Top Secret Document Leaks

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

As my right hon. Friend notes, the apparently leaked documents are in the public domain. However, that does not change their classification and thus the degree to which any UK Minister or official can comment on their content, so I will not be commenting on specifics of the examples he raised, nor any others over the course of this urgent question. He is absolutely right in setting out the process by which information is gathered, assimilated and presented to decision makers; he is absolutely right that the breadth and scale of information in this data age is enormous; and he is absolutely right that one of the key decisions that any organisation with intelligence at its core has to make is how to allow access to that information so that the relevant people can use it to make good decisions.

My right hon. Friend asserts that perhaps too many eyes now have access to that information. I think that is a matter for different Departments in different countries to consider. As you would imagine, Mr Speaker, the MOD has looked at our own processes as a consequence of what happened last week. We have to place huge trust in our vetting processes to ensure that those who routinely have access to classified information have been risk-managed appropriately. Even beyond that, within the vetted workforce there is a very necessary compartmentalisation of information, so that only those who need to see things to do their jobs see them.

That said, what we are learning in the information age, when it is about getting ahead of the other side’s narrative, is that it is very useful to be able to think quickly about the information we have. There is thus a balance to strike between being overly compartmentalised and being in a position where people can be well informed and quickly make decisions in a way that meets the speed of relevance in modern competition. Suffice to say, and I hope my right hon. Friend and the House will be reassured, that of course the permanent secretary, on seeing what happened in the Department of Defence last week, has had a good look at what is going on inside the MOD to make sure that, if we have any lessons to learn, we do so.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The US is our closest security ally, so this is of serious concern. The intelligence we share bilaterally and through alliances such as NATO and Five Eyes is fundamental to our UK national security, and it is essential that that continues confidently and confidentially. The Secretary of State for Defence is in Washington, we are told, apparently to discuss this breach, but will he make a statement to Parliament on his return to confirm the reassurances he has received on how British intelligence is handled?

The Minister is right to say that the US agencies are treating this seriously. The Pentagon says that it expects findings from its investigations within 45 days. Two years ago, UK classified documents on Challenger 2 tanks were similarly reported leaked from an online forum for video gaming, “War Thunder”. What action was taken following that leak?

I have a number of questions that the Minister has not yet answered. He has described the documents as inaccurate, but to what extent have they been manipulated and to what extent have they been used as disinformation? Has this leak put at risk any UK personnel? Is the MOD mitigating such risks, and if so how? This is the time when the UK should be accelerating military support to Ukraine, so what assessment have the Government made of the impact of this leak on Ukrainian plans for a potential offensive?

While threats to the UK continue to rise, security breaches have been getting worse on the Defence Secretary’s watch, with 2,000 people affected by data breaches set out in the last MOD annual report and a 40% increase in the number of referrals to the Information Commissioner—and that was last July. How many MOD data breaches have occurred since? Finally, why is no Minister designated as responsible for information security when handling intelligence is so critical to our national security?

[James Heappey]

First, I thought I was clear in my initial answer that the Secretary of State is in Washington for a briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that was requested in December and scheduled in January. It is fortuitous that he is there to discuss these matters in addition, but it would be inaccurate to say that he is there because of what happened last week.

The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) asks about previous incidents where the UK MOD has been responsible for leaks. I agree with him that it happens too often, but every time it happens, reviews are put in place and lessons are learned in terms of both the way that information is handled digitally and—because this was the case last year—the way that documents are removed from the building. On the former, there has been a wide-ranging and robust effort to assure the digital security of documents and to ensure that all users of secret and above systems are aware of the way that those systems should properly be used, and of how it should not even be attempted to move information from one system to the other. On physical documents, the Secretary of State put in place random bag searches at MOD main building immediately following the leak of hard documents last year, and those searches remain in place now.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to observe that some of those documents have, since their apparent leaking, apparently been manipulated for various misinformation and disinformation purposes. That is why it is important to qualify that colleagues should be suspicious not only of the original content, but of the different versions that are in circulation subsequently, because they have been manipulated for various means. He is of course right to flag his concern, which mirrors our concern, about any force protection implications from such leaks. That was indeed our first concern, and the chief of joint operations was able quickly to reassure us that all those involved in the protection of diplomatic mission in Ukraine are not compromised in any way by the leaks—nor are any of those involved in the wider support for Ukraine and the wider continent beyond.

I do not think that there is any impact on the Ukrainian plans for the offensive. In fact, as the right hon. Gentleman will have seen in the reporting of those, there has been a degree of amplification from the Ukrainians around some of the casualty statistics—I make no comment on the accuracy of the figures being pumped. Indeed, there is reporting that those figures have been manipulated by both sides to tell their story. But I am pretty confident that the Ukrainians are intending to stick to their plan and go for it. I do not have the information today on precisely how many breaches there have been, but I will write to him.