Inquiry launched into missing files

A former intelligence and security permanent secretary is to investigate the loss of high-level intelligence documents.

Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband told MPs that Sir David Omand would examine how a senior civil servant was able to take top secret papers from his office and leave them on a commuter train on Tuesday morning.

Speaking in the Commons on Thursday, Miliband said the unnamed official, suspended on Wednesday after admitting the mistake, had not had permission to take the assessments of al-Qaida vulnerabilities and Iraq security force capability home.

News of the breach has led to renewed questions about the government's track record on security and prompted calls for officials to be searched when leaving buildings.

The missing documents have been retrieved, after a member of the public handed them to the BBC, and the government does not believe any permanent damage has been done.

But, Miliband said the matter was of "utmost concern" to the government.

"This was a clear breach of well established security rules which forbid the removal of documents of this kind outside secure government premises without clear authorisation and compliance with special security procedures."

Miliband refused to speculate on whether there would be prosecutions under the Official Secrets Act or comment on suggestions that the official was on secondment from MI5.

Colleagues of the suspended official working in the joint intelligence committee have been reminded of the rules, he added, as have officials in other Whitehall departments with access to sensitive material.

Security breach

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said there could "scarcely have been a graver breach of intelligence and security procedures than this".

Following on from a number of security breaches involving government data, documents and computers, Maude said the loss of the file showed there was a "major systemic problem with data security at the heart of the government".

He asked why, when encryption was available, such important documents were printed on paper at all.

And Maude claimed that there was a "real issue with civil service morale which leads to laxity in the way in which procedures are not complied with".

But Miliband insisted that civil servants did an "extraordinary job". "I don't believe that is the reason why this document was left on a train," he said.

Conservative MP Julian Lewis called for Cabinet Office employees to be searched at the end of each day and Miliband, who said such a measure would be "an onerous task", promised that Sir David would look at all such suggestions.

But Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay said he had no confidence in Sir David's inquiry, claiming that the former Home Office permanent secretary was "a safe pair of hands and will be involved in a cover-up".

But Miliband insisted that Sir David, also a former director of GCHQ, was "determined to do a rigorous investigation to make sure we, as far as possible, have the necessary safeguards in place".