Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Mark Spencer and Andy Burnham

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

We need to explore the plans in detail. As I said, I do not accept that the Bill is a plan for mass surveillance, but we need to work hard over the next nine months to take those concerns away.

That said, there are well-founded concerns about the Bill. As we just heard, there is a genuine worry that providing for the accumulation of large amounts of personal data presents risks to people’s privacy and online security. More specifically, there is a worry that investigatory powers can be abused and have been abused in the past. In recent years, there have been revelations about how bereaved families, justice campaigners, environmental campaigners, journalists and trade unionists have been subject to inappropriate police investigation. What justification could there ever have been for the Metropolitan police to put the noble Baroness Lawrence and her family under surveillance? It has not been proven but I know that the Hillsborough families strongly suspect that the same was done to them.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

A lot of this debate has been about looking at people’s files, but does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that this should be about victims, including child victims, of crime? Has he had any representations from charities representing victims of crime and children’s charities?

[Andy Burnham]

I have had such representations, as the Government have, which is why I said the Bill was about much more than terrorism; it is about giving the police and the security services the tools they need to keep us safe in the 21st century. That is why I am not playing politics with the Bill or adopting a knee-jerk oppositionist approach; I am taking quite a careful and considered approach. That said, the Government have not yet done enough to earn my support.