My Lords, we have heard a number of speeches this evening which, unfortunately, have been dismissive of public concerns about this Bill, but I am glad to say that the general tenor of the debate has been very thoughtful. We have heard some very sophisticated speeches which have engaged with this subject in considerable detail. I pay particular tribute to the speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. There were a large number of questions in those speeches, and I hope the Minister will take time to address those when he sums up and to provide the House with suitable considered answers because I do not think that the public concern in this matter is misplaced.
The concern is probably growing because of the volume of communications and data available. It is certainly growing because of the phenomenon of metadata which has already been dealt with in a number of colleagues’ speeches. The concern has also grown because of a major scandal which, curiously, has not been mentioned. The Snowden revelations revealed that the NSA—it has a symbiotic relationship with GCHQ, as the House will know—was severely in breach of American law. The chief executive of the NSA gave answers which were certainly less than full and frank, to a committee of the US Congress. That sort of incident can only greatly exacerbate public concern. Emergency legislation on such a sensitive matter is a perfect formula for maximising public anxiety. So it is not surprising that there are some very serious questions in people’s minds. It is important that Parliament makes sure that it does its job today, and indeed tomorrow, and makes sure that all the various angles of concern are pursued and addressed and that we get suitable answers from the Government.
I agree with the remarks of my noble friend Lord West. Having mentioned the NSA, I want to make that clear. I also have had a lot of professional dealings over the years with officials of the three major agencies. I have always found them—and genuinely believe them to be, in their vast majority—people of great professionalism, who are patriotic, extremely well motivated, entirely honest and concerned to obey the law. So I agree with what my noble friend said, and I endorse those remarks. However, at the same time, we need to make sure that the legitimate concerns are properly addressed.
We all have to strike a balance this evening in how we decide to deal with this matter. My strong inclination is to support the Government. We have heard the Government say that major criminal prosecutions depend on the continued availability of these powers. We are talking about powers that, in the main, are already in place and with which we are familiar, although there were interesting questions today about surreptitious and covert extension of the powers in the Bill. The Minister, who takes his duties very seriously and for whom the House has the greatest regard, said in his
introductory remarks that lives may depend on the continuation of these powers, by virtue of our passing this Bill as rapidly as the Government are asking us to do. For those reasons, it would be difficult to do anything to hold this Bill up. I do not intend to do that. Nevertheless, I look forward with great interest to the answers from the noble Lord.
I want to make three brief points. The first is a repetition of what I said last week when the Statement was made, but the audience is slightly different tonight so I will repeat it. It is clear that we would not have got into this particular mess, and the Government would not have required this emergency legislation, if we had used primary legislation to provide ourselves the original powers. This is not a party political point because it is a point for both Governments. I know very well, and I said last Thursday, that all bureaucracies—it must be true around the world—and all Ministers like to have a quiet life if they can, and their first, instinctive, default reaction is always to try to put through any legislation through the secondary process so that the scrutiny will be pretty soft, maybe even perfunctory, and unlikely to be very profound. That sort of behaviour only changes when it is seen to have a cost. On this occasion it does have a cost for the Government so I hope that a lesson will be learnt. When we have legislation that raises important principles, or as in this case, an important conflict of principles between privacy and security, that sort of legislation should always go through the primary legislative process.
My second point deals with timing. I repeat what has already been said by many others. I do not believe for a moment that it was necessary to wait three months after the ECJ judgment to tell Parliament—or anybody at all—that there was a need for new legislation on this matter. The Government, if they had been half-competent, would have known before 8 April that there was a possibility of the ECJ deciding in the sense in which it did, and therefore could have prepared some reaction on a contingency basis. Even without that, by 9 or 10 April, they knew what the position was and they could have taken action accordingly. Silence for three months followed by the demand that Parliament passes something in a week or two, is frankly taking Parliament for granted. I do not think Parliament can or should ever allow itself to be taken for granted. This is a very serious point. The Minister himself is not responsible for this. He has to come to this House to defend the actions, or failure to act, of colleagues. We understand that, but it is important that a message goes back that the Government’s behaviour on this occasion is simply not acceptable.
My third point is this: I have had no collusion with the noble Lord, Lord Butler—I had not the faintest idea what he was going to say. I personally was absolutely horrified that there was no report by the Intelligence and Security Committee available, when we have to take a decision so rapidly on this Bill. I may be wrong, but I thought the whole purpose of the Intelligence and Security Committee was that we had their ears and eyes on our behalf behind the security wall, able to ask questions of the agencies, able with their great experience and knowledge—which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, certainly represents—to weigh the answers, to decide what exactly the threat is, to decide whether
the powers that the agencies have are adequate and if not, in what way they need to be supplemented, or whether they are excessive and gold-plated. All these questions are those which the Committee is able to reach a judgment on, on our behalf. We could ask the questions but we would not get the answers, whereas the Committee can not only ask the questions but can insist on getting the answers.
I was absolutely stunned that there was no report at all. I could not quite believe it. I went to the Printed Paper Office and asked for the committee report—I was told that there was not one. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, has told us, the committee did not hear about this until a few hours before the rest of us, and so it is not surprising that it could not produce a report. If it had had two or three months’ warning, which it could easily have had, we could have had a very intelligent and helpful report. It might have helped the Government—I am assuming that the Government are not actually up to some terrible trick and are not deliberately trying to disguise the facts from the public and from Parliament. What an extraordinary. idiotic thing it was, to pre-empt the possibility of such a report being produced in the first place.
As I said, I will be supporting this Bill but I am very concerned about these matters. I think that the whole House is waiting with great interest to hear the Minister’s response.
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