HC Deb 19 March 1997 vol 292 cc892-902

Amendment made: No. 11, in page 39, line 31, after 'applies' insert 'to the authorisation'.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]

Mr. Beith

I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 40, line 9, at end insert— '"urgency" means circumstances in which it is not reasonably practicable to apply for an authorisation because to do so would cause such delay as would be likely seriously to prejudice the effectiveness of the operation.'. We now come to what has been the most publicly controversial part of the Bill—the part that deals with intrusive surveillance, or bugging.

It has been a long and complex story. From the start, Liberal Democrats have believed that there should be a prior authority for intrusive surveillance in places that people might legitimately regard as private, such as private houses or hotel rooms. That does not apply to lock-up garages or cars being tracked: those are dealt with in another part of the Bill. We felt that that authority should come from a judge, and proposed that it should come from a circuit judge.

To cut a long story short, in another place, not only our amendment, but, thanks to a change of heart by the Labour party—which had initially been satisfied with a post hoc authority—another amendment was carried, which gave the job to a commissioner or one of a body of commissioners who held or had held high judicial office—a judge or former judge, but acting through a body of commissioners. I do not want to go back over that ground. We have our own preference as between the sorts of prior judicial authority, but, at least at this stage of the Bill, an application must be made to a judge who is a commissioner, to gain authority to undertake the intrusive surveillance to which I referred.

Mr. Michael

In view of the debates on the issue, does the right hon. Gentleman now accept that the option that he preferred—that of an application to a circuit judge— was a weaker way of protecting civil liberties than the prior application to a commissioner, which was the Labour party's proposal?

Mr. Beith

No. The hon. Gentleman's original position and that of the Labour party—that no prior authority was required—was as weak as dishwater. It was disgraceful that the Labour party should have contemplated the Bill going on to the statute book in that form. I welcome its conversion— Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth".

Mr. Michael

Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly restrain his capacity for exaggeration, which seems to have been brought on by the imminence of an election? The Labour party welcomes the commissioner operation, because we believe that it is the right way of achieving a proper balance in relation to authority for surveillance and the protection of civil liberties. We said from the beginning that we felt that there should be scrutiny and a strengthening of the protection in the legislation as it passed through both Houses. We have fulfilled our part with honour and distinction.

Mr. Beith

I am tempted to say, "Come on. The other one's got bells on it." The hon. Gentleman must consider what his colleague the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said during the Bill's earlier stages, when he was satisfied that we did not need a system of prior authorisation. There has been agreement throughout that a body that reviewed the whole process—the commissioners—would be an element in the system. The change has been that that body has also been entrusted with giving prior approval to intrusive surveillance, a change that was not originally supported by the Labour party and that it supported later. I have welcomed that, and the hon. Gentleman should accept those kind words with good grace, but it took quite an effort.

I am glad to say that many Labour Members voted with us in favour of our circuit judge amendment, as they did on other aspects of this Bill and the Crime (Sentences) Bill, even when advised not to do so by Labour Front Benchers. Thankfully, some people in that party in another place are strongly committed to civil liberties.

We are dealing now with the circumstances in which prior approval would have to be given by the commissioners. The crux of the issue is urgency; that is what the amendment is about. There is a fear that, because, in urgent cases, prior authority or approval will not be necessary—it will be sufficient to notify the commissioner at the time or as soon as possible thereafter of the intrusive surveillance operation—that creates too wide and open a measure in the Bill. I shall not go as far as the Home Secretary, who said about another aspect of another Bill that it was driving a coach and horses through it, but there is a potentially wide loophole that might be too extensively used. In Committee and again today, I seek to define "urgency" more clearly.

In discussions, we have refined the position between the Government and ourselves. I recognise that, so far as they have been expressed to me, certainly in private, the Government's intentions seem to be what I would want them to be—that those urgent provisions should be used only in circumstances where it was not reasonably practicable to apply for an authorisation, because to do so would cause such delay as seriously to prejudice the effectiveness of the operation. Unless there is some such understanding, there is a slight danger that people working in that sphere will say, "All operations are urgent. In the nature of things, when your opportunity comes, you have to act quickly."

