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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on securing this debate and on the passionate and eloquent way in which he has advanced his argument. I also pay tribute to his supporters, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab).
Although there have been notes of discord and disagreement this afternoon, I am sure we all agree on how essential is the work that our intelligence agencies do for us day in, day out to keep this country safe by confronting the diverse terrorist threat that this country continues to face. Generally, they are unable to make those points directly themselves, and I recognise the contributions that many right hon. and hon. Members have made in underlining the importance of our intelligence agencies’ work. It is vital that we do so.
It is also important to underline very clearly the role of scrutiny and the powerful impact that it can have. In many ways, that was brought home in a very real sense by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who highlighted the work of the ISC following the Bali bombing. In doing so, he also highlighted the value and importance that scrutiny can directly offer.
However, we should also be clear about the importance of intelligence gathering to our agencies’ ability to maintain an edge in tackling terrorism and stopping criminals. While maintaining that edge is vital to our ability to ensure national security, I absolutely agree that that does not mean that the activities of the intelligence agencies can or should go unchecked. It is absolutely right that intelligence work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework that ensures that activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate. I hope to explain why we believe that is absolutely the case.
The work of the security and intelligence agencies is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that their activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from Secretaries of State, from the interception of communications commissioner and the intelligence services commissioner, as well as from the ISC itself. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) rightly highlighted the work of the relevant commissioners in that regard, which I will return to later in my contribution.
Oversight is absolutely essential, but much of it must necessarily take place behind closed doors to ensure that secret intelligence remains secret. That has to be a key theme in the work undertaken, because although I recognise the desire for transparency—I have heard the points about that very clearly—at the same time there has to be a role for secrets in order for our agencies to conduct the work that they do. That information should not be kept unnecessarily out of the public domain, but secrecy is essential to safeguard sensitive methods and sources, and to protect the lives of those who agree to work for us on the basis of confidentiality and anonymity.
Mr Watson
I hope that the Minister does not think that this is a semantic point, but there is a difference between transparency and scrutiny, and this debate is about scrutiny. We are talking about new technological abilities to process huge amounts of data that may not have been empowered by very old legislation, or at least are tenuously empowered by old legislation. What I hope he can explain today is why Tempora, which is a whole new raft of intelligence gathering, was not given scrutiny in Parliament, as RIPA and other pieces of legislation were?
James Brokenshire
I say to the hon. Gentleman that publicly discussing sensitive techniques and sensitive tactics of our intelligence agencies is simply not appropriate in terms of safeguarding their work. However, I can also say to him very clearly that arrangements are in place to ensure that GCHQ neither obtains nor discloses any material except so far as necessary in pursuit of its statutory functions, as defined in the Intelligence Services Act 1994, which he will be very well aware of.
As far as interception activity by GCHQ is concerned, GCHQ operates at all times in accordance with RIPA. That is not just a statement; GCHQ’s activity is overseen by the commissioners, who analyse its work in detail. They also analyse some of the codes of practice that the agencies have in place to ensure their adherence to RIPA.
Such levels of assurance are in place within our oversight regime, which I believe is very effective because our intelligence agencies’ activity is overseen by a greater variety of bodies than many other areas of Government business. At the parliamentary level, the ISC examines the policy, administration, past operations and expenditure of the intelligence agencies and parts of the wider Government intelligence community. Indeed, the ISC’s position has been strengthened by the Justice and Security Act 2013, which has only been passed into law through this House very recently.
Dr Huppert
The Minister makes the extremely good point that it is “past operations” that can be looked at, and there are constraints on what the ISC can look at; it does not have a completely free rein on operational matters. What happens if an operation lasts for many, many years? At what stage is there any sort of scrutiny of that?
James Brokenshire
To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, he took part in the consideration of the Justice and Security Act 2013, although he did not make then a number of the points that he has made this afternoon. However, we need to be very careful to ensure that scrutiny does not seek to cut across into direct, ongoing operational activity. I am quite sure that, given the robustness of the new powers that the ISC itself will hold, that consideration is very much in the forefront of the minds of the Committee members.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind
In response to the perfectly reasonable issue raised by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), I must say that this point was seized on by the ISC itself. We have completed discussions with the Government, the results of which will appear in a memorandum of understanding that will be published and include details of how these matters will be dealt with. That will ensure that that consideration cannot be used as an improper way of preventing the ISC from obtaining access to operations that—by any normal, common-sense approach—could be considered as completed.
James Brokenshire
It is also important to highlight that, at a political level, the intelligence agencies are ultimately accountable to the Prime Minister, but on a day-to-day basis it is Secretaries of State—primarily my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary—who are responsible for balancing the need to protect national security and the need to fulfil their duty to protect the British public against the potential intrusion on individuals’ rights to privacy that could be caused by intelligence activity. I know from working alongside my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary how much attention she gives to that role.
The interception of communications commissioner also has such oversight in relation to that intelligence activity, and in taking decisions about whether to authorise the use of intrusive powers—for example, to intercept communications—he must be satisfied that such measures are legal, necessary, proportionate and carefully targeted.
Mr Meacher
On the question of legality, is it not the case that the Home Secretary was extremely keen to get the Communications Bill through the House of Commons in order to legalise activities that GCHQ had been carrying out for years, notably—as we now believe—the Tempora programme?
James Brokenshire
I say clearly to the right hon. Gentleman, as the Foreign Secretary said when he responded originally on this issue, that GCHQ and our intelligence agencies act within the law, a point rightly made earlier by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood).
The points about the proposals on communications data are about the changing nature of what we see, which includes ensuring that our law enforcement agencies are able to continue to do the job that they do today in bringing criminals to justice and using communications data as evidence in court. That is very different from the intelligence agencies’ roles and from GCHQ’s mission, which is external—looking outside rather than within the UK.
It is also important to note the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) about the role of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson, who has done some very important work and continues to do so.
It is this multi-faceted oversight that complements rigorous internal controls within the agencies themselves. The agencies’ recruitment and training procedures are all designed to ensure that those operating within the ring of secrecy can be trusted to do so lawfully and ethically. A culture of compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the law pervades everything that they do.
In the short time I have left, I should quickly address some of the points that have been raised. I can obviously assure hon. Members, for example, about the resourcing of the ISC. It has raised around a 30% uplift in its resources, and when it has a full staffing complement it will have more staffing than virtually any Select Committee. It is right to highlight the important work undertaken through the ISC and the changes that have been made to it by the Justice and Security Act 2013, which have been commented on by right hon. and hon. Members. An ongoing investigation is taking place into the events in Woolwich in May, work that the ISC is conducting very carefully and with great diligence.
This has been an important debate, highlighting the strength of the scrutiny that we have and the different layers of scrutiny that operate in this country. I believe that we have every reason to be proud of those oversight arrangements and of the work of our agencies.
Question put and agreed to.