Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Bates

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I start on a rather personal note by saying to my noble friend how pleased I am—I think that the House will be too—that he is still in the job that he was doing so well before the last election. The House knows the care and consideration that he gives to this extremely difficult issue. Those of us who have tried to accelerate the process to get to where he is trying to get to now recognise the tremendous efforts that he made at that time.

I think that the House had better be ready for a pretty busy July and October, because the interest in this Bill is going to be massive. If we have a joint scrutiny committee of both Houses, then it goes to the Commons and then comes to the Lords, I think that the end of the summer is the earliest we can expect to see it here. My worry all the way through has been about the delay this involves and the risks facing this country. I was struck by the fact that two speakers on the Front Benches opposite both referred to TalkTalk, as though this was an interesting new development illustrating a new problem. I wonder what else may have happened before July and October that will condition our thinking about the range and number of threats that we face. I hope that I am not being too pessimistic, but we know that this is an extremely dangerous world.

I support the introduction of judicial authorisation, but, as somebody who used to sign a number of these warrants in my executive capacity as Secretary of State, the judges will, without question, need help in the early stages in understanding some of the background issues about national security with which they may not initially be familiar.

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to my noble friend. Of course, I recognise the work that he undertook, not only as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which led a lot of the work on this area, but thinking back to those heady days earlier this year when we were taking through the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which is now on the statute book. He is right about the urgency. DRIPA has a sunset clause of December. Sometimes I think that the House is at its best when its mind is focused. I think there is a general consensus that we need to get this in place so that those powers continue to be available and that they are strengthened and made more accountable. I believe the timetable that has been set out is quite achievable but it will require a lot of focus.

Surveillance Legislation

Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Bates

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I absolutely agree with the report. I received a copy of it yesterday when it was published, and it is a very readable document. It comes alongside the Anderson review, which is nearly 400 pages long, and the Intelligence and Security Committee report in the last part of the last Session. Taken together, in the round, they will enable the Joint Committee, which we hope will begin pre-legislative scrutiny early this autumn, to make faster progress than would otherwise be the case and therefore meet the important deadline of the sunset clause, to which the noble Lord rightly referred.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend’s Answer to the noble Baroness’s Question is exactly right. She is going to have the opportunity for a quite unprecedented amount of consideration of the important issue of whether warrants should be signed by judges or Secretaries of State. I welcome my noble friend’s answer that this will be discussed further against the RUSI report, the Anderson report and the pre-legislative scrutiny so that the public can see just how important these issues are and the importance that this House attaches to them.

[Lord Bates]

Absolutely, and I think we are all grateful to the business managers for having arranged time for that very important debate before the report from RUSI had actually been received. There were many helpful contributions in that debate, including those from the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who shared incredible insights from their practical experience of the dilemmas that are faced. On the issue of judicial authorisation of warrants, judgment was split: RUSI and the ISC were in favour of the status quo whereas David Anderson wanted to look at it. That will be work for the pre-legislative scrutiny committee whose deliberations will, of course, be published.

Investigatory Powers

Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Bates

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Let me begin by echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in his closing tribute to the men and women of our security services and the work they do day in, day out, often at significant risk to themselves, to prevent the types of atrocity that we have seen all too often around the world and on our streets here in the United Kingdom.

This debate was styled as a take-note debate, in the terms that we use in this House. I do not propose to respond to each of the points made, because that was not the purpose of the debate. The purpose was simply for noble Lords to bring their incredible experience, knowledge and insight to this forum, so that we could draw upon their comments, observations and questions as we begin the process of preparing a draft Bill for consideration here. Effectively, as I saw it, the debate moved between three stages. The first stage was to recognise the nature of the threat. That was brought into very sharp focus by frequent references to David Anderson’s report. I do not think I have ever previously responded to a debate in which the report that formed the subject of it has so frequently been the basis of the contributions to it. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, will be impressed from an academic standpoint by the number of citations of the report, which shows that it is an incredibly thorough piece of work. I pay tribute to Her Majesty’s Opposition for encouraging us to undertake it. It was absolutely right that we did.

