Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-12-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Thomas Jeremy King (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, although I am afraid I do not take exactly the same approach as she has on this matter; in fact, I oppose the amendments. I understand that for many people they are probing amendments, and many might take a different view when the Minister has explained some of the background to them more fully I am reacting slightly to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The noble Lord’s speech introducing this group of amendments might have given some people listening the impression that something very new is being launched, but with his own background and personal experience he knows that we are talking about a well-established practice—the use of covert sources—which, as we know, has been a vital source of information in the prevention of much crime and terrorism in our history. We are not introducing something new here but putting an established practice on a statutory basis and putting in place a much tougher regime for its operation, one that has to be voted on by Parliament, which of course was not the previous situation. The issue of additional authorised bodies is spoken about as though this is some huge expansion, when it is my understanding—the Minister may be able to confirm this—that it is actually a reduction in the number of bodies that can apply to use the covert-intelligence-source approach. It is not new; each of the bodies listed has previously shown an operational requirement and has been using it in practice to some great benefit for the country. Here I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick said, and which others have echoed, which is an appreciation of the Minister’s email to me—and maybe her letter to others who are more present on the scene—regarding what can be advanced as evidence of where this has been valuable to the organisations concerned The suggestion following on from that is that we do not really need all these bodies to be involved and that we should just give it all to the police. As I understand it, in many of these cases the introduction of a covert intelligence source in a particular area of responsibility, whether it be the Environment Agency or the Department of Health and Social Care, may often be to try to find out what is happening in the first place. That is not at a stage where you are producing masses of evidence of something that can be handed straight over to the police; it is about trying to assess whether there is some real threat or danger in these areas Many have cited the importance of a code of practice. I think there is general recognition that it is a pretty strong document. It is a huge improvement on what did not exist before, and it has to be voted on by Parliament, so we will have to approve its coming into operation. It will of course be binding on all parties The reason why I have taken part in these debates in Committee is that at present we are living in an exceptionally dangerous world. I have previously quoted the evidence from the Minister, James Brokenshire, on the amount of crime of very different sorts that one year’s covert intelligence had helped with. I see that included in that was the fact that no fewer than 27 different terrorist attacks were prevented by covert intelligence in the last three years.