Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, that was a rather savage attack on the Government, which was not entirely justified. I thought there was a general recognition in the House that what the Government are doing in this clause is recognising the situation that has already developed. The ISC started with a fairly limited remit under the Intelligence Services Act 1994. Progressively, through such things as the DIS in the Ministry of Defence, JIC and access to JIC assessments, bringing in the Comptroller and Auditor-General to assess the financial operations of the agencies—a whole lot of different ways—the committee expanded its role and activities in a way that was entirely sensible, in which people collaborated, and which was accepted by the agencies and the Government.

I do not know whether there is something frightfully subtle in the amendment that the Opposition have tabled and how far it is significantly different from what the Government have already put in the Bill. The Government are recognising, and it seems quite fair that it is set out in a memorandum of understanding, just what the area and remit of the committee will be. Certainly, in the end—I think it was the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, as well——whatever we sought to look into and in the range over which we sought to expand our activities, I do not recall any area in which we were significantly frustrated.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, this is the first of a number of amendments that deal with a memorandum of understanding. I start by apologising to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, who makes attacks on the Home Office for being somewhat remiss in the slowness with which it produces things, particularly in relation to the framework document. As the noble Lord is aware, I have promised that we will have a draft or an outline of that framework document before we get to Report stage of the Crime and Courts Bill. Since that is unlikely to take place in this House before the end of October, we have a certain amount of time.

On the memorandum of understanding, as set out in the Bill, I am grateful for the support of my noble friend Lord King on this. It is right that the memorandum of understanding should spell out the precise remit of the ISC in relation to bodies other than the agencies, because the memorandum of understanding can make provision at a level of detail that is not appropriate for primary legislation. This is particularly important because parts of government departments engaged in intelligence and security activities may well be engaged in other activities besides, which would not properly fall within the remit of the ISC.

Clearly, things change over time. Departments reorganise. The functions done by one department one year may be done by another the following year. The noble Lord will remember when his party was in Government, how frequently they changed the names and the functions of departments. I have completely lost track of the number of changes there were to departments. One of the things we did very firmly when we came back into office was not to change the names or functions of departments, except in the most marginal capacity.

I believe the intelligence world is no different to any other part of government. For example, as with the recent Levene report, we could find that future reorganisations of defence may change organisational boundaries that affect the MoD’s intelligence activities. A memorandum of understanding is a flexible document. It can be changed much more easily than primary legislation. It will enable the intention of the Government that the ISC should have oversight of substantively all of central government’s intelligence and security activities to be realised now and, more importantly, in the future should they change. The amendment seeks to limit that. For that reason I cannot offer any support to the amendment. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw it.

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[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, as I consider our proceedings in this Committee stage of the Bill, I increasingly think that your Lordships’ House is providing a real service to the other place in the fact that this Bill has started here. It is quite clear that there are some drafting problems. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and, indeed, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, are serious amendments that should be considered. I think that the Minister will be doing a great service to his colleagues in the department and may be able to clear up a number of issues. The drafting is not right. It could be cleared up now and the Bill will be much simpler and much more appropriate by the time it goes to another place.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, I regret that I was not able to take part in the Second Reading of this Bill. I support Amendment 32 and suggest that in one very minor respect it may not go quite far enough. There used to be a body known as the Security Commission, on which I served for some years. I succeeded the noble and learned Lord, Lord Griffiths, as chairman of that body and was in due course succeeded by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Our main function was to investigate and report on cases of espionage—selling secrets to the Russians and things of that kind. We were appointed by the Prime Minister to investigate particular matters and, before we were appointed, we had to have the consent of the leader of the Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, will remember those days. I think that it can be said that we did the state some service. Since the end of the Cold War, espionage is no longer the problem that it was, certainly not in the same way. Therefore the Security Commission has not sat for some years.

I suggest that it is possible that such cases might arise again in the future. If they did, surely the new security committee would be the obvious body—the ideal body—to carry out such an investigation. That being so—if it is so—I am concerned that Clause 2, even with the amendment suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, might not be quite right to enable that to happen. It might or might not be, strictly speaking, an operational matter of MI6.

My suggestion would be to add a very few words to Clause 2(4). After the word “functions”, one could add, “or the functions formerly performed by the Security Commission”. That would be in line 20. Future historians would no longer have to worry about whatever happened to the Security Commission and we would have given that body what one might call a decent burial. I had drafted an amendment to that effect, but I was too late to put it down this morning. I would be happy to move such an amendment on Report, if it were to find favour.

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[Lord Henley]

I apologise to that extent if I have misunderstood what the noble Lord was getting at in his amendment and I hope that I did not mislead the House in so doing. The Government’s intention, on that memorandum of understanding, which has to be agreed by the Government and the ISC, is that it will be the appropriate vehicle for agreeing the process to ensure that the information is provided to the committee in an appropriately prompt manner.

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, would remove one of the key restrictions on the ISC’s new power to oversee agency operations, namely the requirement that its oversight of operations should be retrospective. The extension in the Bill of the ISC’s statutory remit into the agencies’ operational work is a significant deepening of the committee’s powers. While the ISC has in the past conducted inquiries into operational matters with the agreement of the Prime Minister, such as its inquiries into the London bombings of 7 July 2005 and into rendition, the provisions in the Bill provide a formal remit for the committee in this area. We anticipate that the new ISC will provide such oversight on a more regular basis.