The report outlined the threat before us and identified a determined and ruthless new emerging threat. We found that in the evidence and report by the Intelligence and Security Committee into the death of Fusilier Lee Rigby. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, gave us some insights into the sophistication of the technology and urged us to be agile in our responses to it. The noble Lord, Lord Blair, gave his reflections, in particular on those horrific attacks and planned attacks. The chilling thought of the Loch Lomond effect struck us significantly.

If the threat is there, the second question is: what are we to do about it? That was a very interesting debate. The contributions on law enforcement from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others were very important—that we talk about how we track this. I was conscious of the reference in the report by the former director of GCHQ, Sir Iain Lobban, who said in his valedictory speech that we must “enter the labyrinth”. As my noble friend Lord Blencathra reminded us, that labyrinth is getting more and more impenetrable. We were distinctly helped by my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones, who comes to this from a security perspective and is doing valuable work in informing our response to the cyberthreat facing not only commerce, but society. That complexity is a very important issue.

Let me respond to the contributors who asked whether we are having conversations with internet service providers and communications service providers. That is crucial—if noble Lords go to the appendix of the Anderson report, they will see the list of communications service providers that he interviewed. This is an ongoing process: at the Home Office we regularly meet with communications service providers, both domestically and internationally. Indeed, a senior Home Office official is in the US today holding meetings with companies. We also have my noble friend Lady Shields, who is from the world of social media. She is now Minister with responsibility for internet security.

We also had the very helpful work in 2014 of Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the Prime Minister’s special envoy on intelligence and law enforcement data sharing. His role was created to work with foreign Governments—precisely the point that was asked—and with communications service providers to provide access to data across different jurisdictions for intelligence and law enforcement purposes. Since Sir Nigel’s appointment the Government have expanded their dialogue with the companies but, despite some progress and co-operation, that remains incomplete. We all agree that we need to work on longer-term solutions. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, asked whether I had an update on Sir Nigel’s report, which was presented to the Prime Minister. As we set out in July 2014 when the position was announced, the role of the special envoy has been to conduct discussions and negotiations on data sharing. Any detailed advice relating to his work as a government special envoy remains internal civil service policy advice, helping Ministers to consider a full range of options. However, the Cabinet Office published a summary of his work on its website on 25 June.

The third question is: if the threat is real and serious as virtually all noble Lords have acknowledged it is, and if our police and security services need more powers, how do we ensure that we carry public trust with us? These points were focused on by the noble Lords, Lord Strasburger, Lord Scriven, Lord Blencathra and Lord Paddick. It must be stressed that there are two elements to this answer. First, there is a plethora of people—in fact, some may say too many—overseeing the work of our security services, including the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the Intelligence Services Commissioner and Surveillance Commissioners. All their reports are available in the Printed Paper Office. There is also the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to which I will come back in just a second, and the courts more generally. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, with his significant experience, clearly outlined the way they would approach these issues and the principles they would apply in so doing. The Information Commissioner also oversees this process.

A number of noble Lords referred to, and asked for comment on, the recent Amnesty International case that came before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to which I wish to put a response on the record. The tribunal made it clear in its judgment of 22 June that any interception that occurred was lawful, “necessary and proportionate”. We would caution against drawing conclusions from the tribunal ruling about the target of any such interception. A finding in favour of an individual or organisation does not necessarily mean that they themselves were the target. It could equally mean that they were simply in communication with the target. However, we can neither confirm nor deny specifics relating to this or any other case. I am sure that will not fully satisfy noble Lords, and perhaps plays into the caricature developed by the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, of what he anticipated we might say. However, the serious point is this: we should be proud of not only our security services but the vast swathe of individuals and organisations who diligently oversee the work carried out by our security services to ensure that it is done correctly.

I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whether I could provide some detail on the actual number of warrants that have been signed. I did have that figure to hand, but perhaps I will write to him setting out how this year’s figure compares with that of previous years.

