Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 1st December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Try as I might, that was very difficult to hear. I think that the noble Baroness—I know that she will intervene on me again—made the following three points. In fact, I meant to pull out from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, her first point: that authorising is done not by the handler but by a senior authorising officer. The second point was that training for CHIS handlers is extensive. She may have said “expensive” but I think she said “extensive,” because it would have to be extensive for this serious an operation.

I think the noble Baroness’s third point was that details of numbers have to be top secret to maintain and protect the welfare of the CHIS. I referred to the IPC report because I think that the noble Lord, either last year or the year before, gave numbers on juvenile CHIS, which gave a flavour of the numbers that we were talking about.

[Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I want to make a point on Amendment 77 on journalistic sources, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. As I mentioned to my noble friend last week, Parliament already has an effective equivalent to judicial review. I referred to the Economist case of 1975, when the House of Commons Committee of Privileges imposed a personal penalty on the editor and a journalist—who happened to be me—of the Economist due to the premature publication of the draft report of the Select Committee on a Wealth Tax and our refusal to reveal our sources. The House of Commons debated this on the Floor of the Chamber for more than two hours and voted not to impose the penalty.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think the only response to that is to thank my noble friend for taking the time to explain it to noble Lords.