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Intelligence and Security Committee

Perhaps not, but I do take the view that there is a sort of consensus—I am not sure whether it includes the Chairman of the Committee or the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, but it perhaps includes the Foreign Secretary—that the Committee needs to move on. If we accept, as I do, that the bulk of the work should be done in private—even my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) would, in the main, agree with that assertion—and if we are going to move on, we should give careful consideration in the new Parliament as to how the ISC should function. I started by saying that I do not have any criticism of individual members of the Committee; my criticisms relate to the Committee itself and the perception that it has. There is a need for the public and certainly for parliamentarians to recognise that it is doing the work that it was established to do—providing scrutiny of the security services. That should be done in a way that ensures that we have more confidence that the Committee as a whole—this is not a matter of individual members of the Committee—is doing the work that is essential in a parliamentary democracy. I look forward—I may still be here—to a new Parliament that gives much further and serious consideration as to how the Committee functions accordingly.