§ The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw)With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the report published today by the Intelligence and Security Committee in respect of the terrorist bombings in Bali on 12 October.
This inquiry was established at my request, as I announced to the House on 21 October in a statement. I said then that I would be making available all relevant intelligence to the Committee so that it could make its own independent assessments of the facts. The Committee has since reviewed all intelligence relevant to Bali and taken evidence from the heads of the agencies, other officials, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and me.
The House will be aware that the Home Secretary is indisposed, recovering from a minor operation. For that reason, he cannot be here, but I hope that I speak for the whole House when I send him best wishes for a full recovery.
The Government welcome the report, and I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor), the Chairman of the Committee, and her colleagues in the House and the other place for all their work. We will consider the recommendations carefully and let the Committee and the House know of our final conclusions as soon as possible.
I also know that the entire House will join me again in extending our deepest condolences to the relatives and friends of the victims of that terrible act. Special arrangements have been made today to contact the next of kin of the victims to tell them of this report.
As the report has only just been published, it may be helpful if I briefly summarise it and then tell the House of the Government's initial response. The Committee's report broadly covers four questions, which I shall deal with in turn. First, was intelligence collection in Indonesia a sufficiently high priority? The report says that sufficient priority was given to the collection of intelligence in respect of Indonesia, although since 11 September last year the volume of intelligence available to our intelligence agencies had increased
by a factor of at least ten",and that during the period in question the agencies received at least 150 separate reports covering at least 20 different countries.Secondly, was any intelligence overlooked? That question, as the House will recall, was understandably raised by the relatives and friends who lost a loved one in the atrocity on 12 October. Having examined all the intelligence, the Committee concluded that it had
not seen any intelligence that described or directly related to any form of terrorist attack on Bali on or around 12 Octoberand that on the basis of the available intelligencethere was no action that the UK or its allies could have taken to prevent the attacks.258 Thirdly, did the Security Service make the correct assessment of the threat levels on the available intelligence? The Committee's report covers three areas. It says that the Security Service's current six levels of threat assessment do
not provide a sufficiently clear definition of the threat to be of use to customer departments",and makes recommendations for change. It questions why, in the wake of a failed grenade attack on a United States diplomatic property in Jakarta on 23 September, it took the Security Service over two weeks to issue an internal report on Indonesia. Lastly, it says that because there was intelligence of a terrorist threat in Indonesia, because there was the possibility of displacement of targets, and taking into accountthe reluctance of the Indonesian authorities to deal with terrorism",the Security Service made what the Committee says was a "serious misjudgement" in failing to upgrade its assessment of the threat to British interests from "significant" to "high".The staff of the Security Service must make fine judgments based on fragmentary intelligence and other information. In the absence of any specific material in the period preceding the Bali bombing, the service had assessed the threat to general British interests in Indonesia as being "significant". As a result, the security climate was judged to be such that United Kingdom general interests were likely to be a priority target for terrorists.
As I know the Intelligence and Security Committee itself fully recognises, the staff of the Security Service are dedicated people who work to the highest professional standards. They can never publicly justify or defend themselves. But they, and we, must also be properly accountable for what we do, and we will of course take the Committee's recommendations on board.
Against the background of the increased global threat of terrorism, the Security Service began to review the system of threat assessment earlier this year. That work will now be informed by the Committee's findings, and will be brought to an early conclusion. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary leads on this, and I know he will ensure that the Committee and the House are kept fully informed.
The Committee's fourth set of conclusions concern travel advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Committee says that the travel advice at the time of the Bali bombing did not accurately reflect either the threat or recent developments in Indonesia, although it also says that the advice issued was "proportional" to the Security Service's assessment of the threat, to which I just referred. It says that FCO travel advice is generally not communicated effectively to the public and the travel industry, and that the whole purpose of such advice should be reviewed.
Our travel advice is widely used by individual travellers and by the travel industry. There are some 670,000 visitors to our website each month. In the wake of the Bali bombing, I have put in hand a comprehensive review of the way in which our travel advice is both prepared and presented. We have already made some improvements, but we will be making further changes, drawing on the Committee's helpful recommendations.