In conclusion, I again thank all those who have contributed—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My noble friend did not answer the point that I raised. I think it is generally widely accepted that we are at risk in this country of terrorist attacks, and that at the moment our defences are not as strong as they could be. We believe that measures in legislation which could come forward would protect the nation from the sort of outrages that we have suffered in the past and would provide a better chance of protecting the country. The course on which the Government are now embarked is to go away and prepare legislation and then submit it for pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses, which will take some time. It seems to me that because of the initiative of the Opposition in initiating the Anderson report, on which I congratulate them, we have the most extensive preparation for this legislation: a report that has been very widely respected on all sides of the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who chaired the previous pre-legislative scrutiny Joint Committee, said that the Anderson report meets all the points that his committee wished to raise. Of course, I understand that there are points that still need discussion. One of them, as we know very well, is whether there should be judicial or ministerial approval. But if we have another Joint Committee, it will rehearse the arguments, which are already very well rehearsed, and it will come back to a decision of Parliament. Parliament will have to decide some of the issues that are outstanding.

The advantage of the course that I am advocating is that unless we really want to go down this very extended route, we could actually have better protection in place for all the citizens of our country sooner if we now go ahead, prepare the Bill—drawing on all the advantages of having the Anderson report available—and then put it to both Houses to decide those issues that, I absolutely accept, remain outstanding; they are a matter of debate, and can be decided by votes of both Houses. I say to my noble friend, who has given an admirable response to the debate so far, that I hope the Government will consider whether we really need to have a further, second pre-legislative scrutiny committee, which will take time and leave the country at risk for longer than I believe is necessary.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend speaks with great authority and experience. He is right to urge us to move as quickly as we can, given the statements that he quoted from the Home Secretary, which were made before the last election under the previous Government, about every day that goes by without these powers. A process has been set out here and the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have been very clear that because of the importance of taking people with us and, as far as possible, being able to bring this forward in a cross-party way—not just cross-party, but of course including the Cross-Benchers in this House—we ought to be seen to be going through a very thorough process. That involves basing it on the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Anderson report, the RUSI report which is to come and the debates that have been scheduled ahead of time in both Houses before the Recess. There will then be a period to reflect on that over the Recess and the Government can then come forward with a draft Bill that I hope, because it has been deliberated over, will not be subject to the type of criticism that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, levelled at the previous Bill. On the basis of that, one might therefore hope or think that the period of time for pre-legislative scrutiny might be shortened, and that the period of time for scrutiny through the House might be quicker than it otherwise would have been had it not been for all the evidence, reports and consideration that have gone before.

I know my noble friend will not accept that answer fully but I hope he will accept that it is an answer and a position which we have taken with great care and consideration to ensure that, as we progress down this path towards reform and to new legislation, which will go much beyond RIPA’s sunset at the end of 2016, we will carry people with us, that it will be better legislation as a result, and that we will progress down that road in a position of trust between those who carry out those duties and the citizens of this country—

Communications Data

Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Bates

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

If that were the case, it certainly would be; but my day-to-day experience in the House of Lords is that that could not be further from what is actually happening. We are not steamrollering any legislation through; in fact, we are going through an exhaustive process. David Anderson has taken a year to produce his report. In the mean time, we have had the Intelligence and Security Committee’s detailed report, and we are awaiting a RUSI report. We have had Sir Nigel Sheinwald’s report to the Prime Minister, and we have pledged that there will be pre-legislative scrutiny. If that is a steamroller, I am not quite sure what some of the other legislative processes are.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

We discussed these matters in the previous Parliament at some length in connection with the counterterrorism Bill, and the urgency and importance of the issue—that our defences are seriously at risk—was recognised by the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary. New means of communication—the internet, telephony and others—that are outside our present reach can be used by terrorists in particular. These are matters of some urgency. While I certainly do not think that the Government can be remotely accused of steamrollering, the Bill in question has already been produced in draft and been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. My concern is: how long are we going to take before we take the steps, agreed on both sides of the House in previous debates, which are very necessary for the defence of our country?