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National Security Strategy

My Lords, the noble Lord raises a number of very important issues. As noble Lords will know, we are looking at the RIPA legislation because we are not convinced that it is being used by, for example, local councils in the right way. That was never intended and we want to ensure that that is resolved and that there is proper guidance. Without a doubt, we need to look at the legislation in that context. As regards ethics and the Joint Committee and the question of parliamentary oversight, there is of course the committee for the national security strategy. I thought that it would have been named already, as I know that it is being talked about in the other place with the Speaker and so on. It will have some oversight of the national security strategy. I undertake to look at cybersecurity on its own and see whether the committee will cover that, or whether we need, with the ethics committee, some other joint aspect. So I commit to that, but I would not want to give an off-the-cuff answer on it. The matter is too complicated; some of it will be the business of people within the other place as well as here, and to say more would be beyond my remit. One feels at times that the internet is a bit of an ungoverned space. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, has often mentioned the issue of deep packet inspections and the like, and I have some concern about that. We have managed to get a lot of voluntary agreement on things such as child pornography, which is super, and I am pleased that we have achieved that. However, it proves more difficult in some other areas, and the internet is now so all-pervasive that we will have to think about this. At the moment, though, there is nothing planned, and we would have to think about how to move forward in a very broad all-party context. So we are not doing anything, but it is a nagging concern at the back of my mind. Some of the CSPs and ISPs have been very good about working with us. BT, for example, has been fantastic: it has engaged with us and helped us in saying, "We’ve had this many attacks; this is happening; what about trying this?". It works closely with us, as generally these companies do, but some are better than others. All of them, though, are beginning to understand that, given the state threats, the threats from serious and organised crime—£50 billion a year or so is lost around the world, and that amount is getting bigger all the time—and the threat to each individual person, such as identity theft or bank account attacks, it is in all our interest to work together, and I think that generally they will.