I have the good fortune, in the interests of brevity, to be able to acknowledge all that has been said on both sides of the House, but I would like to add a thought or two of my own.
This Committee is sui generis; there is nothing else like it. To seek to bring it within a certain structure runs the risk of ignoring the fact that it has particular characteristics. The Chair of the Committee has particular characteristics, too, because by convention the Committee does not talk to the press. When any request is made for information from the print or electronic media, the proper course of action, which, if I may say so, I have studiously followed since my election, is to refer the matter to the Chair of the Committee. The Chair then finds himself in a very difficult and sensitive position regarding the extent to which he is able to respond to possibly legitimate inquiries about the work of the Committee, in so far as that is consistent with the fact that he, like all of us, signs the Official Secrets Act. No member of any other Select Committee in the House of Commons does that. Particular skills are therefore essential for the chairmanship of this Committee that are not necessarily required in the chairmanship of other Committees. I respectfully suggest that those who are best able to assess those skills are the members of the Committee themselves. Of course, they must have confidence in their Chair.
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The Prime Minister has the ultimate responsibility for security under our conventional constitutional arrangements. That is why his role must be acknowledged, and I believe the Bill does exactly that.
One of the consequences of amendment 9 is that no member of the House of Lords, however well qualified, could ever become Chair of the Committee. I do not suggest that that would be a matter of routine, but there may, in exceptional circumstances, be an individual who, by reason of experience, judgment and knowledge, would be particularly suited, and it would not make much sense if the Committee were not in a position to endorse that individual for chairmanship.
The amendment contains an inherent contradiction. It begins:
“The Chair is to be a member of the House of Commons elected in the same way as the Chairs of Departmental Select Committees.”
As I said, this Committee is different in that its Chair has to sign the Official Secrets Act. The amendment goes on to say that he must have
“received the formal consent in writing of the Prime Minister”.
That is not an election that accords with the way in which Chairs of departmental Select Committees are elected.