Part of Justice and Security Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:30 pm on 29 January 2013.
It is very good to follow the hon. Member for North Antrim. We have been at meetings together for the past 16 years, or more. He makes a valid point about how difficult issues affecting security in Northern Ireland can be dealt with more effectively in private.
However, there is no question but that there is a problem. For example, the Committee decided to look into the London terrorist attacks in July 2005. That was, quite rightly, a hugely emotional issue. The problem was whether the public believed that the Committee was doing its job properly in cross-examining the people involved—in this case, the intelligence agencies and their heads. Of course, you can never tell. You can only say that, yes, we dealt with this in a robust, thorough, hard-hitting way, but because those things are not on television and are not public, no one can ever know that. So it was, and is, a problem. I am in favour of having some public meetings of the ISC, but that will not be as easy as people make out because of the nature of the information and the people dealt with.
Before the ISC was formed, no one knew who the heads of the agencies were—not even their names, yet alone anything else—but now, of course, they are almost public figures; they appear in public, we know their names, they make statements, they give lectures and they talk about the issues that affect the national security of our country. In those circumstances, it could be useful to have a meeting of the ISC in public to discuss the national security issues that affect our land.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North referred to the awful, tragic death of Gareth Williams from Anglesey and also to recruitment. They have been in the public domain. We can go on to the agencies’ websites to find out how to become a member of the intelligence agencies—it is a world away from the tap on the shoulder at a cocktail party at Oxford or Cambridge and being asked, “Do you want to join MI5 or MI6?”
The applicants need significant technical qualifications, which is very different from how it used to be, but the recruitment process is good, with thousands of people applying to become members of the intelligence agencies. It strikes me that those sorts of matters could be discussed publicly without endangering national security, but it is not easy.
The Minister rightly made the point that meetings could end up being daft and farcical: they could be so choreographed and the questions asked so anodyne that the meeting would be meaningless—not that all Select Committees are riveting, of course; very often they are not, and it need not be the case. However, as in Australia and the United States, where the heads of the agencies appear in public to discuss matters of national security with their committees, it is worth a try. That could also deal with the accountability and transparency that we talked about, but that is another matter.
I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for New Forest East with regard to annual meetings, but I think that there should be something in the Bill that says that these things should be tried. It may be, for example, that within the lifetime of a Parliament, so many meetings could be held, or that the Bill could state, “may hold”. However, the fact that there is no real reference to the importance of public hearings is an omission. It may be that annual meetings are not the answer because of the work load, and we do not want them interfere with, “Events, dear boy, events”, which the Committee has to consider almost every year; it is not just the annual report that it deals with, but issues such as rendition, Guantanamo Bay, the London terrorist attacks of July 2005 and so on. However, it is worth a try.
On the Select Committees, I do not think that there has ever been a case where the ISC has refused to consider a request from a Select Committee to deal with something. I am not sure whether there is a need to put that in the Bill, but it is a good point: there will be times when Select Committees—presumably those on Defence, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Energy as well as others—cannot delve into certain issues because they are the preserve of the intelligence agencies, but are pertinent and central to the inquiry that they are undertaking. On those occasions, a specified request to the ISC to look at something should be considered. It may not provide an answer, but the request will be considered and it could be that the Prime Minister or relevant Secretary of State is cross-examined by the ISC on that issue. Because of the secret nature of it, it might not happen—but it might happen. The point is that there should be the possibility of an inquiry being held partly in private and partly in public. That applies to the ISC as well as to the other Select Committees and I see no problem with that. Generally speaking, Select Committees tend not to like each other, so it is probably better that we look at this.
The other issue is the information that the amendment asks for the Select Committees to receive from the ISC. That is a bit trickier because of the nature of the information, but I understand the reasoning; it is another way of ensuring that the ISC becomes a different sort of parliamentary Committee. There is nothing wrong with that. I hope that the Minister will respond to the points made in this short debate.