Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Marquess of Lothian Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Marquess of Lothian]

My Lords, I rise briefly in support of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, on both amendments, to which my name is also attached. I do so because I am also a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. I was first appointed to the committee in 2006 and therefore have some years of experience of it.

In looking at the first amendment I feel very strongly that we need to make it clear that this is more than just a committee. The problem that we have faced in terms of credibility until now, as the noble Lord said, is that we were a committee created by statute but appointed by the Prime Minister and reporting to the Prime Minister—who could report to Parliament in due course. Although we exercised what we thought was the maximum independence possible, the public perception was that we were actually a creation of, and therefore a tool of, the Executive. In that regard, less confidence was put in the reports that we produced. My belief has been that if this committee is to work properly—which is what I believe the Bill is about now—we need to make it clear that this is not just a committee hanging in the ether but a committee of Parliament: it is composed of parliamentarians, exercises its oversight of the intelligence agencies on behalf of Parliament and reports to Parliament, although the Prime Minister will ultimately have a veto over appointments and also have access to the reports that we produce. I believe that the simple addition of the words “of Parliament” will make it clear that what I am looking for can be achieved.

I have been told in the past that there may be difficulties about the words “Committee of Parliament”. I am a simple Scottish lawyer, and I have worked very hard to understand what these possible difficulties can be given that, as I said at Second Reading, a committee of Parliament is what we are effectively becoming. I hope, therefore, that the Government will accept that, because I think that the committee’s credibility in exercising parliamentary oversight of the intelligence agencies is an important part of our developing constitution.

I turn briefly to the second amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. I have very little to add to what he said other than this. He talked about the need for those who give evidence to the Committee to be able to do so in the knowledge that their evidence will not suddenly be made public. That is a very important part of the way in which the Intelligence and Security Committee works. It is particularly important in one respect. When the intelligence agencies give evidence to us they will naturally take account of how secure their evidence will be. If they feel that that evidence is not secure then they quite simply will not give us that evidence. We rely on their confidence in us to ensure that they give us the maximum amount of information upon which we can exercise our oversight. Unless we have the protection which is the purpose of the second amendment I believe that that confidence will not be there. I hope, therefore, that the Government will accept both amendments.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I have reservations which I will deal with when I speak to my amendment arguing the case for a Select Committee to take on these responsibilities. Parliament is being required to approve wording which suggests that this committee is controlled by Parliament, but without recognising what the Justice and Security Green Paper of October 2011 says at paragraph 3.19. It states:

“However, under such arrangements”—

that is, the arrangements of a Select Committee—

“the Government would clearly have no veto on publication of sensitive material”.

I repeat:

“no veto on publication of sensitive material”.

In other words, the provision is being introduced as a way for the Government to secure control outside of Parliament, through this half-measure of a committee, over the publication of sensitive material. My view is very simple. If they want to do that, let it be done through a full Select Committee structure. That is the substance of my amendment which will come later.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I welcome this debate on an issue that I have pursued now for 14 years since 1998. As I foresaw the response that the Minister has given today—that he was unable to give undertakings on privilege—I asked for my amendment to be taken separately. He will now understand why I had it moved from the group containing Amendment 1.

I corresponded with and made direct representations to Prime Minister Blair and others in Downing Street over a number of years. I was supported in doing so by the overwhelming majority of Labour Members of the other House and members of other political parties, with whom I had conversations in the late 1990s. There was overwhelming support for the principle of a Select Committee. I do not believe that oversight is fully credible while the committee remains a creature of the Executive or some halfway house that lacks parliamentary privilege. Privilege is the central issue in this debate—this was raised in the debate on the previous amendment—and that is why I am driven down the Select Committee route.

The problem at the moment is that the committee considers its relationship with the Prime Minister more important to its operations than its relationship with Parliament. The Government’s proposal seeks to address that but, in reality, it will make little difference to the nature of the relationship. I strongly dissent from the view that this relationship with the Prime Minister is more important than the relationship with Parliament, and that is why I favour Select Committee status.

We live on the threshold of an era in which civil liberties and freedoms will be subjected to increasing pressure. In such conditions, one has to beef up systems of regulation, safeguard and oversight. Those systems need to command public support, confidence and trust. I do not believe that, despite the good intentions of its membership and the witnesses who come before it, the ISC, as a creature of the Executive, can possibly meet those tests. What is proposed will in reality make little difference.

