Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I can certainly say that there are clearly ongoing inquiries in relation to this important and sensitive issue. I have highlighted the lack of any retrospection, and I point the hon. Gentleman to what has happened since then and what the police themselves have underlined in this regard. There is an enhanced regime of what are known as relevant sources—in other words, undercover police officers—and the criminal conduct authorisation is in addition to the regime to authorise and approve a CHIS covert source in the first place.

It has never been acceptable, as the police have said, for an undercover operative to form an intimate sexual relationship with those they are employed to infiltrate and target, or who they may encounter during their deployment. This conduct will never be authorised, nor must it ever be used as a tactic in deployment. That is made clear through the code of ethics for the police as well as the updated law enforcement agency undercover operative authorised professional practice.

I hope that I have explained what the Bill does and what it does not do, and therefore how it is quite specific. On the point about what is on the face of the Bill, it is about locking in the existing regime and other safeguards on the authorisation of a source in the first place. That has to happen first, and then, if it is warranted, justified and fits within the boundaries of the Bill, there is the criminal conduct authorisation that sits alongside it, which has to be subject to the earlier authorisation.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that sexual assault and rape are clearly prohibited by article 3 of the Human Rights Act? Does he recognise that the importance of the Human Rights Act in providing a safeguard to this Bill means that it would be helpful to hear wider support for the purposes of the Act from across his Government, not just from him on the Front Bench?

[James Brokenshire]

Obviously there is the specific reference on the face of the Bill that I have alluded to, and therefore there is that requirement. As the right hon. Lady will know what the convention rights say, for operational and other reasons I will not go beyond what the convention says. There are very clear issues that I will now, I hope, come on to in that regard that will help to draw this out.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

I am very conscious that I am now eating into the time of others who may wish to speak, so I will perhaps make some more progress, and we will see where we get to.

The Investigatory Powers Commissioner, and his judicial commissioners, have all held high judicial office. The current IPC, Sir Brian Leveson, was most recently president of the Queen’s bench division and is entirely independent of Government. The commissioners are supported by expert inspectors and others, such as technical experts, qualified to assist the commissioners in their work.

The IPC conducts wide-ranging inspections of public authorities and publishes an annual report on the findings from those inspections. The IPC himself sets the frequency of those inspections, and public authorities are required to provide unfettered access to documents and information. The Bill strengthens the IPC’s role by providing that the IPC must explicitly keep CCAs under review and include information on the use of them in his annual report. The most recent report from the IPC found that in all instances MI5’s authorisations of CHIS participation in criminal conduct were proportionate to the anticipated operational benefits and met a high necessity threshold.

Further, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament has statutory responsibility to oversee the UK intelligence community. Hon. and right hon. Friends on the Committee have a vital role in scrutinising the work of the intelligence agencies, and I am grateful to the Committee for its support for the legislation and welcome its expertise as the House considers the Bill in detail. I also note that Select Committees will equally play an important role in scrutinising the work of law enforcement and wider public authorities.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

On that note, I give way to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Yvette Cooper]

I am very grateful to the Minister, who has been very generous with his time. Clearly he makes the case that we need to continue with covert intelligence, particularly on extremist groups that may be proscribed. Associating with them in any way is currently a crime, so clearly he makes a strong case for legislation to ensure that such intelligence can continue in the interests of national security. I know that he recognises, though, that having safeguards is also in the interests of national security and of the intelligence agencies and the police.

The safeguards in place on the Investigatory Powers Commissioner in the Bill are still very vague. It is very broad and very much retrospective, as opposed to concurrent assessments. Will the Minister look again at the potential for amendments on authorisation and very timely oversight, and on strengthening the measures on Investigatory Powers Commissioners, so that it is possible to get the details of the legislation right?

[James Brokenshire]

Obviously, we will have continued debate during the passage of the Bill. I believe that it provides strong oversight and governance, but I will continue to reflect. Judicial approval is an important safeguard for the operation of some of our investigatory powers; however, it is not the only way to provide a robust oversight of a power. It is important to recognise the context of this: we are talking about human beings. Some challenging issues operate around this space, which is why we judge that robust retrospective oversight is the right approach, but I will keep the timeliness of that, and how it operates, under reflection so that perhaps further reassurance can be provided, specifically on the point of how soon oversight can occur after an authorisation has been made.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Sunderland]

My key point is that the Human Rights Act does provide those protections, but in the context of operational service at the point at which decisions have to be taken I believe that those protections are needed.

