What does the Intelligence and Security Committee’s recently released China report tell us about the state of intelligence oversight in the UK? Andrew Defty discusses the report’s implications and argues that it raises crucial questions for both national security and intelligence accountability.
On 13 July, the UK parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published its long-awaited report on China. Following from its 2019 report into Russian interference in the UK, this report presents a further analysis of the impact of hostile state activity in the UK. Although not its primary purpose, the ISC’s China report also provides some insight into the state of intelligence oversight in the UK, and it is not a reassuring picture.
The report itself has taken more than four years to see the light of day, yet in some important respects is already out of date. The ISC also identifies a number of worrying gaps in the regulatory framework within which the UK intelligence agencies operate. It is not entirely clear why it has taken so long for the ISC to conclude its inquiry into Chinese interference in the UK, but the government must bear some responsibility.
The report itself has taken more than four years to see the light of day, yet in some important respects is already out of date.
Long overdue
The ISC first announced that it would be conducting an inquiry into national security issues in relation to China in March 2019. The committee published a brief statement in response to concerns about Chinese involvement in the telecoms company, Huawei, in July 2019. However, the China inquiry was still underway when parliament was dissolved for the general election in November 2019.
The long delay in appointing a new Intelligence and Security Committee after the general election enforced a hiatus in the ISC’s work of more than seven months. Responsibility for this delay lay with the prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson. The ISC is appointed by parliament on the basis of a list of nominations provided by the prime minister. Following the 2019 election, the prime minister’s nominations for membership of the ISC were not forthcoming until July 2020, making the ISC the last parliamentary committee to be appointed after the election. This unprecedented delay which held up publication of the committee’s Russia report, also halted progress on several other inquiries which were already underway at the time of the election, including the China inquiry.
The report has also been delayed by the time taken by the current prime minister to approve the report for publication. Due to the sensitive nature of its work, before publication ISC reports are subject to a process of review by the intelligence and security agencies. At the end of this process reports must then be signed off by the prime minister. The ISC maintains that by convention the prime minister will respond to its reports within 10 working days, but successive prime ministers have taken considerably longer than this to sign off several recent reports, most notably, but not exclusively, the Russia report.
The ISC sent its China report to the prime minister on 15 May this year, with a reminder of the 10-day window for issuing a response. After some prodding from the committee, the Cabinet Office informed the ISC on 19 June that the prime minister had “now” been given the ISC’s report and two days later confirmed that it had been approved for publication. It is not clear why it took so long for the Cabinet Office to place the report before the prime minister, but the ISC is seeking further explanation.
Outdated conclusions
While the government must bear some responsibility for these delays, it is also apparent that the ISC itself has taken a long time to complete this inquiry. The ISC notes that progress on the inquiry was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but in the period since the 2019 election the ISC has completed three other inquiries, which suggests that the China inquiry has perhaps not been a priority for the committee throughout this period.
Moreover, the long period taken to conclude the inquiry means that much of the material in the report is now out of date. The report indicates that the process of taking evidence for this inquiry ended in 2021, although footnotes suggest that most of the evidence was collected in 2019, with some additional written evidence provided by the government and intelligence agencies in 2020.
The consequences of this are twofold. Firstly, a number of key developments in relation to China have occurred since the inquiry was completed and are only referred to in passing, if at all. For example, the unprecedented MI5 interference warning about Christine Lee in January 2022, is only referred to in footnotes. More recent examples, such as security concerns regarding so-called Chinese police stations in the UK, are not mentioned at all. Similarly, while the report refers to Chinese activities in Australia and New Zealand, well-publicised inquiries into Chinese political interference in Canada which were announced earlier this year are not mentioned at all.
Perhaps more significantly, given that the report focuses so heavily on the UK’s response to the Chinese threat, the report’s examination of developments in UK policy are more than a little out of date. The Integrated Review of defence and security policy, which was published in March 2021 is described as “new” and dealt with in some detail, but the Integrated Review Refresh, which was published in March this year, appears only briefly in a footnote. Similarly, the section of the report dealing with the need for new legislation to deal with hostile state activity has been superseded by the National Security Act which began its passage through parliament over a year ago and became law earlier this month.
Presenting the government with a critique of policy developments from two years ago which have subsequently undergone significant change is a poor form of scrutiny
It is not clear why it has taken quite so long to conclude this inquiry or why the committee did not seek additional evidence in relation to recent developments before completing its report, but the outdated nature of much of the material will almost certainly blunt its impact. One obvious consequence was that the prime minister’s parliamentary response to the report focused primarily on developments in UK policy in the last eighteen months which the report largely overlooks. Presenting the government with a critique of policy developments from two years ago which have subsequently undergone significant change is a poor form of scrutiny which is unlikely to trouble the government.
Gaps in UK intelligence accountability
The China report also explicitly identifies the emergence of some worrying gaps in intelligence accountability in the UK. The ISC has previously argued that the government’s integrated approach to security through the so-called Fusion Doctrine has led to an expansion in government departments dealing with sensitive security issues. This development, the committee argues, has not been matched by changes to oversight structures leading to accountability gaps. In response the ISC has argued strongly for an expansion of its own mandate to encompass those departments handling intelligence. This led to a stand-off between the ISC and the government during the passage of the National Security and Investment Act in 2020 when the government argued that a new Investment Security Unit (ISU) should be overseen by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) select committee rather than the ISC. This is significant as the BEIS has no powers to review the intelligence material which informs the new unit’s work, whereas the ISC does.
The ISC returns to this issue in its China report, observing:
“It is worrying that ‘policy ownership’ of this national security strategy, rather than being gripped at the centre by the Cabinet Office, has instead been devolved across Government – in many instances to departments with no security remit or expertise. We have not been kept informed of these developments and, despite numerous requests are not permitted to scrutinise this activity.”
The committee expresses dismay that although the ISU has now moved from BEIS to the Cabinet Office, the government continues to insist that it should be overseen by the BEIS select committee, “despite no longer sitting in the department which that Committee oversees.” They also highlight that the government has prevented the ISC’s involvement in overseeing provisions of the Telecommunications Security Act, 2021, which provides for the notification of high-risk vendors of telecommunications equipment. This is an issue which the ISC first raised in 2013 in relation to the Chinese telecoms company, Huawei.
The ISC concludes with a stark warning that, “effective Parliamentary oversight is not some kind of ‘optional extra’ – it is a vital safeguard in any functioning Parliamentary democracy”. At present the ISC is the only parliamentary body with the powers to provide democratic accountability over intelligence and security issues, but the committee’s China report reveals some worrying gaps in both its capacity and powers to carry out this role. In addition to warning of the dangers of hostile state activity in the UK, the ISC’s China report also suggests a worrying marginalisation of intelligence oversight in the UK, which may prove similarly damaging both to democracy and national security.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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