Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) and to speak in support of the Bill In March 2016, David Anderson, QC suggested that this Bill "charts a bold route forward—and gets the most important things right" He went on to say that it "restores the rule of law and sets an international benchmark for candour." He suggested at that time that some matters remained to be resolved, but as the Government’s support for these Lords amendments demonstrates, there has been cross-party co-operation and support both in this House and in the other place. The Bill is all the better for it This relative consensus is well demonstrated by the remaining amendments, just rejected, relating to press regulation. There were, of course, concerns prior to my election to this place, that a Bill of this type could be construed as a snoopers’ charter. The fact that we have just had a debate on Leveson speaks well of the progress made on this Bill. The fact that we have got to this positive position is, in my view, in no small part due to the Government’s acceptance of suggestions made across the political divide and their taking of the three independent reviews as a starting-point for this legislation It is worth considering that the first report, the Anderson report, called for a new law that would be both comprehensive and comprehensible. The second report, from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, said that the "legal framework has developed piecemeal, and is unnecessarily complicated." That, it said, had resulted in a "lack of transparency, which is not in the public interest." The third report, produced by the Royal United Services Institute, called for a "radical reshaping of the way that intrusive investigative techniques using the internet and digital data are authorised", and said that it should be "subject to judicial scrutiny" The Bill delivers on all those fronts. It gives our law enforcement and intelligence agencies the power that they need to keep us safe. It brings together all the powers that are already available to those agencies before they are due to expire following the judicial review of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, and gives them additional powers to catch up with new technology and the web. It introduces a double lock for the most intrusive warrants, providing judicial oversight and creating an investigatory powers commissioner. It not only delivers comprehensive legislation with safeguards, but gives the security agencies the power to keep up with technology that is being used by those who seek to do harm to our constituents. That takes me back to the words of David Anderson, QC. Last month, in Strasbourg, he spoke to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, a Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—of which I am a member—about these powers and about the threat posed by terrorists across Europe. During the same session, the threat was brought home most powerfully by another speaker. This lady, a Parisian, had lost her daughter to the terrorists who were responsible for the Bataclan massacre in Paris. Her words, and her pain, were incredibly moving for all who listened. She demonstrated to us how difficult her life had become, and also the terror that her daughter had experienced in her final hours. That brought home to me the need for us in this place to do everything we can to ensure that we never have to hear testimonies like that from our constituents across this nation, and it is on that basis that I shall be very pleased to see the Bill become law.