259 The purpose of travel advice is to provide reliable information to British travellers and residents overseas. It is vital that our advice is based on the assessments made by the Security Service. The intelligence agencies are best placed to evaluate the terrorist threat to British nationals both at home and overseas. That often involves difficult judgments where we have to ensure that travellers are warned of threats that we assess to be credible, while not causing panic by over-reacting to unsubstantiated pieces of information.
It is worth underlining that that often requires very difficult judgments. The safety and well-being of our nationals abroad is our prime concern, but as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said last month, we must aim
to take preventive measures without destroying normal life.If rather than properly seeking to separate truth from fiction the Government treated every terrorist threat as accurate, on many occasions in recent months we would have had to shut roads, shopping centres, airports, factories and military installations. That would serve only to cause panic—precisely the circumstances that the terrorists are striving to create.We are always looking for ways to do this job better, to work more closely with our allies to ensure that collectively we do all we can to protect our citizens from the threat of terrorism, while allowing people to live, as far as possible, normal and free lives uninhibited by unnecessary or exaggerated fears, but I remind the House of a sobering point about intelligence: by its nature, when it works, which is usually the case, the public rarely get to hear about it, but there will always be exceptions, instances where despite our best efforts the terrorists slip through the intelligence net.
The tragic lesson from Bali is that British nationals are targets of terrorism in many parts of the world. The message for the Government is that we must all exercise constant vigilance if we are to avert future such tragedies. I know that I speak for the whole House when I say that we will never bow to the evils of terrorism. Its purpose is to undermine the very foundations of our free and democratic life, and our campaign against it will continue to be unrelenting both at home and overseas.
§ Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes)I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance notice of both his statement and the report. I join him in sending our best wishes to the Home Secretary for a speedy recovery.
We on the Conservative Benches welcome the report and its contents. It is a very serious report with very serious implications for the security of British citizens abroad. We owe great gratitude to the members and the chairman of the committee for producing it so quickly. I take this opportunity to join the Foreign Secretary in paying tribute to the dedication of our security services, which work largely unthanked and unsung on behalf of the citizens of this country. I renew our condolences to the victims and the bereaved from the murderous Bali bomb.
At the time of the bombing, I called for the Committee to investigate what information had been available prior to the Bali bomb. I also asked that there 260 be a full debate on the report. I hope that, notwithstanding the statement today, the Government will make time available for such a debate, particularly after they have completed their own consideration of the recommendations in the report.
I referred at the time to Australian Prime Minister John Howard's belief that we have an obligation to have procedure "thoroughly examined". Today's report supports that view, and its recommendations largely endorse the actions that I called for at the time of the Bali bombing.
As the report indicates, there are serious lessons to be learned from Bali. I am sure that the Foreign Secretary must share my concern at the Committee's findings that the pre-11 September Foreign Office travel advice was clearer on the threat to British interests in Indonesia than the advice that was available in August this year.
There are a number of urgent recommendations relating to the security services and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Those must be responded to swiftly, comprehensively and sufficiently openly to restore public confidence in the advice that flows from their activities. One of the major deficiencies highlighted in today's report concerns the levels of threat grading. The Committee calls for the gap between the level "significant" and the level "high" to be addressed. I am sure that the Government will wish to consider that. Will the Foreign Secretary tell the House whether the Australians and/or the Americans grade their threat assessments in the same way, and whether we can learn from them?
Even before this report, were early lessons learned from Bali? The Foreign Secretary said that improvements had been made, but the Australian Government, in particular, do seem to have learned lessons from Bali. Ahead of the attack in Mombasa on 28 November, they warned their citizens
to defer non-essential travel to Kenya".All that the Foreign Office warned was that there might be an increased terrorist threat. There is a substantial difference between those two warnings.The Australian Government warned in mid-November:
threats against Westerners and Western interests in Mombasa are high".What was the Foreign Office warning, and why was Mombasa not mentioned? Why was travel advice not changed until I wrote to the Foreign Secretary on 29 November raising the disturbing similarities with the action taken by the Foreign Office in the run-up to the Bali bombing?Does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is essential that the public can have confidence in the travel advice issued by his Department, and that the report must be acted upon swiftly to restore lost confidence? The inconsistency between the United Kingdom and Australia may have dented that confidence yet further. The right hon. Gentleman must tell the House today what steps have been taken to improve consistency.
