I associate myself with the remarks by the Home Secretary and others, and join in sending heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the prison officer who tragically lost his life in Northern Ireland.
I shall start with the positive. Of course, my colleagues and I acknowledge that this Bill represents progress in some important respects. It is far more comprehensive than any previous piece of legislation and now covers all the powers that were previously unavowed. It contains important improvements in oversight and accountability, and compared with its predecessor, RIPA, it is easier to understand. However, as the Home Secretary, who alas has just departed, will know, she and I discussed the Bill yesterday. I am not a supporter of it, not for technical reasons but for reasons of principle, which I will come to. We feel that her Department has not responded in full to the criticisms of the three parliamentary Committees and that the Bill is, therefore, not yet in a fit state.
There are many problems, but I would like to highlight two in particular. First, as the former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), said, the Intelligence and Security Committee
was heavily critical of the way in which privacy protections were articulated in the draft Bill. In responding to the ISC’s request for a new part dedicated wholly to privacy, the Government have in effect done little more than change one word in a title. They have demonstrated precisely the point that the Committee made when it described the privacy protections in the Bill as an “add-on”.
I share the Committee’s concerns. The powers authorised by this Bill are formidable and capable of misuse. In the absence of a written constitution, it is only the subjective tests of necessity and proportionality that stand in the way of that misuse. The Bill should be far, far more explicit than it currently is that these powers are the exception from standing principles of privacy and must never become the norm.
The Home Office appears, unfortunately, to be institutionally insensitive to the importance that should be attached to privacy. A Department that cared about privacy would offer more than a one-word response to the ISC. A Department that cared about privacy would not have quietly shelved the privacy and civil liberties board, which this House voted to establish just last year. A Department that cared about privacy would have examined more proportionate alternatives to storing every click on every device of every citizen, instead of leaping to the most intrusive solution available.