TUESDAY 20 APRIL 1999

THE RT HON JACK STRAW, MP, MR PAUL PUGH AND MR ALAN UNDERWOOD

  120. The National Audit Office report also noted that the contractor transferred the financial risk to the supplier but not the business risk. Do you agree with that analysis? Is that right?
  (Mr Straw) They are in a better position to judge than I am.

  121. Is that a mistake in the contract?
  (Mr Straw) Yes. They are in a better position to judge than I am and, as you know, what they said was that even when the supplier was proposing to shoulder substantial risk the Department should consider most carefully how to manage the residual risk, which would remain with the client. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the way this contract was developed, on both sides, both on the IT supplier and in terms of the Government. There are very substantial lessons which certainly the Home Office is seeking to learn about the future management of large IT contracts which by definition will involve private suppliers because the Government is not, and should not be, in the business of either manufacturing IT hardware or creating IT software. Whatever the nature of the contractual arrangement, whether it is PFI or anything else, we are going to be working in partnership, with a small "p", with the private sector. There seems to be something not fully satisfactory about the interface between Government and IT suppliers, things go wrong. As the NAO has made clear, I am afraid to say there are worse situations than the IND IT contract in the public sector. An interesting synopsis of these can be found in the Economist for this week.

  122. It has been suggested that the actual group charged with sorting out the current problems have been told that they can bypass the contractual arrangements or "will not be constrained by commercial and contractual issues". Is that correct? Is that the position that you are in?
  (Mr Straw) What I have asked is for people to work co-operatively and swiftly to get over these problems. We cannot unpick a contract that was signed three years ago, it was signed and lays down obligations on both sides. What I have sought to do, and what officials have sought to do, is to create a more constructive partnership even though, by definition, it is a partnership that is under pressure. Part of the inherent problem with contracts like this is that the partnerships are fine when things are going wrong but can come under considerable strain if things are not going so well. We have had to try, to use Mr Underwood's phrase, to secure a better equilibrium in this.

  123. Lastly, can I ask you when you have people in your surgery asking when things will be back to normal what do you say, because I certainly would like to answer that question myself.
  (Mr Straw) I say "I blame the Home Secretary".

  124. We all do.
  (Mr Straw) And my staff say "hear! hear!" I do my best. I genuinely do not seek any better service from IND, neither do I think that I get it. So far as my constituents are concerned, they often get a shorter, quicker answer from me. No minister makes decisions in respect of this question for their constituents but I quite often say to people, "I am not even going to ask Mr O'Brien to consider this case, I am afraid the answer is no, the Deportation Order stays, and my best advice to you is to go back voluntarily".

  125. In terms of the backlog and in terms of the people who have been told specifically that they cannot get an answer because of the backlog, how soon will they be dealt with?
  (Mr Straw) Those are the immigration cases. So far as asylum cases are concerned, one of the problems we face, and this was a point I was making to the Special Standing Committee, with the asylum caseload is the applicant has an inherent interest in delaying and the interest in efficiency is a public interest, not in the interest of the applicant. The applicants do not mind if things are strung out. As everybody knows, their legal advisers and the immigration advisers often go to very great lengths to ensure that things are strung out and that every possible loophole is exploited that is there. That is why we are devoting such a lot of attention to this Bill and tightening the procedures. On immigration casework where you have got people who are lawfully here who have not sought the benefit of the 51 Convention, they have an interest in a swift and efficient service and we are trying to restore that.
  (Mr Underwood) The project team that the Home Secretary has commissioned, part of its remit is to report on when we will be back at pre-reorganisation levels and when we will have recovered the additional backlog that the reorganisation has caused by June. We are undertaking exceptional exercises in the more straightforward categories of casework and on those in particular that are causing a lot of difficulty for the business community we are undertaking special exercises from this week. We have already instituted exercises to deal with the backlog of work permit applications. We are getting together teams of volunteers to go and attack particular categories of work which at the moment are languishing. By means of that we hope very much that there will be a feedback into the difficulties we are having in dealing with general enquiries from the public. If we can hit some of the straightforward uncomplicated and uncontentious applications then that should ease the concerns of the public and in turn ease our own difficulties.

  126. That may well be a subject which we shall want to return to in the future in more detail. I see the Home Secretary looking at his watch longingly.
  (Mr Straw) I am in your hands but I was told on this rare occasion this was going to be finished at 12.30 rather than one o'clock.

  Mr Russell: Do not believe everything you are told.

  Chairman: Were you? Not on my account. I do not know where that has come from. I was aiming at one o'clock myself.

