Parliament this week passed a law allowing the bulk collection by the government of all internet traffic in the United Kingdom. It was the fifth addition to state surveillance powers since the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa). The following is an extract from Hansard for 1 April next year.

Secretary of state for the Home Department: Mr Speaker. When I addressed the house on 14 July last year, I said there was “no greater duty for a government than the protection and security of its citizens when we face the very real and serious prospect that the police, law enforcement agencies and the security and intelligence agencies will lose vital capabilities”. I was asking parliament to pass an “emergency” measure in a single day, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (Drip). I now propose a further strengthening.

The 2014 act allowed the government access to all internet communication by everyone in the UK. Terrorists, criminals and paedophiles were using the net for nefarious activities, as they once used the telephone. We sought new powers to intercept them because the European court had recently said the law did not permit it. In the words of our American friends: “We needed the haystack before we could look for the needle.”

A serious shortcoming has now emerged in the 2014 act. Many terrorists, criminals and paedophiles are no longer using the internet, and we need to follow them more closely. While their activities in the open are subject to surveillance cameras, they are also meeting in private houses and other premises. We thus need visual capability for complete coverage. The proposed bill supplies a vital link in the chain.

In consultation with colleagues I intend to amend building regulations to ensure that all new and converted properties have fish-eye lenses installed in ceiling cavities, with Wi-Fi cameras and appropriate power supply. A discreet camera in every room would be unnoticed and, in my view, unobjectionable.

Existing properties will be required to install them over a four-year period. These would supply real-time images of terrorists, criminals and paedophiles at any time of day and night. Any disconnection of a camera would immediately alert the police as prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. I have held talks with the industry on whether the cameras should be in bathrooms and bedrooms. It would clearly be nonsensical to exclude them, as terrorists and paedophiles often make use of these rooms.

I want to reassure honourable members on a number of points. Those who use their houses for legitimate purposes have nothing to fear. This measure is solely for public safety and law enforcement. The cameras will be coded to police and security service specifications. There is no question of third parties being able to access or hack into them. Whitehall has long experience with data security and knows how to safeguard it. [Hon members: interruption] There is no question of images being leaked, let alone sold, to outsiders. [Further interruption]

The cameras will be activated and images examined only where persons are suspected of wrongdoing in terms of Ripa 2000. This includes threats to national security and public safety, antisocial behaviour and matters injurious to the nation’s economic wellbeing. Images will be available only to those specified in the Ripa schedules. While this includes a wide variety of central and local government agencies, cabinet colleagues assure me they will not be used to verify rules on bedroom tax, immigration, multi-occupancy, school catchment areas, drug-taking, wife-beating or any other misdemeanour.

I want to emphasise that the innocent have nothing to hide, so they have nothing to fear. If people at present have no objection to our being able to know all they write online and listening to all they say on mobile phones, they can hardly object to our seeing everything they do at home. I repeat: what have they to hide? The aid to national security must overwhelm mere considerations of personal privacy.

The images will be stored as metadata for just 12 months, and warrants will be needed for the security services and others to access actual pictures. I know people say these warrants are now two a penny. The reality is that the principle of no intrusion on privacy without legal warrant has long been eroded by the flow of digital activity. People accept that banks, doctors, schools, retailers and others gather data on them, and this data is frequently shared and even sold. They accept surveillance cameras in public places.

I am tired of wimps and libertarians accusing me of intrusion when I see terrorists, criminals and paedophiles on every horizon. Still, I am proposing to appoint a new overseer to monitor all classes of images gathered by the new cameras. He or she will be selected in consultation with the security services, and will be called the Personal and Territorial Surveillance Investigator (Patsy).

While I deplore the revelations of the traitor Snowden, he has at least highlighted the obstacles facing the security services in amassing and storing bulk data. His disclosures testify to the full majesty of our power, but also the gaps. That internet companies have been secretly collaborating with us shows the excellence of business cooperation in this surveillance.

I have heard glib talk about a “spy in every bedroom” and “big brother is watching you”. Whose side are these critics on: that of the terrorist and the paedophile? Benjamin Franklin may have said: “He who sacrifices security to freedom deserve neither” – but our job is security first and last. Last year we tracked down 10,000 paedophiles, largely through our new electronic capability. The security services tell me they need visual data to close the net. I cannot possibly deny them.

As I said last year of digital data: “They can prove or disprove alibis. They can identify links between potential criminals ... Without those capabilities, we run the risk that murderers will not be caught, terrorist plots will go undetected, drug traffickers will go unchallenged, child abusers will not be stopped, and slave drivers will continue their appalling trade in human beings.” Are we blind to such monstrosities?

Last year I welcomed all parties’ support in extending blanket digital surveillance. We now need a further extension. If this bill is not passed, as I said last year: “lives may be lost”. I repeat: the innocent have nothing to fear. Only the guilty can object. I beg to move.

[Hon members: Hear, hear!]