Intelligence and Security Committee

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am conscious that for some time the only Member of this House on the Intelligence and Security Committee was indeed the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and then it expanded to two. There is no reference in the Justice and Security Act to the division of the current nine members between the two Houses. Noble Lords will be aware that yesterday Yvette Cooper made a speech on further reforms and that this morning the Deputy Prime Minister made a speech in which he suggested that we should move from the current nine members to a future membership of 11, as with other Select Committees. However, he made no specific reference to the division between the two Houses.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

Would not greater accountability to the ISC and Parliament be provided if the chairman of the ISC was given unrestricted access to all operational material in the agencies, with the safeguard that, where such information exceeds what is currently permissible within the law, it is provided to the wider membership of the ISC committee by the chairman only with the permission of the agency chiefs concerned? That would really increase accountability to Parliament.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there were a number of questions about increasing the capacity of the committee. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, as on previous occasions, mentioned the thinness of the staff assisting the committee. That is now being strengthened. In both Ms Cooper’s speech yesterday and the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech this morning, the suggestion was made to strengthen further the size and capabilities of the staff. The question of whether the chair should be drawn from the governing party or one of the opposition parties is also out there in the open. There is nothing in the Act that says whether the chair of the committee should be a member of one party or another.