THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL (Hansard, 17 January 1989)

§ Mr. Richard Shepherd
I beg to move amendment No. 49, in page 1, line 16, at end insert— '(1A) The Director-General shall be appointed to hold office for a term not exceeding five years; but a previous appointment shall not affect a person's eligibility for a second term of office provided that no person shall hold office for more than ten years in aggregate.'.

§ The Temporary Chairman
With this it will be convenient to consider amendment No. 50, in page 1, line 20, after 'obtained', insert 'nor retained'.

§ Mr. Shepherd
This is a short and not very important amendment, except in one respect. The amendment affects the terms of employment in a sense of the director-general. In the translation of the amendments from upstairs or in their transfer to the amendment sheet we appear to have lost the word "strictly" but that is not very important in view of the Government's spirit in these matters. Clause 2(2)(a) says: that there are arrangements for securing that no information is obtained by the Service except so far as necessary for the proper discharge of its functions or disclosed by it except so far as necessary for that purpose or for the purpose of preventing or detecting serious crime; and". Amendment No. 49 is purely a business amendment to ensure that a director-general of the Security Service shall not be so immersed in his work that he is in the job for ever. The best example of that is the head of the FBI. Mr. Hoover was in office for so many years that many people thought he was dictating the course of American internal security. No one ever dared to challenge what he did on the basis that he knew too much about people.
The more important of the two amendments would ensure that no information was obtained or retained. When one is engaged in extremely intrusive necessary investigation, such as phone tapping, one will obtain additional information that has no bearing on unrefined, unrestricted national security—to use the Home Secretary's words. It seems wholly appropriate that material that has no bearing on the defence of what we call liberal democracy should not be retained. Our amendment is a protective addition to the clause.

§ Mr. John Patten
My answer to the case put by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) for amendment No. 49 is that, given the seniority of the appointment, it is unlikely in practice that we would have service by one individual for more than a total of 10 years. But I suppose it is not inconceivable that an individual might be appointed relatively early in his or her career and was then found eminently suitable to exercise continued and consistent responsibility for the work of the service over a period of years that might stretch for somewhat longer than 10 years.
What is the merit of a statutory limitation on the term of an appointment? I suppose it is not inconceivable that just when the director-general was bumping up against, say, a 10-year statutory limit, there might be some possible state of war or emergency, when it would be a millstone round the neck of the national interest to have to move the person, who knew what was in the interest of the service at 240 that time and who had the experience to deal with the problem. I do not believe there is a particularly strong case for taking such a step.

§ Mr. Allason
Although it would be unlikely, as my hon. Friend said, may I ask if he is aware that the first director-general of the Security Service stayed in office for 32 years?

§ Mr. Patten
I was aware of that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said that he put more store by amendment No. 50 on the retaining of information. We do not believe the amendment would help intelligence work in this country, although I assure my hon. Friend that we appreciate the concerns of individuals, and I shall come later to the question of information about individuals. The amendment would create an unnecessary requirement on the service and could under certain circumstances leave the service shorn of parts of its memory which could be vital to the conduct of operations at a later date.
One safeguard in the Bill is that the service can obtain information only that is relevant to its functions. That is a considerable safeguard. A second safeguard is that it can disclose it only for the purposes of those functions or for the additional function of detecting serious crime, and hon. Members will approve of that. Those safeguards go to the nub of the question, which is how and why the service acquires information and what it will do with it once it has it. Different considerations come into play in deciding the grounds for continuing to retain information.
A person now reviewing a piece of information properly obtained some time ago may conclude that it does not meet the strict criteria of the amendment. It is then disposed of, perhaps shredded, only for it to be discovered at a later date that the key part of some complex jigsaw—and some intelligence sagas last for many years—has, alas, been thrown away. That could act against the national interest. So statutory safeguards are built into the Bill in relation to why information is obtained.
There is also a statutory safeguard for the aggrieved individual, and we do not take such concerns lightly. If an individual were to feel aggrieved that the Security Service was wrong to continue to hold on to information about him, he could make a complaint to the tribunal. That is an important safeguard. Even if the tribunal found out at that stage and informed the alleged complainant or complainants that it thought the Security Service had been reasonable in initiating the complaint against the individual or individuals, it could still refer the issue of the need to retain the information to the commissioner who could investigate the matter. He would be able to consider the intelligence arguments and come to a view that he could then report to my right hon. Friend.
The Bill properly reflects the necessary intelligence requirement, but it also ensures that any points of concern can be investigated and reported. With that reassurance, I hope that my hon. Friend will not press his amendments to a vote.

§ Mr. Richard Shepherd
I beg to move amendment No. 44, in page 2, line 6, at end insert— '(3A)—(a) Subject to paragraph (b) below and in so far as it is strictly necessary for the proper discharge of the service's functions, the Service may enter into arrangements with

(i) a Government Department;
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(ii) a police force

for help and assistance in carrying out the service's duties and functions save that no arrangement which relates to or includes entry on or interference with property shall be lawful unless it is authorised by a warrant issued under section 3 of this Act.

(b) Any such arrangement mentioned in (a) above shall only be made with the approval of the Solicitor General.

(c) A copy of written arrangements mentioned in (a) above shall be sent to the Inspector General and the Review Committee.

The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to consider the following: