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Counter-Terrorism Bill

moved Amendment No. 4: 4: Clause 1, page 2, line 14, leave out paragraph (a) The noble Baroness said: This is also a probing amendment. We seek to find out how far the police can go to extract material potentially related to a terrorism offence. The subsection refers to information in electronic form—which can, presumably, only be in computers or, at the most, a rather grand BlackBerry. With regard to something that the police expect to be on a computer, how much co-operation can they expect or require from someone whom they suspect of an offence to get that information? Will the person be required to hand over the password, or will the police just be able to seize the electronic equipment and go off to try to break the password? If the owner refuses to give the information required, what are the penalties likely to be? Is it an offence to refuse to give the police information that would help them to get information from a computer, either under the Bill or under any other Act? That is quite important because you could have a very obdurate person—no one will be very happy about having people stamping over their premises—who becomes very obstructive. Are the powers somewhere else and not translated into the Bill, or are they not in the Bill so that we need to look at what could be required? I beg to move.