Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord West of Spithead

Monday 2nd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, to address the comments made by my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater and other noble Lords, in my opinion there is no doubt that we all face a very serious threat of terrorism. There is also no doubt at all that, because of the way that technology has moved on, there is a gap that means that the police and the security services cannot now get the information on mobile phone communication that they used to, due to changes in the way that people communicate via the internet. The first issue is: where does the balance lie between measures that would close that gap and the freedoms and civil liberties that we all enjoy? The second is: how do we fill that gap technologically?

Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I have done some homework over the weekend. Obviously, I am not a technology expert, but this is what I have been told by technology experts. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blair, for saying that he has no issue with people who argue on the basis of principle. One of the effects of these amendments, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra alluded to, would be to require communications service providers to store 12 months of web logs—the history of every website visited by everyone who uses the internet in the UK. The Joint Committee that my noble friend Lord Blencathra chaired said that this has considerable implications for the privacy of everybody who lives in this country and who uses the internet. I am sure that that is immediately obvious to noble Lords across the House.

What has not been mentioned is what I have learnt since we were in Committee. When people use web-based means of communication such as WhatsApp—according to my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater, ISIL is one of the groups that uses this means of communicating —Facebook Messenger or any others, all these communications are encrypted. The vital data that the police and the security services need are held on servers that are mainly in the United States of America. Even if these amendments were agreed to, and even if these web logs were kept, there are serious doubts as to whether the American companies would comply with the UK legislation.

Another aspect of these amendments, and of the draft data communications Bill, would require United Kingdom communications service providers to skim off the encrypted data transmitted to and from the secure servers in the United States, in case the Americans decided that they were not going to play ball. This would cost in excess of £1 billion, and it is unlikely that the UK-based communications service providers would do so. Because of the levels of encryption, and because companies such as Facebook are constantly reviewing their encryption and making it more and more difficult to decipher, even if that data were captured there is serious doubt that the UK communications service providers would be able to make head or tail of it. Plus, they would not be able to decide what part of that encrypted data was the content of messages or Facebook pages and how much was simply who sent the message to whom, from where and at what time—that is what these amendments and what the draft data communications Bill was about. The noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, talked at length about intercept evidence. These amendments and the draft data communications Bill have nothing to do with interception. They are about only what is on the envelope of the message, if you like, not its contents.

So what do we do? Obviously, something has to be done to try to get that data. That is why the coalition Government have appointed Sir Nigel Sheinwald as special envoy on international data sharing to sit down with the US Government and US companies to identify ways to overcome legal jurisdictions so that we can tackle crime and terrorism without compromising the privacy of the law-abiding majority. This is not a situation where these servers in the United States are beyond our reach. In 2013, US companies processed around 30,000 requests for “envelope” data from UK authorities. There is already consultation and collaboration and it is producing results.

These amendments are disproportionate, are likely to cost billions of pounds and certainly cannot be implemented immediately. Almost all communications service providers in the UK do not currently keep this data and have no storage capacity and capability to store it. That would be a long-term project; nothing of use would come out of it in the six months that my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater talked about as a stop-gap measure. These amendments are likely to jeopardise the collaboration that we already have with the Americans, which is serving the police and the security services reasonably well.

Mention has been made of a debate that the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, and I had on BBC Radio 4 at the weekend on “Week in Westminster”. During that programme, the noble Lord said that the amendments tabled last week were too broad and that, if it had come to a vote last week, he certainly would not have voted for them. As these amendments have been changed hardly at all since last week, I assume that the noble Lord, Lord West, will not vote for his own amendments.

[Lord West of Spithead]

Having shared that with only 11 million people, I am shocked that the noble Lord should do so in here.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord West of Spithead

Monday 26th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am not speaking here on a party-political, but on a personal basis. I want to tell noble Lords, first, about my personal experience of terrorism. It is not first-hand, either in terms of being a member of Special Branch or the security services, or having seen the aftermath of what took place directly. However, part of my role in the Metropolitan Police following the 7 July bombings was to talk to officers who had had to go down on to the tracks where terrorists had exploded these bombs and bring out the victims of those terrible atrocities. I know what we are talking about here in terms of terrorism and I use the Underground system every day.

In our earlier discussion on Amendment 75 and internal exile, as some put it, noble and learned Lords, in particular, as well as other noble Lords, emphasised the need for legitimacy. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, talked about the European Convention on Human Rights and the right to a private and family life. My concern is that the introduction of these amendments in this way may not be seen as legitimate by many people outside this place. A process has been set in motion. There is a process for reviewing RIPA, for example, and the whole landscape of the intelligence services. That process is in place.

