I do not want to breach the consensus that has emerged, but I have to say that in my view the Bill brings new powers that are unnecessary, disproportionate and open to abuse, and brings operatives beyond the rule of law, which is unnecessary. I have already opposed the Bill in the past and I very much support the amendments to provide some constraints on prospective abuses.
I should say at the outset that we all very much welcome and applaud the covert human intelligence sources, and the fantastic work they have done over the past few years in thwarting 28 terrorist attempts. However, that, of course, was all achieved under the current law, with safeguards. The problem with the Bill is that it actually removes the law and the safeguards, and I therefore cannot support it. In a nutshell, the Bill allows new powers—not existing powers—for Ministers and officials to confer immunity from prosecution for people to commit serious crimes.
Those crimes can be authorised in the name of national security, which we understand, of crime prevention and detection—yes, perhaps—and of the
“economic well-being of the United Kingdom.”
In other words, crimes could be committed against anti-frackers and Extinction Rebellion and so on, so this is much too broadly defined.
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Furthermore, this provision is unnecessary, because we already have statutory powers to authorise criminal acts, where necessary, controlled by the third direction policy and enforceable in court, as was found in respect of the MI5 policy—the two-test policy about things being “necessary” and “proportionate” in terms of the public interest. It is also claimed that the Human Rights Act will somehow protect us, but the Government came in on a manifesto of abolishing or repealing that Act, and a review of it is going on at the moment. Furthermore, during the third direction test case the Government argued that the Human Rights Act did not constitute a basis against the Government for a CHIS offence. Therefore, I do not support the Bill; and I support the Lords amendments.
Lords amendment 2 seeks to exclude murder, grievous bodily harm, sexual violence, torture and depriving someone of their liberty from these authorisations. Even if the amendment is accepted, Ministers can still be empowered to harass political opponents and suppress dissent. I support Lords amendments 1, 5, 12 and 14, which seek to improve judicial scrutiny, so that we have a report to judicial commissioners and objective tests—not just subjective ones—on the basis of reasonable belief, which can be tested, so that judges can rule whether an action is lawful and exercise a power to remove the authority to commit a crime that is not reasonable. But of course the judicial commissioners will be appointed by the Prime Minister—they will not be independent judges—which again blurs the division between the Executive and the judiciary. That is not normal in modern democracies—or in any democracies for that matter.
Amendment (a) relates to the issue of having authorisations in respect of juveniles and vulnerable individuals in only “exceptional circumstances”. I would support that of course, but I fail to imagine where we should be using juvenile and vulnerable individuals—getting them to spy on their parents, be in drug gangs or whatever it is. I do not think that is something we
should be authorising. Clearly, if we are, there need to be constraints. For the reasons I have already outlined, I respect the position of Scotland: if it is not bust, don’t fix it.
Lords amendment 3 is on criminal injuries compensation for victims of crimes authorised. Clearly, there should be compensation if crimes are authorised that are disproportionate and unnecessary—and we may never know. On the overall situation, clearly, we have a duty to protect the public, and we must balance security, liberty and human rights. In a democracy, we should certainly support the Lords amendments, to put constraints on the Bill, which other democracies have not adopted and which we would not like to see applied in less liberal environments than our own.