What will the new head of MI6 actually do?

While James Bond answered to a female MI6 boss for years, the real life spy agency has only just appointed its first female chief.

Blaise Metreweli was announced as the 18th chief of the 116-year-old Secret Intelligence Service yesterday. She will be taking over from Sir Richard Moore later this year.

Bond’s boss, codenamed ‘M’, was played by Dame Judi Dench in the film franchise for 20 years. Famously cold and blunt, she oversees Bond’s missions and has a direct line to the Prime Minister.

But just how close will Metreweli’s new job be to Bond’s famous superior?

Who is the new head of MI6?

Metreweli, 47, joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1999 as a case officer and then an agent runner. She previously worked at director-level for MI5 – MI6’s sister agency that looks after domestic security in the UK.

Currently, she is MI6’s head of technology and innovation and known as ‘Q’. In her new role as chief, she will be referred to as ‘C’.

It’s been reported that Bond’s ‘M’ was so named because it stood for ‘Missions’ – or as Bond suggests in 2006’s Casino Royale tied to her real name. However, Metreweli’s new initial does not stand for her new positon as chief.

In fact, Britain’s first spy agency, the Secret Service Bureau, was led by a Royal Navy officer. Captain Mansfield Cumming always signed his letters ‘C’, for his last name. Since then, the tradition has stuck.

Is the job anything like being ‘M’ in James Bond?

‘C’ will head up MI6’s intelligence gathering on threats to the UK’s security from terrorism and hostile states.

However, the new MI6 chief has been keen in previous roles to dispel the myth that her work was like ‘old school movies and novels territory’.

Speaking to the Telegraph in 2021, when she was at MI5 and known only as ‘Director K’, she said female spies were not like the stereotypes shown in films where ‘women in particular in this world are portrayed as psychologically damaged in some way.’

The identity of ‘M’ is shrouded in some Bond films, but in her new role Metreweli will the agency’s only publicly named member of the service.

The chain of command in the Bond movies is a little different too. Dench’s ‘M’ is answerable to the Prime Minister. But Metreweli will report to the Foreign Secretary and will instead be able to advise Sir Keir Starmer as part of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

And will she be able to issues agents a licence to kill?

While it was ‘M’ that revoked Bond’s authorisation in 1989’s Licence to Kill, Metreweli won’t be handing out such immunity to her agents. That power lays with the Foreign Secretary, who can greenlight a spy to use lethal force.

However, Metreweli will have one special right – as the only person in Whitehall to write correspondence in green ink. Captain Cumming established the tradition more than 100 years ago, signing his letters with a green ‘C’.

How much does an MI6 chief earn?

A report from 2010 revealed that the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service was receiving a salary of almost £170,000.

Sir John Sawers, who got the top job in 2009, was listed as earning £169,999 fifteen years ago.

As of April last year, the Prime Minister’s annual salary was just £2,154 more – at £172,153.

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