The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
The committee was established in 1994 by the Intelligence Services Act 1994, and its powers were reinforced by the Justice and Security Act 2013.
The members of the committee are notified under the Official Secrets Act 1989 and are given access to highly classified material in carrying out their duties. The committee holds evidence sessions with government ministers and senior officials (for example, the heads of the security and intelligence agencies), expert witnesses such as academics and journalists, and other interested parties. It also considers written evidence from the intelligence and security agencies and relevant government departments.
The work of the committee is invariably conducted in secret. The committee produces an annual report which focuses on administration and finance, and special reports on operational or policy issues which it considers are of particular concern. The government is required to respond to the committee's reports within 60 days. In 2019 the committee published a statement on 5G suppliers and was due to publish a report on Russia but was unable to do so because the prime minister did not confirm that the report could be published before Parliament dissolved for the 2019 general election.
Structure
The ISC is unusual, being a statutory committee rather than a normal parliamentary select committee. Originally constituted under the Intelligence Services Act 1994 the committee was reformed, and its powers expanded by the Justice and Security Act 2013. The committee has an independent secretariat of analysts and investigators and an independent webpage.
The degree to which it is independent was historically questioned by journalists and privacy groups such as Liberty although the ISC itself says it is independent because it is composed of cross-party MPs and peers and operates in a non-partisan manner. The ISC gained stronger powers under the Justice and Security Act 2013 and is no longer appointed by the prime minister: as a result its reports since then have been seen as independent.
Membership
Parliament appoints the nine members from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, after considering nominations from the prime minister, made following discussion with the Leader of the Opposition. The committee elect their own chair from amongst the members. Serving ministers are not allowed to be members, but members may previously have held ministerial positions. Members of the committee cease to be members when Parliament is dissolved, and new members are appointed after the new Parliament convenes. He was re-elected as chair by the committee on 23 November 2017 when it reconvened after the June 2017 general election.
On 15 July 2020, it was reported that Chris Grayling had failed to secure the nomination as chair of the committee. Acting against the Conservative Whip, Julian Lewis was elected chair by the members of the ISC. Bob Stewart has been appointed as Grayling's replacement.
The membership of the committee for the 20242029 Parliament is as follows:
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" valign="top" | Member
! valign="top" | Party
! valign="top" | Constituency
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Rt Hon. The Lord Beamish PC <br>(chair)
| Labour
| N/A
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Rt Hon. Baroness Brown of Cambridge DBE
| Crossbencher
| N/A
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Peter Dowd MP
| Labour
| Bootle
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Richard Foord MP
| Liberal Democrats
| Honiton and Sidmouth
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Rt Hon. Sir John Hayes CBE MP
| Conservative
| South Holland and the Deepings
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Jessica Morden MP
| Labour
| Newport East
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Derek Twigg MP
| Labour
| Widnes and Halewood
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Admiral (Rtd) Rt Hon. The Lord West of Spithead GCB DSC PC
| Labour
| N/A
|-
| style="color:inherit;background:" |
| Rt Hon. Sir Jeremy Wright KC MP
| Conservative
| Kenilworth and Southam
|-
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|+List of committee chairs
! colspan="2" | Name
! Term
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
| Rt Hon Tom King CH
| 1994–2001
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
| Rt Hon Ann Taylor
| 2001–2005
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
| Rt Hon Paul Murphy
| 2005–2008
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
| Rt Hon Margaret Beckett
| January–October 2008
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
| Rt Hon Kim Howells
| 2008–2010
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
| Rt Hon Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG QC
| 2010–2015
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
|rowspan=2|Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC
|rowspan=2| 2015–2019
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
| rowspan=3|Rt Hon Julian Lewis
| rowspan=3|2020–2024
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
|-
| style="color:inherit;background-color: " |
|Rt Hon. The Lord Beamish
|Incumbent
|-
|}
The Russia report
The "Russia report" is the Intelligence and Security Committee's report into allegations of Russian interference in British politics, including alleged Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum. According to the report, there is substantial evidence that Russian interference in British politics is commonplace. According to the Guardian, the main points of the report are: The report thereafter went through a process of redaction by intelligence and security agencies and was sent to Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 17 October 2019. A number of legal actions were undertaken to try to force the government to publish it: one brought by the widow of the murdered Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, and another brought by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Prime Minister Johnson approved its release on 13 December 2019, the day after the general election, Johnson pledged in Prime Minister's Questions in February 2020 that the report would be released, but that it could not be released until the Intelligence and Security Committee (which disbanded following the dissolution of parliament ahead of the election) was reconstituted; a former chair of the committee, Dominic Grieve, said that this was an "entirely bogus" reason for delaying publication. By June 2020, the report had still not been released, and the Intelligence and Security Committee had not been convened, the longest gap since the committee's creation in 1994.
See also
- British intelligence agencies
- Joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
- Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)
- Intelligence and Security Committee (New Zealand)
- Investigatory Powers Tribunal
- Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom
- Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (Australia)
- Parliamentary committees of the United Kingdom
- Security Intelligence Review Committee (Canada)
- United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence