King’s Speech

Baroness Manningham-Buller Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to be the first Back-Bencher to speak on this debate. I join in the chorus of approval and congratulations to the Minister. It is not just me: this morning, I went into Timpson to get a new battery for my watch in order to rehearse my speech so as to avoid the Chief Whip—he is not in his place—getting irritated with me for going over time. There, I spoke to my friend, who knows me by a different name and does not know that I am a Member of this House. He was very sad that the Minister will no longer be leading that business but thought that the greater interests of the country rested in this appointment. So I bring his congratulations as well.

I am going to talk a bit about national security. I was undecided whether to speak today or in tomorrow’s debate on defence, security and foreign affairs. I do not know how vulnerable we are—that is a good thing, because then, presumably, our enemies do not—but I am clear that the threats to our security are not diminishing; they are increasing. We need to face that reality and its implications. Despite the pressure on public expenditure, there will be some unwelcome decisions to be made. Like other noble Lords, I have confidence that the review by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Sir Richard Barrons and Fiona Hill, who probably knows more about Putin than most people, will come up with some good recommendations. There is urgency attached, because we need to defend ourselves robustly against these threats.

What constitutes national security is undefined and evolves. We now worry, as the Government must do, about food security, energy security, health security and water security, but in MI5, in which I was privileged to be for 33 years, the law states its responsibilities. They include—I should know this by heart, but I just need to remind myself—

“the protection of national security and, in particular, its protection against threats from espionage, terrorism and sabotage, from the activities of agents of foreign powers and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy”.

To do this work, there have to be secrets. That will not come as a surprise to your Lordships’ House, but I do have some current concerns, which I wish to flag. There is some pressure from various quarters for greater openness and transparency. There is the view that the public interest, however it is defined, trumps all. We now have—and I completely understand why—the legislation resulting from Hillsborough, with a duty of candour to prevent, if we can, repetitions of the Post Office scandal, the Hillsborough scandal and others. However, unless we maintain secrets in intelligence work, we will soon have no intelligence.

Your Lordships will remember legislation from a few years back to consider covert human intelligence sources. These are people who are not members of the organisation but who provide, often at risk to their lives, intelligence that is life-saving and important. Their identities must be protected. I welcome the legislation on the security of public places. I caution the new Minister against saying, “We must never let this happen again”. There are lots of people determined to reduce those threats and to work against them, but there is never such a thing as 100% security.

If these secrets are to be kept, it is also important that the UK intelligence community is fully accountable for its actions, the things that it gets wrong and the things that it gets right, and nobody, I hope, would argue otherwise.

I end by picking out the comment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton—with which I strongly agree—that, as far as possible, the approach to national security should be cross-party and not party political. It is right that this House will pick over legislation, try to improve it and amend it. But in my experience in MI5, it was really important that—with the approval of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who is in his place, and the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, who is not, who were among the Home Secretaries I worked for—I always briefed their opposition equivalents. We should continue to do our job properly but, where possible, we should do it in a cross-party, apolitical way.