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Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset): Before the right hon. Lady moves off the structural questions, could she guide us on her attitude and that of the Committee to a hypothetical question that is nevertheless extremely serious? If it should turn out—as we profoundly hope, in the light of what we all believed, that it will not—that there are not the weapons of mass destruction that were believed to exist, and given that that would clearly indicate a very serious failing at some point in the intelligence system, does she envisage her Committee conducting a full review of the causes of Ministers and the Opposition not understanding the situation as it actually was? Does she believe that her Committee is constituted in such a way as to be capable of carrying that out to her full satisfaction?
Ann Taylor: I do not want be drawn into answers to hypothetical questions, but in regard to the last point made by the right hon. Gentleman, yes, I do believe that the Committee is constituted in such a way that we can carry out inquiry that we feel is appropriate. We have in other instances followed leads—for example, on Bali—and asked for further information, and been given access to it, which has had an impact on the judgments that the Committee made. So we are confident that we have the ability and the co-operation to do so. Should it turn out that we are not able to fulfil what we regard as being necessary, we will say so. We would also say so if we were not getting the full co-operation that we expected.
I turn to another aspect of the problem. One of the things that we report is that not all CSI members see all JIC papers. We think that that is important. Ministers on the relevant Committee are sent all papers, but often their officials sift the papers or advise Ministers which they should read. That is not good enough. I should like to say more about this, but I do not have time. We think it important that all Ministers on the Committee should see all the JIC papers in order to build up an overview, so that problems do not arise.
That brings me to the problem of collection gaps, which the right hon. Member for Devizes mentioned. As he said, we mentioned last year that intelligence gaps were beginning to develop. The Government's response last year acknowledged the pressures, and there have
been more resources. However, making more resources available does not mean that people with sufficient expertise and experience are instantly available to fill the gaps. We think the situation is probably worse than it was last year, given all the pressures following 11 September, Bali and Iraq.There is a real difficulty. Problems may be arising of which Ministers are not aware, even though they see the pressures. We need to protect the agencies' long-term capacity to provide warnings to Ministers. JIC needs to focus even more on this. In the next spending review, there must be sufficient long-term resourcing to deal with the problem and avoid difficulties in future. There is a feeling at present that firefighting is going on, dealing with current problems, whereas the agencies are at their most useful when they can warn off and disrupt challenges to our security.
Colleagues on the Committee will want to use their time to raise other issues. I shall make quick points. First, we welcome what the Government did on Bali following our report. There were useful steps forward. Secondly, we are still extremely concerned about the accounts at GCHQ. We mentioned the difficulties in resource accounting there, and we are not yet convinced that they have been fully sorted out, even though progress has been made.
Finally, I wish to say a word of gratitude to the Committee. The Committee's work load is significant and will be for some time to come. The Committee meets several times a week, and will meet during the recess. I know that my colleagues on the Committee have had to juggle diaries and miss other parliamentary occasions in order to keep up with their work. It is usual for members of the Committee to attend every meeting. It is rare that we have a Committee meeting without everyone there and everyone staying until the end—a somewhat unusual occurrence. I am grateful for members' commitment and for the spirit in which the Committee operates. I hope very much that our work is of value to the House.
3.16 pm
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor). I begin by paying tribute to her and to the members of her Committee, who are renowned in the House for their independence of mind. The report is an eloquent testimony to the work that they have carried out on our behalf over the past 12 months.
Like others, I wish the Foreign Secretary a speedy return to full health. I am sorry that he is not present, as I wished to congratulate him on the fact that, as I understand it, he is the first official of his standing on a visit to Afghanistan to have gone beyond Kabul and to have gone out to Kandahar to see for himself some of the circumstances that are giving rise to such anxiety about the progress of reconstruction being made in that country.
We had an able substitute in the Minister for Europe. I urge him not to be too concerned when he gets to Gibraltar if he finds that drawn up alongside the aircraft is a tumbrel. His previously reported remarks will at least ensure that his arrival in Gibraltar does not go unnoticed.
The right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) was right to raise in the framework of the debate the fate of those who are detained not only in Guantanamo bay, but perhaps some two or three in Afghanistan as well. If I may say so, he asked some finely judged questions on an issue that I have tried to raise with the Foreign Secretary for some months.
I shall make two comments. First, those men, who are British citizens, are in a legal no-man's-land in which they are unable to employ or make application to the jurisdiction of the courts in this country or in the United States. They are effectively stateless, so far as their legal rights are concerned. I invite right hon. and hon. Members to consider this. Suppose that the position were reversed, and it was the Government of the United Kingdom who were keeping nine citizens of the United States in similar conditions in this country over a similar period. Do we not think that the pressure for some progress from across the Atlantic would be anything other than irresistible?
I turn to the terms of the report. I hope that the right hon. Lady will not think me churlish if I say that in some respects the report is notable for its omissions as much as for its contents. Those omissions were highlighted by the right hon. Member for Devizes a moment or two ago with an example. Paragraph 3 of the introduction to the report states:
- "To date, no material has been excluded without the Committee's consent."
Mr. Michael Mates (East Hampshire): I think that it is probably pertinent to note, speaking as one of the older members of the Committee, that it is only in relatively recent years that that table has been included at all. That is why what has been said about the Committee's assent to what is removed means that we are making some progress. I assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that if certain of the figures were made public, they would be of use to anybody who wished us ill.
Mr. Campbell: The argument is assuming some existential elements. Apparently, we have made progress because whereas previously there was no table, we now have a table that contains no figures. [Interruption.] It contains some figures, but it certainly does not contain them in respect of any allocation that would allow anyone to reach any judgment about the importance that the financial allocations in such matters
represent in relation to GCHQ or the SIS. I hope that the test of what goes into the report and what stays out is the issue of irretrievable damage to the national interest.One could also look at page 11 and paragraphs 27 to 29, although the right hon. Member for Devizes referred to paragraph 28, so perhaps I need not deal further with that part of the report. We can also look at page 10 and paragraphs 23 to 26. Exactly what information is a reasonably well informed Member of the House expected to derive from paragraph 25? It seems to me that there is very little that we can derive and which assists us in fulfilling our general responsibility of scrutiny, which is not taken away from us by the existence of the Committee.
At paragraph 30, why is it that we should not know precisely what the bonus payment will be for the building consortium if it completes the building ahead of time? I can see nothing that affects the national interest in relation to that issue, which I am bound to say might be of interest to those who are responsible for the Scottish Parliament. Why, too, should the House, which votes on and is responsible for expenditure, not know more about the qualification that the Comptroller and Auditor General has made of the resource accounts as set out on pages 12 and 13 and in paragraphs 34 to 37?
In paragraph 42 on page 14, the second-to-last sentence states:
- "The Security Service noted that it was *** than in the past and consequently they did not have the ***."
I suppose that such things are a source of some amusement, and there may well be issues in which the matter of national security would be prejudiced if more detail were provided, but I certainly hope that, in future, the Committee may take a robust attitude towards such material, so that the House may be as fully informed as possible.
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