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Home Affairs and Justice

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that topic, I want to raise the problem of encryption of electronically held documents and the difficulty of getting into them during the time available, which is put forward repeatedly. Indeed, that was the main argument put forward on the previous occasion on which we debated the issue two years ago. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman can answer this question. Under both the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, there is provision for orders to be made requiring that people who are held should give up the encryption on their computers. If they do not do so, they may be held in custody while those computers are de-encrypted. Why is that not sufficient in those circumstances?