Mark Dain Will a VPN help here or is this a case of keeping your devices encrypted? independent.co.uk/...

Martijn A VPN should help unless they have updated the definition of ISP (which I think the independent is talking about as "Domestic provider" ... everything is an "Internet company", their article uses confusing terms). Generally VPN providers are exempt from the laws covering ISPs so they will not have to tell the government anything. The ISP used by your VPN provider could still provide the government with a history, but of course only of the history of all VPN users combined, which is close to useless. Your own ISP can only tell the government that there was connection between you and a VPN server, but is stumped otherwise.