Unlike most of our conventional forces, operators often work isolated and alone, making snap decisions that allow them to maintain trust and avoid detection. Rather than isolate them further—this goes back to my previous point—they need to know that their decisions and actions, when made in good faith and often under extreme stress, will be supported when the time comes. It is that discretion that lies at the heart of what they do, and more fool us in this place should we choose to undermine them or hang them out to dry from the sanctity of our courtrooms.

The recent evidence on why the Bill is necessary speaks for itself. Since March 2017, MI5 and counter-terrorism police have thwarted at least 27 terror attacks on home soil. In 2017, covert operations infiltrated a criminal organisation to stop a planned attack on Downing Street. In 2018, the National Crime Agency disrupted more than 30 threats to life, seized over 3,000 kg of class A drugs, safeguarded more than 200 people, and removed almost 100 firearms and 4,000 rounds of ammunition off the streets. Between 2017 and 2019, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has prevented hundreds of millions of pounds of tax loss, with one case alone estimated to have saved the Treasury over £100 million. Such is the wider utility and benefit of our intelligence sources across a range of authorised bodies, what else do we not know?

I am sympathetic to new clause 3 about oversight of the ISC, but I am not convinced that the equality impact assessment cited in new clause 2 or the blacklisting cited in amendment 6 and new clause 5 would be feasible. I am sympathetic to new clause 8 in respect of CCAs being granted to under-18s and vulnerable people, but I think it would be difficult to implement in the field.

It is not always ours to reason why from the privilege of this place, nor to cast judgment on those who face more danger on a daily basis than we can imagine. I cannot agree with those who insist via amendment 7 that a criminal conduct authorisation should only be provided once a warrant has been issued by a judge or that a time limit be given. Similarly, for those who seek to balance the size and scope of the proposed activity against the gravity or the extent of the perceived crime, I regret that our operators will rarely have the luxury of doing so when danger is upon them. Given that our primary responsibility in this place is to keep our people safe and to allow those entrusted to do so to operate as they must, I will vote today for the passage of this Bill.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the remarks of the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) about the important work that our security and intelligence agencies do.

We now have just a few short hours for the Committee stage of this Bill today. We will end up, in effect, with no Report stage. It is only 10 days since Second Reading. Third Reading is likely to be squeezed by how long it takes us to vote at the moment. I say to the Minister that this is an irresponsible way to deal with legislation that is so important. He will know that I say that as someone who strongly supports the vital work of our security and intelligence agencies, and our senior police, who deal with serious and organised crime, terror threats, and child abuse. They work with great bravery to keep us safe, and we owe them our thanks.

The Minister will also know that I have long supported much of the counter-terror work that the Home Office does, as well as its work with the police and intelligence agencies. I agree with the core purpose behind this Bill, which is to provide a legal framework for the difficult work that our Security Service, counter-terror police and National Crime Agency need to be able to do in order to keep us safe. But that is why we should take care to get the details of the legislation right. That is important because it is not only about the rule of law and safeguards for our democracy, but about the interests of the Security Service and the police. It in their interests to have the proper safeguards in place for the vital work they do. It protects them and it also protects individual officers, who have to take very difficult decisions under pressure with great integrity.

I find it difficult to believe that the court timetable has necessitated this condensed timetable. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal reported in December last year. Preparations were under way at that time for legislation, in case it might be needed. We could have had more consideration of this. We could have continued with it for a further couple of weeks in this House and then accelerated the timetable had it proved necessary at the last minute, given the court timetable and the potential for an imminent court decision.

We will therefore have an accelerated discussion of a whole range of different, important and very sensible amendments that have been put forward, such as those on pinning down the safeguards for human rights considerations and putting them more explicitly into the Bill. I strongly support the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) about the need to ensure that there is proper protection for children. There are measures to protect children in the use of covert human intelligence, but there should be additional safeguards in case there are ever circumstances in which children are being asked to break the law. Such safeguarding is important and does need to be seriously responded to. I also support the reinforcement of existing protections against things such as blacklisting and interference in trade union activity—protections that have been secured by work by Labour MPs on previous legislation.

The two key issues that I wanted to focus on—and the amendments that reflect those—are first around independent checks and secondly around the scope of the legislation. The Bill as it stands does not include sufficient independent checks. There is no independent check in advance and the independent checks in retrospect are very limited; all we have is the retrospective oversight of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. Those are permissive provisions rather than clear requirements on the commissioner, which means that we will have no idea in the House, in retrospect, whether the IPC has been forensic, looking at every individual case, or whether it has had to focus on other issues that year as part of its report.