GCHQ

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I can only speak about the legal framework operating now on the basis of two Acts of Parliament, in 1994 and 2000, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if the Home Secretary and I were signing off interception warrants on political grounds, we would be in a great deal of trouble with the intercept commissioner and the ISC. The hon. Gentleman can be reassured about that.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that our relationship with the US is a cornerstone of our national security infrastructure; that the exchange of material works both ways, aiding the US as well as the UK; that those who work on the paranoid assumption that this or some other programme is there to spy on UK and US citizens are wrong; and that a large proportion of the data collected is against third-party citizens in third-party countries?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, including about the importance of the relationship and about how inevitably the vast majority of work done together by the UK and US intelligence agencies is to guard against threats from elsewhere in the world.