Investigatory Powers Bill

Seema Kennedy Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin]

I will not give way at the moment—I have given way too many times and others want to speak.

To use an illustrative analogy, if we were to authorise the opening, scanning and retention of all mail via a particular post office in the hope that one day we could go back once we had found, via another investigative technique, a suspicion about a certain user of that post office, our constituents would rightly be marching on this place demanding that we stop such an outrage. Do the Government really believe that people using that post office would be content to believe that all was well as long as the letters were stored in a big safe to which only the good guys had the key, or that they would be read only after a warrant was required? I do not believe so—people are not that daft and, strangely, for some unknown reason, they are not that trusting—yet the Government are asking us to focus on the issue of access and examination, and to ignore the massive combine harvester in the room, meaning bulk data collection. Government Members may well groan, but we are entitled to express our opinions on the Bill and to scrutinise the legislation rigorously.

On the Government’s own terms, that abuse of public privacy is of very limited use anyway. Targeted powers are far more effective and could resolve many of the privacy concerns. If we have a justifiable case to access information, we already know who we should be targeting for data collection. Why are we wasting time and resources using bulk techniques for that collection?

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Anne McLaughlin]

I will give way because the hon. Lady asks so nicely.

[Seema Kennedy]

The hon. Lady referred to known targets, but surely one advantage of bulk data gathering is finding those unknown people out there who wish to do us harm.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I wonder how the hon. Lady believes we will do that. The evidence reviewed by the Committee showed that bulk powers are counter-productive because the sheer scale of the data makes them impossible to analyse adequately. In fact, I believe the Government used the limited capacity of the security services to analyse bulk quantities of data as a form of assurance, which was strange to say the least.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Robinson]

I am very grateful for that. No more interventions.

[Seema Kennedy]

It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson).

Many right hon. and hon. Members have spoken with great experience and expertise through the various stages of the Bill. Listening to the high quality of debate, especially yesterday, I was struck by the thought that if we conducted all our business in this Chamber in this manner, our stock and our currency as Members of Parliament might rise a little with our constituents and other members of the public.

I feel humbled to speak on this crucial piece of legislation and, specifically, against the amendments tabled by the SNP. This Bill is designed above all to keep our constituents safe from harm. Some hon. Members may know that I grew up in the Tehran of the 1970s. Though now fondly remembered for its nightclubs and miniskirts, it was a city pervaded by the fear of SAVAK, the brutal secret police whose agents infiltrated every factory, every school and every park, so I am compelled to say that I have witnessed, and my family has witnessed, mass surveillance, and this is not it.

The SNP amendment would effectively remove parts 6 and 7 of the Bill, which deal with bulk warrants and bulk data sets. These show our adversaries that we will use every technological tool to keep ourselves secure, but we will not compromise on our principles.

[Joanna Cherry]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady was present at the time, but on Second Reading I made it very clear that the SNP was not calling the Bill mass surveillance; we described it as suspicionless surveillance. Does she agree that parts 6 and 7 permit suspicionless surveillance?

[Seema Kennedy]

I am afraid that I have to disagree with the hon. and learned Lady. Again, as I mentioned in an intervention, these bulk powers are absolutely crucial for our security and intelligence agencies. Let us remember that they are the only agencies that are allowed to use these powers. The reason is that some of these things are unknown. I do not want to sound like Donald Rumsfeld, but there are unknowns out there, and bulk powers are the way to deal with them.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an extremely powerfully argument. Of course, one of the elements we constantly remind ourselves of when looking for terrorism or for these forms of abuse is that we are looking for a needle in a haystack. That is true, but without the haystack there is no possibility of even starting the search. These bulk powers are essential for building up that network in order to be able to search.

[Seema Kennedy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; he speaks with great experience.

