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National Security Strategy

My Lords, my locus in this is that, when I was in the position of my noble friend Lady Miller, I worked on the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Communications Bill and the RIPA legislation. I listened to the Minister and heard his passion for co-ordination. Perhaps I may ask him to think again and not just to give an off-the-cuff reaction to the idea put forward by the Constitution Committee and my noble friend for a Joint Committee to look at these issues. The more he spoke, and the more enthusiasm he expressed, it seemed that the bit of co-ordination missing from the puzzle was parliamentary oversight. Therefore, that suggestion for such a committee bears re-examination. When we carried out pre-legislative scrutiny of the Communications Bill, we took a conscious decision to leave the internet out of the scope of parliamentary legislation. It was felt that it was such a wonderfully dynamic opportunity that it was wrong to encumber it with legislation. However, should the amazing growth of technology be revisited or should the internet still be free? Linked to that, I also worked on the RIPA legislation, where it was often a case of the blind leading the blind. I make no comment about the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, but certainly some of the technology went way above my head. I remember that we built in quite strong safeguards for civil liberties. My noble friend asked whether the RIPA legislation was still fit for purpose in term of developments in technology. Finally, I went to a very interesting briefing by Vodafone the other evening, where, again, the convergence of technologies was explained—the phone as a computer with access to the internet and so on. To make this work, we will have to have an active buy-in by private companies with commercial considerations as well as national and international obligations. Is the Minister sure that we can get the buy-in from the private sector for the objectives that he has set out?