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Intelligence and Security Committee's Report on the Security and Intelligence Agencies' handling of the information provided by Mr. Mitrokhin, Cm 4764, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 4765;
Second Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 1998-99, HC 116, on Sierra Leone, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 4325;
Third Report from the Home Affairs Committee, Session 1998-99, HC 291, on Accountability of the Security Service, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 4588; and
First Report from the Liaison Committee, Session 1999-2000, HC 300, on Shifting the Balance: Select Committees and the Executive (paragraphs 90 to 92), and the Government's response thereto, Cm 4737 (paragraph 56).]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Betts.]
1.23 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): Today is the second occasion in this Parliament that we have had the opportunity to debate intelligence and security issues. The three agencies together make a valuable and unique contribution to the safety and security of our society and, in an international context, to that of our allies.
The agencies provide us with a vital edge in tackling some of the most difficult problems that we face. They play a significant role in our efforts against terrorism, drugs and serious crime and in defence of our national security. Because of the necessary secrecy of their work, their contribution often goes unremarked and unacknowledged. Much of what they achieve cannot be given the recognition that it deserves. To do so would give those against whom the agencies work the opportunity to sidestep their efforts. It could very well also undermine the protection of those who already carry out their service to this country, sometimes at considerable personal risk.
Among other things, today's debate provides a welcome opportunity to thank the agencies and their staff for their valuable contribution. All of us who have had contact with the agencies--Secretaries of State and members of the Intelligence and Security Committee over the years--will readily acknowledge that they are world-class services.
The reports before the House are two from the Intelligence and Security Committee, one from the Home Affairs Committee, one from the Foreign Affairs Committee and one from the Liaison Committee. Of these, the one that inevitably has attracted the most immediate attention is that of the Intelligence and Security Committee on Mitrokhin. For the convenience of the House, I shall deal with that report first.
On 13 September last year I announced that, with the agreement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, I had invited the ISC to examine the policies and procedures adopted within the security and intelligence agencies for the handling of information supplied by
Mr. Vasili Mitrokhin. The Committee's report was published earlier this month alongside the Government's response and a parliamentary reply from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.My right hon. Friend and I are very grateful to the ISC, and not least to its Chairman, the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), for their readiness to take on the additional work thrown up by the handling of the Mitrokhin material and for the thoroughness of their report. The right hon. Gentleman has also generously acknowledged that his Committee was afforded unparalleled access to material beyond that of a Select Committee in order to carry out its inquiry.
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed): Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that through his willingness, when pressed, to make available to the Committee all information, including advice to Ministers, he made possible the thoroughness of the report; that it would not have been possible for the Committee to reach conclusions on some matters had it not had that degree of access; and that lessons ought to be learned for the Committee's future access?
Mr. Straw: I certainly recognise the substance of the right hon. Gentleman's first point. As I and my right hon. Friends acknowledged, it would otherwise have been impossible to arrive at both a proper understanding of the story as it unfolded and proper conclusions. I also accept his other comment, without entering into any commitments about the exact boundary that we should draw, as a result of this experience, as to the extent to which the ISC should have access to material. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, from his long membership of the Committee, that there are some very important operational matters that the Committee itself acknowledges it would not be appropriate for it to have access to. I also believe that it would be inappropriate.
The main criticisms made by the Committee were of the failures of the Security Service in not referring cases to the prosecuting authorities in a timely manner and of failures by officials in the provision of advice to Ministers. However, there was no suggestion of any attempt to mislead Ministers. In the ISC reports, there was no criticism of Ministers in previous Administrations, nor of Ministers in the current Administration.
As the inquiry report made clear, and as the Government acknowledged in their response, mistakes were made in the handling of this material, not least in the decisions that were made and not made as to whether or not individuals should be prosecuted. The agencies as well as the central Departments concerned--the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office and the Cabinet Office--have learned a great deal from the report and this experience, and I believe that the lessons have been identified and accepted.
Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe): Can the Home Secretary shed any light on paragraph 60 of the report, which records that in his statement on 13 September 1999 he had the opportunity to reflect on the Security Service's view of the significance of Mrs. Norwood's
activities but did not do so, and that, as a result, the public perception of Mrs. Norwood is that, in the words of the paragraph,
- she provided a real contribution to the Soviet atomic bomb development
Mr. Straw: I shall do my best to answer. I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his warning to me that he was likely to raise the matter.
The explanation is an unusual one but is entirely accurate, as indeed everything I say in this House is. It is that in the preceding week I had had an operation on a damaged cartilage in my knee and had undergone a general anaesthetic. I was on crutches and groggy for the rest of the week. On the Saturday morning, when I was telephoned to be told that various allegations had been made in The Times that, for example, I had blocked a prosecution of Melita Norwood, which was completely untrue, I was still coming round from the effects of the anaesthetic and was hoping for a quiet lie-in, although, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, the prospects of that if one is Home Secretary are random and infrequent.
I returned to London from my constituency on the Sunday, having decided that I should issue a statement as soon as I had been able to go through the material. Officials worked on the Sunday to pull together all that I had seen over the period since May 1997. My recollection is that, as I was not in a position to make a proper judgment about whether or not Mrs. Norwood's position as a spy had been either of huge or of any significance, and as the public would not have taken comfort if I had merely repeated what I was being told, I decided that it was better left alone. That is my explanation.
With the benefit of history, we know that less damage was done by Mrs. Norwood's spying than might otherwise have been the case; in the event, as the report says on page 23, the Soviets copied American designs that they had obtained. However, during the time that she had access to highly secret material and was passing it to the Russians, her behaviour was damaging both because it was treacherous and because it had the potential to be extremely damaging to the interests of this country.
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater): Although there has been great concentration on the nuclear secrets that Mrs. Norwood may or may not have passed on, it is worth noting that she remained active for a considerable period after she had ceased to be directly involved in that area. It is alleged that she recruited another defector as late as 1969, which makes it clear that she was still considered to be of value to the Soviet Union.
Mr. Straw: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, whose point suggests that my befuddled caution on Monday 13 September was well placed. He is quite right. Although it was clear, as I made plain in my public statement at the time--Parliament, of course, was not sitting--that Mrs. Norwood's direct access to highly classified material had ended in 1951, she remained active and was obviously seen by the Russians as having some importance.
We should not forget the positive points identified by the ISC's inquiry. They include confirmation of our success in obtaining Mr. Mitrokhin's material, which was, and remains, of huge significance to us and our allies. In addition, it confirms success in exploiting his material at home and abroad, and confirms that a decision to allow publication of a book on the material was correct and that much of the publication process--although not all of it--was sound. Finally, the report serves to highlight a point arising from the Mitrokhin material--namely, the effective work of the security and intelligence services in countering the significant and potentially damaging intelligence threat posed by the former Soviet Union.
The House will recognise the significance of the success of the ISC's inquiry. It demonstrates both the developing role of the Committee and its maturing relationship with the agencies. I am glad that there was no suggestion that the statutory accountability of any agency is inadequate, or that proper oversight and internal management are not taking place. By definition, the work of the agencies cannot be open. Proper mechanisms for scrutiny are, therefore, all the more important.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, since he entered the House in 1974, and I, since 1979, have been among Members of Parliament on both sides of the House concerned about the lack of a proper statutory base for the intelligence and security agencies and for the part of their operations to do with the interception of communications. A series of measures put that right: the Security Service Acts 1989 and 1996, for the Security Service, and the Intelligence Services Act 1994, for the Secret Intelligence Service and for the Government communications headquarters.
Those Acts, together with the Interception of Communications Act 1985, provide for independent scrutiny by commissioners of the actions of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and myself in respect of the agencies for which we are responsible, and for scrutiny of the actions of the agencies themselves. Each officer in each agency has a duty under the law to provide the commissioners with the information they need.
I pay tribute to the work of the previous commissioners, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith and Lord Nolan, for their contribution as commissioners and for the important scrutiny role that they played. I am sure that the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) will confirm that the work of Lord Nolan--the interception commissioner--was very thorough indeed. The Home Secretary has the bulk of the responsibility for telephone interception--although the point also applies to successive Foreign Secretaries--and were any Home Secretary ever to think about approving a warrant without proper consideration, he would be brought up sharp by Lord Nolan. That fact would be made public--and quite right too. I am glad to say--on behalf of the right hon. and learned Gentleman and myself--that, so far, that has not happened.
Both commissioners retired from their role earlier this year. On behalf of the Government, the agencies and previous Ministers with whom they worked, I thank them warmly for their contribution.
We achieve accountability of the work of the agencies through the scrutiny of the ISC whose reports form the bulk of the subject of our debate.
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