Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Manningham-Buller and Lord Hogan-Howe

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)]

No, this is what I want to establish. Just saying that he has been intercepted will lead that person to wonder how, so we cannot act covertly if there is any danger of sources being revealed or future operations being compromised.

Additionally, it raises the question of why Members of legislatures should have the privilege of being told that they have been subject to interception when members of the public never are. It is wrong, as it was, to treat parliamentarians as a particularly special case. Of course, such cases are highly sensitive, hence the triple lock; hence, I suggest, the rarity of this, but I think Amendments 50 and 54 are potentially damaging. I will shut up now.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise that I did not speak at Second Reading, but I was here. Perhaps for the same reasons, I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, has just said. It is secret that telephone interception is in place. If someone is aware, directly or indirectly, that the only way the Security Service or the police will discover a certain piece of information is by a telephone call, then it could be revealed, so it would require the law to be changed.

I have four worries about this amendment. First, at the point at which an interception is stopped, it is very difficult to predict whether the investigation will continue and/or be resumed. If the suspect is advised of the existence of the investigation, it gives them the potential to destroy evidence, which may frustrate the investigation in the long run, so I do not think it is wise to advise any suspect that they have been under investigation.

Secondly, there are two types of investigation: overt ones, where the person knows they are under investigation, and covert ones, where they do not. There is a general convention whereby if an investigation concludes without a charge, we have never told the person that they were under investigation. I am not sure why we would breach that principle merely because intrusive surveillance was in place.

Thirdly, as the noble Baroness mentioned, why would we do that only for Members of the legislature? It could be put in place, but there have to be some strong reasons. I do not think Members of a legislature can just say, “We deserve extra protection”. There has to be a stronger reason, because, otherwise, the rest of the public could rightly say, “Well, why can’t we have that protection?” For that reason alone, you would have to think very seriously about it.

Finally, sometimes Members of the legislature might be under investigation for things in their private capacity and sometimes for a mixture of the two; it might overlap into their legislative acts. Before anything like this was considered, I would take an awful lot of persuasion and I do not think the argument was made for why this needed to happen only for Members of the legislature.