National security laws

Investigatory Powers Bill passes through Commons after Labour backs Tory spy law

The UK government's bid to massively ramp up surveillance of Brits' Internet activity has been supported "in principle" by the Labour party after it claimed that "significant demands" were met by home secretary Theresa May.

Labour's shadow home office minister Keir Starmer told MPs during day one of the report stage of the draft Investigatory Powers Bill that his party had undergone a "constructive engagement" with the Conservative government, which led to a number of changes within the proposed legislation.

"The government has moved in response to those demands significantly... and I’m not doing this as a list of victories, or scalps, or concessions, or u-turns," Starmer, who is the UK's former director of public prosecutions, told the House of Commons on Monday evening during a lengthy, ongoing debate.

"Actually they were significant, we made those demands, we stuck by them, and in fairness the government has responded on them in the right spirit in relation to the ones we know about."

He had earlier told MPs: "Safety and security and human rights are not mutually exclusive, they are not either/ors, and we can have both. And that is why Labour has supported the principle of this new bill, but it's also why we have focused intensely on the necessity for the powers in the bill and the safeguards."