Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

11A: After Clause 21, insert the following new Clause—
“Part 3AEnsuring or facilitating availability of dataEnsuring or facilitating availabilityPower to ensure or facilitate availability of data
(1) The Secretary of State may by order—
(a) ensure that communications data is available to be obtained from telecommunications operators by relevant public authorities in accordance with Part 3B, or(b) otherwise facilitate the availability of communications data to be so obtained from telecommunications operators.(2) An order under this section may, in particular—
(a) provide for—(i) the obtaining (whether by collection, generation or otherwise) by telecommunications operators of communications data,(ii) the processing, retention or destruction by such operators of data so obtained or other data held by such operators,(iii) the entering into by such operators of arrangements with the Secretary of State or other persons under or by virtue of which the Secretary of State or other persons engage in activities on behalf of the operators on a commercial or other basis for the purpose of enabling the operators to comply with requirements imposed by virtue of this section,(b) impose requirements or restrictions on telecommunications operators or other persons or provide for the imposition of such requirements or restrictions by notice of the Secretary of State.(3) Requirements imposed by virtue of subsection (2) may, in particular, include—
(a) requirements (whether as to the form or manner in which the data is held or otherwise) which ensure that communications data can be disclosed without undue delay to relevant public authorities in accordance with Part 3B,(b) requirements for telecommunications operators—(i) to comply with specified standards,(ii) to acquire, use or maintain specified equipment or systems, or(iii) to use specified techniques,(c) requirements which—(i) are imposed on a telecommunications operator who controls or provides a telecommunication system, and(ii) are in respect of communications data relating to the use of telecommunications services provided by another telecommunications operator in relation to the telecommunication system concerned.(4) Nothing in this Part authorises any conduct consisting in the interception of communications in the course of their transmission by means of a telecommunication system.
(5) In this section—
“processing”, in relation to communications data, includes its reading, organisation, analysis, copying, correction, adaptation or retrieval and its integration with other data,
“relevant public authority” has the same meaning as in Part 3B.
(6) See—
(a) section (Application of Parts 3A and 3B to postal operators and postal services) for the way in which this Part applies to public postal operators and public postal services, and(b) section (Interpretation of Parts 3A, 3B and 3C) for the definitions of “communications data” and “telecommunications operator” and for other definitions relevant to this Part.”

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak also to the other amendments in the group, Amendments 11B to 11T, in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord West, Lord Carlile and Lord Blair.

In Committee, we had a full debate on the subject of these amendments. It was then generally established that there was pretty widespread agreement among the majority in this House, with some caution and reservations from the Benches behind me about adequate safeguards, that there was an urgent need for proper access and improvements that have been loosely and generally described in the draft communications data Bill.

There has been adequate and clear evidence, and statements by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the shadow Home Secretary and the former director-general of MI5, the noble Lord, Lord Evans, in a maiden speech in this House. Other previous directors-general of MI5, including the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, agreed on this, as did the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Armstrong, who also spoke in the debate. They all recognised the problem we face, which is that our legislation has failed to keep pace with the rapid growth of the new technologies around the internet and the complications in the whole field of social media communication. One should recognise—it is common ground—that the extraordinary speed of ISIL’s southwards advance across Syria and into Iraq was achieved on WhatsApp, which is able to communicate with thousands of people at the same time and get messages across much more efficiently than was possible with some of the old military communications systems, as anyone who has been a soldier will recognise.

It is against that background that we have heard the clearest warnings. The noble Lord, Lord Evans, in an impressive maiden speech said that in 2013, when he was director-general, he thought that the worst was over. He now admits that he was wrong, and anyone who looks at the current situation and the threat that we face in this country and more generally in the world from terrorism will realise what he meant. Chillingly, he also said that the threat was increasing but our capacity to meet it was diminishing. That gets to the whole purpose of what I and noble Lords who join me in this enterprise have sought to bring before this House. This Bill, by chance, deals with an aspect of data collection; and the opportunity therefore arose to take the steps that the previous Government sought to recognise. The noble Lord, Lord West, referred to his experience in that Government and recognised the need for this perhaps six years ago; it was certainly needed three, four or five years ago. This Government recognised it and published a draft Bill two and a half years ago that sought to address the issue, which was then the subject of examination by the Joint Committee of both Houses, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who is in his place today.

