| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. I remind all hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 12-minute time limit on all speeches by Back Benchers.
2.45 pm
Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab): First, I want to pass on the apologies of the Chair of the ISC, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor), for her absence from this important debate. She has written to hon. Members to explain that today is her son Andrew's graduation day, and I am sure that hon. Members understand why she is absent.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), both of whom referred to our report. Our report commends the agencies for the work that they have done in the past year, most of which will never be made public. It is right publicly to thank the staff of the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service, GCHQ, the Defence Intelligence Staff and the assessments staff for their important work and their contribution to the protection of UK interests, both here and abroad.
The ISC performs an important role in the oversight of the UK's intelligence community, and I should like to pass on our Chair's thanks to all members of the Committee and our secretariat for their work over the past year. The work load has been heavy, especially for the secretariat, over the past 12 months—the Committee produced two substantial reports during the course of the year. The first report was published in September 2003 and concerned intelligence on and assessments of Iraqi WMDs. The second report, which we are debating today, is the annual report that the Committee is statutorily required to produce and which the Prime Minister is required to present to Parliament.
During my years as a member of the Committee, we have always debated the annual report. I welcome those debates and hope that other hon. Members welcome them too. We completed the report in May this year, the Prime Minister published it on 29 June and the Government produced their response on Tuesday of this week. Our report contains a number of conclusions and recommendations, which the Government have, for the first time, separately addressed in their response.
The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden mentioned recommendation C, which he quoted in full, including the asterisks. The Committee felt that it was important to include recommendation C. We knew what would happen to recommendation C and that the issue of asterisks had been raised in previous debates, but we included it in the interests of good housekeeping and to bring an important point to Ministers' attention. I have no doubt that recommendation C will appear in the press, who will no doubt have fun with it.
David Davis:
I did not raise recommendation C simply to tease the Committee—amusing as it is. Redaction is a matter of judgment, and it is not a clinical exercise. For
8 Jul 2004 : Column 1054
example, when the Public Accounts Committee produced a report on the overrun on MI5 and MI6 buildings, the redactions were reduced by about 90 per cent. by the use of a rigorous approach, which might have been applied to this report. I do not know about the current procedure, but it is well worth reviewing.
Mr. Barron: That may be so. Most of the report that we produced earlier this year would not have been in the public domain unless it had been crafted so as not to identify sources. We have moved on substantially in that respect. We realised that recommendation C would be treated in that way. I assure all hon. Members, and anyone who may read or listen to these debates, that any redaction in any of our reports is agreed by the Committee. We unanimously agreed this report and the previous report on Iraq. If we were unhappy with any redaction made in this report or any previous one, we would say so.
We welcome the Government's detailed response to our recommendations. The key point is that we are still taking evidence on the nature and circumstances of the interviews of US-held detainees that are conducted by or observed by UK intelligence personnel, and on the usefulness of those interviews. We intend to carry on doing that.
We comment that, owing to the necessary additional efforts allocated to counter-terrorism, risks are being taken in the area of counter-espionage, and that collection gaps exist in other areas.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was right to raise the issue of money. Having a bigger pot and a smaller percentage does not mean that there is not more money. As experience moves from one area to another, counter-espionage develops some gaps, as I am sure my right hon. Friend recognises.
We note that the agencies were given additional resources in the 2000 and 2002 spending rounds which they were not able fully to spend, partly because, although they have embarked on recruitment campaigns, it takes time to train staff to be effective. That is not a question only of languages, but of dialects. Some agencies have to undertake a complicated and difficult process in that respect.
The Committee concludes that the scale of the challenge posed by international terrorism was underestimated by the agencies at the end of the millennium. However, the formation of the joint terrorism analysis centre in 2003 addressed the concerns about co-ordination and timeliness of reporting that we raised in our report on the Bali bombings. Although the agencies were expanding and receiving additional resources, they did not reassess the threat and challenge that international terrorism posed until late 2003, partly because the scale of the problem became apparent only through increased co-operation with partners. That reassessment prompted Ministers to agree to a significant increase in Security Service staff over the next four years. We believe that that significant increase should have occurred earlier—hence our view that it was too late—and remain concerned that the SIS and GCHQ will require additional resources in terms of people and funding if collection gaps are to be filled. We got that message across to Ministers very strongly in the course of our deliberations with them.
8 Jul 2004 : Column 1055
We state our intention to take additional evidence on the Defence Intelligence Staff, particularly on how its analysis work links with that of the assessments staff and how its collection effort supports national requirements. We have received good co-operation from the DIS in that regard. We will also take evidence on the internal systems of the intelligence and security secretariat, which contains the assessments staff, and its structures and resources. I agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden about the absence of the eight reports, which did not reach us for logistical reasons. We did not understand why that happened, but we received a good explanation and accepted an apology, which will be put into the annual report. I hope that the ongoing work that we are doing will ensure that we have effective systems whereby material is retrievable if required.
We intend to complete our work on the relationship between the intelligence community and the media. In that regard, we would welcome comments from the media on the contact and information that they receive from the agencies. We said in our report on Iraq that we would undertake that work, but it is not yet complete.
The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden mentioned the Public Accounts Committee. He quoted from paragraph 55 of the report, in which we said:
"GCHQ has successfully managed the PFI contract, which has provided them with an excellent facility, and the fact that the sigint service to customers has been maintained during the transition is welcome."
People may have become confused about that. We were referring specifically to the private finance initiative contract for the new building, which was the biggest single PFI project undertaken in Europe. There is a long history of comments about cost overruns and time overruns on PFI hospitals and other public buildings. However, this project was successful. The PAC looked into the transitional cost in terms of the upgrading of new equipment and so on, and made certain recommendations and conclusions. Having taken evidence on the matter, we dealt with it in our annual report of 1999–2000 under the heading, "GCHQ New Accommodation Project". We said:
"We understood that Ministers would be asked to authorise transition costs between four and ten times the original estimate."
We were well aware of the situation, which the PAC picked up on because it has gone through the system. Indeed, Parliament should have been well aware of it, and not as surprised as was suggested in some of the press reports when the PAC published its report.
The Committee has a good working relationship with the agencies and Departments. We see relevant Ministers, in terms of responsibility or as users of intelligence, perhaps more than any other Committee of parliamentarians. This year, we took evidence from the Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, for Home Affairs, for Defence and for Transport, as well as from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Attorney-General. We also see several senior officials, including the heads of the three agencies and the DIS, the security and intelligence co-ordinator and the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Our report on Iraq and WMD included two sections entitled "Terminology and Organisation" and "Intelligence Sources", which were deliberately included to inform Parliament and the wider public about
8 Jul 2004 : Column 1056
matters relating to intelligence. In our latest report, we included a section headed "The Limitations of Intelligence", which is on page 9. That has the same intention—to inform Members of Parliament and the general public of intelligence issues that are not normally discussed. I hope that people read it.
Before I conclude my remarks, I should like to put one matter on the record. The Committee has been asked to comment on the appointment of people to particular jobs, including heads of agencies. It is not, and never has been, for the ISC to comment on timing or the people appointed. We do, however, comment on the process that has been followed in making the appointment. In the case of the next chief of the SIS, or "C", the Committee is content with the appointment process. In our report, we record that the appointment of a JIC Chairman—
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |