Foreign National Offenders (Removal)

Julian Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I will make two points in response to my hon. Friend. First, in relation to dealing with those from the EU who have committed criminal offences, being able to exchange information and know who they are is one of the first steps. That is why the Government have said that we want to rejoin the European criminal records information system and connect to SIS II so that we have that information at the border and can act on it. Secondly, he is absolutely right that the whole issue of free movement, as the Prime Minister said earlier, is one that we feel we need to address. It is something we have been dealing with over the past four and a half years in Europe. We have made some progress in relation to criminal activity, such as sham marriages and so forth, but abuse of free movement is something we need to deal with.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

The Home Secretary is being incredibly generous to the Opposition. May I ask her to take herself back to her first days in office and clarify for the House just what a mess she inherited and had to work to sort out?

Child Sex Abuse (Rotherham)

Julian Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady raises an important aspect. I would point out that in one of the very early cases in which perpetrators were brought to justice, that success was the result of a very good piece of work done on that occasion by Derbyshire police—I think in Operation Retriever. The overarching inquiry was set up with a prime purpose of looking at the historic incidents and allegations and the lessons that needed to be learned from those, and whether more needed to be done now to ensure that horrific crimes of that type were not being perpetrated today. I will be talking to Professor Jay about how the Rotherham report work can feed into that inquiry, but I think that is where the focus must be—to ensure that state and non-state institutions are behaving in a way that ensures that these things cannot happen in the first place, and when they do, are taken seriously and dealt with properly.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

It beggars belief to many across Yorkshire that Rotherham council today retains responsibility for children’s services. I urge my right hon. Friend, at ministerial meetings, to look carefully at stripping the council of children’s services, as we have done in Doncaster, Slough and, previously, Hackney. I also urge her to look at the role of legal officers within the CPS, who in this report, like the police, did nothing near what they could have done to help victims.

[Mrs May]

As I said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is minded to commission an independent inspection of Rotherham council, with a particular focus on its corporate governance and service arrangements, and obviously, as was indicated earlier, Ofsted will be going into Rotherham again to look at the areas for which it has responsibility. Following those inspections, decisions will need to be taken about the future responsibility for these issues.

The UK’s Justice and Home Affairs Opt-outs

Julian Smith Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I happen to think—it is a matter of debate and it will develop during the afternoon—that this is a far better way of dealing with the problem than we have now.

Today’s debate is one in a series. We have waited and waited; we have had debates and debates; the bus arrives, with not one, but two or three coming at once; yet the Home Secretary has not yet brought the final measures before the House. To be honest, I think that the right hon. Lady would rather be at the dentist having her teeth pulled than be here having the discussion she is having with her right hon. and hon. Friends. She has been brought to this debate by the three Select Committees, which are eventually getting the Home Secretary’s capitulation to common sense and Europe-wide justice and co-operation. It has, I think, hit the right hon. Lady, after looking at the matter in detail, that it is rather useful for our police to have access to criminal records or driving offences for when European lorry drivers tear up the M1 or the M6.

The truth is that the Home Secretary’s opt-out strategy ultimately becomes an opt-in strategy. The measure of the complexity of the negotiations is indicated by the fact that she is now acting in the interests of Britain rather than in the interests of Conservative Back Benchers and the Eurosceptic Members here today. She has promised to garner favour with the Tory right, but she is ultimately opting into measures that we support because she now understands that the police want European co-operation and that criminals are not Eurosceptics. She understands that our ability to bring them to book and to get justice for their victims should not be compromised.

The issue of the transfer of powers is interesting. The right hon. Lady has said what she is opting into, but she has not said what she is opting out of. These are not really significant matters. She has looked at opting out of issues such as signing joint proceedings on driving licences that are not in force and are out of date. We are not signing up to a directive on international organised crime that was closed down two years ago. We are not signing up to guidelines on working with other countries on drug trafficking, but we will carry on doing that anyway. We are not going to sign up to measures on cybercrime or mutual legal assistance because they have been superseded by other measures to which we signed up instead. We are not signing up to minimum standards on bribery because we are meeting them under our own Bribery Act 2010. We are not signing up to measures to tackle racism because we meet them under hate crime legislation that is in place. We are not signing up to measures on accession because they never applied to us in the first place, and we are not signing up to receive a directory of specialist counter-terrorism officers because someone will probably send it to us in the post instead.

