Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Baker]

As I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend knows, I am often in close contact with the Whips, but not usually on that matter.

The third reason why the ISC needs to be reformed is that it has seemed unwilling to demonstrate that it challenges the information it receives from the intelligence and security agencies. The Joint Committee on Human Rights found the ISC’s 2007 report on rendition to be “opaque” and too readily accepting of the accounts presented by the agency heads, without sufficient justification.

The crucial reform that is necessary is direct election of the Chair by the House of Commons. The Wright Committee—the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons—thought extremely carefully about this issue. Paragraph 74 of its report states:

“The credibility of select committees could be enhanced by a greater and more visible element of democracy in the election of members and Chairs.”

It also states:

“Their election by a small group of Members, acting under party constraints, is evidently not conducive to producing a truly independent figure with the required weight inside and outside the House which House-wide election might confer.”

That is precisely my point.

Those of us who were elected in 2010 have experienced first hand only the operation of Select Committees under Chairs directly elected by the House, so I personally struggle to draw a comparison. However, in responding to the Liaison Committee’s second report of Session 2012-13 on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers, the Government acknowledged:

“Chairs of select committees are now elected by the whole House, giving them increased authority and independence.”

Who am I to disagree with the Government on this point?

That is precisely the reason for these amendments. It may suit the Government to be scrutinised by carefully selected nominees who elect a Chair from among themselves, as the Bill proposes, but the risks to the credibility of the Committee are obvious.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is seeking to make the perfectly logical and rational argument that the Chair and membership of the ISC are analogous with the Chair and membership of other Committees. Does he not accept, however, that as the ISC deals with intelligence matters and our secret intelligence services, other factors must be taken into account, because the trust relationship—not collusion or a cosy relationship, but a trust relationship—between the agencies and the members of the Committee is crucial to effective scrutiny? If the agencies do not have that confidence and trust, they will be less forthcoming.

[Steve Baker]

The right hon. Lady’s question pre-empts some of my other remarks, but let me just draw her attention to what amendment 9 states:

“The Chair is to be a member of the House of Commons elected in the same way as the Chairs”

of other Committees, and:

“A person is not eligible to be elected as Chair of the ISC unless that person—

(a) has received the formal consent in writing of the Prime Minister to that person’s candidature, and

(b) is not a Minister of the Crown.”

So the Prime Minister, and the security establishment, would have the opportunity through that procedure to approve or reject a person who wished to stand for election as Chair of the Committee. That is not a perfect situation, but it is one that recognises the point the right hon. Lady makes.

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[Diana Johnson]

That information is very helpful.

I have explained why the Opposition will not support amendment 8. Government amendment 58 relates to the money, staff, accommodation and other resources that will be made available to Parliament for the new Committee. I wonder whether the Minister can help me, because I am slightly confused about the intention of the Government with respect to the support that will be provided to the ISC. In his response, will he set out how he expects the secretariat to the ISC to be provided? In Committee, we discussed a proposal suggested by the membership of the ISC for a non-departmental public body to be established to provide secretarial support. That does not appear to be what the Government are doing. Will he therefore explain what will happen?

[Hazel Blears]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is consensus across the House that the Bill will strengthen the scrutiny of our secret intelligence services and that that is welcomed by everyone? In Committee, the Opposition were forceful in saying that if we are to have increased scrutiny, we need the necessary resources to do the job. The Opposition talked about a figure of £2 million. The Government’s impact assessment has a figure of £1.3 million. There is no agreement on resourcing, and without resourcing, it will be impossible to do the job that the Government want us to do.

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[Minister without Portfolio (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

Before dealing with Government amendment 58, which provides the Government with the necessary powers to make a financial contribution to the Committee, I will add a few words to the interesting and lively debate that we have had on the election of the Chair. I will not repeat every argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) put the case robustly and had some pretty strong support. However, every member of the ISC who is here has responded and he has had to take on some of the more formidable Members on both sides of the House. He is also facing the opposition of all three of the major parties.

I assure him that this is not an establishment stitch-up—quite the reverse. Perhaps the best way of illustrating that is by putting everything in the context of what we are trying to do in this part of the Bill. We are making a remarkable advance in strengthening the powers of this Committee to hold our security and intelligence services to account. For 20 years the Committee has steadily contributed on that front, and we are marching forward considerably in the Bill. This part of it is just as important as the part we debated on Monday, as we are stepping towards making our security services more accountable to Parliament. We are enabling judges, in exceptional cases, to take all the evidence into account and make an adjudication when allegations are made by individuals; and we are committing to holding judicial inquiries when worrying circumstances occur—subject, of course, to those inquiries being able to get under way once police investigations have been properly completed.

These amendments are important, and they are being proposed in the context of a situation where all parties agree that they want this Committee to be a parliamentary Committee and no longer a creature of the Government. We therefore wish to give it more resources and the structure that enables it to do an even better job. The only thing that distinguishes the Committee from a Joint Committee or Select Committee of this House is this problem of the extremely sensitive nature of some of the information that it sees. Only where it is unavoidable are we departing from the normal process of allowing the House of Commons to have a powerful Committee of its own choosing and to exhort it to do its job and report back properly on what is and is not happening in this area.