  Mr Corbett: It is a leak.

  127. Can you cope with one o'clock?
  (Mr Straw) I have a secret assignation at one o'clock when I am meeting the Liverpool Anti-Social Behaviour Unit in Queen Anne's Gate. I can cope until one o'clock but if it is possible for me to leave at about five to because there are large numbers of people coming down from Liverpool and Liverpool Members of Parliament. Or even earlier, at ten to.

  128. I am sorry that you were misinformed, I do not think it came from this side of the table but I may be wrong. The accountability of the Security Service. We had an interesting session with Mr David Bickford, a former legal adviser to the Service, and one point which he made to us, which I have heard from elsewhere within the Service, was that resistance to accountability over the years has not come from the Service itself but from Whitehall. Does that square with your understanding of events?
  (Mr Straw) I cannot make comments on what happened under previous administrations but certainly what I can say is that since I became the Minister responsible for the Security Service I have been struck by their willingness to embrace the idea of proper accountability, obviously in the very special circumstances in which they work where they have to work with great secrecy. Your deduction may be accurate, Chairman, but I have got no information to back it.

  129. Is it still the case would you say?
  (Mr Straw) Is it still the case? We work as a seamless robe these days. I am not going to disclose what advice I have received from officials, whether within the Security Service or without, on this issue. What I would say to you is that decisions about accountability, propositions about accountability, are made by ministers and we are responsible for them.

  130. Home Secretary, on the changing circumstances of activities in the intelligence services, it has been suggested that perhaps a major focus in the future is going to be dealing with international and organised crime, the revolution in communications technology, with the cross-border information exchange agencies, Europol and Interpol, having a greater role rather than a lesser role in the future. How do you see the role of the intelligence services, particularly the Security Service for which you are responsible, developing in years to come?
  (Mr Straw) I think a considerable proportion of the work of the Security Service will continue to be, as it were, in their traditional fields which are counter-espionage, terrorism, security of the state, those areas. The proportion of the Security Service's resources currently devoted to the investigation of serious crime is relatively small. It may rise but obviously that depends partly on the international situation, the Irish situation. Their particular discrete skills are in the fields in which they work. What has been the case, however, is that they have been able to use some of those discrete skills of intelligence and evidence gathering and analysis in support of the police and other direct law enforcement agencies in the investigation of serious crime and that has worked well. But that is very different from saying that the security service ought to become another police force, which is not a view which is taken either by the security service, by the police service or by me.

  131. But you see organised and international crime and terrorism and those aspects growing but it will not dominate?
  (Mr Straw) Dealing with terrorism, both Irish and international terrorism, is a significant part of the security service and there will be a threat of international terrorism of one kind or another for a very long period. Please God, the threat of Irish terrorism reduces and that the Good Friday agreement is implemented, but we will only be able to make that judgment that it has held some time after the event. We certainly cannot make that judgment in advance of the event and before the institutions reach a steady and stable state. One point I would make about organised and international crime is that colleagues here should not think that there is a great divide between terrorism, on the one hand, and organised and international crime, on the other. A good deal of terrorism is financed by the product of international and organised crime.

  132. Moving on to the information technology revolution, which I never do understand anyway, do you think there needs to be a re-assessment of what can, and what needs to, remain secret?
  (Mr Straw) I do not think that is dictated by the IT revolution itself. It is dictated by the requirements of the services or the intelligence agencies and the need to keep things secret, because if you are doing what the security services do, which is using intrusive methods of surveillance, intercepts, agent running, by definition if you tell people, particularly the target, that you are doing it, the whole exercise becomes nugatory and that is why it has to be kept secret.

  133. But while things are more open than they were ten or 20 years ago, do you think the process can be opened up still further? Would the Freedom of Information Bill, for example, be of help?
  (Mr Straw) No, is the answer. As will be known, I just happen to have by my side the White Paper and that makes clear who the Freedom of Information Act will not cover (page 5): "We are clear that the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service,"—known to all as MI6—"the Government Communications Headquarters and the Special Forces (the SAS and SBS) could not carry out their duties effectively in the interests of the nation if their operations and activities were subject to freedom of information legislation. These organisations, and the information that they provide, will be excluded from the Act, as will information about these organisations held by other public authorities."

  134. You have dealt with the second half of my question. The first one was, do you think there is growth for opening up?
  (Mr Straw) We try to be more open and that is certainly my instinct but it has to be consistent with the needs of these agencies and the duties that are imposed upon them by Parliament, and plainly at any particular point in the judgment, do you make something public or do you not, you have to tilt the balance in favour of not making it public if it is going to prejudice the operation of these agencies.

