Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan remains a very serious problem that has not been defeated, but of course many other things have been achieved in Afghanistan, and he is losing sight of that in his question. Terrorist bases that were operating for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan have been destroyed, the threat to the world from terrorism originating in Afghanistan is now much less than it was in 2001, and the Afghan people have been able to make enormous progress in other ways—so that is only one dimension on which we should measure the operations in Afghanistan.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Touching on the Foreign Secretary’s responsibility for GCHQ, in a speech this morning the Deputy Prime Minister initiated an independent review of the intelligent balance that needs to be struck between digital freedom and national security. Even to a keen supporter of the intelligence services like me, that does not seem unreasonable. Why were Conservative Ministers not willing to support it?

[Mr Hague]

The Deputy Prime Minister was speaking in his own capacity on that issue. I reiterate what I have said to the House before about the extremely strong system of oversight that we have in this country, with which my hon. Friend is very familiar. Of course, there are issues being looked at now by the Intelligence and Security Committee, and I think it wise for most of us to await the Committee’s report.