Ms Stella Creasy
MP for Walthamstow · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his clear-sighted commitment not only to talk about a two-state solution, but to actually try to act to achieve it, as the only foundation of a safe Israel and a free Palestine.”
“Could he reassure the House that we will not acquiesce and bend to such pressure, and that the only action that could ever be acceptable to us to make us contemplate reversing this ban would be a halt on the E1 development and a permanent end to settler violence?”
“I start by paying tribute to the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for all the work she did on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on these issues. I know that she will do a brilliant job in this role.”
“I do not really understand the technology, but I know that he does, and I understand and share his fear accordingly. We come here today to debate this Bill because we all know that trust is a bygone issue in our politics.”
“We would welcome her having that conversation, which might be more illuminating than whether she is concerned about Zach Goldmsith’s leaflets. I add my support to the amendments tabled by my hon.”
“From today, if we do not take a stand with this Bill to tackle the ways that money has infiltrated our politics, the risk is that they will think we are acting in the interests of our own back pockets.”
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“It can ask its clients why they did not seem to understand tenancy rights, which puts them at risk of lengthy court proceedings. It could ask why, when a serious organisation such as Dolphin Living wants to work with them, they do not negotiate or even pick up the phone. I know all this because I have spent the past month trying to do that deal for them. If we cannot save this estate with the help of Dolphin, the fate of these residents is unlikely to be happy. Local rents have rocketed to close to double the amount that these tenants were originally paying and far above what most of them can afford. Claiming housing benefit even if they were willing to reduce their net income is no longer feasible in a London where the limits on housing benefit are below local market rents.”
“The Government have taken an active interest in the future of NatWest. They sought to sort out its leadership; now it is time for us to use our muscle with this institution to make it live its values in its lending policies. That multi-million pound loan given to Butterfields E17 Ltd diverts resources away from meeting the serious costs of funding the needs of small businesses. That bank is also fuelling the speculation in higher housing costs, which is so detrimental to my local community, without funding any building work despite the challenge of building houses in this country. It is not too late for NatWest to act. NatWest is entitled under the terms of the charge to withhold consent from any sale and to prevent any other charge being put on the property.”
“It is not in our interest to enter into unsustainable commercial agreements, or to lend to organisations, or individuals, which could damage the bank’s reputation.” I hope we can all agree on one thing across the House tonight: if making 63 families homeless is not bad for your reputation, what is? Yet NatWest tells me that its executive response team has not found any evidence that the bank did not act in accordance with its policy and procedures. I am here not to discuss the pros and cons of the bail-out, but to say very plainly that we will pay the price twice for NatWest’s conduct. We will pay the cost of the bail-out and the cost of helping these families if they are made homeless. I hope that the Minister will agree to act and to raise this matter with NatWest directly.”
“This is the same NatWest bank that we, as taxpayers, own 73% of. Yet it is financing the break-up of a community. Ironically, it is doing so during a Treasury consultation about the Bank of England’s role in regulating buy-to-let lending. This is at a time when UK productive corporate investment is low by historical and international comparison. NatWest bank owns a separate charge on each of the 63 flats, linked to its loan. No other funder has a charge on the flats. It is simply inconceivable that it did not know of the plans to evict the tenants, as how else would this loan be repaid? One would have hoped compliance would have flagged up the chequered history of the people who took out the loans. NatWest policies explicitly state: “Our firm commitment is to lend responsibly.”
“This is not necessarily a bad news story for the Minister, because today I can reveal that Dolphin Living, part of the Dolphin Square Charitable Foundation, has formally stated that it is prepared to make an offer for the entire estate, helping to keep these hard-working residents in their homes and working for this city. Yet still the owners refuse to negotiate, hoping that by their tactics residents will go quietly and they can continue to flog off the flats to push up their profits. They have pound signs in their eyes, but good business sense has gone out the window. They are bullying, misleading and riding roughshod over the rights of these people. The question is: just how did they end up being able to buy all these properties? That is where NatWest comes into this story. It was NatWest that financed the purchase of this estate.”
“Despite the legislation on revenge evictions, these good tenants, mostly with assured shorthold tenancies, now have to fight for their very rights, including the right for their deposits to be protected—this company also failed to tell them about that when it bought the properties. No current legislation is stopping the juggernaut of these developers riding roughshod over these residents’ rights as they chase a quick profit. In March, the new landlord put six of the flats up for auction with Savills, without telling the occupying tenants or telling the people seeking to buy those properties that they had tenants in them. Three were sold, for £300,000 each, which we think is about £50,000 more than the price paid for them. I also want to come back to that point when talking about the charity that sold the estate.”
“The only concern of these companies has been to try to get the residents out as quickly as possible so that they can sell on these properties to make a profit in London’s overheated housing market: to capitalise on the gentrification buzz that puts Walthamstow at the top of so many housing lists. To that end, these people have even sent the residents letters claiming they were no longer tenants because they had been served with an eviction notice, and suggesting they could face fines of thousands of pounds in the courts, as well as having their career prospects damaged if they fight the evictions.”
“It is not just those 16 households who are at risk; the owners have made it clear that they wish to sell on all the homes eventually. Like one in five households in this country, the only crime these people have committed is not being able to afford to get on the property ladder and so they are having to rent, meaning that they can be moved on at any time. Their good record on paying rent and taking care of these properties matters little to the new owners—businessmen with a slew of companies recorded at Companies House set up one after another and dissolved just as quickly, some with health and safety breaches recorded against them, too.”
“The tenants were not told at the time that their homes had been sold by their previous long-term owner, the Glasspool Charity Trust, a charity whose charitable purpose is to prevent destitution—I will return to that irony later. No one told them their landlord had changed. They learned of this when some tenants started getting notices to quit in January 2016 from their new landlords, telling them they had just two more months to live in Walthamstow. Sixteen tenants have so far been served with notices to quit, and they are mainly people on fairly low incomes. Almost half of them have young children, and two have retired. Most of them have lived on the estate for a long time—up to 16 years, with an average stay of seven years. This is a real community.”
“I expect that he has not heard the story of Butterfields, so I intend to set that out and then ask a series of questions. Last November, Butterfields E17 Ltd, a company formed just a few months before by Jasbir Singh Jhumat and Pardeep Singh Jhumat, bought the 63 flats on Shernhall Street and Butterfields in Walthamstow from a landlord who had owned the flats for almost 80 years. Hon. Members may have seen this part of my constituency on TV or in the newspapers—I am sure that for the Housing Minister “Location, Location, Location” is required zeitgeist viewing and that he pores over Time O ut and the property hotspots in the Evening Standard —because it is at the edge of Walthamstow village.”
“Tonight, we are holding a debate about the future of the Butterfields estate in Walthamstow, but I want to tell the Minister about the properties and the residents who live in them. The story is not unique to Walthamstow; it is a story of what is happening in our housing market around the country due to a lack of properties, and speculative developers and letting and estate agents, who seek to maximise gains without any thought to the consequences of exploiting people in this uncompetitive market. I hope to persuade the Minister to help not only to change the future for the residents of the Butterfields estate, many of whom are in the Gallery this evening, but to tackle the underlying problems that enabled the situation to arise in the first place.”
“I am pleased to hear the Minister say that he will help with the negotiation with Dolphin. That will take time. May I press him on no-fault evictions? One of the things that residents present here tonight are afraid of are letters telling them that they could generate thousands of pounds in court fees. I am sure that many of them would love to be able to save for their new home, but sadly they will not be able to get on the housing ladder, given the prices in Walthamstow. The thought that they might incur several hundred or even several thousand pounds of fees is a stick that the landlord is using to beat them with. Just as we dealt with revenge evictions, I encourage the Minister to think about no-fault evictions. These tenants are paying their rent and they are not at fault, but their rights are being undermined.”
“I do appreciate what the Minister says about wanting to tackle rogue landlords. May I press him, then, to use his good offices to engage with NatWest because of the concerns about this landlord, its previous business history and its behaviour towards residents of the Butterfields estate? In particular, its use of the idea that residents will somehow incur thousands of pounds in fines is evidence that those involved are not fit and proper people. If they will not engage with Dolphin, at least their bank might. May I therefore press the Minister to say whether he will engage with NatWest—yes or no?”
“The Secretary of State will be aware that, when it comes to a medical diagnosis, words and clarity matter. The same applies to us as politicians. He has said today that he is imposing a contract, in contrast with what his legal team are saying to the doctors. For the avoidance of doubt, will he set out explicitly what legal powers he thinks he has to do that?”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the registration of births of children of deceased people. I am conscious that our debate may be interrupted at any moment by the sound of the Division Bell. I will start, but I presume that the sitting will be suspended for 15 minutes. I called for this debate following a number of cases that had come to my attention. I want to make a simple request to the Government about freedom. Since I became an MP in 2010, we have had many debates about equality, and many of us were proud to support legislation to enable same-sex marriage, but many equality battles remain, and this is one. It is about bringing legislation on the registration of births into the 21st century.”
