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We go for a consensus approach in this country, winnowing down all the intelligence to produce the consensus; but there is a danger in that. In paragraph S of our latest report, we said
“We are, however, still concerned that, in seeking consensus on all decisions and judgements, the JIC could be missing or failing to give sufficient priority to key points or vital arguments on a particular issue. We acknowledge that striking the right tone and balance... is extremely difficult, but we recommend that the SIC should continue to work on developing and refining this process further.”
In their response, the Government mentioned the new obligation to put dissent notes on the front of a JIC paper if the chairman is aware of unresolved dissent in the interpretations of the different bodies that sit on the JIC. That is very welcome.
Along with all that go proper channels for the expression of dissent so that staff feel that they can “hang on in there” if they are still convinced that something is wrong, and have somewhere to go. To an extent that constitutes a counsel against potentially dangerous whistleblowing that blows sources. One individual’s judgment on when the national interest demands that he go public may well not be shared by a great many people if, at the end of the day, it means that we lose an intelligence source that we want to keep. Opportunities for people to express dissent to those in a higher position than the level of management immediately above them is very important. That is now an accepted element of the role of staff counsellors. In the Ministry of Defence, members of staff can talk to senior personnel who are not involved in intelligence.
An
important rule in the DIS is that a DIS senior official should see
intelligence and advise on its distribution. That goes back to the
issue of weapons of mass destruction, and the failure of key DIS
officials who had expert knowledge to see intelligence that they could
and would have challenged. A recommendation in the report that the
right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm
Rifkind)
said he would have valued relates to guidance to Ministers and others on
how to read intelligence, and how to interpret its significance. That
is relevant to the triangulation of intelligence—to setting
intelligence in context, and understanding what it can and cannot do
for us.
The way in which we develop, analyse and use intelligence is fundamental to making good use of the massive resources and massive effort that go into it. That is why I chose to concentrate on the issue.
8.58 pm
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): I have already indicated my view that apart from this welcome but very short debate, there is no parliamentary oversight of our security and intelligence services. Let me get this out of the way immediately: obviously I have a high regard for our colleagues who serve on the committee, but that is the only nice thing that I can say about them in the present context, although I do express the hope that they may have some regard for me too. I believe that their membership of the committee diminishes Parliament, and I invite them to reflect on what I say and on their position.
I was a member of the parliamentary assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe last week. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave us a briefing note on the question of parliamentary oversight of the security and intelligence services. It had the audacity to include the observation that the British system was exemplary, and parliamentary oversight of security and intelligence was wonderful. I threw it across my hotel room in disgust, because either the author was blind to at least some parliamentary opinion or he really believes that. Either way, he was wrong. I challenged my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, the former Foreign Secretary, about that point at the Foreign Affairs Committee. He said—and this view was adopted by the author of the report from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—that it was a distinction without a difference, so what was the problem. I believe that if that is said often enough, people will start believing it. But it is not a parliamentary Committee. There is no parliamentary oversight of our security and intelligence services other than these precious minutes that we get once a year.
The committee is anointed and appointed by the head of the security and intelligence services—the Prime Minister, who is both judge and jury. The committee let us down in the previous Parliament when it abdicated its responsibility to the Butler inquiry on such matters as the dodgy dossier. If it had been a parliamentary Committee, it would have said, “That is our business, Prime Minister. You can appoint whoever you like, but we will decide how we conduct our own inquiry.” But the committee surrendered even the fig leaf of a remote relationship with Parliament.
The
committee is made up of parliamentarians, but it is not a parliamentary
Committee. I listened to my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen
(Mr. Murphy) carefully and I intervened on him on this point. He said
that the committee members are selected by the Prime Minister, but he
takes advice. Well, who gives that advice? I have already indicated
that I would decline to
serve on the committee, in the unlikely event that I were asked to do so
under the present regime. It would be repugnant to
me.
I am unlikely to be invited to serve on the committee for a variety of reasons. If one rubs up the system in this country the wrong way, one is considered mad or bad, or both. I do not mean that Ministers necessarily hold that view, but the people who give the advice do so. I want to share with the House a very serious story, but I hope that no one will press me too much on the details. I recently became aware of what I consider a highly defamatory remark about me on a Government file. Since then, the permanent secretary and the Secretary of State involved have apologised to me—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Does the point that the hon. Gentleman is making relate to the report?
