draft Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Interception of Communications: code of practice) order 2015 Draft Equipment Interference (Code of Practice) Order 2015

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 General Committees

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I will not detain the Committee particularly long. As others have said, we welcome the introduction of these codes. Debates of this sort are always welcome, because legislation and regulation in the area have evolved over the years without the necessary element of public debate. This debate, although fairly small in scale, is a welcome first step. We should expect to return to the issue when the Joint Committee, which is currently scrutinising the draft Bill, reports. Thereafter, we will hopefully have a Bill proper, which will presumably go through Parliament during the next Session. That is when we need to have a debate; it is when scrutiny will be of real significance.

The Minister has discussed the various virtues that he identifies in the Government’s introduction of the codes. However, it means that this debate is largely academic, because if the draft Bill is a meaningful draft, surely everything that we are discussing here is up for debate once it has been through this House and the other place. Can he therefore assure me, welcome though the introduction of any code of conduct and transparency in the regulation of such interception most certainly is, that the codes will be revisited in the light of the debate on the draft Bill and then the Bill once it has been through both Houses?

Finally, in the interests of completeness, I should place on record that I agree broadly with the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras about the distinction in the codes of practice between legal and journalistic privilege. The codes require a lot more work to be done on that; as he himself conceded, the point is not straightforward or clear, but it is in everybody’s interests that we come up with a solution that is somewhat more elegant and fit for purpose than the current one.