The ‘spy powers bill’ is a step too far – all parties should unite to oppose it in the Lords

The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill would give police informants total immunity. Yet the government has failed to provide any evidence as to why that’s necessary

Brian Paddick
Monday 11 January 2021 14:17 GMT
Comments
This bill would allow police officers to give an informant total legal immunity to commit any type of crime, with no prior independent authority or oversight, to combat even minor offences
This bill would allow police officers to give an informant total legal immunity to commit any type of crime, with no prior independent authority or oversight, to combat even minor offences (Getty)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Having served as a police officer for more than 30 years, I know that it is an undesirable but necessary part of policing to rely on informants, or “covert human intelligence sources” as they are now known. And, on occasion, those informants need to be tasked to commit crime.

In fact, I was once a “controller”, responsible for controlling the way police “handlers” used and rewarded informants, and I have spoken to many former controllers and handlers about their experiences.

Now, because of a legal challenge, the government has been forced to put that tasking on a statutory footing. That is why it has brought forward the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill, which we are debating in the House of Lords today.

If all this legislation did was to provide the legal authority for the police and security services to authorise informants, when necessary, to commit crime, it would maintain the status quo and the Liberal Democrats would have no argument with it. Unfortunately, the government’s bill goes much further than that – unacceptably too far.

It would give informants total immunity prior to their being tasked to commit crime, including being sued for damages, including any conduct that is “incidental” to what they have been authorised to do.

That is a complete reversal from the status quo, where the prosecuting authorities, like the Crown Prosecution Service, examines what happens after the event, and independently decides whether it is in the public interest to prosecute or not. Yet the government has been unable to provide any evidence that this change in the law is necessary.

The government claims that “we have lost intelligence and failed to recruit undercover operatives” because we do not guarantee them immunity prior to the crime. So, we asked for the evidence. How much intelligence has been lost? We don’t know, they said. We asked how many times have operational partners failed to recruit undercover operatives as a result of the status quo? We don’t know, the government said.  

We asked how many times a properly authorised agent or informant has been prosecuted for doing exactly what they had been asked to do. Again, we are told that the government didn’t know. They could not even provide one single example where this had happened – not even in private, with the sensitive detail redacted.

So why should we accept the government’s claims? Because ministers say so? Because they have been told by operational partners, who have a vested interest in being able to absolve their informants of wrongdoing, that this is the case?

Parliament set a very useful precedent on 9 November 2005, when operational partners, backed by the then Labour government, said they needed to detain terrorist suspects for up to 90 days without charge. Large numbers of Labour MPs rebelled and joined a united opposition to reject it. The House of Lords should do the same today.

Once again, the government is asking parliament to dramatically change the law. This time, so that a police officer can tell an informant to commit a crime, and for that criminal activity to no longer even be a crime, for that informant not to have legally done anything wrong at all, even if innocent people are hurt in the process. And once again, it is failing to provide any evidence to support that change.

Instead, the minister simply asserts that “the continuation of the status quo is not desirable”.

Not desirable? Police officers have to secure the prior authority of both an investigatory powers commissioner, a senior and experienced judge, and a secretary of state, before they can listen to someone’s telephone conversation, and then only if the target is suspected of the most serious criminality.

Yet this bill would allow police officers to give an informant total legal immunity to commit any type of crime, with no prior independent authority or oversight, to combat even minor offences. That is what is really undesirable.

So the Liberal Democrats will be voting for amendments to remove that immunity and preserve the status quo. I hope other parties will join us, and take the same principled stand that parliament did in November 2005.

Brian Paddick is a Liberal Democrat peer and retired police officer

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in