Brown rejects US-style scrutiny of the intelligence services

Gordon Brown has quietly dumped his promises to make scrutiny of the intelligence services more independent.

When he first moved into Number Ten, the Prime Minister made a big play of his plans to let Tony Blair's poodle - the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) - off the leash to check on our spy masters. He appeared to buy the argument that effective scrutiny, such as that which the Senate committee in the United States has over the CIA, would help to rebuild confidence in the intelligence services after the blow to their authority over the dodgy dossier on Saddam's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

But yesterday, in a badly attended end-of-term debate, where the acres of green benches were an embarrassment to those seeking a serious function for Parliament, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced that the ISC would not, after all, become a select committee answerable to the Commons.

Brown has been persuaded that the reports of the committee, chaired by Margaret Beckett, the former Foreign Secretary, should continue to go direct to him, rather than the Commons, so they can be filleted before they are published with asterisks where the detail used to be. "The Government isn't proposing a change to this arrangement," said the Home Secretary. "The ISC has to draw on its access to information of the highest classification when it's compiling reports... It's essential that the Prime Minister as the ultimate guardian of national security is the first to see these reports in their entirety."

So, while the intelligence and security budget is due to rise to an astonishing £3.5bn by 2011, the public will remain completely in the dark over how this money is spent, and on what. All they have is the assurance of the trustees on the committee that the spies are not running amok.

Two Labour critics - former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle and the MP for Thurrock Andrew Mackinlay - were lone voices in the wilderness of the green leather benches, Kilfoyle saying the committee would continue to be the Prime Minister's "poodle". Smith offered them a sop by saying that some ISC meetings could be held in public. This means that, for the first time, the heads of MI6, MI5, or the Joint Intelligence Committee could be questioned by MPs in front of the cameras. But any sensitive material will continue to be discussed only in camera.

The committee will also move out of the Cabinet Office where it normally meets, as part of an effort to show it is more independent.

Clearly a balance has to be struck, but Brown has been persuaded that keeping a lid on the spies is the best way to ensure the safety of the realm. Ten days ago, Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, used her maiden speech in the House of Lords to attack Brown's plan for 42-day pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects. No wonder he wants to keep her successor firmly on the lead.

THE MOLE: SPY BUSINESS

FIRST POSTED JULY 18, 2008