I thank the Minister for giving way. I was referring to paragraph 11 of the Constitution Committee’s report, which says:
“It is not clear why these provisions need to be fast-tracked … There is evidence that the Government have known of the problem for some time. The Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill noted in its report (published in December 2012) that ‘many overseas CSPs [communication service providers] refuse to acknowledge the extraterritorial application of RIPA’”.
The point in the committee’s report was simply that the Government could have reacted to the earlier Joint Committee’s suggestion in 2012 that there was a problem here, a lacuna, a danger. The Government have known that for about two years. It would have been more dignified for the Government simply to say, “On this occasion, we missed a trick. We should have responded then. I’m sorry, chaps. There is a serious problem and we have to respond now”. Everybody would understand that.