For the comparable activities of the Security Service, it is not felt necessary to have any urgent provisions at all. The same is true of police applications to tap telephones. What happens? The Home Secretary must be consulted and give his authorisation, his warrant. If the Home Secretary has to be got out of bed for the purpose, that is what happens. If he has to be tracked down on his holidays for the purpose, that is what happens. If he is out of the country, another Secretary of State is got out of bed—or found, wherever he may be.

That procedure is efficient enough to work rapidly in cases of urgency. We must also remember that no such action takes place without a formalised procedure within the police force. The chief constable is involved. Papers are brought to him, and the process takes some time. It is not a case of someone making a snap decision on the spot, after which something happens immediately.

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In any event, because of the nature of what is being done, such arrangements take a bit of preparation and planning. One cannot decide on such a course of action on the spur of the moment. It would be wrong to exaggerate the number of cases in which special urgency procedures are used.

The provision is there now and our job, as we revise the Bill on Report, is to ensure that it is adequate. I hope that the Minister will tell us that urgency really means urgency, and that the provision will not be used lightly. If possible, the code of practice could be improved to stipulate that.

What is said in the House will help to reinforce the fact that the procedures should not be used unless it is not possible to go through the formal procedures, because to do so would prevent the police from doing the important job that they have in hand.

Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills)

I support the amendment. Perhaps the most grievous thing about the Bill—it is at the heart of the reason why I oppose it root, branch and in every way that I can—is the concept of moving from traditional, constitutional and historical values.

No one should enter our homes without the authority of a warrant, and such a warrant should not be self-issuing. The extraordinary thing about the Bill is that although we have insisted that warrants be granted to the security and intelligence services only through the Home Secretary or the Foreign Secretary, who are accountable on the Floor of the House, the Home Office now countenances the idea that chief constables or their deputies should be able to authorise themselves in any circumstances.

It was extraordinary to see the House of Lords reissue the language of this country, for this is a land of liberty. We believe in things, and one of the most important of those things is that a warrant must be issued to permit entry into people's homes.

Under the revised provisions, the Home Secretary still countenances the idea that circumstances could exist—he described them as extraordinary—in which it would be necessary to allow a police officer to be in effect self-warranting. That is wholly inappropriate.

Why does our language describe us as a land of liberty? Why have we had all those protections? Why have many people come here as refugees to escape what has been happening abroad? Because we were people attentive to due process of law. That is why I support the amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). Why, even in extraordinary circumstances, should a chief constable be able to authorise the bugging and burgling of premises? As we were reminded by the speeches made in another place, that is unlawful, although it has been practised by the Home Office and by police forces for many years.

People will understand our sensitivity, especially in the west midlands, where it was necessary to disband our serious crime squad. Policemen themselves had come to conclusions about free citizens and ensured that they were brought to trial and found guilty. Subsequently the convictions had to be overturned, because the police had invented evidence or circumstances.

That is the danger with self-authorisation. People can become so intent on the cause that they are pursuing, the crime that they "know" someone else has committed, that they search out and find evidence, whether it is there or not. Now, for reasons of administrative convenience, the Home Office has introduced a measure that contradicts a fundamental principle—that the agencies of the Executive should not themselves be able to do these things. On Second Reading, I asked the shadow Home Secretary what the exceptional circumstances were. I noticed that, in Committee, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said: I can give no better example than the one that the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) provided on Second Reading. He mentioned a kidnapping during which the police follow a vehicle to the place where the kidnap victim is being held but do not know the location until moments before the kidnappers arrive. I agreed with the hon. Member that it would be absurd to expect the police to seek the prior approval of a commissioner in such a case."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 11 March 1997; c. 134.] Remember—my right hon. Friend said: I can give no better example". I have always understood that kidnapping is a crime, so the police are in pursuit of someone in the commission of a crime. The law of the land is on their side as they reach and pluck out those criminals. Why is it therefore necessary to construct an extraordinary warrant for the few seconds in which my right hon. Friend says that the police may have to be able to bug and burgle premises, of which they were not aware until a few seconds before? If one disentangles the logic of the proposal, it does not stand up.

