National Security Bill

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I rise from what has clearly become the securocrats Bench. I am able to speak pretty briefly, because I agree very much with what my two colleagues have said. Some very powerful speeches have been made already about the need to update our national security legislation in a changing world, and I am personally very encouraged by the breadth of agreement across the House on that.

I speak as someone who has worked with the intelligence community for more than 40 years, as a consumer, a colleague, and indeed twice as a co-ordinator —when I was chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee and then as National Security Adviser. I am not from the community, but I know the men and women who work there well. I entirely agree with all noble Lords who have paid tribute to these public servants of the highest integrity and real commitment. I want to focus just on Clause 28; I agree very much with what has been said on other aspects of the Bill.

My first point is that, in my experience, the men and women of the intelligence community were profoundly shocked by the revelations of what had happened in those fraught months and years after 9/11. The noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, has just referred to cases of rendition, all of which was laid out in as much detail as possible in the 2018 ISC report—a searing document to read. I believe that the agencies learned the lessons of that period and have changed deeply as a result. Even a decade ago, for example, I know that proposals to Ministers on the sharing of intelligence with allies would often be accompanied by pages of legal analysis. I sometimes wondered whether the extent of the precautions could affect the agility of the agencies in responding to fast-moving crisis situations. In short, this is not a group of people who have the remotest interest in doing anything to short-cut legal process or evade scrutiny.

Secondly, I am convinced from my discussions with officials that the motivation for Clause 28 comes from the public servants in the intelligence agencies. There is genuine concern among practitioners that circumstances could arise, when, for example, exchanging information and analysis with partners to identify a complex terrorist threat, where even if they had followed all the procedures in place, including the Fulford principles, they could still be legally liable under the SCA. That is something that the House needs to take seriously.

I was fascinated to listen to the noble Lord, Lord West, reporting the conclusions of the Intelligence and Security Committee. I need to read that more closely. If I understood him right, the ISC has had the opportunity of highly classified briefing on the sort of circumstances where that risk might become possible—the operational realities of real-life co-operation with our closest allies. As I understand it, the ISC felt that there were grounds for believing there is a serious problem here. That is important. There is clearly an issue that we need to get right if we are going to give the men and women of the agencies the tools they need to do their job of keeping us safe.

I am persuaded by the powerful points made today that the current Clause 28 goes too far by proposing this carve-out or exemption from the criminal law. There is therefore an obligation on this House and the Government to work towards an alternative. I hope it will be possible to do that and that it will address the concerns we have heard today, including the important issue of ministerial accountability and authorisation and oversight by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and indeed the ISC.

I doubt that the Government will be attracted by the idea of reopening the 1994 ISA—that could well turn out to be a Pandora’s box—but I am sure there are ways of solving the need for a balance between clear oversight and accountability and effective security operations in a fast-changing environment. It is also clearly much better to build a broad coalition of support across this House and more widely. I very much hope that the Government will come forward with proposals in that spirit at Committee stage.