My Lords, I rise to speak in favour of my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment. Given that I understand he is not going to press it, and while I see Amendment 255 as the ideal amendment, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement- Jones, for their Amendments 256, 257 and 259, and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Allan of Hallam, for Amendments 258 and 258ZA.
I will try to be as brief as I can. I think about two principles—unintended consequences and the history of technology transfer. The point about technology transfer is that once a technology is used it becomes available to other people quickly, even bad guys, whether that was intended or not. There is obviously formal technology transfer, where you have agreement or knowledge transfer via foreign investment, but let us think about the Cold War and some of the great technological developments—atomic secrets, Concorde and the space shuttle. In no time at all, the other side had that access, and that was before the advent of the internet.
If we are to open a door for access to encrypted messages, that technology will be available to the bad guys in no time at all, and they will use it against dissidents, many of whom will be in contact with journalists and human rights organisations in this country and elsewhere. Therefore, the unintended consequence may well be that in seeking to protect children in this country by accessing encrypted messages or unencrypted messages, we may well be damaging the childhoods of children in other countries when their parents, who are dissidents, are suddenly taken away and maybe the whole family is wiped out. Let us be careful about those unintended consequences.
I also welcome my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s amendments about ensuring journalistic integrity, such as Amendment 257D and others. They are important. However, we must remember that once these technologies are available, everyone has a price and that technology will be transferred to the bad guys.
Given that my noble friend Lord Moylan will not press Amendment 255, let us talk about some of the other amendments—I will make some general points rather than go into specifics, as many noble Lords have raised these points. These amendments are sub-optimal, but at least there is some accountability for Ofcom being able to use this power and using it sensibly and proportionately. One of the things that has run throughout this Bill and other Bills is “who regulates the regulators?” and ensuring that regulators are accountable. The amendments proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, and by the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Allan of Hallam, go some way towards ensuring that safeguards are in place. If the Government are
not prepared to have an explicit statement that they will not allow access to encrypted messages, I hope that there will be some support for the noble Lords’ amendments.