Investigatory Powers Bill

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I have just said, the Bill sets out new, enhanced safeguards and oversight arrangements for the investigatory powers that are available to the authorities. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, inappropriate access to information that is held has been the subject of court cases recently. It is entirely right that if information is being accessed in a criminal fashion, that should be dealt with in the appropriate way. I have just set out that there are new offences in the Bill to deal with the question of people obtaining, knowingly or recklessly, communications data without lawful authorisation.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The Home Secretary knows that I am a supporter of the Bill, but does she share some of my concerns about international human rights law, emerging European privacy law and the collaboration with partners such as the United States on its domestic data and privacy laws vis-à-vis Apple and the FBI? If the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, does she foresee any problems internationally or with collaborators?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Many internet service providers, for example, offer services here but they are predominantly based in other countries. That is why the Government have been progressing, and continue to progress, discussions with the United States’ authorities about the whole question of the circumstances under which warrants issued lawfully in the United Kingdom can be exercised in the United States. We have always asserted territorial jurisdiction of those warrants under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. In fact, the previous Labour Government, who introduced RIPA, also established that territorial jurisdiction. It has never been tested, but we are putting that discussion with the United States into place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pritchard]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

It happened close to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, so I will give way.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just before the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) intervenes, I advise the House that, although everything is being done perfectly properly, and the Home Secretary and the right hon. Gentleman have been generous in giving way, 48 Back Benchers wish to contribute. Those who have or seek the Floor might wish to take account of that point. I call Mark Pritchard.

[Mark Pritchard]

I will be brief, Mr Speaker.

The shadow Home Secretary is quite right to point out that abuses, where they have taken place, are absolutely wrong, but does he also recognise that the Bill contains a new offence of misusing communications data, which is something he should welcome?

[Andy Burnham]

I will come to that very point, but these are not historical matters, because the convictions I just referred to still stand. I pay tribute to the Government, because they have a good record on this, but we need to go further to give the full truth about some of the darkest chapters in our country’s past, so that we can learn from them and then build the right safeguards into the Bill. The Bill will fail unless it entirely rules out the possibility that abuses of the kind I have mentioned could ever happen again. That is the clear test I am setting for the Bill.

That is also why I welcome the principle of the Bill. It leaves behind us the murky world of policing in the ‘70s, ’80s and ’90s, and holds out the possibility of creating a modern and open framework that makes our services more accountable while containing much improved safeguards for ordinary people. The Bill makes progress towards that goal, but it is far from there yet. It is clear that the Home Secretary has been in listening mode and responded to the reports of the three parliamentary Committees, but of the 122 recommendations in the three reports, the Government have reflected less than half in the revised Bill. She will need to be prepared to listen more and make further significant changes to the Bill if she is to achieve her goal of getting it on to the statute book by December.

I want to take the House through six specific concerns that we have with the Bill. The first is on privacy. As I said, people have a right to maximise their personal privacy, and given people’s worries about the misuse of personal data, the Intelligence and Security Committee was surely right to recommend that privacy considerations be at the heart of the Bill. A presumption of privacy would set the right context and provide the basis from which the exceptional powers are drawn. It would be the right foundation for the whole Bill: respect for privacy and clarity that any intrusions into it require serious justification. The Home Secretary said that privacy protection was hardwired into the Bill. I find it hard to accept that statement. I see the changes on this point as more cosmetic; they have not directly answered the Committee’s concerns. I therefore ask the Government to reflect further on this matter and to include a much stronger overarching privacy requirement, as recommended by the Committee, covering all the separate powers outlined in the Bill.

Also on privacy, we do not yet believe that the Government have gone far enough to protect the role of sensitive professions. The Committee noted that the safeguards for certain professions must be applied consistently across the Bill, no matter which investigatory power is being used to obtain the information, but it is hard to see how that is achieved at the moment. On MPs and other elected representatives, the Bill codifies the Wilson doctrine, but there is a question about why it stops short of requiring the Prime Minister to approve a warrant and requires only that he be consulted. The Bill could be strengthened in that regard. On legal privilege, the Law Society has said that, although it is pleased to see that the Government have acknowledged legal professional privilege, it needs more adequate protection, and it believes that that should be in the Bill, not just the codes that go with it.