Tokyo, May 27 (AHN) Japanese parliament on Wednesday approved a law to set up a National Intelligence Council to centralise information gathering in response to overseas threats, local media reported on Wednesday.

Establishing the council is one the key aim of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's governing agenda, who has vowed to strengthen intelligence and counter-espionage capabilities as part of a response to what her government terms the most complex security environment since the end of the Second World War, Japan's leading Kyodo News Agency reported.

Japanese parliament's approval to the law paves the way for further legislation to boost Japan's intelligence capabilities. Takaichi has said that a system must be created for registering foreign government actors engaged in lobbying activities and stressed that Japan must establish its own external intelligence agency. The new law does not include provisions for parliament to oversee intelligence activities, sparking questions about democratic oversight as some believe that the legislation could infringe on people's rights.

The council will be chaired by Sanae Takaichi and will have nine other cabinet members. Japan's fragmented intelligence apparatus will be centralised as the law states that the council's secretariat, the National Intelligence Bureau, will coordinate intelligence gathered by the National Police Agency, the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry and other organisations, as it will have authority to ask them to share information. The government could set up the council and bureau as early as July and create an expert panel to discuss counter-espionage legislation, Kyodo News reported.

The bill was passed in the House of Representatives in April, where it received the backing of the chamber's largest opposition Centrist Reform Alliance. However, its founding party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, opposed the legislation in the upper house over concerns that it could affect rights of people and politicise intelligence activity.