Investigatory Powers — House of Lords, 2015-07-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me begin by echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in his closing tribute to the men and women of our security services and the work they do day in, day out, often at significant risk to themselves, to prevent the types of atrocity that we have seen all too often around the world and on our streets here in the United Kingdom This debate was styled as a take-note debate, in the terms that we use in this House. I do not propose to respond to each of the points made, because that was not the purpose of the debate. The purpose was simply for noble Lords to bring their incredible experience, knowledge and insight to this forum, so that we could draw upon their comments, observations and questions as we begin the process of preparing a draft Bill for consideration here. Effectively, as I saw it, the debate moved between three stages. The first stage was to recognise the nature of the threat. That was brought into very sharp focus by frequent references to David Anderson’s report. I do not think I have ever previously responded to a debate in which the report that formed the subject of it has so frequently been the basis of the contributions to it. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, will be impressed from an academic standpoint by the number of citations of the report, which shows that it is an incredibly thorough piece of work. I pay tribute to Her Majesty’s Opposition for encouraging us to undertake it. It was absolutely right that we did The report outlined the threat before us and identified a determined and ruthless new emerging threat. We found that in the evidence and report by the Intelligence and Security Committee into the death of Fusilier Lee Rigby. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, gave us some insights into the sophistication of the technology and urged us to be agile in our responses to it. The noble Lord, Lord Blair, gave his reflections, in particular on those horrific attacks and planned attacks. The chilling thought of the Loch Lomond effect struck us significantly If the threat is there, the second question is: what are we to do about it? That was a very interesting debate. The contributions on law enforcement from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others were very important—that we talk about how we track this. I was conscious of the reference in the report by the former director of GCHQ, Sir Iain Lobban, who said in his valedictory speech that we must "enter the labyrinth". As my noble friend Lord Blencathra reminded us, that labyrinth is getting more and more impenetrable. We were distinctly helped by my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones, who comes to this from a security perspective and is doing valuable work in informing our response to the cyberthreat facing not only commerce, but society. That complexity is a very important issue Let me respond to the contributors who asked whether we are having conversations with internet service providers and communications service providers. That is crucial—if noble Lords go to the appendix of the Anderson report, they will see the list of communications service providers that he interviewed. This is an ongoing process: at the Home Office we regularly meet with communications service providers, both domestically and internationally. Indeed, a senior Home Office official is in the US today holding meetings with companies. We also have my noble friend Lady Shields, who is from the world of social media. She is now Minister with responsibility for internet security We also had the very helpful work in 2014 of Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the Prime Minister’s special envoy on intelligence and law enforcement data sharing. His role was created to work with foreign Governments—precisely the point that was asked—and with communications service providers to provide access to data across different jurisdictions for intelligence and law enforcement purposes. Since Sir Nigel’s appointment the Government have expanded their dialogue with the companies but, despite some progress and co-operation, that remains incomplete. We all agree that we need to work on longer-term solutions. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, asked whether I had an update on Sir Nigel’s report, which was presented to the Prime Minister. As we set out in July 2014 when the position was announced, the role of the special envoy has been to conduct discussions and negotiations on data sharing. Any detailed advice relating to his work as a government special envoy remains internal civil service policy advice, helping Ministers to consider a full range of options. However, the Cabinet Office published a summary of his work on its website on 25 June The third question is: if the threat is real and serious as virtually all noble Lords have acknowledged it is, and if our police and security services need more powers, how do we ensure that we carry public trust with us? These points were focused on by the noble Lords, Lord Strasburger, Lord Scriven, Lord Blencathra and Lord Paddick. It must be stressed that there are two elements to this answer. First, there is a plethora of people—in fact, some may say too many—overseeing the work of our security services, including the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the Intelligence Services Commissioner and Surveillance Commissioners. All their reports are available in the Printed Paper Office. There is also the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to which I will come back in just a second, and the courts more generally. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, with his significant experience, clearly outlined the way they would approach these issues and the principles they would apply in so doing. The Information Commissioner also oversees this process A number of noble Lords referred to, and asked for comment on, the recent Amnesty International case that came before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to which I wish to put a response on the record. The tribunal made it clear in its judgment of 22 June that any interception that occurred was lawful, "necessary and proportionate". We would caution against drawing conclusions from the tribunal ruling about the target of any such interception. A finding in favour of an individual or organisation does not necessarily mean that they themselves were the target. It could equally mean that they were simply in communication with the target. However, we can neither confirm nor deny specifics relating to this or any other case. I am sure that will not fully satisfy noble Lords, and perhaps plays into the caricature developed by the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, of what he anticipated we might say. However, the serious point is this: we should be proud of not only our security services but the vast swathe of individuals and organisations who diligently oversee the work carried out by our security services to ensure that it is done correctly I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whether I could provide some detail on the actual number of warrants that have been signed. I did have that figure to hand, but perhaps I will write to him setting out how this year’s figure compares with that of previous years In conclusion, I again thank all those who have contributed—