Was our intelligence in relation to both Bali and Mombasa the same as that available to the Australian Government? Were the threat assessments that were made the same, and if so, why did we give the same travel advice on the first occasion, but different travel 261 advice on the second occasion? Were the threat assessments to the embassy in Jakarta and to the high commission in Mombasa the same or different? What were the levels for Nairobi when we know that in Jakarta the level was "high"? Were the equivalent threats to general British interests in Kenya the same as those being issued in Indonesia, where the level was said to be "significant"?
Has the Foreign Secretary seriously considered a more joined-up approach to the issuing of travel advice? Should not countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom consider a more cooperative approach? Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the effect of Foreign Office travel advice on the validity of travel insurance claims for holidays cancelled as a result of the advice given?
The report refers to there being insufficiency of information to prevent specific terrorist attacks, and the Foreign Secretary has written to me in similar terms—but does he not agree that although there may frequently be insufficient information to prevent an attack, that same information may be sufficient to establish a threat to British interests, which should be reflected in the travel advice? Was that not the case with Bali, and even more with Mombasa?
I urge the right hon. Gentleman to heed the words of the committee in its conclusion:
The whole issue of travel advice, its purpose, target audience and presentation needs to be examined … as a matter of urgency".Can he assure the House that he will waste no time in implementing all the recommendations of the report?
§ Mr. StrawI am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's comments about my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and about the relatives of the victims of this atrocity, and the staff of the Security Service—and, I might add, all the other intelligence agencies as well. He asked whether there would be a full debate on the subject, and I note his request. When I made my original statement six weeks ago I promised that I would do my best to ensure that the report was brought to the House as quickly as possible, and that is exactly what has happened; we received the report only yesterday. The request for a full debate will, of course, be dealt with in the usual way by the usual channels.
The right hon. Gentleman made a number of points as a sort of reprise of the report—and yes, since he asks, we are, as I have already made clear, moving swiftly to consider the recommendations in full. We will report both to the ISC and to the House. For reasons that the House fully understands, we can report rather more thoroughly to the ISC than to the House, because the ISC meets in confidence—but we shall report to the House as thoroughly as we can.
The categorisation of threat levels is published in today's ISC report—probably the first time that it has been published in this way. The right hon. Gentleman asked about such categorisation in respect of Australia and the United States. I will write to him with more information—if I have it—but my understanding is that neither the United States nor Australia makes public even the categorisation. While we were content for the basic categorisation to be published—we will of course take full account of the Committee's recommendation 262 for an intermediate threat level between "significant" and "high"—it is firmly not our intention to make public the judgments made about threat assessments for individual countries, because in many cases to do so could inform terrorists that we have information about them. The Security Service makes its assessments as objectively as possible. They are then taken into account—not in an automatic way, but as a matter of judgment—alongside other factors, and that is reflected in the travel advice. Whenever a threat level changes, we reconsider the travel advice; it does not follow that, whenever a threat level changes, the travel advice is automatically altered.
The right hon. Gentleman asked several questions about the terrorist outrage in Mombasa. First, I am glad to say that there were no British casualties in Mombasa. In a letter to him, I said:
No information was available to the UK, US or Australia which could have prevented the attacks which took place in Mombasa.As Alexander Downer, the Australian Foreign Minister, said:Australia had no specific information about the timing, location or method of the possible attacks.[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman seems to be muttering about the difference in advice, and I am about to come to that. It is always going to be the case that different countries, even if they are using the same intelligence, may come to different judgments. In some recent cases—they do not relate to the matter under consideration—the intelligence shared between key countries may be specific to the nationals of one country, rather than another; in others, we might come to slightly different judgments. So there may be good explanations as to why there are differences.However, the right hon. Gentleman makes a good point when he suggests that, although there are high levels of co-operation at the moment between key countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand—and, to a different degree, with our European partners—we can always do more to upgrade co-operation. That is something to which I shall apply myself personally in the coming days.