Andrew Mackinlay: It relates to the issue of selection for service on the committee. Indeed, it goes to the heart of the matter, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen mentioned advisers. We do not know their names, but my concern is that they are privy to false statements about hon. Members. Presumably, such statements are forwarded to the security and intelligence services. The comment about me had been on a file since 2003 and I got to know about it only by accident.
Reference has been made to the Data Protection Act 1998. I put in an application under the Act and found that there were vexatious, mendacious and malicious comments about me in various documents. Those comments would have disqualified me from consideration by the Prime Minister for membership of the committee. It is, therefore, not a parliamentary Committee. Under the Select Committee system, one can apply, through one’s party, and be accepted or rejected. One cannot apply to sit on the Intelligence and Security Committee. A Prime Minister might decide that someone is worth considering, and their name will be submitted for the scrutiny of people whose names we do not know. The candidate could be vetoed for reasons that neither he nor anyone else are aware of. That is the danger and that is the relevance of my personal experience to the constitutional position of this flawed and unparliamentary committee.
With the greatest respect to my colleagues on the committee, we do not know how it works. We do not know how it selects areas for inquiry. We did not know until this evening even who the committee’s clerk was. My hon. Friend the right hon. Member for Torfaen told us the name, which before tonight was always considered highly secret information. The ridiculous secrecy surrounding the ISC diminishes any confidence that I as a parliamentarian might have in its ability to probe adequately the conduct, competence and management abilities of the people who run our security and intelligence services.
I think that the ISC is
seriously flawed. I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you will look at
the Official Report tomorrow, and that you will consider that
the matters that I am raising to be absolutely valid, as they go to the
heart of the selection process for the ISC. To whom is the committee
accountable? It is a very serious matter if files on Members of
Parliament
are kept, without their knowing about it, by departmental officials. We
find out about such files only when we stumble across them by accident.
In some cases, they contain information about who our interlocutors
are, and who would seek to gain our
ear.
I turn now to the Wilson doctrine, which is covered in paragraphs 26 to 28 of the ISC report. I wish that the Home Secretary were in his place, as it is rare for me to compliment him, but it is to his credit that he made it clear that he did not support a proposal to end the Wilson doctrine. Nevertheless, that doctrine is wholly inadequate when it comes to protecting the rights of Members of Parliament. However, what we have we need to hold. As I understand it, the doctrine deals with old-fashioned landline telephones, and does not take account of computer technology or the fact that equipment is so sophisticated now that eavesdropping can be carried out at great distances.
I am not confident that people who do not have ministerial authority are not probing the communications of Members of Parliament. I am not making this up: my observations are based on my own painful experience of discovering comments about me in files that should not have contained them. The Executive branch of Government must assure every Member of Parliament that they are not subject to surveillance, and that no undue probing of their technologies is being carried out.
If we had more insight into how the ISC selects its work, we might have greater confidence in it and be able to suggest areas of inquiry. I am especially concerned about one matter that in the past has caused laughter in the House, although I do not know why. I discovered, through a disclosure under the Data Protection Act 1998, that 13 officials—from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the intelligence community—met on 13 January for what was described as a “handling strategy” meeting about parliamentary questions that I had submitted in relation to Project Coast.
When I questioned the relevant Minister about the matter, he said at the Dispatch Box that there was nothing in it at all, but I disagree. Information from court cases and South Africa’s Truth and Justice Commission has revealed that a person equivalent to Dr. Mengele was working—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand that the hon. Gentleman has points that he wants to make about his own circumstances, but I remind him that time is limited. I hope that his remarks can be related rather more directly to the report under discussion.
Andrew Mackinlay: I am astounded, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I am trying to demonstrate that we lack parliamentary accountability in this area. I have been prevented on two occasions from explaining how I think that our present system is flawed. I want to make it clear that Ministers—the Executive branch of Government—have been instructed to close me down and stop me pursuing a legitimate inquiry.
The South
African apartheid regime had a facility equivalent to our Porton Down.
I believe that there was intercourse between that facility and UK
intelligence and security services, and that people from the real
Porton Down were also involved. There is evidence that an unhealthy
sanctions-breaking attempt was covered up because some of the people
involved are still members of the security and intelligence community
and do not want an investigation. I do not say that the attempt was
authorised by Ministers at the time, but it happened none the
less.
This is my only opportunity to shed daylight on that serious matter. It is something that the ISC—flawed though it is—should investigate. Evidence from the South African court proceedings, which is available on the web, shows that people from the UK broke the law and were involved with Dr. Wouter Basson, who has been described as a South African Dr. Mengele, in sanctions-busting—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman’s time is up.
9.10 pm
Mr. Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre) (Con): The ISC was set up and given its remit in 1994. Things have moved on and we live in very different times. The Home Secretary referred to changes in terrorism, so perhaps we should examine the Committee that oversees the changes in the threat from terrorism. After all, over time, in response to that threat, other bodies, such as the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces, have changed their structure and the way in which they are scrutinised. Now is the time to look at a complete overhaul of our intelligence system.
When we discuss the current jihadi or terrorist threat, we must be careful not to confuse terrorist attacks with how we defeat terrorism. When I consider my intelligence experience during my service in Northern Ireland and the situation to date, there is not much difference. The principles of defeating terrorism remain the same, even though different groups of terrorists are trying to achieve different ends. However, that must not be used as a red herring to say that that is why we need to throw away certain rights and keep things less transparent than they should be.
Islamic terrorists are no different from Irish terrorists. They are human beings motivated by greed, revenge, ambition, attention seeking and a range of issues that make them vulnerable to recruitment. They are also vulnerable to logistics. They need a logistical chain, whether or not it is as structured as the IRA’s. They are vulnerable when they go to Pakistan to be trained or when they meet in bookshops in Leeds. Such vulnerabilities are common to all terrorist networks, even if their opportunities are fewer.
Our intelligence services and police force must be able to exploit those vulnerabilities—to head those groups off at the pass and catch them red-handed. But saying that current terrorists are much more dangerous is not an excuse for putting people’s human rights at risk or jeopardising the contribution that communities can make to defeating terrorism.
On this
tragic day of the attack in India, we should remember that terrorists
have always done what works. They do not need to reinvent the wheel.
The bomb attacks on trains in Chechnya in Russia worked, so the
terrorists did the same thing in Spain. They took the attack to London,
because those tactics worked and now they have taken the attack to
India. Ministers sometimes seem to believe that terrorists are so
sophisticated that we need a load of new rules because they are about
to invent the atomic bomb, but the terrorists attacked the twin towers
with aeroplanes and Stanley knives. Their tactics have been effective,
so we should not be distracted by red herrings—by getting so
high-tech that we forget how to defeat terrorists and ignore the fact
that the original principles about getting inside a terrorist
organisation have not
changed.
There are real questions to be asked and I hope that the chairman of the ISC will consider them over the next year. Is the overall structure of our intelligence community correct? MI5 was started in 1909, when its main thrust was to expose espionage in this country and people who were spying on it. There is also MI6 and special branch, which was originally regional and is now semi-regional and national. Is that the right way to go? I am talking about the relationship between MI5, an intelligence-gathering body, and a police force that is about evidence gathering and conviction. One has only to look at Forest Gate to start asking questions about the handover between intelligence, conviction and the gathering of evidence. That is one of the key things that we have to learn if we are to defeat terrorism. We have to do it inside the law.
John Reid: I want the hon. Gentleman to know that the Government are not opposed to looking at such structures. We were discussing strategy earlier tonight. I am firmly of the view that we should continue to look at structures, co-ordination and the best output and capability in relation to the resources that we have got. I do not think that he is arguing against where we are coming from on that. We may reach different conclusions, but he is certainly making a good point.
Mr. Wallace: I am not trying to say that the Home Secretary has a different view. My view is of an FBI-type arrangement, but others will have different views. We have to look at the special branch relationship. Regional special branch is funded by chief constables and reports nationally. There is SO12 in the Metropolitan police. All of those could do with improvement. There is plenty of scope to make sure that we get that chain up to date.
Perhaps we need to look at the powers of the services. There is something important that seems to have been missed. When I served in Northern Ireland, either in a uniform or carrying a weapon out of a uniform, I had emergency powers. As a member of the armed forces, I had emergency powers to stop and arrest people and to use a weapon outside Ministry of Defence land. We have a lot of Army operations on our mainland to assist the police or the security services.
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con): Does it surprise my hon. Friend, in view of his experience and mine in Northern Ireland, that, with increasing operations by military units on the mainland, the Government have still apparently given no thought to the establishment of military intelligence liaison officers around the various constabularies?
