Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Ben Wallace and Matt Warman

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

This short, impassioned debate about the freedom of the press has surely proved that a 90-minute debate on a Lords amendment shoehorned into a Bill about national security cannot be the right place to make a decision as important as this one. This Bill is supposed to regulate hacking, yet the Lords are seeking to hack the Bill by putting in something completely irrelevant to the vital matters of national security that it covers. As the previous Prime Minister and the present one have said, this is one of the most important—if not the most important—pieces of legislation in this Parliament. Were I to dare criticise either of them, I would contend that the freedom of the press is even more important than some aspects of the Bill. It is absurd for anyone seriously to suggest that we can deal with this matter in 90 minutes.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the view of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that the chilling effect of the proposals in section 40 would have a hugely negative impact across not only the national media but the regional and local media. Over hundreds of years, we have seen the good that a vibrant, boisterous and scabrous press can do, as other Members have said, and we need to preserve that. We do not need to damn it in a 90-minute debate. I hope that Members of all parties can see that this is not the right place to take such a momentous decision.

[Mr Wallace]

Every morning I go into my office and I open a number of documents. They are not nice reading. They usually focus on those people that want to kill us, want to rob us, want to corrupt our country or want to spy on us. This is not a subject to take lightly. This is not a subject to which to politically attach something to settle a score elsewhere. The Bill is about giving our brave men and women in the security services and the police forces up and down the country the powers to do their job, to make sure that we put away those people that pose a threat to this country.

Those men and women are watching this debate today. Instead of seeing this House debate the hundreds of amendments that this Parliament has collectively produced to reach a consensus to make the Bill something to go forward with, they see political opportunism being played out on another subject: press regulation. They do not see us discussing how we are going to protect them and society. We should not forget that.

What is important is that this Bill is not like any other Bill. This Bill is here because we have to bring it forward to replace the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. DRIPA has a sunset clause and will expire on 31 December. The irony of that is that if DRIPA expires, we lose the requirement that we can place on internet companies and CSPs to retain data—data that we need to catch phone hackers, to catch child killers, to put away paedophiles. That is the risk that hon. Members are taking, with amendment 15. That is what they are making us decide on. We should reject the choice that they are putting before us and focus on the good things in the Bill and what it has done to strengthen and protect our security forces to ensure that we put away the right people. We should not play politics in this House or the other place.

Lords amendment 11 disagreed to.

Lords amendments 12 to 14 disagreed to.

After Clause 8

Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 15.—(Mr Ben Wallace.)