Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

Commons Urgent Question

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat an Answer to an Urgent Question that was given earlier in the other place:

“As I have set out to this House on previous occasions, the Government are working to comply with the Motion passed in February. I can reassure the House that this remains the case and can provide the following update.

The Government confirmed before Prorogation that they had referred over 300 documents to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which at the time represented all the documents in scope of the Motion where the Government believed that publication would be prejudicial to UK national security or international relations. The Government have repeatedly assessed all the documents they have collected to make sure that all those that need to be referred to the ISC are referred to the committee. As part of this quality control process, the Government identified a small number of further documents that they felt should be reviewed by the ISC, and immediately submitted these documents to the committee. As Friday’s statement from the committee set out, it has now considered all these documents.

As I have previously said to the House, the Government will be publishing a second tranche of material. This is currently being finalised and will be one of the largest government publications ever laid in this House. This is reflective of the breadth of the Motion and also the Government’s commitment to transparency in responding to it. It constitutes a very significant disclosure exercise, involving sensitive material from across government. The Government have taken seriously our obligations to comply with the humble Address in full, while also upholding other public interest issues such as our duty of care to junior staff. The Government have carried out this work according to a robust process, with assurance from an independent KC.

Given that the House is due to rise on Thursday, and given the length of the publication, the second tranche will now be published after the Whitsun Recess, to give the House sufficient time to review the material and to be able to ask me, and the Government, questions. It could have been published this Thursday, but I felt that the House would deem that to be inappropriate given that it will be such a significant publication. I refer back to my previous comments. This will be the largest publication, other than, I think, the Chilcot inquiry report, ever published to the House.

When the Government publish the second tranche of documents, we will also publish a methodology confirming the process we have followed, and it will be clear from the published information the basis on which any content has been redacted. The targeted redactions made to the material beyond those made relevant to national security or international relations have been made in line with clear precedent set by previous Administrations in responding to humble Addresses.

As I set out to the House on 23 February, and again when we published the first tranche of material on 11 March, we have taken the normal approach to redacting junior officials’ names, contact details such as telephone numbers and email addresses, the personal data of third parties where this is not in scope of the Motion and, where relevant, legal professional privilege.

This has been done using the principles set out in the Freedom of Information Act, and in line with the Ministerial Code and the resolutions on ministerial accountability passed by both Houses in 1997, which state:

‘Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with relevant statute’.

I am sure Members across the House will recognise that there is no public interest in the Government publishing the names and contact details of junior officials or their telephone numbers”.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat an Answer to an Urgent Question that was given earlier in the other place:

“As I have set out to this House on previous occasions, the Government are working to comply with the Motion passed in February. I can reassure the House that this remains the case and can provide the following update.

The Government confirmed before Prorogation that they had referred over 300 documents to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which at the time represented all the documents in scope of the Motion where the Government believed that publication would be prejudicial to UK national security or international relations. The Government have repeatedly assessed all the documents they have collected to make sure that all those that need to be referred to the ISC are referred to the committee. As part of this quality control process, the Government identified a small number of further documents that they felt should be reviewed by the ISC, and immediately submitted these documents to the committee. As Friday’s statement from the committee set out, it has now considered all these documents.

As I have previously said to the House, the Government will be publishing a second tranche of material. This is currently being finalised and will be one of the largest government publications ever laid in this House. This is reflective of the breadth of the Motion and also the Government’s commitment to transparency in responding to it. It constitutes a very significant disclosure exercise, involving sensitive material from across government. The Government have taken seriously our obligations to comply with the humble Address in full, while also upholding other public interest issues such as our duty of care to junior staff. The Government have carried out this work according to a robust process, with assurance from an independent KC.

My Lords, what the ISC has said today is profoundly troubling. Materials must not be redacted and withheld from Parliament in contravention of the humble Address. The ISC has a specific role in this process and the humble Address does not allow for redaction of documents sent to the ISC. Indeed, there is no exemption for personal data and, to the extent that the Government are withholding on that basis, they are in clear breach of the humble Address.

If there are legitimate reasons for the redaction of documents, the Government must come to Parliament to amend the humble Address. This is not just a matter of process; it is a matter of parliamentary sovereignty, which must be respected. We have consistently called for a list or overview of all the documents and whether they have been published. Can the Minister confirm that any documents that are currently being withheld but which are not relevant to the police investigation will be released in the next tranche? And will the Government commit to briefing opposition Members, on Privy Council terms, about the documents that are being withheld?

The noble Baroness knows I have huge respect for her, but I find it extraordinary, given her previous roles working at No. 10 when previous humble Addresses were released that followed exactly the same precedent as we are doing now and redacted the personal information of junior officials. The noble Baroness was part of that process, so I find it extraordinary that she would challenge us for following the precedent that her Administration set. In terms of next steps, we are complying with both the letter and spirit, following the precedent of protecting the issues of the humble Address we need to protect. The full tranche of materials will be published after the Whitsun Recess.

My Lords, in his comments on the controversy over the release of the documents, the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, also rightly raised concerns about the heavy reliance on WhatsApp for conversations between senior officials and Ministers, and the resultant risks to the audit trail as it is not always clear who decided what and when. The Cabinet Office’s guidance on the use of WhatsApp states at the bottom:

“This guidance will be reviewed on or before 31 December 2025”.