Bulk powers are not novel. The powers already exist, but they are being given better oversight, scrutiny and transparency here. Some Opposition Members have spoken about the lack of necessity for these powers, but the necessity arises from an absolute obligation on our intelligence services to be as flexible and nimble as our enemies. Other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), have set out the operational necessity of bulk data collection. It is about collecting information on overseas targets and providing that first sift of information—like a haystack, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) mentioned—so that it is possible to drill down to the necessary data and discover new threats from people who were previously unknown and identify patterns of behaviour. That would then exclude innocent citizens and facilitate more targeted searches.

The effectiveness of collecting bulk data is borne out by the fact that it has been used in every major counter-terrorism operation in the past decade. It has prevented 95% of cyber-attacks and disrupted 50 paedophiles. It is clear that the UK does not undertake mass surveillance, first because of the existing legal framework in which the intelligence services already operate, and secondly because of resource constraints. I know that the Bill Committee heard evidence about that.

I want to speak briefly about the wrong hands argument to which the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) referred. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) quite rightly said that if we worried about the wrong hands everywhere, we would never pass any legislation. Only the security and intelligence agencies will be given the powers set out in the Bill. Those are people who have an interest in disrupting plots and bringing suspects to justice. Very little evidence is being brought forward to suggest that they are motivated by prying into innocent citizens’ private lives or that they use information wrongly. Millions of us, including all of us sitting here, handle sensitive data every day and are subject to rules, and to a large extent we obey that. Are we honestly saying that intelligence agents, having gone through rigorous vetting and appraisal, are less trustworthy than our bank managers, our GPs’ receptionists and our council officials?

The safeguards in the Bill pertaining to bulk powers are manifold and robust: the Secretary of State has to authorise bulk warrants; there is a double-lock authorisation procedure; the warrants are time-limited; there is a code of practice for the security and intelligence agencies on handling the data; and of course there is the review, which right hon. and hon. Members have expanded on at great length.

In conclusion, the proposed amendments would remove from the Bill the powers that are necessary for our security services to react to the evolving dangers that face our constituents today, here and now. Our security services do that while respecting our nation’s values. For that reason, I will oppose the amendments.

[Tom Elliott]

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy). I fully support this legislation. If anything, I am beginning to worry that it is already being watered down. I want to make it even stronger. That is why I oppose the Scottish National party’s amendments. I heard the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) about health records; I appreciate that thought process and will support it if relevant amendments are proposed.

I have to say that I and some of my colleagues from Northern Ireland, and indeed on other Benches, have lived through the troubles and seen what terrorism has done. But we face a different type of terrorism now, and a different type of world criminality, much of which is conducted through technology—for example, via mobile phone signals and satellites and on the internet. We now have a totally different perspective. We therefore need a different mechanism, and we need it to be proactive, which is what I believe the Bill will do. It is about being much more proactive.

With regard to bulk capabilities, I do not see what the problem is. We have to have trust and faith in the people doing that surveillance and collecting that intelligence. If we do not have trust and faith in them to have the bulk capabilities, why do we have trust and faith in them to do other things? I think there is a real challenge out there for the wider public to realise what is actually going on in society. I do not realise everything that is happening, and I know that the wider public do not. That is why I have to have trust in those people who are carrying out these actions.

I am also aware that there needs to be a balance; I accept that. There needs to be a balance for the public, to avoid snooping and going into too much detail with these investigatory powers. However, that must be balanced against the wider public information that is required to deal with terrorism, criminality and the fraudsters in our society. For me, the priority in that balance is to deal with those people effectively. If that means people using those investigatory measures to look into some of my details, so be it. If I have nothing to hide, then I have nothing to fear. I have no difficulty with people looking at the details that are held on me, and that should be the same for the wider public if they have nothing to hide. There must be real opportunities here for the Government and the people who are carrying out the investigatory work to deal with those details. That is why I think the amendments we are debating overstep the mark and would reduce the effectiveness of the people dealing with those causes. My speech has been brief, but I think that it has dealt with the amendments succinctly.