Downing Street Says » Sadiq Khan

Asked how the Prime Minister felt about suggestions that the disclosures concerning Mr Khan had made a liar out of him, the PMS said that Harriet Harman had answered that question earlier today and he had nothing to add to it.

Put that under current legislation, police surveillance operations would not come under the terms of the Wilson Doctrine and did the Prime Minister see any gap in the existing regulatory system, the PMS said that separate statutory and legal frameworks, under the Regulatory and Investigative Powers Act 2000, covered issues relating to police covert surveillance operations. Under this act there was a strengthening of the governance of police surveillance, relative to the 1997 Police Act. This had been the first occasion when the governance of police surveillance operations had been put onto a statutory footing. As we said yesterday and as Jack Straw said in the House, if there were any issues that arose from the investigation surrounding the alleged bugging of Mr Khan that related to the Wilson Doctrine, they would be looked at.

Asked if people could conclude from this that current legislation did not provide particular protection for MP’s from operations conducted by the police and that therefore there appeared to be a grey area that may have to be looked into, the PMS said that no doubt there would be specific issues in relation to this case that would need to be looked at, but if there were any issues that arose from this investigation that were relevant to the Wilson Doctrine, then of course they would be looked at.

Asked if the Prime Minister was satisfied that operations being carried out by the intelligence or security services were carried out with Ministerial oversight and yet other operations being carried out by the police or local councils were not, the PMS reiterated that the Regulatory and Investigative Powers Act 2000 for the first time put all such surveillance operations onto a statutory footing.

In relation to the police, the governance of their covert surveillance operations was first put onto a statutory footing after the Police Act 1997 which had since been strengthened. So there had been legislation in this area, this had been discussed at length on two separate occasions in the past ten years, and as he had said, if there was anything in particular that arose from the investigation that raised issues relating to the Wilson Doctrine, then they would be looked at.

Put that the picture had changed radically from yesterday as the implication was now that the surveillance was targeted as much at the MP as it was at the suspected terrorist and would the inquiry be looking at that, the PMS replied that the Rose Inquiry was looking at the circumstances relating to this particular case. The terms of reference for the inquiry were set out by Jack Straw in the House of Commons yesterday.

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» Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Sadiq Khan

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