Intelligence and Security Committee Report on Russia

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has every right to ask questions and make comments in the media. That is his duty as a Member of Parliament, and his right as the Chairman of the ISC. However, it is the duty of the Prime Minister, with his officials, to consider the report properly. That is what he is doing, and until that job is done properly the report should not be published—and the turnaround for publication is not unusual.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Congratulations, Mr Speaker.

The Minister says that the process that he is going through at the moment is not unusual, and the secretariat of the ISC says that it is unprecedented. Both cannot be right. Will the Minister take account of the fact that the secretariat, the Cabinet Office, the whole civil service and the security agencies have all said that no problem of national security is involved? Surely he must conclude that if this is not a matter of national security, the reason why the report is not being published is political. Will he take my advice and publish, or be damned?

[Christopher Pincher]

The timelines for the submission of the report, relative to the timelines of submissions of previous reports, speak for themselves. The CT attacks report took about six weeks to turn around, with four weeks between its submission and a response from the Government, and the detainees report took about three weeks from the point of submission to the point of response. Such timelines are not unusual, and, although I am sure that they were made in absolute good faith, I do not recognise the comments of the ISC secretariat. The timelines speak for themselves.