“As I was saying before we were interrupted by high-speed rail, this debate is about equality and freedom, because the law on equality is ultimately about the freedom for people to live their life as they wish. The freedoms we are talking about today are freedoms held in one of the most tragic circumstances possible: a mother losing a loved one just as she is bringing a new life into this world. Today I will talk about the way in which, perhaps inadvertently, our legislation discriminates against people in those circumstances.”
“We are seeking a small change in the law, but it would be a big injustice for the families if we did not drag the legislation into the 21st century. I appreciate that this might be the first time the Minister has considered the matter. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) pointed out, there are different processes in place in other countries. We want the Government to commit to looking at how they can make a change happen, and to recognise that this is an injustice that needs resolution. It is now too late for Joana—she has managed to record David’s role in Eira’s life through other means—but we know that many more families out there are suffering the same experience and hope the Government will act accordingly.”
“Turning up with a father is in itself no guarantee that he is the father, just as turning up without him does not mean that he can be verified by DNA testing alone. Will the Minister consider ending the inequality and making sure that this part of the law does not judge those who choose not to marry, just as we seek to support those who do choose to marry? In not giving registrars the same power to correct an absence as to make an addition, we persist with the inequality of saying that some women will lie and that marriage is what makes them truthful. Why treat women who choose not to marry as somehow untrustworthy? Why not enable registrars to seek evidence, act and use their professional judgment?”
“We already recognise that it is right for a registrar to have the discretion to amend a certificate in certain circumstances—they can use their professional judgment and respond to the person in front of them—without requiring people to go to court, which can cost families thousands of pounds at the most tragic of times. We do not, though, have the ability to correct an absence. There is no way to allow a registrar to look at the evidence that Joana could have so easily presented, at the time, of the sincere and committed relationship she was in with David, and to act accordingly. At the most difficult and sensitive time for a family, the law stands firm. It does not see the lives that people had, but simply makes the judgment that they were not married. We must change that.”
“That process must withstand scrutiny and nobody, either male or female, should be registered if they are not a parent. But the Act is designed to protect fathers from having an illegitimate child registered. I would caution that the term “illegitimate” in itself speaks volumes of the 1950s, not the 21st century in which we live. The existing law requires the courts to verify parentage when the parents are not married, as if marriage in and of itself verifies the truthfulness of what a woman says. There is, though, already a process in place for a birth certificate to be amended to add a name.”
“I pay tribute to the organisation Widowed & Young, which has been helping equally all four of the women I mentioned. It recognised the iniquities in the existing system. When those women’s partners were alive, all four couples were treated equally with regard to taxation. It is only in death that we see the inequality in people’s treatment. By having that marriage licence, Kate did not have to go through the indignity of having to try to prove her child’s paternity in the way the other three did. The Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 is truly from another time. I say for the avoidance of doubt that I think everyone understands that because legal rights come with parenthood, there must be a process for registering children.”
“The £27 licence meant that not only was she able to register her child’s father with no further questions asked—even though, just as in the cases of Joana, Penny and Rebecca, he was not present at the registration process—but she was entitled to a bereavement allowance of £2,000 and an ongoing widowed parent’s allowance of £510 a month. There is a simple question at the heart of this matter. I wanted the debate because as a society we have not yet considered these issues, even though they affect how people live today. In securing the debate, the first thing I wanted to do was put this matter on the Minister’s list of things to resolve. The situation still exists only because nobody has really looked at it in the 21st century. Why do we treat Kate differently from Penny, Rebecca and Joana?”
“All three women faced the same scenario in which their word, and even the basic evidence they could provide for the long-standing, committed relationships they were in with the fathers of their children, was not enough, so they had to go to court. They faced a court fee of £365 and possible further fees for DNA tests to prove that their partner was indeed the father. In fact, in Joana’s case, David’s father had to come to court. They had to take DNA not just from Eira but from her sister and from a family member to prove that most basic relationship, which was obvious to the outside world. The situation was very different for Kate, who also lost her partner in tragic circumstances shortly before the birth of their son. Three weeks before he passed away they married in a hospital intensive care unit.”