The measures that the Home Secretary is signing up to are sensible ones, whereas the ones she is not signing up to are either from the past, superseded, not relevant or not appropriate for us. The right hon. Lady has posed as the great Eurosceptic champion of the Conservative Government when what she has done is to sign up to things that I would sign up to, which many of her hon. Friends would not sign up to. The things that she has not signed up to are things that are, as I say, not relevant, not appropriate and not needed now.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that the Home Secretary and the Home Office have spent hours, days and months working to ensure that the many concerns people had about the European arrest warrant have now been addressed in UK law?

[Mr Hanson]

They have indeed spent many hours, days and months, and I have spent many hours, days and months in Committee dealing with those matters, too. We did not oppose what the Home Secretary brought forward; we supported it. There was no difference between us and the Home Secretary on those matters. It could have made a difference—and, dare I say it, it could make a difference now—if the Home Secretary had brought forward several months ago the measures she has just brought forward now. She could have had an in-principle discussion—

Communications Data and Interception

Julian Smith Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

No. Proper government is about looking at these judgments properly and giving them full consideration to ensure that we give the right and appropriate response. This coalition Government have been very clear, from day one, that we are looking at the balance between security and civil liberties. That is why when we came into office we took decisions to make certain changes such as changing the pre-charge detention period from 28 days to 14 days. We are doing what is right and appropriate to ensure that people’s privacy and liberties are protected while, at the same time, our agencies have the capabilities they need to keep people safe.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and for the Government’s laser-like focus on keeping British families safe while ensuring that the legal framework is robust. Does she agree that our intelligence services have been subject to much unfair criticism of late—unfair because they operate within the law, because they are unable to speak fully for themselves, and because they are among the best intelligence services in the world?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are very fortunate in the quality of people we have in our security and intelligence agencies. They do a job that they have to do day by day, relentlessly, in the pursuit of terrorists and those who would seek to do this country harm in a variety of ways, and they do that job very well. This House should never shrink from commending them for the work that they do and thanking them, on behalf of the public, for that work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Smith Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I hear the point the hon. Gentleman has made, but he may also know that an outstanding case at the Court of Appeal is precisely examining these issues. The Government are awaiting the judgment on that case and, obviously, we will reflect further in the light of it.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

T8. At the weekend, millions of people turned up to watch the Tour de France across Yorkshire, and millions are on today’s route. Will the Home Secretary join me in paying tribute to Yorkshire police forces and the Metropolitan police? Does she agree that the presence of the French gendarmerie, with their experience of manning cycle routes, is another emblematic symbol of the importance of European police co-operation?

[Damian Green]

I am very happy to agree with my hon. Friend, not least because I was in Yorkshire before the Tour started last week to see the police preparations for the operation, which were extremely thorough, as we would expect. The fact that everyone in Yorkshire—I hope it is the same for everyone in Essex and London today—was able to enjoy a peaceful event, with the world watching us, is a tribute to the calm and well-ordered way the British police go about their business.

UN Syrian Refugees Programme

Julian Smith Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

When the hon. Gentleman talks about making a difference to the lives of hundreds of children, he should understand—I have set it out many times—that we are helping not hundreds of children but hundreds of thousands of children in Syria and the neighbouring countries, and that is the best way of helping. We are helping enormous numbers of people in incredibly important ways, such as by providing food, water, medical attention and shelter. We are also supporting the neighbouring countries that are doing so much to help. That is the right thing to do and something of which we can be proud.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

The Minister talked earlier about how poor some countries have been at pledging in this crisis. Does he think that Britain can be proud of its Ministers and the work that they have done to get other countries to pledge, culminating last week in the Kuwait conference where $2.4 billion was pledged, $1 billion more than last year?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have been leading on that approach. We have carried weight because of our own very significant donations. He rightly draws attention to the pledging conference. As I have said, up until last week, we had pledged £500 million, most of which has already been distributed, and is providing help to the region. Last week, the Secretary of State was able to increase that by a further £100 million, demonstrating that we put our money where our mouth is.

