Intelligence and Security Services

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

Information can be the most powerful thing in the world. It has changed everything more quickly and universally than ever before. The internet is all about information. The power of the internet is the power of information. Data can do almost anything. That is why it is so important that they do not end up in the wrong hands, and so important that our data, which we as individuals own, and which are our stake in the data galaxy, just as our vote is our stake in our democracy, are not unnecessarily taken without our consent.

I ask colleagues to remember in the rest of this debate that an individual’s data are just like his or her vote: almost insignificant by itself, privately expressed; but massively powerful when aggregated. We should no more unnecessarily tamper with our citizens’ data than we should impede their ability to vote. The capacity to deduce human behaviour and activity in the modern world of big data is impacting on our daily lives, from insurance premiums and health prevention through to online advertising and traffic management. Corporations are crunching data to learn about the way we live our lives.

At the heart of this cross-party debate today is GCHQ’s own big data programme—Tempora—and its impact on our citizens’ fundamental rights. It is a new and profoundly challenging issue for policy makers. We have to answer questions about the nature, scale and depth of surveillance that should be tolerated in our democracy. My concern about this area of public policy in the UK is that the question has not yet been put. We have avoided discussing this matter in all but whispered tones, while the legislatures of the US, Brazil and Europe have been rocked by the Snowden revelations. Yet in the UK, the main parties have paid scant attention to the issue.

The problem is this: the GCHQ Tempora programme has been mining our internet communications data without public knowledge on a colossal scale. There has been little public and parliamentary debate about whether that conforms to article 8 of the European convention on human rights, which protects the right to private and family life and correspondence. Nor has there been sufficient public or parliamentary debate on whether RIPA legally permits the mass collection of our citizens’ internet data.

[Martin Horwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Watson]

I can’t. I have no time.

Nor has there been sufficient public or parliamentary debate on whether Tempora is authorised by any other pieces of legislation. In fact, we only know of the existence of the Tempora programme because of the actions of Edward Snowden and The Guardian newspaper. I think that they have acted courageously in the public interest to uncover and reveal a secret Government programme that has gained access to the private communications of millions of individuals without their knowledge. A brave whistleblower and a courageous newspaper have enabled us only now to start to have a full and proper debate about whether such surveillance is proportionate and, indeed, legal under our existing legislation, treaties and agreements. That is the secret state laid bare: the Government acting without the knowledge or permission of their citizens, which is a flagrant breach of individuals’ moral and, probably, legal rights, for what they believe is the common good. Just like when they take away the votes of the misguided, the common good is not a defence. Our basic rights as individuals have to be sacrosanct.

Let us be clear. If the Minister is telling us that the law permits such fundamental abuse of liberty, the law is wrong and must be changed. I suspect that he may point to section 16 of RIPA to suggest that the Tempora programme is legal. Interpreting that section requires the unravelling of a triple-nested inversion of meanings across six cross-referenced subsections linked to a dozen other cross-linked definitions, which are all dependent on a highly ambiguous “notwithstanding.” The section is probably the single most confusing and complex drafting ever put on the statute book, and I have heard that a former GCHQ director said it was drafted in that way intentionally; it is what a computer programme would call “spaghetti code.” There is not a snowball’s chance on a hot day in Strasbourg that the section would pass the tests of foreseeability and quality of law required by the European convention on human rights. The UK already lost a critical test of the case on those grounds in 2008. One thing is abundantly clear: they are not extra safeguards, as is falsely claimed in the section heading; they are intended to allow GCHQ to trawl inside the UK, as Lord Lucas observed in another place on 12 July 2000.

This week we saw a major shift in the policy of the United States when the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, criticised the National Security Agency’s monitoring of the calls of world leaders. She said:

“With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of US allies—including France, Spain, Mexico…—let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed.”

I am sure that the Prime Minister will be relieved that his phone is not the subject of surveillance by an ally, but is the Deputy Prime Minister exempt from surveillance? Will the Minister or Members who have put their necks on the block by taking part in this debate be exempt? What about their researchers or families? The assurance is not good enough for me.

