---

Intelligence and Security Committee: Annual Report 2007–08

I agree with everything that my noble friend has said and I shall elaborate further on that later in my speech. As my noble friend Lord Jones knows, the Intelligence and Security Committee has as its statutory duty a remit to examine the administration, policy and finance of the UK’s security and intelligence agencies. We report on these annually to the Prime Minister, and we meet with him to discuss the details of our report. The report that we are discussing today covers the period from December 2007 to November 2008. During that period, the committee held 26 formal meetings and 25 other meetings—51 in total. It also undertook a number of visits. All of its members attended the vast majority of those meetings—well over 90 per cent. I commend to this Committee the hard work and constructive approach that each member brought to our committee’s work. Never before, in all my time in the other place and here, have I served on a committee where attendance has been so high or its members have been so expert or diligent in their work—an issue to which I shall return. Our most time-consuming task during the period that the report covers was the completion of our review of the intelligence on the London terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005. I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, may wish to say a word about that review; I am sure that that would be welcome in our debate. This issue has been the subject of a separate and detailed report which we sent to the Prime Minister in July 2008. It could not, however, be published at that time for legal reasons. The trial that was ongoing at the time has concluded, and the reporting restrictions have been lifted. To reflect recent developments, the committee updated the report. We did not rewrite it, as some have suggested, but we produced a separate additional annexe. We sent that update to the Prime Minister on 6 May 2009, and the report and update were published together on Tuesday 19 May. This was a very long inquiry and the report contained a huge—I repeat, huge—amount of information. Many people who had previously been sceptical were pleasantly surprised to see how detailed the report was. I shall not go into its detailed findings here as we are not debating that particular report, but I reiterate and reinforce the comments that Kim Howells made at our press conference. He said that there will be those who do not like our findings because they do not reflect their own assumptions, but we reported the facts as we found them after painstaking and detailed investigation, and we cannot alter those facts just to fit a story or just to please some people. As the annual report makes clear on pages 44 to 49, during 2008 the committee also began investigations into a number of other areas that were still continuing when this report was published in March. Some of those investigations have now concluded and we will report on them in our next annual report, on which we are already working, and then they will be covered and discussed in the second of these annual debates. Quite properly, the annual report deals with the nuts and bolts of the agencies’ operations, their administration, policy and finances. That may be of less interest to some than the more controversial issues that we cover in our ad hoc reports, but as my noble friend Lord Jones rightly said, they are essential, and today I will provide a short overview. I refer first to the threat which Jonathan Evans spoke about. A wide range of threats, both terrorist and non-terrorist, continues to be posed to the United Kingdom. The current threat to the UK from international terrorism is assessed as "severe". This means that there is a continuing high level of threat to the United Kingdom and a high likelihood of a further terrorist attack in this country. The threat of international terrorism comes from a diverse range of sources, including al-Qaeda and its associated networks and those who share its ideology but do not have direct contact with it. Al-Qaeda and related terrorist groups have shown exceptional ambition and willingness to carry out indiscriminate terrorist attacks, and the threat they pose is likely to persist for a considerable time. That places great and growing pressure on our intelligence and security agencies, together with the police, Government departments and other key partners, all of whom are working together to find those who are planning such attacks and to prevent them carrying them out. Counterterrorism work is both demanding and dangerous for those involved. It is no exaggeration to say that many of those who work for our agencies put their lives at risk to protect our country, as the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, knows better than anyone. They have achieved notable successes over the past year, with plots disrupted and individuals brought to trial and convicted. I record our thanks to them for all their hard work, not only for the successes that we know about, but equally—if not more important—for those that can never be publicised. All three agencies, particularly the Security Service, have over the past year continued to receive increased resources dedicated to counterterrorism work. However, while discovering plots and pursuing terrorists is vital, the Security Service can never guarantee to stop every plot; it continually plays catch-up. It is therefore essential that high priority is given to preventing individuals turning to extremism in the first place, and that is why we must not forget that work on the "Prevent" strand of CONTEST is crucial if we are to tackle the longer-term threat. Although the primary focus of the United Kingdom’s intelligence and security agencies is necessarily on international counterterrorism work, they also dedicate resources to countering threats posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional instability, espionage and other challenges. What I find really impressive is that, in addition, the agencies continue to provide exceptional and unprecedented operational support to United Kingdom military operations in the field. However, the committee also expressed concern that the necessary focus on counterterrorism work has resulted in a reduction of the proportion of effort allocated to non-counterterrorism threats, possibly to our future detriment. The Government’s response to the committee acknowledges that the proportion of work on other intelligence and security requirements has been reduced as a result of the continuing focus on international counterterrorism work. It remains a source of great concern to the committee that we may be storing up problems for the future if we neglect other areas of work, and we are pursuing that to ensure that more will be done over the next few years in these areas. As well as examining work on counterterrorism and other threats, the report also looks at expenditure issues, at how the agencies allocate their resources and how we can ensure that they provide value for money. The National Audit Office audits the agencies’ accounts, as it does for all government departments, and we then question the heads of the agencies in detail about aspects of the accounts, including any priority issues that the NAO has raised with us. I am glad to tell the Committee that as of this year, the NAO will be providing our committee with a financial investigator, who will provide expert advice to us on specific issues concerning the agencies’ budget plans, to ensure that they have effective business continuity plans effective security procedures, such as vetting, in place. The committee and I welcome that development. Although the committee’s formal remit covers the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ, it