Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Fifth sitting)

James Sunderland Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 21st January 2021 Public Bill Committees

The memorandum of understanding is between the Committee and the Prime Minister, as section 2(5) explains. It also explains that the MOU can be altered at any time. Therefore, all that is required is the Government’s activity in relation to defence and intelligence matters to be added to the list in the memorandum of understanding. There is a mechanism there—it already exists—to allow the ISC to look at that.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Given that most MPs do not fully understand what the ISC does, does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the Government are probably best placed to make the decision on this particular matter?

[Mr Jones]

No, I do not. I know the hon. Gentleman is a new Member, and I actually quite like him, but what is he arguing for? A dictatorship? That the Executive should decide everything? Knowing you, Mr Hollobone, you would take a very dim view of that. You have form on holding the Executive to account—all Governments.

The ISC is there to look at information and provide parliamentary scrutiny. As for the nature of the information we receive, we have all the clearances from top secret going up to STRAP, including STRAP 3, which is intelligence that has a limited circulation and people have to be added to the list. We have access to that as well, which allows us to consider that information.

Our annual reports, which we supply to Parliament, can be debated by Parliament. We can produce reports. For example, most recently, there was the Russia report, which highlighted what the Government had not done rather than what it should have been doing. The contention from the Cabinet Office is that if information goes to the ISC, it is in the public domain. That is a little bit insulting. We do public reports, which have information that can be put into the public domain, but there are always secret annexes that go to the Prime Minister and are not made public, which allow us to question decisions and highlight issues that we think the Prime Minister should take notice of. It is a valuable mechanism for scrutiny.

The argument that will come from the Cabinet Office is that DCMS is not covered. It is. The memorandum of understanding says:

“The ISC is the only committee of Parliament that has regular access to protectively marked information that is sensitive for national security reasons: this means that only the ISC is in a position to scrutinise effectively the work of the Agencies and of those parts of”

the Government

“whose work is directly concerned with intelligence and security matters.”

I accept that DCMS’s day-to-day work is not covered in the description of national security, whether or not this is an issue of concern to individuals. I think it is. There could be an argument as to why the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport got this legislation and whether it should perhaps be put in another Department. I do not agree with that, because I think the general issue of telecoms fits well into the Department’s wider briefs.

Increasingly, a number of Departments are getting involved in, or taking responsibility for, areas that involve national security. BEIS and the National Security and Investment Bill is a good example.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Sunderland]

Given that the Bill mandates that vendors could be fined up to 10% of annual turnover or £100,000 a day for violating the terms of their obligations, does the hon. Lady agree that a full audit of all goods and services supplied could be quite draconian and onerous?