We know that the “five eyes” co-operate closely and that UK data are available to the USA. Can the Minister give us any reassurance today that UK phone records are not routinely handed en masse by companies to GCHQ and, by implication, to the NSA? We know that basic internet logs are also held by Virgin, Sky, BT, TalkTalk and other internet service providers. Will the Government reassure us that those data are not routinely handed over in bulk to British intelligence and the NSA?

Parliament has a right to know what records are handed over and why. Yesterday, The Washington Post claimed that the NSA and GCHQ were tapping into the fibre-optic cables used to supply the data centres of Google and Yahoo! To achieve that, the telecoms companies that provide infrastructure to those organisations had to have knowledge of, and probably collaborated with, the procedure. Was any member of the UK Government aware of that facility?

To make it clear, The Washington Post is saying that telecoms companies have been illicitly aiding the security services to tap into data being processed by internet companies with which they have a commercial relationship. Those telecoms companies, which are the backbone of this wonderful thing called the internet that has allowed two decades of free expression and creativity to explode into the lives of our citizens, have been operating in the shadows to allow our security services to tap all of it.

The security services have clearly made the trade-off that the intelligence obtained is worth the invasion of privacy. They are judged on the quality of the intelligence they obtain and little else. Of course they are going to make that trade-off 100% of the time. I want to know whether the telecoms companies have voluntarily entered into that agreement, or whether they have been obliged to do so under UK or US law.

Before I conclude, I draw the Minister’s attention to a submission to the Select Committee on Defence—I draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the register—by the all-party group on drones, which I chair. The submission examines the idea of citizenship stripping in detail. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has highlighted the uneasy relationship between the deprivation of citizenship, intelligence sharing with the US and the targeting of former British citizens in drone strikes in Somalia.

The concern is that citizenship may remove one obstacle to information sharing for the purposes of targeting British people. In particular, one former UK citizen, Berjawi, was targeted immediately following a telephone call to his wife in London, who had just given birth and was recovering in hospital. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the family allege that Berjawi and his wife’s mobile telephones were tapped and location data were shared with the CIA to target him.

David Omand, the ex-head of GCHQ, in his submission to the Select Committee on Home Affairs wrote about the likely intensification of tension between nations that unilaterally defend their interests with military means, including targeted killings, and those that seek collective security under international human rights law. He mentioned the “ethically ambiguous” position of the British public because they had benefited from the US drone programme, even though it would not be permitted in the UK. That cannot be right. The British public would surely be alarmed to hear that data collected in the UK might end up being used to implement the US targeted killing programme described as a “war crime” by Amnesty International.

I have other questions, but I must wrap up now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I compliment the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) on making a measured, thoughtful speech. It is important, when we have this debate, that we are measured and thoughtful in how we approach it. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on the timeliness of the debate. It is important that we have an opportunity to discuss these issues, although some of the hon. Gentleman’s comments might not have been as well informed as they might have been. I will come to that in a moment.

For once, I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas); I hope that that is not the start of a pattern. In her intervention, she said, “For goodness’ sake, can we stop concentrating entirely on The Guardian, as if it is all about The Guardian?” To get that issue out of the way, my view is that if we ask whether The Guardian was entitled to publish what it did, the answer is probably yes. If I am wrong about that, the authorities will take the necessary action. I do not believe that it has done anything wrong. However, if we ask the question, “Was it wise for it to publish what it did? Was that a responsible thing to do?”, I think that the answer is no. For the purposes of this debate, I will leave it at that as regards The Guardian.

I said that I would come back to the hon. Member for Cambridge. In an interesting exchange between him and the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), the latter asked, “How does he know?”, and the hon. Member for Cambridge, in a roundabout way, admitted that he did not know. In a way, that poses the dilemma of this debate, because not everyone can know. Some people have to know, and the rest of us have to take it on faith that some people know and are acting responsibly. That is the issue on which I want to concentrate in terms of the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I have been a member for the past eight years.

