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Intelligence and Security Committee: Annual Report 2007–08

I have had the great privilege of representing your Lordships’ House on the Intelligence and Security Committee since 2007. This is, however, the first opportunity that we have had—and that I have had on behalf of the committee—to report on its work to the House in a Grand Committee debate opened by the Lords member of the committee under the new arrangements agreed earlier this year. I hope that noble Lords will agree that this is a great step forward. First, however, I pay a tribute to my predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, who represented the Lords on the committee with great distinction for two years. She brought her particular expertise to the committee. On my behalf, and on behalf of the other members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I put on record our thanks to our current chairman, the right honourable Member for Pontypridd, Dr Kim Howells, and his predecessors, the right honourable Member for Torfaen, Paul Murphy, who was chairman until January 2008, and the right honourable Member for Derby South, Mrs Margaret Beckett, who was chairman until October 2008. We are grateful to them for their wisdom and the excellent leadership that they provided. In some ways, it is a pity that they had to move on.