UK: MI5: new headnew powers
01 November 1995
Mr Stephen Lander, currently the Director of Corporate Affairs, is to become the Director General of the Security Service, MI5 from Easter 1996. He will take over the £90,000 a year job from Stella Rimmington.
Mr Lander joined MI5 in 1975. For two years he was seconded to "the Foreign and Commonwealth Office working in the Near East and North Africa", in other words he worked for MI6 (the Secret Service). Between 1989 and 1994 he headed MI5's counter-terrorism T Branch (covering "Irish terrorism" and "non-Irish terrorism").
His appointment comes as the government is preparing new legislation, announced in the Queen's Speech, to allow MI5 to operate alongside the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) in combatting organised crime (see Statewatch, vol 5 no 5).
A report from the parliamentary Committee on the Intelligence and Security Services, chaired by Tom King, is understood to have suggested that the new legislation should "harmonise" the powers of MI5 and the police to "bug and burgle". At present MI5 have to obtain a warrant - to enter a home or offices to place "bugs" (listening devices) and hidden cameras - from the Home Secretary under Section 3 of the 1989 Security Service Act, while the police simply act on the authority of a Chief Constable. Instead of introducing warrants for the police to exercise these powers it is thought the Home Secretary will "lower" the level of authorisation for MI5 so that they can also act on the authority of a Chief Constable. Warrants would still be needed, by both the police and MI5, to tap telephones and to open mail.
The sequence of government announcements giving MI5 a new "policing" role was: 1) The Prime Minister and Home Secretary at the Conservative Party Annual Conference in mid-October; 2) David Maclean, Home Office Minister, tells a meeting of London Police Federation members in the last week of October: "Security service staff will be seconded to NCIS immediately.. " 3) Legislation announced in the Queen's Speech on 15 November to allow MI5 to work on organised crime and to have powers to "bug and burgle" and to extend the role of the NCIS from intelligence gathering to having operational powers. The Bill is not expected until the New Year.
10 Downing Street, press notice, 23.11.95; Sunday Telegraph, 3.12.95; Police Review, 3.11.95.