Intelligence and Security Services

Julian Smith Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. I thank the hon. Members for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) for supporting me in securing this debate. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time for it so quickly after we submitted our bid. I hope that that shows how timely the debate is; the Committee realised that we needed to hold it at the earliest possible juncture. Although the discussion is live in America and much of Europe, Members of Parliament have been fairly mute so far and have not had the chance to discuss it thoroughly.

As technology changes and the capacity of the state and companies to collect and analyse data grows massively, we are in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society on a scale that peacetime Britain has never seen. It is not planned, and nor is it the actions of malevolent individuals; it is merely the natural trend of what will happen if nothing is done to stop it.

It can be argued that the definitions of war and peace are no longer the same, and that our enemies are faceless and splintered and will attack our way of life if we give them an inch—that argument is often made by Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries—but if we shape our laws solely in response to that fear, chipping away at our own liberty and privacy, those enemies have already won.

The key questions of security, privacy and liberty in a digital age will come to define the 21st century. The world is changing. All of us carry around tracking devices, in the shape of our mobile phones, wherever we go. We carry devices that can be activated and controlled remotely and that store much of our most personal information. Who can read it? Who has access to that information? How do we want to protect it? We have to agree the rules now, before we lose control completely.

Sir David Omand, former head of GCHQ, said:

“Democratic legitimacy demands that, where new methods of intelligence gathering and use are to be introduced, they should be on a firm legal basis and rest on parliamentary and public understanding of what is involved”.

In no sense do I oppose the people who work in our intelligence and security services; the work that they do is fundamental to our fight against crime and terrorism, not only in the UK but beyond our borders. Their work force make up the front line, and for the most part, they do exactly what we would expect of them, for we have given them the tools through legislation to monitor and take action against those who threaten the fabric of our society. As the Prime Minister said, they deserve to be recognised for keeping us safe while working in the shadows.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the very people about whom he is talking have been put under grave threat by some of the reporting, particularly by The Guardian newspaper, of the leaks?

[Dr Huppert]

No, I do not. I understand that the secretary who looks at the defence advisory notices has confirmed that nothing has been published in The Guardian that suggests a risk to life. The Guardian has not published photos on its website of anybody who works in the area without pixellating their faces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

It is very important during this debate to reassure the public that in Britain we have one of the best oversight regimes in the world. That has evolved not only under this Government but under Labour. There has been a great deal of consensus about how such improvements should be made.

Let us also reassure people that our intelligence services have been accused of no crime. There has been no comment in any articles in recent weeks that GCHQ or our intelligence service have behaved illegally. That is not to say that improvements do not need to be made, particularly in terms of metadata and how they are analysed. We should also consider the types of people who are commissioners. Why do we not look outwith the judiciary and start looking at, say, a retired bishop or somebody from another walk of life? However, in terms of the subject today—the oversight and framework of our intelligence services—I am afraid that the responses to the debate have been way off the mark.

I want to focus my attention on an important challenge to our security services, and that is our excellent British press. Almost every newspaper has played an important role in challenging the intelligence services over recent months with their reporting on the Snowden leaks. That is an important role, but the point that I want to make today is that one newspaper, in seeking to raise important issues, and absolutely having the right to do so, has overstepped the mark to such a degree that the very thing that our intelligence services are trying to protect—our national security—is threatened. Before I continue with my remarks, I should say that I enjoy The Guardian. I respect many journalists on the paper, and this is not an attack on the right of The Guardian to report on Snowden.

I want to raise two or three issues today. On 4 October, The Guardian reported on the Tor network—the black internet—where child pornography, drug trafficking and arms trading take place. Please look at the detail of that report. If people look at the trial, in June, of one of the most active child pornographers in Ireland, they will see that the NSA and the activities of the intelligence services were key to apprehending and hopefully—it is likely—putting him away. However, on 4 October, The Guardian went into a level of detail that the previous head of GCHQ decried as being wrong, and which many people in the police world feel will cause major issues in terms of picking up people engaged in organised crime.