§ Mr. Michael Moore (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)We also welcome the statement, and I am grateful for the advance copy that the Foreign Secretary provided. May I associate Liberal Democrat Members with the good wishes offered to the Home Secretary, and with the condolences expressed by the Foreign Secretary to the families of those killed in Bali? The tragedy there, and the subsequent one in Mombasa, has highlighted the real dangers of terrorism across the globe and the importance of high-quality intelligence to assess the threats that British citizens face.
We would welcome the Foreign Secretary's recognition that, despite best efforts and the high quality of our security services, mistakes were made in the assessment of intelligence and in the advice given before the Bali bomb. Will he be seeking changes in the ways in which intelligence is assessed and acted on once received? In the light of the Australian experience, does he accept that the public will now expect a qualitative improvement in the nature and timing of the advice that 263 the Foreign Office gives? Finally, does he agree that the Committee's inquiry process was a worthwhile exercise and a useful precedent, and that it should be given the remit and resources to extend this type of work in future?
§ Mr. StrawI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening comments. We accept that the report highlights a need for changes in the way that intelligence is assessed and threat assessments are made, and in subsequent processing to a public result in terms of travel advice. Changes were put in hand after Bali, and some changes preceded that incident. However, the nature of the ISC's report means that the changes are likely to be accelerated and made more thorough.
Travel advice given by the UK is well regarded. Huge efforts are made to ensure its comprehensiveness and integrity, but it can always be improved. I have been looking at the nature of the advice and how it is presented on the website. There are ways in which we could change and better standardise the format of the advice, to ensure that it is more easily readable and that it refers to the websites of comparable countries such as the US, as has been suggested.
The ISC inquiry to which the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore) referred is the second that has been conducted. The first was established in September 1999 in respect of the Mitrokhin disclosures, when I was Home Secretary. The second inquiry, in respect of Bali, was established just six weeks ago. The ISC's specific inquiries and its general work show the value of such scrutiny by senior parliamentarians.
§ Ann Taylor (Dewsbury)On behalf of members of the ISC', may I join my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in extending our sympathy to the families of those involved in the tragic bombing in Bali? I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments and for making all the relevant intelligence available to the Committee. We could not have done our work without that, or without the full co-operation of the agencies and Ministers who gave advice. We are also very grateful for the high degree of co-operation in terms of what has been published in the report, which for the first time includes the system of threat-assessment levels. It is important that people can see that, so that better judgments can be made in the future.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was right to draw the House's attention to the Committee's conclusion that, according to the available intelligence, there was no action that the UK and its allies could have taken to prevent the attack. It is important that we bear that in mind, as the report contains other important criticisms.
The ISC shares my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's view that the staff of the Security Service, some of whom we met again this morning, are dedicated people who work in a professional way. For that reason, the Committee did not reach lightly its conclusion that there was serious misjudgment in the threat assessment made for Bali. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will work with my right hon. Friend the 264 Home Secretary to ensure that the review of the system of threat levels is completed as quickly as possible? That is not necessarily so that we can monitor what happens in Australia, America or elsewhere, but so that we get the assessment right for threats to British interests such as embassies and people. Occasionally, different judgments will be made.
Will the Foreign Office ensure that the totality of the ISC's recommendations for changes to travel advice is taken forward urgently and put in the context of the remarks that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made in his Mansion house speech about public awareness and education, given the new threats that everyone faces from international terrorism?
Finally, I thank my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in particular, and the Government in general, for turning the report around so quickly. The Committee finished its work only on Monday evening, and we are impressed that the report has been published so quickly. I urge my right hon. Friend to use his best endeavours, as some Committee members will, to persuade my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to have a debate on these matters early in the new year.
§ Mr. StrawI am grateful to my right hon. Friend for everything that she has said, and for the manner in which she said it. I am also grateful to all the members of the Committee, who have dealt with the inquiry very assiduously.
My right hon. Friend underlined the Committee's first conclusion that the United Kingdom could have taken no action on the available intelligence that could have prevented the atrocity.. It is very hard—indeed, it is awful—for those who were bereaved, and, as I said in my statement six weeks ago, they are bound to have the idea that some intelligence was overlooked that could have prevented the atrocity. That is not the case. Given the criticism that my right hon. Friend's Committee makes, I am glad that she has placed it on record—I know that she feels this very strongly—that the staff of the Security Service are dedicated professionals.
