Expanding the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security

In democratic political systems, security should, axiomatically, be assumed to be representative.

Far from being the preserve of an elite drawn from one party or two, the national interest would be better served, intuition goes, by having a cross-section of parliamentary representatives. This is not a view held by a number of more traditionally minded politicians.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) has tended to keep the club small and limited to the major parties. The rationale for doing so has been as much a consequence of the material being received by its members, and its powers.