Sir John Hayes

The Home Secretary will know that I am an admirer of hers, and we tend to agree about much. We certainly agree about the threat posed by Iran. She will be familiar with the report produced by the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I am pleased to be a member—indeed, I am basking in the glory of the compliments that the ISC has already received—which said: “Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals, and UK interests. Iran has a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity and”— this is the critical point— “its intelligence services are ferociously well-resourced with significant areas of asymmetric strength.” Iran is a particular threat, and the Home Secretary will well understand that the way it uses its intelligence services is entirely different from the way that we see our intelligence services in this country. I have no doubt that she is mindful of that fact in relation to the Bill. I see this Bill as quite closely associated with how we deal with Iran. Will the Home Secretary comment on that? On a point raised by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and my right hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), one way of dealing with oversight would be for the ISC to be pre-briefed by a Minister when proscription was considered, rather than it having to play catch up afterwards.