Mr. Wallace: I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely right. That relates to the legal powers of soldiers serving on the streets. We have to ask these questions. Has the Government given people emergency powers? The armed forces on the mainland do not have executive powers under firearms legislation to act in the way that our police forces do. For example, if, during the course of the Stockwell investigation, it transpires that soldiers were involved, we have to be careful that there is not a grey area. We have to remember that a solider has no more rights than you or I on the street in the UK—as opposed to a policeman, who does have those executive powers. That is an important issue that we need to consider.
We also have to look at what is happening in Northern Ireland, where the Government have said that they would like to move members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland special branch to MI5. I have worked alongside PSNI special branch. They are excellent men and women who have learned that one cannot short-cut terrorism. They have learned that the hard way and they have got extremely good results. When I met a few of them recently, I said, “You do realise that if you belong to MI5, you do not have executive powers. You cannot carry a weapon in South Armagh. You cannot go and arrest someone to pull them in to interview them. You do not have all the powers that you used to use to protect yourself and to help you to get access to informers.” That is important.
I said to a current serving policeman, “Would you like to go into Turf Lodge without a gun? Would you like to go to South Armagh, to Crossmaglen, without a gun?” He said, “You can bet your bottom dollar, I’m not going there.” But that is the subtle implication of some of the changes. It is important that the Government pick up the detail when it comes to reforming and moving the intelligence picture along, because if they do not, the person who will bear the brunt at the end of the day will be the individual soldier, the individual policeman, or one of the security service personnel. That is important.
It is interesting to note that the average age of a special branch PSNI individual is about 45 in Northern Ireland; the average age of the MI5 recruits who go there is 28. That is a vast gap in experience and knowledge and a vast gap in relation to the people perhaps best placed to recruit informers and go about getting under the skin of terrorists in Northern Ireland. For all the reports, they have not gone away. The infrastructure is still there.
In this day and
age, transparency is very important. Owing to the way in which the
security services started, they are obsessed with secrecy. It is
important that MI5 moves more into the modern world. If it is to work
alongside the police each day in offices in our regions, it must accept
that there will be a drive for more transparency in not
counter-espionage, but the counter-terrorism field. When the agency
hands over information to the police and the police act on it and get
things wrong, it is the police that get the blame. The public attacked
the chain of command in the Metropolitan police over Forest Gate, but
perhaps Security Service intelligence should have been considered on
that occasion. MI5 must come into the real world when it comes to
transparency. There is no
KGB operating in the same way MI5’s counter-terrorism functions,
so there is a real need to examine the transparency in
MI5.
We should remember that there is no short cut to countering terrorism. The draconian laws that we pass to try to do that will have an impact on the human intelligence that we try to recruit, so they will make a difference. The end result of an operation in Northern Ireland that I joined was that 21 members of the IRA were put down, but it took more than a decade to achieve that. We must accept the rough with the smooth, and the Home Secretary was right that if we get things wrong sometimes, that is life. If we all miss the terrorist, that is life. However, we must also realise that we cannot deny people human rights as a short cut, because the end result of that will be that Muslim communities will produce no informers or sources and will not collaborate with the forces of law and order, although such collaboration and information is the only way of defeating terrorism in that community in the long term.
9.21 pm
Ms Dari Taylor (Stockton, South) (Lab): I express my revulsion at the bombings in Mumbai today. I am the secretary of Labour Friends of India, and I feel desperately sorry for the families and the members of the emergency services who are attempting to sort out that situation tonight.
I have had the privilege of serving for one year on the ISC under the able chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy). This year, the Committee has subjected the heads of agencies and their teams to rigorous, often lengthy questioning. It has invariably been detailed, but it has never been soft. I have found it thoroughly offensive to read in the press that the ISC is “weak”, “spineless”, “ineffective” and “tame”. Frankly, I do not recognise any of those words with regards to the ISC.
To my knowledge, the agencies have never held back any information. We have never held back on any question that we wanted to ask. No member of the Committee believes that we are there to protect the reputation of the Administration. We are there to get the truth. We seek the truth and we print it. The report that we have published is thorough and wide-ranging. I was delighted to hear not only the Secretary of State, but the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), say that they agreed.
During the
year, we have not only questioned the agencies, but visited
them——some more than once and many of them on many
occasions. When we have not been confident that we have got the
detailed response that we required, we have written and they have
responded. There has been a thorough process by which we have
critically and constructively examined the work of agencies. I want the
House to believe that there is not a question that I would not ask, or
a chance that I would let the agencies off on any score. We need to
know, and if we need to improve, we need to say that we are improving.
