Wilson Doctrine — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): I will return to the subject of the debate The answer to those journalists, commentators and editors who think that this is about the House getting above itself, or that in some sense it is not important, is simple: we should not tolerate the Government intercepting or interfering in any way with any of our communications—there is one tiny exception that I shall return to—because MPs are the people who are charged with holding the Government to account. We forget this line from time to time in the sort of schoolboy antics that pass for the reporting of Parliament in this day and age, but we are the ones who hold the Government to account. In doing so, we deal with campaigners, journalists, whistleblowers, other MPs and, of course, our constituents. The text of the judgment states that the only protected component is our constituents, and although they are incredibly important, in some ways they are the least salient of the components that we deal with The Home Secretary, quite properly, reminds the House of the demands of national security. She is right to do that because 58 people have died owing to terrorism within the United Kingdom since 2000, and the figure is about 90 if we include those in Tunisia and elsewhere. Security is a serious issue, but so are matters that are brought to our attention by whistleblowers. Mid Staffs occurred because whistleblowers were supressed or ignored—the same effect that we get by diluting the Wilson doctrine. How many people died unnecessarily at Mid Staffs? It was 1,200. We must not forget that whistleblowers are incredibly important and they would, or will, be supressed by what is seen as the demise of the Wilson doctrine Let us consider the possible cases. A police officer calls an MP about corruption, but he might be intercepted by other police officers. A prisoner calls his MP about ill treatment in prison, but he might be intercepted and recorded by other prison officers. A tax official calls the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee about sweetheart deals on tax with big companies and Parliament being lied to—hon. Members might begin to realise that these are real cases—but that person might have his life destroyed because of activities under RIPA. Imagine an official from the Ministry of Defence telling an MP about the mistreatment of a prisoner by the British Army, or an immigration officer telling a shadow Home Secretary about Government deceiving Parliament—that case led to the arrest of one of our colleagues, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), some time ago. The absence, failure or demise of the Wilson doctrine would undermine or deter all those cases The Home Secretary has a difficult task, because technology is changing under our feet and has been doing so for decades. The difficulty today is that the Wilson doctrine that most people believed was in place is not. The idea that all our communications are protected is untrue for a number of reasons. I cannot find the first reference—I think it was Gordon Brown, but it might have been earlier—but one Prime Minister limited such protection to cases with a warrant from a Secretary of State. Before then it was not limited in such terms. Let us understand what a limitation that is. The report on surveillance by David Anderson, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, points out that there are more than 65 different statutory mechanisms for initiating intercepts and other sorts of communication surveillance. Very few of those require a warrant from the Secretary of State. It is a very narrow protection.