[Donald Anderson: Paragraph 8 of the Intelligence and Security Committee's annual report for 1999-2000 states that the Committee

"examined the intelligence contribution to the Kosovo campaign, taking evidence from the Foreign Secretary and the Minister of Defence in their role as customers".

The report contains a series of unhelpful paragraphs that are filled with asterisks, such as paragraph 64 and those that immediately follow it, which relate to Kosovo. Paragraph 66 states:

"GCHQ provided a flexible and in-depth service of intelligence, including ***

***

***

It provided intelligence on ***

***

GCHQ monitored the situation *** and helped to provide reassurances that ***

***

***

GCHQ stated that some *** of the intelligence that went to UK customers was *** in origin."

That paragraph is not helpful.]

Dr Julian Lewis: My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr Bercow) informed me before he left the Chamber that, in his inimitable fashion, he had totted up the asterisks. They totalled 720 in the main report and 4,005 in the annexes.

[Donald Anderson: The hon. Gentleman is as assiduous as ever.]