My right hon. Friend asks whether I will work with the Home Secretary to complete the review of threat assessments as soon as possible. Yes, although, as I explained to the House, it is primarily the responsibility of the Home Secretary, as he is responsible for the Security Service. We must get it right for the United Kingdom and I shall certainly act on the totality of the Committee's recommendations on travel advice.
As for having a debate, my right hon. Friend, as a former Leader of the House, will know that all Members who speak from the Front Bench are under a strict injunction never to offer a debate but only to say that we will raise it with the Leader of the House.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)Order. I allowed some latitude to the right hon. Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor), as Chairman of the Committee, but I appeal to other hon. Members to be brief because we have another statement and important business thereafter.
§ Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Mailing)Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the son of a constituent of 265 mine was one of the British citizens who was murdered at Bali, that he had been married five months previously and that he relied on a life assurance policy taken out by his employer to offer financial protection to his wife—now his widow? Is he further aware that my constituent told me this morning, in advance of the Foreign Secretary's statement, that the employer has now expressed doubts as to whether the life policy will be valid because his late son lost his life in an act of terrorism? The Foreign Secretary has rightly made it clear that there is a continuing grave threat to British citizens abroad and possibly in this country as well. Can he assure the House that the Government will have immediate discussions with the insurance industry to ensure that life policy protection against acts of terrorism remains in place for the people of this country?
§ Mr. StrawThe answer to the right hon. Gentleman's last question is yes. I should be grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I could, through you, pass on to the family concerned my sincere condolences. I would be happy to see the right hon. Gentleman and, if he feels it appropriate, his constituent to discuss the details of the points that he has raised.
§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)Thanks to the new system of distributing ministerial statements, it is possible to quote the Foreign Secretary accurately. He said:
The tragic lesson from Bali is that British nationals are targets of terrorism in many parts of the world.Could it be that British nationals are targets because of the bombing of the already traumatised children of Iraq, and that although we must fight terrorism, if we go ahead with bombing and war against Iraq, might not the eventual winners be Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and the dreadful people who perpetrated Bali?
§ Mr. StrawThe answer to my hon. Friend is no and no again. Children in Iraq are traumatised by the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein.
§ Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East)The Foreign Secretary is surely right when he says that both Australia and Britain suffered grievous casualties at Bali and both avoided casualties subsequently in Mombasa. However, is it not the case that the one was the result of good luck while the other was the result of good judgment? Is it not a fact that, based on the same intelligence, Australia gave a much more specific warning to its travelling population than our Government gave to ours? Is it not a fact that this was a serious misjudgment and failure by our Government?
§ Mr. StrawI do not accept that. It is a matter that I have discussed separately with the Intelligence and Security Committee. I realise that the hon. Gentleman follows these things with some care, but it is very easy to have wisdom after the event. The Australians based what they said on similar intelligence to that provided to the United Kingdom, and United States intelligence was similar to that of the UK rather than to that of the Australians. Notwithstanding the criticism made by the ISC that I have published today, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom all gave similar travel advice in respect of Bali and none of our travel advisories warned directly against travel to Bali.
266 May I remind the hon. Gentleman of a point made by his right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay)? In our exchanges on 21 October, the right hon. Gentleman warned of the genuine problem of -warning fatigue". We must be careful to ensure that the credibility of our travel advisories is properly preserved. The primary concern has to be that of the safety and security of British travellers, but how we achieve that is a matter of difficult judgments.
§ Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley)May I, too, welcome the speedy production of the report? As my right hon. Friend knows, my constituent, Natalie Perkins, died in that terrorist atrocity, along with her young cousin, Laura France, the constituent of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn). I especially welcome the fact that today a system has been set up to communicate the contents of the report to the families. Will my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary again confirm his willingness to meet relatives, should they wish to discuss in detail concerns arising from the incident?
