My Lords, my name is to this amendment and I very much support it. As a former police officer, I feel I have to speak on both aspects of this. The noble Lord, Lord Black, spoke clearly and in detail about the need for very specific safeguards because of the experience that we have had with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Police have clearly not used legislation in the way that Parliament intended it to be used—that is, to establish who confidential journalistic sources are. I also support what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, said about the danger to journalists, particularly
camera operators in serious, spontaneous public order situations. This is an area where I have some expertise. At the moment there is a balance as experience has shown that media footage has, in certain circumstances, been useful to demonstrators in terms of misuse or excess use of force by police officers. If this were to change, and the demonstrators felt that material gathered by media operators was only under the control of the police because of inadequate provisions in the Bill, this could tip the balance and journalists would become a target for violence in such situations.