My Lords, I had the privilege of sitting on the Joint Committee on the Bill and on the Joint Committee on its precursor, the Communications
Data Bill, three years earlier. That puts me in a position to inform the House about one example of how technology has come to this area of law and the Government’s attitude to it. In the earlier Committee three years ago, the subject of the problems that encryption presented to the security services and law enforcement was raised several times with senior Home Office officials, the police and security agency officers. They dismissed it at the time. “It is not a problem”, they said—they were not concerned about it. In the proceedings of the Joint Committee and in this House on this Bill, the Government have repeatedly expressed their concern about the effect of encryption on their ability to protect us. That is a 180 degree change in the space of less than three years. I draw that to the House’s attention in support of the notion of substantially accelerating the review of the Bill.