Investment Security Unit: Scrutiny

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I am in the unusual circumstance, as a member of the Opposition, of having to put the Government line to my right hon. Friend. I merely recognise, as he will know from our extensive conversations, that it has always been the case, in line with the Osmotherly rules for Select Committees, that we do not have a statutory power to summon information, as he does on the Intelligence and Security Committee, but that there is a presumption that information will be shared with us. He will know that, if that information is not exchanged in a timely and ready fashion for us to do our work, the Committee will escalate those issues via the Committee, the usual channels or on the Floor of the House. As to my right hon. Friend’s question on where the unit resides, it resides in the Cabinet Office. I assume it is within the National Security Secretariat. I think he is therefore suggesting that that means the ISC has oversight. I know full well that he and his colleagues will make use of their powers to try to request information from the Government in their work.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his statement and recognise that a huge amount of work has gone into it, including with the Government. I thank him for the engagement he has had with my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), the Chairman of the ISC, of which I, too, am a member. I know that my right hon. Friend would be here if he could be.

If I may, I will put to the hon. Gentleman what the problem with the arrangement might be. He has said already that arrangements are to be made for the viewing of material that would normally be at a higher classification than members of his Committee would be able to see, but those arrangements as set out in the memorandum are clearly described as “exceptional”. Is it not the case that the sub-committee of his Committee that he will set up to deal with this material is likely to deal with that sort of classified material on a routine basis? Is there not an advantage in having staff and members of a committee who are used to dealing with this type of material? Through no fault of their own, neither his Committee nor its staff will be used to that.

[Darren Jones]

There is an interesting question there, to which none of us knows the answer: how routine will it be for us to have to look at either commercially sensitive or national security-sensitive information about individual transactions? From our study visit to the United States, it seemed that most of the transactions were operationalised, and had not become political or been escalated to a committee level, because the issues were seen to be sensible, small or below de minimis thresholds.

There will be examples where there is more political interest in a particular transaction. In the past year, for example, where the 2021 Act has been operational, the vast majority of the notifications that my Committee has received have not warranted our having to look at the national security information. For some cases, such as Newport Wafer Fab, the industrial implications of that decision will warrant our looking at that information in more detail. Under this memorandum of understanding, we will request that information when we are permitted to do so—after the period of judicial review and appeal has closed—so that we may understand whether the Act is being used in the way it is supposed to be used, without deterring investment in the interests of workers and business in this country.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman refers to staff. As I said in my statement, the House has kindly provided the Committee with additional staff, who are national security specialists and have a range of security clearances. In the MOU, there are procedures and processes for the handling, holding, storage and use of information, both between my Committee and my Clerks, but also where necessary within Government facilities.