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend expand on the question whether there is a distinction between organised crime and terrorism, in terms of the kind of measures that it is reasonable for a security organisation to take, and the kind of surveillance that it can operate?

[Julian Smith]

I am going to push on, but it is important to say that the intelligence services are doing critical work in both categories, and we need to support that work.

On the issue of the documents that The Guardian holds, when hon. Members talk about prosecutions not happening and things not really being that bad, I ask them to look at the online discussions that Guardian editors have had. They have admitted to sending internationally the most detailed documents and underlying data about GCHQ specifically. I do not want to talk too much about David Miranda today, but his data were on a games console. Those data, in data dumps throughout the world, are still out there, and hackers claim that they have access to it. The Independent, which also had access to those documents, started reporting on them but then stopped because it realised that to do so was problematic. The issue with The Guardian is current; the data are out there and are a danger to our national security.

The third element that I want to discuss today is the fact that The Guardian is not talking to the Government. If it really was confident in its position, and I believe that there is quite a lot of tension at The Guardian on the approach it has taken, it would have a discussion with the Government, who have been very clear. Look at the witness statements for the Miranda trial. They have been so careful about ensuring that they do not interfere with The Guardian as a newspaper and with its right to report. However, The Guardian should come forward now and tell the Government what intelligence data it has overseas and where those intelligence data are. Is there identifying information about our agents in the data? What protections are there in The Guardian offices to look after that material?

[Dr Huppert]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I could pick up on a lot of his points. He says that The Guardian should be talking to the Government about this. Is he aware that it has been talking to the DA notice secretary? They have been in touch for many months, talking about these things. Does he think that part of the onus should be on the Government to provide advice if they are concerned about such things? The Guardian, as I understand it, is quite happy to talk about how to make sure the data are secure, and frankly, the NSA should never have lost them in the first place.

[Julian Smith]

If my hon. Friend looked at witness statement 1 by Oliver Robbins, he would see the approach to the Miranda trial. He would see the approach that The Guardian has taken, which, essentially, in the first two reports in June, was not to get clearance from the Government. Following a reasonable discussion with the Government, that was just ignored and documents were sent overseas.

I urge Mr Rusbridger today to begin an open dialogue with the Government to tell them where the dumps of data are, and to come clean on whether they contain information that could lead to the identification of our security agents. I also urge Mr Rusbridger, his board and his editorial team to talk to the Government before publishing any further reports on our security services, intelligence gathering and our activity, because The Guardian, which had every right to report on the issue and has raised important topics of debate in a digital, global, interesting way, with good journalism, has threatened the security of our country, and stands guilty today, potentially, of treasonous behaviour.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Smith Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We have had a number of discussions with both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland on this matter. The National Crime Agency will be working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland on matters relating to serious and organised crime and all matters under the National Crime Agency’s responsibilities, and we continue to talk both to my right hon. Friend and to the Minister of Justice and look for a further way forward on this issue.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Following the disturbing reports in The Sun this morning about the impact of the Snowden files on our intelligence services, may I urge the Home Secretary to continue to balance national security with press freedom as she deals with this issue?

National Security (The Guardian)

Julian Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

In the wake of the stolen Snowden files on America’s National Security Agency, it is right and proper that Parliament—both the House in general, and Select Committees in particular—debate the balance between national security and freedom of the press, and limits to and oversight of the power of our intelligence services.

This debate, however, focuses on a narrower and darker issue: the responsibility of the editors of The Guardian for stepping beyond any reasonable definition of journalism into copying, trafficking and distributing files on British intelligence and GCHQ. That information not only endangers our national security but may identify personnel working in our intelligence services, risking their lives and those of their families.

In August 2013, the Brazilian citizen David Miranda was stopped at Heathrow airport under schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000. Initially, The Guardian claimed that he was targeted merely because he is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter writing about the leaks. Mr Miranda had been held for hours, The Guardian said, and denied a lawyer, but within hours that story had unravelled. When challenged, the paper first added to its story that it had paid for Mr Miranda’s flights, but did not note in its story that that correction had been made. Later that night, after all the print deadlines had passed, The Guardian admitted that Mr Miranda had been offered a lawyer and had refused one, and that The Guardian had known that all along yet had allowed its false account to stand.

