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Intelligence and Security Committee

I will not give way again, because I know that many right hon. and hon. Members are waiting to speak. In referring to the Committee's membership, I have given some of the reasons for the fact that it is the least leaky Committee, and the least prone to allowing party politics to colour the commentary on its reports and its albeit rare public pronouncements. I hope that I shall be allowed to depart for a moment from what has been protocol in the introduction of debates such as this. The material handled by the Committee is extraordinarily sensitive, and very important to the country's security. Three members of the Committee are not privy councillors, but ought to be because of the distinguished way in which they have served it. I refer to my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) and for Wirral, South (Ben Chapman) and the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway). I hope that the Prime Minister will consider that carefully, because it is something of an anomaly and I think it should be rectified. The ISC has constantly to win and retain the trust of all sides in an area which, by its very nature, is prone to the most extreme forms of public speculation and concern, rumour, criticism, paranoia and conspiracy theories. It has to work within the circle of secrecy—[Interruption.] Will my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) allow me to finish? It has to work within the circle of secrecy, and yet convince the Prime Minister, Parliament and the public that the often clandestine systems, behaviour and operations that are important elements of the business of the agencies that we examine are organised and undertaken according to the laws laid down in this country. That applies to operations regardless of where in the world they are conducted. There are additional difficulties. There is a tendency for some of those who are most often heard giving voice to the speculation, concern, rumour, paranoia and conspiracy theories that I mentioned a moment ago to assume that the ISC is there simply to prove them right—or, if we decline to do that in our reports—to whitewash the agencies and the Government. Let me state here and now that, as one who served as a Minister for more than 11 years and served nearly six years on the Opposition Front Bench—as well as on three Select Committees, including a particularly fearsome Public Accounts Committee—I have never encountered a more rigorous, tough and independently minded investigative Committee than the ISC. Like any other organisation, the ISC has its weaknesses and limitations, not least the fact that it is under-resourced. It is served by a superb, hard-working secretariat, but one that is small in numbers and frequently tested to the limit in undertaking its duties. The ISC needs more money and staff, especially if it is to continue to undertake additional investigations of difficult and complex issues such as the London bombings of July 2005. There is, of course, a body that exists to undertake investigations of individual cases. It is called the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, and consists of very senior members of the legal profession who are appointed by Her Majesty the Queen. It is guided by Lord Justice Mummery, its president. I hope very much that it will make its distinguished membership and its remit better known to the media and the public than they appear to be at present. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal will proceed with its vital work, but I have no doubt that pressure will continue to be applied to the Intelligence and Security Committee to undertake investigations of all manner of contentious issues, including the role and conduct of serving officers of our intelligence and security services in interrogating suspects and prisoners held overseas. That brings me to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). Over the past five years, as well as its annual reports, the Committee has produced a report on rendition, published in July 2007, a report on the London terror attacks of July 2005, published in May 2006, and a report on the handling of detainees by UK intelligence personnel in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, published in March 2005. As I said earlier, its second report on the July 2005 London bombings will be published on 19 May. If it is to continue to do justice to difficult and complex subjects of that kind, as well as fulfilling its remit to monitor the intelligence and security agencies, it needs adequate resources. I urge No. 10 to consider that plea carefully and sympathetically. Inevitably, the Committee's agenda beyond its formal remit will continue to be influenced by events, reports and wider debates about intelligence and security issues. There will be themes that demand its attention. Let me briefly touch on one of those themes. It concerns issues that have arisen, for example, as a consequence of the allegations made by an individual who was not a British national, but who resided in this country for some time. Claims have been made that that individual was arrested in Pakistan and questioned by the Pakistani authorities and by the Americans before eventually being incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. Subsequently, the individual was released back to the United Kingdom without being formally charged by the Americans with having committed a terrorist offence. The individual's lawyers allege that, before being flown to Guantanamo, the person was treated very badly by his captors, and that British intelligence was aware, at the very least, of aspects of that treatment. It is alleged that the individual was subjected to interrogation techniques that were contrary to the Geneva conventions and to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It is also alleged that the individual was subject to extraordinary rendition to a third country where torture allegedly occurred and where questions were put to the individual—questions which, allegedly, could only have come from the United Kingdom. Those allegations have been the subject of rigorous and dispassionate examination by the ISC, and I do not intend to comment on them here in any way. What I want to do, very briefly, is draw attention to a fact that will, I am sure, be obvious to any serious and objective student of intelligence and security matters. It is this: the possible ramifications of recent cases, such as the one I have just described, on the future operational capabilities of our intelligence and security agencies could be very significant. Paradoxical as it may seem in a world normally described by the likes of John le Carré and many other authors