Foreign and Commonwealth Office and
Northern Ireland Office warrants
33. In paragraphs 10-12 of my predecessor’s 1995 Annual Report, he set out the
reasons for not disclosing the number of warrants issued by the Foreign Secretary
and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the main part of the Report. I
take this opportunity to emphasise again the reasoning behind this decision.
34. This practice is based on paragraph 121 of the Report of the Committee of
Privy Councillors appointed to inquire into the interception of communications
and chaired by Lord Birkett. The Birkett Committee thought that public concern
about interception might to some degree be allayed by the knowledge of the
actual extent to which interception had taken place. After carefully considering
the consequences of disclosure upon the effectiveness of interception as a means
of detection, they decided that it would be in the public interest to publish figures
showing the extent of interception, but to do so only in a way which caused no
damage to the public interest. They went on to say:
“We are strongly of the opinion that it would be wrong for figures to be
disclosed by the Secretary of State at regular or irregular intervals in the
future. It would greatly aid the operation of agencies hostile to the state if
they were able to estimate even approximately the extent of the interceptions
of communications for security purposes.”
35. Like my predecessors I am not persuaded that there is any serious risk in the
publication of the number of warrants issued by the Home Secretary and the First
Minister for Scotland. This information does not provide hostile agencies with
any indication of the targets because as Lord Lloyd said in his first Report
published in 1987 “the total includes not only warrants issued in the interest of
national security, but also for the prevention and detection of serious crime.”
These figures are, therefore, set out in the Annex to this Report. However, I
believe that the views expressed in Lord Birkett’s Report still apply to the
publication of the number of warrants issued by the Foreign Secretary and the
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I also agree with the view of my
predecessor, Lord Nolan, that the disclosure of this information would be
prejudicial to the public interest. I have, therefore, included them in the
Confidential Annex to this Report.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal
36. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (the Tribunal) was established by section
65 of RIPA. The Tribunal came into being on 2 October 2000 and from that date
assumed responsibility for the jurisdiction previously held by the Interception of
Communications Tribunal, the Security Service Tribunal and the Intelligence
Services Tribunal and the complaints function of the Commissioner appointed
under the Police Act 1997 as well as for claims under the Human Rights Act. The
President of the Tribunal is Lord Justice Mummery with Mr. Justice Burton
acting as Vice-President. In addition, seven senior members of the legal
profession serve on the Tribunal, one of whom, I am sad to report, died in the
summer of 2004. A Registrar has also been appointed to help in the process of
hearing claims alleging infringements of the Human Rights Act.
37. As I explained in paragraph 25 of my Annual Report for 2000, complaints
to the Tribunal cannot easily be “categorised” under the three Tribunal systems
that existed prior to RIPA. Consequently, I am unable to detail those complaints
that relate to the interception of communications that would have previously been
considered by the Interception of Communications Tribunal. I can only provide
the information on the total number of complaints made to the Investigatory
Powers Tribunal. The Tribunal received 90 new applications during 2004 and
completed its investigation of 49 of these during the year as well as concluding
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