GCHQ

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:07 pm on 10 June 2013.

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Photo of William Hague William Hague The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs 4:07, 10 June 2013

The legal framework is the one I have set out. The Acts that I have referred to, passed by Parliament, apply to all the intelligence gathered by the agencies. The hon. Gentleman will know that, for instance, section 3 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 confers particular powers and roles on GCHQ, so these things are governed by the same Acts of Parliament. Procedures differ, of course, in many different situations. It is because I cannot describe all those situations in public that I cannot go into exactly what that means for procedures in every case. I therefore cannot go as far in reassuring the hon. Gentleman or the shadow Foreign Secretary as they would like, but if they could see the full details of what happens, I think they would take an enormous measure of reassurance from it.