“They were clearly in a committed relationship, but alas, the law includes no ability to recognise that and does not give the registrar the ability to record David’s part in Eira’s life, because of the simple fact that Joana and David were not married. Joana is not alone. Penny’s partner Nathan sadly died two weeks after their son was born. Their son was conceived using IVF, so Nathan was clearly the father. Again, purely because Nathan and Penny had chosen not to marry, they were not able to record Nathan’s role in their son’s life on the birth certificate. Penny told us: “Babies don’t come from wedding rings.” There is also Rebecca, who already had a child with Mark before he tragically died in a paragliding accident when Rebecca was just 17 weeks pregnant.”
“Having his role in Eira’s life recorded was therefore an important part of the grieving process for the family, and doubly important for Eira because it gives her the same rights to David as her sister. Joana has described to me the dehumanising process of trying to get David’s role in Eira’s life recorded on the birth certificate. She described turning up at the register office only to find that the registrar had no idea what to do, and she then found out that she had to go to court to prove that David was the father. She had been in a long-term relationship with this man. She shared a mortgage with him, and he had been at the National Childbirth Trust classes. He had been an integral part of the preparations for the birth of their second child.”
“My hon. Friend, like me, has such cases in her constituency, hence her concern to get the law right. The legislation does not make sense in the 21st century, and our concern is that it inadvertently discriminates against women. It makes a value judgment about the mothers in question and therefore enshrines an outdated attitude towards women in the process. I have some examples, and I am grateful that one of the people tragically affected is here with us today. My constituent, Joana, is a young mum from Walthamstow, and she already had one child with her partner, David, when he tragically had a stroke shortly before the birth of their second child, Eira.”
“Will the Minister commit to examining why we presume a registrar can exercise their professional judgment to amend a registration when perhaps even married people might not have given the whole truth at the point of registering a birth, but, when it comes to adding the name of a person who cannot be there for a very reasonable reason—because they have passed away—we deny the registrar’s professional expertise? The simple resolution would be to extend the use of that professional expertise to both instances, rather than saying that only the courts can add a name, but that a registrar can amend a name.”
“I thank the Minister for her comments. Nobody is suggesting that we do not need a robust process for registering births. However, what troubles me particularly in this instance is the difference between a registrar taking on that role and seeking a court intervention. She and I may differ on whether the cost of the court fees is excessive, but the principle that the court has to be involved at all is the challenge, especially when we allow registrars to amend a birth certificate. It is registering a name in the first place that is the challenge when the father is deceased and the parents are not married.”
“For clarity, may we have a timetable for the scrutiny of marriage licences, and for consideration of extending the registrars’ powers to add a name? Now that we have opened up the matter in debate, we know that several families are in the same position, and they would welcome clarity about when they will get answers.”
“We are seeing a situation of rising personal debt, and low or no savings, in which wages are now stalling. This has an impact on our public finances, because it leads to lower tax receipts. They are down £44 billion on the projections made in 2011. That is why we on this side of the House are angry when we see that those who will do well out of the Budget are those who can well afford to pay. We know that 80% of the gains from the Budget will go to those in the top half of the income distribution, and that half of that amount will go to the top 20%. Meanwhile, debt is locking our people out of opportunities.”
“We know that every single penny matters. That is why it is such a problem that people face these levels of debt. This Chancellor is banking on the British habit of borrowing, but that is like putting Wayne Rooney in charge of a stock-take in a Nike shop. This is not just about people’s borrowing habits. The fact is that we are now a nation that cannot save either. We are saving just 4% of our disposable income, which is half as much as we were saving four years ago. That is the lowest level of personal saving since 1963. Help to Save will do little for the 26 million people in our country who do not even have access to £1,000 for an emergency. On this Government’s watch, they have no rainy day money. Lifetime ISAs are out of reach for those people who have too much month at the end of their money.”
“The Bank of England tells us that people are now borrowing £1 billion a month in this country. In January alone, people put £500 million on their credit cards, and Aviva tells us that the average family debt is now £13,000, up £4,000 from last summer’s level. Those on the Conservative Benches who are casual about credit miss the point. Not everyone is paying the same level of interest. Some are being charged excessive amounts for the debts that they are getting into to pay for the Chancellor’s mistakes. The hon. Member for South Dorset talked about people putting their houses up to fund their businesses, but many in our communities have long given up on the dream of home ownership as a result of the debt that they are now in. Wages have risen by just 4% in the last few years, but house prices have gone up by 76%.”