The report is thus fair, thorough and wide-ranging. When we visited
security services abroad, their universal opinion was that our security
services were highly professional, and served our country well. Many of
them were complimentary about the work of the ISC.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) said that we
are not a parliamentary oversight committee, but I believe that we are.
Our work is intense and demanding and, although I am privileged to
serve on the Committee, I do not think that I am special or
different.
Mr. Ellwood: The hon. Lady is making a powerful statement about the Committee’s performance. However, Ann Taylor, the predecessor of the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), presented a report on the Bali bombings that was ignored by the House. What are the hon. Lady’s views on that?
Ms Taylor: The hon. Gentleman rightly reminds the House that we must always discuss those reports and look at their details. The decision not to discuss the report was not appropriate. I hope that response suffices.
I am not concerned about the report itself, but I am concerned about something that it examines—the SCOPE project which, if and when it works, will offer the security services enormous support. That IT programme will enable all intelligence organisations in the UK and abroad fundamentally to improve the way in which they work together by transferring data electronically in a secure and timely manner. There is a desperate need for such improvements because, as the intelligence community grows, the amount of material it uses grows exponentially. We need methods to transfer that material in a timely—for me, that means instantly—manner in a secure environment. The 2004 report to the House said that we needed such a programme but, in 2006, we are still saying that we need it. It is not just a complex piece of kit—the project will demand a cultural change and the involvement of highly trained people. It is therefore crucial that it is introduced, because the intelligence community needs it now.
In conclusion, may I refer again to the statements in the press about our being weak, spineless, ineffective and tame? I do not recognise those descriptions, because my colleagues on the Committee are determined and challenging. I am positively confrontational—if I do not obtain the evidence that I want I will seek it again and again, so that I am sure that I have been given the full facts. One paper said that the director general of MI5 had charmed the Committee. I must have missed that sitting or series of sittings, because I do not remember her doing so. In my opinion, she is a tough, no-nonsense person who deals with facts, and is certainly not interested in charm. She makes demands of us, just as we make demands of her. The way in which journalists characterise us undermines our work and is thoroughly unacceptable.
I would accept the opinions of the press as worth while if their accounts of the 7 July bombings offered a careful analysis and reported the facts. However, The Independent printed the following headline: “If only al-Qa’ida were run by our spineless spy masters”. That is unacceptable, and represents the desire of the press to sell newspapers at any cost. We have an oversight committee that works extremely hard. The agencies are part of the making of a secure community for all of us. We do not peddle the politics of fear, as the press do, and they are shameful and undermining.
9.29 pm
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk) (Con): In the limited time available, we have had a serious debate with some very good contributions from all parts of the House. It is important that right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed and who have at times appeared to offer criticism, whether in the Committee or on the Floor of the House, have done so in a positive way. It does nobody any service to suggest that those who offer criticism are attempting to undermine national security or the agencies involved. I am pleased that my right hon. and hon. Friends were able to participate in the debate, and I shall return to their contributions.
One of the central issues of the debate is how we maintain and strengthen public confidence in the Government’s ability to deal with the terrorist threat, the effectiveness of our intelligence and security agencies and the police, and parliamentary oversight and accountability. We are all aware of the balance that must be struck in a democracy between the needs of the intelligence and security agencies to keep certain things absolutely secret, and the need, increasingly, to explain to the public why there are restrictions and controls, and why things inevitably go wrong—sometimes disastrously wrong.
This is not an academic debate. United Kingdom citizens have been killed, injured and kidnapped abroad, and terror is now a reality and has been symbolised by the events of last year. The threat is real and immediate. The police say that since last July they have uncovered four alleged plots, which have been stopped or disrupted. The Metropolitan police anti-terrorist branch says that it is currently involved in about 70 investigations in Britain and abroad. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan police recently said that the security position was “very grim” and that we must expect further attacks. We work, speak and live in one of the great iconic symbols, so we should bear in mind that at any time we in the House could be subject to attack.
That does not mean that the House does not have a right to question, press and criticise Ministers, the security agencies or the police. That is not done in a carping or negative way. That is the strength of our democracy. The challenge for the Government and the intelligence and security agencies is, as many people have said, that the terrorists have to be lucky only once. Many successful operations to thwart or disrupt terrorist attacks can never be fully publicised, whereas failures or mistakes by the intelligence and security services receive maximum public attention. That is the lot of the intelligence and security services. It is the task of Ministers to explain and defend where necessary, and to take responsibility.
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