Government Communications Headquarters

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement which my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has just been making in the House of Commons. The Statement is as follows.

“Mr Speaker, with permission, I will make a Statement on the work of the Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, its legal framework and recent publicity about it. As Foreign Secretary, I am responsible for the work of GCHQ and the Secret Intelligence Service, SIS, under the overall authority of the Prime Minister. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is responsible for the work of the Security Service, MI5.

Over the past few days there have been a series of media disclosures of classified US documents relating to the collection of intelligence by US agencies, and questions about the role of GCHQ. The US Administration has begun a review into the circumstances of these leaks in conjunction with the Justice Department and the US intelligence community.

President Obama has been clear that US work in this area is fully overseen and authorised by Congress and relevant judicial bodies, and that his Administration is committed to respecting the civil liberties and privacy of its citizens.

The Government deplore the leaking of any classified information wherever it occurs. Such leaks can make the work of maintaining the security of our country and that of our allies more difficult. By providing a partial and potentially misleading picture, they give rise to public concerns.

It has been the policy of successive British Governments not to comment on the detail of intelligence operations. The House will therefore understand that I will not be drawn into confirming or denying any aspect of leaked information. I will be as informative as possible to give reassurance to the public and Parliament. We want the British people to have confidence in the work of our intelligence agencies and in their adherence to the law and our democratic values. But I also wish to be very clear that I will take great care in this Statement and in answering questions to say nothing that gives any clue or comfort to terrorists, criminals and foreign intelligence services as they seek to do harm to this country and its people.

Three issues have arisen in recent days which I wish to address. First, I will describe the action the Government are taking in response to recent events; secondly, I will set out how our intelligence agencies work in accordance with UK law and subject to democratic oversight; and thirdly, I will describe how the law is upheld with respect to intelligence co-operation with the United States, and deal with specific questions that have been raised about the operation of GCHQ.

First, in respect of the action we have taken, the Intelligence and Security Committee has already received some information from GCHQ, and will receive a full report tomorrow. My right honourable friend the Member for Kensington, who chairs the ISC, is travelling to the United States on a long-planned visit with the rest of the committee, including Members of this House. As he has said, the Committee will be free to decide what, if any, further action it should take in the light of that report. The Government and the agencies will co-operate fully with the committee, and I pay tribute to its members and their predecessors on all sides of both Houses.

Secondly, the ISC’s work is one part of the strong framework of democratic accountability and oversight that governs the use of secret intelligence in the United Kingdom, which successive Governments have worked to strengthen. At its heart are two Acts of Parliament: the Intelligence Services Act 1994 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The Acts require GCHQ and the other agencies to seek authorisation for their operations from a Secretary of State, normally the Foreign Secretary or the Home Secretary.

As Foreign Secretary, I receive hundreds of operational proposals from SIS and GCHQ every year. The proposals are detailed. They set out the planned operation, the potential risks and the intended benefits of the intelligence. They include comprehensive legal advice describing the basis for the operation and comments from senior Foreign Office officials and lawyers. To intercept the content of any individual’s communications within the UK requires a warrant signed personally by me, by the Home Secretary or by another Secretary of State. This is no casual process. Every decision is based on extensive legal and policy advice. Warrants are legally required to be necessary, proportionate and carefully targeted, and we judge them on that basis.

Considerations of privacy are also at the forefront of our minds, as I believe they will have been in the minds of our predecessors. We take great care to balance individual privacy with our duty to safeguard the public and UK national security. These are often difficult and finely judged decisions, and we do not approve every proposal put before us by the agencies.

All the authorisations the Home Secretary and I do give are subject to independent review by an Intelligence Services Commissioner and an Interception of Communications Commissioner, both of whom must have held high judicial office and who report directly to the Prime Minister. They review the way that these decisions are made to ensure that they are fully compliant with the law. They have full access to all the information they need to carry out their responsibilities, and their reports are publicly available.

It is vital that we have this framework of democratic accountability and scrutiny. But I also have nothing but praise for the professionalism, dedication and integrity of the men and women of GCHQ. I know from my work with them how seriously they take their obligations under UK and international law. Indeed, in his most recent report the Intelligence Services Commissioner said: ‘it is my belief that… GCHQ staff conduct themselves with the highest levels of integrity and legal compliance’.

This combination of needing a warrant from one of the most senior members of the Government, decided on the basis of detailed legal advice, with such decisions reviewed by independent commissioners and implemented by agencies with strong legal and ethical frameworks, with the addition of parliamentary scrutiny by the ISC, whose powers are being increased, provides one of the strongest systems of checks and balances and democratic accountability for secret intelligence anywhere in the world.

