Interception of Communications (Admissibility of Evidence) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I fully understand that, and the committee is in charge of the agencies, but the problem is that perhaps its members are not as familiar as they might be with the realm of the criminal justice system. The point about having a Select Committee of this House is that it would be able to combine the expertise of those in the intelligence world, the police world and the criminal justice world. That is why I suggest that it is the way ahead. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, accepted that there was what he called a ““superficial”” attraction in the Bill because it would enable some serious criminals to be convicted. I agree that it would do that, and that is now common ground, but I cannot regard that as a ““superficial”” matter. Even if one terrorist could be charged and convicted before he had committed his terrorist act, thereby saving lives, surely that would be worth doing. We could do that if intercept evidence were admissible because there is seldom any other evidence which would enable him to be charged before he acted. Of course we must be careful to protect the sophisticated techniques about which we all know, and, above all, we must be careful to protect human lives, as the noble Baroness, Lady Park, stressed. But there are ways in which that could be done and I believe that those ways should be investigated by a Select Committee, which is the purpose of the Bill. As for the suggestion that such legislation is a waste of time because in two years’ time everything will have changed, I hardly regard that as a suitable reason for not investigating the matter now. With that, I leave the matter to your Lordships. On Question, Bill read a second time.