Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and James Cartlidge

Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I had the privilege of being a member of the Joint Committee and of the Bill Committee, so I feel as though I have lived with this Bill for many months. I will be happy to see it become law when that happens. This Bill is vital in the modern age, and it is above party politics. It is about doing the right thing for our country and for our constituents.

The Joint Committee and the Bill Committee scrutinised the Bill intensively, and I think we considered something like 1,000 amendments in the Bill Committee. I am happy to say that we managed, nevertheless, to find some areas of agreement, namely that it was necessary to introduce a Bill to set out the investigatory powers of the security services and law enforcement agencies, and to update the scrutiny and transparency of those powers and the people who use them. It is a credit to everyone, on both sides of the House, who supports the principle of the Bill.

I welcome, as others have done, new clause 5 and Government amendment 30, which will put all related criminal offences in the Bill. That will create transparency by making the misuse of these powers absolutely obvious. I want to look at two proposed new clauses that have not received the same level of scrutiny as the Bill has enjoyed; I shall endeavour to change that in the next couple of minutes. New clause 1— the notifying criminals clause, as someone remarked to me—raises grave concerns about our impact on fighting crime and terror. I am conscious that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who tabled the new clause, is not his place. For anyone who has not read it, it would require the police and security services to notify, within 30 days of a warrant ending, anyone who has been investigated. There is no requirement for an error to have occurred, or anything of that nature. The only requirement is that someone’s data have been investigated.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

On the point about a time limit of three months, is my hon. Friend aware that in 58% of requests for communications data in child abuse investigations, the data are more than six months old?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. That shows the time sensitivity of many investigations, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing it up. We know from evidence sessions in both Committees that 100% of counter-terrorism cases and 90% of serious organised crime cases involve communications data evidence. We are talking about very serious cases indeed. My concern about new clause 1 is that it in no way removes the risk that high-level criminals and terror suspects will be told that they have been investigated by law enforcement and the security services. Such people are more likely to be the subject of warrants because of their criminality, so we would be handing the investigations to those criminals on a plate.