The ramming through of the Digital Economy Bill during Parliament’s ‘wash-up’ period has got the most attention, online at least. However there is another measure that was forced through, and this one without even a proper vote, which should have people up in arms.
A change to Section 106 of the Postal Services Act 2000 might not at first sound that important, but the change means that in future postal operators (such as the Royal Mail) can decide to detain any item of post and send it on to Customs and Excise for inspection.
Previously this could be done, but only if you were first told that your post was being intercepted and (if you are in the UK) given a chance to be present. Both those safeguards against abuse of power and unnecessary intrusions into privacy have been removed. Instead all the interceptions can happen in secrecy – and secrecy means lack of accountability for how well or badly the power is used.
And it gets worse. The Government claims the clause is just about tackling tobacco smuggling. Yet you know what’s missing from the new rules? Any mention of them only applying to tobacco. Or only applying to smuggling.
And it gets even worse. Because how did this get through the House of Commons? It got through with barely a debate and with no vote.
It was left to the Liberal Democrats (again) to raise the issues that should be debated – well done Evan Harris – but no Labour or Conservative MPs joined him and – courtesy of the Labour/Conservative deal on how to handle the bil- l there was no vote.
As Ben Williams puts it:
Share:Because it was Clause 59 of the Finance Bill, and there were only three hours for debate, it didn’t get reached for discussion. In fact, by the time MPs got on to the bit where they consider the bill in detail, line-by-line, there were only 28 minutes left to look at the whole bill.
Think about that for a moment.
28 minutes for a line-by-line examination of the bill that would usually – for the Finance Bill – take months in Committee.
This change to the law was made without a single second of proper scrutiny – and without a single vote. Worse, it was made without even the opportunity for a vote.
And that is what the Conservative Party and Labour Party wanted.
9 Comments
Is this a change to inland letters? The inland mail has always used to be inviolate and only a warrant signed by the Secretary of State (or formally the Postmaster General) could allow the opening or delaying of a letter or package. Overseas mail has always been subject to customs inspection.
I’m interested in David’s comment that the inland mail “always used to be inviolate”. I wonder when he thinks this inviolability came into being? Walsingham was extremely clever at intercepting, altering, forging, and generally using “private” mail as a means to further the activities of the state, and he was neither Postmaster General (that post had not yet been invented) nor a Secretary of State, so “always” is clearly wrong. The metropolitan police were found in the early 1950s by the high court to have the power to intercept and read mail on the say so of an inspector (if I recall correctly; I may be wrong, it may have been a superintendant or a person designated by the commissioner; anyway a much less important person than the Postmaster General orthe Secretary of State, so even “for a long time” would be wrong unless a bit under 60 years counts as a long time in this context.
It is what we were taught, when I was a postie.
David: I think the law already allowed interception in more circumstances that those mentioned in your first comment, but this change then takes it further.
“Previously this could be done, but only if you were first told that your post was being intercepted and (if you are in the UK) given a chance to be present”
Really? Back in the day when the Green Party was the Ecology Party and thus deemed terribly subversive, my mail and the mail of others that I knew was regularly intercepted, And we were not told about it, nor allowed to be present. And people even suspected of working with or for Radio Caroline (the offshore ‘pirate’ station) found out that their mail was being intercepted in the same way.
Wait a second – how many Tories voted for this? Was it four or five?
So 2% of the Conservative MPs “forced through” the bill…
Ahem!
John: you’ve got your vote facts wrong as thanks to the Tory/Labour deal on how to handle the Bill there was no vote on this measure. No Tory spoke out against the deal on this or against this provision.
According to Liberal Conspiracy
“The public whip tells us that the parties voted the following ways on the Digital Economy Bill. Astonishing that just nine Tory MPs (less than one in twenty) bothered to vote on such controversial legislation.
Well done to those Lib Dems who turned up for their unanimous opposition, although due to their low turnout they were outnumbered by the rebel Labour MPs”
The rest of the paste got rejected, so for the exact details you’ll have to look on Liberal Conspiracy, but if you want to call your fellow LibDem site a liar, go ahead, don’t mind me!
On the other hand, if you want to call me a liar, please quote the relevant page in Hansard.
You are treating us as idiots if you claim that the Tories forced through anything in a Parliament where they had less than one-third of the seats .
John; this post is not about the Digital Economy Bill.
But on that too the Tories cooperated with Labour to get it through – remember Labour doesn’t have a majority in the Lords.
By the way, Liberal Conspiracy isn’t a ‘fellow Lib Dem’ site. Most of the time its contributors urge votes for Labour.