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I am impressed by the evidence of hard work which we have heard about-30 meetings a year is roughly one for every week that Parliament meets. My respect for the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, goes up when I remember that he is also involved in parliamentary duties in Edinburgh. Therefore, he takes on a very large number of activities.

I support very strongly what has been said about the status of the committee and the importance of preserving and strengthening its independence. This is a very odd committee in its current set-up. We live in a constitutional system in which we are told that Parliament is sovereign, but in which there remain a very large number of areas of government that are handled under the royal prerogative by the Executive. There are many other areas in which Parliament needs to strengthen its position vis-à-vis the Executive. There are also many other areas of the royal prerogative which this Government have abused-particularly, in my opinion, under the prime ministership of Tony Blair. It is high time that this committee became fully a parliamentary committee. Under the next Parliament, I look forward to many of us working together to push further in that direction as part of the necessary process of constitutional reform.

Some of the expressions used by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in referring to the difficulties that we have experienced in the past 12 months suggested that the committee has encountered real difficulties. If that is the case, clearly it needs to be looked at a good deal further and the committee needs strong support from across the parties in Parliament to enable its independence to be strengthened. I also support strongly what the

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noble Baroness has said about the need to ensure that the public are informed about and have confidence in our security and intelligence services so that they will support them adequately. We are all conscious that some of the allegations about the treatment of detainees, extraordinary rendition and awareness of what was happening at Guantanamo and elsewhere have damaged the reputation of our security and intelligence services. Ministers have-including, on occasion, when answering questions that I have posed-assured us that things have not happened with reference to Diego Garcia or elsewhere only for us to discover, some time afterwards, that they have happened. That has shaken our confidence in the ability of our Government to keep a check on what is going on.

It is particularly important that we maintain a clear responsibility for parliamentary scrutiny because, as both of these reports say, there has been a very substantial increase in resources and personnel in recent years. The noble Baroness referred to entering a harsher resource environment, but over the past three to four years these services have necessarily done very well, as evidence in the reports indicates. Therefore, we need to know as much as possible about this if we are to assess whether we should defend them against the harsh cuts that will take place across government, whoever wins the election, or whichever combination of parties comes out of it.

Languages expertise comes up in various reports. Speaking as an academic, I argue that we are as a country losing our languages expertise. The extent to which languages expertise is falling back in schools and universities is appalling. I understand that Oxford University now gives remedial grammar courses to its first-year French students. That tells us something about how far expertise is slipping back.

I moved from a think tank to Oxford University in 1990. I recall people from the Foreign Office coming to see me and saying, "Do you know anyone in the academic community who knows anything about central Asia?". It was not a resource that they had thought to be highly necessary for the previous 20 or 30 years, but, all of a sudden, having expertise on obscure cultures and languages within our broader academic community was appreciated. In terms of cross-departmental contacts and coherence of government, I say to the Minister that, as cuts are imposed on universities, it is precisely those skills in marginal languages and knowledge of marginal foreign cultures that will be cut. It has happened on a number of occasions during the past 60 or 70 years, only for us to discover about 10 years later that it would have been quite useful to have people who understood Dari or Somali, for example. We need to maintain that expertise outside government, because it is a resource for government.

I note with concern the references to China and Russia at various stages in the report. We now have a substantial and very rich Russian community in this country; we also have a large number of people who divide their time between Moscow and London. There is concern as to where some of their money has come from and whether it has been entirely legitimately obtained.



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Lord King of Bridgwater: Probably none of it.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: The police, the Financial Services Authority and others need to keep a very active watch on what goes on. I also note in the report important remarks on the growing problem of cyber attacks and on it not always being easy to tell whether they come from private or state-sponsored sources.

Since I do my politics in Yorkshire, I am closely aware of the problems of, and have very close links with, Pakistan and Somalia, and the extent to which the high level of movement of people between this country and those countries-and, on a rather smaller scale, Yemen-creates problems for all of us. The line between what is domestic and what is international is not always easy to draw.

Intelligence co-operation with other countries is not flagged actively in either report, although it is referred to in the second report. We are all conscious of the importance of the relationship with the United States, as the noble Baroness remarked. I happened to be at a transatlantic conference in Brussels over the weekend where this was one of several subjects discussed-the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, was there, too. I had conversations with a number of people about expectation on the part of the Americans that they will receive more information and co-operation from European Governments than they give us in return. The imbalance of that relationship extends across intelligence to a range of other areas. On the US-UK relationship, if the UK Independence Party and the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, were really concerned about the maintenance of British sovereignty, I would look forward to accompanying him to the gates of RAF Menwith Hill and seeing how easily he would be accepted in there. I know that the ISC is now allowed to visit US intelligence sites on British soil; it was not for its first few years. At least we have gained that. While driving back from Harrogate to Saltaire last summer, however, I witnessed both the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes being taken down with great reverence by US Air Force personnel. There are large questions there about whether we are happy with the incursions into British sovereignty of some of these US installations on British soil.

