GCHQ

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Like the right hon. Member for Blackburn, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) speaks from his own experience of the highly professional work of the agencies. The point he raises reinforces the importance of our agencies applying and upholding the laws of the United Kingdom regarding the data they obtain from other intelligence agencies around the world. As I said earlier to the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), there may well be occasions over the coming years when we will need to update and improve those procedures, to take account of changes in technology. I do not exclude that at all, but it re-emphasises the importance of applying our law in our country, which the agencies can be relied on to do.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

People will have great confidence in hearing what my right hon. Friend has said about requests for intercept and operations in this country having to be so very rigorous. Does he also agree that the highly complex nature of modern communications inevitably means that, from time to time, privacy may have to be breached in the interests of the security of our country and its people?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, of course: a would-be terrorist cannot rely on their privacy and nor can someone at the centre of organised crime. It is these decisions that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I and, sometimes, other colleagues have to make. We take extra steps and extra care on privacy. The law explicitly requires us to make sure that our actions are necessary, proportionate and targeted, but we go beyond those requirements in assessing the impact on the privacy of individuals in order to try to make sure that it is only when absolutely necessary that we invade that privacy.