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Intelligence and Security Committee

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right that there are precedents. In fact, Lord King was Chair when I was a member of the ISC between 1997 and 1999, and he continued through to 2001. The principle of the Public Accounts Committee is that as a matter of course the Chair is a Member of the Opposition. The value of that is this: exactly because the ISC must operate behind closed doors, it needs to be seen to be independent and authoritative in its conclusions; and exactly because it cannot tell us the evidence on which its judgments are based, it needs to be perceived by the wider public to be independent of Ministers. That is important for the agencies as well as for the public. In the 1998 debate, the then ISC Chair, Tom King, spoke of the importance of the Committee having a unanimous all-party voice and authority:"““When a situation arises that gives serious cause for public concern…We shall not be able to help matters unless we can say that we have investigated the allegations, with…access to all the relevant information””.—[Official Report, 2 November 1998; Vol. 318, c. 594.]" Those words stand today. When I spoke in that debate, I said that accountability through the ISC lay at the heart of the tension not just between liberty and security, but between democracy and secrecy:"““We have certainly come a long way since the mere existence of MI5 and MI6 was denied. I believe that, sooner or later, we will travel much further. We will have to improve our system of accountability, for the sake not only of democracy but of the very secret agencies that the United Kingdom needs to function and to protect our modern democracy. If we do not improve our system of accountability, those agencies' capacity to operate in the national interest will be threatened.””—[Official Report, 2 November 1998; Vol. 318, c. 613.]" Those words, too, still stand. The role of the ISC has become stronger since 1998 and it does vital work. Accountability has increased, but it has not yet gone far enough. The Government's reforms are welcome, but they should be brave and go further, so that we continue to have effective agencies that have the confidence of the public in a modern democracy. Sooner or later, we will have that.