I also note that, in paragraph 141 of the 2008-09 report, the Foreign Secretary referred to,

I recall on occasions being assured by Ministers that we are in command of Diego Garcia, and that nothing happens there without the British being fully informed. The Foreign Secretary's remark to the committee was perhaps a little more honest than the replies that are sometimes given.

The last thing that I will say, in a rather shorter speech than we have heard so far, concerns the question of security and new threats-the broader issues around the fact that many of the external threats facing Britain do not fall within old state to state military dimensions. I am talking about the overlap between criminal and terrorist networks, the extent to which almost all serious crime is now international, the fact that the smuggling of people, drugs and weapons is often conducted by the same networks, and the fact that the funding of terrorism and piracy, and the dispersal of those funds,

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also overlap. Co-operation between our intelligence services, our Serious Fraud Office and SOCA is an important part of how we respond to this nexus; but how we follow it up is also a problem for Parliament.

An official of the African Union whom I met recently talked about Somali piracy, and how a remarkably large number of mansions are being built in Mombasa. We agreed that one needs to combat piracy through financial as well as other investigations. The overlap is important. Perhaps the Minister will tell us how Her Majesty's Government manage this growing overlap and increasing internationalisation. I recall looking, when I was chair of a sub-committee of the European Union Committee, at the expansion of police liaison officers in our embassies abroad. It is a very important part of how SOCA links to the police authorities in other countries, in order to combat serious crime such as people smuggling.

Some months ago, I was fascinated to be invited to sit in on a discussion of the European assessment centre; and even more fascinated to discover a number of people with experience of British intelligence agencies telling us how immensely helpful the European assessment centre is to British intelligence and to the British pursuit of transnational crime. This is something that the Conservatives might like to communicate to those in their party who think that, if they form the next Government, they should withdraw from all the police and intelligence co-operation networks, including Europol and the Schengen information system, because these are incursions into British sovereignty. We now recognise that crime and threats to Britain overlap our national boundaries, that many of them do not come from foreign states, and therefore that the interface between our domestic security bodies, including our police force, and our intelligence agencies and those who represent them abroad, is important, delicate and difficult to manage. I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply on these various points.

1.14 pm

Lord King of Bridgwater: My Lords, I shall speak briefly in the gap if I may. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for the way in which he introduced this most interesting debate and for speaking for the committee. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that I remember our committee visit to Menwith Hill, which I much enjoyed. The idea that we were not able to go there is news to me.

Having been the chairman for the first seven years of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I think that it has lost some of its momentum. I sense that it is perhaps just picking it up now. I have been very concerned that it has not had an investigator. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is absolutely right. We started off with fairly limited official terms of reference and we gradually expanded them. We did so originally with the good will of Ministers such as Robin Cook and Jack Straw, and we gradually spread our wings and covered the whole remit of intelligence security, as the Minister remembers well, because he was one of the witnesses who came-not under our area of responsibility, but as Chief of Defence Intelligence, which was a critical part of the intelligence picture.



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Considering the concerns of the committee, and picking up on something that my noble friend said-the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours will be surprised to hear me say this-I think that with the problems that are emerging, the case for a Joint Committee of both Houses is getting stronger. One thing that worried me when I was chairman, and which has continued, is the question of what happens to the staff of the committee. They were seconded from departments and had the devil's own job in getting back into any career stream. They had been isolated; they were viewed with some distrust; and they were not welcomed back by accounting officers who did not want to add to the numbers when they were trying to slim down. Considering their loyalty and the arrangements, there is a strong argument for moving in that direction. I am not impressed by the suggestion to move from the Cabinet Office to the Ministry of Justice-that is out of the frying pan into the fire. It still leaves behind the basic problems.

I have two points to make on my hobby horse. I care passionately about the reputation, independence and integrity of the Intelligence and Security Committee. It is of great value to the intelligence agencies and should not be seen as a threat and a menace to them. I remember the Mitrokhin inquiry, when the committee dug the SIS out of a deep hole because it had credibility. No Minister could have done that by saying, "There is no problem; there is nothing to answer for here". However, an independent, all-party committee with full access to all the information beyond what the Act officially said we could have was able to do a proper job. At the moment there are eight Members of Parliament and one Peer on the committee. When we consider the shape of a new Parliament, with goodness knows how many new Members with no experience in this area, there is a strong argument for a significant increase in the number of Members of the House of Lords who serve on the committee. The Act allows it; it does not specify the number of Peers or MPs.

My other hobby horse, which is a brave statement considering that I am looking forward to a triumphant Conservative victory in the forthcoming election, is that I believe strongly that the chairman of the committee should be a member of the Opposition. I look with despair at previous chairmen-not with criticism of any individual, but because if we treat the post as a consolation prize for losing a place in the Cabinet, there is no continuity. I did the job for seven years, and I think that I am right in saying that we have had three different chairmen in the past four years. That is not the right way to run it. There would be added credibility if the chairman were a member of the Opposition. I hope that we will bravely adopt that approach.

1.19 pm

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I chime with the noble Lord, Lord King, in his view that the chairman of the committee should be in the Opposition, as happens on the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons. The chairman is invariably a prominent member of the Opposition.

I will concentrate my remarks on the question of accountability to Parliament and on the question of a Joint Committee of both Houses. As the noble Lord,

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Lord King, will recall, in 1998 during my membership of the committee I was constantly arguing the case for the committee structure to change to that of a Joint Committee of Parliament. At the time, the argument that the Conservatives had to consider about whether primary legislation was necessary was used to counter my case. I had discussions with the Clerks in the other place and we worked out that the committee's powers could be circumscribed by a series of special resolutions which would apply only to the committee so that it would not enjoy all the powers of existing Select Committees. Those powers were modified to deal with its special conditions, particularly the fact that it reports primarily to the Prime Minister. At that stage I did not depart from the principle that the committee's report should go first to the Prime Minister before being reported to Parliament. I still believe that that is an important principle to preserve.

It is also worth noting that in the House of Commons generally-what has happened over the past 12 months with the Cabinet Office serves only to confirm this-the committee is seen as a creature of the Executive. I know that people in the departments do not like to hear this. I remember conversations with Kevin Tebbit, who was very hostile to the proposals that I made in 1998. Stephen Lander was more open-minded about the matter, and the MI6 people maintained a discrete silence on my arguments but were clearly equally hostile to the proposals for change. However, they all failed to recognise the attitude of Members of Parliament and the fact that the intelligence community was not reporting to committees of the House of Commons. I hear that over recent years members of the committee have argued for evidence to be given to the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee. Indeed, it was even suggested to me the other day that they should have access to the Public Administration Committee-the high-profile committee that spends most of its time undoing reputations, in many cases quite validly. But the point is that there should be a structure within Parliament to take evidence. I am sure that the great body of Members of Parliament-certainly in the Commons-would accept such an arrangement.

I understand that my views are now reinforced by a recent contribution to the debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5. I understand that she is in favour of a Joint Committee arrangement being established. Therefore, I hope that we can move forward, whichever Government are in power. I think that many of the original papers that I wrote on these matters in the late 1980s still circulate around Downing Street. I even went as far as the Prime Minister in the late 1990s and the early 2000s to plead my case on the need for this change to be made.

I remember that there was a lot of resistance to taking evidence from officials lower down the line. However, I never doubted the word of those who gave evidence to the committee. I always felt that the power of a Select Committee, whereby if a person gives false evidence they are in contempt of Parliament, was a very strong one-in other words, they would be held in contempt. I always felt that that would impose a discipline on officials. The notorious case that has run through the press recently is an example of where

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better arrangements for accountability would have been more appropriate. The reference to poor record keeping is something that I find very hard to believe. In fact, to be frank, I do not believe it.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees: My Lords, with great respect to the noble Lord, perhaps I might remind him of the Companion where, at 4.34, speakers in the gap are restricted to four minutes. The noble Lord is already in his sixth minute. Perhaps I may invite him to wind up.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Forgive me; I did not realise we were in the gap. I take my place immediately.

1.25 pm

Lord Hamilton of Epsom: My Lords, perhaps I, too, may crave the indulgence of the Committee to make a short contribution in the gap. I was disappointed by the answer to my intervention on the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who suggested that it was not the responsibility of his committee to make any recommendations about ministerial responsibility. The Intelligence and Security Committee that I sat on, under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord King, had no such worries. We produced a report some time in the 1990s stating that there should be a Minister of State answering for the Cabinet Office who would be responsible for all of the intelligence agencies. Quite clearly, that was not acted upon.