“We can find it in our constituencies, and obtain it from the people whom we represent. In the time that I have been granted, I shall offer three areas of information on which we can judge the Chancellor’s work. The first is personal debt; the second is savings; and the third is productivity. Those are three areas in which this Budget signally fails the British people. It is no accident that personal household debt in this country is going up and up. “Unprecedented” is the term that the Office for Budget Responsibility has used to describe the impact of the Chancellor’s plans on our constituents. Unsecured personal debt is set to reach 3% of GDP and to stay at that level. This is a black hole into which the Chancellor is asking the public to pour their own money to pay for his mistakes. Just how bad is the situation?”
“Let me begin by associating myself with the comments made by the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) about the dreadful situation in Brussels. This debate has seemed to be more about astronomy than about the Budget, because we have all been talking about black holes. However, there is a clear analogy to be drawn. It will be remembered that Stephen Hawking famously described what he called the “black hole paradox”: the idea that information could simply disappear into a black hole, never to be restored, although all matter contained information that was to be held in perpetuity. What a perfect analogy that is, given that, at this point, we simply have no information about how the Budget will stack up. Our colleagues in local government would rightly be horrified. Where can we find information about the impact of the Budget?”
“How very different this is from when we sat here a year ago and listened to the Chancellor claim that he was fixing the roof and that Britain would be able to walk tall again. He is a bit like one of those builders we see on the “Watchdog” programme. I would encourage the British people to go to their trading standards officer about him, but the Government have cut that service too. They are left with only one alternative, to look to an alternative party of government—the Labour party—to offer a genuine investment in the future of our young people and a genuine recognition of why fiscal responsibility matters. This is a black hole that is sucking everything out of this country—including, hopefully, the Chancellor’s career.”
“We can see the Government signally failing to deal with the productivity gap Britain faces, and the 18% difference between ourselves and our competitors. They are failing to invest in our young people. By the end of this Parliament, China intends to produce 195 million graduates. Not just China is investing in its people; Brazil, Russia and Argentina are as well. Our children will have to compete with graduates from those countries, but our Government are offering them nothing in that regard. We can see the consequences for them in the productivity gap. And when the Government are forcing every school to become an academy, we can see that they are rejecting their own responsibility.”
“The hon. Gentleman might not know of my long-held concerns about the way in which this Government are managing the public finances. We do not have time today to talk about PFI debt, or about PF2, which is going to lead to even more problems. We on this side of the House get the fact that we need to get the deficit down, because every single penny that we pay in interest, and every single penny that we use to pay for the mistakes in this Government’s borrowing, is money that could be invested in our people. It could be invested in the public services that our communities need in order to succeed. That is the point about this Budget. It is not just about the damage that it is doing to people today, or about the debts and destitution that they face now. It is about the narrowing of their horizons tomorrow, too.”
“In his statement the Prime Minister mentioned the work of both his former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and his current Chancellor, so is he ruling out, as he suggested to the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), further negotiation with the EU on benefits and spending? How does he intend to fix the big hole in his Budget that appeared this weekend?”
“May I take the Home Secretary to the other end of the telescope, as it were, on this matter? One of the concerns people have about a general access point is not about the warrants, but about the notion that, especially online, we can separate contact and content data. The idea is to allow access to contact data, but that will inevitably be blurred with content data online. Does she accept that there is a challenge in separating contact and content data, which could give rise to some people’s concerns about general access to information? Looking at somebody’s internet correspondence is not the same as looking at a record of their phone calls.”
“All those forms of contact are created through online mediums. We will soon have pacemakers that are electronically set up. People will be able to access their bank accounts in the same way. All such contact is potentially information that could be created in an internet communication record. It could also be useful in an investigation.”
“The distinction between entity and events, and everything else, must be much tighter in the Bill. If it is not, the question of who can access that information bleeds into the question of who can access the meaning of those content combinations. Such questions will become starker as the internet develops, and particularly with the internet of things—I see that a few digital refugees on the Government Benches, and perhaps even some Labour Members, are querying what the internet of things is. It is the growing number of physical objects that are connected online. This Christmas I was given a coffeemaker that I can set off using my mobile phone, and it is wonderful to sit in bed and order several cups of coffee. So far, we have online airbags in cars, online burglar alarms, and some Members might even set their home electricity online.”