By the end of the Committee debate on this issue, we had provided an opportunity for this House to take a decision that would then give the other place the chance, if it wished, democratically to incorporate the essential provisions of the draft communications data Bill into this counterterrorism legislation in the recognition that they were an important part of the counterterrorism needs of this country at this time. The point was made absolutely fairly by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that his Joint Committee criticised a number of aspects of the draft Bill. We sought in our amendments to deal with a couple of the more specific and difficult aspects that had attracted particular criticism.

The first of those was that the draft Bill set out a whole range of purposes for which data could be collected. Given the urgency of the situation, we decided to delete all those that involved local authorities, the health service, the Inland Revenue and a number of very worthy bodies that might otherwise have been included and might have a case for collecting data. But in the short-term, stop-gap measure needed in the immediate months ahead, we limited our proposal simply to national security and serious crime. Moreover, we recognised that this was not perfect legislation and that it needed improvement—as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said in a number of criticisms—so we put a sunset clause on it. In the mean time, to make sure that we deal with another concern, we have also asserted that it would be subject to affirmative-procedure orders of both Houses of Parliament, whenever the Secretary of State wished to make such an order under this legislation.

Against that background, we then learnt during the course of debate that the Government did a significant amount of work on the previous draft communications data Bill and the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Armstrong, had the opportunity to see some of that. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—I do not think I am misquoting him—said that he was satisfied that 95% of the Joint Committee’s criticisms had been met. So we entered the Committee stage with the challenge to the Government to pick up our original, older amendments to the draft communications data Bill and either replace them with the present improved versions that are apparently sitting in the Home Office, or make them available to noble Lords for us to table to meet the criticisms that these amendments are not as good as they should be.

I think it is now common knowledge that the Government have not felt able to offer these improved versions—and I understand that there is a problem, because they feel that further work needs to be done—because it was decided not to proceed with the draft communications data Bill, so it has not been given the priority that others might have hoped it would be given in having further work done on it.

The position is further complicated because, I understand, both the Government and the Opposition reached an agreement through the usual channels that the Bill that we have before us would be fast-tracked, but the condition of agreeing to the fast-track arrangement was that no substantial additions would be made to the Bill. One understands why that was put in, against the background to agreeing the fast-tracking of legislation of this kind, but my point is simply that that was decided before Paris and before the events in Belgium, and before the almost certain knowledge that access to social media, which the French security authorities have but which we do not, was crucial in so quickly tracking down the people responsible for that outrage in Paris. The Home Secretary and the Minister were put on record as believing that that was almost certainly the case.

I understand that both the Government and the Opposition will oppose my amendments today, so I will just say this to the House. I start with quotations from the Home Secretary herself in a Statement that she made to the House three weeks ago:

“Let me be absolutely clear: every day that passes without the proposals in the draft Communications Data Bill, the capabilities of the people who keep us safe diminish; and as those capabilities diminish, more people find themselves in danger and—yes—crimes will go unpunished and innocent lives will be put at risk … Quite simply, if we want the police and the security services to protect the public and save lives, they need this capability”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/1/15; col. 871.]

Noble Lords can find that Statement by the Home Secretary in Hansard and check it right through. It was echoed by two people on the Back Benches who know much about the subject, in the shape of Mr Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who both emphasised the importance of getting access to those communications data to handle the challenge of the new technologies, which at the moment is not adequately available to us.

