30 Years of Scrutiny: What next for the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament?

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Introduction

The creation of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) in 1994, under the Intelligence Services Act, marked a significant milestone in oversight of UK intelligence. For 30 years, members of the ISC have played a unique role – interrogating classified information which no other parliamentary committee can access. 

The ISC has made clear and challenging recommendations to government on a range of issues, informing both parliament and the public on key intelligence challenges, most notably on the handling of intelligence relating to the terrorist attacks in 2005, 2013 and 2017, and the changing nature of security threats from state actors such as China and Russia.

Recent years have seen the committee face an evolving set of challenges, due both to the ever-changing UK intelligence landscape, and to tensions between the committee’s independent scrutiny role, and its obligations to protect secret or otherwise sensitive sources and information. In particular, the ISC’s reliance on the government to approve publications and respond to recommendations has at times led to frustration.

To stay relevant, the ISC must adapt to the challenges of a new decade. Most immediately, the ISC should conduct more focused analysis on the role of emerging technologies in UK national security, including AI, which is already transforming the way the UK intelligence community operates. But, for committee members to successfully address these new issues, the government must first ensure the ISC has access to the technical expertise and resources required to meaningfully scrutinise the use of emerging technologies within the UK intelligence community. 

How unique is the ISC?

Parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies has become ‘near universal’ in democratic nations. But in 1994, parliamentary oversight of intelligence was met with nervousness, leading to the ISC being given ‘unique and special’ parameters.

The role of the ISC is unique compared to other Parliamentary committees, both in its access to secret intelligence, and its reliance on the government of the day. Its reports must be vetted both by the intelligence services and ministers, while the Prime Minister continues to nominate committee members, even if they are ultimately appointed by Parliament. 

It is also unique among intelligence oversight bodies, differing from the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO). In some respects, the ISC’s remit is wider than IPCO’s. While IPCO is concerned only with investigatory powers, the ISC is concerned with the wider ‘policies, expenditure, administration and operations’ of intelligence organisations. In other ways, however, its remit is narrower. While IPCO oversees more than 600 public authorities governed by investigatory powers legislation, the ISC is more limited in scope, overseeing only the UK intelligence services: GCHQ, the Security Service (MI5) and SIS (MI6), as well as the Home Office Homeland Security Group, National Cyber Force, Joint Intelligence Organisation, National Security Secretariat and Defence Intelligence.

However, the ISC is not unique in needing to adapt to keep pace with the departments it oversees. Parliamentary select committees are regularly updated to mirror new government departments and frequently form sub-committees when priority issues are identified. Despite arguments that accountability mechanisms for intelligence services have been slow to develop, IPCO has been updated several times since its creation in 2016 (for example through the introduction of the Office for Communications Data Authorisations in 2019). IPCO’s powers are now set to evolve again following 2024 updates to the Investigatory Powers Act.

In comparison, the ISC has seen little change in 30 years. Since its foundation in 1994, there has been just one significant alteration. In 2013 its powers were reinforced by the Justice and Security Act and an accompanying Memorandum of Understanding. This saw the ISC’s remit expanded beyond the three UK intelligence agencies, to include the other organisations listed above, and saw Parliament given a more substantial role in appointing committee members. Since then, there has been little change, despite numerous calls for reform, most notably from the committee itself.

Challenges facing the ISC

While the parameters of the ISC have remained largely static since 2013, the challenges it faces have not. New challenges facing the ISC in 2024 include:   

1. Overlapping and diffuse security threats: The threats facing UK intelligence today are ‘more complex and diffuse than ever before’, requiring a whole-of-government approach that extends beyond the remit of just the intelligence agencies.
2. Emerging technologies: The increasingly central role of emerging technologies comes with significant opportunities and risks, requiring direct expert scrutiny. Scrutiny is needed both to examine the threat from adversaries who may be gaining technological advantage and using this to undermine UK national security, and to examine uses of emerging technology by UK agencies themselves. 
3. Intelligence opening up: Intelligence agencies have acknowledged they need to be ‘more open to stay secret’, opening themselves up to the public and, increasingly, to private sector partnerships. This raises questions on the relative value of private versus public evidence for the ISC.
4. Resourcing: The ISC remains reliant on a small team and, unlike select committees, is staffed by Cabinet Office officials instead of Parliamentary officials. This raises questions around how the committee can best access technical experts who are both independent and sufficiently security cleared.
5. Diffusion of responsibility for national security: Some national security powers have been devolved outside the organisations overseen by the ISC. Especially relevant is the oversight of the Investment Security Unit (ISU) by the Business committee in Parliament, which does not have the same access to secret sources as the ISC. The ISU implements the National Security and Investment Act, legislation granting the government powers to intervene in acquisitions which impact the UK’s national security (including acquisitions involving AI, advanced robotics, synthetic biology, space technologies, and more). The  ISC has argued the ISU must be within their remit as ‘the only Parliamentary body with the necessary security infrastructure to scrutinise the material that underpins national security decisions.’ These concerns from the ISC around the ‘erosion of parliamentary oversight’ have now persisted for years.
6. Due consideration: The evidence suggests a significant decline in the attention paid to the ISC by successive Prime Ministers. The PM met the ISC annually for its first 20 years, but there has been no meeting since 2014. On top of this, there have been delays to publications, attributed to political concerns. 

Updating the ISC to address modern intelligence challenges

Addressing issues of strategic importance 

The most significant recent ISC publications were its Russia report in 2020 and the long-awaited China investigation in 2023. But the ISC also regularly selects specific, high-priority topics for inquiries. 