The committee needs new and increased powers to call persons and papers and to communicate with other committees. There are times when the information that comes before the committee should, in certain circumstances, be referred to other Select Committees. I shall deal with that in later amendments. This would enable it to carry out its inquiries. It does not mean that security will be in any way breached because mechanisms could be introduced to ensure that that does not happen with the release of material.

It is already acknowledged that the committee needs the power to report directly to Parliament and the argument has been well rehearsed over the years. The ISC needs the power to take evidence under oath: Select Committees have that power. It would not be that it took all evidence under oath but it should have the power to do so. As I say, Select Committees have that power but the ISC does not.

Without going into any details, there are times when the committee might receive assurances on issues where, if those assurances were given under oath, the committee might have the confidence, with the approval of the Prime Minister, to make statements that would be extremely helpful during the course of public debate and in the exercise of reassuring public opinion.

The ISC needs the power to take evidence under privilege. Technically, if a person appeared before the committee today, he could libel another person because he would not be protected by privilege. The committee has none of the powers that are afforded to witnesses giving evidence to parliamentary Select Committees. Above all, the committee should have the power to hold witnesses in contempt if they deliberately mislead the committee, which is what happens in the Commons. If Parliament knew that the committee had the ability to take evidence under oath and to hold witnesses in contempt in the event that they were deliberately to mislead, it would substantially increase the credibility of any reassuring statement that the committee makes.

The arguments are not new. They have been rehearsed at length on a number of occasions in the past, most notably during the passage of the 1989 and 1994 legislation—we go back a long way in this discussion. Those supporting Select Committee status included the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, then speaking from the Labour Front Bench, the future Secretary of State for Trade, the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, and the future Minister at the Cabinet Office, now the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham of Felling. All made positive speeches in favour of Select Committee status. In 1989, the entire Labour shadow cabinet, including the shadow Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary voted for full Select Committee status and not a halfway house. I have a copy of the Division List and the entire Labour membership in the House of Lords at the time voted for Select Committee status. We are not arguing new principles today.

Some say that legislation is required if the decision is taken to accord Select Committee status, but that is not altogether clear, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, was saying. It is argued by many that, although some tinkering with the law might be necessary, resolutions establishing the committee—effectively a Joint Committee—carried in both Houses with simple resolutions could cover all the functions of the committee.

I recognise that there is some opposition to the whole proposal. Some argue that the fact that the committee reports directly to the Prime Minister gives individual members of it additional clout, kudos, weight or importance in the political world. That was the view of some on the committee when I was a member. I strongly reject that view. Others argue that no way can be found to restructure the practices and the procedure of the Select Committee so as to ensure executive influence for reasons of national security over material that it may seek to publish. That is simply untrue. A resolution of both Houses could require that the committee sought the approval of the appropriate agency before reporting to the House. The resolutions could further provide that, in the event of a dispute arising between the agency and the committee over the publication of information or evidence in a report to the House, the matter at dispute could be referred to the Prime Minister for his decision and the committee could be required to comply with the decision of the Prime Minister. That is what I referred to during my Second Reading speech as the override.

If in unforeseen circumstances, the committee, or any member of it, were to threaten to breach the committee’s rules and procedure, as agreed by the House in these resolutions, it would always be open to the Leader of the House, on the instructions of the Prime Minister, to dissolve the entire committee or to remove any member of it on a resolution tabled on one day which took effect on the next. There are adequate provisions, although I shall argue on a later amendment that this power would need to be exercised with great caution.

I believe that Parliament could carry resolutions that make the committee as hermetically sealed as any structure that currently exists. We are told that such a committee could not be prevented from taking evidence in public session, if that were the wish of the committee. In response, I argue that a resolution of the House could introduce a general prohibition on the Select Committee taking evidence in public session—resolutions of the Commons can be carried to deal with the issue. It could further place a requirement on the committee to seek the permission of the appropriate agencies and the Prime Minister in conditions of dispute, if it wished to take evidence in public in particular circumstances. It is argued that although a Select Committee is neither more nor less likely than the ISC to leak, as a Select Committee it would have the right to publish reports in a way that could prove prejudicial to the interests of national security. A resolution of the House could introduce a general prohibition on the Select Committee publishing reports without approval. It could further place a requirement on the committee to seek the permission of the appropriate agency and the Prime Minister in conditions of dispute, if it wished to publish a report. Safeguards would be available for every eventuality in the event that it were to be created a full Select Committee of Parliament.

As prime ministerial appointees, members are currently responsible for reporting collectively to the Prime Minister. It is argued that such limited powers to report would not be possible if the committee were appointed by the legislature. There is no reason why the resolution of the House should not stipulate the procedure to be used in the publication of reports. It could require the committee to publish its reports subject to sidelining by the Prime Minister for reasons of national security, as currently happens.

It is also argued that a move to a parliamentary arrangement could lead to greater pressures on Ministers to be accountable as witnesses, with less emphasis on agency heads giving evidence. That argument is not supported by an examination of practices in some of the House’s other committees. In my 11 years on the Public Accounts Committee, Ministers never attended as witnesses. I am not advocating a prohibition on Ministers attending the ISC, but Ministers would be no more likely to attend a House Intelligence Committee than the ISC. With hearings being held in private, there will be no additional pressure on Ministers to attend. I believe that with the right membership, a parliamentary committee is as secure as the ISC. I reject the statement in the Green Paper as I said in an earlier intervention; if the right people are selected there will not be a problem.

I remind the Committee that this is the first real open debate we have had in Parliament on this issue in 14 years. I welcome this debate. We need now to grasp the mettle and not muck around with some interim or secondary arrangement. There is an expectation among colleagues that the system should work. We must be satisfied that the structure we create is going to work so that we have a system that is credible with the public.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

My Lords, I have long been an admirer of the persistence of the noble Lord, both in this House and in the other place. Certainly, in regard to his amendment, that is no exception. I wish to correct him on one point he made at the end. There is no prohibition on relevant Ministers attending the ISC and they have done so on a number of occasions. That is simply a matter of fact.

Over the years that I have been a member of the ISC, I was one of those who thought very carefully about the future of the committee and whether it should be a Select Committee. Although I understand many of the points made by the noble Lord, particularly in relation to privilege, I shall say why ultimately I do not agree with him on making this committee a full Select Committee of Parliament.

Over a long—probably overlong—if broken career in the other place, I served on two Select Committees. Their purpose—I refer to the Select Committee on Energy and the Public Accounts Committee—was to openly take evidence that was available to the public on matters of relevance in terms of energy and of public accounting. The culture of a Select Committee is based on being able to take open evidence. There is no compunction on witnesses at a Select Committee to give full answers; there is no evidence given on oath. But normally a Select Committee is not dealing with confidential information that cannot be disclosed in that forum.

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[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 9.

It is right and customary to declare an interest in these amendments. I certainly do so in this case because I have a direct financial interest in Amendment 4. The purpose of the amendments is that the chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee should be treated in the same way as the chairmen of Select Committees in terms of remuneration. The purpose of Amendment 4 is that the members of the Intelligence and Security Committee should, similarly, be treated in the same way as members of Select Committees.

I wish to make it absolutely clear that Amendment 9 is not tabled at the behest of the current chairman of the ISC, the right honourable Malcolm Rifkind, who does a great deal of work for the committee on an entirely voluntary basis. I think that my colleague the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, will agree that this committee chairman certainly does not do less work than the chairman of a Select Committee. He works many more days of the week than the days on which the ISC meets. For financial purposes—and leaving aside the particular individual, Sir Malcolm Rifkind—the chairman of the ISC should, as a matter of justice, be treated similarly to the chairmen of Select Committees and receive remuneration accordingly. I think I can say that that is the view of the other members of the ISC, who are similarly grateful for and deeply impressed by the work that our chairman does.

