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<p>As my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Home Secretary, has made clear, the Government is committed
to ensuring that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have the powers they
need to investigate crime, preserve national security and protect the public. These
agencies need access to communications data, but capabilities continue to diminish
due to rapidly changing technology. Both the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications
Data Bill, which the Noble Lord chaired, and the Intelligence and Security Committee,
which looked at this issue in detail, concluded that there was a gap in capabilities
which needed to be addressed. The Government indicated at the time that we accepted
the recommendations of the Joint Committee and were willing to make the changes necessary
to give effect to those recommendations.</p><p>It is vital that this issue is returned
to in the next Parliament, when the provisions in the Data Retention and Investigatory
Powers Act 2014 will sunset, and when Parliament will also be able to consider the
findings of the current review into investigatory powers that is being conducted by
the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC.</p><p> </p>
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