About the Committee

The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) was first established by the Intelligence Services Act 1994 to examine the policy, administration and expenditure of the Security Service, Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The Justice and Security Act 2013 reformed the ISC: making it a Committee of Parliament; providing greater powers; and increasing its remit (including oversight of operational activity and the wider intelligence and security activities of Government). Other than the three intelligence and security Agencies, the ISC examines the intelligence-related work of the Cabinet Office including: the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC); the Assessments Staff; and the National Security Secretariat. The Committee also provides oversight of Defence Intelligence in the Ministry of Defence and the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism in the Home Office.

Members of the ISC are appointed by Parliament and the Committee reports directly to Parliament. The Committee may also make reports to the Prime Minister on matters which are national security sensitive.

The Members are subject to Section 1(1)(b) of the Official Secrets Act 1989 and have access to highly classified material in carrying out their duties. The Committee takes evidence from Cabinet Ministers and senior officials – all of which is used to formulate its reports.

Recent Announcements

The Committee's most recent announcements are displayed below. For earlier announcements, or to see more details/attachments, please select 'News Archive' from the navigation bar.
 
  • 18 July 2018
    The Committee has today published its report on Diversity and Inclusion in the UK Intelligence Community and has also issued a press release.
    Posted 18 Jul 2018, 05:14 by ISC Admin
  • 28 June 2018
    The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament has today published the following two reports, and has also issued a press release in relation to each report:
    Posted 28 Jun 2018, 06:36 by ISC Admin
  • 26 June 2018
    The Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, the Rt. Hon. Dominic Grieve QC MP, has today issued the following statement:
    I have seen the allegations this morning that the US has censored our report on detention and rendition which we will be publishing on Thursday. I am - exceptionally - making a comment ahead of the publication of the reports because I believe that otherwise we risk attention being distracted from the key headlines in those reports.

    The first point to make is that the Committee has agreed to redact just one word in over 300 pages to meet a US security concern. On Thursday I will happily point you to where those asterisks are in the report and you can see for yourself that it is not a central issue, nor a controversial issue. The Committee does not agree to redact material in its reports on grounds of embarrassment to anyone. So I can assure you that the US has not made wholesale redactions to the reports, as suggested.

    The second point I wish to make is that I find it unacceptable that the Government has briefed the media on our reports before they are published. These are not the Government's reports to trail or leak as they wish. The Government is, exceptionally, given sight of the reports ahead of publication so that they can check there is nothing in them which would harm UK national security. The draft reports should have been kept on an exceptionally tight distribution within Government. It appears that that procedure has been abused in order to leak details of the reports, so as to draw the sting on Thursday.

    I believe that the reports make a very strong statement, and I hope that attention will be rightly focused on that and there will be no further attempts to distract from it.

    Posted 26 Jun 2018, 04:03 by ISC Admin
  • 25 June 2018
    The Committee will be publishing its two Reports - "Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition: 2001-2010" and "Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition: Current Issues" - on Thursday 28 June.

    Links to both Reports will be available on this page shortly after 10am on the 28th.
    Posted 25 Jun 2018, 04:46 by ISC Admin
  • 14 June 2018
    The Committee has today sent its Report, 'Diversity and Inclusion in the UK Intelligence Community', to the Prime Minister.

    In accordance with the Justice and Security Act 2013, the Prime Minister will now consider whether there is any information in the report which, if published, would be prejudicial to the continued discharge of the functions of the security and intelligence Agencies. The Committee expects to be in a position to publish the report next month.
    Posted 14 Jun 2018, 07:03 by ISC Admin
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