The home secretary has yet to make a conclusive case for giving spying agencies new snooping powers to track the web browsing histories of all British citizens, a key committee of peers and MPs has concluded.



The third critical report from a parliamentary committee in three weeks increases the pressure on Theresa May to rewrite substantial parts of her so-called snooper’s charter introduced after Edward Snowden’s disclosures of mass surveillance.

The final report of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee on the investigatory powers bill makes 86 detailed recommendations to ensure the new legal framework covering intrusive spying powers is workable, can be understood by those affected and includes proper safeguards.

The former Labour Northern Ireland secretary Lord Murphy, who chaired the committee, said: “The fact that we have made 86 recommendations shows that we think that part of the bill is flawed and needs to be looked at in greater detail. There is a lot of room for improvement.”

The MPs and peers are particularly critical of new powers requiring internet and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories – known as internet connection records – for 12 months, saying the proposal has potential but the cost and other practical implications are still being worked out.



The scrutiny committee also demands a much stronger oversight role for judicial commissioners, saying they must be appointed by the lord chief justice rather than the prime minister, have proper technical and legal backup, and have the power to initiate their own investigations.

The committee’s report is less critical of the government’s proposed privacy safeguards than its colleagues on the intelligence and security committee, who demanded earlier this week that they be strengthened and made the backbone of the bill.

Murphy added: “There is much to be commended in the draft bill but the Home Office has a significant amount of further work to do before parliament can be confident that the provisions have been fully thought through.”

The report says the MPs and peers see the desirability of giving the security agencies and police access to everyone’s web browsing histories but have “not been persuaded that enough work has been done to conclusively prove the case for them”.

The committee’s recommendations include:

• Strengthening of the judicial commissioners’ role; that they are appointed and dismissed by the lord chief justice, not the prime minister, initiate their own investigations, and refer directly to the investigatory powers tribunal. But the committee says the current proposed judicial role on “double lock” authorisation of intrusive surveillance warrants is sufficiently flexible.

• Stronger safeguards for the protection of legally and journalistically privileged material to be written on the face of the bill.

• On encryption, it welcomes the home secretary’s reassurance that the bill will not create “back doors” to encrypted services such as WhatsApp but wants clarification written into the bill. It stops short of endorsing tech industry concerns about encryption.

• The publication alongside the bill of a full justification for so-called “bulk collection powers” – mass harvesting of personal communications data – which the home secretary has yet to provide.

• Parliamentary review of the operation of the powers under the bill, five years after it is brought into force.

The report follows even more critical assessments from the intelligence and security committee, which said the bill failed to cover all the security agencies’ spying capabilities, and the science and technology committee, which warned of its potential damage to the tech industry.

The home secretary said she was determined to get the bill right. “Our draft bill followed three independent reports on investigatory powers, whose authors were unanimous a new law was necessary. We are clear we need to introduce legislation which responds to the threats we face in the digital age, protects both the privacy and security of the public, and provides world-leading oversight and safeguard.

“We will carefully consider the conclusions of the joint committee, alongside the reports from the intelligence and security committee and science and technology committee before presenting our final proposals to parliament for further debate and consideration.”

Lord Strasburger, the Liberal Democrat peer on the scrutiny committee, said: “Sadly, the Home Office has not learnt the lessons of the snooper’s charter, which the Lib Dems scuppered during the coalition. Three parliamentary committees have concluded that the new bill, like the last one, is vague and confusing and has many other faults. The government has a lot of work to do to get this important bill into shape.

“Parliament must not stand for loosely worded legislation. The Home Office has a bad habit of exploiting badly drafted acts to create highly intrusive powers without bothering to get explicit approval for them or even mentioning them to parliament. That must never be allowed to happen again.”