I see that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) is frowning, but he will be aware of the indignation of many of us in the House at the Labour party, which stood aside on this matter until the House of Lords brought it to book. It was prepared to accept the wholesale non-use of warrants to achieve those administrative purposes for the police.

Mr. Michael

The hon. Gentleman should not make up the position of the Labour party, which I shall explain in due course. Could he explain what he has just said, as my frown was one of puzzlement? In the circumstances that he has just described, what would be the authority for the intrusion on to property to bug, with which he apparently has no problem?

Mr. Shepherd

I am referring to a kidnap in progress, when, for some reason, the police are required to bug or burgle premises. If one tests the proposition, one must ask why any of these provisions are necessary. The police know their duty, and are supported by the law and by the public. There is no need to bug premises. I am trying to suggest that we have constructed the most artificial and curious circumstances in which it is necessary for the police to intervene. I am trying to reiterate a principle that is profound to the nature of our constitution—that no authority, or part of the civil authority of the Executive, may of itself issue warrants to reach into our homes during the investigation of what amounts to 0.00001 per cent. of all possible cases at issue. Yet this law will apply to all 55 million people in the United Kingdom.

In pursuit of administrative convenience, we are prepared to throw away the reason why this was a land of liberty. I just wish that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth could give his attention to reading the original Hansard debates from the House of Lords.

Mr. Michael

Come on.

Mr. Shepherd

There is no point in trying to brush this aside, because it is a matter of indignation for some of us.

Mr. Michael

I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not be absurd. Of course I have read the Hansard reports from the House of Lords—they were extremely important debates. I was involved in debating those issues long before they reached the House of Lords, because of the importance of balancing the authorisation of surveillance to protect the public with civil liberties. Let the hon. Gentleman make his point without trying to misrepresent the position of others.

Mr. Shepherd

The conclusion that the hon. Gentleman came to was that we did not need warrants. That was the position put and argued in the House of Lords, so he should not get indignant with me about reading the report of the House of Lords debate, because it is on the record. We know full well where the hon. Gentleman started from. The House of Lords converted him because of the power of the arguments. The Labour party changed its position and that is fine—it is a triumph for the debating process in both Houses, and I salute that with pride.

We must return to the extraordinary circumstances elicited by the Home Office, which stated that it was trying to make lawful that which was unlawful and which had been a practice—through its memoranda or guidance notes—in our system of which I, through ignorance, was unaware. I suspect that large numbers of other people were unaware. Do we know whether our house is being burgled or bugged? Usually, we do not.

My nightmare is that a burglary or bugging will take place at the home of an elderly couple who are leaving from Birmingham airport and who find that they have forgotten their passports. They might come back and be confronted with intruders in their house. I can see circumstances arising from this issue that would give rise to public concern about the functions and actions of the police.

We have made it necessary for the security and intelligence services to effect such activities, but with a warrant in all circumstances. We had some great debates in the House on that subject. Yet the police, in a tiny fraction of cases, of which my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said I can give no better example".—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 11 March 1997; c. 134.] will not be required to have such a warrant.

I am terribly worried about that matter and I cannot support the Bill on that basis. We trust our police and we want to maintain such a relationship with them, but they must never be the instrument of a central authority. Secondly, our constitution is about checks and balances. We have all too few of them and they are precious. Almost the last check and balance is the courts themselves, which now engage in judicial review on a scale unimaginable a generation ago. Why? Because they are almost the only check and balance that we have left. We do not perform the task well enough.

To produce such profound legislation under the avalanche of a general election means that the reflection and consideration necessary to such an important principle have not been given in this Chamber or this House, so I support the amendment.

Mrs. Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley)

I am particularly concerned about this aspect of the Bill, especially as I have had conflicting answers from the Home Secretary about cordless telephones and who is responsible for giving the police or any other authority permission to tap such telephones. On Second Reading, the Home Secretary told me that he held no central information on the number of times that he had given permission for cordless telephones to be tapped. He then suggested that they were covered by the Interception of Telecommunications Act 1985.

