National Security and Investment Bill

Debate between Lord Grimstone of Boscobel and Lord Butler of Brockwell

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for these comments and in no way want to second-guess the deep experience that he has on these matters. But I repeat yet again: there seems to be a worry that BEIS Select Committee members will not have sufficient security clearance to be able to do the work required of them. I repeat from this Dispatch Box that there is no barrier to BEIS Select Committee members handling top-secret and other classified material, subject to agreement between the department and the chair of the committee on appropriate handling. I am not sure that I can say more than that, but they will be able to have the information they need to carry out their functions.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this debate. I am afraid that I have to say to the Minister that, while he may have used his own words in answer to the debate, he used the brief that would have been used by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. I do not want to decry the work of the BEIS Select Committee at all, but the Minister gave the game away when he said that access to highly classified intelligence for the Select Committee would be based on an agreement between the chair and the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State would control it. In that case, Parliament would be in the position of Glendower in “Henry IV”, who says:

“I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”


So you can, is the reply:

“But will they come when you do call for them?”.


Under the memorandum of understanding, the Intelligence and Security Committee has a right to get the intelligence that it needs. A Select Committee of the House of Commons does not have that similar right.

What has run through this debate, from everybody who has spoken apart from the Minister, is that we want one simple thing. We want to make proper use of a tool that is there for Parliament and has been created for this purpose: the Intelligence and Security Committee. There are various ways of doing it, as has been made clear. It could be by annual reports; it could be by changing the terms of reference, which can be done so easily; it could be a transfer to the Cabinet Office, which would bring it within the terms of the ISC.

I suggested that this should be a real-time operation. If I may say so, the Minister misrepresented that. There is no reason why that should extend the time necessary for the assessment. The Intelligence and Security Committee will be looking at one thing—the highly classified intelligence on which the Secretary of State is acting—and reporting on that. That is not a huge job. The ISC could say quite shortly that it was satisfied, and 99 times out of 100, I think, it would say that there were good grounds for the order that the Secretary of State was proposing to be make. I think that could quite easily be done within the 30 days allowed under the Bill for the assessment. It would not even need to make use of the 15-day extension.