The hon. Member for Cambridge did, in passing, refer to the new Act. He served on the Public Bill Committee that considered it. However, it is almost as if the Act does not exist in his speech. He does not seem to accept that the powers, resources and capabilities of the Intelligence and Security Committee have changed almost beyond recognition, in my experience on the Committee. However, we will leave that to one side. The difficulty is that because the hon. Gentleman does not know a great deal about it, he is in danger of arriving at rash judgments about what is wrong and what could be done.

Let me demonstrate that by reference to the issue that the hon. Gentleman has talked about at some length, and legitimately so. I am talking about the Prism programme—what the UK’s involvement in it was and so on. Not once during his speech, unless I missed it, did he refer to the fact that the Intelligence and Security Committee, which he considers to be inadequate, has already looked at the Prism programme and what our own agencies’, and particularly GCHQ’s, involvement in and knowledge of that was. We issued a statement—an interim statement, I might add—in July. In the course of that statement, which has not been referred to so far, we arrived at some important conclusions. The first one was:

“It has been alleged that GCHQ circumvented UK law by using the NSA’s PRISM programme to access the content of private communications. From the evidence we have seen, we have concluded that this is unfounded.”

For obvious reasons, it is impossible for me to go into detail about all the evidence that we were able to look at, but we did look in detail at very important pieces of information and we were able also to look at what authorisations were involved in the process of accessing the information, particularly the communications within it. The law has not been broken.

[Mr Watson]

I am reassured by my right hon. Friend’s thoroughness in the investigation. Was July the first time that the Committee had examined Prism, and was that after the Guardian revelations? [Laughter.]

[Mr Howarth]

It was after the Guardian revelations. The hon. Member for Cambridge seems to think that that is funny. Actually, he would still be sitting here today if we had not gone and looked at this matter after the allegations emerged. He would be accusing us of being inadequate in our responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

The right hon. Gentleman does not have the faintest idea whether the Committee was aware of programmes of any kind. We are given classified information, and the whole point of an independent Committee having access to top secret information, whatever that is, is that we do not announce what such information is. If he can devise a system whereby secret information can be made available to all law-abiding British citizens, without its being simultaneously made available to the rest of the world, I am interested in hearing about it, but I do not think that he is likely to meet that requirement.

In the short time available, I want to deal with the fundamental challenge mentioned by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who secured the debate, as well as by those who have supported him. Like others, they have said that we are living in a society in which, to use their term, there is “mass surveillance”. If that means anything, it is an accusation: the implication is that all our e-mails are or will be examined by GCHQ—as it chooses and by its own methods—as though something like that was now available. They seem totally to misunderstand or not to refer to the reality of what happens with modern technology, so in the brief time available, I will share with them what they ought to know. It is not secret, but is in the public domain.

Modern computers, which can indeed digest vast amounts of e-mails or communications data, are programmed to run using certain selectors, such as an e-mail address that might belong to a terrorist or some other information relating to terrorism. They are programmed to go through millions and millions of communications and to discard, without their having been looked at—no human eye looks at any of the e-mails—all those to which selectors are not attached.

Of the totality processed by computers, perhaps 0.01% will have selectors that the computer has been programmed to look for. The communications of the other 99.99%— covering virtually every citizen of this country, bar a very small number—are never even looked at by the computer, other than in relation to a selector, such as an e-mail address. Even for the tiny minority identified by the computers as potentially relevant to terrorism, if GCHQ, MI5 or MI6 want to read the content of any of the e-mails, they have to go to the Secretary of State for permission. Under the law, only if they are given permission can the content be read.

To say that we are living in a mass surveillance society is to make a wonderful allegation that sounds vaguely sinister, but the reality is that the e-mails of pretty well everyone in the Chamber are not being intercepted or read.

[Mr Watson]

rose—

[Mr George Howarth]

rose—

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I am happy give way to the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson).

