QUESTION TO THE FOREIGN SECRETARY FOLLOWING HIS STATEMENT ON ‘GCHQ’
Nicholas Soames’s Question to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; The Rt Hon William Hague MP; following his statement on ‘GCHQ’ in the House of Commons on Monday, 10th June, 2013
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con): People will have great confidence in hearing what my right hon. Friend has said about requests for intercept and operations in this country having to be so very rigorous. Does he also agree that the highly complex nature of modern communications inevitably means that, from time to time, privacy may have to be breached in the interests of the security of our country and its people?
Mr Hague: Yes, of course: a would-be terrorist cannot rely on their privacy and nor can someone at the centre of organised crime. It is these decisions that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I and, sometimes, other colleagues have to make. We take extra steps and extra care on privacy. The law explicitly requires us to make sure that our actions are necessary, proportionate and targeted, but we go beyond those requirements in assessing the impact on the privacy of individuals in order to try to make sure that it is only when absolutely necessary that we invade that privacy.