Where is the Intelligence and Security Committee and why does its absence matter?
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The unprecedentedly long delay in appointing the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) again exposes the extent to which the work of this parliamentary committee is constrained by the executive. Important ISC inquiries, as well as publication of the Committee’s ‘Russia report’, are being held up.
The ISC is a joint committee of both Houses responsible for scrutinising the UK intelligence community. Although the ISC is a parliamentary committee appointed by and reporting to Parliament, owing to the sensitive nature of its work it does not operate in the same way as other parliamentary committees, and the Prime Minister retains significant control over appointments to it and the publication of its reports.
The Prime Minister’s illness in early April may have had an impact on the process, although this does not explain why the Committee was not reconstituted before that, or indeed why nominations have not emerged since Mr Johnson returned to work.
The Labour leadership contest is another possible source of the delay, although new leader Keir Starmer has now been in post for two months.
Where is the ISC’s Russia report?
One consequence of the delay in appointing the ISC is that the Committee’s report on Russian interference in the UK remains unpublished.
Although the ISC is a parliamentary committee, due to the nature of its work its reports are submitted first to the Prime Minister and subject to a process designed to remove sensitive material, before being returned to the Committee for publication.
The ISC’s Russia inquiry was launched shortly after the 2017 general election and completed over a year ago. The time taken to review ISC reports has already been a source of tension between the Committee and the government in recent years, and the issue came to a head in November 2019 when the government refused to approve the release of the Russia report before the dissolution of Parliament. In a tetchy exchange on the House of Commons’ last sitting day before the general election, then-ISC Chair Dominic Grieve pressed the government to explain why. Mr Grieve revealed that the report had been completed in March, and the process of agreeing redactions with intelligence and security agencies on 17 October, when the report had been sent to the Prime Minister for final confirmation before publication. Although this was a little under three weeks before Parliament was dissolved, there was, Mr Grieve asserted, “a long-standing agreement” that Prime Ministerial approval would take no more than ten days. Mr Grieve said that the government’s failure to explain the delay to the committee was “unprecedented”.
It is worth noting that the Russia report was not published before the general election because the government did not complete its review process before Parliament was dissolved, while publication is delayed now by the government’s failure to provide Parliament with its nominees for the ISC’s membership.
The Russia report situation is a striking example of the extent to which the work of this parliamentary committee is constrained by the executive.
What is on the ISC’s agenda besides the Russia report?
Chair choice
When the two Houses finally approve the membership of the ISC, the Committee’s first task will be to appoint a chair. Following changes introduced in the 2013 Justice and Security Act, the ISC chairmanship is no longer in the gift of the Prime Minister. Instead, the Committee chooses its own chair from among its members.
Press reports in March suggesting that former Transport Secretary Chris Grayling was the Prime Minister’s preferred candidate to chair the committee caused some consternation, even among Conservative MPs. The outgoing holder of the position, Dominic Grieve, was widely respected as an independent chair who was prepared to explore the limits of the Committee’s powers and did not shy away from drawing attention to the government’s lack of cooperation with the Committee. Mr Grayling’s appointment to the Committee, with a view to him being chosen as chair, would suggest that the Prime Minister is keen to ensure a more compliant ISC. However, even if Parliament were to approve the Prime Minister’s nominees, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that his preferred candidate to chair the committee could rely on the support of the majority of its members.
Working methods in the Coronavirus crisis
The Covid-19 pandemic will inevitably have an impact on the ISC, which will need to devise a way to operate safely and securely under the current restrictions.
It is to be hoped that the ISC is soon in a position to progress these inquiries. This is not the first occasion on which there have been delays in appointing the Committee or clearing its reports for publication, but the government’s insistence that recent examples of bad practice are the norm suggests a worrying disregard for democratic oversight of intelligence in the UK.
Robust and continuous oversight of intelligence is a necessary feature of democracy, and is also vital to the preservation of national security.
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