Part of Investigatory Powers Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 12:30 pm ar 21 Ebrill 2016.
Keir Starmer
Shadow Minister (Home Office)
12:30,
21 Ebrill 2016
We have been over the territory of the judicial test, and I do not intend to rehearse the arguments again, other than to say that in circumstances where an equipment interference warrant has been issued by a law enforcement chief—it has not gone through the Secretary of State—it is particularly important for the review by the judicial commissioner to be tight. All the arguments made earlier about the test are reinforced in cases that do not go to the level of the Secretary of State. Any arguments about deference are unpersuasive. There is a particularly powerful argument for tightening up the judicial test throughout the Bill, and I have raised that topic on a number of occasions. There is a particular need for that where a warrant has come about by a different route, without receiving the scrutiny that a warrant signed by the Secretary of State would have.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.