[Mr Watson]

I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about algorithmic searches and the ability to obtain lifestyle information based on metadata, but the point is that the mass analysis of those data might identify patterns of behaviour that we do not know about and so give people leverage. It is the very use of such algorithmic search terms that raises people’s fears.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

The hon. Gentleman’s point may be a very strong one with regard to matters unrelated to national security—for example, what companies do in sharing commercial data—but I must tell him that the intelligence agencies have far more important things to do than to look at patterns of behaviour, unless they are directly relevant to a terrorist threat or serious crime. That is their function and legal duty, and if they go beyond it, they are committing a crime—even if they had the time, which they do not have, or the inclination to do so.

I am not arguing that there are no legitimate issues for public debate; I am saying, as my hon. Friends have done, that there is a legitimate public debate. The Intelligence and Security Committee has already said that it will conduct an investigation into whether the three Acts—the Human Rights Act, RIPA and the Intelligence Services Act—remain appropriate, given the dramatic changes in technology over the past few years. We will do that work, as it is right to do, to identify whether, in our view, the balance between security and privacy is appropriate.

Unlike in the past, some of the inquiry’s sessions will be in public; they cannot all be, for obvious reasons. Unprecedentedly, we will have public evidence sessions so that everyone can be part of the debate. There has been a revolution in oversight, and right hon. and hon. Members should acknowledge and recognise that fact.

It is no coincidence that, as the technological capabilities available to not just the intelligence agencies but terrorists and criminals have expanded dramatically over the past 20 years, oversight has also expanded dramatically. I say without fear of contradiction that, with the one exception of the United States—it has intelligence oversight powers that are not exactly the same in detail as ours, but are comparable to them—no other country in the world, including democratic ones, has both substantial intelligence agencies and such a degree of oversight.

[Mr Watson]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I am sorry, but I cannot at this stage.

Given our willingness to have our first public hearing with the intelligence chiefs next week in front of the cameras, plus other public sessions, as well as the new powers we are already exercising, I ask right hon. and hon. Members to test whether we use such powers properly. They should not say that we do not have those powers in the first place, because there is not a single new power that they have suggested should be given to the Intelligence and Security Committee that we do not now have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on securing this debate. I read with interest his article in The Guardian this morning, previewing the arguments he would be putting forward. I also congratulate the co-sponsors: the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson). They both bring an enormous amount of experience and knowledge to these matters.

Fifteen Members have spoken in this debate, which shows how important it is. It has benefited enormously from the contributions of members of the Intelligence and Security Committee—its Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). I am sure all hon. Members would want to pay tribute to the hard work that members of the ISC undertake on our behalf.

I pay tribute to the work of the intelligence services. I am sure we all admire and respect the work that they do to keep us safe from harm every day and to protect our freedoms. It is absolutely right that we are having this debate about the oversight of the intelligence and security services.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley hit the nail on the head. We do not have access to all the information, so it is not possible for us to reach conclusions today on a number of points that have been raised. However, we must debate the investigatory procedures that Parliament has put in place and satisfy ourselves that they are fit for purpose.

Parliament has spent much of the past year debating the oversight of the intelligence services through part 1 of the Justice and Security Act 2013, which redefines the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee. I will return to that in a moment, but I concede that the part did not perhaps catch the public consciousness—given some of the comments made by hon. Members today, that is true of the House, too—in quite the same way as The Guardian’s revelations. Even the Deputy Prime Minister, given his recent comments to the media, appears to have missed the reforms that strengthened the Intelligence and Security Committee. That is surprising, considering he has 19 special advisers. I would have thought that one of them might have picked up on the reforms. Because of all that, I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate the subject.

The concept that many people have of the intelligence agencies is James Bond or, perhaps more recently, “Spooks.” The reality is that terrorists and organised criminals have been quick to adopt new technology, which means that the nature of our intelligence agencies has changed over the past few years, too. Electronic surveillance is now the key asset in the battle against terrorism. It is therefore appropriate that today’s debate has mainly focused on electronic surveillance. The key question seems to be whether the intelligence services have exceeded the powers given them under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

Surveillance is covered by parts 2 and 3 of RIPA, and intrusive surveillance is described by section 26. An example of intrusive surveillance is placing a device in someone’s property, which requires a warrant from the Home Secretary, the Northern Ireland Secretary or the Foreign Secretary if conducted abroad. The relevant Secretary of State has to be convinced that the surveillance is necessary and proportionate. That form of surveillance is easily understood.

