Hi @carolecadwalla. I did not think I was saying anything controversial here. The Russia report is technically the property of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security committee, even though the government has to approve it, as with all sensitive ISC reports. The committee...
does not technically exist till reconstituted in the new parliament. It is of course open to @BorisJohnson to make a request to the committee’s secretariat to publish the report before the committee is re-constituted (which in fact may not be till March, since the members...
all have to be vetted to check they won’t blab secrets over lunch). But the secretariat would feel uncomfortable publishing in the absence of a functioning committee, though maybe it could be persuaded. For the avoidance of doubt, all of the above stuff on procedure comes from...
Dominic Grieve, the erstwhile ISC chair at the time the Russia report was written. It is of course interesting that the Russia report seems to have been approved by Downing St. But what is unclear is quite what the report says and what if anything has been...
redacted. They are the material questions, as I am sure you would agree.
PS those of you who claim that I am wrong on the procedure, please talk to Dominic Grieve or the House of Commons clerks. I am not in the business of creating convenient - or even inconvenient - truths. I just try (not always successfully) to establish where politicians...
have discretion, because that is the domain where we must hold them to account, as opposed to where rules (such as parliament’s procedural rules) keep them in tramlines.