It was interesting because another member of the committee at that stage was the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, who was then Member of Parliament for Dudley East. Shortly before the 1997 election, he was rung up by the office of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Blair. It was suggested that it would be a good idea if he moved out of his seat in Dudley and went to the House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, was not very impressed by that argument and did not think it a compelling case, so another telephone call came through in which he was asked, "Would you think of giving up your seat in Dudley if you were offered a post in the Government"? "Ah", said the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, "now that is entirely different. There is one post which I would accept in the Government: Minister of State in the Cabinet Office answerable for the intelligence services". "Deal done", they said. "Will you now stand down?". He did, and some Blair acolyte was stuck into Dudley.

Then in 1997 came the question of confirming all of that. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, has now left and is no longer in his seat, because I believe that he came in at this point and said, rather as in the television programme, "Very brave, Prime Minister". The whole idea was kiboshed and, as we know, what actually happened was that the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, ended up as Minister of State for Defence Procurement-a job that he had done either 18 or 19 years earlier. I thought that it was worth recounting that story, because our committee thought that it was important to bring all the intelligence agencies together.

I do not think that anything has changed, except that the terrorist threat is now much worse. People say that we live in a very dangerous world. I would argue that the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom

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has rarely been safer in the past 100 years. Clearly, however, we are threatened in a way that we never have been before by terrorism. Therefore it is absolutely critical to have somebody responsible in government to counter that threat. The intelligence agencies should be brought together so that the whole exercise is co-ordinated and we do not have the agencies answering to different Secretaries of State in the Cabinet. That cannot do anything for the co-ordination and unity of purpose needed to counteract the terrorist threat to this country.

1.27 pm

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate. I had few expectations when I came to it, other than that there would not be a speakers list-so I have sympathy with the noble Lord. I come to this subject without the background which other noble Lords have, and I am ashamed to say that I have never before given particular thought to the role of this committee. I now realise what a difficult job it has, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and his colleagues. I had not realised either how much I would be echoing what other speakers have been saying. Perhaps I might start with a few general words on what, to me, are the first principles of scrutiny-because this is scrutiny, albeit highly specialised.

Before I say that, I should declare an interest as joint president of the Centre for Public Scrutiny, which has identified four principles of scrutiny: being a critical friend; challenging executive policy and decision makers; enabling the voice and concerns of the public and their communities to be heard; and that it should be carried out by independent-minded people who lead and own the scrutiny process, and who drive improvement. All of those principles are extremely apt and have been referred to, if not in those words, by pretty much every speaker in today's debate.

Intelligence and security, by its very nature, must be secure, confidential and below the radar, while at the same time reassuring the public. The committee has a role which reflects that, but with particular weight-and this seems to have come out as the debate has gone on-on the public-facing roles of critical friendship, expressing the concerns of the public and, of course, holding the Executive to account.

I am not sure that I am entitled to speak for my party on this, but I personally would be enthusiastic about the committee morphing into a Joint Select Committee of Parliament, because the parliamentary role is to hold the Executive to account. Holding to account means shining a light on the Executive, and persuading or requiring them to describe and explain things, which they might prefer not to do. They would thereby be brought into the public arena, which by definition with this subject is particularly difficult. My experience of scrutiny has been domestic and much lower key, but it has included hearing from people affected by the Executive's actions and decisions. I am interested in comments about the views of the staff of the agencies. Sometimes even refereeing an exchange of views brings a lot of information to the surface and enables one to assess the evidence that one hears. For many years, I have refused to be told

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something in private that cannot be told in public, so I have particular admiration for those who juggle these responsibilities.

I will add to the mix the public's expectations of technology and of techniques that they think are now close to magic, and of individuals who either act as individuals or, when in a team, have particularly complex personal relationships. There are only a handful of them and they solve every problem, with no obvious back-up, in the space of an hour less seven minutes for commercial breaks. It must make the job really difficult for those who know what it is like at the coal face. I am particularly interested in these perceptions, of which the committee has shown itself to be aware.

There has been discussion about the host department. How it looks to the world is important. I see the Government's point about complicating accountabilities with another department, and it does not seem that the MoJ is the obvious candidate, because it, too, would have a conflict of interest if matters came before the courts, as increasingly they seem to do. The annex to the report suggests to me something that is more stand-alone-we have developed the idea of a parliamentary Select Committee.


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