Should I be writing this? Probably not if I were looking for a quiet life. After more than 30 years in the intelligence business, retiring in 1999 as the deputy chief of defence intelligence, I spent more than five years on contract as the investigator for the intelligence and security committee (ISC), the parliamentary body responsible for overseeing MI5, MI6 and the Government Communications Headquarters.
Two years ago, having had the invigorating experience of being sacked by the ISC for being disobliging about the prime minister in a Panorama interview, I joined Brunel University’s Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies as a senior fellow. My colleagues and I are about to publish an academic analysis of the UK’s system for intelligence oversight, with all its paradoxes and conundrums — and the Cabinet Office has put ever-so-polite but firm pressure on me to submit my text for its approval. Pressure which I have resisted. So, as you might say, I have some form.
Why do we need oversight? Not because the intelligence and security agencies are up to no good and need to be brought under control; nor because they have some sort of weird and unhealthy hold over the government. In my experience the UK intelligence community contains some of the most upright and ethical individuals in our public service. Oversight is needed because intelligence is a big and critical business that needs to be properly managed. This year some £1.5 billion will be spent on the three core agencies alone — a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000.
How is the public to know that the UK intelligence community provides the best possible value for money? How can we be sure that the ISC is doing the best possible job on our behalf to find out? The problem is that the intelligence and security agencies must work within the “ring of secrecy”; they simply cannot operate if their secrets are open to all. When MI6 and GCHQ’s intelligence activities were publicly acknowledged, the John Major government realised that there had to be some form of accountability and in 1994 set up the ISC: nine parliamentarians appointed by the prime minister who would report to him each year in a candid survey and then publish an expurgated version for parliament and the public. So the paradox was neatly resolved: the nine ISC members would operate behind the curtain of secrecy, but would twitch the curtain aside occasionally to give us a glimpse of the secret world.
There can be no doubt that the first two ISC committees from 1994 to 2001 under Tom (now Lord) King’s chairmanship steadily extended their oversight range and their effectiveness, little by little moving into areas beyond the ISC’s statutory responsibilities, which were formally limited to examining “the expenditure, administration and policy” of the three security and intelligence agencies.
That broader oversight role was confirmed under the third committee chaired by Ann (now Baroness) Taylor from 2001 to 2005. So what can one say of the present committee chaired by Paul Murphy, a former secretary of state for Northern Ireland?
Well, on the evidence of its first two published reports, on the 7/7 London bombings and its annual report for 2005-06, the ISC seems to be going backwards. Both reports seem curiously passive, recording what they were told but failing to ask some fundamental questions, such as whether MI5’s failure to spot the 7/7 bombers was merely the result of overstretched resources or whether new operational methods were required. And the 7/7 report did not — could not — cover aspects of the 7/7 bombings that were under police investigation, sub judice or, like the De Menezes and Forest Gate shootings, being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Even in its designated field one can question the present ISC’s judgment. The first substantive conclusion of its annual report betrays an extraordinary lack of understanding of the roles of the security and intelligence co-ordinator in the Cabinet Office and of the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee — both roles now filled by the same person, Sir Richard Mottram (declaration of interest: a former colleague of mine). They “are concerned that the JIC chairman’s impartiality may conflict with his interests as co-ordinator of the intelligence community”.
Why on earth should it? As JIC chairman, Mottram’s job is to ensure that ministers get the best possible intelligence assessments; as co-ordinator, to ensure that the government is provided with the best possible intelligence machine. In seeing a non-existent conflict of responsibilities the ISC seems to have misunderstood what each of his jobs involves.
We deserve good oversight of our intelligence and security organisations. And to that end we need a proper debate about how that oversight can be achieved. The current ISC may be doing the best it believes it can, but is that really the best it could do? Its annual report notes how much time it spent on the 7/7 bombings report, which “. . . occupied the greater part of the year, therefore reducing the time available for other areas”.
The present committee could appoint an investigator to work independently on its behalf; it has chosen not to. I know just how much can be achieved by an intelligence expert working doggedly away on the committee’s behalf (King asked me during my first interview if I could be a rottweiler; I had to reply that all they could hope for was a terrier, but that might be more useful). Why has the committee chosen to deprive itself of such support? Last Tuesday’s Commons debate on the ISC’s annual report was the usual mix of mutual congratulation and parliamentary hobby-horse trotting (should the ISC become a select committee?).
Some good points were made; some fundamental issues were overlooked. In our forthcoming book, The Open Side of Secrecy, I and my Brunel colleagues suggest ways in which the ISC could be more effective. We believe that the ISC should retain its present status as a committee of parliamentarians but it should be directed by the prime minister to oversee all the key elements of the UK intelligence community, including the defence intelligence staff and JIC machinery, as well as the government’s intelligence policies, and have full access to all the information it requests (at present there are no-go areas).
The ISC chairman should be a strong and experienced politician drawn from one of the opposition parties; the post should not be seen as a consolation prize for being kicked out of cabinet. The committee’s members should have a proven independence of mind and ideally some prior experience of intelligence matters, so they do not spend too much time catching up.
The ISC should be provided with a strengthened in-house support team whose clerk should work to a long-term strategy established by the committee. In addition the ISC should appoint a small panel of external experts who could be called upon to undertake investigations in specialist areas.
There should be greater transparency in the exercise of the ISC’s duties, with some evidence sessions held in public and fewer expurgations in its published reports; the committee should consciously push the boundaries of what the public can be told.
