Guido understands that in light of increased activities by foreign state actors – a month ago MI5 warned about suspected Chinese agent Christine Lee – a Security Intelligence & Risk Analysis Service (SIRAS) is being established to bolster the Parliamentary Security Department (PSD), which is responsible for physical and personnel security across both Houses of Parliament.

The PSD sets security strategy and is an operational service in partnership with the Metropolitan Police. The new SIRAS team will operate within the PSD – with responsibility for bringing together threat, incident and security intelligence with “other agencies”. This will include in particular the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) – to mitigate the elevated risk from hacking. The new Head of Security Intelligence will establish a Threats & Intelligence team, to

“bring together multiple streams of relevant intelligence and information, including reporting from within Parliamentary community, from social media monitoring, open source, police and crime intelligence, cyber, digital and secret intelligence from Agency partners.”

There is a well-sourced rumour in Westminster that the security services recently advised Keir Starmer that a Shadow Cabinet member was a security risk as the result of an affair, and consequently they were reshuffled to a position without any security sensitivities. This is the type of politically delicate issue that the new £75,953 per annum Head of SIRAS will be expected to handle…