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Intelligence and Security Committee

What I actually said was that administrative feuding should not divert the Committee from the vital work that it has to do. I take seriously what the Chairman has said about the relationship with the Cabinet Office. We have further work to do in this Parliament, and no doubt we can cover that, among other topics to which I shall now turn. I want to move on from the process of the Committee to the issues with which it deals. The Government are determined to defend the rights on which our freedom depends and to protect the safety and security of our citizens, and the Chairman discussed both those concerns. The threat we face is real and ongoing, and no one denies that. In response to several serious allegations about the intelligence and security agencies, the Prime Minister announced last year that the Government would consolidate and make public the guidance we provide to the agencies' officers and military personnel who may become engaged in handling detainees overseas. That is both to protect the reputation of those officers and service personnel and to set out to the British public the responsible way in which we approach these difficult issues. This is an unprecedented and extremely difficult step and the process has taken much longer than we envisaged or would have wished. It has taken that time because the approach has been thorough and serious. As the ISC has recognised and articulated so clearly, it is vital that our intelligence officers and military personnel have the clearest possible assurance that, when they engage with their counterparts in other countries—as they must do to protect national security—if they follow their guidance they can have good reason to be confident that they will not incur personal liability. There is an issue of personnel practice here as well as of Government policy. We have been discussing legal issues with the Committee as well as policy ones. I welcome the positive and intense engagement that we have had with the ISC on the draft guidance since it was first sent it in November 2009, and I am very grateful for the detailed and thought-provoking advice that it has recently provided. That advice highlighted a number of areas warranting further work or clarification by the Government with the Committee. I will discuss those issues further with the Committee in the relatively near future. The Government share the Committee's desire to bring this issue to closure and remain committed to doing so at the earliest possible date. It is precisely because of the seriousness with which the Government regard this issue and the respect we have for the views of the ISC that we want to ensure that there is no room for misunderstanding our policy, and that we use the Committee's thinking to ensure that the guidance is comprehensive, appropriate and correct. I want to repeat unambiguously what I and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary have said before. The Government absolutely condemn torture. We do not practice it, we do not condone it and we are not complicit in it. Where wrongdoing is alleged, it is seriously investigated. When passing information to another country that might lead to suspects being detained, when passing questions to be put to detainees or when directly interviewing them, our agencies are required to seek to minimise, and where possible avoid, the risk of any form of mistreatment. Enormous effort goes into assessing the risks in each case. Operations have been halted when the risk was judged to be too high. But it is not possible to eradicate the risk altogether. Judgments must be made if the British people and British forces are to be protected. It is right that Ministers should make those judgments. The intense interest in the guidance on torture and mistreatment is entirely understandable, but it should not obscure the fact that much else in the two ISC reports—or one report and another one in brackets—is worth attention. I am sure that hon. Members will want to raise other issues, and we will respond as fully as we can. The reports make clear the variety of threats to our national security that we face, of which international terrorism is the most prominent and the one that most obviously occupies our attention and that of the agencies. It is due in large part to their dedication and skill that this country has not suffered another successful attack of the sort we tragically experienced on 7 July 2005. At the same time, the fact that we have disrupted a number of major terrorist plots since 2005—there was the near-success of the attempt to bring down a transatlantic airliner over Detroit on Christmas day—shows that we cannot let down our guard.