What do you do if a regulator has failed? Leave them unreformed and instead give them greater powers? That is the line Home Office Minister James Brokenshire is arguing.
The regulator in question is the Interception of Communications Commissioner and the powers relate to online monitoring. For the Draft Communications Data Bill would not only give the government far more scope to monitor what we do online, but Brokenshire also argues we should be reassured that a large part of these new powers would be monitored by that Commissioner.
However, take a look at the record and what you see is a failed regulator. Most damningly, in 2011 the New York Times published strong prima facie evidence that the current interception rules were being regularly and systematically broken, with journalists getting illegal access to the very data the Commissioner is meant to protect.
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