Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I am going to read what the Government say and I will try to say it as best I can. I am pleased with the half vote of support from the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for his customary courtesy and thanks for the amendments that we have tabled in this group. Although the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, did not say that she was ever so pleased about what we were moving this evening, I thought that perhaps there was some grudging acknowledgement that we had recognised part of what the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, sees as a problem. Obviously, we will never satisfy the noble Earl, Lord Northesk. Sometimes, I would be worried if we did. However, I congratulate him on his continued persistence. By tabling amendments such as this, he makes us think much harder about what we are trying to do better to perfect the legal framework with which we try to cover the difficulties. In general, we are pleased with the support for creating a new offence to cover those who make or adapt, supply or offer to supply articles—so-called hacking tools—intending that they be used to commit computer misuse offences. As I said, the debate is focused on how best we deal with those who deliberately make such articles available but whose state of mind falls short of intent, shall we say? The government amendment narrows the offence so that those who make or adapt those articles commit an offence only if they intend the article to be used to commit offences, rather than if they believe that it is likely that that is what they will be used for. The amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, goes further and would also exclude those who supply or offer to supply articles believing that they are likely to be used to commit an offence. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, proposes that the new offence is amended to replace believing that it is ““likely”” with believing that it will ““principally”” be so used. The use of the term ““principally”” has similar difficulties associated with it to that which the noble Earl preferred in Committee, which was ““primarily””. I am not sure that it is capable of legal definition. Clearly, I am not an expert in these matters, but it is not a word with which I am familiar as being used in statute to describe a particular state of affairs. Such tools are increasingly sophisticated and damaging. They are increasingly available and increasingly used to commit crime. We cannot support the approach taken by noble Lords because we believe that it is important that the offence covers the supply of such articles for criminal use even beyond the narrow circumstances of criminal intent. We also believe that ““principally”” refers to the extent of the usage. In other words, some of the time, the article will be used for legitimate purposes but the person believes that it will be principally used for Computer Misuse Act offences. Whereas, in our view, ““likely”” reflects a belief that there is a strong possibility that the article will be used for Computer Misuse Act offences.