In Committee, I understand that the Minister gave conflicting answers. I hope that he will clarify to our satisfaction whether cordless telephones are covered by the 1985 Act, who gives authorisation for the tapping of those telephones and who holds records of the number of times that authorisations are given. That is an important matter. A large number of people now own cordless telephones, and they will all be concerned about this grey area in the Bill.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean)

I hope that, in my usual way, I can assist the House and pour some oil on troubled waters this afternoon. First, on the point raised by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), there is no doubt about the matter, and there was no conflicting view in Committee. It is clear. Any organ of the state or anyone wanting to intercept any telephone communication, whether on a land line or a mobile phone—cordless telephones as she describes them—must have an intercept warrant under the Interception of Communications Act 1985. That requires the authorisation of the Home Secretary and has done so since IOCA was passed.

Mrs. Clwyd

Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Maclean

Yes, but the matter is not relevant to the amendment, and I do not want to stray too far from the terms of the debate.

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Mrs. Clwyd

Surveillance is part of the debate. What the Minister says conflicts with what the Home Secretary said. If he can assure us that the matter is dealt with in the Interception of Communications Act 1985, why did the Home Secretary tell us that the information was not held centrally and that it was a matter for police authorities? Surely, if he has to give his permission, he must know on how many occasions he has been asked for it.

Mr. Maclean

I cannot add anything to what I have already said. It is quite clear that the Interception of Communications Act 1985 applies to the interception of telecommunications or telephone calls, whether on mobile phones or on land lines. The hon. Lady was confusing two issues. In her original question, she was confusing information on interception of communications and the quite distinct and totally different matter of whether the police can approach a telephone operator and ask for information that may be held at the exchange or on computer records about what phone calls were made from certain phones, whether mobile or land line.

Mr. Michael

I believe that the Minister is trying to help the House, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) has been trying to tease out the explanation of the curious lack of reply from the Home Secretary on the interception of mobile phone calls. Is the Minister saying that interceptions of mobile phone calls would be included in the overall number of interceptions and cannot be distinguished, or that they are not recorded? Surely my hon. Friend's point is right: if the Home Secretary has to authorise such interceptions, they would appear in the numbers somewhere, although perhaps not in a separate category.

Mr. Maclean

I do not know whether they are separated out for statistical purposes. I can give the House the principal assurance that there is no difference in law and no avoidance of IOCA simply because the intercept relates to a mobile telephone call. At some point or other, mobile phones are plugged into the public telephone network, and if any state agency or police authority wants to intercept a public telephone, whether it is made exclusively on land lines, or between mobiles and land lines, or in any other combination, the Interception of Communications Act 1985 applies. That is exactly what I said in Committee, and I believe that that is the correct position.

I take extremely seriously the points that have been made. They were debated seriously in Committee. I know that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) expressed his concern in Committee regarding the cases in which surveillance operations in the sensitive categories may go ahead without the prior approval of the commissioner.

I also know that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) has had a noble record, since long before I came to the House, of defending absolutely the privacy and the rights of individuals. At times, the Government may have considered his interventions slightly awkward to handle, but I none the less welcome his resolute defence of those rights, and it is important that hon. Members make those points. I do not say that he is misguided today: perhaps I have not made clear to him all the safeguards that already exist in the Bill.

We are all agreed that the procedure should be used only in cases of genuine urgency, and I believe that that point is satisfactorily covered in the Bill as drafted. I do not believe that any further definition along the lines of the amendment is necessary. The amendment would not get round my hon. Friend's main point of principle. Even if I were to accept the amendment, it would not address his worries of principle. I also believe that those worries are unnecessary.

The Bill already requires that, where an authorising officer uses the urgent procedure in cases that require prior approval, he must, when notifying the commissioner, give his reasons for believing that the case was urgent. That is the crucial point. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said repeatedly that the procedure is self-authorising, and that organs of the state should not use a self-authorising procedure. I agree entirely; this is not a self-authorising procedure that no one can challenge or examine. It is not the case that chief constables can make a decision that is never re-examined.

