(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 4, on page 8, line 11, leave out subsection (3).
This would remove the 200-mile limit on the Home Secretary’s ability to relocate people.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 12 and 13 stand part.
Amendment 7, in clause 14, page 9, line 33, at end insert—
‘6B Regulated Activity Measure
(1) The Secretary of State may impose on the individual restrictions on taking part in regulated activity relating to—
(a) vulnerable adults;
(b) children; or
(c) both.
(2) In this section “Regulated Activity” is as defined in Schedule 4 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Act 2006.’.
This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to prevent an individual on a TPIM working (including voluntary work) with children or vulnerable adults or both.
Clause 14 stand part.
Amendment 6, in clause 15, page 10, line 8, at end insert—
‘(3) Appointments required under subsection (1) may include appointments with persons involved in delivering programmes established under Part 5, Chapter 2 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2014.’.
This amendment would make clear that the Secretary of State can instruct an individual on a TPIM to attend de-radicalisation programmes.
Clauses 15 and 16 stand part.
Diana Johnson
Part 2 of the Bill relates to terrorism prevention and investigation measures. This grouping includes clauses 12 to 16 as well as Labour’s amendments, so I intend to use my contribution to address all the issues concerning TPIMs in part 2. The amendments are all probing, as we are broadly supportive of the changes the clauses introduce, especially the U-turn on relocation powers, which clause 12 reintroduces.
The Home Secretary introduced TPIMs in the first Session of this Parliament to replace Labour’s control orders. She claimed at the time that that was a fundamental rebalancing of security and liberty. In fact, there were only two major differences between control orders and TPIMs, or control orders-lite, as they have been called: the relocation power and the two-year limit. She also said that she had been forced to introduce TPIMs because too many control orders were being challenged in the courts. Although judicial oversight was of course a key element of the control orders regime, the courts had continued to find that control orders, including the power to relocate, were both necessary and proportionate in a number of cases, including all those that were later transferred to TPIMs.
I think that every Member of this House would agree that it is always better to prosecute individuals, wherever possible, for terrorist offences. No one wants TPIMs or control orders; we would all much rather see prosecutions for those involved in terrorism activity. However, in a very small number of cases evidence is inadmissible, for example because it would compromise security, and therefore prosecutions cannot be brought. That means we need an alternative measure to deal with the threat those individuals pose.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the hon. Lady recognise that TPIMs have never led to a terrorism-related prosecution and that they are therefore not only against human rights, but counter-productive and ineffective?
Diana Johnson
If the hon. Lady will bear with me, I will move on to that point shortly, because one of the claims that the Government made was that the new regime would lead to more prosecutions.
It is worth remembering that we are talking about a very small number of individuals, but they pose a serious danger to the public and we need some powers to manage that risk. David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has made it clear that those who are subject to TPIM notices are accused of terrorist activities
“at the highest end of seriousness, even by the standards of international terrorism.”
TPIMs are a set of restrictions imposed on an individual who is suspected of, but has not been convicted for, involvement in terrorism. A TPIM order, like a control order, is imposed at the behest of the Home Secretary, with judicial oversight, but can be appealed to the High Court, which must find that the TPIM and all the measures it includes are both necessary and proportionate.
When the Government scrapped the control order regime, they argued that their new regime would allow more suspects to be prosecuted—this relates to the point just made by the hon. Lady. The Security Minister has repeatedly said that the aim of the regime was to secure more prosecutions and that extra resources were being provided to achieve that. I wonder whether he could confirm today exactly how many successful prosecutions for terrorist-related activity there have been for individuals on TPIMs. Like the hon. Lady, I understand that there has not been one successful such prosecution. David Anderson has commented that the TPIMs regime has not aided the prosecution of individuals, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights has stated that it
“failed to find any evidence that TPIMs have led in practice to any more criminal prosecutions of terrorism suspects.”
All three of the prosecutions attempted in 2012 for breaching the conditions of TPIM orders collapsed. When Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed absconded, he had just answered bail on 20 charges relating to breaches of his TPIM. Some of those breaches lay on the file for 18 months. Given that prosecutions were meant to be a priority, as the Government had said on numerous occasions, perhaps the Minister can explain why he thinks there was such a delay in taking that case to court and whether the Government actually opposed Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed being granted bail. Will he also confirm how he believes the changes proposed in part 2 will deliver what he had attempted to do when the TPIMs regime first came in—secure more prosecutions?
The number of people on TPIMs, as with control orders, has remained very small, but they are believed to pose a serious threat. There were nine people on the control orders regime when it ended in January 2012, all of whom were British citizens, and the Crown Prosecution Service has consistently said that none of them could be prosecuted. All those individuals were transferred to TPIM orders, and another individual was subsequently put on a TPIM order. We believe that there is currently just one person on a TPIM order. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that when he speaks.
There are other concerns about the TPIMs regime. In January 2014, the Joint Committee on Human Rights stated:
“We are left with the impression that in practice TPIMs may be withering on the vine as a counter-terrorism tool of practical utility”.
I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to those comments and how he feels that part 2 will deal with some of the criticisms raised.
I now turn to clause 12 and the issue of relocation, and amendment 4. As I said, the key difference between control orders and the TPIMs regime was the power of relocation, which was removed. It is helpful to give specific examples of how the relocation power was used under the control orders regime and the effects of the changes introduced by the coalition through the TPIMs legislation.
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
indicated dissent.
Diana Johnson
The Minister is shaking his head. It would be interesting to hear his views about the resources available to carry out surveillance and what additional resources might be needed for the relocation power proposed in the Bill.
I want to turn to the practical issues involved when someone is subject to a TPIM, and where they would actually live. Clause 12 allows for the Secretary of State to provide a residence, but there is no requirement. Presumably, the Home Secretary would find somewhere for an individual to live if they did not have a place to stay. What would be a local authority’s responsibilities if there was a power of relocation several miles away from where the individual usually resides? Would local councils have a responsibility to provide accommodation? What standard of accommodation would the Minister expect to be provided to somebody subject to a TPIM relocation order? What type of accommodation would it be? Would the Home Secretary consider a prison to be a suitable place to accommodate an individual? If the individual lives in the private rented sector, who would meet the costs of that accommodation? Would the individual be able to make a claim for and obtain housing benefit? Concerns have also been raised in the past about immediate close family members, including children, young children, husbands and wives. Would accommodation be provided for them?
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
I am certainly not an expert on this area, but is the shadow Minister suggesting that an organisation’s standard Criminal Records Bureau check fails to pick up the people to whom she is referring?
Diana Johnson
That is the very question I am asking. The Disclosure and Barring Service obviously keeps records of people who should not have access to children in a regulated activity, such as working as a teacher in a school. However, because of the coalition’s changes, volunteering at a school is not considered a regulated activity, so no information would necessarily be given by the DBS. Most people would be concerned if someone subject to a TPIM had access to young people. Will the Minister help us to be clear about what exactly that means?
Clause 15 allows the Secretary of State to require an individual to attend meetings with such persons as the Secretary of State may specify, at such locations and at such times as the Secretary of State may by notice require. The specified persons may choose the time and place of the meeting.
We think that clause 15 is rather vague and very broad, and we have tabled a probing amendment. Amendment 6 is designed to tie down the clause on the specific issue of Channel—the deradicalisation programme —which we will come on to later. It is important that the Secretary of State can make people attend Channel meetings and appointments, and possibly those relating to other parts of the Prevent programme. The probing amendment is an attempt to tease out exactly what such appointments are about. We certainly think that the appointments such a person is required to attend should cover the Channel and Prevent programmes.
Clause 16(1) amends section 3(1) of the TPIM Act so that, to meet condition A, the Secretary of State must be
“satisfied, on the balance of probabilities,”
that an individual is or has been involved in terrorism-related activity. That changes the current wording for the test under condition A, which is that
“the Secretary of State reasonably believes that the individual is, or has been, involved in terrorism-related activity”.
As I have set out at great length, the Secretary of State spent four years arguing that relocation was unnecessary and impossible, because courts kept overruling it. We know that the independent reviewers of terrorism legislation have always taken a different view on that point. The relocation power is now being reintroduced, and the Home Secretary has toughened up the test.
I want to make it clear that Opposition Members have always been comfortable with having robust oversight of TPIMs, because we think that good and strong evidence—such evidence ensures that TPIMs are used only in exceptional cases—would pass the test the Home Secretary is now introducing in clause 16. It is important not only to have such a test, but to continue to have judicial oversight so that TPIMs are always considered in the courts.
Caroline Lucas
I will say only a few words, but I want to explain why I will not support amendment 4.
My opposition to TPIMs and their predecessors, control orders, is on the record. The latest proposals do nothing to address my long-held concerns. The measures before us will take us back in time to when the Secretary of State could require an individual to live in a residence and locality in the UK that he or she considered appropriate. That was a feature of the previous Administration that was abandoned by the current Home Secretary for good reasons. She has now taken a step backwards. Given that these measures will make it possible for individuals to be removed from their families and communities and placed, effectively, in isolation, I do not share the pleasure that is apparent on the Opposition Front Bench, nor the view of the Opposition that it is acceptable to allow people to be relocated without any limit on the distance.
The courts have ruled on a number of occasions that internal exile, in conjunction with the imposition of other restrictions, constitutes a violation of article 5 of the European convention on human rights. That stands whether someone is relocated 50 miles, 150 miles or 250 miles away from their home. In one case, Mr Justice Mitting ruled that, on the basis of evidence provided by the wife of the individual who was subject to a control order, the threat that the detainee posed would be reduced if he were able to remain with his family. That brings us to the crux of the matter. There is not a scrap of evidence that such a brutal and punitive regime plays a role in countering terrorism. In fact, it may well be counter-productive.
When a suspect is subjected to a TPIM, it tips them off, making it much more difficult to gather evidence of terrorism-related activity. TPIMs exacerbate the potential for increased alienation and radicalisation, because they can be made against those who pose no direct threat to the British public. Moreover, as Liberty and others have reported, and as the shadow Minister just said, TPIMs have never led to a terrorism-related prosecution. If the purpose of such proposals is to counter terrorism and make us more secure, TPIMs have little to recommend them and neither did control orders before them. I believe that we should move forward, rather than take a step backwards, as the amendment would have us do.
Clause 13 removes the defence of a reasonable excuse for those who breach a TPIM and leave the UK. The measures in the Bill undermine some of the basic tenets of our justice system. Clause 13 will allow for somebody to be imprisoned for up to 10 years for breaching a TPIM, even though a TPIM can be imposed without any need for them to be arrested, charged or convicted for a terrorism offence. In other words, it will allow somebody to be criminalised and locked up for 10 years for breaching a civil sanction. That move will turn our justice system on its head. It is at odds with everything we ought to hold dear. I hope that Members will not stand by and let such a draconian measure pass.
One former Law Lord, referring to the control order regime, said:
“They are, and always have been, a blot on our jurisprudence.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 March 2010; Vol. 717, c. 1528.]
That criticism stands, with or without the changes that have been outlined today. I am disappointed that the Home Secretary is advocating more of what Justice calls
“an ineffective and draconian diversion from prosecution of criminal behaviour.”
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
These are terrible amendments. They are so sadly and typically new Labour. The control order regime was the centrepiece of what is commonly described as the new Labour anti-civil libertarian state. It had all the usual new Labour features: suspicion, restrictions without trial and sweeping powers for the Secretary of State to make up her mind about convictions. New Labour was always on the wrong side of the crucial balance between making our nation safe through security-related legislation and upholding civil liberties. The control order regime was part of the central agenda that new Labour constructed, which included the suggestion that suspects should be locked up for 90 days without trial, ID cards and national databases. Under new Labour, we became probably the most restrictive, anti-civil libertarian state anywhere in the European Union.
As Members have said, there have been no prosecutions of people on control orders or TPIMs. That suggests that they are either really good or really rubbish. I supported the Conservatives when they moved against control orders. They did the right thing in abolishing control orders. We did not like TPIMs because they had features that were sadly reminiscent of new Labour’s control order regime, but the Conservatives seemed to be rowing back from the anti-civil libertarian state that had been constructed by new Labour and we supported them on that basis.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman have an alternative proposal to put to the Committee?
