CONDUCT OF STELLA RIMINGTON, HEAD OF MI5

That this House notes the disturbing allegations about MI5 operations against the National Union of Mineworkers published in a book, The Enemy Within, by Seumas Milne and broadcast in the Channel Four, Dispatches, programme on 23rd November; further notes that there is strong evidence of the systematic abuse of security service powers against the miners' union and its leadership, including the mobilisation of GCHQ stations against domestic targets, dirty tricks, forged documents, phoney bank deposits, infiltration of the union at all levels, agent provocateur operations and the planting of smear stories in the media; further notes that further evidence has emerged that Roger Windsor, former NUM Chief Executive, was an MI5 agent sent into the union to destabilise it, and that Mr Windsor has now been found guilty in the French courts, to which jurisdiction he fled, of having himself signed documents he falsely claimed had been forged by NUM President, Arthur Scargill; further notes that Stella Rimington, as an assistant director heading MI5's F2 branch, was in charge of security service operations against the NUM during the 1984-85 strike, and now, as Director General, is seeking to extend MI5's responsibilities in the direction of creating a British F.B.I.; calls for an independent public inquiry into the activities of the security services against the NUM; and believes that, if these latest allegations are shown to be well founded, Mrs Rimington is not a fit person to run the security service and should be dismissed.