I shall be as quick as possible because I know that others want to speak. Anybody who has teenagers living in their house understands that the world has moved on. My children hardly ever call each other on the telephone. They use different forms of communication such as WhatsApp and Snapchat to communicate with each other. We need to understand that the world has moved on, and we need to move on as well. It is make-your-mind-up time, and one thing that is absolutely clear to me is that we cannot abstain our way to a safer society. We are going to have to make difficult decisions in order to get the balance right between people’s privacy and identifying those who would do us harm.
My only concern about the Bill is whether it goes far enough. My constituents understand that you are either on one side or the other. You are either backing the police and the security forces or you are backing those who would do us harm. You are either backing the victims of crime and those who have been abused or you are backing the scumbags who perpetrate those crimes. I say to colleagues in the House today: you have to make your mind up whether you are backing the right side or the wrong side, and whether you will go into the right Lobby tonight or simply sit on your hands and hope that the world gets better. In my experience, the Tinkerbell method of closing your eyes and hoping things get better while other people do it for you does not work. So I say to colleagues: come into the right Lobby, back this legislation and let’s make sure that we are on the right side with those people who need our support and help.
The balance is pretty good in this Bill. We have judicial oversight in some of the legislation, and it is important that we give people the confidence that we have the balance just about right. Personally, I would go further, but I understand that not all colleagues would.
Criminals work in networks, through which people who want to abuse children, for example, can communicate with others who are sympathetic to their ways. It is
often the case that if the authorities pick up someone who is smuggling tobacco, we find out that they also engage with people who are running guns, dealing in prostitution and doing terrible things across criminal networks. We need to identify who those people are and who they are talking to, so that we can shut the networks down and keep our constituents safe. I will be delighted to support the Government in the Lobby tonight and hope that my constituents will be safer both in their beds and when going about their daily life once the legislation has been passed.
5.55 pm