Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, for tabling this Motion for debate today. I join the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in feeling totally unqualified to take part in the debate, but, given the eloquent and clear contributions made by other noble Lords, I feel that I can comment on the points that have been raised.

This is a welcome opportunity to discuss the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee. I want to begin by joining others in paying tribute to the staff of the various security and intelligence agencies for the important work that they do to keep us and the UK safe. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.

The committee itself provides important oversight of the work of the intelligence community and has done for the last 25 years. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, that it is regrettable that we have not had more frequent debates. I would have liked this debate to have been on the Floor of the House, where I am sure many more speakers would have been involved. I hope that when Parliament comes back, the next debate can be on the Floor of the House.

I am very supportive of the committee and the work that it does. It strikes the right balance between detailed parliamentary oversight in camera—in private session—and a more general annual report that we can debate and can be discussed in public. The committee itself contains a good balance of members who have had considerable experience in relevant fields or have held high ministerial office.

Looking at the annual report of the committee, there are important items summarised in the appendix regarding the finances, expenditure and administration and policy in general. I noted that those were not particularly referred to in the report, but I know that the committee had a number of inquiries to deal with. I am sure that there was proper oversight of these important matters in the meetings, despite them not being referred to in the report.

The committee has undertaken work that is summarised in its annual review and I will comment on some of those issues. Many noble Lords have mentioned diversity and inclusion as being very important. We select men and women of the highest calibre to undertake this work—people in whom we place our trust with the task of safeguarding national security. It is not just politically correct: I am of the view that to get people of the highest calibre we must have diversity and inclusion at the heart of that process. I know that is what we mean by that. The committee has been doing important work and it is important that that continues, so that we build a diverse and effective workforce. As the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, said, this is still very much a people business. The intelligence agencies are not only dealing with data: they are dealing with people.

The terrorist attacks in 2017 were horrific events and the police and other emergency responders, on the night and afterwards, along with the security services, acted with immense skill and bravery. However, it is reassuring that not only were there internal reviews of these agencies and the one overseen by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, but the committee itself considered primary matters relating to the attacks provided by the police and MI5. I very much concur that it is for the committee to establish whether mistakes were made and to ensure that all changes and improvements required have been identified. For me, that is the committee doing its job and providing for both Houses and the wider public a greater degree of scrutiny, examination and reassurance—an independent committee examining the facts and drawing its own conclusions.

The noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, made several points about those susceptible to extremism being able to visit extremist prisoners and on the issue of regulations around explosives. I would welcome the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, on those points.

I welcome the committee’s inquiry into China, and in particular Huawei and the 5G network. I agree that the network has to be built to withstand attack, from wherever it comes, and diversity may be one of the ways that we can achieve that.

The noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, referred to the work done in respect of Syria and the activities of terrorists. I agree that it is regrettable that certain matters were denied to the committee. This is a committee of privy counsellors, subject to the Official Secrets Act, and it would be good to hear the Minister’s response to the points made by the noble Marquess in that respect.

It is concerning that staff from the UK intelligence services have witnessed abuse, or been told of abuse, and have been supplied questions to ask to detainees. These are very serious matters. Rendition has been an issue for many years and needs to be addressed.

The noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, referred to how successful the services have been in foiling terrorist plots. That is another example of the great debt we owe to the dedication and skill of our security agencies. I share his concern about the risk of a no-deal Brexit to the sharing of databases, the European arrest warrant and close co-operation with our European allies.

I also share the noble Lord’s concerns about the risk of cyber threat that no deal might bring. It would not have been an issue many years ago, when we did not talk about cyber at all, but today, everything in life—food and energy production, defence, manufactured goods and services, and transfers of money and data—requires the use of detailed digital and electronic signatures. It is very important that we get this right. The cyber threat is probably the most serious thing we face, in terms of widespread attacks to the UK.

As the report outlines, there has been some concern in the West about the activities of Russia. I was pleased to learn from the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, that the work on Russia continues. The Skripal poisoning, which has already been mentioned, has been attributed to agents of the Russian state, and there is suspected interference in elections and referendums in the West. The report refers to the previous Prime Minister’s Mansion House speech in 2017, when she accused Russia of planting “fake stories” to,

“sow discord in the West and undermine our institutions”.

I also note the guidance issued in May 2017 by the National Cyber Security Centre to political parties, local authorities and their staff to protect their digital systems. This area is extremely serious and I hope that the committee will keep these matters under review.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, agreed with me many times in the House when I raised issues about elections. We agreed that election procedures and rules are not fit for purpose. We have allegations all the time of bots—as I think they are called—stealing our votes with lies, smears, fake news and all sorts of other nonsense. This must be addressed before we get to a general election. I will be the first to co-operate to get a Bill through Parliament to deal with outside interference, fake news, lies and smears, and then have our election, whenever it comes. I hope that the Intelligence and Security Committee shares my view and that of many others. I have made those representations to the Prime Minister and I hope that we will put country before party.

I have had positive meetings with the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham, Lord Hayward and Lord Gilbert, Chloe Smith MP from the Conservative Party, my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Tyler, from the Liberal Democrats. We all agreed that something must be done about elections before we have a general election. This is a really serious problem. I wrote a paper on this issue last year, which I gave to all noble Lords present, and everyone agreed with me—I think I sent it to the Intelligence and Security Committee so that it could look at it as well. We need to deal with this issue to ensure our election is not stolen from us.

In conclusion, I am most grateful to the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, for bringing this Motion for debate today, and for the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee in providing the required scrutiny and oversight of our intelligence services, which need our backing, support and confidence in all that they do.