Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Bates

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. We talk a lot about liberty and security but in order to enjoy our liberty we must first have security. That is what this is about. I mentioned in the Statement that six terrorist attacks have been thwarted by the outstanding work of our security and law enforcement services over the past year alone. The transparency report which I am publishing here today shows that some 299 people have been arrested in the past year on terrorism-related offences. It shows that the threat is real and the powers are necessary.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord King, that it is a delight to have the Minister in his post, I would have preferred to be in that post myself after the election—but that is a different issue.

This is not before time. It has taken a long time, but we should all celebrate today, as this is good news. We hopefully get rid of the old RIPA, which is discredited—not surprisingly, because it is so old—and of emergency legislation which we passed only because we got ourselves in such a muddle about this. Here is a real opportunity for us to set a gold standard in the ability to protect our people and ensure that we can track these ghastly people who wish to kill us and do us harm, but also to pay due regard to the privacy of the individual. With pre-legislative scrutiny of all the issues we have been discussing and a White Paper, and with sufficient time, there is no reason why we should not be able to do this. We have to realise that we must not delude ourselves: there are people out there who wish to kill us. We know they want to kill us, and there are a large number of them. This is a real threat. Not doing this would be madness.

I get annoyed, I am afraid, by some comments which seem to indicate that our own security forces and agencies are the bad guys and the ones who are threatening us. That is just not true. Some people use emotive language, such as “snoopers’ charter”. The emotive language I would use is that if we do not do something like this, those people are giving the people who wish to kill us a licence to kill—but let us not use emotive language and instead look at this in a balanced way. It has to be done and it is very important that it is done.

Have we really thought about some way of ensuring that there is better data protection, not just in this Bill, but more broadly? We are not as good at it as we should be, which is a real worry. We have to make sure we do it, because people are concerned when data are held anywhere. It is no reason not to do this, but we do need to have some way of making sure that is dealt with.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. This is why it is important to work with communication service providers: this has to be a partnership between the industry, the law enforcement agencies and the Government to make sure that we get this right and that there is a way of doing it which is secure. He is right about the threat being real. I have heard some of the reports from meetings which the Home Secretary has had with families who have been victims of the online sexual exploitation of children. They feel exactly the same way as my noble friend Lord Tebbit feels in terms of the actions which could be taken to ensure that their children and their loved ones do not have to suffer the exploitation which they have suffered at the hands of these heinous criminals.

Surveillance Legislation

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Bates

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

David Anderson’s report, on which we had a very helpful debate last week, talks about trust, and there needs to be a balance of trust. The issues that are being investigated by our security services and law enforcement agencies are of the most grave and serious nature, so full disclosure is not possible. However, there is an Interception of Communications Commissioner who reviews the decisions taken by the Home Secretary. Should an individual feel that they have wrongly had their communications intercepted, they have the ability to take that up with the investigation tribunal to look into the decision further.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the splendid report produced by RUSI looking at intercept which comes up with a very practical and sensible way forward on this issue. The report, tying in with Anderson, is written in such a way that it could almost be a Green Paper, and the two of them taken together could be a draft White Paper. We need something in draft by October this year, because we definitely need to have something in front of the House by early February if we are going to meet the sunset clause. Does the Minister agree that it forms a very sound basis for moving forward with this legislation?

[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.

ISIL

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Bates

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the level of threat posed by ISIL to the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, we remember particularly at this time the victims of the attack in Tunisia last Friday. We now know that at least 29 British nationals were killed. My thoughts, and, I am sure, those of the whole House, are with the victims and families caught up in this terrible attack. The threat to the UK from international terrorism, including from ISIL-linked terrorism, is severe: an attack is highly likely.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Although dire, that does not sound like an existential threat or a threat to the existence of our nation. I am looking more externally. In military terms, it makes no sense not to have air attacks in Syria, which means talking with Assad. Also, we need information from Chilcot, because there is now an operational imperative not to make the same mistakes that we made in Iraq. My Question is: what do we see as victory over ISIL? Is it pushing it out of Iraq—that will not be victory; it will still exist in Syria—or finally to defeat it? That will need ground operations in Syria. The prospect of what that means for the whole region is enormous. What do the Government see as “victory”?

[Lord Bates]

Clearly, it is the defeat of the poisonous ideology behind these attacks. On the territorial point, the noble Lord will be aware of our activities in the airstrikes. The RAF has flown 1,010 missions in support of the coalition activity in Iraq. The result of that is that ISIL’s advance has been stopped, and it has lost, according to American sources, some 700 square kilometres of land. Clearly, the point about Syria is pressing. We are providing some training and support there. The Prime Minister said on Monday that there must be a “full-spectrum response” to deal with ISIL,

“at its source, in places like Syria, Iraq and Libya”.

British aircraft are delivering the second-highest number of airstrikes over Iraq. Our surveillance aircraft are already assisting other countries with their operations over Syria and British forces are helping to train the moderate Syrian opposition. That is our response, but we are in no doubt whatever as to what the task is: to defeat ISIL.