My Lords, once again, I thank those in the intelligence community who defend our country. I thank all MPs and Peers from both Houses for their dedicated scrutiny of the Bill, which we fully support. As the noble Lord outlined, it is a good Bill that has been improved by your Lordships’ scrutiny, and it benefited from starting in your Lordships’ House before it went to the other place. I thank—as did the noble Lord, Lord Fox—the Bill team for their work and for their genuine engagement with us as the Bill progressed. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, for the detailed report that he did, which led to much of what we see in the Bill, and it is good to see the noble Lord in his place.

We support the various amendments that the Minister outlined. I welcome the changes made to Clause 11 ensuring that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal is able to consider and determine complaints about personal data breaches. Clause 14 has also been improved after input from my noble friend Lord West in this Chamber and colleagues from across Parliament. While we all accept that updating the Investigatory Powers Act to reflect changes in threats and technology is necessary, any additional or broadened powers granted must be proportionate and have a clear structure of scrutiny and accountability. That is especially true when the Government are proposing that those powers be extended to those outside the intelligence community. It is therefore right that the powers of public authorities to obtain disclosures of communications data under Clause 14 have been limited to the Treasury and local authorities, while the Government retain the flexibility of being able to modify this list.

I have a couple of questions about that. What does “The Treasury” include? Does it include all the various agencies of the Treasury? Similarly, could the Minister detail what “local authority” includes? My understanding is that it does not include town councils, but I wonder whether the Minister could clarify whether it includes all other tiers of local authority. What about regional mayors and police and crime commissioners, or is that something the Government would consider looking at in future? Are they able to do so under the provisions of the Act? It is regrettable that the power to amend the list of public authorities is not subject to the affirmative procedure. I hope the Minister can give us some assurance that there will be the opportunity for Parliament to debate changes to any of this.

The Government have made changes to my noble friend Lord West’s amendments, which were accepted on Report in this House, regarding the interception and examination of communications of Members of Parliament and others. These changes retain the intention of my noble friend’s amendments and, as such, we are happy to accept them. Again, we welcome the way in which the Government have engaged with my noble friend to come to a compromise on this issue.

There is one point that it would be remiss of me not to mention, particularly with my noble friend Lord Murphy and others sitting here. I say to the Government once again that there is a need for the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee to be considered, along with whether the terms of reference for that committee need updating in light of the various changes we have seen and the various extensions of responsibilities to other government departments. I know that is outside the scope of the amendments before us, but it would be remiss of me not to mention an extremely important thing that needs to happen as soon as possible.

Lastly, I wonder whether the Prime Minister has found time to meet the Intelligence and Security Committee yet.