I wish first to put on the record my thanks to the Minister. In Committee he resisted many of my amendments, which was frustrating, but he did agree to take away my new clauses 1 and 2, which related to reporting and reviewing, and reflect on them. He has been true to his word, and new clauses 5 and 6 are the result. There are a couple of slight differences in the time scales, but, as I indicated in Committee, my aim was to try to achieve regular reporting and review, rather than being fixated on the exact number of months, and clearly, reports that happen so quickly that there is not enough time to get information in are not necessarily better. I am happy to settle for the annual report and pleased to see it.
I am also happy to see the five-yearly review, but I have a slight issue with it and would be grateful for clarification from the Minister. During a brief exchange earlier in the debate, he talked about the five-yearly approach being appropriate, and I think he said “once a Parliament”. As I read it, the wording of the clause indicates that the review would be done after five years and never again, so there is a difference between the two proposals. I hope that he will reflect on which it is intended to be.
The review might find that everything is working fine, and even those of us who are deeply uncomfortable with the whole concept might find that it does not work in the way we had anticipated, in which case we might not need regular reviews, but there might be things we need to consider, in which case we would like to see five-yearly reviews. I think it is important that each Parliament can reflect and conclude, for example, that this has gradually grown, that there are more and more cases, or fewer and fewer cases, or that something else has changed. I hope that the Minister will look at that. I am pleased that there will be the five-yearly review.
I would certainly support the idea of the independent reviewer being appointed more independently, as I think would my Liberal Democrat colleagues. I do not know whether the Government will be able to find a way to deliver that, but I hope that they will, because I do not think that that would cause any significant harm. I have some slight reservations about the five-yearly period.
New clause 4 is similar to the annual renewal proposal that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) made in Committee and to the one proposed by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who was apparently performing vaudeville at some stage in Committee—I am afraid I must have missed it. I am still keen to see some form of regular renewal. The Government are resistant to annual renewal. I will certainly be supporting such a renewal, but if it continues to be a stumbling block, will they consider five-yearly renewal? I had a similar discussion about that on the same terms with the Minister in respect of the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill. In that case, he and the Home Secretary decided on a five-yearly renewal and perhaps he will make the same incredibly wise decision in this case, as it was clearly a good one.
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We have not yet talked about the other possible venues for review. It is, presumably, open to Parliament to review and debate this legislation at any time; we could repeal some or all of this legislation at any time. The Intelligence and Security Committee has a particular role to play in this regard, and we will discuss it in far greater detail on Thursday, in the next part of this debate. That Committee could carry out an ongoing review and provide the sort of information that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) was arguing for in terms of monitoring what is happening with ongoing data. I would be grateful if the Minister would examine whether there is a clear role for that Committee here, and I am sure he will have wise words to say about whether such an approach might be taken. It is not as good as a fully open process—one of the great benefits and disbenefits of that Committee is that it operates under conditions of secrecy—but it may provide some of the ongoing reassurance that those of us who remain deeply uncomfortable about much of this would wish to see.
I hope that the Chair of the Joint Committee of Human Rights, whose Committee I also had the pleasure of serving on, would agree that it, too, might have a role to play in keeping some of this under review. I mostly have thanks for the Minister, but we still need this idea of a regular renewal process just in case it turns out that things are going wrong.