I am grateful to the Minister and to other noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. I was heartened when the Minister started to say that he could see in principle what the amendment was driving at and therefore the merit of it to that extent. He then gave a lot of practical reasons why it would not work in practice. I have to say that I found a lot of those unconvincing, particularly when you look at the wording of the amendment and the fact that:
“The Investigatory Powers Commissioner may postpone the notification … if the Commissioner assesses that notification may defeat the purposes of an ongoing serious crime or national security operation or investigation”—
which would cover the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. Presumably the police and security services would know that this individual was part of a wider network and therefore would not inform that individual—at least, not at that stage.
So I think we are on to something here in principle, although I accept the practical difficulties that the Minister pointed out. We need to go back and rethink the amendment to address the practical problems that he highlighted and see whether we can allay his fears at Report. But, at this point, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.