| Intelligence and Security Committee - The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report | ||||
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MINISTERIAL AND SENIOR OFFICIAL OVERSIGHT 69. The Committee was concerned, when examining the evidence, that Ministers were not told enough in a timely fashion. The fact that the then Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. John Major, was not told until January 1993, 9 months after the first contact with Mr Mitrokhin is worthy of note. There is evidence to suggest that the US President could have known about this important UK intelligence success before the Prime Minister. Additionally the Home Secretary appears not to have been told until October 1993 at the earliest and probably not until July 1995. There is no evidence however that UK ministers were disadvantaged when dealing with their foreign counterparts over this matter. 70. During evidence to the Committee witnesses were asked if ministers could have been told about Mr Mitrokhin and his material and the publication project earlier in their appointment. Michael Howard wished he had been told about Mrs Norwood and the current Home Secretary, Jack Straw, expressed the view that he should have been informed earlier. 71. In respect of the present Prime Minster's knowledge of Mr Mitrokhin, about which there were initial misunderstandings following the Chief Press Secretary's briefing on September 13th, which he clarified in a letter to the Times on September 15, the Committee has established the facts are as follows: The Prime Minister was first told about the existence of Mr Mitrokhin and his material in general terms in 1995 when Leader of the Opposition. He was told about the publication project in December 1997. No. 10 were informed about the specific matter of Mrs Norwood in June 1999 but the Prime Minister was not told at that point. He was first told about Mrs Norwood in a letter dated 9 September, the day before the story appeared in the Times. 72. The Committee also noted that the Mitrokhin case/story was never included in hand-over briefs between ministers or PUS/Cabinet Secretary appointments. Evidence from the Home Office and FCO has confirmed this. 73. The Committee believes that these matters were of such a significance that they required regular briefing of ministers. Additionally, whilst the situation is certainly more complex when briefing a new minister, careful consideration is needed on exactly when to brief ministers on sensitive material such as the Mr Mitrokhin material. 74. The Committee recommends that the hand-over briefing for Permanent Under Secretaries should include any sensitive material of possible continuing interest, on which the previous Permanent Under Secretary had been briefed. This should assist in preventing information lying dormant and unknown within the department. 75. The Committee also investigated the issue of what was given to foreign liaison services. The Chief of the SIS, in his evidence to the Committee, clearly stated that he believes that the SIS operated entirely properly in its dealings with liaison services. It is worthy of note, that while a significant amount of information was exchanged before 1994, the Intelligence Services Act 1994 gives the Chief of the SIS the statutory power to disclose the material as necessary. 76. Consequently, the Committee believes that the sharing of Mr Mitrokhin's material with foreign liaison by the SIS was in a proper and controlled manner. 77. The Committee was told that once the SIS had passed this sensitive material to the liaison services, it was the responsibility of that service to protect the material. The Committee is aware of a number of instances when Mitrokhin related material leaked and was even made public. Whilst the Committee recognises the difficulties the SIS has in ensuring that foreign liaison services afford material sufficient protection, it is concerned that material was compromised in a way that could have been damaging to the SIS and UK. 78. Witnesses agreed that the Committee should have been told about the publication project before publication. All were surprised that the Committee had not been told earlier than 31 August 1999. Some witnesses believed that the Committee could have been told in 1996, once Malcolm Rifkind had given approval for the project to start. Others believed that the Committee should have been informed before David Rose, perhaps when Robin Cook either noted the publication project in October 1997 or when he authorised publication in March 1999. The Committee noted that the matter was raised in the January 1999 meeting of the Interdepartmental working group but that no action was taken to inform the Committee. 79. The Committee believes that it would have been advisable and could have been beneficial for the Agencies and Government to inform us earlier than they did about the publication project. The Committee recommends that in future the Committee be notified as soon as it is reasonably possible when material, particularly potentially controversial material, is being placed in the public domain.
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