The Law Relating to Security in Great Britain

Abstract

On 23 July, 1984, in a leading article, The Times declared:

If Parliament’s faith in the secret services is to be repaired, the Government will have, sooner or later, to agree to the foundation of an all-party, joint Commons and Lords select committee on intelligence and security, peopled by senior Privy Councillors.¹

Eight years earlier on 19 May 1976 the US Senate established a permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to oversee intelligence activities.² It did so within a few weeks of the Church Committee³ issuing its final report⁴ containing 183 recommendations for the reform and reorganization of US intelligence. Subsequent efforts to provide a charter for the US intelligence agencies were bedeviled by disagreement over the emphasis given to the risk of abuse by the agencies. This was perhaps understandable in the light of the history out of which the proposal emerged.⁵ However to ensure that we in Great Britain have a quieter and less damaging transition from what has been described as the old concept of a ‘totally secret intelligence’ to the new concept of ‘intelligence under the law’⁶ the security and intelligence services should be made more publicly accountable sooner rather than later. Fundamental to a system of intelligence is public trust.