My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, explained, these amendments seek to place the sole decision on whether to authorise a warrant application with a judicial commissioner. In the Government’s firm view, this would be a mistake. The noble Lord asked why there is a need for the Secretary of State’s involvement at all. Having a judicial commissioner be solely responsible for authorising warrants would remove all democratic accountability for that decision and would effectively remove parliamentary scrutiny from the process. In the scenario that a warrant was incorrectly either refused or approved, then the ability of Parliament to hold an individual to account for that particular decision would be greatly diminished.
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Additionally, the Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary and Northern Ireland Secretary are accountable to Parliament for the actions of the security and intelligence agencies and the law enforcement agencies. If Secretaries of State are not able to authorise, or refuse to authorise, intelligence gathering—one of the primary activities of an agency—I simply ask: how can they properly be held to account for the operation of those agencies?
There is another aspect as well. These amendments would also significantly undermine the ability of the Executive to carry out one of their primary duties, which is to uphold national security. If the Executive have no opportunity to offer an opinion on whether a particular intelligence opportunity should be pursued, then how can they properly fulfil their responsibility to keep the public safe from those who would seek to do us harm?
Though the Joint Committee convened to scrutinise the draft Bill, Parliament has already given detailed consideration to the question of who should authorise warrants. That committee heard evidence from judicial commissioners, former Secretaries of State and others. It concluded that the model of authorisation by the Secretary of State, followed by approval by a senior judge, was the right way to preserve democratic accountability and to introduce a new element of judicial independence. And at Second Reading in the other place, there was very strong cross-party support for a government amendment that preserved the double lock and the role of the judicial commissioner, so this is well-trodden ground, I suggest, and it is clear that there is strong support, including from senior members of the judiciary, for the approach set out in the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, asked whether a Secretary of State has ever been held accountable for a warrant. Protecting the UK and its people is the first duty of government. Secretaries of State are accountable to Parliament for the actions of the intelligence agencies
and law enforcement bodies that they oversee, as I said. The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament plays a crucial role in this. Its review of the tragic killing of Lee Rigby is an excellent example of its in-depth investigation of what occurred, and whether it was preventable. That investigation considered the authorisation of sensitive capabilities and, while some of its scrutiny was inevitably held behind closed doors, Ministers were certainly held to account for their decisions. So the approach taken in the Bill offers a balance between the expertise and accountability of a Secretary of State and the independent scrutiny of a judicial commissioner. A judicial commissioner will need to be fully satisfied that the Secretary of State’s decision to authorise a warrant was correct; otherwise, that warrant cannot be issued. This double-lock system is in our view far preferable to a single authorisation system and will give the UK world-class safeguards. I hope that that is a helpful explanation and will encourage the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.