asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether they will participate in debates on Scottish sovereignty with a community development ethos.

My Lords, under the Treaty of Union of 1707 both England and Scotland ceded sovereignty to form the basis for the United Kingdom. The Government have no intention of discussing the break-up of the union. Public support for the union in Scotland is shown to be overwhelming both in opinion polls and elections.

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for his Answer, which I suspect disappoints me. Community development officers are tasked with meeting local communities, helping them to decide what they would like to do and then discovering how to do it. Since I believe that sovereignty and dependency are issues for the residents of Scotland, I hope that the United Kingdom Government will approach these issues with an open mind and an even hand. If so, was the Secretary of State for Scotland correct in setting up a Scottish constitutional commission with a unionist, devolution-only remit? Does the noble and learned Lord agree that that is unfair to those seeking political independence or, indeed, a return to direct rule? Is the—

Order.

My Lords, the noble Earl has had a good shot at asking his question. I think that we are ready for the answer.

My Lords, I am delighted to answer the various points. The commission or the Scottish parliamentary review is an initiative led by the Holyrood leaders of the three pro-union parties. It is both cross-party and cross-border. I hope that provides at least some answer to the noble Earl.

My Lords, as a member of the constitutional convention in the 1990s, I remind the House and the noble Earl that the SNP was invited to join that convention to discuss the constitutional future of Scotland but refused to take part in it. I also remind the noble Earl that there was no overwhelming demand for independence at the general election. In fact, Alex Salmond is First Minister on the basis of 48 votes in one constituency.

My Lords, possibly I did not require to be reminded of some of this. I have noticed that there has been a small alteration in the Administration of Scotland, where there is apparently a minority, separatist flavour in power.

My Lords, since the Question refers to community, does the noble and learned Lord agree that Scotland is less likely to move towards independence because of the policies of the SNP than, perhaps, because of the lack of interest shown by the community in England?

My Lords, the strength lies within the union, and that union is made up of the respective communities. Developing the communities in Scotland only adds to the strength of the union.

My Lords, I recognise that the Government do not intend at this time to engage in any discussion of sovereignty but what consideration is being given to the enhancement of the powers of the Scottish Parliament? What method of reporting does the noble and learned Lord think appropriate, considering that this matter is one for the Westminster Parliament?

My Lords, it appears that the area in which this is being developed is through the Scottish parliamentary review. At this stage, the Prime Minister has made his position quite clear; namely, that it is a good thing that the respective parties in Scotland are having a debate about the devolution issue. He will await the outcome of those discussions before commenting further. I respectfully share that position.

My Lords, although the Question refers to Scotland, does the noble and learned Lord accept that Wales and Scotland are not mere adjuncts to England but are countries and nations in their own right? Whatever the relationship between them and the United Kingdom, reality should start from the bedrock basis that they are nations and countries.

My Lords, of course, as a Scot, I could find it very difficult to disagree with the noble Lord in any shape or form. Both Wales and Scotland have contributed enormously to the union. We are all stronger for it, and so is the United Kingdom.

My Lords, does my noble and learned friend accept that the devolution settlement established by the Scotland Act 1998 puts in place a settlement that is good for Scotland, good for the United Kingdom and provides the best of all possible worlds?

My Lords, again, I find some difficulty to cavil with the language chosen there. Devolution strengthens the union and allows diversity within it.

My Lords, will the Minister have an open mind when he has this review, remembering that a nation such as Slovenia, which is part of the old Yugoslavia, with only 2 million people, now holds the presidency of the European Union? Wales and Scotland might also be able to follow that role model.

My Lords, I have always found a lack of attraction in a closed mind. Therefore, I entirely endorse the noble Lord’s suggestion. The way in which the review proceeds is not under this Minister but by the Scottish parties at Holyrood.

My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that the Scottish Independence Convention is this morning launching a petition to the Scottish Parliament for a referendum on political independence?

My Lords, until a few minutes ago that question fell to be answered in the negative. However, I am now aware. On the way in which the petition comes before the Scottish Parliament, it will, initially at least in Scotland, be a question of whether it falls within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.

My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord learn from my noble kinsman’s and my joint ancestor, who failed in the 1715 rebellion? Perhaps our family is not the one to take advice from.

My Lords, I will note that suggestion.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether they will extend the tier 2 boatmasters’ licence to include up to three miles offshore for small and local passenger vessels.

My Lords, in order to properly address the concerns of many small seasonal operators who consider the current training requirements an unreasonable burden, the Government are minded to introduce a new level to tier 2 licences for use in specific tidal areas. Such a decision will be made with due consideration given to the responses to formal consultation.

My Lords, I am incredibly grateful to my noble friend for that really positive Answer. It is good that pressure from regional ferry operators, particularly in Cornwall, has had this wonderful effect. I am particularly pleased because the Marine and Coastguard Agency, to which I originally wrote, does not seem to answer letters, even after nearly two months; I am glad that she has responded. Does she agree that the existing regulation that would require skippers of these small seasonal ferries to have 360 days’ training over five years is more appropriate for a cross-channel ferry than for a small ferry carrying 15 or 20 people across an estuary?

