Intelligence and Security Services

George Howarth Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I compliment the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) on making a measured, thoughtful speech. It is important, when we have this debate, that we are measured and thoughtful in how we approach it. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on the timeliness of the debate. It is important that we have an opportunity to discuss these issues, although some of the hon. Gentleman’s comments might not have been as well informed as they might have been. I will come to that in a moment.

For once, I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas); I hope that that is not the start of a pattern. In her intervention, she said, “For goodness’ sake, can we stop concentrating entirely on The Guardian, as if it is all about The Guardian?” To get that issue out of the way, my view is that if we ask whether The Guardian was entitled to publish what it did, the answer is probably yes. If I am wrong about that, the authorities will take the necessary action. I do not believe that it has done anything wrong. However, if we ask the question, “Was it wise for it to publish what it did? Was that a responsible thing to do?”, I think that the answer is no. For the purposes of this debate, I will leave it at that as regards The Guardian.

I said that I would come back to the hon. Member for Cambridge. In an interesting exchange between him and the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), the latter asked, “How does he know?”, and the hon. Member for Cambridge, in a roundabout way, admitted that he did not know. In a way, that poses the dilemma of this debate, because not everyone can know. Some people have to know, and the rest of us have to take it on faith that some people know and are acting responsibly. That is the issue on which I want to concentrate in terms of the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I have been a member for the past eight years.

The hon. Member for Cambridge did, in passing, refer to the new Act. He served on the Public Bill Committee that considered it. However, it is almost as if the Act does not exist in his speech. He does not seem to accept that the powers, resources and capabilities of the Intelligence and Security Committee have changed almost beyond recognition, in my experience on the Committee. However, we will leave that to one side. The difficulty is that because the hon. Gentleman does not know a great deal about it, he is in danger of arriving at rash judgments about what is wrong and what could be done.

Let me demonstrate that by reference to the issue that the hon. Gentleman has talked about at some length, and legitimately so. I am talking about the Prism programme—what the UK’s involvement in it was and so on. Not once during his speech, unless I missed it, did he refer to the fact that the Intelligence and Security Committee, which he considers to be inadequate, has already looked at the Prism programme and what our own agencies’, and particularly GCHQ’s, involvement in and knowledge of that was. We issued a statement—an interim statement, I might add—in July. In the course of that statement, which has not been referred to so far, we arrived at some important conclusions. The first one was:

“It has been alleged that GCHQ circumvented UK law by using the NSA’s PRISM programme to access the content of private communications. From the evidence we have seen, we have concluded that this is unfounded.”

For obvious reasons, it is impossible for me to go into detail about all the evidence that we were able to look at, but we did look in detail at very important pieces of information and we were able also to look at what authorisations were involved in the process of accessing the information, particularly the communications within it. The law has not been broken.

[Mr Watson]

I am reassured by my right hon. Friend’s thoroughness in the investigation. Was July the first time that the Committee had examined Prism, and was that after the Guardian revelations? [Laughter.]

[Mr Howarth]

It was after the Guardian revelations. The hon. Member for Cambridge seems to think that that is funny. Actually, he would still be sitting here today if we had not gone and looked at this matter after the allegations emerged. He would be accusing us of being inadequate in our responsibilities.

[Rory Stewart]

rose—

[Mr Howarth]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but then I must make some progress.

[Rory Stewart]

Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify why the Committee did not look into Prism before The Guardian published its allegations?

[Mr Howarth]

Let me answer the hon. Gentleman very carefully; I hope that he will forgive me for being none too specific in my answer. Part of our responsibility, which did not just emerge after the revelations about Prism, is to look at what the agencies do, what their capacities are and how they use those capacities. It is a continuous process. We have in the head of GCHQ. We take evidence. We probe what it is doing and what it is capable of doing. Therefore, it is not that we did not have any concerns or any interest in what GCHQ was capable of. That is an ongoing process, but inevitably, when something new emerges, it is appropriate that, as a Committee, we look into it.

I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s question perhaps not as accurately as he would have liked, but—I am not being evasive when I say this—if I went any further, I would be going into detail that at this stage I do not think is relevant.

I was talking about the conclusions that the Committee reached in July. The second conclusion was this:

“We have reviewed the reports that GCHQ produced on the basis of intelligence sought from the US, and we are satisfied that they conformed with GCHQ’s statutory duties. The legal authority for this is contained in the Intelligence Services Act 1994.”

