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4.37 pm
Mr. Michael Mates (East Hampshire): I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours). I strongly agree that our shared experiences of the past six years are far better than the membership of any Select Committee could have been, and I am glad that he has become a convert.
My colleagues on the Intelligence and Security Committee have picked most of the plums out of the reports that we have debated, so I shall content myself with addressing two issues. In connection with both, I shall draw on my experience as a member of the Select Committee on Defence for 12 years; for six of those years, I had the honour of being its Chairman.
The first issue is financial oversight. The Chairman of the ISC, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) have said that our Committee is in the process of overseeing some extremely expensive projects. That is always a difficult task for parliamentarians, because, by and large, we are not involved in making the decisions that set the projects in train. My experience on the Defence Committee related to the Trident project--an enormous project, 10 times larger than the GCHQ project, which is itself large. The Defence Committee examined that project every year for 11 years, and I can state that such constant and repeated scrutiny makes a difference to the way in which Ministers and officials make decisions on long-term projects.
I can speak only for myself, but I believe that my colleagues on the ISC will agree that, during the coming four or five years of the GCHQ project, it must be made absolutely clear to officials at GCHQ, the Foreign Office and the Treasury--and anywhere else that that large project touches--that we shall be watching, we shall return to it again and again, and we shall report on it as often as we feel necessary. A fundamental part of any oversight Committee's duty is to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent effectively and well.
We must also ensure that the services involved in the project are able to maintain their vital efficiency during transition periods resulting from huge advances in technology. The speed of that technological advance is one of the most difficult problems that they have to cope with. One can start to put in place a proposed IT system but, six months later, someone will have thought of something better, so it will be out of date. If one is on a fixed-price contract, it will cost more to change the system. We accept that and, no doubt, allowances must be made for it.
I do not want to go into details as we are not ready to report, but I am sure that the Minister will not be surprised to learn that the matter will be a major feature of the Committee's annual report this year. Things have already gone wrong as a result of lack of skill in managing a project of that size, and that needs to be taken into account. Lessons must be learned very fast indeed to ensure that a bad situation--which, I believe, we are in at the moment--does not become worse.
Until this afternoon, I thought that I carried with me all members of the Committee bar one. Now, however, I shall have to do a little more work before saying that again. Consequently, I speak entirely for myself on the question of a Select Committee. I was a member of one Select Committee for 12 years and know the limitations of such a Committee. I was also a member of a Select Committee that dealt with extremely sensitive matters. Indeed, those matters were probably more sensitive than those handled by any other Select Committee, as we were right into the nuclear business, the deterrent business and some of the most secret weapons development business. We had a constant battle to be told what we needed to know. Neither of those who advocates establishing a Select Committee has mentioned that.
It is not a question of being in a position to know everything. Indeed, it is quite wrong that anybody should be in such a position. However, one needs to know about secret, delicate and confidential matters before one is told about them. The hon. Member for Workington
(Mr. Campbell-Savours) advocated the American system. However, the Americans know far more than they need to, which is why they have leaks.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: What leaks?
Mr. Mates: Leaks from members. A member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House of Representatives, for example, was thrown off it for leaking. That has not happened in the Intelligence and Security Committee, and I pray that it never will. We are in a position in which we are told everything that we need to know. We sometimes have to struggle to get that information, but that is part of the constructive tension which, in fact, is getting much better, as we are becoming more and more trusted as a result of not leaking.
If, to be dogmatic, we were to say that the Committee should not be different from any other in the House of Commons and should be a Select Committee--with all the reservations mentioned by the hon. Member for Workington which, in fact, is why the Intelligence and Security Committee is different--would we be able to oversee the intelligence services better? Frankly, I do not believe that we would. Such a Committee would be less good, as we would have to rebuild the whole system of trust and there would be Committee members who were immune to removal, except by a vote in the House of Commons. The hon. Member for Workington knows perfectly well how difficult it would be to obtain that.
At the moment, there is a sanction on us: if I say something out of place--perhaps not here, but certainly outside--the Prime Minister can fire me tomorrow. That is right, as I am in a privileged position within a ring of secrecy in which some very important matters are discussed. The hon. Member for Workington said that dismissal from a Select Committee can take place the next day. However, that would not happen. I remind him of what happened when an attempt was made to remove a member of a Select Committee at the beginning of a Parliament. The matter was delayed until, eventually, it had to be debated.
That is the nature of this place, and it is the nature of troublemakers to make sure that such things happen. While I am on the subject of troublemakers, let me say that if people feel that the Committee is less independent than a Select Committee of the House of Commons, they should look at the hon. Member for Workington, who is on it. I was surprised when he was appointed.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I bet you were.
Mr. Mates: I have been extremely happy to work with the hon. Gentleman over the past three years and am glad to pay tribute to him for his work, which has been conscientious and keen, with the exception of one or two bees buzzing around his bonnet that we have to keep swatting. However, the suggestion that a parliamentary Committee of which the hon. Gentleman is a member is the Executive's poodle does not bear close examination.
It has been acknowledged all round that the Committee is successful. The case for turning a Committee that is working well into a Select Committee is non-existent.
Mr. Tom King: As my hon. Friend knows, the Committee has drawn on international experience and
visited other countries. The problem that he has just described is precisely what happened in Australia. When the Australians first conceived the idea of an oversight committee, it was introduced in the federal Parliament. As a result of inadvertence or the Whips looking around quickly to see who was interested in intelligence, all those with such an interest were appointed to the Committee. However, they were what my right hon. Friend would call the bother squad. His point about trust is critical to this, as the Committee was frozen out of the process completely and the agencies made a point of telling it as little as they could about anything. In the event, the Parliament realised that the whole thing was a failure, and the committee collapsed and had to be reconstituted.
Mr. Mates: My right hon. Friend makes the point very adequately.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: That is my point.
Mr. Mates: Yes, but what my right hon. Friend described has not happened to us because we have been properly constituted. If we were in a Select Committee, we would not be in the same position.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: What is the difference? In each case, the Whips select the Committee members.
Mr. Mates: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is trying to make his point or my point. His point is that, because the Intelligence and Security Committee is not a Select Committee, it is not independent. My point is that that makes no difference to selection, although there is some consultation.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: It is the power that counts.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. We cannot have sedentary conversations.
Mr. Mates: I am not sedentary, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I would rather this were not a conversation.
Dr. Godman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for showing his characteristic courtesy in giving way as he is winding up.
Conservative and Labour members of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs are united in the view that there are occasions on which it might be appropriate to cross-examine witnesses from the intelligence agencies.
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