[Hazel Blears]

I think we are all agreed that strengthening the scrutiny of the Secret Intelligence Service is an important and welcome step forward. However, I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would agree that simply saying that we want to increase scrutiny is not enough. Instead of having the right to request information we are moving to a situation where we would be able to require it. We need additional investigators and that will require a substantial increase in the resources available to the Committee. Simply saying that we want increased scrutiny is not enough. I know he understands that, so will he tell us now that we will be getting an increase in resources to enable us to do the job he wants us to do?

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[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend, in his customary way, has highlighted the genuine challenges that both the Government and ISC members have had in seeking to frame legislation, which can be a challenging mechanism within which to express matters effectively. He rightly points out the evidence given by the families of the victims of 7/7 and those who were sadly caught up in that terrible event. There have also been discussions of the evidence taken from communication service providers during the ISC’s recent inquiry into communications data, including whether the information provided was sensitive. It is a challenge at times to analyse evidence from third parties to decide whether evidence is sensitive and thus not suitable for disclosure. Sometimes that is clear, but sometimes it is not.

[Hazel Blears]

I am following the Minister’s argument closely, and I acknowledge that it is difficult to get the right legislative framework for this area. I wish to reinforce the point made by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) that part of the change we are seeking to achieve is to make the Committee more independent. The consequence of the provision that all information in private will be covered means that the decisions can be made by the Government rather than the Committee. We must have a clear delineation of information that belongs to the Committee, which can then decide what to do with that information. No matter how hard this is, I hope that the Minister will be creative and ingenious enough to provide clarity. Such information is not the Government’s information: it is for the Committee to decide.

[James Brokenshire]

I hear the point that the right hon. Lady makes. The intent of the changes in the Bill is to underline the greater scrutiny and the import of the ISC as a Committee of Parliament in fulfilling its work, and therefore ensuring that it has an appropriate mechanism for the publication of information relating to its deliberations. As we have already discussed, sometimes there are challenges on evidence given, perhaps in private, and we had some useful debates in Committee on public hearings. We hope that we will be able to work with the newly formed ISC to have public evidence hearings for some evidence that has previously always been held in private. I acknowledge that most evidence would probably still continue to be heard in private because of the very nature of the materials provided, but we want to look at ways to make hearings more public to show the important scrutiny that is provided by the ISC, and thus to enhance visibility, transparency and confidence in the scrutiny role.

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[Hazel Blears]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his explicit recognition of the fact that the Committee has had access to operational information for some considerable time, despite the fact that no such provision is in the current legislation. The Committee remains concerned about the use of the word “voluntarily”, and I had hoped that the Government would withdraw it from the Bill. It goes against the whole spirit of the direction in which we are moving, from the right to request information to the right to require it. That is a small change on the face of it, but it is actually a big, transformational step. I do not think that the word “voluntarily” is necessary in the Bill; it is superfluous and its retention goes against the direction of travel, in that the agencies will voluntarily be able to decide whether to provide information. That is not the relationship that we currently have with the agencies, let alone the one that we want for the future. I ask the Minister to think again. Why does he want the word “voluntarily” in there when we acknowledge that for the issues in question, this is a matter of requesting information just as we do now?

[James Brokenshire]

As the right hon. Lady says, the Committee already receives information on ongoing operational matters, and that would fall short of the requirements in the first two limbs that I have described. She will have seen the Government’s amendment that seeks to reflect the existing work that takes place and the information that is provided. As always with legislation, this is a question of the wording and the way in which matters are interpreted by lawyers, as well as by Members of Parliament. The provision is in no way intended to cut across the Committee’s existing work or the existing flow of information when a request for further clarification has been made. It is intended to provide a distinction between the first two limbs, which will contain an element of further requirement, and the third limb, in which information will be provided because it has been requested rather than required, and in which further investigations will be limited to using the information that has been so provided.

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[Paul Murphy]

rose—

[Hazel Blears]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Lady, but then, because of time considerations, I should let other right hon. and hon. Members contribute.

[James Brokenshire]

I take note of that point, but let me take the right hon. Lady’s intervention before I respond. She is likely to make a similar point, so I might as well take the two together.

[Hazel Blears]

The Minister is likely to face a unanimous view on this issue—certainly from members of the Committee. The use of the word “voluntarily” creates entirely the wrong impression of the direction of the Bill. It is superfluous; the Government do not need “voluntarily”. In the past, the ISC has sometimes received partial information from the security services that has affected the Committee’s decision-making. Voluntarily means “you can if you like; and if you don’t want to, you don’t have to”. Use of that word in the Bill is superfluous to requirements and sends out entirely the wrong message.

[James Brokenshire]

In their contributions this afternoon, members of the ISC have clearly underlined the robust scrutiny that is provided. These provisions relate only to operational matters—the new element added to the overall purview of the ISC that will result from the Bill. I have already highlighted the importance of clause 2(3)(a) and (b) for the two limbs, which covers the ability to require the provision of further information. If other more general inquiries take place, the provisions for the third limb are intended to denote the fact that the request to the agencies would not fall under the first two elements of the three limbs. It is a separate category.