We are now faced with a significant gap. A lot of days are going to pass. I understand that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have made it clear—I think that the noble Baroness leading for the Opposition and the shadow Home Secretary also made it clear on behalf of the Opposition—that this legislation would have a high priority in the next Government, whomever they may be. But look at the situation. We in this House have no idea who the next Government will be. We do not have much idea how long it may take to form that Government. I recall the days spent trying to form coalition agreements when this Government came to office.

I also remember that, many years ago, when I was more closely involved, we won an election. We had something called L Committee, which was the legislation committee. The Government arrived full of enthusiasm, full of manifesto pledges and guarantees that had been given at one stage or another from one department or another. Enthusiastic Secretaries of State went into their new department to be embraced by officials saying, “We are delighted that you have given the top priority to our legislation. L Committee will meet next Tuesday and you must ensure that you come out top of the list”. So those pledges made here that this or that will be the first priority, when we do not know which Government there will be, are obviously the most uncertain that we could face at this time.

We shall fail to take what I see as this exceptional opportunity presented to us, which could have gone to another place for its consideration, and the risk will continue for longer than it need to have done. Noble Lords who have been present in the past few minutes in this House will have heard the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, and the concerns that many have. As a fellow occupant of the Grand Hotel in Brighton on that night, I know exactly what he meant. We face a very serious threat from terrorism.

I understand that the Government and the Opposition feel honour-bound to hold to their position, but we will lose an opportunity to put in place a temporary, stop-gap measure which could have reduced the threat to our nation from terrorism at present. We just have to pray that we do not pay too high a price for that. I beg to move.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. Like others, I have been involved with national security for many years—longer, I suspect, than anyone else in this Chamber, except my noble friend Lord Armstrong. I worked with the Security Service when it did not even exist, so in my first report, I had to refer to the Security Service, SIS and GCHQ en bloc as “the agencies”. I continued to work closely with the Security Service until I gave up being chairman of the Security Commission in 1999. Others referred in Committee to their first contact with the Security Service. I remember an occasion long ago when I visited its premises in Gower Street. The door was opened by a young lady I knew and we said simultaneously, “Fancy seeing you here”. Her name was Elizabeth Manningham-Buller, and I think we all agree that she has done very well. I would very much like the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, to be aware of that but she is not in her place, and I am sorry that she is not here to hear me say it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord will recognise that I am a little too junior to actually write the manifesto. What I can say for absolute certain is that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have made clear, in the most forthright terms, their personal belief that this legislation is needed and that it must be introduced as a matter of urgency in the new Parliament. I hope that that will deal with some of the scepticism which there might be about the power.

I was trying to set out that there is a particular legislative need. Whatever Government are there after the general election, they will have to start to do something very early on, simply because it will take seven to nine months to actually get it in place. However, when it does start, it will start with due consideration of the Joint Committee’s work and the excellent work of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. It will start with the excellent debates and consideration that we have had, thanks to my noble friend’s putting forward these amendments in Committee and now again on Report. It will have the benefit of the input of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, of the Intelligence and Security Committee and of other individuals who work in this area. It will be a better piece of legislation for that, providing that it is enacted.

With these comments, I am trying to be as frank as I can in explaining, in a transparent way, where we have got to—where we are—and where we need to be as a matter of urgency in the next Parliament. I hope that my noble friend will see that the Government are grateful for his urging and that we have responded by being more forthright than perhaps we have been before about our intentions. In that spirit, I hope that he will feel reassured enough to be able to withdraw the amendment at this stage.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, we have had another most excellent debate in what the whole House, I believe, recognises is an extremely serious and dangerous time. It is right that the House should be addressing this issue. I start by thanking the Minister for the way he has responded successively to two very important debates, first in Committee and now on Report. I thank him also for the extremely courteous and constructive way in which he has responded to the representations that I and other noble Lords have made. I thought that we were going to fall out for a moment, because I thought he said I had been tendentious—but I was corrected very quickly by my noble friend beside me, who told me that the word he had used was “tenacious”, which is certainly much more acceptable.

