Intelligence and Security Committee report approved after complaint to Prime Minister | Security and Counterterrorism in the UK

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A frustrated Intelligence and Security Committee – the parliamentary body that oversees Britain’s spy agencies – has been forced to file a public complaint in order to persuade Boris Johnson to let him publish his annual report before Christmas.

The multi-stakeholder group had warned on Tuesday that Johnson had been so slow that there was a risk he would not be able to publish the final review before the year-end recess, echoing a previous row when the n ° 10 had sat on his report on Russia. .

The committee said it sent a draft 2019-21 annual report final to the prime minister on October 25. “By convention, the committee asks the Prime Minister to respond within 10 working days. This deadline expired on Monday, November 8, ”the commission said in a terse statement.

The body then asked Johnson to clear the report by Friday as it was “the last possible day if the report (which has already been delayed six months by late returns by the government) is to be released before that the House does not rise for the Christmas holidays ”.

Tuesday’s complaint produced the desired result. On Wednesday afternoon, the committee confirmed that Johnson has now signed the report, just over a fortnight after the deadline but nonetheless in time for publication before the end of the year.

Downing Street must clear draft ISC reports to ensure they do not contain any secret material that would undermine the operations of MI5, MI6 or GCHQ, the UK’s three main intelligence agencies. The Prime Minister may demand specific deletions, although it is not clear if this has happened in this case.

A series of political feuds have hampered the committee’s work since Johnson became prime minister and refused to erase his highly critical report on Russia ahead of the 2019 general election.

The report was finally released in July 2020, seven months after the election. He concluded that the government and intelligence agencies had made no assessment of the Kremlin’s attempts to interfere with the 2016 Brexit referendum, and the spy agencies were accused of “losing their eyes. With regard to Russia.

Johnson was hoping to appoint former Justice and Transport Secretary Chris Grayling as committee chairman at the time, but a revolt among its members led to the appointment of another Tory, Julian Lewis, as chair. An annoyed Downing Street had Lewis kicked out of the parliamentary party for several months.

Unlike other parliamentary committees, the SAI sits in secret. But it produces unclassified reports, albeit with redacted passages, usually at the request of intelligence agencies.

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