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Intelligence and Security Committee

May I begin by making it entirely clear, and perhaps creating a precedent, that I have every intention of being present for the wind-ups this evening? Our intelligence agencies have much in common with intelligence agencies in other parts of the world, but there are certain differences. Baroness Manningham-Buller made a very good speech a couple of weeks ago, in which she said:""The head of the French intelligence service made a speech…in which he…complained that the British…had a glamorous and seductive word for the covert collection of information. The British called it 'Intelligence' whereas in France…at least one of the security intelligence agencies laboured under the dull title of 'General Information.'"" I can only express my relief, in the interests of transparency, that we are not discussing the report of the general information committee—that at least is to be welcomed. I wish specifically to examine the question of alleged complicity by the security services in certain unacceptable behaviour. My starting point is the Committee's report, which indicates that when the Committee originally considered the question of rendition in 2007, it did not receive information that subsequently, in 2008, the Security Service, followed by the Secret Intelligence Service, suddenly discovered. That is made quite clear in the report, which says that that information was made available only because the papers had been discovered when MI5 and MI6 were preparing for judicial review by the Court of Appeal, or by a court. That raises the question as to why, when MI5 and MI6 were about to have to defend themselves in a court of law, where anything potentially improper or any misinformation to the court would have had extremely serious consequences, they appeared to take the time and trouble to establish from their internal records what information they possessed. However, when they gave evidence to the ISC, that somehow did not occur. The Committee has made it clear that, in its view, there was no deliberate intention to withhold from it the information in question.