Intelligence and Security Committee

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:58 pm on 7 May 2009.

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Photo of Jacqui Smith Jacqui Smith Home Secretary 4:58, 7 May 2009

I am glad to have the opportunity to close this debate on the report of the Intelligence and Security Committee. As some other Members have said, this is the first debate taking place under the new arrangements, whereby it was rightly introduced by the Chairman of the Committee, my right hon. Friend Dr. Howells. As Mr. Mates pointed out, the House will today have the benefit of hearing from only one Minister—me—closing the debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd pointed out, however, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary would very much have liked to attend the debate, but he is on important business abroad, and he has communicated to me his wish for that to be made clear to the House.

As many Members have commented, our security and intelligence agencies play a crucial role in protecting the interests of the UK at home and overseas. They provide a first-class service to the country in often difficult and dangerous circumstances, and have had many successes. As my hon. Friend Ms Taylor pointed out, since 2001, with the help of the security and intelligence agencies, more than a dozen terrorist plots have been disrupted, and almost 200 people have been convicted of terrorism-related offences. Overseas secret intelligence has given us a vital edge in tackling some of the most difficult security challenges we face. We are safer, our families are safer and the British people are safer because of the work done by our security and intelligence agencies, and they deserve our thanks and support. I am pleased that that was reiterated by almost every Member who spoke today.

I thank the members of the Intelligence and Security Committee for their hard work over the past year, and for the grilling of which I was on the receiving end relatively recently. I also thank all the Members who made today's debate so constructive and useful. In particular, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd, both for chairing the Committee and for opening the debate. I join him and others in paying tribute to the previous Chair, my right hon. Friend Margaret Beckett, and to Sir Alan Beith. Both of them have stepped down from the Committee over the past year, but their work over the year contributed to the ISC's 2007-08 annual report.

Let me respond to one of the points raised by my hon. Friend Andrew Mackinlay. The replacement for the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, Sir Menzies Campbell, was approved and appointed to the Committee in line with the new procedures that the House debated and approved on 17 July 2008. The suggested reforms ensuring greater parliamentary involvement in the appointment of Committee members have already been implemented.

It is worth putting on record the importance of those who undertake the necessary judicial oversight of the agencies: the Intelligence Services Commissioner, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, and the president and members of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. I thank them and their staff for their diligent and important work.

The challenge, as always, is to strike the right balance between the protection of security and the most important of human rights, the right to life, and the impact on the other rights that we and our democracy hold dear. I am convinced, however, that the right balance of mechanisms—legislative and ministerial, and in the form of the oversight provided by the Committee—exists to ensure that the agencies fulfil their lawful duties appropriately and effectively. It is essential for important matters relating to the national security of the country to be considered fully. Today's debate has provided an important opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny of that vital area, and I thank all the Members who contributed so helpfully.

Let me deal with some of the points that have been raised. There was, of course, discussion about the nature of the Committee itself and the way in which recent reforms have worked. I am glad that the right hon. Member for East Hampshire corrected the suggestion that ISC members were subject to security vetting. He is right: they are not, although they are notified under the Official Secrets Act so that they are fully aware of their responsibilities.

As we have heard, this is a Committee with a strong cross-party membership. I am sure that ISC members past and present would rightly resent an implication that they were somehow in thrall to the Government. That certainly has not been my experience, as I made clear when I spoke of being on the receiving end of its interrogation; and, as Members will see if they read Committee's reports carefully, it has, when appropriate, criticised the actions of both the agencies and the Government.

There has also been some discussion of the nature of the redactions in the reports. I am sure that Members will appreciate how much of what our security and intelligence agencies do, and how they do it, must be kept secret so that the agencies can operate effectively and do the job that we want them to do. To avoid prejudicing that operational effectiveness, it is necessary to redact some of the material before publication. I am sure that Members appreciate that the Committee's reports have a global readership, which will inevitably include those with hostile intent who will be poring over every word and figure for clues as to our capabilities, weaknesses within those capabilities and ways to circumvent them. It is important that we maintain that capability and do not, in the very important job of scrutiny, undermine precisely the capability that we are scrutinising.