Following the Heathrow stop, a judge ruled that police were entitled to copy and analyse the documents and files carried by Mr Miranda that were in the national security interest. There is to be a court case later this month on the detention and whether the Act was used appropriately. That issue, of course, will be for the court to determine.

Oliver Robbins, deputy National Security Adviser in the Cabinet Office and security adviser to the Prime Minister, has described in a witness statement to the court case on Miranda the direct threat to the life of Government employees posed by the documents held and communicated by The Guardian, together with the grave threat to UK national security should they be released. In his statement, he lays out the careful, proportionate steps that Her Majesty’s Government have taken to engage with the newspaper and to agree protocols for future reporting, be it direct communication or the defence advisory notice system.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

If my hon. Friend really is concerned about risks to British security, is he not concerned that UK Government secrets are accessible to hundreds of thousands of US Government employees? Perhaps that is why Mr Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old contract employee of three months’ standing, was able to access GCHQ files from Hawaii.

[Julian Smith]

I agree that the NSA placed itself in a very odd situation.

The next step was to secure the documents and data, as there was a real fear that terrorists would seek to access that information by targeting The Guardian, and the Government had no confidence in the paper being able to protect the information it held. Unfortunately, the Government were not the only people making that assessment. The WikiLeaks hacker Jacob Appelbaum, who has worked with Glenn Greenwald, has tweeted repeatedly about the non-existent security under which Guardian editors held those files. Last week, he pointed out that laser microphones are routinely used as listening devices through windows and that The Guardian’s so-called secure room has floor-to-ceiling windows ideal for such remote listening by any interested foreign power or terror cell.

On 3 October, Mr Appelbaum tweeted:

“I’ve seen the horrible operational security at the Guardian over the last three years—it makes the New York Times look solid.”

And he scoffed:

“They shipped Top Secret documents by FedEX.”

Hackers have heavily implied on social media that they can access The Guardian’s US files.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

I understand my hon. Friend’s points. He is thoughtful on such issues, so I carefully heed what he says. One issue I have never understood is that, for all the scaremongering about national security, if either Mr Miranda or The Guardian has impaired national security in any tangible way, why has nobody been charged?

[Julian Smith]

If my hon. Friend looks at the witness documents for the court case, he will see that charge may be likely, but I do not think it is appropriate to comment on that in this place.

The Guardian agreed to the Government’s request to destroy the data it held in its London office, but soon after it not only revealed the confidential discussions that took place with Her Majesty’s Government but advertised to the world that it had sent copies of the files, including information on GCHQ, to The New York Times in an article titled “Guardian partners with New York Times over Snowden GCHQ files.” In its various discussions with the Government during August, The Guardian did not reveal that it had made copies of the files and sent them overseas.

Today’s debate is not an argument to muzzle the press. As Oliver Robbins is at pains to point out in his witness statement, there has been significant sensitivity to the fact that The Guardian is a newspaper. Like the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), I am deeply uncomfortable that a left-of-centre axis is driving us toward press regulation. Newspapers should be free to report, and they should be punished under existing laws if they commit crimes.

The Guardian was right, having received the NSA files, to report on them in some way. If journalism—receiving and reporting on leaks—were all that The Guardian had done, Parliament and MI5 would not now be involved. Indeed, when the full tale of the damage done to British security is revealed, our Government might be criticised not for how much it interfered with a newspaper but for how much it trusted one.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, circuitously, he is attacking not The Guardian’s journalism but the paper itself? By mentioning press regulation in the same breath, he is potentially in danger of being misinterpreted as joining the war of the Daily Mail and others against The Guardian, all because of its pursuit of phone hacking.

[Julian Smith]

I hope that by the end of my speech I will not be misinterpreted at all.

This debate is also not an argument against whistleblowing. Mr Snowden revealed NSA spying that may have been outwith the reach of Congress. It might be argued that that was whistleblowing, but as we know, he did not selectively take files on the matter; rather, he stole tens of thousands of files on legitimate and necessary spying, including by allies such as Britain.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Julian Smith]

I will not for the moment.

