My Lords, I will not follow my noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, on Amendment 16A but will turn to Amendments 18 and 19 in this group.
The Minister may recall that in Committee I asked what the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was for and I think that Amendment 19, particularly in paragraph (b), is a rather elegant solution to the question I posed in that, obviously, the board will be chaired by the independent reviewer and he can decide in which direction he wishes to take the board and to what degree it should cover the ground that he feels to be necessary. I welcome Amendments 18 and 19 and thank the Government for thinking again on these issues.
There is only one outstanding issue—the degree to which the board would have access to sensitive material. That will have to await another day when, no doubt,
the independent reviewer will be able to transfer to the Minister concerned at the appropriate time the degree to which he feels the board requires access and is inhibited by the fact that it does not see the same papers as he will see. The board would clearly be much more efficient if it was cleared for security purposes to the same degree as the independent reviewer.
The issue in Committee was whether the board was for oversight or support. That question has been soundly answered. Clearly the board is there to support the independent reviewer and I am grateful to the Minister for making that clear.