That is information that should be imparted not directly but to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, who is accountable to the House.

Under the Security Service Act 1989 and the Interception of Communications Act 1985 there is a commissioner with power to review the use made by the service of the most intrusive methods of investigation, and a tribunal with powers to investigate or refer to the commissioner complaints made by members of the public who believe that their rights have been infringed. Both commissioners and tribunals take their responsibilities very seriously, and I know that the Security Service takes equally seriously the need to ensure that the commissioners and tribunals have total freedom of access to the records of the service and its staff so that they may satisfy themselves that the work of the service has properly been carried out.

Furthermore, as Minister with authority over the Security Service, as given to him by the 1989 Act, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is accountable to Parliament for the work of the service. Of course, in matters relating to national security, the Government have a particular duty to safeguard information which, if divulged, could help those who are ill disposed towards this country. Thus, while Parliament may wish to question the Home Secretary on this as in other areas, there are bound to be limits to what he can safely say.

This limitation was recognised by the Home Affairs Select Committee in its conclusion that nothing should be done to damage the effectiveness of the Security Service and that operational matters affecting the service would not be revealed publicly, however great the interest there may be in seeing these affairs discussed openly in the House and in the media. There is a distinction to be drawn between what would be of interest to the public and what is in the public interest, but the fact that essential considerations of secrecy may place limitations on what can be said on the Floor of the House about the service and its work does not in any way alter the principle of ministerial accountability to Parliament.

Nevertheless, the Government recognise that there is genuine interest in the House in the question whether the existing approach to oversight, as reflected in the terms of the 1989 Act and which I have just outlined, is the right one. Against the background of the Government's commitment to greater openness, there is a need for us to consider again whether there may be a case for looking afresh at those arrangements.

As I have said, I will not anticipate the Government's response to the Select Committee's recommendations, but I want to make it clear that the Government have no sympathy whatever with the argument—not made by the Home Affairs Committee, and certainly not by the hon. Member for Walsall, North, but often made by critics of the service—that a system involving more direct and intrusive oversight of the service is needed in order to prevent it from acting in a fundamentally undemocratic way and infringing the civil liberties of individuals to no good purpose.

No effective security service can ever routinely deny the many wild and inaccurate stories which are almost bound to circulate in the media from time to time about what it is alleged to have done. If it, or Ministers speaking for it, were to deny such stories on some occasions or outline cases on any occasion on which it was judged not right to issue such a denial, the very fact of silence would be taken by some as confirming the truth of the allegation. Even where subsequent events prove that the allegation was ill founded, what would remain in the minds of the public would be the allegation, not the fact that it had turned out to be unfounded.