Pete Wishart
The hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head. These measures are counter-productive in trying to make our country safe. All they do is tip people off that there is a particular issue with an individual. If there is a terrorist community, the first thing that they will take note of is the fact that somebody has been the subject of a TPIM or a control order. It alerts them to the fact that something is going on. I am all for making our country safe, but have there been any prosecutions? No.
The saddest and most bizarre feature of control orders and TPIMs is that they are all about suspicion. There is never enough evidence to test these matters in court, to take them to trial, to have a judge and jury decide whether something is going on. It is all about suspicion. That is the critical feature of TPIMs, as it was of the control order regime. How can anybody try to secure their innocence when they are subject to such measures? They have no opportunity to do so at all. They just have to accept the situation.
Unfortunately, the relocation measures will bring TPIMs right back to where we were with control orders. That was the defining difference between TPIMs and control orders. It is therefore particularly depressing that relocation is a feature of the new TPIM regime in the Bill. I hope that the Minister will resist Labour’s call to extend the powers further by making relocation even more restrictive and having another list of qualifications in the TPIM regime. I know that he will resist that and ensure that Labour, in its new Labour guise, will not have its way.
Diana Johnson
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. He should have listened to what I said, which was that these are probing amendments to allow us fully to understand the Government’s thinking. They are intended not to extend the powers in the Bill, but to seek clarification. I hope that he will take that on board.
Pete Wishart
I am a bit more satisfied, but on the face of it, the amendments do call for further restrictions. If they are just probing amendments, that is fair enough and we will hear the Minister’s response. Regardless of whether the amendments are probing or active, I hope that he is not convinced to back anything that Labour is suggesting, because that would make matters worse.
It seems to me that the Labour leopard has not changed its new Labour, anti-civil libertarian spots. Labour still wants further restrictions. It still wants the Government to go further, despite the critical balancing act that we always have to consider between the necessary steps to keep our nation safe and the civil liberties that we cherish and value in a democracy. New Labour got the balance drastically, appallingly wrong. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are moving on to that territory once again. I hope that the amendments are resisted. I understand that they are just probing amendments, and that is fine, but I hope that the Minister will not be probed into accepting what is being suggested by the Labour party.
Ian Swales
I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Does he remember that the previous Government introduced a raft of new offences under terrorism legislation, and therefore the gap that TPIMs or control orders are there to fill should be, and indeed has proved to be, negligible? Are they needed at all?
Pete Wishart
I think I took part in practically all the debates in this House on these issues—indeed, the hon. Gentleman and I would have sat on the same Benches when arguing against what new Labour was trying to create with these measures. He is right: are such measures necessary? One individual in the country is subject to a TPIM, yet we are discussing the issue in Parliament and ensuring that what will probably be expensive resources are allocated to ensure that this new restrictive measure goes through. Is it worth while?
I do not like TPIMs—the Minister knows that—and I disliked control orders even more. Are they necessary? I suspect not. Do they do anything to make our nation safe? No, they do not. Should we be doing other things to make our country safe? Yes, we should, but unfortunately no amendment has been tabled that will deal with those issues. I hope that the Minister is not in the mood to accept Labour’s suggestions—
Pete Wishart
I see by his response that he is not. I hope the amendments are rejected and that in future we do something that will make our country safe without having to resort to measures such as TPIMs.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
I wish to take slight issue with the hon. Members for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). The hon. Gentleman’s speech seemed to play to a particular event that will take place over the next few months in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and it was more about distancing the Scottish National party from the position taken by Labour. That is fair enough; he is entitled to do that but he seemed to be putting rather more heat than light into the debate. To be slightly more serious—as I am sure he intended to be—the problem with the approach taken by him and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion is that they describe a black and white world where either we have the evidence, in which case we go through the court system, prosecute someone and if that is successful they receive an appropriate sentence, or else there is not enough evidence to bring forward a court case so someone is not controlled at all. The difficulty is that the world is not black and white in that way.
Suppose one of our intelligence agencies has information from a liaison partner—the United States, for example—about somebody’s connections, or plans that they may be involved in with a third party elsewhere in the world to commit an act of terrorism in this country. There is a problem with taking such a case through the courts because the information it is based on is governed by the control principle—namely that that information is the property of the other agency, which in this case is in the United States. To allow that information to appear in a court case as evidence would undermine the relationship between the UK and that liaison partner.
Mr Howarth
There is an argument against that, which I suspect the hon. Lady is about to make, but an inescapable choice has to be made.
Caroline Lucas
No one is suggesting that the issue is black and white. There are shades of grey and balances of judgment, but the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and I are saying that with TPIMs and control orders, that balance of judgment is wrong. If we look at things such as intercept evidence, we can see that there will be other ways of bringing evidence to bear to help us reach a solution, rather than the draconian and counterproductive measures suggested by those on both Front Benches.
Mr Howarth
I am interested in the hon. Lady’s intervention. Later in the proceedings we will discuss intercept evidence, although I suspect that she will take an entirely different view on that from me, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and the Minister. I hope to comment on the limitations of intercept evidence because it is not always feasible to rely wholly on evidence that in some cases may not exist. Some people may operate in a world where they are not connected online, and do not make telephone calls or give any indication of their intentions. The obvious example is Roshonara Choudhry who was convicted and is now serving a prison sentence for trying to kill a Member of this House. It would have been impossible to find out through intercept evidence what she was intending to do, so there is not always the possibility of relying on that entirely.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North asked the Minister a series of questions and I hope he will respond positively. For some people the court system is not appropriate although they are known to be a threat for various reasons, and there must be some way of dealing with that.
James Brokenshire
The contribution by the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, encapsulates some of the challenges and difficulties surrounding the principles of this debate. It is notable that contributions over the past hour have been about some of the principal issues concerning the types of measures that should be available to deal with the threat of terrorism, as well as—obviously and rightly—more detailed examination of the Bill.
We have had this debate on previous occasions, and I respect the view of the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), whose approach has been entirely consistent. In some cases, however, there will be an inability either to prosecute or deport an individual, yet a significant risk will be attached to them—the point made by the right hon. Member for Knowsley. The Government have a responsibility to deal with that risk.
My strong preference would be for prosecutions—absolutely, there are no two ways about it—but that is not always possible for a range of reasons. That is the challenge the Government face in terms of seeing the threat and the risk, and being able to assure national security, as the public and the House would expect. Therefore, reluctantly, a measure is required, and we judge that TPIMs are the appropriate way to meet that risk and challenge. I would prefer that that were not the case—in that I agree with the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion and for Perth and North Perthshire—but from the intelligence picture that I have seen and the advice I have been given, sadly and regrettably I believe that TPIMs are necessary to be able to guard national security in that way.
Since April 2010 more than 750 people have been arrested for terrorism-related offences. More than 210 have been charged and more than 140 successfully prosecuted. I say to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) that the introduction of TPIMs was part of a careful and considered counter-terrorism review. She will recall the debates. Consideration was not rushed, but made on the basis of careful analysis of all counter-terrorism legislation to examine the risk and the threat, and what was appropriate and proportionate. That led to a number of changes under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the point that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire was underlining. An assessment was made of which powers were no longer necessary because they no longer added to the protection of the public. That is why we made a number of changes and I was proud to be the Minister leading that Bill through the House. It was part of the process of constantly evaluating and assessing the measures in place in order to consider what is proportionate, appropriate and necessary to guard our national security. In our judgment it is appropriate to make further changes, which is why we seek to bring these measures before the Committee today.
TPIMs have always been part of a package of legislative measures and investment provided to the police and security services to undertake further investigations. That investment will have led to other prosecutions. People who not have gone on to a TPIM have been brought before the courts as a consequence of that investment in capabilities. That is a positive result and something I think right hon. and hon. Members wish to see.
The Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 provides a powerful range of measures to manage the threat from terrorists who cannot be prosecuted or deported. TPIM notices are imposed only in cases that require stringent measures, but where they are used, they provide a valuable capability. The Government are committed to ensuring that the appropriate tools are available to our security services and the police for the protection of national security. That is why clause 12 introduces a new power for the Secretary of State to compel a TPIM subject to reside anywhere in the UK, subject to the restrictions we have talked about in the debate thus far. It is important to recognise the benefits that accrue and that there are safeguards in place. The Secretary of State has to make an assessment to determine whether a TPIM should be granted, why we judge it is human rights compliant and how that view has been upheld by the courts.
Caroline Lucas
Perhaps I am pre-empting the Minister, but I wanted to press him on clause 13. He talks about safeguards and so on, but how can he justify the fact that a 10-year prison sentence could be handed down to someone who may never have been arrested, let alone convicted, of a terrorism offence? That length of sentence is higher than that given for many violent offences that have been properly proved.
James Brokenshire
It is a question of the seriousness of the measures. We recognise, because of the changes we are making, that there should be a higher burden placed on the Secretary of State in determining whether one of these measures should be provided. That is why we have moved this up to the “balance of probabilities”. Let us not forget that under the previous control orders regime it was not at that level, but two notches down at “reasonable suspicion”. Under TPIMs, we brought it up to “reasonable belief” and, on the balance of the measures we now have, we judge that moving to the “balance of probabilities” is the right stance to take. I will come on to clause 13 later.
The changes are being introduced in the light of the changing threat picture: the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq; the fact that 500 subjects of interest have travelled to that region; the risk that they may pose on their return; and the risk of more people seeking to travel out. It is against that assessment that the threat level has been raised to severe, the second highest threat level, and that has had an impact on our assessment of the measures that need to be available to the police and the Security Service, and it is why we have brought forward the measures in this way.
The measures also follow the recommendations from David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, in his most recent annual report on TPIMs. As he has said, however, there is no need to turn back the clock. Control orders were not working and were being struck down by the courts, whereas TPIMs have been consistently upheld and therefore provide a basis in law that is robust and has withstood the scrutiny of the courts. TPIMs have been endorsed by the courts, counter-terrorism reviewers, the police and the Security Service. This change enhances the powers available to manage TPIM subjects by moving them away from harmful associates and making it harder for them to engage in terrorism-related activity. That is why we judge, at this time against the threat picture we see, that it is appropriate to introduce these measures.
It is important, however, that appropriate limits are placed on the use of the powers, and the Bill seeks to do that. We are also acting on David Anderson’s other recommendation to increase the test for imposing a TPIM notice, so that the Secretary of State must be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that an individual is, or has been involved, in terrorism-related activity, as well as narrowing the definition of what that activity can entail.
Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)
I intervene on my hon. Friend as someone who supported the original move from control orders to TPIMs and thought the Government had got the balance about right in the original proposals. I am just wondering what the particular reason is for reintroducing the location requirements. What has been revealed to be missing by getting rid of them? They were thought to be a great restriction on freedom. The shadow Minister appears to believe that two people absconded because there was no location requirement. I think it is possible to put on a burqa wherever one is living and that it is quite possible to get into a black cab if someone has let one keep one’s passport. If that is being used as a reason, it strikes me as an excuse for letting two people go.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. An intervention is meant to be short. It is not meant to be a speech. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman wanted to speak, he could have done so earlier. Please, let us shorten these interventions.
James Brokenshire
In large measure, it has been the changing nature of the threat picture. My right hon. and learned Friend will know from his time in government that in the past two years we have seen a very altered threat picture and, as he will no doubt recognise, a rise in the threat level earlier this year. The Government need to consider, in a responsible fashion, that changed threat picture and the advice we received from the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. The proposals in the Bill are formed with that insight clearly in mind and David Anderson’s specific recommendation on this point. It has been against all those factors that we have judged that the right thing to do is to introduce the measures in this way, subject to the safeguards I have spoken about in respect of the change in the burden of proof and the specific limitation on relocation being limited to 200 miles from the location of the individual. I will come on to speak on that in a more direct fashion, recognising the point the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North rightly raised in her amendment.
Pete Wishart
I am sure the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), with his years of distinguished service to the House, deserves a better answer than that pathetic response from the Minister. The question the Minister has to answer is: why? What evidence does he have to suggest that relocation is now necessary? Why relocation? Why now?
