---

Intelligence and Security Committee

May I begin by joining other Members in praising our security and intelligence services? As somebody who has raised concerns over the Binyam Mohamed case and other allegations of complicity in torture, I want to put firmly on the record my party's support, and also my personal support, for the fantastic work our security services do—whether at GCHQ in examining the vast amount of electronic and other data that have to be analysed, at the Security Service or the Secret Intelligence Service, or through other elements of the intelligence machinery. As other Members have said, the work of our intelligence agencies is increasingly complicated. They do a fantastic job in supporting our troops in Northern Ireland and, through the defence intelligence service, in Afghanistan where they try to work out what the Taliban and the insurgents are doing—real front-line work—or to foil al-Qaeda plots. It is important that this House speaks as one on that. We must make it absolutely clear that our agencies have full cross-party support in performing their critical role. That is why I welcome this report and this debate. Both the ISC's reports are very good, and the right hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) made a powerful speech. I agree with Members who have said it would be very difficult to read the record of this debate in Hansard and then to suggest there are not independent people serving on this Committee holding our intelligence services to account. We need to bury that lie here today. May I join the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) in giving my apologies in advance: I may not be present for the winding-up speeches. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is raising his hand, too, in which case all three of us will be guilty in that regard. However, I shall read the record of the winding-up speeches with interest tomorrow. I shall not repeat all the points made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, but I, too, have concerns about the Government's tardiness in responding to this Committee and to this House. The Government are not delivering on the Prime Minister's promises of a year ago, and that really is not acceptable, particularly given all the different allegations and adverse press comment, to some of which I and others in this House have contributed. It is not good enough for the Government not to deliver on their promises. Delivering on them would allow us to move forward with much greater public confidence and confidence in this House. Before I come to some of the more controversial issues, I wish to deal with some of the nuts and bolts of this report. What is so excellent about the work being done by the Committee is that it deals with some of the nitty-gritty that has to be done. Although the ISC should not be an ordinary Select Committee, I am talking about it doing the sort of the work that an ordinary Select Committee actually gets done, including the work on finance and resources. We have heard from the Chair how the support that the Committee gets from the National Audit Office to examine those issues is incredibly important, not least because the amount of money being spent in this area has increased dramatically in recent years. It is important that that is examined. Other concerns about the nuts and bolts that the Committee reports mention have not been touched on yet, but they include the way in which the staff are recruited and trained. That is fundamental to the workings of the intelligence services, and there is a need to build up the competences and capacity over a longer term. If there is a hint of criticism in the report, it is that an overly short-term approach has been taken in the past to certain areas, such as the defence intelligence services in respect of language competence and so on. That is having to be put right quickly now, and a lot of relatively inexperienced officers are coming into the services. They are doing an incredibly important job without necessarily having the wisdom of more senior people who have spent a longer time in the services. Getting that right and not making the mistakes of the past is important. I was surprised not to see in the Committee's report any indication of the co-operation with other services; perhaps aspects of the control principle and other things are going on there. However, I would have thought that given the global threat of terrorism and the fact that tackling it is such a major part of the services' work, the relationships between our services and those of other countries is important. I am talking not about the allegations of complicity in torture, but about the day-to-day nuts and bolts working. There is a bit about this in the report but if, as I did, one goes to see an organisation such as Europol and the fantastic work that it is doing to bring together the analysis of the threat of terrorism from different organisations, one expects to find more comment on this.