Foreign and Commonwealth Office and
Northern Ireland Office warrants
26. 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.
27. 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.”
28. 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
29. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (the Tribunal) was established by
section 65 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. 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 claims under the Human Rights Act. The President of the
Tribunal is Lord Justice Mummery with Mr. Justice Burton acting as VicePresident. In addition, seven senior members of the legal profession serve on
the Tribunal. A Registrar has also been appointed to help in the process of
hearing claims alleging infringements of the Human Rights Act.
30. As I explained in paragraph 25 of my first Annual Report in 2000,
complaints to the Tribunal cannot easily be “categorised” under the three
Tribunal system that existed prior to RIPA. Consequently, I am unable to detail
those complaints that relate solely to the interception of communications. I can
only provide the information on the total number of complaints made to the
Tribunal. The Tribunal received 109 new applications during 2003 and
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