When I have raised this missed deadline before, the Government have neither given an explanation for missing it nor committed to a new date for the review. In light of the renewed controversy over the use of WhatsApp, I wonder whether the Minister could both give us an explanation of why that deadline was missed and give us a new deadline for when this review will finally be completed.

The noble Lord raises genuinely important points about how we make decisions and how we talk to each other, and I share some of his concerns. The Government plan to review the way that non-corporate communication channels are used in government and to update the accompanying guidance to reflect the changes in how we use the technology. I expect it to be before your Lordships’ House imminently for us to discuss the detail.

My Lords, the ISC was given a clear task to look at documents that were going to be released on the humble Address for national security and international relations harm. We have done that. We spent many hours doing it. I pay credit to the committee members for their hard work and thank in particular my noble friends Lord West and Lady Brown of Cambridge for their diligence in that task. The point of our statement is very clear: the Government need to justify why they are going to redact things other than on the grounds which we have decided.

The other situation is the fact that there is documentation—including the full background files of the vetting of Lord Mandelson—which we have not seen as it has been withheld. We understand why, because to release that would lead to difficulties for the future vetting system. But it does fall within the humble Address, and the Government need to come to Parliament to argue that point—one that the ISC would agree with in that situation.

Can I finally just raise WhatsApp? We are concerned about the use of WhatsApp, the use of low-side systems for information, the lack of audit trail, particularly in the Foreign Office, of decision-making, and the overriding of security concerns raised by the agencies whose job it is to do it. These are all issues that the last committee raised with both the Johnson and Sunak Governments. That culture is continuing; it cannot be allowed to continue. I urge my noble friend, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that proper systems are put in place and that this can is not just kicked down the road.

First, I thank my noble friend for the work that he and his committee are undertaking that is not normally in the scope of the ISC. We as a Parliament have asked it to undertake a huge amount of work and we are grateful for the work it is doing. As I have set out, the Government will return to Parliament when they publish the second tranche of material. We will set out the methodology that has been followed and the reasons for it. More generally, there are obvious reasons why the Government treat vetting material with exceptional sensitivity. Many Members of your Lordships’ House have held roles where they have been exposed to the importance of vetting and know how the process works and that the number of people who have access to this material remains tightly controlled for a reason. We will be publishing a full methodology alongside the materials.

With regard to the other points raised by the noble Lord and his committee in their correspondence of recent days, I have already answered the point on the inappropriate use of NCCCs. On their other points, including the lack of proper records and inappropriate use of lower-level IT systems, I have more than some sympathy with the comments made by the noble Lord and his committee. We will be taking every measure to make sure both that the culture changes and that appropriate record-keeping is done.

My Lords, can I press the Minister a little on the timing point and the need for scrutiny? Presumably, the Government are planning on a Minister, in both the other place and this place, making a Statement when this information is published: I see that the noble Baroness is nodding. She was careful to say that this would be a big release of information. Can we have a gap between the publication of that information and the Statement that Ministers make, to give Members of the other House and this House sufficient time to scrutinise what she says is a significant volume of information and to be able to ask pertinent and relevant questions? Dumping a huge number of documents and having a Statement immediately afterwards will not enable proper scrutiny.

The noble Lord raises an important point, but he will also know that, in government, some of those decisions are outside my control. By convention in our House, Statements are not typically repeated on the same day, so I hope that noble Lords will have the opportunity to discuss. I will make myself available as well at any point to any Member of your Lordships’ House who, once they have seen it, has further questions—both in here and outside—to answer about the release of the documentation.

My Lords, with no disrespect to my noble friend Lord Beamish, does my noble friend the Minister agree that, when this is raised by the Opposition as an Urgent Question, it makes it into an aggressive party- political issue? Is this not better left to the all-party, independent ISC?

As ever, my noble friend is exceptionally wise, but I understand why Members across your Lordships’ House have questions about what comes next and about the material. There is, as I have said, a significant volume of it to be released. We want to do this well and effectively, so that we do not return time after time with additional materials, by making sure that reviews are done effectively and internally. That is one of the reasons why additional materials were passed to the ISC after we thought all the materials had been. We need to do this in a cross-party way. I am aware that Members of your Lordships’ House have questions. I am sure that, when the next tranche of materials is released, we will be discussing their content in great detail.

Why has there has such a long delay in the publication of basic materials, such as Lord Mandelson’s application and his declaration of interests, which are of great interest to everyone but surely cannot pose any difficulties?

My Lords, as I just said, we are looking to publish only two key tranches. The first has already been done; the second will follow shortly. The third and final tranche will be after police investigations. Those are the materials that are being withheld because the Met is using them for its work. Rather than repeatedly coming back to your Lordships’ House, we want to do this effectively in a way that works for this House.

In view of the practical issues that my noble friend has raised, would it be possible to give this House and the other House 24 or 48 hours’ notice of when the release is going to be? It will not be any good coming back after the Recess on the Monday and all of a sudden being told on that day, “The Statement’s this afternoon”. There ought to be a bit more warning about when it is going to happen.

My noble friend raises an interesting point and I will have to speak to colleagues.