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Intelligence and Security Committee

May I begin by offering two different sets of thanks? The first is to all the people who work in our security services. I am sure every Member of this House would agree that they do a magnificent job for this country. We depend on them enormously at what is a time of great threat and great difficulty, and it is right and proper that our gratitude should go out to them. My second set of thanks is to the right hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) and his colleagues of all political parties who serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee. They too do a very important job of work for us; they carry out a challenging and important role on our behalf. That fact is underlined by the scale of the redacted information in this report. That inevitably makes it difficult for this House to have a full discussion about the scale of our commitment to the security services, so we rely on the ISC to be our eyes and ears in the security world, and I am grateful to the Chairman and his Committee for what they have done. I am sure we would also want to pass on our thanks to the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett) for her work on the Committee during the course of the year. There is, of course, one element missing from the report. We have an annual report to consider, and we will spend today's discussion focusing on a document that has been thoughtfully put together, but which inevitably lacks some of the detail that might enable our debate to be more informed. Obviously, for security reasons key information cannot be made available to us. We can certainly discuss the role of our security services in the battle against terror, but one issue that I know will be followed from outside this House is the work carried out by the Committee on the London 7/7 bombings, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. We know that the research it conducted and the assessments it made have remained under lock and key because of the trial that has recently concluded. Even given the fact that that trial has now ended, we would all fully accept that the Committee has been given access to some of the most sensitive information in relation to what happened and that it will not be possible to make that information fully public. However, I think Members in all parts of the House will be aware that there is an expectation among the families of those who were killed or injured that the report will be published in some form, and I think they will welcome the announcement the right hon. Gentleman has made today. They are certainly hoping that the report will give them some further explanation about what happened, and in particular what was known about the bombers. I have a clear sense from talking to some of those involved that they do not want there to be a blame witch hunt against anyone who may have made mistakes, but they do want clear evidence that lessons have been learned and procedures improved. All of us in this House can understand that desire, and we can only have the greatest admiration for the way in which the surviving victims and their families have dealt with the appalling situation they faced.