Clegg attacks surveillance measures

The government has turned the British public into "the most spied upon on the planet", Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has said.

Speaking at prime minister's questions in the Commons, Clegg told Gordon Brown that he should not have been surprised by "this week's bugging controversy", in reference to the alleged bugging by the police of Labour MP Sadiq Khan.

Brown had already referred to the matter when he assured Labour MP Ann Cryer that the inquiry announced by justice secretary Jack Straw on Monday would be "detailed" and would report back "quickly".

Clegg accused the prime minister of creating a "surveillance state".

There were 1,000 surveillance requests every day, he said, while one million innocent people were kept on the government's DNA database and "5,000 schools [were] now fingerprinting our children at school".

"Is this what he meant when he spoke so stirringly a few months ago about the great British tradition of liberty?" he asked, urging Brown to give more power to the information commissioner.

Brown, who repeatedly referred to the value of CCTV, said he took it that Clegg supported the use of intercepts when "needed for national security".

Only 1,500 intercepts had been commissioned by ministers "as a result of urgent security needs", he said.

He pointed to safeguards for the public in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 in the case of surveillance and communication intercepts.

"And that includes authorisation by a senior officer, the right to appeal to an independent tribunal, a commissioner for surveillance that looks at the matters and reports annually," he said.

In response to Cryer, Brown said that while it was right to investigate following claims over Khan's bugging, "in the meantime, it is right for us not to add to the game of speculation and not to presume the results of the inquiry."