Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report 2003–04

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:40 pm on 8 July 2004.

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Photo of Ms Joyce Quin Ms Joyce Quin Labour, Gateshead East and Washington West 4:40, 8 July 2004

It is a pleasure to follow the two previous speakers, the hon. Members for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and for Newark (Patrick Mercer) because, although they are not members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, they have always taken a keen interest in its work and that of the intelligence agencies.

I had not intended to speak in this debate, partly because I am a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee and it is good to hear contributions from other Members. Also, given the time limit on Back-Bench speeches, I was conscious of the fact that there might have been too great a demand by other hon. Members to speak. However, I note that that has not been the case, so I shall take this opportunity to add a few comments to those that have been so well made by my fellow members of the Committee. I want to endorse strongly the words spoken by my right hon. Friend Mr. Barron when he introduced the report on behalf of the Committee, and to pay tribute to the work of our Chairman, my right hon. Friend Ann Taylor.

The report rightly highlights a number of areas. It flags up circumstances in which the agencies have experienced success, and it is good that several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for New Forest, East, referred to what has happened in Libya, which the report flags up dramatically as a great success. It was a great success for the intelligence agencies, and for the Government and the Foreign Office, following the negotiations in which they took part, and I am very pleased with the way in which they turned out. As far as the intelligence agencies are concerned, that is a rare of example of our being able to give public credit, and for that reason, it is important to highlight it in this debate.

The Committee believes that the agencies need to be properly resourced, and we welcome the increase in funds that has been made available to them in recent years. I want to pick up on a point made by Mr. Oaten, which was that it is important for the agencies to use the best of this country's talents by recruiting as widely as possible. Indeed, several of those issues are highlighted in our report. We refer to the need to bring in talented people from a variety of backgrounds, and we encourage the agencies to consider—without compromising security—issues such as the nationality rules, which have been in operation for a long time. Those rules have a certain rationale but, in a multicultural, multi-ethnic Britain, we would not want the agencies to lose out on being able to recruit people who perhaps do not rigorously fulfil the traditional nationality requirements.

In that sense, we were all pleased when GCHQ, for example, showed some flexibility in its recruitment so as to attract people who could play a useful role in that organisation, even if they did not comply with all the security requirements to the highest level. It will be useful for the other agencies to look at that kind of flexibility in recruitment.

One area that has not been touched on extensively in this debate is that of international co-operation and the work that our intelligence agencies carry out in co-operation with agencies in various different countries, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will be able to address that point when he responds to this debate.

It is very clear from our work, and it is well known in the House, that the allies with whom we work closely in intelligence are ones with which we have had very close co-operation for a very long time: the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and so forth. Without doubt, those links are tremendously important in the modern world. But it is also right that the agencies, and the Government, who are ultimately responsible for the work of those agencies, consider extending our range of allies as widely as possible, while not compromising sources or security.

Certainly, in the European Union, there is a good deal of co-operation, particularly with those countries that have long-established intelligence agencies, with which we have worked over a number of years. Recently, within the European Union, there has been increased interest in intelligence, because of some of the tragic events that have occurred: most recently, in Madrid. I welcome the appointment of the co-ordinator, Gijs de Vries, whom I know from my days in the European Parliament as an energetic and capable person.

While EU collaboration is very useful, I would not want to see it adopt an unwieldy, bureaucratic form or in any way disrupt the existing partnerships and arrangements. At such a difficult time for security in the world, we do not want disruption; we want the existing networks to work even better and even more smoothly. We should take that very much to heart.