§ Mr. StrawYes is the answer to my hon. Friend. She raised her constituents' concern during the exchanges on 21 October. I am glad that we have put the special arrangements in place. I have written to the next of kin of all the British citizens who were killed in Bali. I have already seen a number of the relatives and if my hon. Friend would like to bring her constituent to see me, I shall be happy to oblige.
§ Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham)Bearing in mind that the security services of those countries most at risk are not necessarily the most reliable sources of information or the easiest to work with, may I ask to what extent and how often our security services or the Ministers responsible for them check their assessment of the risk in such countries with their counterparts in friendly countries, such as the United States, or other friendly countries in the region, for example, in this case, the Governments of Singapore, Australia and Malaysia?
§ Mr. StrawAs the right hon. and learned Gentleman will know from his previous ministerial experience, there are substantial standing arrangements for the exchange of intelligence, especially between some countries—the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK being five of them—and there are liaisons with quite a number of intelligence services in other countries. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to say—it is a timeless verity—that the quality of intelligence and security services varies across the world. Countries where law enforcement is lacking may also—although not always—have security services that are below the quality required. That has to be taken into account. There is a continuous process of exchange of information and a large proportion of the intelligence that we see—albeit not every item—has been shared with our intelligence partners.
§ Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire)At one time, travellers used travel agencies to purchase package holidays, so they were likely to receive advice about any problems in their destination. However, as travellers 267 now increasingly make use of the internet, are there arrangements to ensure that the information that they pull down is linked to the Foreign Office advice for overseas travel?
§ Mr. StrawOur travel advice is itself available on the FCO website. That is how the overwhelming majority of travellers access it. There is substantial and significant contact between our consular department, the Association of British Travel Agents and tour operators. They work together to improve the availability of advice, but I shall follow up my hon. Friend's specific point and write to him on the matter.
§ Mr. Michael Weir (Angus)On behalf on the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru, I join other hon. Members in sending condolences to the relatives of those affected by this terrible atrocity.
Following on from the previous point, is the Foreign Secretary reviewing how the travel information is made available to those who are planning to travel and those who are already travelling, since the situation can change fairly rapidly? In particular, even in this age, many people still do not have quick access to the internet. In places such as south-east Asia, the problem is that many young backpackers may be on long trips through that area and may not be aware of a changing situation. Will he consider whether there is any way in which information can be more widely distributed quickly to people who are already travelling?
§ Mr. StrawI thank the hon. Gentleman for the condolences that he offers on behalf of the SNP and Plaid Cymru; they are gratefully received.
Although the primary means of communicating our travel advice is through the website, whenever significant changes are made to the website a press announcement is made. We would draw a really 268 important change to the attention of the BBC World Service, for example, and local broadcasters and so on, and we will continue to do so.
§ Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold)Will the Foreign Secretary confirm the factual accuracy of his statement to the House this afternoon as opposed to the written statement that, during the period in question, the agencies received at least 150 separate intelligence reports a day? Will he also confirm whether the Government have thoroughly reviewed the deposition of the security and intelligence forces' assets throughout the globe so that they are correctly in place properly to assess the emerging threat from al-Qaeda, as the whole intelligence threat has changed since the dreadful events of 11 September?
§ Mr. StrawThe hon. Gentleman's first point was a paraphrase of the ISC report, paragraph 11 of which says:
During the period in questionthe security servicesreceived at least 150 separate reports a day relating to terrorist activity in more than twenty different countries, including Indonesia and the UK itself.Intelligence priorities are a very important issue; it is the core work of the Joint Intelligence Committee, based in the Cabinet Office and reporting to the Prime Minister and three Ministers—the Defence, Home and Foreign Secretaries—who are involved day by day in intelligence work. The ISC itself said that it was satisfied that sufficient priority was being given to intelligence collection in respect of Indonesia.
§ Patrick Mercer (Newark)In view of the general threat posed to travellers by the Bali bombing and the specific missile threat in Mombasa, will the Foreign Secretary tell the House what advice is being offered to British airline companies?
§ Mr. StrawThere are standing liaison arrangements with airline companies, but the crucial thing that we seek to do is to ensure that, so far as is possible and consistent with the protection of intelligence sources, the advice that we give is made public and is transparently available.