I will just address some of the comments that have been made. I do not mean to be unkind to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but he rather repeated the speech that he made in Committee. He spent some time criticising the amendments we have put down, but these are not the amendments that we wanted to move. As he knows, we tried to change them but the Government did not feel able to co-operate in that respect, so we had to make do with what we had. I also draw some comfort from this quote from his own Joint Committee’s report:

“Our overall conclusion is that there is a case for legislation which will provide the law enforcement authorities with some further access to communications data”.

I will be the first to say that that sentence then has various other qualifications about the need for improvement—the committee had lots of worries and concerns about it—but that is the basis on which we went forward.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Jones answered the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, very well. The noble Lord’s weekend of research brought out very clearly how difficult this issue is, how complicated it is and how much will have to be done before this can actually be brought in. Some might argue that if you have all those complications before this gap—which has been generally recognised to exist—can be closed, leaving open the inability of our country and our security agencies to necessarily meet the threats that they may face, then we had better get cracking on that now. Dealing with the international complications and the issues around encryption are very important points which need to be dealt with.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, who I get the impression is against the idea of having any Bill at all—although I may be misrepresenting her—slightly misrepresented the position taken by the noble Lord, Lord Blair. He did not say that the terrorist attack in Spain caused the change of government. He made a very interesting point that I had not quite focused on. In the context of the time in which we live, as we move towards an election, I understood him to be referring on the Spanish connection to the way in which terrorists have often used election time, a time of political uncertainty, to cause an outrage. That would appear to have been the case in Madrid.

Our debate has brought out some general concerns. I do not think that there was any argument whatever about the threat. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, made a most interesting and constructive speech on the challenges that have to be faced, including the challenge of looking at both sides of the problem. Of course, we are aware at all times of the risks of overstepping the mark and of alienation. I lived through a time in Northern Ireland when the measure of internment without trial—a necessary measure at one time—had undoubtedly significantly increased the problems of terrorism that we then had to face. We in this House and others have a responsibility as legislators to get that balance right.

I am impressed by the statements of the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition, the shadow Home Secretary, the Home Secretary and both Front Benches, who make no apology for saying that the threat is severe. That is its standing at the moment. For anybody who did not understand what “severe” meant, those statements were made before events in Paris and Belgium. We are undoubtedly in a time when we need to be able to ensure that our defences are as strong as we can make them.

I understand that it is unusual for such a substantial amendment to be put down at the Committee stage of a Bill in this House. I was not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was suggesting that it is for this House only to do modest revisions to what comes from the Commons and not for it to be on occasions an initiator, inviting the Commons to give their views on what we are putting forward. I certainly do not sit in this House on the implication that I am not allowed to initiate good ideas if I think them necessary, particularly if I think that they will support the security of our nation—but I may have read too much into that.

What we have got out of this debate is not, unfortunately, co-operation on the tabling of more up-to-date amendments which might have given the House of Commons a chance to consider whether they could be incorporated in the Bill. We now move forward to an uncertain time: an election time with no certainty as to who the Government may be or how long it will take to undertake any of the new legislation which I think everybody—certainly, all those in positions of responsibility in the major parties—believes is essential. At such a time, we have to ensure that in every way we can we give support to our security and intelligence agencies in their work. My noble friend Lord Howard said in debate on an earlier amendment that the security of the nation is the first responsibility of the Home Secretary. She has made it absolutely clear that she wishes to see this legislation in place as soon as possible but has set out her own timetable for it. I am quite clear what the positions of the Government and the Opposition are in not supporting these amendments, but at least we have given the opportunity for these matters to be thoroughly examined.

I do not think that when this Parliament resumes, in whatever guise it is, people will have any excuse for not knowing what the strength of feeling is on this issue. I think that a number of us, who fortunately do not have to stand for election, will be on their tails in this matter. We will be able to resume the charge and try to ensure that, at the earliest possible opportunity, the security of our nation is supported in the best way we can. Against that background, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 11A withdrawn.