I, too, rise to support the three amendments tabled by noble friend Lord Butler. The point here is that he has drawn attention to this gap in offences for the misuse of bulk powers. I moved Amendment 15 earlier in Committee to take account of the fact that there was a gap, suggesting that there was a case for tidying up the misuse of these powers and the offences relating to them in one bundle. However, a better approach may well be to look at Lord Butler’s suggestion regarding the specific area of bulk powers.
I echo the points made about the nature of these amendments. They are not about an inadvertent mistake in the heat of a fast-moving situation; they refer to someone who, without lawful authority,
“knowingly or recklessly fails to comply with the safeguards”.
The argument has been used that we should beware the chilling effect, but I am not sure that I can understand that in the context of the words “knowingly or recklessly”.
Secondly, on bulk powers, throughout the Bill we have considered the balance of trust—between the need to reassure the public about the work of our intelligence agencies, and the need to enable the agencies to use investigatory powers with confidence and at pace. It is part of that delicate balance to reassure the public that there is effective deterrence against a rogue operator, a cowboy—someone who misuses these powers “knowingly or recklessly”. That is why the Intelligence and Security Committee has been keen to debate this issue and the nature of the criminal offences, and why I welcome these three amendments as perhaps a compromise between the catch-all offence and doing nothing. Far from inducing a chilling effect, in my view, the public reassurance given by these amendments would strengthen the hand of the intelligence agencies, which are entitled to the public support they so richly deserve.