“When we talk about knowing which websites people have visited, that of course brings with it content analogies: if I visit the Refuge website or the Alcohol Concern website, that is contact data, but because it is online contact, by its very nature it carries content information. I very much welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s comments about our needing to challenge such definitions. We need a much tighter definition of what it means to have an internet connection record and of what information is held as part of that record. All three of the Committees that have looked at the legislation have called for that. However, to date, we have not heard from the Government an understanding that in the modern world the distinction between content and contact is not viable.”
“Many internet companies have made that point and said that they are concerned about such a definition. As yet, the legislation has not completely grappled with that definition. The Bill makes a distinction between identifying IP addresses and being able to know whom people have contacted, and what it calls anything else that “might reasonably be considered to be the meaning…of the communication”. That definition makes sense when we are talking about phone records, but the legislation has to cope with the world to come, not the world that has gone. If I send a message through Outlook, others do not need to know the content of the message to know that it is a request for a meeting.”
“When we come to thinking about legislation that takes account of modern technologies and the ways in which they change, such legislation must be based on an understanding of those technologies and of the consequences of such changes to the law. With that in mind, it was when the Committee looked at the question of surveillance, especially internet connection records, that concerns arose. Concerns arose in particular about the idea that, as the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) said, a dragnet could be used to bring together internet connection records for every single member of the British population for 12 months, and about what that might entail. There is a fundamental challenge at the heart of the Bill about the idea that it is possible to separate somebody’s contact data from their content data.”
“Is this legislation designed for digital natives who are comfortable with the modern world, or has it in fact been designed by what we might call digital refugees—people who run away from the reality of the modern technical advances with which we are trying to deal? All of us have had the experience of trying to explain to a person aged under 20 that, no, we could not google our homework when we were at school. Many of us may have jumpers that are older than the internet, which has fundamentally changed our lives. In this country, a third of all divorces contain a reference to Facebook, a technology that came into our lives only in 2007, but has fundamentally transformed that most personal of relationships.”
“A comment often made to explain why political events go on for so long is that, although everything that needs to be said has been said, not everybody has yet said it. In the spirit of trying to offer something different to this debate, I want to speak as a member of the Science and Technology Committee, which we might call Parliament’s geek squad, and raise a third set of concerns about the Bill as it currently stands. Members have already talked about proportionality and people’s concerns about the balance between security and liberty, about the challenges of extra-jurisdictional legislation and whether, in a global world, we can pass national laws that make sense. I want to add concerns about the technical aspects of the Bill and, frankly, about whether it will work.”
“That does not mean that we do not need methods to access that information; it means that one thing missing from this debate to date is an honesty about the technological complications that will come with this Bill, and we must address those concerns.”
“I am not quite sure about the hon. Gentleman’s point because no one is suggesting that we would not want to access such information. My point is that, from a technical perspective, separating contact data from content data is much more difficult than the Home Secretary suggests. That means that we need more honesty about the powers we are proposing that our police and investigatory authorities should have. For example, if someone can get information about my use of an electricity meter, they might want to look at the contact between me and that meter. If I were accessing it a lot, they might wonder what I was doing in my home that required so much heat. Drug enforcement agencies might look at such contact patterns, and inevitably that brings with it content about what someone is doing.”
“I hope those issues will be addressed by amendments in Committee. I believe that many members of the Science and Technology Committee share concerns about whether our technology industry is comfortable with the proposed legislation. For the Government to fail to act on any one of those questions will compromise the others. If we do not get the technology right and do not work with our overseas partners, we will not keep anybody safe. We could, in fact, create more problems. I hope Ministers will listen to those concerns and I hope they will recognise the spirit of what they said in 2009 about the importance of rolling back the surveillance state. I also hope they will be digital natives, not digital refugees. I will not support the Bill on Third Reading if they do not change it.”
“The fact that the Government have not clarified who will pay for that security, what a reasonable cost is and how to resolve disputes about what a reasonable cost will be, leaves open a gap that not just hackers but consumers will be deeply interested in. The Government must be much clearer about how they will make sure they protect consumers from having their information hacked as a result of requiring companies to gather data. There are similar concerns about bulk interference and encryption data, but my central point is this: there are questions about the proportionality and the judicial extent of the Bill and working overseas, but there are also concerns about technology. We have to be able to answer questions on all three issues to be satisfied that the Bill is appropriate for the 21st century.”