Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:07 pm on 10 June 2013.
May I reinforce what my right hon. Friend Mr Straw has said and confirm from my own experience what the Foreign Secretary has said about the legal and ethical framework and the safeguards? I know that to be true, and it is from that background that I ask this simple question. Yes, we need to dampen down fear and reinforce the fact that we are engaging with international cyber-attack and the dangers of international global terrorism; but, in reassuring people about how we handle their data, could we take a closer look at how other agencies, including the NSA and our friends and colleagues in the United States, use material gathered from network and service providers and offer it, rather than having it sought from them, in a way that makes authorisation extremely difficult?