Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Commons, 2016-06-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): I will certainly listen very carefully to what my hon. and learned Friend has to say. It was on that basis, I should make it clear, that I tabled new clause 2 as a probing amendment. If he can provide me with some reassurance, we will leave it there. This is an important issue, and the wording is crucial. We did not intend to put any constraint whatever on the commissioner in respect of the conclusions he reached, and I could even envisage the commissioner writing back and saying, "I have taken a preliminary look, but I’m afraid I disagree with you, and I do not think this is worthy of my investigation." That is the lowest level of response that the Committee would hope to get from the commissioner. On that basis, I find it difficult to see that that would be putting improper pressure on the commissioner to provide a response I gratefully accept what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security, has said about amendment 18. This means that we shall be able to go to the Prime Minister and ask him to give a direction in certain circumstances. Indeed, if the leading member of the Executive will be able to give a direction to the commissioner to carry out an investigation, it could hardly be improper for us merely to ask the commissioner to consider and acknowledge a request to investigate something I shall turn briefly to amendment 8, which deals with the oversight of safeguards relating to bulk powers. When we reported on the draft Bill, we recommended that bulk equipment interference warrants be removed from the Bill entirely. We said that we had "not been provided with sufficiently compelling evidence as to why the Agencies require Bulk Equipment Interference warrants, given how broadly Targeted Equipment Interference warrants can be drawn" In response to that recommendation, the Government helpfully provided the Committee with further extensive classified evidence, which we scrutinised in great detail. After carefully considering it, we concluded that there were circumstances—target discovery was an example—that would require a bulk equipment interference warrant and could not simply be covered by a thematic warrant. However, central to our willingness to accept that change is the need for underlying safeguards, policies, procedures and access controls to be in place In the last Parliament, the Committee’s inquiry on privacy and security examined at great length the underlying safeguards for bulk interception, and it was those that convinced the Committee that bulk interception was properly controlled. We are told that the same principle is going to apply to bulk equipment interference. We have sought assurances from the Government that the same safeguards, policies, procedures and access controls that apply to bulk interception will also be applied to interference, and we have received those assurances Nevertheless, given how critical those underlying safeguards are, we regard it as essential that the Bill place an obligation on the commissioner to have particular regard to the privacy safeguards when reviewing all matters under the Bill. The reason that this must be clearly stated on the face of the Bill is that the Committee discovered in its previous inquiry that the current Interception of Communications Commissioner did not know the detail of the underlying safeguards for bulk interception. This cannot therefore be taken for granted; there must be a specific obligation in statute.