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Intelligence and Security Committee

Kensington and wherever, yes. Pentlands, isn't it? He spoke very well in saying that the Select Committee approach could be taken. If we are on a journey to that destination—I am sure, as night turns into day, that it is going to come about—there is the question of the secretariat of the Committee. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire talked about finding a new home at the Ministry of Justice. Why not leapfrog that so that the matter lies with the Clerk of the House of Commons? The secretariat may well need special accommodation, but that can be removed from the Charles Barry building—the parliamentary estate can be wherever one likes, with all the modern technology and security devices as regards eavesdropping, security of documentation and so on. It would be a wonderful leap forward if its location were vested in the Clerk of the House of Commons, with all the obvious reassurances to the intelligence community that there would be security. That could be achieved. Why go to the Ministry of Justice? Why not bring it to the legislature, which would be so healthy in reassuring those of us who feel concern as regards the democratic test in relation to these areas? Surprise was expressed that when Baroness Manningham-Buller became a Member of Parliament, she expressed the view that the Committee could be a Select Committee. One of our colleagues, in the way that I interpreted the tone of his comments, seemed to be saying, "That's a bit much." He seemed quite hurt that she had never uttered that comment when she was on the other side and under scrutiny in the Committee. But it was not her role to do that. I just think it is wonderful that she now says that it can be a parliamentary Committee: what a healthy development that is. I said that I wanted to deal with the nature of the Committee and our rubrics today, which are wholly inadequate in that we are being bounced into also considering the other document, the 2009-10 report. The other area that I want to touch on is the work that our colleagues have done, very enthusiastically and diligently, in terms of scrutiny. We have heard that some files were lost, and that is mentioned in some of the documentation. In using the term "files" I am referring to electronic data and so on. It is breathtaking and inexcusable that the intelligence agencies do this. I also have to tell the House that I find it unbelievable. One of my colleagues remarked in response to something I said from a sedentary position, "The hon. Gentleman is sometimes funny, but that is not funny." I did not mean what I said to be funny; I was referring to the fact that there is a culture in the security and intelligence services—there always has been, and I believe that it endures today—that is really quite menacing and threatening to our democratic values. It does not apply to everybody, but there is a minority. This year, there have been inspired smearings of people such as the late, great Jack Jones and the late, great Michael Foot, trying to imply that they were somehow less than patriotic. We demonstrably know from archive material that that was being said, but I think that it is even being pump-primed today, for reasons we can only guess. I believe that a very small minority of people in the security and intelligence services think they are omnipotent —that they can decide what is in the interests of the United Kingdom exclusively, without regard to parliamentary and other values. Let me buttress my case, because people might say, "Mackinlay, you can't just say extravagant things like that." However, I say to those people that they should look at the speeches of Mr. Evans, the head of MI5. He has made a number of speeches on various states that are active in gathering political intelligence. What is political intelligence? I fully accept that some research, development and attempts to find out what our potential adversaries are doing are essential to our national security—that is intelligence; it is core business. What is not core business, for Mr. Evans or anybody else, is when he tries to decide whose views people in a democracy should seek, what they should read and when they should meet people, particularly when those people are members of a legislature. That is an affront to democracy, and Mr. Evans needs to have his knuckles rapped. Parliament needs to ask another question. There is no interface between Members of Parliament and the security and intelligence services, save the Committee in question, which is not a parliamentary Committee. However, Mr. Evans and his colleagues have a complicated but interesting rubric whereby they talk to the press. It is all right for them to talk to, communicate with and meet the press, but never Members of Parliament. That is wholly indefensible and very dangerous to our body politic and our democracy, and I hope that it might one day be addressed by either the existing Committee or its successor parliamentary Select Committee. I wish to refer to one or two matters that our colleagues have drawn to our attention in the report with which we should be dealing exclusively—the annual report of 2008-09. Page 8 states:""The Committee had previously been told that it was 'very unlikely' that GCHQ would ever be able to meet the performance targets agreed with the Security Service. We are therefore reassured that GCHQ now believes it is able to meet Security Service key requirements."" Wonderful news but for the fact that the Committee was told at first that it was very unlikely that GCHQ would ever be able to meet the performance targets. How did the sudden transformation take place? Were the person or persons who communicated that view in the first place telling us porky pies? Were they being deliberately incompetent or misleading? Why the sudden change? I think we are entitled to know. Certainly it justifies further amplification. On page 10, our friends draw to our attention the fact that the National Audit Office""criticised the results of GCHQ's 2008 laptop computer audit. This showed that 35 laptops were unaccounted for"—" 35 laptops belonging to one of our security and intelligence agencies. That is just amazing! In any other circumstances, there would be a major carpeting of somebody. There would probably be disciplinary action and, in some cases, dismissal. That body deals with our national security, and I find it amazing that we cannot be told more about what was the cause of the problem and what happened. That case is particularly amazing against the backdrop of the previous report. I have just checked and found out that you were in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, on 7 May 2009 when we debated the 2007-08 report. Paragraph 177 of that report drew our attention to top-secret Government papers left on a train by a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee. It was reported that a prosecution took place on 28 October 2008, and the Prime Minister appointed Sir David Omand to investigate the matter. The Committee told the House:""At the time of writing, the Committee is awaiting sight of Sir David's report"." I said that I thought that that was very wrong and was very strong in my criticism of Sir David for not having produced that report. A rather hurt Sir David Omand wrote to me after the debate, basically saying, "You're unfair and you're rotten, Mackinlay, because it's not my fault. My report has been delivered to the Prime Minister. It's not my property." That is the position, and it was in parliamentary documentation last year. Does any member of the Committee want to intervene to tell me why the report was not mentioned this year if the Committee referred to it last year and said, "We haven't received it yet," and if there was implicit—if not explicit—criticism of that? Why has the Committee not given us an update? Surely we are entitled to an update on such a serious matter. If I did Sir David wrong last year, I give him an unqualified apology, but I would have liked him to write to me to say, "Mackinlay, I understand the report has now been delivered to the Committee," because it might otherwise seem as if the report is still being sat on. People are looking not at me, but at their documents, because they are obviously feeling a bit uncomfortable about this. They have failed in their duty to Parliament. What is the answer? Will any member of the Committee seek to explain to me where Sir David's report is? Has the Committee received it? The silence speaks volumes.