b).

I am sorry that we have not been able to progress this any further, but clearly at this moment I should beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 27 withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 28. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in the group to a Division should make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 28

Moved by