The other issue that noble Lords—and, indeed, two who tabled this amendment—talked about in relation to internal exile is the danger of alienation and resentment. This follows the comments by my noble friend Lady Warsi in yesterday’s Observer about how engagement is essential. We need to engage with communities, not create alienation and resentment. My fear is that the way in which these amendments are drafted is likely to cause exactly that negative effect. My noble friend Lord King, in his opening remarks, said that we are facing a very serious situation. That is common ground. As I have said, I know from personal experience the sorts of dangers that we are facing. However, there is no common ground, I suggest, about the best way to deal with that serious issue.

There has been a lot of talk this afternoon about events in Paris. My understanding is that the information and intelligence that security services got was through mobile telephone communication between the two groups of terrorists which co-ordinated their attacks by that means. There is nothing in these amendments that would give the security services or the police the powers to identify that sort of communication. It exists already. Every day, not only the police and the security services, but other agencies specified in the amendments also have the power, as we speak, to identify who called who on a mobile phone, where and when. So despite all this talk about Paris and how the attacks could have been prevented, these amendments would not appear, on the facts as I know them, to make any difference to the situation.

Terrorists may be adept at using technology, as my noble friend Lord King said, but my understanding is that a lot of terrorists, particular the sort responsible for recent attacks—whether we are talking about the tragic death of Lee Rigby or about Paris—are using very old technology. The problem, as my noble friend Lord King rightly said, is getting good intelligence. That is about developing links with the Muslim community and with communities where the extreme right wing operates, and gaining their trust and confidence in order to get that intelligence.

[Lord West of Spithead]

Does the noble Lord not agree that in, I think I am right in saying, 100% of all the cases where we have stopped a terrorist plot in this country, it has been intelligence via the web or by some SIGINT means that has enabled us to identify the group in order to then carry out action?

[Lord Paddick]

My understanding is that that is absolutely not the case. There were numerous cases—though it may be going back some years to Irish republican terrorism—where most of the plots were foiled because of intelligence from communities, not because of anything that was intercepted. I understand that the situation is changing, but the noble Lord was not correct when he said that in 100% of cases of terrorism that were thwarted in this country it was as a result of intelligence interception of that kind.

[Lord West of Spithead]

If I may say so, it was the case during my three years as a Minister. It was very different, of course, from the time of the IRA, which we had completely and thoroughly penetrated.

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords—

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord West of Spithead

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and I broadly agree with what he said. I was a police officer for more than 30 years, but I was not directly involved in counterterrorist operations so I have no specialist knowledge of the subject. However, I was the police spokesman following the 7 July 2005 bombings in London and I was responsible for community issues for the police in the immediate aftermath of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005.

I was a police officer during most of the IRA bombing campaign on the UK mainland and regularly attended briefings by the Anti-Terrorist Branch, as it was then. The IRA threat was very different in nature from that presented by Islamist extremists. The IRA was conventionally organised through an established hierarchical structure and, as such, it was capable of being infiltrated. Even so, the then head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch, John Grieve, said that the police and security services alone could not defeat terrorism; it was communities that would do this. I spoke to John Grieve this morning and he reiterated what he said in the 1990s: the role of communities is even more important in combating the sort of tragic and totally unjustifiable outrages that we saw in Paris last week.

Lone individuals or groups that come together to carry out acts of terrorism are very difficult to identify, intercept and thwart without intelligence from the communities they live among. What we understand from the Paris shootings is that, although the two brothers involved were known to the security services, they were among hundreds who had the potential to be a threat. It is those closest to those individuals who will notice changes in their behaviour that might highlight to the security services that these are the few from the many who may act on their perverted beliefs.

In an interview this weekend, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, talked about how important it was, for example, for the parents of those preparing to leave to join the conflict in Syria and Iraq to tell the police and other agencies. We should consider how many parents would want the authorities to prevent their children travelling to Syria and Iraq to engage in terrorist activity. He went on to say that he recalled how the 7/7 bombers accidentally bleached their hair and the vegetation outside the flat where they prepared their explosive devices with one of the components from their home-made bombs. Their friends, family and local people would have noticed and could potentially have prevented the atrocity by telling the authorities. They did not, and 52 innocent people died.

That is why increased powers for the security services and the police must be balanced against winning the confidence of communities which fear that powers may be used against their innocent members. We cannot have, do not want and cannot afford to have a police officer on every street corner and an intelligence officer in every community. Whatever surveillance powers we might agree, if we have learnt one thing from the recent tragedies it is that there are too many people who could potentially pose a threat to be able to monitor all of them. Community intelligence is as important as any powers we give to the intelligence agencies.

There is also the wider civil liberties issue. This country has a liberal tradition that citizens should be allowed to do what they will, provided it does not harm others, free from interference from the state. This freedom is anathema to the Islamist extremists who carry out terrorist attacks against the West. They want a society where every aspect of people’s lives is controlled. If we curtail people’s liberties, we are taking society in exactly the direction the terrorists want us to go.