We have built it into the Bill that, in cases where a chief officer, or those designated, believe that something is genuinely urgent, they can use the procedure. However, they must then notify the commissioner, who will be able to quash an authorisation immediately if he is not satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the case was urgent. I draw that to his attention because I know that he has read the Bill and the Committee proceedings.

Mr. Richard Shepherd

The amended Bill.

Mr. Maclean

My hon. Friend has read the amended Bill in detail. I ask him to look at the procedure that we now have: the authorisation by the chief officer; the review by the commissioner to check whether the chief officer's decision was reasonable; the appellate procedure built in for the chief commissioner. In all fairness, there is no way in which my hon. Friend could describe this as an organ of the state having a self-authorising procedure.

Mr. Shepherd

That the judgment may be reviewed subsequently does not alter the fact that the initial phase is self-authorising.

Mr. Maclean

Of course the initial phase is self-authorising, but then there are the procedures involving the commissioner and, on appeal, the chief commissioner. There is another safeguard. As my hon. Friend knows, chief constables will not abuse the procedures, because of the safeguards that are built in. I am not asking the House to trust me and to trust all the chief constables. We are not simply leaving it to that. The system will not be abused because of the procedures built in—the report that the chief commissioner will make to the Prime Minister and the safeguards that are in the Bill. The chief commissioner will consider in his annual report how the urgency procedure has been used. He will not be backward in coming forward if he believes that there has been misuse of the genuine urgency procedure.

We have had a short but crucial debate. I reiterate that I do not believe that it is necessary to define "urgency" in the Bill. I have listened carefully to the points that were made. I do not think that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed has made a case for defining in one sentence the meaning of "urgency". That could be limiting in some cases, which could be dangerous—and not because it would be administratively inconvenient. I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills that this has been done not for administrative convenience but because both Government and Opposition, in the main, appreciate that there will be some circumstances in which lives could be at risk or a terrible crime is being, or is about to be, committed. The procedure could solve the crime or prevent it from happening; it could save lives. That is not a matter of administrative convenience but an important safeguard for the rest of our 55 million citizens.

Mr. Michael

I am worried that the amendment would not only provide a definition that may not be necessary but that it might get in the way of operations and lead to dangers to the public. I shall come to that in a moment. I am stimulated to intervene not least by the fact that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) was at his sanctimonious best. Labour will not take lessons from the Liberal Democrats on the importance of civil liberties.

Last year, the Security Service Bill was improved in Committee by sensible debate. In that debate, we pressed the Government and received assurances from the Minister that, at the earliest possible date, two things would happen. First, there would be a service authority to introduce accountability for the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the proposed National Crime Squad. In the event, there are to be two service authorities with overlapping membership. Secondly, it was promised that intrusive surveillance, which was dealt with in respect of the Security Service in that Bill, would be made subject to legislation. I do not think that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed took much interest in that important step at the time.

That step was extremely important, and so are the measures before us today. The right hon. Gentleman makes a mistake in thinking that the protection of an application to circuit judges, which would introduce the delay and bureaucracy entailed in an application to a court, would provide as strong a protection of civil liberties. It would delay decision making and bring it into disrepute. It would increase the use of the urgency provisions and provide inadequate protection of civil liberties. That is why the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the House of Lords were mistaken in preferring that option, and why the amendments moved by the Labour spokesman in the House of Lords were the right approach.

The change that has happened is right. It was a sensible development. There was a debate. The outcome was a triumph for intelligent debate, which had been going on long before the press and public became interested. The change that happened means that we now have protections in the form of prior authorisation by a commissioner on sensitive matters relating to property and, for example, legal privilege. There were some worrying discussions about interference with legal privilege in areas not covered by the scope of the Bill. I think that the Minister sought to respond to that matter in a short debate at the end of the Committee proceedings yesterday. The matter will need to be returned to because there is a great deal of concern about the way in which it is being interpreted.