Part 1 of RIPA covers remote electronic surveillance, which is where things get a bit more complicated. Chapter 1 addresses the interception of an individual’s communications—telephone communications, e-mails and texts—and it is only under that chapter that the contents of such communications may be accessed. There are extensive safeguards on the use of chapter 1 powers. Their use must be necessary, proportionate and in the interests of protecting national security, detecting or preventing serious crime or safeguarding the UK’s economic interest. A warrant must be issued by the Home Secretary for each individual whose data are collected.

Chapter 2 of part 1 addresses the acquisition of communications data more generally, which is more about the who, the where, the what and the when, rather than the contents. The rules on that are not as stringent as for chapter 1.

Generally, I believe that RIPA is poorly understood among the general public and, I think, among Members of Parliament. Only once we understand the framework can we look to the oversight bodies to ensure that the intelligence services are staying within that framework. Probably the most important level of oversight is from Ministers. They are answerable to Parliament and the public for all the actions of the intelligence agencies.

Will the Minister assure me that he has seen no evidence that the intelligence agencies have collected information covered by RIPA part 1, chapter 1 without the necessary warrants being in place?

Of course, oversight requires much more than just a Minister. The Intelligence and Security Committee was formed in 1994 and reformed earlier this year by the Justice and Security Act. The Opposition supported those reforms. Indeed, in some key areas we would have liked to have gone further. We support the long-term aspiration that the ISC should become a Select Committee, which we believe would allow the public a clear understanding of how the Committee works and the processes it operates.

Such reform would also give clear protections to both the Committee and its witnesses. We appreciate that that may be a gradual process, and we support the changes to move the ISC towards becoming a Committee of Parliament with open proceedings. The Labour party has always said that it believes the ISC is the right body to investigate the allegations against Tempora, and we have confidence in its investigation.

I also believe that the ISC, which is composed of very senior and experienced politicians, appreciates the need to restore public confidence. Indeed, I believe that the agencies appreciate that, too. During the passage of the Justice and Security Act, I was struck by comments made in the other place by the noble Baroness Manningham-Buller, who said that public confidence is vital for the agencies because of the degree to which they rely on the public’s co-operation.

We have heard that 7 November will be a momentous day in the Committee’s history, as it will hold its first public session with the heads of the three agencies. Over the past three years, the public have started to understand Parliament a little better through things such as Rupert Murdoch’s appearance before the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. I hope the public will take a keen interest in the appearance of the heads of the intelligence services before the ISC next month.

[Mr Watson]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Diana Johnson]

I will carry on because I have very little time and I want to give the Minister an opportunity to respond.

I hope next week’s Committee hearing will be the start of a process through which the ISC demonstrates its ability to conduct a thorough inquiry and to improve public understanding. I hope the Minister will do everything he can to reassure all hon. Members that the Government will facilitate as many public hearings as possible.

Finally, I was struck that the hon. Member for Cambridge made no comment about the important role of the two commissioners. The intelligence services commissioner oversees the performance of the agencies under parts 2 and 3 of RIPA, focusing on intrusive surveillance. His powers were widened by the Justice and Security Act.

The interception of communications commissioner considers operations under part 1 of RIPA. He produces an annual report that clearly sets out the legal framework for electronic surveillance and the way it is used by various bodies. He has oversight of all surveillance under part 1. In particular, he has access to all warrants issued under chapter 1, as well as overseeing a team of inspectors who consider the use of chapter 2 powers.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley said, it would be good to raise the profile of the interception of communications commissioner, as he has had a relatively low profile since the revelations by The Guardian. Indeed, the commissioner wrote in a letter to The Independent:

“I am currently conducting an investigation into the various recent media reports relating to disclosures about interception attributed to Edward Snowden.”

