The noble Lord makes a very good point about the sunset clause, which might reassure many of us in this House and perhaps in the Commons, but I do not think it would reassure the masses outside, who are concerned about the so-called snoopers’ charter coming back. If a sunset clause introduced all the flawed measures—and they were flawed in nearly every clause of the draft Communications Data Bill—some would be concerned that that sunset clause would be added to a year later, amended and put in again and again. Once those flawed measures were on the statute book, I would have little confidence that any Government would wish to remove them. After a huge battle, when they had got them on to the statute book, why would they go back and rewrite it? Perhaps I am being slightly too cynical there.
We would do enormous damage to the cause of getting a proper rewritten RIPA if we went ahead with these new clauses today. Of course my noble friend is right: I would be subject to enormous criticism if, by opposing these amendments today, there were some terrorist incident in the next 18 months that could have been prevented if the Security Service had access to some Facebook pages that my noble friends’ amendments would have facilitated. However, I am more concerned about the long-term damage. If we go
off at half cock with these clauses today, we may create a climate whereby it may not be possible to bring in a proper, rewritten RIPA in a few years’ time. Everyone agrees that RIPA needs to be rewritten; it is long past its sell-by date. We need a really good new Bill, and these new clauses should not be part of it—with all due respect to my noble friend.