The Committee has considered your predecessor's letter of 27 February. We are grateful for the further responses to our questions.

  The Committee was, however, perturbed by the assertion at the end of the letter that "there is some information which cannot be made public and which Parliament has decided, by passing the Intelligence Services Act, is a matter for the Intelligence and Security Committee."

  In the opinion of the Committee this statement offers a novel interpretation of the 1994 Act. In our view, it takes the FCO's position on the supply of information to the FAC a stage further backwards from where we had previously understood it to be.

  References in the 1994 Act to "information" occur only in Schedule 3 and refer in the main to information which may not be provided to the ISC. There appears to be nothing in the Act which suggests the ISC has exclusive rights over any category of information with which it may be provided. In the past the FAC has been provided with information which has also been provided to the ISC, and indeed vice versa. We would expect that this would continue to be the case. I would therefore welcome your assurance that this will be so.

Mike Gapes MP

Chairman of the Committee

8 May 2006