James Brokenshire
If the hon. Gentleman is not able to recognise the change in the nature of the threat and the evolving picture taking place in recent months, I am sorry he is blind to it. The Government have a responsibility to respond to it in a fair way. We have to take into consideration the advice we receive from the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and listen to the Security Service and the police, who we have consulted, to ensure we have the right package of measures, challenging ourselves and others, to do all we can in a proportionate and necessary way to ensure that those agencies have the appropriate powers to guard against the changed risk picture, as well as ensuring an appropriate balance between privacy and security. I agree with the hon. Gentleman and my right hon. and learned Friend on the issue of absconds. A point that David Anderson made directly was that the only way in which one could be absolutely certain that someone was unable to abscond was by putting them in a prison cell, which is why my preference always is to seek a prosecution, when the evidence is there. The challenge is that it is not always available.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I came somewhat late to the debate—for which I apologise—so I may have missed this. There is an issue about the counter-productive nature of control orders, as was, in terms of radicalising sections of the community, just as internment did with regard to the Irish community in Northern Ireland. Is there any estimate, or provisional estimate, of the scale of the use of TPIMs as envisaged in the Bill?
James Brokenshire
This is intended to be a very focused power on the basis—rightly, as we have discussed—that our strong preference is to see prosecution, and that it is only in the cases where prosecution, or indeed deportation, is not available to us that we would need to rely on the use of the TPIM measures. As no doubt the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there have been 10 TPIM notices imposed since their introduction. Perhaps that gives him some reassurance that this is not reached for as the first option. Indeed, we always look for prosecution, and there is a requirement in the TPIM legislation to show that those steps have been explored and that there is no reasonable prospect of being able to secure that.
The impact on communities was carefully considered at the time of the counter-terrorism review and, indeed, led to the creation of the TPIMs Act and the measures that we now have on the statute book. In placing this type of restriction—now that we are saying we believe that relocation is appropriate in the light of the changed picture—it should not be unbounded; hence this restriction is in place so that an individual may only be a few hours’ away from their family rather than relocated to the other side of the country.
Should exceptional circumstances arise that require more stringent measures, we retain the ability to enact the Enhanced Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill, which has passed pre-legislative scrutiny. This Bill includes a range of more stringent powers, including curfews of up to 16 hours. As we said at the time of the counter-terrorism review, we reserve the right to be able to do that in those exceptional circumstances.
Clause 13 amends the TPIMs Act and allows the Secretary of State to impose restrictions on an individual from leaving either the UK or a specified area within the UK within which they reside, and increases the maximum sentence for breaching this measure to 10 years, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has said. This underlines the Government’s commitment to ensuring that TPIM subjects are appropriately managed, but that if they breach their TPIM notice, appropriate sentences will be given to recognise the seriousness of the issues at hand. I hope that the House is reassured that these measures strike the right balance between privacy and security and, on this basis, I invite the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 7 would insert a new clause 6B after clause 14, which is entitled “TPIMs: weapons and explosives measure”. Both the weapons and explosives measure and the proposed new clause 6B are designed to put beyond doubt what a TPIM subject is permitted to have access to on a TPIM notice. This amendment seeks to add an additional requirement in that respect.
The hon. Lady asked a series of questions that were linked to this issue in relation to the vetting and barring service and what might apply. Perhaps I can reassure her that someone who wants to work in a school or other educational establishment will be eligible to obtain an enhanced criminal records certificate from the Disclosure and Barring Service, as the hon. Lady will know. The certificate will include convictions and cautions held on the police national computer, plus any other information that is available to the police and which a chief police officer both reasonably believes to be relevant and considers ought to be disclosed. This may include the fact that a person was or is subject to a TPIM notice. In addition the legislation governing barring allows specific criteria to be prescribed that would require someone to be automatically barred. There would be scope to use the provision in relation to a TPIM if that were considered appropriate. This is something that we already cover in the TPIM legislation, in that the Act provides the ability to prevent TPIM subjects from taking part in a regulated activity relating to vulnerable adults and children under the association measure in schedule 1(8) or the work or studies measure in schedule 1(9).
The association measure in schedule 1 allows the Secretary of State to impose a requirement that a TPIM subject must not associate or communicate with specified persons, or specified descriptions of persons, without permission. In addition, the work or studies measure allows the Secretary of State to impose a restriction on a TPIM subject carrying out specified types of work, which includes unpaid work, or studies without the permission of the Secretary of State. We can and do use these measures to prevent TPIM subjects from associating with particular people or working or studying in areas that are assessed to be inappropriate. The measure proposed in this amendment duplicates that measure, which is why we judge that it is neither appropriate nor needed.
Diana Johnson
Just to be clear: if somebody is subject to a TPIM order, work that is voluntary and is not in a regulated activity could, under the current legislation, be something that the person is not allowed to take part in by decision of the Home Secretary.
James Brokenshire
That is the very point; we have that ability from the work and studies measure to be able to control that, and the Secretary of State effectively has to give permission for work to be conducted. There is an additional measure, plus the information that will be provided. The police update the police national computer when a TPIM subject has a notice imposed to ensure that this information can be taken into account in relation to any decision and checks on the subject, so it is flagged in that way. I hope that that gives the hon. Lady assurance on that specific point.
As I said, amendment 7 would amend the appointments measure in clause 15, which allows the Secretary of State to require an individual to attend meetings as specified by the Secretary of State. The appointments measure is already a broad power that allows the Secretary of State to require a TPIM subject to meet relevant organisations or people who can contribute to their ongoing management. The measure already includes the ability to require TPIM subjects to attend a deradicalisation programme, with persons involved in delivering programmes established under part 5, chapter 2 of the Bill. In our judgment, it is therefore unnecessary explicitly to specify this as part of the appointments measure. In essence, the existing language is broad enough and sufficient to allow us to require the link with deradicalisation programmes.
The hon. Lady flagged up some other issues relating to offensive weapons and explosives. On that, we are seeking to put the issues beyond doubt. There is, of course, existing legislation that governs some of these issues, and it is our judgment that it ensures that these items are properly and firmly addressed. As I have indicated, the link to the police national computer is already there. This further underlines and underpins each of the specific issues already on the statute book.
On the boundary that could be imposed, there is further specific provision on the requirement for the Secretary of State to provide certain guidance and indications on the factors that will be used in the assessment. These can include the original location of the TPIM subject; access to services; ability to prevent or restrict involvement in terrorism-related activity; proximity to airports or ports; and proximity to other TPIM subjects or prohibited associates. Those are the sort of factors that can be taken into account.
The definition of terrorism-related activity, to which the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North referred, was followed through in David Anderson’s recommendations. His concern about the existing definition was that it has people almost three steps removed from the activity. We have consulted the police and security services in respect of this amendment, and they have been reflecting on David Anderson’s consideration. We continue to judge that the measures remain appropriate.
I will gladly answer any of the hon. Lady’s questions if I have omitted to do so, but I think what I have said covers the bulk of what she asked.
Diana Johnson
I do not recall the Minister responding to my point about families and whether a relocation of an individual could also include young children and a partner. It would be helpful to understand that situation.
James Brokenshire
Yes, families could live in the accommodation to which the TPIM subject has been relocated. In that relocation situation, it would be for the Home Office to provide the accommodation, as has happened under previous arrangements. We would seek to adhere to the same circumstances.
With those assurances, I hope that the hon. Lady will be minded to withdraw the amendment.
Diana Johnson
I am grateful to the Minister for responding to the many lengthy questions I put to him. We have had a useful opportunity to understand the thinking behind clauses 12 to 16. As I indicated at the outset, the amendments I tabled were probing ones, intended to allow us to have this debate and to understand more fully the thinking behind the Government’s approach.
It is clear, however, that no one absconded under a control order with a relocation power, and it is worth reiterating that, but on the basis of what the Minister has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 13 to 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
Retention of relevant data
Diana Johnson
I beg to move amendment 5, page 11, line 3, at end insert—
(iii) is beyond that which is necessary to allow the identification of the user from the public Internet Protocol address.”
This amendment would make it explicit that the extra data retention provided for in Clause 17 does not extend beyond that which is necessary for the purpose of identifying a user from the IP address. This amendment is not intended to impact on the rest of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, only the extra retention requirements created by Clause 17.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause 17 stand part.
New clause 1—Access to retained data; judicial oversight—
“(1) The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 22 insert—
“22A Access to retained communications data: judicial oversight
(1) This section applies where a person designated for the purposes of this Chapter believes that it is necessary on grounds falling within section 22 to obtain relevant communications data retained under section 1 of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 relating to professional activities covered by a duty of confidentiality.
(2) Before granting an authorisation or issuing a notice under section 22 the designated person must have obtained the permission of the court.
(3) In determining whether to grant permission under subsection (2) the court shall in particular balance the reasons why the designated person believes it is necessary to obtain the data against the public interest in upholding the duty of confidentiality.
(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations specify—
(a) the court or courts that shall determine applications for permission under this section;
(b) the process for the court or courts to determine whether to grant permission;
(c) the period for which permission shall apply before being renewed by the court; and
(d) the process for a person or persons to appeal against a decision to grant permission.
(5) Regulations under this section may not be made until they have been laid in draft before and approved by both Houses of Parliament.
(6) In this section “professional activities covered by a duty of confidentiality” shall include, but not be limited to, the professional activities of journalists, legal advisers, medical professions and Members of Parliament.”
New clause 2—Review of timing for disclosure of Relevant Internet Data—
“(1) The Secretary of State must instigate a review of the time taken for communications service providers to comply with a request for subscriber information made under Part 1, Chapter 2 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
(2) In this section “subscriber information” means relevant internet data as defined in section 17 of this Act in so far as it relates to information required to link a public internet protocol address to an individual user.”
This New Clause would require the Home Secretary to instigate a review regarding the time taken by communications service providers to disclose information which links an individual to an IP address.
Amendment 11, in clause 42, page 25, line 5, at end insert—
‘(3A) The Secretary of State shall not make regulations under subsection (3)(a) until a report by the Interception of Communications Commissioner on the use of powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to access the records of journalists has been laid before both Houses of Parliament.”
Diana Johnson
I shall speak to new clause 2 standing in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It would be helpful to start by providing some background to clause 17, although I do not wish to pre-empt the Minister’s comments. I must say at the outset that clause 17 is not the easiest clause to follow, and reference was made to that on Second Reading.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
Will the shadow Minister explain a bit more of her party’s thoughts on making further changes in communications data and retention, because as she knows we need to do much more in this area and this is only the start?
Diana Johnson
If the hon. Gentleman will be little patient, I shall move on to that subject in a few moments.
As I was saying, the Opposition accept that this extra category of data will be a vital tool for law enforcement—not just in protecting national security, but in combating a whole range of online crimes, including online child abuse, on which I shall speak in greater detail when we come on to new clause 2. The provisions for this extra category of data were first proposed in the Government’s ill-fated draft Communications Data Bill—I think that might help the hon. Gentleman in respect of his intervention. Although initially reluctant to provide any public evidence for why these extra data were needed, the Government did then provide the evidence that convinced the Joint Committee on the draft Bill of the necessity of this extra retention. The draft Communications Data Bill has been subject to much coalition grandstanding over the past few years, with the Home Secretary proposing a Bill of unprecedented, and in our view unnecessary, scope, while the Deputy Prime Minister refuses to accept the need for any legislation at all. Of course there was room for compromise and the Opposition have always supported this compromise. Some additional data retention is required, but not on the scale the Home Secretary proposed.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
How can the hon. Lady say that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister did not see the need for any legislation at all when we are sitting here in this Committee this afternoon considering the legislation which we think properly balances the privacy issues with the need for public safety?
Diana Johnson
The right hon. Gentleman has made his point, and we will obviously disagree on what I have just said.
Our view, agreed with by most of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, is that the data required to link an IP address to a device is one such category of data that is required and therefore we welcome what in principle clause 17 seeks to achieve. I say “in principle” because we do have some concerns about the drafting of clause 17, which is why we have tabled amendment 5.
Diana Johnson
I will give way, but, as I have said, I do want to get on to the substantive issues.
Julian Smith
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way. Will she just clarify briefly the further categories that she sees becoming more important, and where the Government and coalition can expect Labour’s support as they seek to put more of these areas on to the statute book?
Diana Johnson
What I will come on to say about some of the concerns we have might help the hon. Gentleman, but his question obviously leads into a debate that goes wider than this particular grouping, which is specifically on clause 17, and in the Committee stage of the Bill. I will therefore continue with my points on this grouping, because I am sure I would be in trouble if I did not do that.
To repeat, although in principle we support clause 17, we have some concerns about its drafting, which is why we have tabled amendment 5. Because of the broad label “relevant internet data”, we want to put it beyond doubt that the category of data to be retained under clause 17 does not extend beyond what is strictly necessary to link an IP address to a user.
In the Bill, the definition of “relevant internet data” is data which
“relates to an internet access service or an internet communications service”
and
“may be used to identify, or assist in identifying, which internet protocol address…belongs to the sender or recipient of a communication”.
While this appears to include a whole host of other traffic data, including web logs, clause 17 also states that “relevant internet data” is not “communications data” as defined by the schedule to the Data Retention Regulations 2014 or information as defined in clause 17(3)(c), which is supposed to exclude web logs from this provision. We have concerns about the accuracy with which subsection (3)(c) captures the nature of web logs, which is why we have tabled amendment 5. I hope the regulations this clause will enable will be clearer than this primary clause in the legislation. It is disappointing that, unlike with the DRIP Bill, the draft regulations have not yet been published alongside the Bill. This has caused problems for Parliament’s ability to provide proper scrutiny of this clause.
As well as accepting our amendment 5, which I hope the Minister will be able to do, I urge him to go back and look again at the drafting of clause 17 before Report. In order to increase public confidence in the use of retained communications data we need to be clear about what is retained and I believe clause 17 and the accompanying explanatory notes could be better in this regard.
Julian Smith
The hon. Lady talks about web logs. Will she clarify the Opposition’s long-term position on that issue, and what she sees will happen in the future, when on many sides of the security spectrum there seems to be a consensus that there is a need to bring these areas in eventually?
Diana Johnson
I will just reiterate that we are dealing with clause 17, and we are very mindful that we want to ensure that web logs are not included under this clause. My focus is on getting clarity on that from the Minister. What might happen in the long term is perhaps a debate for another time. I am concerned that we get the drafting of this clause as accurate as we can.
I was talking about making sure the public are confident about what we are trying to do through clause 17, and what is included and what is not included. The data at the heart of clause 17 appear to be what is commonly referred to as “IP resolution data”, but this term does not appear in the text of the explanatory notes, and I hope the Minister will be able to explain whether they do refer to the same thing, as there is some confusion here.
As I explained, clause 17 is meant to plug a gap within the current framework for data retention, but when we compare the language of the Bill with the text of the current regulations, the gap is not immediately obvious. Clause 17 refers to data which
“relates to an internet access service or an internet communications service”
and
“may be used to identify, or assist in identifying, which internet protocol address…belongs to the sender or recipient of a communication”.
However, part 3, paragraph 11 of the schedule to the existing regulations refers to the subscriber information
“to whom an Internet Protocol (IP) address, user ID or telephone number was allocated at the time of the communication.”
I ask the Minister to look at this and see whether he cannot amend the language to make clear on the face of the Bill the exact data category that will be provided for in the regulations.
I am also concerned about the degree to which clause 17 relies on definitions provided from the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I am sure the Minister is aware of the findings of the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill that the definitions used in RIPA were out of date and needed to be replaced. Given this, it is surprising to see both the definition of “communication” and section (3)(c) of the clause rely so heavily on RIPA definitions.
I would also like the Minister look again at the definition of “identifier.” According to clause 17
“‘identifier’ means an identifier used to facilitate the transmission of a communication”.
This is at least partly circular, and again adds to the confusion around this clause. Finally, in subsection (2)(b) will the Minister confirm that he does indeed mean “paragraph (a)” rather than subsection (a)?
In addition to the five questions above regarding the drafting, I have 10 questions about the implementation that I hope the Minister will be able to address in his comments. First, will he tell the House whether he expects to introduce new retention regulations under DRIPA section 1, or will the Government be seeking to amend the Data Retention Regulations 2014? Secondly, and on a similar note, will he update the House on when he expects to publish these draft regulations and when he hopes they will be in force? Thirdly, when the data covered under clause 17 is traffic data, while the relevant authority wants to reveal the subscriber information behind this, will this be covered under a single request under RIPA, or could clause 17 data simply lead to a disclosure which requires a further RIPA request to be made? Fourthly—this is particularly relevant to amendment 5—will he assure the House that the retention by the Crown Prosecution Service of this relevant internet data can be done in such a way that does not require deep package inspections of the type that would be considered intrusive surveillance? Fifthly—and again relating to amendment 5—will the Minister explain in practice how the regulations will separate out communications going to a device, which could be a web log, such as access to an app, which would be considered a website, and communications going to a device which enables a communication, such as an app which facilitates web e-mail storage?
Sixthly, will the Minister confirm that the extra reporting requirements imposed on the interception of communications commissioner by the DRIP Act will extend to the data retained and subsequently requested under clause 17? Will the Minister be providing additional resources to the commissioner to meet those additional requirements?
Sir Alan Beith
The hon. Lady has produced a formidable list of questions, but I only have one for her, on amendment 5. It seems to me that the process we are describing does not enable people to discover who the user of an instrument was; it locates or identifies only the instrument from which the communication was made. Therefore, amendment 5 would be inoperative, because it could never be demonstrated that it was being used to establish who the user was as it cannot be guaranteed to do that.
Diana Johnson
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s observations on amendment 5. As with the previous grouping, the amendment was tabled to give us the opportunity to look at the specifics of clause 17 and to understand fully the thinking behind the Minister’s approach. I take on board what the right hon. Gentleman has said, which may be correct, but the amendment allows us to debate what would be disclosed and what information would be available.
I have just bombarded the Minister with a whole range of questions and I know that, as usual, he will be very thorough and go through each in turn. However, I want to turn briefly to new clause 2, which seeks to move on from the retention of data to a review of whether the form of storing the data is allowing the key authorities to access it in a timely manner. I will say, so everyone understands where I am coming from, that this proposal aims to probe the Minister’s argument, and to look at the clause to see what more can be done and whether we need to be aware of any issues for companies.
My concern arises from the police’s apparent problems in pursuing the majority of suspected paedophiles identified through Operation Notarise. My understanding is that Operation Notarise identified between 20,000 and 30,000 individuals whom the communications data suggested were taking part in online abuse. From that, only 700 people have been named, investigated and arrested, so well in excess of 20,000 IP addresses have been identified, but that information has not been translated into named users. At this point, I am not even talking about arrests, but about identifying the users to enable effective safeguarding interventions.
Once a user is identified, even if it is just an address, the police can make several key checks: first, against the police national computer to see if there is a known sex offender living at the address; secondly, against the Disclosure and Barring Service database to identify anyone who might be working with or have access to children; and thirdly, against the Department for Work and Pensions database to see if a child is registered at the property for the purpose of claiming child benefit.
At the moment, the police do not know how many of the people they have identified are known sex offenders working with children or living with children. Most people would see that as unacceptable and would believe there should be a response. This could start with a review of the degree to which the difficulty of linking IP addresses to users is behind the police’s problems with moving this forward.
Finally, I turn to the amendments and new clauses tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), and by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), on the degree to which RIPA is being used to access the records of certain professionals, including journalists. They address a real concern that Members and the general public have about the use of RIPA to access the records particularly of journalists and those in the media.
As the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), has said, this issue has to be addressed. Indeed, a key concession secured by the Opposition during the passage of the DRIP Bill was that a review of RIPA would be conducted by David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and that it would include the use of RIPA to look at the records of journalists. It is because we have confidence in that review that we do not feel amendment 11 is necessary.
However, that is also why the Opposition have a great deal of sympathy with the aims of new clause 1, which would require a court order before relevant authorities could access communications data that could be covered by a professional duty of confidentiality. The clause does not state whether the role of the court would be simply to ensure that due process is followed, or to apply some test of proportionality or necessity. However, the clause provides for the right of appeal for the individual. That means that an individual would have prior knowledge that their communications data were to be disclosed to law enforcement agencies. It is also important to note that the clause would apply not just to journalists but to doctors, lawyers and others, including Members of Parliament, when a professional duty of confidentiality could be construed.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
The hon. Lady referred to journalists, but how broadly would she or her colleagues define “journalists”? We are living in a world of bloggers and of a whole range of individuals who would consider themselves to be part of the media overall, but presumably she would not necessarily want each and every one of those self-professed journalists and bloggers to be caught by these potentially restricting and constricting provisions, essentially watering down elements of RIPA?
Diana Johnson
I have the disadvantage of speaking first on this group of amendments, and obviously, this is not my amendment, so I am very much looking forward to hearing what the proposers feel would happen. However, the hon. Gentleman raises an important point, because we are not only talking about a limited group of people who describe themselves as journalists and who, in the past, we would have been able to identify clearly. Perhaps the proposers of the amendment would be able to address that when they speak to it.
I want to make a further point about the broad definition of professional duty that concerns me, especially when combined with the right of appeal. As I have said, a large number of professionals have some form of duty of confidentiality, and in many cases it is not clear, particularly when discussing communications data, how that potential duty of confidentiality would be separated from other investigations about which we would not allow the individual to have prior knowledge. There is a clear case for preventing a journalist from being targeted for their sources unless there is an overwhelming need to do so. However, the case is less clear in respect of other professions, particularly as we may be investigating issues involving criminal misconduct. Let me give an example for the Committee to consider: the case of Myles Bradbury, the doctor recently convicted of a string of horrendous sexual assaults of boys in his care. As a doctor, he would potentially have been covered by the new clause, especially in respect of some of his communications, and the Committee would be concerned about that. If he had been alerted to the fact that the police were investigating him, he would have had some time to delete much of the evidence which was then used to lead to his prosecution. I just give that as an example of the care we have to take in considering these matters.
I hope the Minister will respond in detail—I am sure he will—to the issues I have raised on this group, particularly the need for the drafting of clause 17 to be made much clearer so that the general public can be reassured about exactly what it is attempting to do.
Sir Alan Beith
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) is right to seek clarification to satisfy herself and her colleagues that clause 17 achieves its intended purpose and no more. Its intended purpose is reasonable: to keep up with the technological changes that lead evildoers to move from one technology to another, and become more difficult to track as they do so.
Julian Smith
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this provision does not keep up with the technology, and that much more has to happen and will happen? Will he clarify his party’s position on the changes that will have to come?
Sir Alan Beith
The hon. Gentleman has a strange desire, which he has expressed during a previous speech, to extend the debate beyond the bounds of clause 17 and the amendments to it. I do not think we should be drawn into that at the moment, except to make the general point that all processes involving intrusion into people’s private communications should have high levels of justification before they are used at all, and protections should be provided by various safeguards and authorisations. Finding the right balance for different levels of communication is a difficult task, and I expect a great deal of work will need to be done. Most of us in this House, and certainly most in my party, do not want, either by design or accidental discovery, a great deal of personal information about people to get in the hands of the state and its employees without any reasonable justification. On a matter that will be raised when the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) speaks, nor do we want the processes of investigation by journalists to be impaired by a fear that sources will be compromised from the beginning. There are very good reasons for extreme caution in this area, but I believe the Government have exercised that caution and sought to devise a process to deal with a particular and recognisable difficulty.
Mark Field
The right hon. Gentleman is making a perfectly valid point. In the midst of the more hyperbolic phrases that get used, such as “snooper’s charter”, does he recognise that legislation such as this—and further legislation, which will inevitably be required whoever is in government in the years to come—should also be designed to protect the individual? It is not just about the state getting more powers; it is about codifying the rules and protections for the individual. It is very important that we have that in mind when looking at any new legislation that comes into play.
Sir Alan Beith
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s observation, which points to part of the purpose of the process, of which this is only a part. The clauses we are talking about in RIPA—or DRIPA, as it has become known—are the subject of a sunset provision, because significant further review is to take place and new legislation will be required on the outcome of that review. So those who think that detailed discussion of matters that often feel technically beyond us is just an occasional thing in this House will have to recognise that we are going to be coming back to this issue. That does not apply to me, because I do not anticipate being a Member in the next Parliament, having announced that I am going to retire, but Members in the next Parliament will certainly be engaging with these issues.
I simply wished to place on the record that my view—and, I hope, that of my right hon. and hon. Friends—is that the Government have striven hard to find a sensible way to identify the instrument or apparatus that has been the point of communication. In many cases, that will enable them to identify the individual, but I stress that it does not guarantee that, any more than knowing a telephone number guarantees that the person who used the telephone—that instrument from that number—is the person who engaged in the criminal activity. It is more complicated than that, but this provision is a necessary aid to investigations ranging from the activities of paedophiles through to the serious threats we now face.
Mr George Howarth
I wish to begin by providing some context. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s report in February 2013 referred to the Home Office’s assessment that there was a
“25% shortfall in the communications data that public authorities would wish to access and what they are currently able to access.”
That is, of course, an estimate, as it is not possible to be precise about what is unknowable, but the existence of a shortfall is a legitimate cause for concern. The report goes on to suggest that
“left unchecked, this gap will increase.”
Perhaps the Minister will be able to say whether it has increased and, if so, whether by an appreciable amount. It would be interesting to know that, and I suspect it has increased.
It is worth spending a little more time examining what we know about both the scale and the sources of interceptions that take place. In his annual report for 2013, the interception of communications commissioner, Sir Anthony May, noted that the total number of authorisations for interception of communications data under part 1 of RIPA stood at 514,608, down from 570,135 in 2012. He pointed out that these figures do not represent sole individuals, because
“public authorities often make multiple requests for communications data in the course of a single investigation but also make multiple requests for communications data in relation to the same individual.”
The figures give some indication of the scale of this, rather than the number of individuals who are covered. Under the same process, Sir Anthony notes that 87.7% of authorisations were at the request of the police and law enforcement agencies, 11.5% were from the intelligence agencies, and the rest were from local and other public bodies.
Worldwide, the scale of online communications is daunting. About 3 billion people have access to the internet, and during the time I have been speaking more than 200 million e-mails will have been sent, 2 million Google searches will have been made and there will have been 6 million Facebook views. So why is it considered important that the police, intelligence agencies and other bodies have access to some of the data records of these online communications? Overwhelmingly, internet traffic is benign; it is people using the various platforms for perfectly legitimate and legal purposes. However, a small proportion—I estimate it to be no more than a tiny fraction of 1%—is used for illegal purposes, and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) referred to some other purposes that are cause for concern.
My hon. Friend’s new clause 2 would, if agreed, require the Home Secretary to review the time taken by communications service providers to disclose information linking an individual to an internet protocol address. That is important for two reasons. The first is that, as we tragically discovered with Fusilier Lee Rigby’s murder, CSPs will, on occasion, receive information that in some cases could crucially be the catalyst for a warrant to enable greater surveillance measures on an individual to take place. In turn that can, in some cases, prevent a terrorist attack.
IP addresses are the key to unlocking who is contacting whom, and that can be critical. But they are not straightforward. Typically, a communications service provider with, say, 10 million to 15 million customers would have allocated to it 100,000 IP addresses. For the larger commercial bodies or public bodies, a series of static IP addresses will be allocated. But for the vast majority of users, IP addresses are dynamic. In practice, a range of numbers is allocated randomly to customers, which is why the former head of GCHQ used the analogy of finding a needle in a haystack.
Secondly, the range of platforms is constantly changing, with new ones entering the market all the time. A good example of that is WhatsApp, which was recently acquired by Facebook for $22 billion. On 1 April, that platform, which is adaptable and easy to use, handled, over a 24-hour period, 64 billion messages, 20 billion of which were sent and 44 billion of which were received. In such a dynamic sphere of activity, it is vital that procedures are in place and properly monitored to ensure that, when the security and intelligence services need to locate a needle in a haystack, the haystack is still in place, and that is what this section of the Bill seeks to ensure. It means that urgent inquiries of either a historical or planned terrorist or criminal activity can be located.
Julian Smith
The right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case for us to go further. What would he do now? He has made it clear that there are many technologies that need much more scrutiny and oversight. What would he do if he were in charge?
Mr Howarth
Had the hon. Gentleman waited a while longer, I was about to say what more could be done. It is right that we have a statutory provision, and, subject to the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North highlighted being satisfied, the provisions contained in the Bill are appropriate. However, there is a problem that we cannot resolve within the context of our own domestic legislation. Many of the communications service providers are not based in the UK; they are based mostly in the United States. Increasingly, the Republic of Ireland is seen as a location of choice for some companies. Google and perhaps one other CSP have already relocated there. It is increasingly clear that whatever legislation we put in place, it will not, of itself, be enough to resolve the problem.
Mark Field
Does the right hon. Gentleman also accept that the increased knowledge of the general public and—dare I say it—of individuals who would do us harm about the techniques adopted by the security services and others have also helped to ensure that there is now much more sophisticated encryption in place, which also plays an important part in further reducing our capacity to know precisely what is happening on the internet?
Mr Howarth
The hon. Gentleman is quite right and he, like me, is a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. We have good reason to believe that there are any number of encryption packages that can be bought quite openly on the internet. It is a matter not just of the communications service providers encrypting communications that take place but of individuals buying packages that enable them to do that themselves, which makes the situation even more difficult.
What more can we do? It is no use pretending that this problem is unique to the UK; it is a very difficult international problem. I know that the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and others are in constant dialogue with their opposite numbers in the United States, but there needs to be a growing understanding between ourselves and the places where CSPs are located that there cannot be this ungoverned space within which criminal activity can take place unchecked on the basis that it is in another jurisdiction from where it is being perpetrated. That issue can only be properly resolved by states, either bilaterally or multilaterally, agreeing protocols and ways of dealing with these issues. Obviously, it is much more easy to do that with friendly states—states with which we share common values—than it is in some other areas where internet providers might decide to locate because there will not be many controls on them. Clearly, that is another matter that needs to be seriously avoided.
We need to have order in this ungoverned space. I am talking about legal compliance and there not being this free space in which crime, terrorism and other activities can illegally take place. It is also important that the CSPs take a more responsible view of what they are being used for. Like the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), I have seen some CSPs washing their hands of such responsibilities, saying, “That is a matter of jurisdiction. We are not in that jurisdiction so we will comply with the laws where we are.” That might be good for their reputations with their customers, but it is a fairly cynical way of operating. I hope that, through the intervention of our own Government and Governments elsewhere, CSPs can be brought to the view that they should behave responsibly and in such a way that upholds the law right across the world—except in cases where the rule of law does not operate.
Mark Field
Is the right hon. Gentleman happy for me to put it on the record that it is also the case that many CSPs do a very good job of co-operating with the police and law enforcement agencies? Part of the difficulty has been that the revelations of the past 14 or 15 months have exposed what some would call an over-cosy relationship between those service providers and the state. I am talking about not so much here in the UK, but in mainland Europe and the United States of America, and it has been commercially damaging to many of those providers.
Mr Howarth
As always, the hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Sometimes the difficulty is that the amount of data and communications that providers store means that they are unable to know what is there. Very often, controls are triggered electronically, and so human eyes might not necessarily see the communication that relates to a terrorist plot, organised crime or even, in a hidden corner of it all, some kind of child abuse. Quite often, no human eyes see it, and it may be that only after an event—as in the case of Fusilier Lee Rigby—do people become aware that there was a communication that indicated that someone was about to or was likely to do something, and that knowing about it could have made a difference, as we concluded in our report the other week. Perhaps I have presented too cynical a picture of communications service providers. I know that, on occasion, they do co-operate constructively, but I believe that increasingly we need the space in which they operate to be better regulated, and that requires international controls agreed between responsible allies and CSPs themselves.
Mr Howarth
I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend has to say. I acknowledge that he and his supporters have a valid point to make. I just think it is a tricky area in which to legislate and there might be a better way of doing it that we have not thought of yet.
John McDonnell
Everyone else who has spoken so far seems to have explained my amendments, and I am grateful to them. I tabled new clause 1 and amendment 11 because there is now a sense of urgency about dealing with this matter. I speak as the secretary of the National Union of Journalists group in Parliament—a group of MPs drawn from various political parties in the House. Throughout proceedings on RIPA and DRIPA and now this Bill, we have been discussing this issue. To put it simply, this House has always recognised in legislation the need to protect journalists, because we see journalism as one of the bulwarks of democracy in this country. Although we may not be enamoured of journalists or individual newspapers at times, we believe they play a vital democratic role in exposing what happens, particularly in regard to the behaviour of public authorities, Governments, corporations and others. That is why over the years we have written into legislation protection for journalists, as well as for other professions where there are issues of confidentiality, and the House has accepted that in all the debates so far.
Sir Alan Beith
It might be better expressed as “protection for sources”, because the primary concern is not to give a special elevated status to the journalist, but to avoid a situation in which the questions are asked, “Who told him and how can we get him?”
John McDonnell
Exactly. I was not arguing for preferential status for journalists—God forbid that I do that here. I was coming on to that point: this is about the ability to make sure a source is protected—as we all know, sources are often whistleblowers, blowing the whistle on abuses by public authorities and others—but it is also relevant to the protection of journalists themselves. We have seen across the world how, when the confidentiality of journalists’ sources is undermined, journalists become just as much a target as their sources, and in recent years large numbers of journalists in various countries have died as a result of persecution. What I am trying to say is that it is critical that we protect the role journalists play and enable them to undertake their work.
We have legislated in accordance with that principle—in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, for example. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) that it is always difficult to find the mechanism, but the mechanism under PACE was the ability of the court to determine whether a production order should be made. We gave it over to the courts to determine that. What was important about that is that the journalist was notified of the application and could contest it before the court, and a decision would then be made that commanded the confidence of all those involved. The classic case since then is when the police failed to get an order under PACE and then used RIPA to obtain an order against a journalist to get information relating to articles that were being written, including the sources of that information. I think it was generally felt in the House that that was not what we intended when we passed PACE and was not in the spirit of RIPA. We have for some time consistently tried to get Government and this House—the responsibility falls on the shoulders of us all—to do exactly as my right hon. Friend said and to find an appropriate mechanism.
I tabled new clause 1 because I cannot find an effective mechanism other than the use of the courts at some stage. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) asked whether it is a mechanism to enable the court to determine whether due process has been followed or the merits of a case. I have left that open for now because I welcome the discussion, but in my view, it is both.
John McDonnell
I hope the hon. Gentleman is not going to ask me a detailed question about my long-term future policy.
Julian Smith
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that a mechanism is already in place, because David Anderson is conducting a review of the rules and regulations? In tabling the amendments, the hon. Gentleman has jumped the gun. Surely we have to wait for David Anderson’s report.
John McDonnell
That is a valid point. I tabled the amendments to say that there is a sense of urgency. Something needs to be done now; some steps need to be taken immediately—before the Anderson review, to be frank.
I have raised this matter previously and engaged in dialogue with the Minister. I have a clutch of papers here, because I wanted to be sure of the accuracy of my remarks. I raised it way back on 22 July, in the debate on regulations made under DRIPA. The Minister responded in a letter received on 28 July:
“The Government…intend to bring forward amendments to the Acquisition and Disclosure Code of Practice to make this clear”.
What he was making clear was, I think, the importance of some form of understanding of the role of journalists and their sources, and therefore sensitivity in the approach taken. That becomes even more important now that in this legislation we are extending the range of the data to be collected. I take the point that this does not identify individuals, but on the information provided by Big Brother Watch and contained in the House of Commons research paper, the definitions have been narrowed. Big Brother Watch is concerned about
“the possibility of more personal information being accessed than first implied. … This means that the identity of an individual has the potential to be fully revealed by these powers.”
There is thus some uncertainty about how the powers could be used to drill down into the information to identify an individual and therefore a source and put everyone at risk.
I do not believe that the code has yet been published. I will give way to the Minister if he wishes to tell me.
James Brokenshire
I intend to address that point specifically when I respond to the debate, which I hope will be helpful to the hon. Gentleman.
John McDonnell
I am never sure what it means when a Minister says that he is about to be helpful. He was helpful when I led a delegation from the NUJ with its lawyer to meet the civil servants who were drafting the new code of practice. We put some suggestions to them. I note—I am sorry to scramble around with these bits of paper—that the new code of practice on covert surveillance comes into effect on 10 December, and it covers legally privileged and confidential information. It demonstrates that particular care should be taken in cases in which the subject of the investigation or operation might reasonably expect a high degree of privacy or where confidential information is involved. Confidential information consists of communications subject to legal privilege, communications between a Member of Parliament and another person—the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley raised—on constituency matters, confidential personal information or confidential journalistic material, so there is an element of reference to privilege and the role of journalists in other codes coming into force this week.
At this stage, it is critical that the code is published and implemented as quickly as possible, as a stepping stone to what might then come out of the wider review. I tabled an amendment to ensure that the legislation should not be implemented until the review is concluded, and I can argue that case. Hon. Members can see where I am coming from. I want a sense of urgency to give at least some protection to journalists in the interim before the review is published, which I believe it will be in a period of time that has been designated. I hope that the review will contain a recommendation that there should be some process in which the courts are involved. I do not believe that there will be sufficient protection against in-house decisions by any authority, be it the police, the intelligence services or, as we have seen with RIPA, local authorities and other agencies, which have used RIPA to investigate their staff, journalists and others on some of the most trivial grounds. In one instance, it was for the protection of the council’s reputation. I do not believe that in-house procedures would satisfy the general public or Members of this House. That is why I hope that some process will come out of the review which will involve the courts. My view is that there should be not just a review of the process but in some instances a review of the merits of the case itself.
I note that not just this review but a range of reviews are taking place. I also note that some momentum is building for involving the courts. The Deputy Prime Minister and—well, blow me—the Mayor of London have called for the law to be changed to require a judge to sign off applications involving the data of journalists. The Government would be wise, once the review is finished, to come forward with proposals that involve some form of judicial oversight of the process. That would build the confidence of professionals.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North raised the issue of other professions. I understand her particular example involving the medical profession, but that would be determined by a court. The merits of the case plus the process would be argued in such a case.
Mark Field
I very much agree that we should be proud of the traditions of a free press in this country. The hon. Gentleman has not yet answered on the extent of the definition of journalism. I accept that new clause 1(6) is not exhaustive, but he has not mentioned religious counsellors, whom many would consider to have a similar duty of care. Does the hon. Gentleman have any thoughts on that, though I accept that he has not made an exhaustive list at this stage? [Interruption.]
John McDonnell
My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley says that my local parish priest rather optimistically describes me as a lapsed Catholic. The secrets of the confessional need to be included; otherwise, there might be an excommunication.
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) makes a good point about journalism. I would like the definition to be membership of the NUJ, but there you are. These days, I would have the widest interpretation, but if it is to be contested, I would like to see a court make the decision on the basis of the evidence before it.
Sir Alan Beith
It is important that we distinguish what we are talking about here—the protection of the conversations that take place between lawyers and their clients and between doctors and their patients, discovered by entirely different processes. We are looking at the identification of the person who tipped someone off or provided some information. There may be good criminal law reasons for finding out who that person is, but I agree that some kind of measure is needed to ensure that those who warn a journalist or perhaps a Member of Parliament that something serious is going wrong have protection.
John McDonnell
Let me give one example of where RIPA was used. The case of Kirsty Green was in the evidence presented to the Home Affairs Committee by Michelle Stanistreet, the general secretary of the NUJ. Kirsty was a former regional newspaper journalist. Derby council spied on her meeting with local authority staff in 2009. Two Derby city council employees watched her when, as Derby Telegraph’s local government correspondent, she met four current and former council employees in a Starbucks coffee shop. The local authority said that RIPA was used to get surveillance authority for officials because they were protecting the council’s interests. The consequences for those individuals was a risk to their job in the local authority.
It is important that communication is protected, but names and sources also have to be protected, especially for whistleblowers, as we have seen when social workers have come forward in child abuse cases. The right hon. Gentleman makes the point well, but to me it emphasises even further the need for some judicial process in the oversight of access to the data and the way in which the legislation has been proposed.
James Brokenshire
We have had an interesting and informative debate focusing on the broader aspects of the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to do their job in a fast-moving environment where technology continues to change, and their ability to continue to protect us in those circumstances. I will argue that we have an eroding capability and although the measure will deal with one element, there is still more that we need to do. That is a point on which my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) has intervened on other speakers in the debate and he is right to make the point. I will come on to the possible next steps in the context of the various reviews that are taking place.
The gap was highlighted by the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth). I know that his Committee is looking carefully at the issue of privacy versus security. The need to strike a balance between them and some of the issues arising from that have rightly been played out in the context of interception, data retention and communications data. I look forward to the publication of the Committee’s report, which I expect to be extremely informative in this regard.
Mark Field
Without giving a preview of anything in the Committee report, I think it is important, for the benefit of the House and those Members who take the matter very seriously, that we should remember that privacy and security are not a zero sum game. Although my hon. Friend uses the word “balance”, as many of us do from time to time, there is also a sense that these are important safeguards individually and in their own right. One of the broader recommendations that we make from the evidence we took from a wide range of people is that the notion that there is a balance and a zero sum game should be dispelled.
James Brokenshire
I appreciate the comments of my hon. Friend. As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, he will recognise the challenges. He is right to underline the significance and to reiterate what I said on Second Reading—that security and liberty should be mutually reinforcing. His point about it not being a zero sum game is well made.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who speaks for the Opposition, identified a list of 10 points, and I will do my best to respond to some of them. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) underlined the role of sensitive categories of person and additional safeguards that may be provided in respect of them when we consider communications data and the ability of the police to request such data. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) pointed out, we are looking at metadata—who said what to whom, when and where—rather than the content.
It is clear from the contributions that we have heard that gaps in communications data capability have a serious impact on the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to carry out their functions—the point that was made clearly by the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and the shadow Minister. One such gap is internet protocol address resolution. The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 maintained our lawful data retention regime. It did not create any additional powers, nor did it address any of the gaps in capability. To respond to the point made by the hon. Lady, we remain confident about the manner in which it did that in seeking to address the points raised by the European Court of Justice.
Clause 17 amends that Act—DRIPA—to ensure that communications service providers can be required to retain the data necessary to link the unique attributes of an internet connection to the person or device using it at any given time. Every internet user is assigned an IP address to ensure that communications service providers know which data should go to which customer and route it accordingly. Addresses are sometimes assigned to a specific device, such as a broadband router located in a home or within the work environment, but they are usually shared between multiple users—hundreds or even thousands—and allocated automatically by the provider’s systems. Many providers currently have no business reason for keeping a log of who has used each address. It is therefore not always possible for law enforcement agencies accessing the data to identify who was using an IP address at any specific point in time.
The provision would ensure that these data are available to law enforcement. It would improve the ability of the police and other agencies to identify terror suspects who may be communicating with each other via the internet and plotting attacks. It would also help to identify and prosecute paedophiles, organised criminals, cyber-bullies and computer hackers, and to protect vulnerable people. For example, it could be used to identify a child who has threatened over social media to commit suicide. The IP address has direct relevance to all these issues and it is evidence that can be brought before the court. In the context of the previous debate, it is often instrumental in bringing prosecutions. Communications data are used in about 95% of all serious crime prosecutions, so they have a direct utility.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Just a question to the Minister—does this also apply to medical in confidence communication between, say, a doctor and a patient, and documents being intercepted, or am I totally out to lunch, as it were?
James Brokenshire
I am not sure that my hon. Friend would ever be out to lunch, particularly at 3.26 in the afternoon. I think he is talking about interception. The clause is about the connection, the metadata—about who communicated with whom—rather than the content of the communication. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington spoke specifically about interception and the way in which certain protected categories of individual may be affected. My hon. Friend highlights a specific point, but I will come on to communications data, DRIPA and the codes of practice, and the status of certain individuals in respect of requests that may be made for that information.
Amendment 5, as the hon. Lady explained when she moved it, seeks to limit the scope of the provision to the retention of data that is necessary to allow the identification of a user from a public internet protocol address. I am pleased to say that there is no difference of principle between us on this issue. It is important that this provision goes no further than necessary to ensure that communications service providers can be required to retain the data necessary to link the unique attributes of an internet connection to the person or device using it at any given time.
I can confirm that the provision is already limited in the way the Opposition propose. Subsection (3) defines the data to be retained as data that
“may be used to identify, or assist in indentifying, which internet protocol address, or other identifier, belongs to the sender or recipient of a communication”.
As such, any data that cannot be used to identify, or assist in identifying, the user of an IP address are already outside the scope of the provision. A requirement to retain the data may be imposed only where it is necessary and proportionate to do so.
On the hon. Lady’s specific point about web logs, I can assure the Committee that the Bill is already tightly drafted. In particular, clause 17(3)(c) excludes so-called web logs. It provides for the retention of data relating to IP resolution, and only such data. Anything else is already beyond the scope of what the clause permits. Accordingly, although I entirely agree with the sentiment behind the amendment, I do not believe that it is necessary.
Mr George Howarth
I have a suggestion. Where a situation is changing rapidly, such issues are sometimes dealt with in legislation by adding a schedule that can then be updated by order. It is not necessarily the best way, but it is one way of dealing with that type of situation.
James Brokenshire
I recognise that in certain circumstances that might be appropriate, but the challenge in this case is the fast-paced nature of technology, which means we would always be playing catch-up. The original RIPA legislation was therefore intended to be technology-neutral so that, if the technology moved on, it was still able to capture that, just as our criminal law is intended to cover all forms of communications. I think that might be a better way of seeking to achieve that. However, that is part and parcel of David Anderson’s review of RIPA, and therefore the existing legislation and a number of the themes that have been touched on by right hon. and hon. Members in this debate, and also the continuing utility of these provisions.
Julian Smith
It will be almost two years since the Liberal Democrats and one or two other Members scuppered the Communications Data Bill. What is the Minister’s assessment of the risk of waiting until next year, because my concern is that the enemy is not going away?
James Brokenshire
This issue is not going away, and we need to make further changes. I can see the eroding capability of our law enforcement and security agencies. While this plugs an element, there is still more to be done to ensure that our police and security services are able to protect us, and that there is evidence that can be presented in court. On these issues relating to communications data, we are talking about evidence, not merely intelligence. These are hard pieces of information that can be presented in court to secure prosecutions. This is really essential because of the underpinning that it provides to our prosecutorial system.
The Bill does not incorporate provisions on weblogs, but apps and weblogs can be directly instructive in this respect, and the House will need to confront that in, I hope, an informed way. The reviews that the Intelligence and Security Committee and David Anderson are undertaking will inform that debate rather than its being completely informed by belief or emotion, important as those elements are to ensure that it is properly reflective of the view of our communities and the public. We must ensure that the facts are there as we examine the picture, in order to provide the basis for a rational debate when the House considers the legislation it will need to pass before December 2016.
Mark Field
Does my hon. Friend accept that another issue, which was skilfully outlined by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), is arbitrage, in the sense of authorities being able to choose one piece of legislation rather than another—for example, as he said, RIPA rather than PACE? Given the complications arising from there being more and more legislation in this area, is it not almost essential to move towards a consolidation to ensure that we entirely understand our rights and responsibilities?
James Brokenshire
I am sure that that issue will be presented in representations made to David Anderson as part of his examination. Clearly, none of us will wish in any way to prejudge the way in which that evidence is presented. He intends to report back by May. That is the right timing to ensure that the new Parliament after the next general election has the benefit of seeing his report, which will have examined these issues in close and careful detail.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North asked about the role of the interception of communications commissioner. He will oversee the acquisition of data retained under clause 17, just as he oversees the acquisition of all communications data retained under DRIPA. The Home Office will ensure that he has the necessary resources to discharge his function.
The hon. Lady referred to multiple requests for traffic and subscriber data. Public authorities can request communications data only when it is considered necessary and proportionate for one of the purposes set out in DRIPA. A communications service provider could disclose only data that have been requested. It is an operational matter for the public authority as to how it makes such requests for data. Where it holds limited information at the outset of the investigation, it is likely that it will need to make more than one request, which means there may be multiple requests relating to a particular criminal inquiry.
The hon. Lady highlighted the issue of costs. The totals that were put into the impact assessment published alongside the Bill were based on studies of IP resolution conducted by the industry and prior work with service providers and the industry on similar projects. This has been an informed process in which there has been consultation with individual service providers likely to be most affected by the provisions of the Bill.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for tabling new clause 2 to highlight the oversight of the acquisition of communications data retained under these provisions. The data retention regulations passed earlier this year specifically require communications service providers, subject to a data retention notice, to retain data in such a way as to ensure that they are available without undue delay in response to requests. I assure the Committee that in the vast majority of cases, data retained under this obligation are disclosed in a timely fashion. Of course, things may not always work perfectly, but there are systems in place that seek to resolve such issues should they arise. Indeed, there are industry groups that work on precisely that. The law enforcement community works closely with the communications service providers, and the Home Office seeks to establish the best technical solutions to support that.
The issue that we hear about more often than that highlighted by the hon. Lady is the broader one of key categories of communications data which communication service providers do not currently retain and which are therefore unavailable to the law enforcement and security agencies that require them. The hon. Lady raised the issue of additional regulations. The provision amends the definition of “relevant communications data”. The regulations use that definition, so there is no need to amend further or to put it in other regulations, because the intention is that they will follow the change being made to this Bill.
On deep packet inspection, no solution will provide for the retention of or access to the content of a communication. Obviously, it is for the companies themselves to decide how best to implement the legal requirements that would be put upon them, but I wanted to make that point clear.
On compatibility with the European Court judgment, we are confident that the legislation passed by Parliament this summer, and this Bill, are fully compliant with all relevant legal provisions.
Although I share the Opposition’s wish to see the most efficient and timely provision of data, I do not believe that the special review proposed by new clause 2 is required. Indeed, if there are concerns they can be referred to David Anderson as part of his review. With that assurance, I hope the hon. Lady will be minded to withdraw her amendment.
In new clause 1, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington raises the specific and important issue of the position of journalists and others in relation to sensitive provision. He and I debated the issue when the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 made its way through Parliament this summer. Let me be clear that a free press is fundamental to a free society, and the Government are determined that nothing be done to put that at risk. Although most of the focus in the debate has been on journalists, the same issues arise equally in respect of other sensitive occupations, as Members have highlighted. Individuals should be able to speak freely and frankly to their lawyers if we are to have justice in this country. Similarly, patients must be able to speak freely to doctors, and constituents to their Members of Parliament.
I do not believe that anyone would question that those are important principles, but equally I hope that no one would take issue with the proposition that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies need the tools to carry out their vital roles. They carry out a difficult job day in, day out, protecting the public from crime and from terrorism. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 provides a clear legal basis for many of their critical investigative powers, including the acquisition and disclosure of communications data. The current process is clear and accountable and includes a strong and rigorous system of oversight. I have already explained what communications data are, but they do not contain the content of the communication.
I should like to point out that the interception of communications commissioner has said that communications data
“do not contain any details of what was said or written by the sender or the recipient of the communication. As such, the communications data retained by CSPs do not contain any material that may be said to be of professional or legal privilege—the fact that a communication took place does not provide what was discussed or considered or advised.”
The point that the data do not attract any form of legal or professional privilege is important. Nevertheless, the Government recognise that they are sensitive data that need to be protected accordingly.
The process of acquiring communications data requires a designated person—a senior officer of a rank stipulated by Parliament—to examine applications for such data, which can be authorised only when the officer is fully satisfied that it is both necessary and proportionate to acquire those data. The applications are facilitated by individuals known as single points of contact, who are trained in this area and can provide expert advice and support to the designated person.
John McDonnell
I am grateful to the Minister for launching the consultation on the code of practice. It is important to have a balanced view of the Home Affairs Committee report, which concluded that
“RIPA is not fit for purpose”.
Although it did go so far as to make a specific recommendation on the involvement of the courts, the Committee suggested that
“the Home Office use the current review of the RIPA Code to ensure that law enforcement agencies use their RIPA powers properly.”
What action has the Minister taken on that point, bearing in mind that a legal action is also taking place at the moment?
James Brokenshire
I am constrained in what I can say because of the legal action that the hon. Gentleman highlights, but I hope he will see that the code of practice and the consultation address a number of the key recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee report that was published on Saturday, such as those on the manner in which the existing legislation is operated in practice.
The hon. Gentleman will know that David Anderson is conducting a broader examination of the legislation, including the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and will report in May. That will inform consideration in the next Parliament of the provisions that are on the statute book. I assure him that it will address the issue of separation and the need for additional consideration to be given to requests that touch on protected professions.
However, I would not want an amendment that was passed today to pre-empt the interception of communications commissioner’s inquiry. We do not know what he will conclude. It is right that we should wait for him to report and then consider his recommendations, rather than make a major change now, when questions have been raised about the benefits and utility of such an approach.
Finally, I hope to deal swiftly with amendment 11, which would prevent the provisions relating to IP resolution from being brought into force until the interception of communications commissioner had completed his review of the accessing of journalists’ communications data, to which I just referred. I think I can reassure hon. Members on that point. As I have said, the commissioner intends to report by the end of January. The Bill will not complete its passage through this House until after the Christmas recess. After that, it needs to go through the House of Lords and there might have to be consideration of Lords amendments in this House. Even without that, there seems to be no way the Bill could achieve Royal Assent before the commissioner reports at the end of January. We therefore do not believe that amendment 11 is required.
In the light of what I have said, I hope that hon. Members will not press their amendments.
Diana Johnson
I thank the Minister for going through all the questions that I posed. On the basis of what he has said, I happily beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 18
Authority-to-carry schemes
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Temporary Chair (Mr David Amess)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 19 and 20 stand part.
That schedule 2 be the Second schedule to the Bill.
James Brokenshire
Part 4 and schedule 2 deal with aviation, maritime and rail security. For the benefit of the Committee, I will go through each of the provisions, listen to right hon. and hon. Members’ contributions and then respond to their questions. I welcome the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) to the Opposition Front Bench. He has taken a close interest in these issues.
Clause 18 provides a new legal basis for the operation of authority-to-carry schemes, which are commonly known as no-fly schemes. We have a scheme in place that relates to passengers being carried to the UK. The clause makes provision for a broader scheme that relates to individuals who are arriving or are expected to arrive in the UK, and individuals who are leaving or are expected to leave the UK.
Authority to carry is necessary to prevent the entry or return to the UK of foreign nationals who pose a terrorism-related threat and to mitigate the threat of an attack, primarily on aircraft. It is also necessary to disrupt the return to the UK, and prevent the departure from the UK, of British nationals who are subject to legal restrictions on their travel. Under the clause, any scheme must set out the carriers to which it applies and the classes of individuals a carrier may be refused authority to carry to or from the UK. Classes of individuals may be specified in a scheme only if it is necessary in the public interest. When travelling to the UK, that could include persons who are excluded or have been deported from the UK, individuals whose presence in the UK would not be conducive to the public good, and those who would otherwise be inadmissible to the UK. It may also include individuals subject to a temporary exclusion order under clause 2.
When travelling from the UK, carriers might be directed not to carry individuals subject to a TPIM or a post-custodial licence preventing travel following a conviction for a terrorism-related offence. The scheme may also include individuals who have had their passport cancelled or not issued on public interest grounds, or seized under powers in schedule 1. Any scheme must set out the process for carriers to request authority to carry, and state how that authority is granted or refused. That may include requirements for carriers to provide passenger information by a certain time before departure, or for carriers to be able to receive information that grants or refuses authority to carry in a way compatible with the Government’s border system.
We will work with carriers to resolve any compliance issues, but if a carrier fails to comply, clause 19 provides regulations to impose a civil penalty on those who breach a scheme. The new regulations set out how a penalty will be calculated, imposed and enforced, and must provide a means for carriers to object to a proposed penalty. The regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure, and the authority-to-carry scheme to which the regulations refer must be laid in Parliament at the same time.
Clause 20 makes provision for schedule 2 to the Bill. Part 1 of schedule 2 amends passenger, crew and service information relating to aircraft and ships, and may be extended to international trains through secondary legislation. Paragraphs 1(2) and 1(3) mean that a carrier may be required to be able to receive communications about information that it has provided to the border authorities in a way compatible with the Government’s border system. That might be a simple receipt, or an alert about errors in the format of the information.
Paragraphs 1(4) and 1(7) of schedule 2 allow the regulations to introduce requirements for advance information about persons on flights or voyages to and from the UK that do not operate to a published schedule—collectively referred to as “general aviation” and “general maritime.” The regulations will set out the classes of ships or aircraft to which they apply, the information required, the time by which it must be supplied, and how it is to be supplied. That will allow a much clearer picture of incoming and outgoing traffic and the identification of aircraft and ships that require close attention from the border authorities. Those paragraphs also provide for regulations to impose a civil penalty for a failure to comply with new requirements to provide information. The regulations may set out how a penalty will be calculated, administered and enforced, and make provision for an appeal.
Bob Stewart
The Minister has not mentioned this so far, although I assume he will come to it, but is it correct to say that if a carrier brings someone to this country whom we do not want to come, not only will it receive a civil penalty, it has a responsibility to take that person back to whence they came immediately?
James Brokenshire
As my hon. Friend will realise, provisions in the Bill overlap with other issues and provisions. He will be aware of sanctions that are already available and establish penalties for those who have no lawful authority to be in the UK, and of the checks that are obliged on people to ensure that appropriate visa or other requirements are in place. These measures build on that and there are established processes for the return of individuals who should not be here.
The new transport security provisions in part 2 of schedule 2 build on existing powers and enhance our ability to respond effectively to transport-related terrorism threats. They amend transport security legislation to strengthen existing powers and require certain security measures to be implemented before an operator may operate into the UK or, in the case of ships, a UK port. The schedule makes similar provisions for services in the aviation, maritime and rail transport industries.
The schedule inserts provisions into the respective aviation, rail and maritime statutes enabling faster collection of security related information from operators. It provides enabling powers to make regulations, imposing a wider range of methods for electronic service of security directions or requests for information, to ensure that security directions become effective in the shortest possible time. In addition, it inserts a power into the Aviation Security Act 1982 for the Secretary of State to make regulations to introduce civil sanctions for non-compliance by the aviation industry, with information requests or security directions subject to the affirmative procedure.
Julian Smith
We are all aware that Eurotunnel is expanding its services, with more train services going to the continent. Will the Minister confirm that the provisions will apply to those services?
James Brokenshire
Under existing regulations and requirements, existing Eurostar and freight services through the channel tunnel are already obliged to meet security requirements on screening and other steps. The intent behind the provisions in the Bill is to look to a future where we have open access, and ensure we have the ability to impose similar controls, assurances and protections in relation to security. It is precisely for that future-proofing that we are introducing the provisions. I hope that explanation is helpful to the Committee.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
There has been a change on the Opposition Front Bench, while the Minister has had to continue, but I assure him that he will have our support on this group.
There is a substantial and severe threat of terrorist attack in the United Kingdom and the Opposition support the broad thrust of these measures. The Minister did not explicitly say it, but the explanatory notes indicate that about 500 individuals have travelled to Syria and Iraq because of their wish to join terrorist organisations, in particular ISIL. The measures are designed to enhance legislation—section 124 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, put in place by the previous Labour Government, and the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Authority to Carry) Regulations 2012—in response to the changed circumstances. We support the broad thrust of the measures.
I have a few questions for the Minister and I hope he will reflect on them. They relate mostly to consultation, cost and scope. The Minister said that clauses 18 and 19 form the main provisions for the changes to authority-to-carry schemes, and that clause 20 and schedule 2 amend the law on the provision of information from carriers to the Secretary of State. The explanatory notes state that the Minister has undertaken a consultation, but I think he will recognise that the consultation was swift, if I may say so, and relatively short. I would welcome information on who responded to the consultation and what the responses were. If he does not have that information today, perhaps he could write to me.
I raise those issues because the Government’s impact assessment makes it clear that the measures, although welcome, relate to border security and will cost UK-registered businesses about £2.1 million net cost a year, with start-up costs approaching £10 million, at £9.7 million. The Minister has information relating to 11 scheduled registered carriers, but he will know that 144 carriers were not included in the assessment. Many carriers do not currently have the systems, which are referred to in previous legislation, in place. Scheduled carriers may be required to install interactive systems that would mean no-fly alerts and passenger screening requirements provided directly into carriers’ systems. The impact assessment makes it clear that while there are 11 registered carriers, of which only one already uses the system the Government want, there are 144 carriers operating scheduled flights into and out of the UK that are not UK-registered, of which only 11 use the system the Government want to introduce. I would welcome some clarity from the Minister not just as to the discussions he has had with the registered carriers, but on what assessment he has made of the wider costs for those carriers that are not registered. For a non-interactive carrier, the estimated cost of implementing an interactive system is £975,000, with annual maintenance costs of £125,000. That means that there could be costs of around £139 million to non-UK carriers who do not have those systems in place.
