My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his kind remarks about the Joint Committee I was privileged to chair four years ago. I think we were the first to point out that RIPA was not longer fit for purpose. It is clear from the Home Secretary’s Statement, from glancing at the section headings in the Bill and from looking at the adoption of the Anderson report and the other independent reports, that this Bill is a far cry from the original Bill that we scrutinised. To me, the crucial thing is that any extraordinary powers we grant to the security services and the police are not wrapped up and hidden in some obscure clause so that we are not quite sure what we are voting for, but are set out clearly so that Members in both Houses have a chance to vote for or against them as the case may be. That transparency should reassure the public that we are giving the security services and the police the appropriate powers, approved by Parliament.
Will the Minister consider a couple of additions I have spotted at the moment? I think we need a technical advisory committee that will look rapidly for new technological or internet gizmos or whatsits and be able to recommend to the commissioners that the Bill needs to be amended. Then we need something, such as the super-affirmative procedure, to amend the Act rapidly. Otherwise we will be in the same position as with RIPA, which gets older and older and is not updated all the time. We need those changes, I suggest.