The Guardian has done no whistleblowing on GCHQ, and it has exposed no illegality. Story after story in the paper has been forced to concede that The Guardian has found no evidence whatever that our intelligence forces have broken the law.

Nor is this debate an attack on the politics of The Guardian. I enjoy the paper. I am a regular reader of certain sections, and I would be making exactly the same argument today if the paper in question was The Daily Telegraph or The Times.

[Mr Winnick]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Julian Smith]

Finally, this debate is not an attack on the campaign to reconsider the extent of intelligence gathering and the concerns raised by the NSA, WikiLeaks and other intelligence revelations. The role of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee has only recently been strengthened.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I leave the Chamber in no doubt whatever that if I had done what The Guardian has done in relation to the classified material that we see, I have no hesitation in saying that I would expect to be charged. My hon. Friend mentioned the D notice system. Does he know whether The Guardian used or was approached under the terms of the D notices?

[Julian Smith]

I will address that point shortly.

I believe we have some of the best oversight in the world of our intelligence services—judicial, ministerial and parliamentary—but we are right to keep testing, keep questioning and keep challenging.

My intention today is to highlight where The Guardian has crossed the line between responsible journalism and seriously risking our national security and the lives of those who seek to protect us. If action is not taken, there will be direct results for our national security, now and in the future.

I pay tribute to our ex-colleague, Louise Mensch, who through her blog, social media and columns has ensured that this major national security issue has been kept alive throughout.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Smith]

I will not, sorry. No one has applied to make an intervention, which is usual in this sort of debate.

[Martin Caton (in the Chair)]

Order. If someone wished to make a speech in a half-hour debate, they would have to seek your permission and that of the Minister, but whether you allow an intervention is completely up to you.

[Julian Smith]

I am not taking any more interventions.

We are in unique times since 9/11, and the intelligence game has changed. Thousands of people—

[Mr Winnick]

On a point of order, Mr Caton. An orchestrated campaign is being launched against The Guardian, to undermine that newspaper and to give the totally false impression that it is giving ammunition to terrorists. I also ask that the hon. Gentleman gives way in the usual manner—

[Martin Caton (in the Chair)]

Order. As the hon. Gentleman knows, that was not a point of order—but a point was made.

[Julian Smith]

Thousands of people working for British intelligence, GCHQ and other Government bodies have worked tirelessly over the years to repress attacks, in particular after 7/7 in London. With technology changing apace, they have kept track of and repelled many potential terrorist attacks. Think of where we were after 9/11 and where we are now: still vulnerable, but with much stronger awareness of the threats and much damage done to those who seek to hurt us. I want to pay tribute to all in our intelligence community, who work so hard and who have done so under pressure and bearing a great burden of responsibility. The fact that those women and men are unable to speak out is one of the reasons that I have initiated this debate.

It seems highly likely that The Guardian has risked our nation’s security several times over: first, in the detail that it has gone into in many of its reports, revealing the minutiae of programmes, showing PowerPoint images and laying out to those who seek to harm us in great detail the techniques that we use to counter them. Reports in The Guardian earlier this summer went way beyond responsible journalism, giving away key details of UK intelligence strategy and operations. Take a look at the detail in those reports in June—parading as public interest, it was in fact commercial interest.

Moreover, The Guardian often seemed to publish not only for commercial gain, but out of fear. Jacob Appelbaum, angered that The Guardian’s story on the Tor network was being held up, threatened to publish compromising e-mails between him and Guardian reporter James Ball. Days later, The Guardian published details of the GCHQ attempt to decrypt parts of the Tor network, which is used to trade child abuse images, hardcore drugs and arms—

“an intelligence technique which should have remained secret”,

according to David Omand, ex-head of GCHQ.

In an online question-and-answer section, The Guardian claimed that it checked with US authorities before each of its reports was published. That did not happen in the UK before the Government’s intervention.

Secondly, and more chillingly, The Guardian has taken detailed security files and information and sent them all over the world. US editor Janine Gibson boasted that by far “the hardest challenge” has been the “Secure…movement of materials” and that

“we’ve had to do a great deal of flying people around the world”.

