Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Mark Field Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

Informal discussions have taken place to work through the detailed and technical issues that need proper consideration and ensure we strike the right balance. I welcome that dialogue. Before I return to the substance of my right hon. and learned Friend’s point and respond formally, I will take an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field).

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I hope the Minister will recognise that the concern expressed by all of us as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee is that the terms of the Bill are far too broad. If the Government remain unwilling to go along with amendment 73, will he give some consideration to these issues being dealt with in detail in the memorandum of understanding? It may be that some of the technical difficulties to which he referred would be more appropriately dealt with in that forum.

[James Brokenshire]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. There is scope to deal with this further in the memorandum of understanding. I reiterate that it is not the Government’s intention to try and stop the ISC from continuing to do things in the way that it does at the moment as a consequence of the changes contemplated in the Bill, and I am content to reflect on providing further clarity in the memorandum of understanding to address some of those technical points. We have a framework in the legislation. While we may have found it challenging to get the precise legal wording right for an amendment because of those technical areas, I am willing to reflect on how we can seek to encapsulate the existing arrangements, under which the ISC conducts its affairs, in the memorandum of understanding.

These exchanges highlight some of the difficulties in putting changes in the Bill in a rigid way. In some ways, because of the nature of the evidence, they probably lend themselves to being addressed more effectively in the memorandum of understanding. If it will help the House, I am happy to give that commitment on how we may best address those challenges in greater detail in the memorandum of understanding. I hope right hon. and hon. Members will accept the spirit in which that commitment is given.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

This relates to operational matters and inquiries by the Committee. We have had discussions about the exploration of operational matters—this is a new aspect of the Committee’s work, as the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge—and about how to frame that. Detailed consideration has been given to the specific matters that an inquiry may cover, and that is supplemented by the memorandum of understanding in respect of the first two limbs. Clause 2(3)(c) is intended to cover the ordinary information that is being provided. I think it was accepted in Committee that that paragraph dealt with the concerns of the ISC about ordinary matters that would be provided in that course. It states that

“the ISC’s consideration of the matter is limited to the consideration of information provided voluntarily to the ISC by”

the agencies, following those kinds of inquiries. These are issues that have customarily been dealt with by the Committee in its ordinary course. A relationship is established between the Committee and the agencies, and information is provided in that ordinary course, and we have sought to reflect the current practice.

[Mark Field]

The Minister will have gathered from the contributions from the right hon. Members for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) that the Committee currently goes well beyond the constraints of the original legislation. Does he recognise that the use of the word “voluntarily” will give rise to concern outside this place that the Committee remains the poodle of the Executive or, to a certain extent, of the security services? He is right to suggest that it will make relatively little difference to general day-to-day operations, but one of the ideas behind the Bill was to make it crystal clear that we are not a poodle of the Executive or the Prime Minister of the day, and that we are not under the control of the security services. The whole idea of this is that we should be in a position to demand, and ensure that we get, material, rather than being at anyone else’s beck and call.

[James Brokenshire]

I absolutely agree and direct my hon. Friend to the provisions in schedule 1, particularly the part on access to information, which sets out clearly the rights of the ISC to obtain further information. That clear reform has been taken forward through the Bill. I would certainly endorse and underline my hon. Friend’s point. The ISC has not been a poodle in any sense in its existing format and that position would be strengthened even further under the Bill. The ultimate purpose of the reforms it contains is to ensure that scrutiny is enhanced further—for the very important reasons we have discussed.