Secret Documents

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I am not going to speculate on the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the documents or their ultimate transmission to the BBC; that is for the inquiry team to determine. I am also not going to discuss the content of the documents, for obvious reasons. As the noble Lord raises issues already in the public domain in relation to HMS “Defender”, and as he will be aware that there was a Written Ministerial Statement on 24 June, I can confirm that HMS “Defender” was proceeding entirely in accordance with international law, behaving entirely appropriately and conducting innocent passage through a stretch of water open to international navigation.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, breaches of security at such a high level are rightly of concern to members of the public and Members of this House. This Question has important implications regarding blackmail and breaches of the Official Secrets Act. Can the Minister clarify the circumstances in which the documents were found? Can she also say whether it is normal practice to hard copy security materials that can be handled digitally and securely? Will the identity of the negligent official eventually be made public?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As far as the noble Lord’s question relates to the process of investigation, he will appreciate that I am unable to comment on any details pertaining to that. As I have already indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, suitable IT platforms exist across government but it is within the rules to remove documents from the building in certain limited circumstances. However, very strict rules and procedures govern their removal. How the breach occurred is a matter for the investigating team to determine.

British Armed Forces: Iraqi Interpreters

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

I confirm to the noble Lord that when the MoD uses a third-party contractor to source interpreting services, strict conditions of contract apply, and these are incorporated into the contract. These are standards set down by the MoD for contracting requirements and deployed operations. Very particularly, they require that the operational circumstances within which the contractor capabilities are delivered to the MoD must be as safe, secure and reasonable as possible for the workforce. They set out obligations both for the MoD and the contractor to ensure that that happens, and we take those obligations very seriously.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, these brave people have already put themselves in harm’s way. Can the noble Baroness say how many Iraqi interpreters and their families are at risk of retribution in Iraq? Can she confirm to your Lordships’ House that the British Government owe a duty of care to those who have provided such a valuable service to British forces in times of conflict?

Terrorist Attacks

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, yes, I agree with that. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister was clear in her statement of 4 June that “enough is enough”. We need our counterterrorism strategy, which is currently being worked up in the Home Office, to keep up with a number of fast-moving areas. One is most definitely to tackle terrorist ideology and to deny online safe spaces to terrorist communications, part of which will be to ensure that warped doctrine does not reach the internet. However, we also need to deny safe spaces in the real world so that malign and misleading published material is not promulgated.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement repeated by the Minister and the report. Does he agree that the report illustrates well the importance of surveillance and good intelligence in preventing—in many cases—large-scale conspiracies to commit terrorist acts? However, it is of course more difficult with lone-wolf attacks, which are probably inspired over long periods of time without the necessary ingredients of a large-scale conspiracy. It is extremely difficult to prevent those offences. Consequently, all we can hope to do—I hope the Minister agrees with me—is to minimise the damage done once one of those attacks is commenced. The answer to that is more armed response officers in the area. Is there any plan to increase the number of armed response officers on the streets of the United Kingdom?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s knowledge and experience in this area. He will know that policing requirements are assessed almost day by day, and a particular situation may well require more armed police officers to be stationed in particular locations. I cannot generalise about that, but I am sure that noble Lords will all be conscious that the Palace of Westminster has seen a much tighter degree of security from armed police in recent months, for which we should be grateful.

On the noble Lord’s general point, I agree. Surveillance is important but, as David Anderson himself acknowledges, it is impossible for the authorities to prevent every single terrorist attack. In his executive summary he says in terms that the recommendations, if accepted, would not remove the risk of a terrorist attack—to do so would be manifestly impossible in a free society. He also mentions that MI5 and CT policing have thwarted 20 Islamist terrorist plots in the past four years, resulting in 10 life sentences from the seven plots that have so far come to trial. So we can point to some signal successes achieved by MI5 and the police, but they cannot possibly be expected to pick up lone-wolf attackers.