Where now is the earlier pretence to other British papers that David Miranda was merely a journalist’s husband?

In spite of the actions taken by Her Majesty’s Government in August to destroy the files held in The Guardian’s London office, those files are out there, highly vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. Not only that, those detailed files on GCHQ operations are now being handed to an infinite number of extra eyes via American journalists and even bloggers. Each person multiplies the risk to this country. It is unclear whether the information contained names, but it seems a strong possibility. From the reports on GCHQ, we know that The Guardian had detailed information about staff there, including the clubs and organisations that they were part of, and even reported on the sexuality of GCHQ gay and lesbian staff and on internal network chats.

Over the summer, The Independent also saw the Snowden files and wrote a highly damaging report on a middle eastern UK base. Similar to The Guardian, The Independent did not adequately balance journalism and the national interest. Unlike their Guardian colleagues, however, the Independent journalists soon stopped, stating:

“In August, we too were given information from the Snowden files. It pertained to the operation of the security services, was highly detailed, and had the capacity to compromise Britain’s security.”

Glenn Greenwald explained on Twitter on 10 September: “As for” The New York Times,

“I had no role at all in that—those were 1 set of docs only about UK that G”—

The Guardian—

“had. They made that choice without me.”

I must underline that point. The Guardian focused on sending abroad revelations not about the American National Security Agency, or whistleblowing; it chose to distribute information on our own intelligence agents at GCHQ, on programmes and people that it had admitted over and over again were legal—programmes that protect Guardian employees and their families.

To the Daily Mail last week, The Guardian denied only that it had revealed the names of spies, not of any GCHQ personnel. To communicate—not only to publish—any identifying information about GCHQ personnel is a terrorist offence under the Terrorism Act 2000. Mr Rusbridger has boasted that he is above the law, and said of co-operation with the Government:

“But once there was an explicit threat to go to law something changed”,

adding that he would not allow reporting to be limited “by judges”.

Finally, as if all that was not enough, The Guardian continues to threaten national security months after the Government intervened. It boasted online about how it has taken protections to avoid penetration by intelligence services and, as far as I know, has been far from helpful in assisting the intelligence services in their quest to work out what the damage potential is. That is not press freedom; that is The Guardian’s devastating impact on national security. The Guardian wrote its initial stories without any consultation with Government; The Guardian trafficked files on GCHQ around the world; and The Guardian has dragged its feet as the Government, police and intelligence services seek to limit the damage.

The 2000 Act is clear about the illegality of communicating information about our intelligence staff and, specifically, GCHQ. The Official Secrets Act is equally clear about the illegality of communicating classified information that the recipient knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, to be to the detriment of national security. Last week, I wrote to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to ask him to investigate whether The Guardian has breached those two Acts. I urge the Minister to do everything possible to ensure that the police expedite their investigation. In particular, I ask him to ensure that The Guardian has been asked for a decrypted copy of all files to which it has access, so that we may protect our agents and operations.

For the sake of Britain’s national security and for those who protect it, we must pursue the issue that we have discussed today. If we do not, we risk grave consequences, major risks for those who seek to protect us and the setting of a terrible precedent—that hiding behind the cloak of journalism gives carte blanche to risk the state’s most important secrets, free of consequence and outside the law. In an age of the internet, blogging and self-publishing, that is a serious precedent to set.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Smith Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My right hon. Friend clearly has many things to say on high-speed rail, but I will leave that for another Minister. I can tell her that 100,000 more homes and businesses every week are getting access to superfast broadband. We are leading the way in Europe on investment in broadband, and we are in the top three of EU members states on coverage, take-up, usage and choice.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

The Government backed north Yorkshire early on and we are about to deliver on having 90% homes with superfast broadband by early next year. We need a little bit more money to get to 95%. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how much we need?

[Maria Miller]

I am always happy for hon. Friends to meet the Minister responsible, and I am sure he will make that a priority. [Laughter.] In all seriousness, my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) is right: we want even more coverage in the country. I would perhaps ask him to look in detail at how the rollout of 4G will help his community, which, after all, will leave the country with 98% coverage in its access to superfast facilities.