As regards Amendment 4, the House of Lords is kind enough to provide that attendance at meetings of the Intelligence and Security Committee should qualify for half the daily allowance—£150—but only on the days when this House is sitting. There seems to be no logic in that. We do exactly the same amount of work regardless of whether this House happens to be sitting at the same time. If one day should qualify for the £150 allowance then it seems that the other day should. This point arises because, these days, and as we will see in the next couple of weeks, the sittings of the House of Commons and the House of Lords do not always coincide with each other. I regret that. It may happen in September that the House of Commons will sit and the House of Lords will not. If there is a meeting of the ISC on those days, my noble colleague and I will not be eligible for the daily allowance. There is a greater injustice as a result of the unevenness of the sittings of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

I have, as I say, a personal interest in this perfectly simple point of equity, which ought to be put right. It can easily be put right in the rules on the financial support of the House. In order to draw attention to it and try to ensure that it is put right, I have put down Amendment 4.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, in both of his amendments, to which I have attached my name. Like him, I declare an interest in Amendment 4—on which I shall say no more than he has said. He has argued the case with great eloquence and I hope that the Government will listen to his argument.

In general terms, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that these amendments are slightly ironic, given what I was saying in answer to his previous amendment. We are asking to be treated like a Select Committee and, once more, this underlines the fact that the argument on that is not polarised. It is not about the theory of a Select Committee but about the practice of one. We may well return to this matter in the future.

I strongly endorse the proposal in Amendment 9 that the chair of the committee should be remunerated in line with the chair of departmental Select Committees. I have served under four Intelligence and Security Committee chairmen, I think, and in each case I have been amazed at the amount of work they are required to do compared with the ordinary members of the committee. The ordinary members do preparation behind closed doors in secure surroundings for an afternoon and then we have the meeting the next day, but the chairman is in almost every day, going through issues, deciding whether they should be brought to the committee. The chairman has a major piece of work. It is therefore only fair that the chairman should be properly remunerated, as he would be if he were a chairman of a Select Committee.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly support the amendment. My parting speech in the House of Commons in 2001 was on the very issue of the payment of chairmen of Select Committees. I wanted to see the development of what you might call a separate career structure in the legislature as opposed to the Executive. When I was a member, the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, did excellent work. When I think of the amount of work that he took on, it is inconceivable that we should now push through legislation without taking full account of that work and the need to ensure that it is remunerated.

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[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, Amendment 5 is an amendment to Clause 1(4). It seeks simply to fill out an obvious point that is not currently covered by the Bill.

Under the arrangements proposed in the Bill, the Prime Minister will propose members of the committee but it will be for Parliament to agree to the appointment or not. Therefore, we need to provide for the situation in which Parliament does not agree to an appointment. At the moment the Bill says nothing about that. The purpose of this amendment is to make clear that in those circumstances, if either the House of Commons or the House of Lords does not agree to the nomination of a Member of that House to the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Prime Minister would have to nominate somebody else for the appointment for the approval of the respective House. I think that is obvious and that is what would happen. It is not provided for in the Bill and this amendment is therefore just to fill that gap.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

My Lords, once again I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, on this amendment, to which my name is also attached. I will not add much to what he said. I think that the real purpose here is to remind the House that the committee has nine members. That is written in to the statute. It is one of the smaller committees involved in the sort of work that this committee is doing and it is very important, in my view, that we retain that number at least. In the absence of this amendment it is theoretically possible that this House might decide that it did not want the two nominations from this House made by the Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister might decide to leave it at that—have a committee of seven in total from the House of Commons and nobody from this House. This amendment would make sure that that cannot happen by ensuring that, were this House or, indeed, the other House to say no to nominations by the Prime Minister to this committee from those Houses, the Prime Minister would be required to make another nomination.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 6 in this group. My amendment deals with the wording in Clause 1(5) of the Bill, which states:

“Before deciding whether to nominate a person for membership, the Prime Minister must consult the Leader of the Opposition”.

I have great reservations about this, and I will explain why. I think that this is the product of muddled thinking. This is an appointment of trust. The appointment requires the Prime Minister’s knowledge of opposition politicians. I think that Ministers very often do not understand what motivates opposition politicians.

As an example I take my own appointment. It is utterly inconceivable that the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, now the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, would have appointed me to that committee. She would have referred to my record in the 1980s when I was running with the hounds on the issue of Peter Wright and we caused some considerable difficulty, I was informed, in the House of Commons. I had endless arguments with the Table Office over the tabling of Questions. On a number of occasions my Questions, which, it was thought, would have breached national security had they been tabled, were submitted to the Speaker of the House of Commons under the appeal procedure. If, in the 1980s, I had applied to be a member of this committee, I feel quite sure that if it had been left to the Prime Minister of the day—I am arguing the converse—the Prime Minister of the day might well have objected to a person like me being a member of that committee.

The problem was that, at the time, people did not know what we were campaigning about. It was about reform of Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act and about the need to introduce freedom of information legislation. In both areas we were successful. All I am saying is that, before we go down this route and require the Prime Minister to consult with whomever, we should have in mind that it is possible that people might be blocking appointments in an unfair manner.

Amendment 8 deals with the issue that the chair of the ISC is to be chosen by its members. This is the product of muddled thinking among those who fail to understand the internal dynamics of the committee. It is as if someone has sat down to devise systems of greater accountability that enable them to avoid taking the big question on going for full Select Committee status. In my view, the chairman needs the respect of the agencies, and new members appointed in a new Parliament will have no knowledge of the relationship between the chairman or any member of that committee and the agencies. There is a real danger that the Whips will seek to influence members’ decision about whom to appoint as chairman. It might be that there is an exercise in handing out the jobs going on. I feel that it is wrong that the committee should be placed in a position where it has to choose its chairman at the beginning of a Parliament. New members might be unduly influenced by previous members against their better judgment. As I said at Second Reading, if when I was selected to sit on the committee, I had been asked to vote for the chairman, I would never have voted for the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, because he was not top of my list of popular Secretaries of State, but within a matter of months I realised that he was ideal for the job. You need the experience of being on the committee before you start picking the chairman. What we are doing here is establishing a procedure whereby a chairman will be selected by new members going on to a committee without any knowledge of who they might be appointing.

If a chairman does not fully enjoy the trust of the agencies, there is a danger that that lack of trust may impede the work of the committee by denying access to material that is on the margins of the memorandum of understanding. There will be material on the margins of the memorandum of understanding to which the committee wants access, and it is vital that the chairman is someone who has been picked not by members of the committee but by the Prime Minister.

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[The Marquess of Lothian]

My noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater was talking about the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, leaving the committee. Between 2007 and 2009, two chairmen of the committee were promoted to being Ministers and left the committee. I wonder how the committee would have been able to elect successors to those two when we needed someone of sufficient seniority to carry out that task.

[Lord Henley]

I think that my noble friend possibly means that two members of the committee were promoted to being Ministers, rather than two chairmen.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

No, they were two chairmen. The first was Paul Murphy and the second was Margaret Beckett.

[Lord Henley]

Yes, my noble friend is correct in that. I was looking at the wrong dates—he means between 2007 and 2009. I will obviously have to examine this and, as I promised my noble friend Lord King, examine the statistics in relation to the 1997 Parliament, when there would have been the biggest change in the membership, rather than the subsequent Parliaments. In brief, I stick to my position that it would be better for Parliament to make this decision, rather than the Prime Minister, but I note the concerns put forward by colleagues from all sides, or both sides, of the House.

I turn to Amendment 7, which presents the idea that, whatever happened, the chairman of the committee should be drawn from an opposition party. Again, my noble friend Lord King had some sympathy for this amendment, but when one looks at the history of the committee and the distinguished service of my noble friend, who served as chairman when our party was in government, and as chairman in opposition, from 1994 to 2001, it is obvious that one can do it from either side. To make a statutory requirement that a chairman had to come from the opposition party would unnecessarily limit the available candidates for that job. My noble friend rightly pointed to the problems that might have arisen in 1997 when, after a very long period in opposition, all the more senior members of the then opposition party going into government were likely to become Ministers, and there might not have been suitable people around. To curtail who could be chosen would reduce unnecessarily the pool from which the appropriate chairman could be taken.

Having said that I would listen to comments made on Amendment 8, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, I hope that the explanations that I have given on the other Amendments 5, 6 and 7, as well as Amendment 8, will be sufficient for the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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As I see it, the role of the ISC is oversight on behalf of the public. By their nature, the agencies and government departments dealing with security matters are secretive, and one understands their concern that secrecy should go hand in hand with security. However, it can be very easy to get sucked into a cosy, almost co-dependent relationship in the work of any organisation. I do not want to suggest that this is something that might only happen in this case, nor do I want to suggest that it has happened. I have no way of knowing whether or not that is the case. Knowing something of the members of the committee, I am sure that they are too strong-minded to let this happen. However, I have seen it happen in other contexts, where a committee, particularly a chair, charged with scrutiny of an organisation becomes so attached to that organisation that he or she tends to defend it rather than look critically at it.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Could she perhaps outline to the House what sort of meetings of this committee should be held in public?

[Baroness Hamwee]

I am saying that the committee should consider whether there is a reason not to hold a meeting in public. My approach to this would be to say that each move into closed session should be considered quite positively. I look at it the other way round; it is a different philosophy and I accept that.

I have provided in Amendment 14—these are probing amendments—that a determination could be made to apply to more than one meeting. I cannot believe, given the committee’s obligation to the public, that every meeting should be held privately unless there is a good reason to hold it in public. As I say, it is a difference in philosophy. Amendment 14 is, as I say, probing, and I accept that a decision could be taken to cover more than one meeting.

Amendment 15 is rather different. I think that there is a place for something like a public question time. The noble Baroness’s amendment suggests annual hearings with the heads of the agencies and the Secretary of State, and I think that that is a good idea. In both of our amendments, we suggest that the public should have a hand in setting the agenda of the committee. I beg to move.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly. Amendment 14 says that,

“the ISC shall meet in public save when it determines that members of the public shall be excluded”.

I think that that would put the fear of God into the agencies and I am afraid it would create a climate of suspicion which the committee does not deserve. I am not saying that it should not meet in public on occasion, as I shall explain in a minute, but putting words such as that into the Bill would be very unpopular within the agency. It needs to have confidence that Parliament is able to handle the material with the necessary safeguards.

Amendment 15 says:

“The ISC shall not less than once in each calendar year hold a public question time for which it shall determine applicable procedures”.

In a curious way, there may be something in that amendment. I remember—and the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, may recall—that we did occasionally meet in public. After the Mitrokhin inquiry, we invited journalists in to ask us questions. Therefore, in a way, the structure is there to do it. The question is: what is on the agenda? I can foresee circumstances in which there may well be an item of some controversy or just a general report where the committee may want to meet in public, and the public—basically, journalists—ask questions. However, Ministers may want to ponder over the exact wording of the amendment.

Finally, Amendment 17 says:

“The ISC may decide to hold some of its proceedings in public, subject to sub-paragraph (2) … The ISC may not hold public hearings under sub-paragraph (1) if it might lead to the disclosure of”.

The problem is that if members of the agencies, or indeed Ministers, are brought in as witnesses to answer questions, their refusal to answer, for perfectly legitimate reasons of national security, might send a hare running in the media which gets completely out of control. Although I accept that there are conditions in which the public or journalists should be able to ask questions, we have to be very careful about witnesses who might be called before the committee in those circumstances but who might feel that they cannot answers the questions in open session. The reason that parliamentary Select Committees meet in private is to avoid those very problems.

Therefore, again, I give qualified support but I think that there would be certain conditions under which it would be quite wrong for the committee to meet in public.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly to say that there is nothing to prevent the ISC in its present form holding public hearings. Indeed, the Prime Minister in the previous Government, Gordon Brown, called on the committee to hold public hearings, and we have been looking very closely at ways in which this can be done. Therefore, there is nothing in Amendment 17 that I find very difficult because, first, there is the principle and, secondly, the restrictions on it which would be required for any public hearing.

However, following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has just said, the first point to bear in mind is that a public hearing should not end up as a farce in which, because of the subject matter, every significant question that is asked is answered by the famous phrase, “I can’t answer that question”. The credibility of the committee would suffer very quickly if we went down that road. Secondly, it has to be an honest process. We cannot have a subject which is so anodyne and so completely rehearsed that in the end the public see through it. That, again, would be to the disadvantage of the committee.

We are looking closely, whether under this Bill or even before the Bill goes through, at whether we can identify subjects that are of genuine public interest and where the agencies or the sponsoring Ministers will feel able to answer at least the majority of the questions. We are looking at holding a public hearing in which the members of the committee, in its normal form, ask the questions and the answers are given. I think that that is slightly different from the sort of press conference to which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, referred, which we have also undertaken on a number of occasions. This would be a case of the committee asking questions of the agencies, which is, after all, the true role of the committee.