Clause 19
Counter-Terrorism Bill
5:45 pm
Tom Brake (Shadow Minister (London and the Olympics), Culture, Media & Sport; Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)
Amendment No. 11 has been grouped with amendment No. 89 and I would like to refer briefly to that. Amendment No. 11 is the embodiment of the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), who is not a member of the Committee but has a passing academic interest. Although clause 19(1) is clearly permissive—it says that a person “may disclose information”—this probing amendment is to seek confirmation that there are no circumstances in which, perhaps in interaction with other legislation, that permissive “may disclose information” might turn into a requirement to disclose information, and might be used in a more aggressive way to seek information, resulting in the person from whom the information is being sought feeling that it is not being extracted in a permissive manner. It is a probing amendment to reassure us that disclosure is entirely permissive, and that there is no possibility that it may be used in a more aggressive manner.