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Intelligence and Security Committee

I can give my hon. Friend a very straightforward answer: all members of the Committee are subject to the Official Secrets Act. We see the most secret information and we have therefore all been considered suitable for that purpose. Like any other United Kingdom citizen, we cannot reveal information that is in breach of the Official Secrets Act, which is an Act of this place and must be respected. In the unlikely event of the circumstances to which my hon. Friend refers, that would be the response. The third major reform relates to the fact that the 1994 Act states that the Committee may ““request”” information from the intelligence agencies. If the Committee has the power to request, the agencies have the power to decline. I have to be fair and say that the agencies have never used that power, but they are able to decline and that is no longer acceptable. Our view, which we have recommended to the Government, is that the Committee should have the power to require information to be shared by the intelligence agencies, and only the Government, not the agencies, should have the power to override that if, for example, a Secretary of State or Prime Minister believe there is some overwhelming national interest in doing so. That would have to be reported to Parliament. The power to require information is not just a change of words. At the moment, if the Committee wants information we request it and the agencies, which sometimes have massive files, produce a summary of the information. I am sure that they do it in good faith, but we are allowed to see only that summarised version. The power to require information will mean that we will have our own staff who can have informal discussions in a constructive and positive way with the agencies and see all the available information. Ultimately, they will decide what summary we might wish to see that and that would enable us to put questions to the agencies if we decided to take evidence from them. That is a much more sensible procedure, which I am sure will work. However, it is obviously a very important change compared with previous practice.