Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady makes an extremely important point. She is right that Sir Anthony May produced a first-class report that set out the powers and how they are used and was clear about their rightful use. Sadly, perhaps because it was not a “shock horror” report, it did not receive an awful lot of publicity. I hope that the Government’s commitment to an annual transparency report will help in this regard. The Intelligence and Security Committee, on which the right hon. Lady sits, is carrying out its own review of privacy and security and I hope that it will get some publicity when it is completed. It therefore behoves all of us to try as far as possible to promote the message that effective oversight is in place.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

The Home Secretary is being very generous in giving way. As she said, little of the legislation is new; it is clarifying what needs to be clarified. However, the annual transparency report is something new that puts more information in the public domain than ever before. Is that correct?

[Mrs May]

Yes indeed. It will be the first time that Government have published and made such information available. People will therefore be able to see rather better exactly how the powers are used by, for example, seeing the number of requests made.