Of course the police and security services will always ask for more draconian powers in order to carry out surveillance of those suspected of criminality. The Liberal Democrats have been criticised for scuppering the Communications Data Bill—the so-called snoopers’ charter—but we must always seek to find the right balance between security and civil liberties.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord agree that the term “snoopers’ charter” is emotive claptrap? I have worked with GCHQ over a period of 30 years, on and off, and I am not aware of a single case where people working in that agency have “snooped”, which is the word used, on any ordinary member of our society in any way at all. Yes, it has used due and proper process and looked at and found people who wish to damage us. Indeed, in all the plots that we managed to stop during my time as a Minister and since, nearly everyone got their heads-up from that type of intercept information. Using the words “snoopers’ charter” is emotive and gives completely the wrong impression of what it is.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I acknowledge what the noble Lord has said and that there are differences of opinion on both sides of the argument. It is a pejorative, probably unhelpful, term that has come into popular use. I added that description for the benefit of those reading the proceedings of this House who may not be familiar with the Communications Data Bill. I agree with the noble Lord that it is not a particularly helpful term to use.

Noble Lords will understand that my main interests in the Bill concern the new powers it confers on the police and security services and, as far as those aspects are concerned, I substantially welcome its provisions. To that extent, and with some trepidation, I disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. As my noble friend the Minister said, the nature of the threat has changed. There are many British citizens—mainly young and impressionable—who are being persuaded to travel abroad to participate in terrorist activity. If prevented and provided with the right intervention, they could be diverted from radicalisation. We need to examine in detail the powers given to the police to seize passports and travel documents. Sadly, we have seen well intentioned legislation being misused in practice in the past, and we must do all we can to minimise the potential for misuse of these new powers.

“Temporary exclusion orders” is an unfortunate term for what is intended to be a mechanism to ensure the managed return of those suspected of having been involved in terrorism-related activity and who pose a threat. It is clearly necessary to control the return of those who have either been trained in terrorist training camps or been engaged in acts of terrorism to ensure that they do not pose a threat to the safety not just of members of the public, as the legislation says, but of the police, the Armed Forces and the security services. Again, it is important that these individuals are properly assessed and that appropriate interventions are provided, including prosecution and imprisonment if necessary. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee has said, we must ensure that there is proper scrutiny of such decision-making above and beyond the very limited ability of a young man or woman abroad to challenge the decision of the Secretary of State by means of judicial review. Many of those young people will have been exposed to one of the most brutal regimes that we have seen. It is unlikely that they will not be changed by that experience and potentially pose a more serious threat as a result.

The Bill purports to allow the security services to link a particular IP address with a particular device and therefore to make it easier to identify individuals who are communicating using the internet, in a way similar to what can be done at present with landline and cellular telephone communications. I seek reassurance from the Minister that the data that the Bill requires internet service providers to retain are only those that are necessary to link communications to devices and hence individuals, and that the Bill would not allow the trawling of data in a way that would be a considerable infringement of innocent people’s civil liberties. As for whether this provision needs to be fast-tracked, if it has been identified as a gap in the ability of the police or the security services to prove communication between individuals, surely it is best if that gap is filled as quickly as possible.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, is also concerned about TPIMs. However, my understanding is that the changes to TPIMs in this legislation have been recommended by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation—someone for whom the noble and learned Lord has the highest regard.

I have other concerns about other parts of the Bill that others will cover in more detail, particularly the banning of radical preachers, which could lead to their perverted messages of hate being preached in secret where they cannot be challenged by those who oppose their views.

We saw unintended consequences of the actions taken following 7/7 under the Prevent strand of the then Government’s counterterrorism plan, with councils forced to spend money where none was needed and some minority ethnic communities feeling that they were being penalised for not harbouring terrorists. Prevent deals with all types of terrorism and I have no issue with a statutory requirement for local authorities to carry out an assessment as to the nature and extent of the danger of local people being drawn into terrorism. I have no issue with a statutory requirement to address the dangers identified, but what action is taken should be a matter for the local authority concerned.

On Saturday, George Churchill-Coleman sadly died. He was head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch for seven years, from 1985 to 1992, longer than any other postholder. John Grieve worked closely with Mr Churchill-Coleman and the one message that Churchill-Coleman delivered over and over again during his time at the peak of the IRA bombing campaign was, “Don’t overreact”.

The Bill, properly amended, as I am sure it will be by this House, is a measured and appropriate response to the dangers that we face, and I believe that we should, in principle, support it.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord West of Spithead

Thursday 17th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. After what he said yesterday I did some swotting last night. It is important for the legislation to get this sort of wording right. It is quite divisive legislation because of the speed at which it has taken place. This is a sensible amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I also support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. At Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord made a compelling case for addressing the precise wording in the European Court judgment. With the greatest respect to my noble friend the Minister, his response to that assertion did not quite come up to the level of the case made by the noble and learned Lord. I also support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, in that it would not only help lawyers to avoid court cases as a result of not addressing strictly the wording in the judgment but it would also be reassuring to the public to have the wording as suggested in the amendment.