So far, they have conducted only limited analysis on emerging technologies – for example as part of their ‘Privacy and Security’ inquiry of 2015 following the Snowden allegations, a statement on 5G suppliers in 2019, and within annual reports where topics such as China’s interest in AI and semiconductors are mentioned. But this is beginning to change, with the ISC recently announcing an inquiry into cloud technologies.

The slow growth in interest from the ISC in emerging technology, and particularly AI, is unsurprising given the committee has tended not to be drawn into issues of widespread hype or media speculation, instead taking a ‘sober’ and ‘circumspect’ approach.

However, the importance of emerging technology to UK intelligence is now so central that this must become a topic of dedicated focus for the ISC. 

This would mirror the increasing emphasis intelligence agencies themselves have placed on technology, from GCHQ’s AI ethics publication and NCSC’s work on AI security, to numerous public statements from agency heads including on the need to secure emerging technologies from adversaries, the need to work more closely with the private sector to maintain technological advantage, and the need to act quickly on AI risks.

This would also complement work by other parliamentary committees, which in the last year have conducted inquiries into AI governance,  AI in weapons systems, large language models, quantum technologies, semiconductors, and more. 

Building on this work, the ISC could explore the following avenues of inquiry:

1. AI ethics and safety: An inquiry scrutinising the implementation of the UK intelligence community’s approach to AI ethics, and the contributions of the intelligence agencies to global efforts on AI safety.
2. Private sector partnerships: An inquiry into intelligence-private sector partnerships, following on from the ISC’s inquiry into international partnerships. Such an inquiry could examine UK intelligence agencies’ growing relationships with the technology sector, including whether these have enabled the UK to develop technological advantage and whether such partnerships have come with any significant risks. 
3. Privacy and encryption: An inquiry further examining the relationship between privacy and security in UK intelligence, building on the ISC’s 2015 report, but reflecting on the significant changes to the technological and legal context which have occurred since.
4. Opportunities and risks of AI in intelligence analysis: An inquiry looking at whether intelligence agencies are fully realising the opportunities of AI for intelligence analysis. For example, which technologies (e.g. large language models, behavioural analytics, and computer vision) are being leveraged with the most success? And are senior decision-makers equipped to interpret the uncertainty of intelligence reports informed by AI?
5. Securing the UK’s research ecosystem: An inquiry examining the risks associated with foreign theft of advanced scientific research, and interrogating how successful the UK has been in mitigating these risks.
6. Strengthening the semiconductor supply chain: An inquiry examining the increasing importance of the semiconductor supply chain to economic security, and examining UK partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.

Following the general election, the ISC will be re-appointed and will need to consider its plans for the coming year. Emerging technologies should be at the top of this agenda.   

Equipping the committee to tackle new challenges

As the ISC has full control of its agenda, increasing its focus on emerging technology represents low-hanging fruit.

The harder question for the ISC concerns procedure – how can its way of working be updated to keep up with the quickly evolving world of UK national security? Importantly, the changes needed here are largely outside the committee’s control. 

The reforms suggested below could help the committee to oversee UK intelligence more effectively. However, in practice, each change is harder than the last to achieve.

1. Increasing transparency: Intelligence agencies have opened up significantly over the last decade, recognising that, in the information age, open-source intelligence and transparency have great value. In the same period, there have also been moves to open up the ISC to the public, in particular following the first public evidence sessions which took place in 2013. However, the potential for the ISC to operate both in public as well as in private has not been fully harnessed. Increasingly, it will be relevant for the ISC to question not just government officials, but also academia, industry, and civil society. Often, this questioning can be done in public. This increases the ISC’s ability to inform both Parliament and the public on intelligence issues.
2. Increasing expertise: The ISC continues to be supported by a small staff, with technical expertise obtained on an ad-hoc basis. But emerging technologies are driving a growing need for the committee to have ready access to technical experts. In contrast, IPCO has the Technology Advisory Panel (TAP) to ensure the work of the inspectorate is informed by technical expertise. The government should consider providing the ISC with dedicated security cleared technical experts who can provide subject matter expertise regarding specific classified technology-related oversight matters, akin to the IPCO TAP.
3. Increasing remit: The ISC has repeatedly called for an expansion in its remit, arguing that the devolution of intelligence functions across government departments has undermined oversight. So far these gaps have been filled by select committees, but this comes with significant limitations given select committee members’ limited access to classified information. The remit of the ISC could potentially be expanded to ensure that whenever classified information is integral to parliamentary scrutiny, the ISC can play a role in supporting other relevant select committees. 
4. Increasing attention: Finally, for any of this to succeed, central government and the serving Prime Minister must make sufficient time for the ISC. Recent years have not only seen crucial publications from the ISC delayed by failures from the government to meet review deadlines, but also a 10-year gap in the PM meeting the ISC. The next Parliament will mark a much-needed opportunity for renewed commitment from the Prime Minister and other relevant Ministers to ensuring the ISC’s work receives due attention. 

A new decade for the ISC

The ISC continues to play an essential role overseeing UK intelligence. However parliamentary oversight of intelligence has been too slow to evolve. The ISC has shown its ability to investigate emerging technology, and the new Parliament will offer a much-needed opportunity to expand this agenda. It is essential the government acts quickly to ensure the ISC can remain effective. The next parliament is a good opportunity to consider these changes seriously. 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of The Alan Turing Institute or any other organisation.