Investigatory Powers Bill (Tenth sitting)

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 21st April 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Joanna Cherry]

I do not accept that the independent reviewer has carried out the exercise that I am suggesting. He fulfils a particular function, and we are talking about setting up a panel of individuals to consider the necessity and proportionality of these powers. They could consider in detail certain information that we, as hon. Members, would not be able to see. David Anderson is one individual who fulfils an important function and whose work has greatly assisted everyone on the Committee, and all hon. Members, in trying to understand what underlies the Bill.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

The hon. and learned Lady is asking the Committee to attach less weight to David Anderson’s review, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire said, and inviting us to prefer the evidence of Mr Binney, a whistleblower whose evidence was clearly out of date, because the last time he was security cleared was 2001.

[Joanna Cherry]

Forgive me, but the hon. Lady was out of the room when I said that I am not asking the Committee to look at Mr Binney’s evidence. I am asking the Committee to look at the evidence of the US President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which led to the repeal of section 215 and its replacement with the USA Freedom Act. I am not asking the Committee to look at Mr Binney’s evidence; I am asking the Committee to consider and take into account the background of two high-level independent US reports—the USA is our closest ally—that found that similar bulk powers are not necessary or proportionate.

I will not be side tracked by a suggestion that I am criticising David Anderson, because I am not—I make that absolutely clear. His review, “A Question of Trust”, was published prior to the Joint Committee of these Houses saying that a sufficient case has not been produced for bulk powers. David Anderson’s report was taken into account by the Joint Committee. I know that some members of this Committee, including the hon. Member for Fareham, sat on the Joint Committee, and one of its conclusions, recommendation 23, was:

“We recommend that the Government should publish a fuller justification for each of the bulk powers alongside the Bill. We further recommend that the examples of the value of the bulk powers provided should be assessed by an independent body, such as the Intelligence and Security Committee or the Interception of Communications Commissioner.”

The Joint Committee said that in the full knowledge of David Anderson’s report, having read and considered it. My point is that such operational case as has been produced by the Government does not live up to the Joint Committee’s recommendation 23, and does not adequately provide an operational case for the powers.