I am grateful to the hon. Member for making that clear, because he is significantly misunderstood on that matter. I support him. Many former service colleagues of mine who were involved in the incident at various levels believe that the hon. Gentleman is doing a considerable service.

It would have been more appropriate if the hon. Gentleman's case had been dealt with by a Select Committee of Privy Councillors instead of on the Floor of the House. Such a Select Committee would be the best mechanism for ensuring the accountability of the intelligence services to the democratic process.

I come to another central issue. It is important and necessary to have that accountability because, if the intelligence services are to operate at all effectively or properly, they must operate under appropriate political control. Indeed, I would go further and say that the intelligence services can do their job effectively only if they are closely connected with the whole political system, are very much under political control and are able to influence the political system in an appropriate and proper fashion.

At the very heart of this issue lies the system that we now refer to as "clearance". The intelligence services have to receive clearances at various appropriate levels, including at the very highest level—that of the Prime Minister—before taking any action. I have no doubt that action such as that mentioned by the hon. Member for Linlithgow would, under normal circumstances, have had to be approved at the very highest level.

If what the hon. Member says is true, it is inconceivable that it could have occurred in normal circumstances other than with agreement at the very highest level. But if that did not happen, there must have been a significant breakdown in the way that our intelligence services are controlled. One must reach one or other of those conclusions if the hon. Gentleman's thesis is supportable. Either a politician at a very high level was involved in taking the decision to allow such action to go ahead, or there must have been a very serious breakdown in the democratic and political accountability and control of our intelligence services.

Those are the only two conclusions. Naturally, we shall have to wait and see whether the hon. Gentleman's overall theory is supportable, but, if it is, those conclusions inevitably follow. There are many people, including me, who, because of friends and contacts, have reason to worry that the traditional and appropriate control of this country's intelligence services has become much looser than appropriate and much less regulated than is necessary within a democracy.

Whatever the case with regard to the intelligence services and the conclusions drawn by the hon. Member for Linlithgow, the facts that he has presented are very serious and important. I hope that the Minister will now be able to answer our very serious concerns, and that he will make an unequivocal statement about the overall conclusion that has been reached.

Finally, I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow for raising this important subject and for giving us the opportunity to hold this extremely serious debate.