Intelligence and Security Services

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Riordan. I pay tribute to my co-sponsors, particularly the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert).

It is right that this debate should be underpinned by cross-party support. Neither our security nor our freedoms should be the subject of partisan politics. I think we all agree that the burden of responsibility on our intelligence agencies to keep us safe is heavy, and we pay tribute to them.

I had the privilege of working with the agencies, including GCHQ, during my six years at the Foreign Office, and I know first hand that their work is vital. In his recent speech, the MI5 director general, Andrew Parker, set out the current security challenges that Britain faces, and I pay tribute to the officers who, out of the limelight, work unstintingly to protect us from those dangers.

I also pay tribute to Mr Parker for an under-reported aspect of his speech. While discussing trying to reduce the terrorist threat, he observed:

“In a free society ‘zero’ is of course impossible to achieve...A strong record of success risks creating an expectation of guaranteed prevention. There can be no such guarantee.”

As an MP and a citizen, I recognise that bitter truth. We in this House have a duty to ensure that the public grasp it, too.

Similarly, any democratic Government must be accountable to their citizens, particularly if they impinge on their citizens’ freedoms in the necessary pursuit of security. In recent years, UK surveillance of its citizens has increased exponentially, and the legal basis has sometimes, and now regularly, appeared strained at best. Oversight is frayed and legitimate debate is at risk of being drowned out by frankly untested assertions of national security.

In June, The Guardian published revelations by US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden that GCHQ was clandestinely tapping transatlantic fibre-optic cables, giving almost unfettered access to people’s phone call records, e-mails, Facebook entries and the like. The legal basis for Operation Tempora looks thin at best, and Parliament certainly had no idea of the scale of the use of those powers.

We also learned that Britain receives data from the US Prism surveillance programme, which appears to allow GCHQ to dilute—not circumvent entirely, but dilute—the safeguards that would apply if the same agencies were to gather the information themselves.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentions that there has recently been increased activity by the intelligence agencies. He is no doubt aware of the number of serious attempts at major acts of terrorism; there have been about two a year since 2000. Some 330 people have been convicted of serious terrorist activity, and there were four major threats in the first half of this year, including a 7/7-type attack. Twenty-four terrorists were convicted in the first half of this year alone.

Does my hon. Friend understand the extent of the frustration, particularly among those working in the Gloucestershire-based GCHQ, that such suspicions are raised against their activity when, actually, they are trying to protect British people from catastrophic terrorist attacks?

[Mr Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, but he is wrong as a matter of fact. According to the terrorist threat assessment given publicly in annual speeches by successive director-generals at MI5, there was a spike—

[Richard Graham]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I join this debate on the oversight of the intelligence services as a former diplomat who, on his first posting overseas, made a telephone call to a western ally embassy that was interrupted by a third party with the phrase, “Please repeat the last sentence.” I mention that to suggest that the timing of this debate seems to be driven by an element of possible hysteria and even naivety. Intelligence agencies do eavesdrop. It might well be that the motivation behind the debate of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) was perhaps an overreaction to media suggestions that every e-mail is indeed read by someone in Gloucestershire. As the Foreign Secretary said, our intelligence agencies

“have neither the interest nor the capability to do so.”

The hon. Gentleman said that this was a surveillance society, that there was a natural trend towards more surveillance and that privacy in a digital era would be one of the determining questions of our age. I do not believe that that is the case, but let me tackle the oversight of the intelligence service within the time allowed.

There is of course legitimate interest in the matter in Parliament, which, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) rightly highlighted, is responsible for oversight of our intelligence services. The suggestion earlier on in a series of bizarre allegations from the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) that our intelligence agencies were responsible for the bugging of every reader of the Daily Mirror is one that we can put to one side. The intelligence agencies of course cannot answer for themselves.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) rightly alluded to various aspects of the oversight of the intelligence service that have, of course, been strengthened in exactly the way to which the Chairman of the ISC referred. The key aspect in that is the role of the intelligence services commissioner and the interception of communications commissioner, who review all the licences approved by the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and other Cabinet members. The interception of communications commissioner, who is a senior judge, said:

“It is my belief that GCHQ staff conduct themselves with the highest levels of integrity and legal compliance.”

Personally, I prefer to take his word on that issue and to reassure my constituents that I believe that those staff operate with the utmost morality, rather than to take the word of the right hon. Member for—I forget his constituency, although I know that he spends a lot of time in the Cotswolds.

[Mr Winnick]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Graham]

Alas, there is no time. The right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) referred to the intelligence agencies operating under outdated laws without a genuine public mandate. That is absolutely not the case.

[Mr Winnick]

rose—

[Richard Graham]

I am terribly sorry, but my time has already been reduced.

[Mr Winnick]

On a point of order, Mr Brady. As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman was alleging that I said that MI5 had bugged every reader of the Daily Mirror. I said nothing of the kind. I quoted Edward Heath, who made the remark.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

No, they remain on the record to embarrass those who make them.

[Richard Graham]

After that distraction, I am delighted to continue and to hear that the hon. Member for Walsall North does not imagine that our intelligence services are interested in readers of the Daily Mirror per se. The later accusation from the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton was disappointing. My constituents who work for GCHQ are unable to answer back directly. We should take the word of the senior judge that they act within the highest levels of integrity and legal compliance. That is a crucial part of the oversight of the intelligence agencies, which is ultimately the responsibility of our Parliament.

My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) was wrong to say that threats are diminishing. My intervention on his speech quoted directly from the recent speech of the director-general of MI5. It was quite clear from the statistics that he gave that threats have increased from an average of one or two a year for the past 10 years to four major threats in the first half of this year. On average, 33 terrorists have been convicted every year for the past 10 years, but 24 have been convicted in the first half of this year already.

The truth is that the threats are becoming more complicated and more sophisticated. They come not necessarily from states but from individuals or organisations.

[Mr Raab]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Graham]

Alas, there is so little time. The threats include nuclear proliferation, cyber-attacks, attacks on our intellectual property, organised crime and new weapons. Although we must ensure that our laws and our ability to review the intelligence agencies are properly supervised, we should not be naive or foolish in any way about the threats to our nation. Above all, we must remember that the primary duty of any Government is the protection of their citizens. Within that, the most important new power of the ISC is its ability to hold to account the operational activities of the intelligence agencies. We should allow the ISC to use its new powers, but we must also ensure that those agencies remain able to maintain their competitive advantage against threats and to keep us safe. In the balance between protecting our freedoms and protecting the safety of our citizens, I hope that the Minister will allow the ISC to go about its business with its new powers, and Parliament should ensure that it is indeed performing its duty.