Investigatory Powers Bill

Wendy Morton Excerpts

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

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak on the second day of consideration of this very important Bill and to follow hon. and right hon. Friends and colleagues, as well as the many learned friends and colleagues—[Interruption.] I did not quite expect to hear that noise from the skies during my opening comments; I do not normally have this sort of impact.

I do not wish to disappoint people, but unlike my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) I sought neither inspiration nor cake from Kipling. Instead, I turned to the American scientist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson, who wrote very perceptively:

“Any time scientists disagree, it's because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I’m right, or you’re right, or we’re both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion.”

Very wise words, I think.

I believe that the advantage scientists have over the rest of us who base our judgments on instinct or hope should also be available to the people who keep us safe, our security personnel and the agencies in which they so importantly serve. I appreciate the sensitivities and difficulties with this topic of bulk powers, but I feel that the Bill has had a lot of scrutiny. It has been a long time in gestation, and rightly so.

Our security services need data, the raw information—perhaps from dozens of sources. They need the hundreds, perhaps thousands of pieces with which to build a picture of the threats that face us, and they then have the knowledge to take the right action against them. In today’s world in which data are all around us, our security personnel need to be able to collect them and to have the right, with safeguards, of course, to pull them all together.

There was a good deal of discussion on Second Reading, in Committee and now on Report on the nature of bulk powers and bulk review. It saddens me that a notion seems to have developed among some that the security services, given the chance, will use new powers to hoover up all the information on us all without any control at all. I think that that perception is false. Why? As we have been told, the bulk powers referred to in this Bill are already provided for in existing legislation. The Bill brings them together and, importantly, makes them subject to robust statutory safeguards.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that, as mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), having one Bill that brings consistent tests to this area and to the use of this power makes eminent sense and that that is why it should be supported?

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention. He is absolutely right; it makes sense to bring these powers together and, while doing that, to consider the safeguards.

Yes, the Bill provides our security and intelligence agencies with the ability to obtain data in bulk in order to identify new threats and to learn more about existing threats, but I feel that it does not confer on them new and sweeping powers. Our intelligence agencies have bulk collection powers but they do not conduct analysis of the data in an indiscriminate manner without reasonable suspicion—it would not be lawful for them to do so. In the modern world these powers, which already exist, are crucial. Bulk capabilities are crucial.

To investigate a target, our agents need to be able to acquire its communications in the first place. When a target is overseas, bulk interception is one of the key means, and may be the only means, by which we can obtain communications that would otherwise not be available. This is especially so if that potential threat is operating in an area where we have no strong diplomatic link or where the governing authority is not in control of all its own territory. We know from yesterday’s debate that bulk powers and their use have been instrumental in keeping us safe from threats abroad and, indeed, at home. It is worth noting that the bulk powers in the Bill have already played a significant part in every major counter-terrorism investigation of the last decade, including in each of the seven terrorist attack plots disrupted since November 2014. They have been essential in identifying 95% of the cyber-attacks on people and businesses in the UK discovered by the security and intelligence agencies over six months. Here at home the existing powers have been used to identify serious criminals who were seeking to evade detection online and could not be pursued by conventional means, supporting the disruption of more than 50 paedophiles in the UK in the past three years.

I would like to quote the words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who is no longer in his place but who has been contributing to today’s debate. He is a former Attorney General and not, if I may say so, a man who lightly allows liberties to be chipped away. He said of the Bill:

“The present Committee and its predecessor are satisfied that the Government are justified in coming to Parliament to seek in broad terms the powers that the Bill contains. None of the categories of powers in the Bill—including the principle of having powers of bulk collection of data, which has given rise to controversy in recent years—is unnecessary or disproportionate to what we need to protect ourselves.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 836.]

Of course, some will disagree with the former Attorney General and they rightly have the opportunity to do so, but I happen to agree with him on those points.

Finally, I want to touch on calls from Labour and the SNP on Second Reading and in the Public Bill Committee for independent validation of the operational case. We should recognise that the Government have listened and, in response to those calls, have confirmed that David Anderson QC will undertake a review to inform the passage of the Bill through the House of Lords. Parliament will then be able to decide.

I will support this Bill as one that codifies the law as much as it extends it, and that builds robust safeguards against intrusion while at the same time safeguarding the public. I believe that it is an extremely important Bill—important to our country, important to the people of our country, and important to our constituents.

[Gavin Robinson]

It is great to follow the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), who made a powerful speech and a lightening-inducing one, it seems, to judge from the weather outside.

[Wendy Morton]

Not for the first time.

[Gavin Robinson]

Indeed.

I commented in the Tea Room earlier that I probably would not get the opportunity to contribute on Third Reading because the debate yesterday and today has been dominated by heavyweights. When I said that to a Government Member, he looked oddly surprised that I would not satisfy that criterion. I am pleased to have the opportunity not only to speak at this point on consideration, but to make the point that it would have been wholly worthwhile to have had just one Northern Ireland voice on the Bill Committee.

Members will have recognised just how considered and detailed the process has been. On Second Reading I focused my remarks solely on the prison officer, Adrian Ismay, who had been murdered in my constituency and died that very day. I made the point that we cannot continue to have abstract conversations about the impact of terrorism or about the protection that we as a state need on national security grounds, because in the here and now it is a matter of protecting us today, tomorrow and for every day to come.

I pay tribute to the Security Minister, the Solicitor General and all those Members who have so collegiately engaged in making sure that what, in years gone by, was a difficult process with the Draft Communications Data Bill—the snoopers charter—has been set aside during what I believe has been a very encouraging debate and thoughtful consideration of the Bill. Credit is due to the Minister and his team.

A point was made by the shadow Home Affairs Minister in arguing for amendments 303 to 305, and I would be grateful if the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) considered this issue. We have had contributions from the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) on new clause 3 and he made the point that it would not be appropriate to retain the datasets—personal data—that engage mental or physical health issues. In the light of that, I would be keen to hear from the shadow Minister on how he believes that deals with amendments 303 to 305. If new clause 3 were passed, would those amendments be necessary?

I understand that it may not be possible for the shadow Minister to respond, although I am happy to give way. It would be useful to know whether those three amendments are likely to be pressed to a Division or whether he believes that new clause 3 deals adequately with the protections for personal health data.