  135. Do you feel that more should be done to allow the product of the intelligence operations to be used in court?
  (Mr Straw) We are examining that. This is the question of the telephone surveillances?

  136. Yes?
  (Mr Straw) It is a very big and important issue to which I am currently giving consideration with colleagues. At the moment under the Interception of Communications Act the product of intercept cannot be adduced in evidence in any court and there are arguments on both sides amongst those who use the product of intelligence of this kind as well as amongst the legal profession about whether it would or would not be helpful to have this product adducible. So we are looking at it.

  137. Finally, Home Secretary, the Intelligence and Security Committee, which, of course, is a statutory committee. What do you say to the proposition that this Committee, because its remit is purely to look at intelligence agencies, is unable to bring a wider perspective to bear on all the issues that are arising?
  (Mr Straw) I think the ISC has worked better than I anticipated. Certainly, as I think many colleagues around this table will know, there was some anxiety when the ISC was established that this would be a weak substitute for a select committee. I certainly understand the argument for a select committee but my own experience in going before the ISC is that it has been anything but weak and it has to operate within a ring of secrecy, but it is very thorough in its questioning. Certainly speaking for myself, parliamentary colleagues on that Committee are extremely thorough in what they ask and how they probe and they are also very thorough in the way they question officials. It may be because there is a ring of secrecy and because officials therefore cannot, as they can justifiably and rightly in public appearances before a select committee, use the term reasonably, "That's a matter for ministers," that officials who appear before the ISC are thoroughly questioned. I think the implication of your question was, "What about the interface between what the agencies do and what the ministers' responsibility for them is?" I appear before the ISC certainly and I think that ministers responsible for the agencies do. I do not think it is a huge problem.

  138. When we had a debate not so long ago, Home Secretary, on security matters, you will be aware, of course, that some members of the Intelligence and Security Committee were critical of the restrictions which are placed on them and which they felt should be removed and it would in no way undermine the security and safety of this island. What do you say about that?
  (Mr Straw) I heard what they said and I was there and I understand their point of view. I think we have to keep these arrangements under review. They have changed markedly. I remember in the 1980s we were told by ministers and the Prime Minister virtually that the world would end if there was a committee of parliamentarians overseeing the work of the intelligence agencies. One has been established and within the terms of reference I happen to think it is doing a good job. I do not think anybody thinks that that is necessarily the arrangement that will stand for all time.

  139. It is interesting you say that because I well remember the response to some of the debate which I initiated on the subject and others, and, indeed, that is what ministers said at the time, but could not that be taken a little further? There are those who argue that having a select committee with certain obvious restrictions because of the nature of the subject would not undermine the security of the country and the critics would be reminded what they were saying at the time, namely, now, that a select committee is not necessary?
  (Mr Straw) Yes, I think the balance of argument between having a select committee and having the current arrangements is in a slightly better area than whether a select committee per se would undermine the security of the country. I have not heard that argument advanced. It is about the practicalities of it, about how you maintain the ring of secrecy, how you ensure that the reports are edited to exclude material which would be damaging to national security. The truth is that in practice any select committee would have to operate in a very similar environment to the current ISC. It would have to operate in secure premises, which it certainly could not do in this corridor, and the staff would have to be vetted. All of that would be the same. At the moment, because the report is made to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister makes the report to Parliament, that is the mechanism by which the reports are checked and edited for matters which may be damaging to national security. I have to say that the editing is minimal and certainly in the period I have been Home Secretary there has been no attempt made by the Cabinet Office, who in practice do the checking on behalf of ministers, to exclude anything that is critical under the guise that it could be damaging. These are all practical issues which need to be worked through.

  140. When a two volume biography of you duly appears about your life and times, apart from your other good work would you like that biography to say, Home Secretary, "here was a man who on becoming Home Secretary, or after a time as Home Secretary, was bold enough to set up proper and adequate parliamentary scrutiny of the Security Services"?
  (Mr Straw) It may not be the only thing I would like people to say. It is a seductive idea. The current Intelligence and Security Committee was established by Parliament, it is part of a statute, and it would have to be changed by Parliament.

  141. You are the person to initiate it.
  (Mr Straw) One of the people to initiate it.

  Chairman: On that note, because it is undoubtedly a matter to which we shall return, can I thank you, Home Secretary, for coming along and staying with us for longer than you anticipated. Thank you.