I agree. I was not here when these matters were previously discussed in this House but I followed that closely and it was all about taking politicians out of the mix. The Government’s consultation is putting politicians into the driving seat—and Government politicians at that. That is exactly what many of us did not want to happen, and it is what Leveson said should not happen.
I support these amendments because they now stand alone and do not impinge on the other provisions of the Bill. As Lord Pannick said in the House of Lords, these amendments are now in scope. They are supplementary to what is there already and they do not detract from the security issues in the Bill. I believe these two points meet many of the objections put forward by Ministers.
The amendments are on point and relate to the subject matter of the Bill because they deal with the consequences of unlawful interceptions of communications. At the risk of tooting the SNP’s trumpet too often, I simply remind the House again that new clause 8 came into the Bill as a result of a suggestion made by me and my colleague in the Bill Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands).
These amendments will apply to new and old phone hacking claims alike, but they are not objectionable as retrospective because in considering how to deal with costs the court must look to the issue of whether the defendant was registered with an approved regulator at the time when the claim was commenced.
I believe the remaining objections to the amendments are misplaced. If the Government are concerned about these amendments causing delay to the passage of this important Bill, all they need to do is bite the bullet and implement section 40 and then we can forget about the amendments, and I invite them to do that.