I certainly do not take any credit for being good at drafting new clauses. New clause 16 may not mention “error”, but I think it is mentioned in amendments 189 to 195, with which it should be considered. In “A Question of Trust”, David Anderson, QC, recommended that the judicial commissioners be given the power to report errors to individuals. I appreciate that the Minister has moved towards my point of view.
In conclusion, the Joint Committee made two recommendations. The first was that referral to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal was unnecessary and cumbersome and created a brake on the notification of errors. The second was that the error-reporting threshold should be reviewed so that it was more specific and defined.