The third conclusion was that

“in each case where GCHQ sought information from the US”—

this is an important conclusion—

“a warrant for interception, signed by a Minister, was already in place, in accordance with the legal safeguards contained in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.”

Let us be absolutely clear as regards our own agency. We were able to look in detail at how it had used the information and we were able to conclude, with a high degree of conviction, that it was not breaking the law.

[Hazel Blears]

My right hon. Friend is making a very thoughtful and comprehensive speech and speaks, no doubt, for many of us on the Committee. It is an essential part of the debate that the agencies were operating within the existing legal framework of British law. Whether—my right hon. Friend might want to comment on this—the existing framework needs review was also a matter considered by the Committee, and that appears to be the heart of this debate. Yes, the agencies have conformed with the existing legal framework. It is legitimate debate to say, “Is that, in this modern age, still appropriate?” But the Committee clearly also went on to consider exactly that issue.

[Mr Howarth]

It is almost as though my right hon. Friend read my speech in advance. With remarkably good timing, she leads me on to my next point. In our report, as she well knows, under the heading “Next Steps”, we say:

“We are therefore examining”—

this is future work to be done—

“the complex interaction between the Intelligence Services Act, the Human Rights Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and the policies and procedures that underpin them, further. We note that the Interception of Communications Commissioner is also considering this issue.”

In terms of who is doing their job and who is not doing their job, our Committee is doing our job; and, by the way, the commissioner is doing his job. There is, I think, a debate to be had—I cannot remember where this was raised—about the role of the commissioner.

One of the things that the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), the Chair of our Committee, has brought about—it is partly to do with the legislation and, I think, partly to do with his own feelings about the way we need to act—is our becoming more outward facing as a Committee. As has been noted, we are to have the first open session, at which we will be interviewing in public the three heads of agencies, a week today.

It is important that we have made that change. It is important that when we can say what we know in public, we do so. In addition, although I would not necessarily go along with the formulation put forward, there might be a case for trying to persuade the interception commissioner to become slightly more outward facing. But that—

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order. To allow all Members who have indicated that they wish to speak to do so, I intend to reduce the time limit on speeches to eight minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly my point. Much of our intelligence services are integrated in many respects anyway, so we must ensure a common standard approach. The Americans have said that they are looking at a root-and-branch reform and we need at least to start along that pathway in order to mirror what is happening in the US.

I will be brief as others need to speak, but the other proposal is that we publish details of the use of surveillance powers broken down by agency, rather than the single UK figure currently published, including the scale of international intelligence sharing.

All those proposals are simply practical. In addition, we should enhance whistleblower protection for those who want to come forward from within the services, because that protection clearly seems inadequate at the moment.

Who will lead the reform programme? Does it have to be Parliament? To be frank, and with respect to existing members of the Intelligence and Security Committee and its Chair, having on the ISC and as its Chair former Ministers who were previously responsible for the security services leads to concerns about conflicts of interest. It could be that members are providing oversight on decisions that they made when Ministers.

There needs to be a demonstration of openness and transparency. There needs to be a fundamental review. The ISC needs to be led by those who are above all potential charges of conflicts of interest, which means, I am afraid to say, not the current members of the ISC.

One proposal suggests a discussion in Parliament about what sort of agency should be taking the issue forward and I think it should be parliamentary. The initial discussion could come through a Speaker’s Conference, in which all parties are brought together to examine the options available. The chosen option needs to have independence, resources and expertise and must be as open and as transparent as possible, while also avoiding conflicts of interest.

[Mr George Howarth]

I speak as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Can my hon. Friend provide an example of such a conflict of interest?

[John McDonnell]

That is the problem. Who knows? I do not know what the Intelligence and Security Committee does half the time, because half the time it is not exposed to the public. We cannot determine whether a conflict of interest has occurred or whether—

[Mr George Howarth]

We publish reports.

[John McDonnell]

I am afraid that, as has been demonstrated previously, the ISC did not know half the things that were going on until it read The Guardian. Confidence in the way forward needs restoring and that should come through a frank discussion led by Parliament. That is why I suggest a Speaker’s Conference to bring the relevant parties together with the expertise to develop a way forward that can establish the structures, procedures and legal basis on which to rebuild the confidence in our oversight over intelligence and security in this country and some parliamentary and democratic control over it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Watson]

rose—

[Mr George Howarth]

rose—

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I am happy give way to the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson).