Investigatory Powers Bill

What the Minister has said is welcome, because we do not want to vote on this on Report but to try to find consensus on an important issue. In addition to considering the proposition of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, I ask the Minister to try at least to provide the Committee with some qualitative evidence without breaching national security. I respectfully suggest that it might be worth talking to his friends in the Northern Ireland Office, who have enormous experience of this kind of issue. If it emerges that, even in that department, this kind of exceptional power has not had to be used for any useful purpose in the past 20 or so years, it will be real evidence that it is not required.