Justice and Security Bill [Lords]
Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Lord Campbell of Pittenweem(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Paul Murphy
Had I been inclined to support amendments 8 to 14, my inclination would have dropped dramatically over the past half hour as a consequence of hearing the speech made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker). I do not think for one second that the Committee’s significance depends on the Chair. The Chair is an important member of the Committee—the first among equals. During the two years I chaired the Committee, including the period when we considered extraordinary rendition, there was certainly unanimity among the members, as the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has just mentioned, as there is now, so the Committee had to come to a consensus.
It is preposterous to argue that whether or not the Chair had been elected would have made the slightest difference to the report on rendition or to the Committee’s eventually recommendations. That issue can be dealt with in another place and at another time, although the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), who was supposed to move the amendment—we have had an explanation of why he cannot be here—had a particular interest in rendition, but Members of the House will know that the Committee dealt with a host of other important issues affecting this country’s intelligence services.
Twenty years ago, the Committee started on a journey. Before the law was changed, there was no Committee of this House—in the Commons or the Lords—to deal with the intelligence services. Indeed, just before the inauguration of the Committee, the very existence of MI6 was denied publicly by the Government. In those 20 years there has been a dramatic shift in how the intelligence services have been made more accountable. The latest of those shifts is proposed in this Bill, which is a very good Bill in that regard. The accountability and transparency that it requires—there is obviously a limit to how much transparency one can have when dealing with the intelligence services—is something that I am sure we all welcome and support.
I support the proposal that the members of the Committee—who, by the way, are themselves subject to approval by the House of Commons and the House of Lords—will decide on who the Chairman of the Committee is to be. The Prime Minister does not do that. The Prime Minister could have a say in who the members are, but ultimately the House of Commons makes that decision. Those members will know among themselves who they feel to be the best person for the job. We have to bear it in mind that this is not a Select Committee. If it were, it could be argued that its Chair should be elected in the same way as for a Select Committee, but it is not—it is a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. The Chair of the Committee, who is usually, and should be, a Member of this House, reports to the House annually, and a debate is also held in the other place. Having the members themselves choose the Chair of the Committee is a very significant development.
The Committee can never be the same as a Select Committee, because if it were, it would not be doing its job. It has to command the trust and the confidence of the intelligence services because of the nature of the business they deal with. The only way to do that is to have people on the Committee who are trusted not only by their colleagues here and in the House of Lords but by the three agencies, so that they can ensure that there is the fullest flow of information of highly sensitive and secret detail that the Committee can deal with. That is why it is different from other Committees. I think that the proposals in the Bill, which have been refined over the past couple of years, are such that everybody will be able to support them today.
Another matter covered in this group of amendments is the way in which the ISC is financed. Under the Bill, the Committee is no longer a statutory Committee—it becomes a Committee of Parliament. As a consequence, the Government will pay Parliament for the workings and expenses of the Committee. I fully support the Government amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) is going to discuss the remuneration of the members of the ISC—more particularly, that of its Chair. Of course, all of us who have held these positions over the years have had no remuneration. I welcome and support this development and only wish that it were retrospective so that I could claim two years’ back pay, but that is not going to happen. My hon. Friend’s amendment refers to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which I hope will support this measure. I also hope that the Chair of the ISC will get the same remuneration as is paid to the equivalent Chairs of Select Committees: in this case, I imagine, the Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs and Defence Committees. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) is extremely hard working in his position, and I believe that this is a right and proper thing to do.
Sir Menzies Campbell
I have the good fortune, in the interests of brevity, to be able to acknowledge all that has been said on both sides of the House, but I would like to add a thought or two of my own.
This Committee is sui generis; there is nothing else like it. To seek to bring it within a certain structure runs the risk of ignoring the fact that it has particular characteristics. The Chair of the Committee has particular characteristics, too, because by convention the Committee does not talk to the press. When any request is made for information from the print or electronic media, the proper course of action, which, if I may say so, I have studiously followed since my election, is to refer the matter to the Chair of the Committee. The Chair then finds himself in a very difficult and sensitive position regarding the extent to which he is able to respond to possibly legitimate inquiries about the work of the Committee, in so far as that is consistent with the fact that he, like all of us, signs the Official Secrets Act. No member of any other Select Committee in the House of Commons does that. Particular skills are therefore essential for the chairmanship of this Committee that are not necessarily required in the chairmanship of other Committees. I respectfully suggest that those who are best able to assess those skills are the members of the Committee themselves. Of course, they must have confidence in their Chair.
Intelligence and Security Committee
Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Lord Campbell of Pittenweem(13 years ago)
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Sir Menzies Campbell
That is a matter of judgment. Members of the Committee sign the Official Secrets Act and are subject to constraints when it comes to any criticism directed at them either collectively or individually. Based on my experience, however, I have never seen any action—or lack of action—on the part of the Committee which suggested a lack of independence of thought.