Instead of trying to decipher what the commissioner is doing through references in a letter to a newspaper, both the commissioner and the Government should be emphasising the commissioner’s role and telling Parliament and the public how his office will be responding to the revelations in The Guardian. Will he be compiling a special report? When can we expect to receive that report? A report covering surveillance in 2012 was not published until July 2013, so if we have to wait until July 2014 for the next report, we could probably say that the commissioner is not reporting in the effective and timely manner that we all want.

I also hope the Minister is able to confirm categorically that the commissioner has been given full access to all surveillance undertaken as part of the Tempora programme, as well as, where appropriate, information acquired by the agencies from our allies.

I am pleased that we have had this opportunity to debate the intelligence and security services this afternoon, and I look forward to the Minister’s response to my points.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on securing this debate and on the passionate and eloquent way in which he has advanced his argument. I also pay tribute to his supporters, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab).

Although there have been notes of discord and disagreement this afternoon, I am sure we all agree on how essential is the work that our intelligence agencies do for us day in, day out to keep this country safe by confronting the diverse terrorist threat that this country continues to face. Generally, they are unable to make those points directly themselves, and I recognise the contributions that many right hon. and hon. Members have made in underlining the importance of our intelligence agencies’ work. It is vital that we do so.

It is also important to underline very clearly the role of scrutiny and the powerful impact that it can have. In many ways, that was brought home in a very real sense by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who highlighted the work of the ISC following the Bali bombing. In doing so, he also highlighted the value and importance that scrutiny can directly offer.

However, we should also be clear about the importance of intelligence gathering to our agencies’ ability to maintain an edge in tackling terrorism and stopping criminals. While maintaining that edge is vital to our ability to ensure national security, I absolutely agree that that does not mean that the activities of the intelligence agencies can or should go unchecked. It is absolutely right that intelligence work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework that ensures that activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate. I hope to explain why we believe that is absolutely the case.

The work of the security and intelligence agencies is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that their activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from Secretaries of State, from the interception of communications commissioner and the intelligence services commissioner, as well as from the ISC itself. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) rightly highlighted the work of the relevant commissioners in that regard, which I will return to later in my contribution.

Oversight is absolutely essential, but much of it must necessarily take place behind closed doors to ensure that secret intelligence remains secret. That has to be a key theme in the work undertaken, because although I recognise the desire for transparency—I have heard the points about that very clearly—at the same time there has to be a role for secrets in order for our agencies to conduct the work that they do. That information should not be kept unnecessarily out of the public domain, but secrecy is essential to safeguard sensitive methods and sources, and to protect the lives of those who agree to work for us on the basis of confidentiality and anonymity.

[Mr Watson]

I hope that the Minister does not think that this is a semantic point, but there is a difference between transparency and scrutiny, and this debate is about scrutiny. We are talking about new technological abilities to process huge amounts of data that may not have been empowered by very old legislation, or at least are tenuously empowered by old legislation. What I hope he can explain today is why Tempora, which is a whole new raft of intelligence gathering, was not given scrutiny in Parliament, as RIPA and other pieces of legislation were?

[James Brokenshire]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that publicly discussing sensitive techniques and sensitive tactics of our intelligence agencies is simply not appropriate in terms of safeguarding their work. However, I can also say to him very clearly that arrangements are in place to ensure that GCHQ neither obtains nor discloses any material except so far as necessary in pursuit of its statutory functions, as defined in the Intelligence Services Act 1994, which he will be very well aware of.

As far as interception activity by GCHQ is concerned, GCHQ operates at all times in accordance with RIPA. That is not just a statement; GCHQ’s activity is overseen by the commissioners, who analyse its work in detail. They also analyse some of the codes of practice that the agencies have in place to ensure their adherence to RIPA.

Such levels of assurance are in place within our oversight regime, which I believe is very effective because our intelligence agencies’ activity is overseen by a greater variety of bodies than many other areas of Government business. At the parliamentary level, the ISC examines the policy, administration, past operations and expenditure of the intelligence agencies and parts of the wider Government intelligence community. Indeed, the ISC’s position has been strengthened by the Justice and Security Act 2013, which has only been passed into law through this House very recently.