| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Heald: I would not go that far. Both Opposition parties are concerned that the provisions should concentrate their fire on the guilty--those in cases where other evidence is found at the site, or those with previous criminal convictions--rather than the innocent person abroad who may have lost or forgotten their key.
The Home Secretary pooh-poohed the idea that people might lose their key, as if they would be proper fools. However, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East mentioned the Foundation for Information Policy Research, which states in its briefing:
The Opposition will table amendments to ensure that the provisions are targeted on known offenders with evidence of previous wrongdoing admissible to prove a guilty intention. The burden of proving guilt should be on the prosecution, but it should be possible to use evidence of guilty intentions so that those who are genuinely guilty can be found guilty. If the provisions are amended along those lines, the Opposition believe that the Bill will be improved.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and others mentioned the proliferation of commissioners. Although the Intelligence and Security Committee has said that it supports one tribunal and has discussed the proliferation of commissioners, he was not able to say confidently that it was necessarily against the number of commissioners that will result from the Bill. However, the debate showed a mood to consider the idea of a unified commission that could employ investigative officers. My right hon. Friend was able to confirm that his committee has appointed an investigator so that it can be more proactive, and it may be that the commission will need staff to do its job properly. The Opposition will probe that issue in Committee and suggest that the commissioners should have more power and better staffing, and I hope that the Government will be prepared to listen.
The Bill is at the nexus of three important principles, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald said. The first is the principle that we should fight crime and do it effectively as part of the essential contract between the subject and the state. The second is that the liberty of the individual should be respected. The third is that we should have freedom of trade in this country. The Opposition believe that the Government do not, at the moment, have the balance right between those factors. However, the principle of the Bill--that we should give powers to the police and other authorities--is accepted.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Charles Clarke):
I thank the right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to the debate for its good quality and good naturedness. It has been a good debate, and a wide variety of good points have been raised. I also appreciate the general support for the Bill that has been expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, albeit with qualifications on particular aspects, and the fact that--with one exception--the fundamental need for the Bill has been universally recognised. A wide range of issues of detail, principle and definition has been raised and I do not pretend that I shall be able to respond to all the points in detail this evening. I shall try to respond to as many as I can.
As the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) has just said, the Bill must address difficult questions of balance between a range of competing principles. It is legitimate for different parties and individuals to reach different views about the precise balance that is finally settled on. However, consensus has been reached on some important principles at the outset. The first is that investigatory powers are necessary. That is a distasteful fact that none of us enjoy thinking about, and those right hon. Members who have had to exercise those powers know that they raise hard questions. However, given the crimes that we are trying to combat
and the interests of national security that we have to address, investigatory powers are necessary: we cannot say otherwise.
Many examples have been given, but I shall cite only one or two. On drugs, for example, page 1 of the regulatory impact assessment presented for consideration by the House explicitly states:
Several hon. Members mentioned money laundering. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Gapes) raised the subject of terrorism, as did the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King). The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir P. Beresford) mentioned paedophilia, and although I did not entirely appreciate the way in which he phrased his remarks, he raised a very real question as a serious point of debate.
Investigatory powers are necessary, but proper statutory regulation of those powers is also needed, as I think the House accepts. The Government decided to enshrine in law the European convention on human rights in the Human Rights Act 1998, the relevant provisions of which take effect in October. That legislation places the regulatory principle at the core of the range of activities that have been undertaken, in different forms, for some time.
Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster, Central):
My hon. Friend referred to a certain consensus of support in the House for the proposals. Is he also aware that the organisation Justice, which has suggested some changes to the Bill, broadly welcomes the provisions overall? The organisation is unhappy with the present legislative framework, or lack thereof, and strongly believes that the Human Rights Act 1998 should be incorporated in this legislation.
Mr. Clarke:
My hon. Friend is entirely right. I was delighted with the stance taken by Justice. I do not agree with all the details of its position, but its fundamental support for the Bill, which my hon. Friend has explained, is welcome. We need to ensure that the investigatory powers that are granted comply with the European convention on human rights, and the Human Rights Act 1998.
Regulation is also necessary because of changes in technology, and it has to be updated to keep up with those changes. That question has been addressed by a number of hon. Members this evening, and I shall return to it in a second.
Mr. Ian Bruce:
Will the Minister describe how a police officer in plain clothes will be required to act when covertly following a suspect? When will a warrant be required for that?
Mr. Clarke:
I shall come to that in the course of my remarks. I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's
The Bill is a major step forward, as my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Mr. Darvill) suggested. I was pleased when the right hon. Member for Bridgwater described the Bill as necessary and sensible. That is the correct approach to the matters that have been discussed.
Several hon. Members raised the co-operation with industry that is at the core of the proposals. They were right to do so, for reasons of general competition, and because investigatory practices have always in the past been based on co-operation with the industry involved. The Home Office has worked very closely with the Department of Trade and Industry, and I hope that the good dialogue that we have had will improve further. We have established an industry forum, which is debating the issues, and my officials in the Home Office have held a close dialogue with the industry about how we should proceed.
One of the consequences of the decision to devote part III to measures originally proposed in the Electronic Communications Bill has been that a much more direct form of communication has been established between industry and the Home Office. That necessary change has been welcomed on all sides.
A number of points were raised in connection with industry. I cannot help the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) about the nationality of the chairmen and chief executives of BT and other organisations in the sector. I shall try and write to him on the matter of whether there is any requirement of the kind that he described, but I was thinking as he spoke of the fact that Rupert Murdoch used to switch his nationality for his own convenience, and it is possible that others could do the same.
The hon. Member for Esher and Walton also asked about key escrow, and I can give him the assurances that he sought. Let me make it clear that key escrow is off the agenda. We have ruled it out of the Electronic Communications Bill, for the reasons that have been stated. Clause 13 of that Bill explicitly rules out its reintroduction, and nothing in this Bill would bring it back. Of course, no one can second-guess the omnicompetence of Parliament, which is one of our parliamentary doctrines, but we have been as clear as it is possible to be that key escrow will not be introduced.
I should make it clear also that the back-door method of reintroducing key escrow--by putting sanctions in place or exerting pressure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White) described--is not part of our intention. It, too, is off the agenda. We understand the argument put forward by the industry, which the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire set out in his speech, that it would be undesirable to have a form of legislation in this country that did not operate along those lines. We have accepted that argument, and I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurances that he sought.
The Bill does not mandate the use of any particular encryption product. People and businesses are free to use any system that they like. That is the deliberate intention behind the Bill, for the reasons that have been set out. I hope that that goes some way to meet the concerns that have been expressed in the debate.
The general issue of burdens has focused on the question of costs. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) is not in his place at the moment, but he raised a more generally rhetorical series of issues of the kind with which the House will be familiar. However, the question of costs is very serious, and I shall concentrate on that.
The central difficulty arises from the fact that it is an inevitable and frequent occurrence (even amongst computer professionals) that keys . . . are genuinely lost, forgotten or inadvertently or intentionally destroyed.
Therefore, there is some evidence that it is a real problem.
The risk is . . . difficult to quantify but, as an illustration, and at the top end of the scale, lawful interception of communications played a part--often the crucial part--in operations by police and HM Customs during 1996 and 1997, which led to 1,200 arrests . . . the seizure of drugs with a street value of over £600 million . . . the seizure of over 450 firearms.
That is a serious degree of crime, involving drugs and firearms, which the Bill is tackling.
These successes would have been in jeopardy had the criminals used networks which fall outside the scope of the current Act's warranty regime . . .
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |