| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
There was reference earlier to the Committee’s observations on the SCOPE IT system and the serious delays in rolling it out, from April 2005 to autumn 2006, yet the capital cost of that delay has been blanked out in the report. I find it difficult to understand why that cost should not be quantified in the report. I understand entirely that there is plenty of delicate and sensitive information that one does not want to appear in such reports, but I wonder whether there is a security risk in revealing the figure. I do not understand why the security services appear to have sought not to release the costs incurred by yet another delay in a public information technology project.
That is particularly apposite hot on the heels of the revelations in the Sunday newspapers, notwithstanding the Home Secretary’s confirmation this evening that he wants to press ahead with the development of the much more ambitious and complex ID card database, that there are pronounced reservations among senior officials about whether that is possible. One official was quoted in the Sunday papers as stating:
“Nobody expects this programme to work. It is basically on hold while ministers rethink their options. It’s impossible to imagine the full scheme being brought in before 2026.”
“I conclude that we are setting ourselves up to fail”,
and yet another referred to the possibility that the scheme could be
“canned completely”.
The fact that there is so much that we do not know about the feasibility of implementing the ID card database affirms the need for much more detail about why the SCOPE IT system has been delayed and the cost that that delay has incurred.
The report contains an important section on the work of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and states that the Committee was told about the difficulties that could arise from the fact that SOCA will be competing with other agencies for new recruits. The Committee is to continue to examine progress and assess the effectiveness of co-operation between SOCA, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and other agencies.
I endorse the Committee’s observations that competition for resources between SOCA and other agencies needs to be kept under review. Vigilance is required to ensure the best possible operational relationship between SOCA and HMRC in pursuing serious drug investigations and criminal finance work, which are the two responsibilities that have been transferred from HMRC to SOCA.
However, there is a quasi-constitutional issue on which the report is silent, and which perhaps lies beyond the remit of the Committee—the apparent lack of direct accountability for the work of SOCA to the House. I urge the Home Secretary and his colleagues on the Front Bench to look once again at improving in any way that they can the transparency of the important and sensitive work of SOCA and the way in which the agency can be held accountable to the House.
Finally, in an important section of the report there is reference to the fact that the Home Secretary
“told the Committee that he had commissioned a study into the impact of new technology on interception, including any evidential issues, and that the Committee would have early sight of its findings.”
Although, as I understand it, the study exists, it is a pity that the Committee has not been given early sight of it. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches look forward with some eagerness to hearing the results of the study, because for some time we have argued, as have many others, that the permissibility of intercept evidence in our courts would be an important additional weapon in the fight against terrorism.
Earlier this year the senior anti-terror police officer at the Met, Andy Hayman, advocated the use of intercept evidence in terrorist cases. As we know, in 2004 the Newton committee proposed the removal of the bar on intercept evidence as a more “acceptable and sustainable” approach to the threat from terrorism than the arrogation of new executive powers to restrict liberty outside the normal operation of the judicial process.
We are in a rather anomalous position. According to Liberty, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are the only countries worldwide that maintain a ban on the use of intercept evidence, yet we accept intercept evidence if that has been gained under the jurisdiction of other Governments. It seems odd that it is not permissible if it has been gained under our own authorisation, but is allowed if it has been obtained under the authorisation of Governments overseas. I hope the Home Secretary will use the study mentioned in the report as a launch-pad to have the debate once again. It has been rumbling on for a long time. I accept that there are a number of practical and legal difficulties, many of which we believe can be overcome.
Like all good
reports, the ISC report raises as many queries as it poses
solutions—queries related to intercept evidence; the merits or
otherwise of an independent inquiry into the events leading up to the
bombings of 7 July; the importance of the further
regionalisation and localisation of the operation of our security and
intelligence services; the need to keep a vigilant eye on how the
flaws, delays and unquantified costs of delayed IT systems can be
remedied; and accountability for the operation of SOCA and other
agencies. I repeat my gratitude to all members of the Committee for
laying the report before us
today.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is not quite 8 o’clock yet, but I remind the House that as from 8 o’clock, a 12-minute limit will be imposed on all Back-Bench speeches.
7.48 pm
Ben Chapman (Wirral, South) (Lab): I speak as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, albeit of only one year’s standing since the Committee was re-established after the election, and in the knowledge that there are Members in the Chamber tonight who have greater experience and who have served on the Committee before. It is a particular privilege to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), who leads the Committee with such great distinction.
The report of the Committee for 2005-06 can be said to give the agencies a clean bill of health. That is as it should be. They serve us professionally, bravely and with distinction. But the report also expresses a number of concerns, some of which were raised earlier—concerns about the merging of the position of the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee with that of the security and intelligence co-ordinator, concerns that the rapid expansion of the services carries risks and needs careful management, and concerns about the overseas part of the SCOPE project.
One notable feature of the report is the planned overall increase in the single intelligence account from a combined amount in terms of resources and capital of £1.1 billion in 2004-05 to £1.5 billion in 2006-07 and to £1.6 billion in 2007-08. That does not include the further £85 million announced by the Chancellor in the pre-Budget report to support the expansion of services, which will allow the earlier delivery of key elements of the expansion and which was initiated in the 2004 spending review.
The significant additional funding made available since 9/11 has generally been accepted as essential to counter the enormous threat that we face from international terrorism and to provide an enhanced standard of coverage and assurance. However, it cannot be that, because an agency’s operations are often secret, it should forgo normal management and financial disciplines—to be fair, no one has suggested that it should.
Given that the current funding and anticipated funding represent an unprecedented level of new provision for the agencies, in the Committee’s view, it is important that functioning mechanisms are implemented to ensure that the money is well spent, that it is appropriately controlled and monitored and that it serves as a driver for increased efficiency. We looked at that matter last year, we shall spend more time on it this year and it will be a key responsibility of the principal accounting officer of the single intelligence account.
As has been said, the main focus of the Committee’s work in 2005-06 was our inquiry into the 7 July bombings, which is not specifically covered in our annual report. Hon. Members have already referred to many aspects of the matter, but I want to mention the international dimension of the 7 July inquiry. Our report states that greater coverage in Pakistan or more resources in the UK might have alerted the agencies to the intentions of the 7 July group.
I do not want to go beyond what was said in the report, but it is clear that Pakistan is an issue. As the report reveals, two of the group visited Pakistan, where it is likely that they had some training from or contact with al-Qaeda—indeed, the video which was recently released appears to make that explicit. The group’s connections to Pakistan confirm the significance of overseas links and of travel to the development of terrorism in the UK. As has been said, the threat is unconstrained and global.
The Minister for the Middle East (Dr. Kim Howells): I agree with the emphasis that my hon. Friend is placing on overseas contacts and travel. However, does he agree that people too often assume that everything that happens in Pakistan is bad? In fact, President Musharraf has made courageous decisions and taken helpful steps in trying to counteract the influence of dangerous people and trends in Pakistan.
Ben Chapman: Perhaps this goes beyond my brief, but it seems to me that President Musharraf faces many dichotomies, dilemmas and difficulties, which he strives, generally with good intent, to tackle as best he can—as we know, he is surrounded by problems. Earlier, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary mentioned the Commonwealth, which is also important. As today’s sad events in Mumbai proved again, terrorism is a global issue, and it is no longer possible to separate the domestic and international parts of the problem. Terrorism comes from a range of groups, networks and individuals, which are sometimes linked and sometimes not.
In a series of articles with headlines such as, “Spies hid bomber tape from MPs”, some in the press have alleged that the Committee was not given all the information that it needed for its 7/7 inquiry, that it was not sufficiently critical and that it might have been misled. Although that is not the case in any respect, it is not surprising that such criticisms have been made, because disgruntled ex-staffers and so-called intelligence analysts combine with the press on the publication of the annual report to criticise the agencies and the oversight arrangements.
Some,
including hon. Members tonight, have questioned whether the Committee
is constitutionally limited in what it can achieve, whether that is
because of the limit on its investigative resources, its remit or its
constitution, which makes it entirely dependent on the intelligence
agencies for its information and on their willingness to disclose such
information. As has been said, the Committee’s form has its pros
and cons, and I do not argue that, because it is currently so, it
should necessarily remain so. The Committee was set up by the
Intelligence Services Act 1994, and appointments are
made by the Prime Minister. Some have said that that gives it the
appearance of being a creature of the Prime Minister and the
Government, but it is not. We are independent of, not an instrument of,
the Government. I believe that our reports confirm that, and, as has
been said, members are drawn from all parties and both
Houses.
Some have said that out terms of reference to provide oversight of the agencies’ administration, policy and finance are too limited and that we should operate as a Select Committee. We may not always report as the press or others want us to, but it is our job to try, as best we can, to tell it as it is, and I believe that we have achieved that. The Committee now considers and reports on matters that go wider than its statutory remit, and my time on it suggests to me that operating as a Select Committee is neither desirable nor, indeed, workable. There has been no occasion when we were unable to see those whom we wanted to see, when we were unable to obtain the information that we sought or when we did not ask the questions that we should have done, and I have seen no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Our job is to provide parliamentary oversight.
Andrew Mackinlay: There is none.
Ben Chapman: If my hon. Friend allows me to proceed, I may persuade him otherwise.
The Intelligence and Security Committee may not be a Committee of Parliament, but it is a parliamentary committee. We are responsible for oversight, not the day-to-day management of the agencies, so information about operations is often neither necessary nor helpful, and both sides have to conduct their work on a need-to-know basis. Where operations have become interlinked with policy or have policy implications, we have, in my view, always obtained the information that we need.
It is noteworthy that so many other countries setting up their own parliamentary intelligence oversight arrangements draw on the experience of the ISC. Of course, I have no problem with increased powers—nobody likes a bit of power more than me—but the Committee, within its statutory establishment, performs well as it is.
There are those who argue that the nature of the Committee, and the fact that we meet in private and operate within the ring of secrecy, means that there should, for the purposes of openness, be a public inquiry into the tragic events of 7 July, which are so much in our minds because of the recent anniversary. The call for a public inquiry is also made by the press, but often for their own reasons and often on flawed grounds. While I understand the deep concern of the victims and families involved in wanting to know that no stone has been left unturned and that they have got to the truth, it seems to me, even accepting the difficulty with the timing of the rail journey, that the findings of our report and those of the Home Office narrative, which were separately arrived at, are objective, workmanlike and mutually reinforcing.
Prior to
the establishment of the ISC, some inquiries took place precisely
because of the absence of such a committee. The agency resources that
would be needed
to service a public inquiry—this is the point, rather than the
cost—would be significant to massive. I am sure in my own mind
that those resources are best deployed in trying to prevent future
atrocities and tragedies. Of course, as the Home Secretary said, one
can never entirely guarantee, as professional and committed as the
agencies are, that we can never have such incidents again. Obviously,
we can never have advance notice of terrorist acts. We can seek only to
narrow the angle as far as possible, and in some cases manage to
eliminate it altogether. As the Home Secretary has remarked, four
potential attacks have been thwarted in the past year.
The 90-day detention period has recently reappeared as an item for debate. That is not a matter specifically for our Committee. However, as a Member of Parliament, one is of course concerned that the law enforcement agencies should have the best tools at their disposal and that there is a legal framework and method for dealing with the terrorist threat—a terrorist threat of unprecedented awfulness and danger—as best they can. My first duty as a Member of Parliament is to do whatever I can to ensure that my constituents can go about their daily lives in safety. By extension, my duty as an MP among other MPs is to ensure that citizens of the United Kingdom have a similar freedom. People talk of 90 days detention, but it never was quite that—it was up to 90 days and then subject to judicial approval on a weekly basis.
I appreciate that Parliament has already taken a view on the matter. However, I feel personally that there will be occasions when the current 28-day period proves inadequate: because of the need to intervene early; because intelligence is by its nature inexact, partial and fragmented and needs to be converted into evidence; because of the weight of the evidence that needs to be collected and analysed; because of the complexity of the inquiry and the need to trace data; and because of the difficulties arising in consulting other countries, interpretation and so on. The Home Affairs Committee recently commented on that, and it will continue to be an issue.
Although during the year the agencies have rightly concentrated the bulk of their efforts on counter-terrorism, there remain issues of counter-espionage and the protection of our economic well-being. Although significant resources continue to be devoted to those, our companies’ secrets and our intellectual property are vital to our prosperity. Espionage has not gone away with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and economic protection, including the crucial issue of energy security, will become increasingly important.
Andrew Mackinlay: I know that my hon. Friend takes a great interest in China. Did the Committee look into so-called patriotic hacking, whereby people from China, presumably with their Government’s blessing, are accessing Government computers here, including, last year, in the House of Commons? When I asked the Foreign and Commonwealth about it, it did not want to get involved, but patriotic hacking is going on, it is coming from the People’s Republic of China, and it is threatening intellectual property rights and national security. What does my hon. Friend say to that?
Ben
Chapman: It is a fact that cyber-assaults on crucial
institutions and organisations can be planned
by individuals, by small and large groups or bodies, and, indeed, by
nation states. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not comment on
that particular example, but suffice it to say that the Committee is
briefed on such issues.
Mark Pritchard: The hon. Gentleman is right to share his concerns about cyber-security. Does he share my concern that the Government Department tasked with co-ordinating cyber-security across Government—the Cabinet Office—has in recent months announced redundancies, yet is perhaps the very Department that should be expanded?
Ben Chapman: I have every confidence in the Cabinet Office’s actions in this area. This issue will not only continue to be important but may become increasingly so, and it is something on which the Committee would wish to keep a weather eye.
Finally, those who follow such matters will be interested to see that this year the asterisked items noting redacted passages are much reduced—not only, I hope, because of the Committee’s robustness in challenging them, but as a sign of the times in that we have more openness.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. I remind all right hon. and hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has now imposed a time limit of 12 minutes on Back-Bench speeches.
8.7 pm
Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington and Chelsea) (Con): I pay tribute to the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee over the past 12 years. I agree with what the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) said about the way in which the agencies can sometimes still be parodied. I recall my first visit to MI5 in the 1980s, when I was taken to a nondescript building somewhere behind Oxford street. The British public were not permitted to know that it housed MI5, although the Russians knew that perfectly well. Events have moved on, and we are slightly more grown-up about these matters.
The hon. Member for Wirral, South (Ben Chapman) took comfort, rightly, in how few asterisks remain in the report. However, I wonder whether it is necessary in the public interest for Parliament and the public not to be aware of the distinction made on page 12 between resources and capital for the individual agencies. Would it really make Mr. bin Laden’s task that much easier if that information were shared with him? Is not it time to realise that matters of public expenditure, in particular, can be safely shared with Parliament and with the public?
We have heard about the merger of the posts of security and intelligence co-ordinator and Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Like others, I know Sir Richard Mottram and have worked with him. I have no doubt that he, as an individual, will be able to combine those two tasks very satisfactorily. However, I do say to the Government that it is not appropriate to use this as a precedent in saying that the debate is now over and those two posts can sensibly be merged. That would be unwise and foolish.
I pay tribute to the Committee for being about to consider rendition as its next major task. The United States sometimes protests to the effect that as rendition has been going on for many years, what is all the fuss? I hope that the Committee will draw attention to the fact that there are two kinds of rendition. There is the kind that takes place when Carlos the Jackal was kidnapped in Sudan and taken to France so that, for the first time, he could face a proper trial before a proper court of law, or when the Israelis kidnapped Adolf Eichmann in Argentina because he would never otherwise have come to justice. It may have been somewhat irregular, but at least it happened so that proper justice could be done. The rendition about which we are worried today is different. People in the custody of Governments such as that of the United States may be sent to countries where the last thing they would receive is a fair trial and where they might be subjected to improper treatment. That is different and it would be right for Parliament and the Committee to examine the matter in the greatest detail.
I want to concentrate my brief comments on the Butler review and the Committee’s reaction to it. Let me begin with a welcome. I noted with pleasure that the Committee welcomed the decision to provide a confidential guide in future to enable
“specialist and lay readers of intelligence, including Ministers, to understand better the information in a source-based context.”
I wish that the Prime Minister had had access to such a document some years ago. If he had, the history of the past few years might have been different.
I acknowledge the need for such a document. My introduction to the intelligence agencies was on my first day as a junior Minister in the Foreign Office. I was informed that a gentleman from MI6 wished to see me. He came into my office and I asked him what he wanted. With an unsmiling face, he said, “Minister, it’s my job to indoctrinate you.” I made some flippant remark such as, “I thought it was the Russians who were meant to be doing that”, and he replied that it meant explaining the Official Secrets Act, which I would then be required to sign and be bound by. We have come a considerable way since then. It is important that Ministers in particular know not only how intelligence is obtained, but the use to which it can properly be put.
In that context, I must strongly criticise not only the Butler review but the Committee, which has not properly held the Government to account for the way in which, in the run-up to the Iraq war, the intelligence agencies were misused and allowed themselves to be seriously misused. I could give several examples, but I refer in particular to the so-called “dodgy dossier” and I must emphasise my concern.
There is
nothing improper about the production of a document in public if the
Government believe it appropriate to show the intelligence that
supports their case. I have no objection to that or to the intelligence
agencies’ involvement in the preparation of such a document
because that would obviously increase its reliability. However, my
fundamental objection is that, as the Prime Minister admitted in the
foreword, it was
the first time in this country’s history that a document had been
produced in the name of the intelligence agencies to try to assist the
Government of the day.
Those who work in our intelligence agencies are non-political civil servants and it is inappropriate to bring them into a highly charged issue that, in the case of Iraq, divided not only political parties but the nation. I know that the official line of the Butler review and others, including the Government, is that the purpose of the document was not to argue for war. I acknowledge that. However, the Butler review concluded that the purpose of the Joint Intelligence Committee producing the document was to
“gain support for the general direction in which Government policy had been moving”
“a more proactive approach to enforcing Iraqi disarmament.”
That was a political objective and no business of the JIC. It should not have been asked to produce such a document and it should not have agreed to do so.
The Butler report spells out the purpose of the document, although it fails to condemn it. Paragraph 323 states:
“The advantage it gave to the Government of associating the JIC’s name with the dossier was the badge of objectivity that it brought with it and the credibility which this would give to the document.”
That shows the Prime Minister’s sad assumption that he could not achieve objectivity or credibility by himself, but required the JIC to do it for him. The chairman of the JIC was gravely at fault. When he was asked to produce the document, he should have resisted the request and, if the task was imposed on him, he should have resigned in the best interests of the country and the civil service. Instead, he has been promoted to be head of the Secret Intelligence Service. That is most unfortunate.
It is unacceptable to use the JIC in that way, and not necessarily because the document was inaccurate. Even if it had been 100 per cent. accurate and the intelligence had been 100 per cent. reliable, it would have been improper for civil servants, who happen to be intelligence agency officials, to be used in such a politicised fashion. I hope that the Minister for the Middle East will say in his winding-up speech that the Government will never again contemplate using the intelligence agencies in that role. The Home Secretary made some good comments in his opening remarks about the dangers of relying on intelligence information. However, that factor did not appear to weigh heavily in the run-up to the Iraq war.
The
document contained grave problems. Apart from the failure to provide
health warnings, which was spelled out on several occasions, it
included the 45-minute claim. I could understand that, through some
error, the document did not point out that it referred only to
battleground weapons and that the Prime Minister was not aware of the
distinction until many months after the end of the war. However, when
the “Today” programme and all the newspapers publicised
the 45-minute claim the following day, implying that it meant that
British bases in Cyprus could be hit and other major international
targets could be destroyed, I cannot understand why those who were most
intimately involved in preparing the
document did not immediately issue a statement to explain that there had
been a misunderstanding and that they had not intended to make such a
claim. Their failure to do that was due either to total incompetence or
to the fact that it served the Government’s purpose for the
public to be alarmed, as they were at the
time.
Norman Baker: The right hon. and learned Member is making a helpful speech. However, is not the position even worse? Is not it the case that the original intelligence was presented neutrally, with caveats, but that, as a consequence of memos from Alastair Campbell to John Scarlett, the caveats were removed and certainty included in the document?
Sir Malcolm Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman is right. For five years, as Defence Secretary and then as Foreign Secretary, I saw such raw material. I saw the reports that came to me every day during that period. They were invariably accompanied by health warnings, not only because the information might be inaccurate, but because the person providing the information was sometimes being paid for it. Sometimes the informant was a defector from a regime who had his own agenda and wanted to spread information for his own reasons. Intelligence agencies understand that. However, I condemn the Government for not spelling out those matters to the nation when the media, perhaps inadvertently, misrepresented the JIC document.
Although the Butler review did much good work, it failed the country in its comments on the matters that I have considered. However, I am saddened that the Committee, which in every other respect I greatly admire, has not taken as robust a position as it might have done, unless if I have missed something—doubtless, I shall be corrected if I have—in protecting the interests of Parliament and the nation when the intelligence agencies operate in such a fashion. Many hon. Members of all parties wish the Intelligence and Security Committee to be given a greater role, but it must be willing to condemn in no uncertain terms the use of intelligence agencies in a politicised fashion, whichever party is in power.
I hope that the Minister will comment on that, but I hope even more that lessons have been learned and that such mistakes will not be repeated.
8.18 pm
Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East) (Lab): The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) will understand if I resist the temptation to comment on his remarks. Suffice it to say that I had the privilege of serving on the Intelligence and Security Committee when we thoroughly considered the matter that he raised. His contributions are always valuable and reflect his huge experience as a former Defence Secretary and Foreign Secretary, as he reminded us this evening.
I
had the privilege of serving on the Committee in the previous
Parliament, from 2001 to 2005. It was different from its predecessor,
with a new Chairman and new members comprising more than half the
Committee. The same occurred again, with the appointment of a new
Chairman and half the Committee being made up of new members. That is
good and means that the
Committee brings a fresh look to the issues. One of the things that
struck me when reading the report was the extent to which it referred
to issues in last year’s report, which we worked hard to
complete before the election. It is a matter of some regret to me that
that report has never been debated; it should have been.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |