Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 8, page 1, line 7, leave out ‘nine’ and insert

‘an elected Chair and eight other’.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 9, page 1, line 9, at end insert—

‘(2A) The Chair is to be a member of the House of Commons elected in the same way as the Chairs of Departmental Select Committees.

(2B) A person is not eligible to be elected as Chair of the ISC unless that person—

(a) has received the formal consent in writing of the Prime Minister to that person’s candidature, and

(b) is not a Minister of the Crown.’.

Amendment 10, page 2, line 3, leave out subsection (6).

Amendment 11, in schedule 1, page 16, line 5, after ‘person’, insert

‘elected as the Chair or’.

Amendment 12, page 16, line 7, after ‘(2)’, insert ‘The Chair or’.

Amendment 13, page 16, line 12, after ‘is’, insert ‘the Chair or’.

Amendment 14, page 16, line 16, leave out

‘Parliament by virtue of which the person is a member of the ISC’

and insert ‘Commons’.

Amendment (a) to Government amendment 58, line 11 at end add—

‘(e) may make payments to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and House of Lords in respect of any expenditure incurred, or to be incurred, in relation to remuneration payable to ISC members in respect of their membership of the ISC.’.

[Steve Baker]

Before I deal with amendments 8 to 14, which stand in the name of, among others, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), I should explain that my hon. Friend has been unavoidably diverted by long-standing and immovable duties in relation to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. He sends his profuse apologies to the House.

I am acutely aware of what is at stake in relation to the Intelligence and Security Committee. In 2009 the Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report entitled “Allegations of UK Complicity in Torture”, which considered the ISC’s ability to work within a circle of secrecy and yet deliver credible scrutiny. It states:

“The missing element, which the ISC has failed to provide, is proper ministerial accountability to Parliament for the activities of the Security Services. In our view, this can be achieved without comprising individual operations if the political will exists to provide more detailed information to Parliament about the policy framework, expenditure and activities of the relevant agencies.”

The provisions in the Bill are therefore welcome on the whole, but amendments 8 to 14 would remedy a crucial deficiency in the struggle to provide that political will to answer to Parliament.

The amendments would have a very simple effect. They provide for the election of a Chair of the ISC from the House of Commons on the same basis as the election of Select Committee Chairs, apart from the fact that candidates would be required to obtain the formal consent of the Prime Minister in writing before standing. Ministers would be ineligible.

There are three reasons why reform of the ISC is needed. First, it tried, but failed, to get to the bottom of British involvement in rendition; its investigation of British complicity in extraordinary rendition was a test that it failed.