Last week the Investigatory Powers Bill was granted Royal Assent. The new Act updates our surveillance laws and provides powers to enable our intelligence agencies and police to fight crime and terrorism. The previous tangle of laws has been swept away and a single, consistent and transparent new surveillance framework has been introduced.

As terrorists, paedophiles and other criminals move their activities on to the internet, it is vital that those who protect us from these threats can operate there as effectively as they can in the non-digital world, and that they have the right legal structure to do so.

The sort of terrorist attacks that we have seen in Paris, Brussels and Nice could just as easily happen here in Britain. In 2005 they did.