Secret plan to spy on emails

Police have drawn up a secret plan to protect their powers to access confidential email and phone records without informing courts, it was claimed today.

A leaked document from the Association of Chief Police Officers states that law enforcement agencies - including every police force in the country, the national crime squad, the national criminal intelligence service and customs and excise - will be expected to apply for public interest immunity certificates (PII).

The PII system was savagely attacked by Labour over its use in the arms-to-Iraq scandal under the Tories in the mid-1990s.

Labour's Tom Watson, a member of the home affairs select committee, described the 20 March police manual as shocking and added: "This draft order gives the world and his dog the right to snoop on emails and phone calls."

The Government is beginning to back down over its own plans to extend to a range of Whitehall departments, local governments and quangoes the power to access communications records without a court order.

A debate by a committee of MPs has been postponed until next week after Home Secretary David Blunkett warned that his proposals faced a rebellion by Labour MPs and a likely defeat in the House of Lords.

The plan for a short scrutiny today before putting the proposals to MPs without a full debate was scrapped when ministers realised the full extent of the opposition to their plans.

The Home Office said Mr Blunkett would publish new guidelines to stop the powers being routinely abused - but did not say what these would be or how they would work.

Mr Blunkett is to anger campaigners by refusing to compromise on the main thrust of his proposals.