and filmmakers as one mired in betrayal and duplicity, in fact a high degree of mutual trust is required for intelligence services to be sufficiently confident to exchange their information across international frontiers. Where there is no trust, there will be little useful exchange of intelligence. Some of that intelligence—in the past, now and in the future—will have been gathered in the streets, police stations, prisons and holding camps of countries and conflict zones where Governments and regimes do not normally enjoy reputations as firm upholders of the Geneva conventions. If our security agencies are informed by one of the security agencies of these countries that they have in their custody a detainee, or that they have information obtained from a detainee that could be crucial to protecting British people from a terrorist atrocity, what are they to do? Do they despatch officers to these places, knowing that subsequently they might find themselves subject back in the United Kingdom to a charge of being complicit in the serious maltreatment of the detainee? How ready will our agencies be to deploy officers to countries whose Governments are implicated in human rights abuses and torture, or even to admit that they have co-operated with the intelligence agencies of those Governments, given that there can be very few countries in the world that are able to offer cast-iron guarantees that terrorist suspects, detainees and criminals are protected from mistreatment of any kind as they are protected by our laws in the United Kingdom? Should British agencies co-operate with countries that have been found guilty of breaking international conventions against torture? It might be instructive, before replying to that, to recall that Sweden, a nation justifiably well regarded for its human rights record, was found guilty of violating the international convention against torture in 2001 after extraditing to Egypt a terror suspect, Ahmed Agiza—a former member of Islamic Jihad—having refused to grant the man asylum. The UN Committee against Torture ruled in 2005, less than four years ago, that Sweden should have known that Egypt advocated and consistently practised the widespread use of torture methods against detainees. Can we guarantee that all our NATO partners, including our most important partner, the USA, are completely free of UN criticism? I doubt it. The ISC visited Ottawa recently and learned that Canada—another nation properly held up as a paradigm of virtue when it comes to the humane treatment of suspects and detainees—was forced to pay more than 10 million Canadian dollars in 2007 in compensation to a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, Mr. Maher Arar. He had been arrested in the USA on allegedly misleading intelligence supplied by the Canadian security authorities. The Americans in their wisdom flew Mr. Arar to Syria, where he alleges that he was beaten repeatedly and subjected to many months of inhumane prison conditions. Canada is one of our most trusted and steadfast allies. It has a robust judiciary that is every bit as ready as ours to uphold human rights and civil liberties. Where do such examples leave us politicians, who are in Parliament to ensure, among other things, that our intelligence and security organisations undertake properly and lawfully the necessary tasks required to keep our streets safe from atrocities perpetrated by terrorists? As Chairman of the ISC, I can guarantee that the Committee will not flinch in our investigations and our reports will properly inform the Prime Minister and, with him, Parliament and the country at large, wherever and whenever we believe that laws have been broken and human rights have been abused. We will help to ensure that the guidance and advice given to our officers meets all our international obligations. As Committee members, we are as aware as anyone in this country that those responsible for helping to ensure the safety of our citizens from the activities of those who would perpetrate terrorism and destruction must themselves act within the laws of the United Kingdom. That is how we prove to the rest of the world that the values that we uphold and fight for are civilised and humane. Few things can do this country's reputation more damage than being seen to be abusing human rights and tarnishing the values for which we stand. That was the great harm wreaked by the photographs and reports that emerged from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, among other places of detention and interrogation. I believe that there are no circumstances where torture can be justified; nor am I convinced that the intelligence that emerges from torture cells is sufficiently reliable to warrant even that most equivocal of justifications—the one that says that torture is valid if it tells us how to find or defuse the ubiquitous ticking bomb. We know also, however, that in this increasingly mobile world—in which people, plans, weapons, explosives, detonators and intelligence move and are made available with such speed—it is vital that the intelligence and security agencies of this country and those of its civilised and trusted allies are properly empowered to co-operate and exchange intelligence. As long as they do that within the laws laid down to guide their work, they should not have to live with the dread that, by the very act of co-operating with a close ally who may subsequently find themselves mired in a human rights abuse scandal, they might be tarred with the same brush. Living with such a dread is not a recipe for the efficient operation of intelligence and security operations as central as ours are to preventing terrorist atrocities in this country. That is why the work of examining exhaustively the allegations laid against intelligence and security agencies and officers must remain a priority. It is why the examinations should continue to be carried out within a political context that leaves no one in any doubt whatsoever that the United Kingdom Government's current refinement and consolidation of rules and guidance issued to intelligence and security officers will result in the maximum possible clarity. That is vital if we are to dispel all suspicions and allegations that our agencies and, by implication, our Government have been complicit in torture. The men and women who work for our intelligence and security agencies are among the brightest and, sometimes, the bravest people that I have ever encountered. Their work is vital to keeping this country safe from the often murderous intentions of those, inside and outside these islands, who wish to harm us. Because of its very nature, much of that work must be secret. Its great worth often cannot be the subject of reporting or celebrating, even in the most broad fashion.