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Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report for 2008–09 (Cm 7807)

The police, the Financial Services Authority and others need to keep a very active watch on what goes on. I also note in the report important remarks on the growing problem of cyber attacks and on it not always being easy to tell whether they come from private or state-sponsored sources. Since I do my politics in Yorkshire, I am closely aware of the problems of, and have very close links with, Pakistan and Somalia, and the extent to which the high level of movement of people between this country and those countries—and, on a rather smaller scale, Yemen—creates problems for all of us. The line between what is domestic and what is international is not always easy to draw. Intelligence co-operation with other countries is not flagged actively in either report, although it is referred to in the second report. We are all conscious of the importance of the relationship with the United States, as the noble Baroness remarked. I happened to be at a transatlantic conference in Brussels over the weekend where this was one of several subjects discussed—the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, was there, too. I had conversations with a number of people about expectation on the part of the Americans that they will receive more information and co-operation from European Governments than they give us in return. The imbalance of that relationship extends across intelligence to a range of other areas. On the US-UK relationship, if the UK Independence Party and the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, were really concerned about the maintenance of British sovereignty, I would look forward to accompanying him to the gates of RAF Menwith Hill and seeing how easily he would be accepted in there. I know that the ISC is now allowed to visit US intelligence sites on British soil; it was not for its first few years. At least we have gained that. While driving back from Harrogate to Saltaire last summer, however, I witnessed both the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes being taken down with great reverence by US Air Force personnel. There are large questions there about whether we are happy with the incursions into British sovereignty of some of these US installations on British soil. I also note that, in paragraph 141 of the 2008-09 report, the Foreign Secretary referred to, ""the British representative on Diego Garcia"." I recall on occasions being assured by Ministers that we are in command of Diego Garcia, and that nothing happens there without the British being fully informed. The Foreign Secretary’s remark to the committee was perhaps a little more honest than the replies that are sometimes given. The last thing that I will say, in a rather shorter speech than we have heard so far, concerns the question of security and new threats—the broader issues around the fact that many of the external threats facing Britain do not fall within old state to state military dimensions. I am talking about the overlap between criminal and terrorist networks, the extent to which almost all serious crime is now international, the fact that the smuggling of people, drugs and weapons is often conducted by the same networks, and the fact that the funding of terrorism and piracy, and the dispersal of those funds, also overlap. Co-operation between our intelligence services, our Serious Fraud Office and SOCA is an important part of how we respond to this nexus; but how we follow it up is also a problem for Parliament. An official of the African Union whom I met recently talked about Somali piracy, and how a remarkably large number of mansions are being built in Mombasa. We agreed that one needs to combat piracy through financial as well as other investigations. The overlap is important. Perhaps the Minister will tell us how Her Majesty’s Government manage this growing overlap and increasing internationalisation. I recall looking, when I was chair of a sub-committee of the European Union Committee, at the expansion of police liaison officers in our embassies abroad. It is a very important part of how SOCA links to the police authorities in other countries, in order to combat serious crime such as people smuggling. Some months ago, I was fascinated to be invited to sit in on a discussion of the European assessment centre; and even more fascinated to discover a number of people with experience of British intelligence agencies telling us how immensely helpful the European assessment centre is to British intelligence and to the British pursuit of transnational crime. This is something that the Conservatives might like to communicate to those in their party who think that, if they form the next Government, they should withdraw from all the police and intelligence co-operation networks, including Europol and the Schengen information system, because these are incursions into British sovereignty. We now recognise that crime and threats to Britain overlap our national boundaries, that many of them do not come from foreign states, and therefore that the interface between our domestic security bodies, including our police force, and our intelligence agencies and those who represent them abroad, is important, delicate and difficult to manage. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply on these various points.