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Intelligence and Security Committee

Yes. The right hon. Lady is a very senior member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. In the Green Paper, the Government have combined enhanced oversight with proposals for reform of the control principle precisely for the reason she mentions. In addition, even if there had not been a Green Paper and there were no Government proposals, I am sure the Committee would have taken the view that the time had come for a fundamental root-and-branch reform of oversight, and would have been making the recommendations we are discussing today to the Government. I do not know—and we will never know—what the Government's reaction might have been. That would have been a different situation. The final major change we are recommending relates, again, to the 1994 Act. The Act states that we have oversight of the Secret Intelligence Service, which is MI6; the Security Service, which is MI5; and GCHQ. That is all that is mentioned but, as the House will be well aware, the intelligence community is considerably wider than that. I mentioned defence intelligence a few minutes ago, and there is the Joint Intelligence Committee and the new National Security Council, which has a role partly concerned with intelligence. The reality is that, over the years, these additional agencies and parts of government have voluntarily subjected themselves to scrutiny by the ISC. That is right and proper, but it is time that the legislation caught up with the formal position. That has also been accepted by the Government. In conclusion, the House might think, ““Well, that's all very well. We know what the Government's view is and we know what the Intelligence and Security Committee's view is, but what about the agencies themselves? How comfortable are they with these proposals?”” I cannot speak on their behalf, but I can say that our relationship with the agencies is very positive and that they have sometimes publicly said that it is time for reform. The agencies have taken an entirely constructive approach to the kind of issues we have been discussing today. Of course, there is a very good reason for that. Not only are the agencies great national servants operating in the national interest, but one of the big developments in intelligence oversight over the past 16 years has been that a Committee such as ours, whose primary role may seem to be to criticise agencies or the Government if something goes wrong, has also occasionally been the agencies' champion if we conclude they are being unfairly attacked either in the media or elsewhere and are unable to defend themselves. The obvious example of that is the 7/7 bombings, when serious representations were made that because the names of the people responsible for the bombings were on the Security Service's files, what happened could surely have been stopped and it was all a disastrous mistake. I was not involved in that investigation, but our predecessors looked into the matter in enormous detail. It is significant that the conclusion they came to was in all material respects the same as that the coroner came to a few months ago: although various criticisms could be made, the Security Service was being unfairly accused on the central question of failing to stop that terrible event in the circumstances. The agencies have trust in the Committee partly because it has operated in a mature and sensible way. Although on many occasions the Committee may have criticised things the agencies have done, we are also prepared to speak on their behalf in public and private if we think the facts justify it. Intelligence has been a hugely important issue for the United Kingdom for many years. The single most important intelligence achievement was Bletchley Park during the second world war, which had a material impact on our winning the war. More recently, how intelligence operates has changed fundamentally. However, the crucial aspects of intelligence remain the same: our national interest requires that intelligence agencies remain secret in their most crucial activities. That is how I started and that is how I conclude my comments. On behalf of the Committee as a whole, I commend our report to the House.