is clear that those agencies cannot work in isolation. Given the challenges that they face, constructing close partnerships with the wider intelligence community is essential. In overseeing the security and intelligence agencies, we in the committee also examined the work of the wider intelligence community. As we are the only parliamentary body whose members are subject to Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act, only the ISC can hold to account all the agencies and bodies dealing with secret material. These include the Defence Intelligence Staff, some areas within the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism in the Home Office, the intelligence structure in the Cabinet Office, including the Joint Intelligence Committee, which the noble Baroness who will speak for the Opposition, knows well, and the assessment staff, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure. The committee also addresses issues that affect the intelligence community as a whole. For example, we have expressed our dismay—that word was chosen very carefully—that phase 2 of the SCOPE IT communications system has been scrapped. That is a matter that we were still investigating when our report was published, and our next annual report will include that in great detail, so noble Lords can look forward to discussion about that. Similarly, this annual report covers our findings of the Privy Council review of intercept evidence, led by the right honourable Sir John Chilcot—he is being kept busy these days, one way or another. We welcome the review's conclusion that intercept evidence should be introduced only if the intelligence and security agencies’ capabilities are properly protected by the provision of the nine key conditions and tests. It is not an easy issue; it is complicated—far more complicated than some who comment on it sometimes realise. We have continued to consider the issue carefully and have been briefed in great detail on the work being done in the Home Office, by my noble friend Lord West's department. We in the committee have debated the matter at length and, again, we will report our further and fuller considerations in our annual report, although I can tell your Lordships that, having been privy to the evidence to the facts behind the misconceptions, as a committee, we remain wholly unconvinced of the overall benefit of using intercept product in evidence. I assure the Committee that the ISC takes its job of holding the agencies to account very seriously. If we cannot always provide the full detail of our work in public, that does not mean that it is not being done. In the debate in the other place—a lively one—comments were made about the redactions in our reports. Some of those comments were quite amusing. There is, however, misunderstanding about the nature of those redactions. It may be helpful to your Lordships if I briefly explain the process. The committee produces its initial report in full. It always contains a great amount of detail, a lot of it secret and sensitive information, so we invite the agencies to highlight what information they believe would cause damage were we to publish it. That is my first point. They cannot request the redaction of any material on grounds other than potential damage to national security. Also, when they make a request for a redaction, they must give a clear, detailed explanation of exactly what damage would be caused. We consider each of their requests individually on a case-by-case basis and evaluate their explanation. In some cases, we agree with them—where, for example, to publish details of how they are tackling a specific threat would give valuable information to our enemies. However, in some cases, we do not agree with them and we reject their request. Your Lordships will, I am sure, be reassured to know that nothing has ever been redacted from a report against our wishes where we have not agreed that to publish it would damage national security. Some here may highlight the asterisks to criticise the fact that information is being withheld from them. However, I am sure that Members of this House do not expect us to publish secret material—I know that we all take the security of the UK rather more seriously than that. If others thought about it objectively, they would see that the existence of asterisks was in fact a positive sign. They show that we in the committee have full access to all the information and that we undertake full and proper oversight. That is why the committee publishes the report with asterisks, rather than taking what might be an easy way out and producing a seamless but bland report. The ISC is objective in its deliberations and each of its members brings to the deliberation something additional and, in my view, something especially relevant. All my colleagues are experienced, long-serving and well respected Members of the Commons. Often, but not always, they have served as Ministers or shadow Ministers, and sometimes, but not always, they have served in departments or in committees that have given them first-hand experience of intelligence, security, defence and policing matters. Without exception, they bring with them the benefit of diverse experience both within and outwith Parliament. There is a tendency for some of those who favour conspiracy theories to assume that the ISC is part of a cover-up—those who call our reports a whitewash before they have even read them, for example—so let me follow the example of our chairman in the debate in the other place. I speak as someone who was a Minister for five years, who was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other place and who spent nearly 15 years on the opposition Front Bench—I can tell the noble Baroness opposite that it is a hard grind being on the opposition Front Bench, but I hope that she is looking forward to 14 or 15 more years there. However, having done those 15 years, I can say that I have never encountered a more rigorous, tougher or independently minded investigative committee than the ISC. Of course, like any organisation, the ISC has its weaknesses and limitations—not least the fact that it has been under-resourced. However, it is served by a superb, small, hard-working secretariat, which is frequently tested to the limit in undertaking its duties. We on the ISC have argued that we need more money and more staff, especially if we are to continue to undertake additional investigations of difficult and complex issues, such as the London bombings of July 2005. I am pleased to say—particularly thanks to the noble Lord, Lord West—that that need has now been recognised and some additional resources have now been provided through the Cabinet Office, which means that the committee will employ independent investigative resources. I am sure that when the noble Lord, Lord King, hears about this, he will be pleased that his calls have been heeded, including on specific administrative issues, legal matters and, as I said earlier, expenditure issues. These changes are welcome as the committee develops, and it has changed considerably since it was first established by a Conservative Government in 1994. It is right that our work continues to evolve, as the agencies themselves and the wider intelligence community have evolved, and the threat that they are tackling has also expanded and evolved. Much has changed since 9/11 and even more so since 7/7. One of the welcome changes is this opportunity to enable us in this House to debate, at least annually, the important—indeed, the essential—work that our security and intelligences agencies do for us. I welcome this change and I hope that the House does also. I look forward to hearing contributions from the wealth of experience that there is here, and I look forward to further such debates in the future.