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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I thank the noble Baroness for these points. A couple of them are rather important. As regards the Northern Ireland situation, the period of 48 hours was used in Northern Ireland. The provisions were used around 347 times over a period of five years and the police found that 48 hours was adequate time generally to examine a document. Therefore, we did not see any reason why we should change that. The Bill makes provision for extending the periods of retention, only with the authorisation of a chief inspector, up to a maximum of 96 hours. Perhaps we have not made it clear enough in the Bill. As I understand it, if you find something in a document in 96 hours—the period up until which it is removed—that is important for the case, you then seize it. On encryption, we are not allowed to decrypt something on the basis of this clause. We would have to apply for a separate notice under Section 49 of RIPA. If it was encrypted, we would either have to say that we need not bother because of all the other stuff or, if we felt we needed to, we would have to apply for that notice. I am not sure that that is quite clear enough in the Bill; I will look at it and see that it is clarified. However, the amendment would confuse things and wreck this aspect of the Bill. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.