We have worked with the current ISC to develop the new arrangements, and the committee agrees with the Government that its oversight of operations should be retrospective in nature. In other words, the ISC should not oversee operations that are ongoing. There are a number of very good reasons for this.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

This is my concern about the drafting: what is an ongoing operation? Is it 7/7 and the follow-up; or is it the jihadist threat that exists and which we think possibly continues to exist at this time, with the Olympics coming up and the heightened security alert that will continue afterwards? What is an “ongoing” security operation?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not sure that the word “ongoing” has actually been tested in the courts. It is in the Bill, which is why I make this point. We have no judicial interpretation of “ongoing”, but I hope the courts would understand and interpret it as the words appear in the Bill.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, on that subject, when the Minister considers the word “ongoing”, will he tell the House whether it covers a longer period than “current”? I think I would have understood “current” investigations.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Or currently ongoing.

[Baroness Hamwee]

Maybe. The Minister says it has not been traditionally considered and is one of those words that only recently has come into normal use. It probably means slightly different things to different people.

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[Lord Henley]

My Lords, first, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—who is great on drafting. She has picked out another word—envisaged—which she has not come across in legislation before. We will add that to “ongoing”. I suspect that, like her, I am probably an old fogey on these matters. These matters are new to drafting but develop in the way that they do. We will consult the draftsman on whether he is happy with “envisaged” or whether some other word could do it.

It would probably be helpful if I first explain the purpose of the memorandum. We believe that it will be an important document in the relationship between the ISC and the Government. It will define the precise extent of the ISC’s oversight of parts of the intelligence community other than the agencies. It will set principles or other criteria that must be met before the ISC can consider particular operational matters. It will describe the arrangements by which the agencies and other intelligence bodies will supply information to the ISC. We expect that it will also cover matters such as: the factors to be taken into account in deciding whether a particular operational matter which the ISC might wish to consider is ongoing, current—or whatever word we particularly wish to use—and/or of significant national interest; a description of the arrangements by which the ISC will request and hold information, including the circumstances in which the ISC will be able to access primary source materials; a description of the role of investigative staff in the ISC’s work; and a description of the process for producing an ISC report. That is what we intend that it should cover. There will no doubt be other matters that will also need to be covered.

The memorandum of understanding in the Bill must be agreed between the Prime Minister and the ISC and it can be altered or replaced at any time by agreement. It is intended that the first memorandum of understanding will be agreed immediately on the coming into force of the relevant provisions. As I said, however, we hope that we can give some idea of what it is going to look like by the time we reach Report.

As is usual for a memorandum of understanding—this is not an unusual procedure—there is no parliamentary approval procedure. This was looked at by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and it was perfectly happy with this. While the memorandum of understanding itself will be an unclassified document which will be published and laid before Parliament, its precise terms are very likely to be shaped by matters which are sensitive in terms of national security and which therefore cannot be made public. In these circumstances, it is particularly appropriate that the memorandum of understanding can be concluded without the need for parliamentary approval.

Of course the terms of the memorandum of understanding must be agreed with the ISC. The Bill makes that clear—it is agreed between the Government and the ISC. The ISC, we must always remind ourselves, is a committee composed of parliamentarians—nine from both Houses. It could be eight members from this House and one from another, but it might be some other arrangement, as it is at the moment—seven from another place and two from this House. As a result of the changes that the Bill will bring about the committee will be appointed by and accountable to Parliament. In some ways, requiring these parliamentarians to seek the approval of the rest of Parliament is a restriction on the independence of the body. I think that it would be unusual for Parliament to have such control over the detailed way in which what amounts to a Select Committee—as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is looking for—has decided to conduct its business.

We have not yet published the memorandum for the simple reason that the memorandum of understanding does not exist. We are starting the process of agreeing this document with the ISC and will do so in parallel with the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, I am a little confused about the memorandum of understanding. We seem to have slipped into an issue that arises in the second part of Clause 2: operational matters. The memorandum also refers to overseeing other activities of Her Majesty’s Government in relation to intelligence and security matters. I understand that that is a reference to the Ministry of Defence, to the CDI—who used to appear before the Intelligence and Security Committee—to the Home Office and to other people who gladly came and gave evidence. Presumably that is part of the memorandum of understanding. There is nothing controversial about this; it merely legitimises and puts into statute a situation that already exists.

If I understand correctly, the Minister is now saying that the memorandum of understanding will not appear before the end of the parliamentary process, and that then it will not be subject to any further parliamentary approval. While I entirely understand that necessarily secure issues in the memorandum may have to be dealt with separately, much of what is in the legislation and the memorandum of understanding are the rules under which the ISC will operate and the access that it will have. The Minister is very nobly taking on the first cut of the Bill, if I may put it like that. The memorandum of understanding will have to be looked at again. If it covers the first part of what I am talking about, certainly it should be available to Parliament. Either it should be under consideration while we debate the Bill or it should come up at a later stage, subject to parliamentary approval if it is subsequent to the passage of the legislation.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, again I do not think that my noble friend followed what I said. We will not agree the final memorandum until after the Bill has completed. However, I make it clear that we want to produce a draft of it at an earlier stage as we complete our discussions with the ISC. Once we have an agreed draft, it is our intention to publish it to help inform debate. I hope that this will happen before Report. The Bill is only just starting in this House. It has to go through another place as well. As discussions on this will be ongoing—I must not use the word “ongoing”—as the Bill is considered by Parliament, it would not be appropriate to share the first draft before at least it has been agreed by both parties.

My other point is what I said at the beginning of my remarks: the memorandum of understanding, having been agreed by the Prime Minister and the ISC, can be altered and replaced by agreement at any time. Since it is a working document that can move on and be altered and agreed by the two parties, it would not be appropriate to constantly put it back to both Houses of Parliament for debate and agreement. That is not the position with other memorandums of understanding. Normally there is no parliamentary approval process. That is why I mentioned that this had been to the Lords Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee, which, as far as I know, is perfectly happy with the process.