The impact assessment says:
“The consultation to gather relevant data was brief. Whilst data was provided by a sample of UK carriers we cannot be sure they are fully representative. In addition different carriers may face different costs dependent on their size or their existing systems. In the absence of this data we assume that carriers are all affected in the same way.”
That is the Government’s own impact assessment and it is really important that, as part of our consideration this afternoon, we have some indication from the Minister of the consultation responses. He may well already have published these—sometimes things pass one by in opposition—and if so, I would be grateful if he could refer me to where they are. If not, I would be grateful if he published the responses to the consultation.
It is also important—the Minister has touched on this—that the clauses ultimately include rail, maritime and non-scheduled aviation traffic as part of the regime that he is seeking to introduce. But I believe—I would welcome his confirmation—that there has been limited, or dare I say nil, consultation with rail, maritime and other suppliers. The Minister has indicated that there will be affirmative resolutions on these matters, but I would welcome him confirming at what stage he intends to undertake further consultation on costs and implementation with rail and maritime providers.
I have had a helpful brief from the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, which has raised a number of issues, some of which the Minister will be able to answer. But it is important that we are clear that the Minister’s aspiration—one shared by the Labour party—to have exit and entry checks undertaken at the earliest opportunity is separate from the measures in the Bill, particularly given the difficulties we have had with the e-Borders programme recently, the cancellation of e-Borders and the progress that the Government seek on an entry and exit check by April 2015. Helpfully the Minister has today answered a parliamentary question to indicate that that is still the Government’s objective but I just wanted to examine the relationship between the proposals in the clause, which may not be in law until February or March next year, and the wider exit and entry checks the Government are seeking to introduce.
I would particularly welcome the Minister’s confirmation that the measures in the Bill are fully compatible with EU law and with the laws of other states that passengers will travel to and from and with whose laws carriers must comply. It is important that we put in place measures in our own legislation, but I would welcome the Minister’s consideration of the compatibility between them and our obligations to our European colleagues and elsewhere.
The Labour party supports the measures because of the threat and the need to monitor and to take effective action against not just those coming to the UK, but those leaving the UK. The need to ensure that we prevent individuals leaving these shores from undertaking terrorist acts is paramount. The Minister will not find a cigarette paper between us on dealing with that issue, but I hope that he is able to reflect on the points I have made today on three issues: cost, compatibility with other legislation in Europe and beyond, and the key question of implementation, not just in terms of current carriers but in terms of the carriers who are not registered but who do currently travel both to and from the UK.
Mr Khalid Mahmood
While endorsing everything my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) has said and in restating some of the issues around costs and capability, I think it important in considering this part of the Bill not to experience the same things that we have experienced before. I am thinking of Abu Rumaysah who unfortunately made his way across the sea to join ISIS, putting on his Twitter account:
“What a shoddy security system Britain must have to allow me to breeze through Europe to the Islamic State.”
I am sure that we all want this part of the Bill to work to prevent that sort of thing from happening. In doing so, however, we must ensure that we provide proper consultation and enough time to deal with this properly.
There are concerns about how we look at the problem, particularly in respect of what notice carriers have when people can book tickets on their phones, their iPads or any other electronic instrument and can get straight to the port, sometimes by rail and sometimes by air. There are important issues about the speed with which people are able to get to the port after booking at the last minute. How do we move forward and improve that system? Answering that means contending with some very serious issues.
I want to bring to the Minister’s attention some of the reasonable work that has been done on this issue, particularly by Sussex police. The police there have a programme called the “BIG MAC”, but unfortunately this does not mean that the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) is having a late lunch. In fact, it refers to evidence-based risk factors for assessing people when they travel to or exit a port. It is based on “identifying, assessing and referring”, and as my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary said, this entails having sufficient staff and security personnel at the border. She said she was prepared to commit additional staff to deal with this issue, and I would fully endorse that sentiment.
BIG MAC is based first on behaviour, the B. It is assessed during an exam, and looks at the person’s mental health, physical health, reaction when they are stopped, and their beliefs when they are questioned at port. The next aspect is identifying, the I, and meaning and belonging, and the attitudes expressed when the following issues are raised: family, friends, society, cultural change, integration and diversity, dissatisfaction with life, and seeking change, adventure and excitement.
Then there is a section on grievances, the G, which involves injustice, threats and vulnerabilities. This covers the “them and us” thought process; the dehumanising of identity, beliefs, culture, society and religion; people’s place in society, culture and religion; any history of violence, whether victim or offender; and setting events such as past police interventions, bullying, abuse at home, drinks, drugs and so forth. The next part deals with motivations, the M, either personal or externally driven, and covers religious, political, ideological, cultural, single issues or personal issues; financial aspects; and family or friends. It then deals with attitudes, the A, towards criminal offending, harmful means, being dominant, controlling or submissive and susceptible, and activism and participation.
Finally, the C in BIG MAC means capability factors, and these cover knowledge, skills and competencies such as fighting, training, ideologies, occupation-related skills, IT, medical and so on; access to these through equipment, networks, clubs, individuals and IT; criminality and intervention factors, including the use of violence and attitudes towards violent means; and travel history. This BIG MAC process allows security personnel to do their job in accordance with strategies that have been developed. I would be pleased to pass this information to the Minister if he wants to understand how the Sussex police are dealing with the problem.
The particular person associated with the project is Detective Sergeant—perhaps he should be Superintendent —Mike Redmond. He is based at Gatwick and has done a huge amount of work on psychological assessment in relation to these issues. He has put this plan forward, and is working with the port authorities and security personnel to ensure that these sorts of recognition factors are in place so that people can be stopped and dealt with properly and formally. It is very important that we look at these sorts of factors, but that will only happen if we have the processes to do it.
Bob Stewart
In the old days, when I was working with the security services in Northern Ireland, it used to be called profiling. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we are looking at a form of profiling again?
Mr Mahmood
The hon. Gentleman is far more informed on these matters than I am, and I certainly would not argue with him about that. This is a similar approach, but it psychologically categorises the processes within that and shows how it can be dealt with. It is easier for the people operating these systems to be able to recognise particular behavioural patterns and to deal with them. This does do what the hon. Gentleman says, therefore, but it is important that this has already been designed and that security personnel are working with it. In order to meet the issues raised in clause 18, it is important that we have such a system in place, but the only way we can do that is by sharing best practice. That has already been done by Sussex police, and I commend that approach to the Minister and hope he takes lessons from the work that has already been done by Detective Sergeant Mike Redmond. We should all acknowledge the great work he has done.
James Brokenshire
I am grateful for the warm welcome given to these provisions from all parts of the House this afternoon. That is because there is a recognition of the nature of the threat we now face, and of the fact that we face an enduring threat from terrorism. There are particular terrorist groups that will seek to attack aircraft and other forms of transport, which is why we must remain vigilant and continue to challenge ourselves on what further improvements can be made to legislation and the schemes that are in place to ensure we have the right information to prevent those intent on conducting such acts from boarding aircraft, trains or other forms of transport—and, indeed, ensure that our various forms of transport conduct appropriate searches and checks to make sure that appropriate standards are met and adhered to. We seek to respond through that approach and the pragmatic, practical measures set out in the Bill.
As the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) highlighted, there is the further requirement for additional regulations and details of specific schemes to be brought before this House. As that detail is then added to, it is appropriate that ongoing consultation take place with the relevant industry sectors. I shall say a little more about that in response to the various points the right hon. Gentleman raised.
I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) for bringing to my attention the work of DS Mike Redmond and the Sussex police based at Gatwick airport, and how bringing forward proposals is obviously about their practical implementation. Where there is good practice, there should be networks through which it can be shared, leading to greater consistency of approach. I know the police take that seriously, with the relevant structures they have enabling them to look at practice and share knowledge and learning. The work mentioned by the hon. Gentleman sounded very interesting, and I look forward to seeing further details of the BIG MAC that he will no doubt be sending through to me.
In terms of the utilisation of the powers, if it is necessary and proportionate we will use powers as a means of putting special additional measures in place to combat current threats. The right hon. Gentleman will know from his previous experience how we look at the threat assessments that are maintained by the joint terrorism analysis centre, and how that may mean that additional security enhancements need to be put in place in respect of particular routes or modes of transport. That will inform some of the additional protective security-type powers that could be drawn on in respect of these provisions, and therefore, those specific provisions would be used where justified by the prevailing terrorist threat and the assessed risk.
The right hon. Gentleman highlighted the issue of costs, and rightly referred to the regulatory impact assessment that was published alongside the Bill. On the number of airlines that were engaged—I will come on to talk about who was consulted—many airlines within the big global groups of airlines will share common booking systems. Therefore, whether they are part of one alliance or another, that will determine a number of the elements of the systems that may be in place, and smaller airlines may piggyback on some of the bigger airlines’ systems. All airlines are not necessarily operating specific individual systems; they may be utilising some of the bigger carriers’ systems as part of their global booking systems, because of the alliances and groups that they are part of.
The cost to the Government of an interactive advance passenger information system is currently £1.2 million per year, and the staffing costs of maintaining a help desk to assist with interactive API is around £302,000 annually. Border Force estimates that an additional £82,000 will be required for additional staff to bolster the help desk as a result of the legislation. Consultation with airlines has shown that they recognise the significant security and financial benefits that flow from interactive API systems.
Various Governments are increasingly requiring that their own carriers implement these types of systems and solutions, and carriers are likely to incur set-up costs, whether required to do so by the UK Government or not. The right hon. Gentleman highlighted the reference in the explanatory notes to 500 subjects of interest having travelled to Syria and Iraq from this country. It is important to understand, given the nature of the travelling threat, that individuals have travelled to that area from many other countries across Europe and across the globe, and there is a growing recognition of the utility and importance of being able to use advance passenger information. A number of countries globally are seeking to align that approach in this area.
On the proportion of advance passenger information that we hold, as the right hon. Gentleman will know from his parliamentary questions to me, we receive advance passenger information for just over 80% of all passengers travelling to and from the UK, which is up considerably from just over 60% at the end of 2009. That includes 96% of all air passengers. According to the European Commission, that is the highest for any European country and is among the best in the world.
As the impact assessment indicated, we consulted all UK-registered airlines, and their comments are reflected in the impact assessment, which the right hon. Gentleman has obviously seen. I will reflect after this debate on what further details it may be possible to provide, and if I may, I will write to him on any further information or background that can be shared.
On briefing others, we have briefed maritime carriers and Eurotunnel, but we will be consulting further on the detail of the regulations to be put before Parliament. With regard to rail, as I indicated in a previous intervention, the existing operators are already covered by a great deal of the existing legislative framework, but we will seek to continue to consult those that may be affected by any further changes introduced under authority-to-carry schemes, and it is absolutely appropriate that we do so, as the right hon. Gentleman has highlighted. On the broader legal issues he proffered, it is not for me to give legal advice on the Floor of the House, but I can say to him genuinely and directly that we have undertaken a full assessment of the legal implications of these proposals and consider them to be compatible.
On the work the Government are doing to introduce exit checks by spring next year, the provisions before this House are connected but separate, if I may put it in those terms. Information about passengers departing from the UK will inform the operation of outbound authority-to-carry arrangements, which the Bill will put on a statutory basis. Obviously, that is a significant difference between what is in this Bill and the existing authority-to-carry scheme introduced just before the Olympic games, which is focused purely on the inbound. The intent is to have statutory underpinning and a statutory framework in respect of the outbound, too.
I say to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr that legislation is in place to direct carriers on the form in which they must provide passenger information to the Government’s border system. That includes the timeliness with which data are provided relative to when the passenger departs to or from the UK. Obviously, the Bill’s provisions will also give specific statutory underpinning to that, to ensure that information is provided in a timely fashion.
I noted what the right hon. Member for Delyn said about e-Borders. The tone of this afternoon’s debate has broadly been one where everyone has shared the same approach, but I say to him that this Government have had to deal with some significant problems with a number of the previous Government’s systems, e-Borders being one of them. We have therefore made the necessary changes and checks to ensure that we have a system that delivers what it needs to deliver.
I am grateful for the support that has been provided from all parts of the House for these provisions, and I ask that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 19 and 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
To report progress and ask leave to sit again.—(Harriett Baldwin.)
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again tomorrow.