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Chris Grayling resigns from Intelligence and Security Committee

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Getty

The former cabinet minister Chris Grayling has resigned from parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee just weeks after failing to seize its chairmanship.

The ex-transport secretary was the favoured choice of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings to head the cross-party group, but was thwarted last month after opposition MPs combined to install Julian Lewis instead.

Mr Lewis, a longstanding Tory MP and acknowledged expert on security matters, was stripped of the Conservative whip for “working with Labour and other opposition MPs for his own advantage”.

The affair was a humiliation for the prime minister and for Mr Grayling, who was widely regarded as a Downing Street stooge being put forward to run a committee which has previously prided itself on its independence and non-partisan approach.

There was no immediate response from Mr Grayling to a request from The Independent for a statement.

A statement from the committee said: “The Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP has, in accordance with the Justice and Security Act, written to the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament tendering his resignation from the committee. The chairman has sent a reply.”

The ISC is a committee of MPs and peers which oversees the activities of the security and intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 and the government’s GCHQ eavesdropping centre, and often includes some of Westminster’s most senior parliamentarians, including those with long experience of security matters.

Unusually for a Westminster committee, its members – who are given access to high-level state secrets as part of their monitoring role – are nominated by the prime minister and report to No 10, rather than to parliament.

The appointment of a new committee chairperson was delayed for eight months by Mr Johnson after the December general election, in an apparent effort to put off the publication of a report on Russian attempts to influence UK politics.

The PM was accused of preventing the publication of the report ahead of the election by withholding clearance for months following its completion in the spring of last year.

Critics claimed that his choice of the Epsom and Ewell MP – whose mishaps as transport and justice secretary won him the nickname “failing Grayling” – was intended to spare him the embarrassment of future reports of this kind.

With a Tory majority of one, Mr Grayling was thought to be a shoo-in for the chair, who is elected by members.

But in a shock move on the day of the poll, Mr Lewis won the support of Labour and SNP members to secure the job in a 5-4 vote.

A new Conservative member is now expected to be appointed to bring the committee back up to its regular size.

The ISC is currently continuing inquiries begun by its predecessors before the election into national security issues relating to China; right-wing terrorism; the threat from Northern Ireland-related terrorism; and GCHQ procurement.

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