During 9 hours in the House of Commons yesterday a small number of MPs debated a Bill that the Government claims is a vital piece of emergency legislation, which is needed to keep you and I safe. By the end of the 9th Hour the Bill had passed all 3 stages of the ‘scrutiny’ which this legislation will receive in our first House of a two House Parliament. There will now be two days in the House of Lords before the Bill returns on Thursday night or Friday Morning for its final stages before Royal Assent is granted. On the face of it this is breakneck speed and under such conditions there is plenty of historical precedent to suggest that there will be mistakes made, or rather that the drafting errors and unforeseen problems will not have been identified, simply because our 650MPs have not given this legislation the time needed for it to be scrutinised.

The Bill is something I have referred to in several blogs in the last few days. It is known as the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers (DRIP) Bill and as I have written before, my primary concern is not that our security services should know who I am sending emails too and who I am ringing on my mobile phone, but rather that this legislation has been brought to Parliament and now passed in a secretive and anti-democratic manner. However in case that appears to be simply a matter of anger over detailed process, I do have other concerns. Due to the time taken to bring this to Parliament, because so few people have had a chance to read, let alone understand this legislation there are huge risks that far more power has been granted to the security services than we all appreciate. A blog by Paul Bernal, a Lecturer in Information Technology, Intellectual Property and Media Law in the University of East Anglia School of Law publishes a letter which he and 15 other Legal Academics including Chris Marsden Professor of Media Law at University of Sussex have written about DRIP. I would encourage any readers of this blog to read that letter for themselves, but suffice it to say that these 15 legal experts believe that DRIP goes far further than any previous legislation has gone.

The Bill was drafted by the Government, and then rather than have an open debate and publication of this Bill, limited discussions took place behind closed doors with the Labour Party to secure their agreement. This is not how our Laws are meant to be made. The watchword for our Democracy is that it is supposed to be open and accountable. As you can read from yesterdays Hansard this is not how many saw the debate:

Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green): If the Bill is so urgent, will the Minister explain why it was not introduced three months ago, as soon as the European Court of Justice judgment was announced? Why are we debating it in one day, just before the recess?

Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC): Why was there no discussion with parties other than the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives, even on Privy Council terms? For heaven’s sake, if there is an urgency, why keep most of the Opposition in the dark? It is absolutely disgusting, disgraceful and undemocratic.

Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): …….There is an emergency—a legal emergency—but it started on 8 April…..Why has it taken three months? Why was the legislation not pre-prepared? Why was the deal with the Labour party not struck in advance? My understanding is that there was an argument inside the Government between the two halves of the coalition. That argument has gone on for three months. What the coalition could not decide in three months, this House has to decide in one day. That seems to me entirely improper. Parliament has three roles: to scrutinise legislation, to prevent unintended consequences and to defend the freedom and liberty of our constituents. The motion undermines all three and we should oppose it.

Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab): In the brief time that we have, I think that I should put it on the record that MPs had only 47 minutes to submit  amendments to the Bill yesterday. Most reasonable people will conclude that Parliament has been insulted by the cavalier way in which a secret deal has been used to ensure that elected representatives are curtailed in their ability to consider, scrutinise, debate and amend the Bill. It is democratic banditry, resonant of a rogue state. The people who put this shady deal together should be ashamed.

According to David Cameron speaking a few days ago, Jean Claude Juncker was chosen as European Commission President through a process that is not democratic, even though the process was entirely open and accountable, and agreed through the Lisbon Treaty. Yet DRIP has been forced through our Parliament in a manner that was entirely unnecessary. The need for this legislation was known about 3 months ago, despite it only being published on Thursday. A small number of cross party ‘rebels’ proposed an amendment that restricted the impact of this legislation until December 2014, forcing the Government to hold a full debate and to allow full scrutiny of this document. It is clear that for Cameron and his ilk, democracy is a priority only when it delivers results that are unpalatable to him and his colleagues.