Caroline has lambasted the Government’s proposed emergency Bill to allow blanket surveillance of telecommunications data, to be debated in Parliament tomorrow.

She will strongly oppose the Bill.

She said: "Parliamentary scrutiny is crucial. This is a bad law – moreover, it is bad law-making. In their desperate bid to railroad it through, all three big political parties are knowingly flying in the face of EU laws, undermining due process and the importance of proper Parliamentary scrutiny. When governments want to undertake large scale infringement of the individual’s right to privacy, by allowing records of all our communications to be kept as a matter of course, we need that scrutiny more than ever.

"The European Union has outlawed the blanket retention of data as a breach of our human right to privacy and to protection of data. The Home Secretary claims to know better, yet there is a distinct lack of credible evidence to justify these proposals.

"She argues that such intelligence gathering is in the interests of British citizens and will keep us safe - but that argument needs putting to the test. And it's not good enough to claim these proposals simply maintain capacity without allowing MPs to properly review and question the basis for the status quo. There are some worrying aspects to this Bill, including provisions that appear to enable the Government to issue interception warrants mandating mass surveillance outside of the United Kingdom.

“The Government would do well to think again before it gives the green light to continued blanket retention of our data and I am working on a cross party basis to ensure that these highly questionable provisions only apply for a short period, allowing time for proper democratic scrutiny thereafter.”