There was some important discussion about the role that public sessions may play. I know that the Committee is giving serious consideration to how those public sessions can be organised. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and myself have both already agreed that we would be perfectly content to be questioned by the Committee in public session, but it is important that those are meaningful sessions in which, quite rightly, the important job of accountability and scrutiny can be carried out in a way that gains public confidence.

There have been calls for the right amount of resources for the Committee to carry out its very important role. The Cabinet Office has worked, I believe positively, with the Committee to ensure that it has the resources that it needs to fulfil its remit efficiently and effectively. My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock asked me to outline the increases in resources that the Government have made available. In response to the reform package approved by the House, the complement of the ISC secretariat has been increased from six to eight, bringing the staffing up to the level enjoyed by comparable Select Committees. A general investigator to support the work of the Committee is in the process of being appointed and arrangements have been brokered for the Committee to have access to independent confidential legal and financial advice. I understand that notwithstanding the tightness of resources, to which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary referred last year, resources are in place to finance all those measures and to ensure that the increase in resources is available to the Committee to do its job.

During the debate today—certainly it forms an important element of the report—the issue of ensuring that the considerably increased resources that are being provided by the Government to the security and intelligence agencies are gaining the greatest value for money has rightly been an important area of focus. Recognising the demands that the current threat situation makes on what we expect from the agencies, the Government have significantly increased their funding to over £2.3 billion by 2011 in the current CSR settlement—an increase of over £1 billion since 2003-04. That level of funding is an indication of the Government's commitment to national security and our strong determination to counter threats from international terrorism.

I know that one of the issues that, quite rightly, has exercised the Committee—it is represented in the report—is the way in which that increased resource is allocated, the priority that is given to international terrorism and the extent to which that may impact on other important priorities. Counter-terrorism is necessarily the highest priority for the agencies, but resources are finite and it is necessary, given the scale of the threat from international terrorism and the unique role of the agencies in countering that threat, that work on some other non-counter-terrorism intelligence requirements should be appropriately re-prioritised.

The important point here is that although some other areas of work may well, in terms of the proportion of overall resources allocated, have seen their allocation decrease, because of the additional commitment made to the agencies, actual spend on them has increased. There is still substantial and successful effort against those non-CT target areas. Capabilities that have been funded and supported by the Government, and developed precisely to deal with the issue of counter-terrorism, often result in increased flexibility and capability that can then be used in other areas of the agencies' work. That is a very important element of the agencies' work to ensure that they are flexible and can respond to sudden or unexpected threats, whether from terrorism or other international events. That has been one important aspect of using the increased investment in the agencies.

In holding the Government and the agencies to account, the Committee has rightly challenged us on value for money, particularly in relation to our work on counter-terrorism. For the first time, we now have a public service agreement to ensure that we are achieving the objectives that we have set out, not only in terms of the agencies but more widely. That is an important way to ensure that the increased funding delivers the objective of reducing the terrorist threat.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South and other Members have raised the SCOPE project, and particularly their concern about the abandonment of phase 2. The Government take this issue extremely seriously. We are very aware of the loss of any public funds, and especially at the current time. That is why the Cabinet Office has given the ISC a detailed memorandum outlining all aspects of the programme. The financial details have yet to be finalised. The decision to terminate the contract, which was not taken lightly, was reached after detailed consideration and legal and technical advice. We are co-operating fully with the ISC's inquiries into SCOPE, and it will rightly continue to question the Government on that.

Annotations

barbara richards
Posted on 8 May 2009 11:23 am (Report this annotation)

Isn't it strange how you want to know every nitty gritty detail about the folk of this country, even what we put into our dustbins, and yet you do not want to listen to any of us when we try to tell you our horrific testimonies of years of torture in the secret family courts? The earplugs go in, the blindfolds go on, and we are left to deal with the persecution by ourselves!