It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, whose amendment I have signed. It is a very important amendment about putting limits on what can be
authorised, excluding rape, torture and murder. Quite honestly, it is astonishing that this even has to be debated; we really ought to be free of that sort of threat to ordinary people, quite often.
The Government say that amendments such as these are not necessary, because of the complex legal web of proportionality and the Human Rights Act. That argument might carry more weight if the Government were not constantly fighting a culture war against human rights lawyers. However, one does not need to be a human rights lawyer to understand that rape, murder and torture are never justified, so these restrictions have to be in the Bill.
Then there is the Government’s circular argument that we must not ban specific crimes from being authorised, because undercover agents would be tested by the criminals to prove themselves by doing prohibited acts. The circularity of that argument is that if the Human Rights Act already prohibits something, they can already be tested. I would like that cleared up if possible.
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Finally, we have to think about the victims of these crimes—the survivors. Women have been raped by undercover police officers, and the Bill would prevent future victims getting any compensation or legal redress for those crimes.
I have also signed the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I support all the amendments, but especially those by the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Massey of Darwen, which are superb. I hope we will come back to this on Report. There is the extra element of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on not authorising children to be undercover agents. We will revisit that later this evening; I will say more about it then.