Investigatory Powers Bill (Sixth sitting)

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 14th April 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. If the Solicitor General can point to such a provision, I would be interested to see it. On the face of it, the clause allows designated senior officers within a public authority to obtain communications data in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the UK without that further qualification.

Subsection (7) then states that data can be obtained

“in the interests of public safety…for the purpose of protecting public health”

or,

“for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax”.

We then come to paragraph (g), on which I want to spend some time. It states that data can be obtained

“for the purpose of preventing death”—

that would obviously be a high threshold—

“or injury or any damage to a person’s physical or mental health, or of mitigating any injury or damage to a person’s physical or mental health”.

The threshold is way, way down. There are many ways in which a person’s physical or mental health could be damaged. The Bill, if passed, will authorise access to communications data without any threshold as to the level of damage or injury.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman’s analysis, but does he agree that obtaining communications data is one of the less intrusive powers contained in the legislation, but such data are very helpful for setting the scene and planting the seed for investigations? That has to be borne in mind when looking at the authorisation regime, because this is different from other powers.

[Keir Starmer]

Let me take that in stages. I accept that accessing communications data is in a different category and order from, say, the interception of the contents of communications. I also accept the proposition that communications data are used in many cases involving serious crime. I will go further than that: it is rarely possible to bring and to conclude cases of serious criminality without reliance on communications data. I have no in-principle objection to communications data being made available and being used. My concern is the very low level of sign-off required to access those data and the lack of any meaningful threshold in subsection (7); there simply is not one. Whether or not a meaningful threshold is achieved by the insertion of the word “serious”, as I propose in my amendment, or some other word, if we simply say that it could be necessary and proportionate to access communications data to prevent any crime or damage, we are proceeding on a basis for which it is very hard to think of any circumstances in which it would be difficult or impossible to justify obtaining communications data. It just is not a set of thresholds.

Dealing with miscarriages of justice and situations in which a person has died and so on, and

“for the purpose of exercising functions”

are listed in the subsequent paragraphs. My central point is obvious but important. I realise how necessity and proportionality apply, but on any reading of subsection (7) there is no threshold. I think there is a risk for the Government here. I appreciate the direction of travel of the Court of Appeal, but does anybody seriously think that the jurisprudence is not going to develop to a point where there is a threshold that is thought to be appropriate? It is one thing to say that we do not necessarily have to have a threshold of serious crime, but to go from that to saying that we do not have to have any threshold at all is to invite problems, if these provisions are passed.

[Suella Fernandes]

It appears that the hon. and learned Gentleman is dismissing the necessary hurdles of necessity and proportionality in satisfying the tests. They are obviously going to relate to and be thresholds, so is it not wrong to say that there is no threshold in the clause?

[Keir Starmer]

I appreciate that the necessity and proportionality test has to be applied—in any given case there will always be an argument about whether it is necessary and proportionate—but as ever with necessity and proportionality the question is: what are we assessing necessity against and how are we arguing that it is proportionate? Is it necessary to do what? We get that only from the face of the statute. In other words, necessity does not give us anything unless we have some subject matter that it bites on, which is why the subject matter that it bites on is so important. Whether it is necessary for serious crime is one question; whether it is necessary for crime is another.

There are many, many things that one could say were necessary to prevent or detect crime. I absolutely accept that in practice those two tests are applied at all times, but the question is: what are they applied to? The question that the designated senior officer has to ask him or herself is: “Am I satisfied that it is necessary to prevent crime?” That would be good enough under the clause. It is, in principle, an inadequate threshold. I also think it will invite challenge in due course, because I do not think for one moment that, in the long run, the European Court and our courts are going to be satisfied with a scheme that does not have any threshold, even though there will be and are arguments about the precise threshold. We can see what the divisional court said in the Tom Watson case, so it is not just counsel’s argument that was never accepted by anybody. In that case in the divisional court, counsel’s argument that the serious crime threshold was an important safeguard was accepted. Thankfully, the writing is therefore on the wall if the clause is not taken back and reconsidered.

I shall move on to the second “who”. The first “who” I focused on was who can issue the necessary authorisation, which is the designated senior officer. Under clause 53(2), that person can

“authorise any officer of the authority to engage in any conduct”.

It goes from a relatively low-level authorisation to somebody even further down in the authority having to get on with the job of obtaining data.

The breadth of what can be done is outlined in clause 53(5), which states:

“An authorisation…may relate to data whether or not in existence at the time…may authorise the obtaining or disclosure of data by a person who is not an authorised officer, or any other conduct by such a person, which enables or facilitates the obtaining of the communications data”—

so it goes beyond the specific authorisation to the facilitation—

“and…may, in particular, require a telecommunications operator who controls or provides a telecommunication system to obtain or disclose data relating to the use of a telecommunications service provided by another telecommunications operator in relation to that system.”

It is a very broad provision.

That enables us to see the amendments in their proper context. There are three categories of amendment. The first category is to be taken as a set and would insert some rigour and independence into the process by requiring judicial commissioners to sign off the necessary authorisations. The second set of amendments, which we will come to in due course, seeks to amend the threshold to provide a meaningful threshold for the judicial commissioner. To call clause 53 as drafted a set of safeguards is to mis-describe the words on the page.