Thirdly, I want to set out how UK law is upheld in respect of information received from the United States and to address the specific questions about the role of GCHQ. Since the 1940s GCHQ and its American equivalent, now the National Security Agency, have had a relationship that is unique in the world. This relationship has been and remains essential to the security of both nations. It has stopped many terrorist and espionage plots against this country, and has saved many lives. The basic principles by which that co-operation operates have not changed over time. Indeed, I wish to emphasise to the House that while we have experienced an extremely busy period in intelligence and diplomacy in the last three years, the arrangements for oversight and the general framework for exchanging information with the United States are the same as under previous Governments.

The growing and diffuse nature of threats from terrorists, criminals or espionage has only increased the importance of the intelligence relationship with the United States. This was particularly the case in the run-up to the Olympics. The House will not be surprised that our activity to counter terrorism intensified and rose to a peak in the summer of last year. It has been suggested that GCHQ uses our partnership with the United States to get around UK law, obtaining information that it cannot legally obtain in the UK. I wish to be absolutely clear that this accusation is baseless. Any data obtained by us from the US involving UK nationals are subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards, including the relevant sections of the Intelligence Services Act, the Human Rights Act and RIPA. Our intelligence-sharing work with the United States is subject to ministerial and independent oversight and to scrutiny by the Intelligence and Security Committee. Our agencies practise and uphold UK laws at all times, even when dealing with information from outside the UK.

The combination of a robust legal framework, ministerial responsibility, scrutiny by the Intelligence Services Commissioners and parliamentary accountability through the Intelligence and Security Committee, should give a high level of confidence that the system works as intended. This does not mean that we do not have to work to strengthen public confidence wherever we can, while maintaining the secrecy necessary to intelligence work. We have strengthened the role of the ISC through the Justice and Security Act 2013 to include oversight of the agencies’ operations as well as their policy, administration and finances, and we have introduced the National Security Council so that intelligence is weighed and assessed alongside all other sources of information available to us as a Government, including diplomatic reporting and the insights of other government departments, and so that all this information is judged carefully in deciding the Government’s overall strategy and objectives.

There is no doubt that secret intelligence, including the work of GCHQ, is vital to our country. It enables us to detect threats against our country ranging from nuclear proliferation to cyberattack. Our agencies work to prevent serious and organised crime, and to protect our economy against those trying to steal intellectual property. They disrupt complex plots against our country, such as when individuals travel abroad to gain terrorist training and prepare attacks. They support the work of our Armed Forces overseas and help to protect the lives of our men and women in uniform, and they work to help other countries lawfully to build the capacity and willingness to investigate and disrupt terrorists in their countries, before threats reach us within the United Kingdom. We should never forget that threats are launched at us secretly, that new weapons systems and tactics are developed secretly, and that countries or terrorist groups that plan attacks or operations against us do so in secrecy. So the methods we use to combat these threats must be secret, just as they must always be lawful.

If the citizens of this country could see the time and care taken in making these decisions, the carefully targeted nature of all our interventions and the strict controls in place to ensure that the law and our democratic values are upheld, and if they could witness the integrity and professionalism of the men and women of the intelligence agencies, who are among the very finest public servants our nation has, then I believe that they would be reassured by how we go about this difficult but essential work. The British people can be confident in the way that our agencies work to keep them safe, but would-be terrorists—those seeking to spy against this country or those who are the centre of organised crime—should be aware that this country has the capability and partnerships to protect its citizens against the full range of threats in the 21st century, and that we will always do so in accordance with our laws and values but with constant resolve and determination.”

My Lords, that concludes the statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the general support he has given the Government and for his very constructive remarks on the necessary and excellent role of our agencies. He will understand that I cannot give him precise answers on some of the questions that he asked. As the Foreign Secretary said in his Statement, a preliminary report has already gone to the Intelligence and Security Committee, a fuller report will go to it and the committee will have the opportunity to examine the Foreign Secretary and a great many others on the reports that have come out. I hope that the noble Lord will allow me to leave it at that.

I simply add that the transmission of global communications is part of the context in which we all have to operate, as is the transmission of human movement. Someone may have been in London yesterday, is in Lagos today and could be in Aleppo in three days’ time. That person might be a citizen of two or three countries, one of which might be the UK. That is part of the problem. When the noble Lord says “within the UK”, what is within the UK is a great deal less clear than it was a few years ago. For all I know, the server which might hold the noble Lord’s private information from his Facebook account could be in Washington state—possibly even in southern China. Therefore, we are moving away from the ability to handle some of these issues entirely within the framework of the single nation state.

There are some extremely large questions here on data-sharing and data protection, some of which we will have to return to. Clearly data protection has to be on a European and global scale and cannot be purely domestic. That is the context in which we face all these challenges. We need different ways of attempting to keep up with criminals, terrorists and others from those we see in television series about the 1930s and 1920s, when detectives and security agencies steamed open the envelopes of letters, which were the main means of communication in those days.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, do we not now face a much more dangerous world in which we know that certain organisations are determined to commit acts of terror against this country in a more positive and direct way than we have perhaps faced before? Combine that with an explosion in systems of communication which did not exist before, and the graphic illustration that the Minister just gave about London, Lagos and Aleppo, and there is a globalisation and dependence on other countries for intelligence. The front line in the defence of our country is intelligence. From my previous experience, I pay tribute—as has already been done—to those who serve in our intelligence agencies. However, the challenges they now face are very real, and protecting the rule of law and following the orders under which they operate against the threats that our country faces involve very high standards indeed.

The real core of this Statement is that we need the ISC. We have to have some impartial outside body, and it will not surprise the Minister when I say that we must preserve the credibility of the ISC. Sir Malcolm Rifkind and his colleagues, including two Members of this House, face a challenging job. A very serious accusation has been made and we must get to the truth about it. I have absolutely no criticism of Sir Malcolm Rifkind, and have fortunately been long enough out of post. In preserving that credibility, we have to watch that we do not appoint people who have just had ministerial responsibility for the areas that they may be asked to investigate. A continual challenge is ensuring that we have experienced people who can contribute to what is now a very important job for the ISC.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for those comments. I am not sure that in some ways we are in a more dangerous world than we were in 100 or more years ago when international anarchist groups succeeded in assassinating the heads of state of two or three European countries. However, he is absolutely right about the explosion of communications and the speed of communications. The general increase in the educated population of the world means that, when you are looking for terrorist groups, you are not able to look for a small group within each city but are looking at a much larger number of possible suspects. That is why agencies have to adapt the way they look at these sources.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I understand extremely well that the Minister cannot at this stage tell us very much, but I hope that he can at least confirm what appears to be the case—that the 197 Prism reports said to have been passed on to GCHQ last year all relate to communications data and not to the contents of any intercepted communication. If he can give us that confirmation—I hope he can and can see no reason why he should not if it be the case—it would be much less serious and would allay certain anxieties that otherwise we must all feel. If it is the case that it relates solely to communications data, will he say who gave the authorisation under Section 21 of RIPA, which is the relevant section, not Chapter 1, and whether the authorisation was specific to this case or was a general authorisation?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble and learned Lord would like me to go into specifics on specific cases, and I am going to resist that for reasons he will fully understand, while recognising the importance of the distinction made between communications data and the details of communications, which is one that we all recognise.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords, first, in all humility, I advise the Minister that it would be useful to distinguish between published opinion and public opinion. He may never be able to reassure some elements of published opinion that the security services are not being overzealous until there is some great incident, and it will then accuse the security services of not having done enough. That is the experience.

Secondly, to reassure public opinion, will he confirm that the regulatory legal framework is among the best, if not the strongest, among western democracies, not only the legal framework he mentioned of the Intelligence Services Act and RIPA but ministerial oversight, independent scrutiny and parliamentary accountability through the ISC? I tell him from my own interests—I declare them as registered—not only as a former Home Secretary but in the private sector and the academic sector that there is astonishment among many colleagues in Europe and the western democracies at just how far we go to ensure that oversight.

Will the Minister confirm the simple point that international terrorism is by definition international, that the means of communication in the world wide web is by definition worldwide and that therefore, if we are to protect the lives of the citizens of this country, we have to operate on an international basis? Almost every single plot that has threatened the public, many of which they have not heard about, has involved at least two or three countries, and in some cases more than 20. Therefore, within the legal framework, the security services, operating and sharing information on counterterrorism with our close allies throughout the world, have saved literally thousands of lives in this country over the past 15 years. The whole House should note that and congratulate our security services on it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for those very helpful words. However, it is not only all terrorism that is by definition international. When I was covering the Home Office brief and spent some time with the West Yorkshire Police I came to the conclusion that all serious organised crime is now international. We therefore operate in a world in which co-operation, not just with the United States but with our European partners and others, is nevertheless essential in order to combat this global phenomenon—and, of course, some of those with whom we have to co-operate are not the easiest of partners. The noble Lord will know well that some of the websites which those who have been radicalised in this country have had access to are operated out of very distant countries.

The difference between public opinion and published opinion is, of course, that public opinion very often wants different and contradictory things. The public want security and privacy, they want the state off their backs, but at the same time they want the state to protect them. That is part of what politicians have to deal with. It is one of the reasons why referendums are not always a terribly good idea, because the way public opinion flies depends on which week the referendum is held. Attitudes to privacy among the young are much more relaxed than among the old. Whether as the young get older they become more concerned about privacy is something we shall slowly discover as we go on.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, the Foreign Secretary’s Statement will have gone far to reassure people that our very high standards of oversight are being upheld. However, the problem for people is not so much about our own legal standards and standards of oversight, but what happens internationally, in other countries, and whether their standards are as high. In light of that, will my noble friend tell us what attention Her Majesty’s Government are giving, in the borderless cyberworld, not just to the full implementation of the 2006 data retention directive, but also to aspiring to have high common standards as we go forward into negotiations with the United States on the transatlantic treaty? Will that subject be covered in those talks?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not entirely sure that I understand the full transition to cloud computing. A very small number of people in this House understand it, and I run to them from time to time to ask for their advice. Certainly, we will find that the new global standards on attempts to regulate cloud computing will be thrashed out in negotiations between the United States and the European Union in the context of the transatlantic negotiations. So far we are a long way from discovering how those will turn out. I read in the New York Times the other day that one of the differences across the Atlantic is that in the United States most people distrust the state much more than they distrust companies, whereas in Europe more people trust the state and distrust companies. That raises implications for what sort of regulation people really want. Clearly there will be some extremely difficult negotiations, first on the EU data protection directive, and then within the transatlantic negotiations.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, in quoting the words of Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the chairman of the security committee, the Minister referred to a statement by him which said that normally only information which had been the subject of specific ministerial request would be used. The word “normally” suggests to me that there may be exceptional circumstances. Can the Minister, without embarrassment, suggest the sort of situation in which that might operate? It is a constructive and relevant question, which I am sure the House would wish to have an answer to, if possible.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord tempts me to go down a lane which I think that I would prefer not to go down. It is, of course, the case that, in moments of absolute crisis, a short cut may possibly be taken, but this country attempts in all circumstances to go through the correct procedures and hold to the legal framework.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Would my noble friend agree that one of the duties of the security services is to obtain relevant information in accordance with the constraints imposed by British law? Would he further agree that there is absolutely no evidence that GCHQ has deliberately circumvented British law to obtain information that might be available to the American authorities under quite different American law? Thirdly, would he agree that it is to be hoped that the free flow of important information between the United Kingdom’s security services and the Americans will continue, particularly if that information indicates that lives might be saved if the information is acted on? Would he further agree that it would be completely unacceptable for the British authorities to ignore information coming from abroad, wherever it comes from, if acting on that information might save lives?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I can confirm most of the questions asked by the noble Lord, but I had better not go into too much detail. An enormous amount of information is flowing into the United Kingdom on any day of the week from a range of other intelligence services. Naturally, we trust the Americans far more than we trust some other countries. But one has to listen to countries that may in many ways be hostile to the United Kingdom but with which we may share some real security interests. That is all part of the very delicate world in which we live and have to operate. None of this is easy, but maintaining British security and, at the same time, maintaining an open society is our underlying intention.

[Lord West of Spithead]

Would the Minister agree that it is somewhat ironic that the so-called whistleblower chose Hong Kong, which is close to and alongside China, as the place to make this statement, bearing in mind its systematic control of the internet within its own country, the way in which it looks intrusively at its own population, and the fact that it has probably been in among the computers of a large number of us here, let alone organisations in this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I confirm that, and congratulate the noble Lord on asking a question that did not mention the Royal Navy for the first time in some considerable period.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that at least one of the organisations with oversight over the security services would have it drawn to their attention if we started to get a large flow of communications content information from the United States, as opposed to communications data?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, lawyers have come in at a very early stage in this. I was briefed by FCO lawyers as well as by FCO officials this morning. Oversight is a continuing process, so any unusual change in pattern would naturally feed up towards the scrutiny and accountability process.

[Lord Strasburger]

My Lords, I apologise for arriving during the reading of this Statement but, in my defence, I was late because I was listening to it from the horse’s mouth, from the Foreign Secretary in another place.

In the USA, it would seem that politicians have been asleep at the wheel while their security and intelligence services have helped themselves to anyone’s private data without any meaningful oversight. Happily, in this county we have much better checks and balances on our security services, and the Government to their credit have been much more robust in resisting calls for security at any cost from the proponents of the disproportionate and unnecessary communications data Bill, which was accurately given the soubriquet the “snoopers’ charter”.

My question has been asked already today, but I ask my noble friend to try to address it. On the 197 occasions in the past year when GCHQ has stated that it obtained data from the Prism system in the States, was the data acquisition authorised by a Minister on each occasion? That is not about the content or the cases involved but simply about the process and legality.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is one of the issues which will be investigated by the ISC. The noble Lord and I may differ on what we think about the history and current role of the US agencies, but there is quite a large issue about US companies—Google and others—which we have assumed to be extremely benevolent but which are collecting a great deal of personal information on a very large number of people. That raises long-term issues which we will, no doubt, have to debate in future Sessions along with both domestic and international regulations to cope with them.