My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for his thoughtful, thought-provoking and informative reply, from which I hope to have gained a lot more food for thought. Between us, we have managed to move the debate on this afternoon. I very much thank him for taking the time and effort to analyse the issues that we are looking it. I also thank my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill for his support because this matter really goes to the heart of that balance of which I spoke, between security and privacy.
I also warmly thank my noble friend the Minister. I realise that his reply labours under the difficulty of the amount that he is not able to say. He has given, as far as he is able to, some of the assurances that I was seeking. The difficulty is that there is so much that we cannot possibly know that it is very hard to imagine that we will ever be able to legislate adequately for the technological advances that have been made. That is the challenge before us because at some stage we are going to have to update RIPA, and even where it crosses into areas of defence it will have to be within a legislative framework.
The Minister made one particularly useful and interesting comment that I picked up on. That is the fact that some of this falls under the jurisdiction of the Home Office and some under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defence. Again, when we come to legislate that is a real issue because its effect is to leave a bit of a hole in the middle down which things can disappear. Also, had we had something about procurement and expanding defence capability back in about 1990, then what was going on and being built at Menwith Hill might have created a bit more of a stir about what was being procured there and for what purposes. There was some debate that it was for missile defence; I am sure that some of it is but some of it is for other purposes. The Intelligence and Security Committee may be aware of those purposes but of course many of them are poachers turned gamekeepers, which poses another challenge.
In concluding, I pay tribute to the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases, which is based up near Menwith Hill. This is about accountability. It is not asking American bases to go home but saying that they should be accountable to the UK. Without that campaign, some of these issues would be much harder to keep our eye on from Westminster. However, I thank noble Lords for giving us the time during this important Bill and, in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.