My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for tabling his amendment as it gives us a chance to talk about these issues. Perhaps he will not mind if I turn first to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, and thank him for his kind words about the work that has been done by my officials overnight. They exemplify the sort of support that the Civil Service can give to Ministers. It has been greatly, I hope, to the advantage of noble Lords to have this information available.
I will deal with the issue that the noble Lord raised, which was the point in the Constitution Committee’s report about why we are dealing with these provisions now rather than in 2012. As the Government made clear last week, some companies have already now started to question whether they are under a duty to comply with their obligations under RIPA. The details are obviously sensitive but, as the Prime Minister made clear, we are approaching a cliff edge. A failure to legislate could result in a damaging loss of capability. We were discussing earlier, when I was dealing with the Urgent Notice Question, an area where that capability was necessary. If companies cease to comply, the security agencies will lose the visibility of what targets are saying to each other and in turn could lose the ability to understand the threat that they pose. The Opposition have been briefed in detail on the issue and the Intelligence and Security Committee is well aware of the challenges that we face. Indeed, I happened to meet the chairman of that committee, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, in the street on my way to work this morning.