Food standards officers will be able to commit crimes under ‘licence to kill’ law

Food standards officers, employees of the Competition and Markets Authority and the Environment Agency will be allowed to commit crimes as part of undercover stings under a new law.

The government has focused on provisions relating to MI5 and the police under the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill, which MPs will vote on today. Ministers rightly argue that in some circumstances, it is necessary and proportionate for agents and informants to commit crimes in order to maintain surveillance on terrorists and dangerous criminal gangs.

But the new bill would go beyond the current, limited, authorisation processes to create a dedicated law that allows a diverse range of agencies to permit operatives to break the law. It does not exclude any crimes, even murder, rape or torture, from its scope because the government claims that to do so would create a checklist that could expose spies.

The law has been dubbed a “licence to kill”, but ministers deny it goes that far because crimes must be “proportionate” and the Human Rights Act would apply. But critics are far from reassured, pointing to past injustices including the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane with British security service collusion, and the abuse of women lured into sexual relationships with undercover police who infiltrated environmental movements.

The law states that “the authorised conduct must be proportionate to what is sought to be achieved”, but that will be decided by the authorising officer and their supervisor. Opposition MPs have tabled a series of amendments aiming to ban certain offences, prevent child informants being used to commit crime, allow redress for victims, limit the scope of the law and increase oversight.

The proposed authorisations would not only be issued in the interests of national security or preventing and detecting crime, but also preventing “disorder” and in the “interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom”. The public authorities in line for the wide-ranging powers range far beyond the intelligence services, police and military, who have been carrying out such operations for many decades under different laws.

They include HMRC, the Competition and Markets Authority, Environment Agency, Financial Conduct Authority, Food Standards Agency, Gambling Commission and Medicines and Healthcare Regulation Authority. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has called for evidence on the bill but the deadline tomorrow, meaning any resulting findings will be too late for its third reading in the House of Commons.

Members said they were concerned about the lack of limits on what crimes can be authorised and the “wide range of public authorities” included. The law was proposed after MI5 narrowly won an investigatory powers tribunal ruling over the lawfulness of agents’ crimes, while a separate challenge over the use of children as informants and spies continues.

The government has provided little justification for its creation, other than claiming it will “provide certainty to public authorities already using this critical capability and confirm a common set of safeguards which they are bound by”. Whether it provides certainty to the victims of crimes and injustices already committed by the security services is another question.