42. There remains the issue of whether oversight by select committee should be by a single new committee responsible for all security and intelligence matters or should reflect the existing departmentally-related principle. The main arguments in favour of structuring oversight on a departmentally-related basis are that this would accord with the basis of the rest of the system for parliamentary oversight of the executive, and that it would ensure that the work of each Agency could be considered in the context of the rest of the priorities, policies and events in the field of activity in each relevant department (i.e. the Home Office for the Security Service and the Foreign and Commonwealth office for the SIS and GCHQ).

43. We recognise that the departmentally-related basis to parliamentary oversight has worked well since the present committees were established in 1979, and that there are mechanisms in place to ensure that where cooperation is needed between committees this can happen.[50] But the principle is not inviolable. As already noted, (quite apart from the cases of such select committees as the Public Accounts Committee which have a specialised remit running across the whole range of government activity) there are also existing select committees—notably the Science and Technology Committee and the Public Administration Committee—which are specifically charged with looking at particular issues wherever they occur in individual departments' activities. Such committees operate successfully without disrupting the work of departmentally-related committees.

44. The need for the work of the agencies to be examined in the context of the rest of the activities of the relevant associated department was put to us by Mr Bickford. He argued that a departmental structure "would be more effective because the Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs Select Committees have access to a broad range of information. Home Affairs deals with law enforcement, for instance, in a narrower sense, it also deals with legislative aspects. The role that the Agencies are moving into is going to demand much more of that input, a broad background knowledge of law enforcement problems ... I think ... if you have an Intelligence and Security Committee which is focussed entirely on intelligence that broad background just does not naturally come into focus".[51] The importance of this approach would, he felt, grow given the increasing proportion of Security Service work being directed towards organised and international crime. He did not think that adding issues relating to the Security Service to the Home Affairs Committee's workload would necessarily overload the Committee or lead to insufficient attention being given to the Security Service provided a mechanism—perhaps a form of inspectorate—was established which would allow the bulk of the work to be carried out by appropriately qualified staff who would report back to the Committee.[52]

45. We think this approach overestimates the extent to which this Committee could incorporate matters relating to the Security Service into its remit without either disrupting the rest of our work or causing us to pay inadequate attention to it. As already noted, the ISC meets roughly weekly, as does this Committee, and —even allowing for the fact that the ISC covers more than just the Security Service—there must be a real question as to whether we could in practice give the Security Service the same level of scrutiny as could a separate committee. We would not be happy for the 'shortfall' in scrutiny to be made up for in some way by delegating more of the work to an enlarged committee staff; it is fundamental to the work of select committees that the Members on the committees are closely associated at all stages with the directing of an inquiry and the gathering of evidence, as well as considering the texts of any reports.

46. We also note that there may be distinct advantage in the work of the three intelligence and security agencies, given the inevitable overlap between their work, being considered together. We understood the Chairman of the ISC to feel that this greatly added to his Committee's effectiveness, and we note that in practice the ISC has gone beyond even the limits of the three principal agencies to examine other intelligence work within government.[53] Any moves towards unification of the three agencies[54] would reinforce the importance of their work being considered together.

47. We therefore conclude that select committee scrutiny of the security and intelligence services should be by a special and separate committee established for the purpose—i.e. a reconstituted ISC—rather than by the existing departmental select committees. We emphasise once again that we reach this conclusion on the basis of our analysis of the situation with regard to the Security Service, given that we have no responsibility for examination of the other two Agencies.

51  Q110; see also Appendix 2, p. 26, where he suggests "Because of the extensive nature of the work of the agencies the oversight given by Parliament must also rely on extensive knowledge in order to be effective. A committee confined to dealing with intelligence matters will almost certainly not have that knowledge". Back

52  Q111. Back

53  The 1996 Annual Report of the ISC indicated, for example, that it had taken evidence not only from the three principal agencies but also from relevant parts of the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Cabinet Office. Back

54  See for example speech by Mr Bickford to the International Conference Group on Business Crime and Risk, 19 Nov 1997 Back