Serious Crime Bill [HL]

My Lords, in the absence of the recognised expert in the House on the issue, the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay—I am sorry to see that, because she really understands the sophisticated inner workings of all this—I must yet again oppose the noble and learned Lord, I am afraid. I am concerned that if we use this evidence in the case of serious crime, that precedent will lead to its use in terrorism cases, where the police and security services necessarily work extremely closely. I remain convinced that the dangers to sources and to highly sophisticated methods are incontestable. We are not just talking about conventional telephone taps, which is largely what is used in other countries—there is no risk there. We are talking about something that, once lost, will be extremely difficult to replace. I do not think that it is understood that when those who deal with this material lose a case and a method, it is extremely difficult to replace it. The time lost will be very serious. In terrorism cases, that is also a serious issue. We know that Sir Swinton Thomas and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, have been unwilling even to release details of the numbers of such operations, let alone their content, to the Intelligence and Security Committee, and they seem rather well placed to know the risks. They understand the extreme sensitivity of this intelligence. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, I am concerned about the immense weight of work in intercept operations; if we lose one, we have to start again way down the hill. I plead with the House to take note of this. I greatly respect the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, but in this case he underestimates the danger in a special area. This country is more exposed to highly sophisticated operations of this kind than many another. I doubt whether, in New Zealand, we have al-Qaeda and the support for terrorism that there is here. We should recognise that. We are in a rather special situation. I know that the noble and learned Lord will refer to the United States but, there again, the workings of the NSA and the FBI and so on are rather different from ours. It is not easy to make a straightforward comparison, so I beg that these issues should be taken into account.