Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

I am always interested in what Sir Brian Leveson, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, says. From my perspective he provides robust oversight, which includes comments that he has made, and he and his inspectors pay particular attention to that criminal conduct authorisation. He produces annual reports—I know that they are time-lagged, for reasons that are self-evident with any annual report. In his annual report in 2024, he identified “good levels of compliance for the authorisation and management” of police undercover operatives and noted that the quality and content of police undercover operative criminal conduct authorisations was found to be of a “good standard”. I will always look and listen to what he says because we have a responsibility to ensure that these matters are dealt with for the product of that CHIS to help protect the public at large. I assure my noble friend and in this context the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, that the CHIS cannot be authorised to entrap people—which is one of the objectives of her amendment. Any such entrapment would be in conflict with Article 6 of the ECHR—as my noble friend knows, we are committed to maintaining our obligations under the ECHR—which protects the right to a fair trial. Furthermore, I point my noble friend to the publicly available Undercover Policing: Authorised Professional Practice, which states in clear terms that an undercover operative “must not act as an agent provocateur”. I hope that satisfies my noble friend on that point.