The speech of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) was a mixture of high principle and absurdity. He was rightly sensitive to the idea that intrusive surveillance should not take place gratuitously or to meet the administrative convenience, whether of organisations of individuals or the state as a whole. That is right. I respect his passion in raising that point, as all hon. Members would, but we need a balance. Action sometimes needs to take place urgently when it is necessary to catch criminals or protect the public. The balance in the Bill now is a good deal better than before, but to swing in the opposite direction would undermine the operations about which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed expresses concern through the wording of his amendment.

The question is what operations require urgency. Are the operations the only things that would define urgency? The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills referred to the case of a kidnap victim. He has misunderstood the nature of the authorisation that would be needed in those circumstances. He said that it was obvious that everything should be done to protect someone who had been kidnapped, where there was danger to life. Clearly, that is the case, but it is not always possible to predict the movements of the kidnappers or what premises they will go to. Intelligence that a kidnap victim will be taken to particular premises might require surveillance of those premises at short notice in the interests of the protection of the victim and the effective conclusion of the operation. That is surely a sensible priority to allow for. The hon. Gentleman suggested that, in those circumstances, it would be so obvious that the victim needed to be protected that self-authorisation would be allowed.

Mr. Richard Shepherd

All I am saying is that provisions in the criminal law give the police authority to arrest people for kidnapping or whatever. That is why I have difficulty in understanding why we need to set down the principle that everyone should be authorised by a warrant from a separate institution such as the magistrates court.

Mr. Michael

I see that the hon. Gentleman did not understand the example that was given, which was that of the need to undertake intrusive surveillance of premises to which a kidnap victim might be taken in order to undertake the operation of safely rescuing that victim. There are examples that go precisely to the point of the authorisations in the Bill and to the sort of circumstances in which urgency might arise.

My concern is that, if the amendment were to be passed, it would allow the urgency procedure to be used only where delay would be likely seriously to prejudice the effectiveness of the operation. Other matters might be urgent, such as the protection of the public or the avoidance of danger to the public or to police officers. The amendment would prevent the urgency provision being used in those circumstances, and that would be a grave mistake. I certainly understand the reasons why the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed wants to define urgency more closely, but his amendment would introduce a danger that the use of the urgency provisions would be so constrained that police officers and members of the public were put at risk. That would be a dangerous mistake to make.

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Mr. Beith

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) for his usual stalwart contribution on civil liberties matters, as I have been grateful for his support in earlier stages of the Bill. I am also grateful for the closing words of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael). I shall not dwell on his earlier remarks, except to say that he is an upholder of the longer and rather unhappy political tradition of never admitting that one was wrong, even when one has had the sense to change one's mind. That attitude is all too common in British politics, but I see no merit or advantage in it.

The Minister's remarks were echoed to some extent by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth in saying that we must have an urgent procedure because lives may be at risk. I simply emphasise that the existing procedure, with no urgency provision, has to be operated when terrorism is being fought by the Security Service. If that service is aware that a surveillance operation is necessary because of the prospect of a major bomb outrage occurring, it gets to the Home Secretary quickly, and gets the authorisation in an efficient manner.

What I do not want is a cumbersome and slow system of approvals for the police when dealing with serious crime that necessitates frequent recourse to an urgent procedure in which they do not have to get approval in advance. The Minister has said, and has referred to parts of the code of practice that say, that urgency has to be genuine. He has underlined that the urgent application will not merely be reviewed as to whether it was a good idea, but will be open to being quashed. That quashing might not have any effect if the operation has already been completed, but one quashing of an urgent application at a relatively early stage might serve to concentrate minds wonderfully from then on. I hope that that does not prove necessary, but the Minister has today helped to make clear it that the procedures should be used only in an extremely limited and closely defined set of circumstances.

There may be dangers in narrow definitions, but the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth illustrated some of the dangers of broad definitions by using phrases such as "where there is danger to the public". There is danger to the public in all these matters—there is danger to the public in most serious crime and all terrorism. However, we have to have procedures that ensure that rapid action can be taken where that is needed and that the civil liberties of the vast majority of citizens, who are not engaged in any of those activities, are also protected.

The Minister has helped to put that firmly on the record, and, on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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