Yes, my Lords. In answer to the noble Lord’s first observation, I am sure that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency will read the report in Hansard of this Question and will take due note of his criticism. On his latter question: yes, the boatmen of small ferries and boats that operate, usually very regularly, in restricted tidal waters near the coast or in estuaries have tried out the new regulations for its first season and have talked to us about the difficulties. They feel that the requirements are excessive, disproportionate and represent an unreasonable burden. We have listened.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, by not replying to letters from Members of this House for two months and saying that it does not have any appointments, is stepping well beyond the bounds of proper regulation? In her correspondence with the agency, will she make it clear that when Members of this House raise matters with regulatory agencies, they expect a prompt answer?

Yes, my Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I shall raise that matter.

My Lords, I declare an interest as secretary of the House of Lords Yacht Club. How many small passenger vessels are there in the United Kingdom and are they all British-flagged?

My Lords, as I understand it, 720 vessels fall into the relevant category. Some will work on tidal waters and some on non-tidal waters. I shall write to the noble Lord on the second part of his question, about flags.

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in thanking the Minister for that positive response. What is the position of craft that go further offshore, which has been the case over the years? Does she have in her brief details of any changes to the law following the disaster to a small boat called “Darlwin”, which got into difficulties and foundered off the Cornish coast many years ago, with the loss of a number of lives?

My Lords, I do not have details in my brief of that tragic incident. I will correspond with the noble Lord about that. These regulations, as laid down in the new boatmasters’ licence regime, deal with inland waterways and coastal areas that are restricted to three miles off coast or 15 miles from point.

My Lords, three miles is quite a long way. What do holders of tier 2 licences not have to know that holders of tier 1 licences do have to know? What is their relevance to the fourth mile off the coast?

My Lords, with regard to three or four miles, a line must be drawn somewhere, as the noble Lord knows. The tier 1 licence covers mainly freight operators, but it can cover passenger operators, too. It covers skippers who want to operate right around the UK, so they will want a real variety of experiences and their knowledge would have to underpin those experiences. They will have to ensure that they can meet all those requirements around the UK, so we are talking about a nationally based qualification.

The tier 2 licences are more local. One of the letters I received was from a skipper who talked about the four-minute crossing of Fowey Harbour by the Polruan ferry. A regular four-minute crossing, be it seasonal or part time, would be a very different experience from that of a national freight operator.

My Lords, having been a passenger on that ferry, will the Minister confirm that generally these vessels, and the routes mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, have an exemplary safety record, and that, in terms of risk analysis, it would be safe to have some deregulation in this area, as the Minister suggested?

My Lords, any operator taking passengers would be required to have a rigorous knowledge of their local conditions, excellent boat handling skills and good general seamanship. On the issue of an excellent safety record, there would be anecdotal evidence to that effect. However, there is no central collation of water-related accident statistics at present; they are all held by the separate emergency organisations—police, fire, ambulance and coast guard agency—but the department is helping to fund a project currently being undertaken by the National Water Safety Forum to do just that—to collate all those numbers.

My Lords, I apologise to the House, but I forgot to declare that I am a harbour commissioner in the port of Fowey.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

How many tonnes of dead fish are thrown back into the sea each year under the European Union’s common fisheries policy; and what prospect they see of ending this practice.

My Lords, no estimates exist for the overall amount of discards in European Union fisheries. However, there is a general recognition that this problem needs to be accurately addressed. We are working with the fishing industry, as well as with the Commission and other member states, to find appropriate solutions that affect the particular circumstances of individual fisheries.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. Let us hope that this proposed reform, like others before it, does not end up in the long seaweed.

When the Minister says that there are no official estimates, is he aware that Fisheries Commissioner Borg has estimated that 880,000 tonnes of fish are thrown back dead every year? If the Government accept that an articulated lorry holds 42 tonnes of fish, do they agree that the EU’s dead fish amount to 20,000 articulated lorries, which would fill the Palace of Westminster, and Whitehall, several times over? Will the noble Lord tell us precisely who has been blocking reform of this policy for so many years, and how?

My Lords, I hear what the noble Lord says about estimates of discards, and they are to be regretted. I cannot confirm his figures, but the figures that we have indicate that the level of discards is unacceptably high. In terms of percentage of the catch, in certain areas, that can be as high as 60 or 70 per cent. Clearly, that issue needs to be confronted.

Who is blocking reform? No one is doing so. The problem is acute and difficult. Fishermen cannot control the fish they catch, but they are allowed to land only certain fish for the market. Consequently, they discard those fish that are not marketable; they also discard fish that are less profitable than those that might be caught subsequently on the fishing trip. All these processes build up the possibility of discard. The issue for the European Commission, the community as a whole, and everyone concerned with the welfare of the fishing industry, is how we control this waste, when it is clear that fishermen have a perverse incentive to indulge in it.

My Lords, is it not quite clearly the case that New Zealand and Norway have quota systems, like the European Union, which do not allow discards? It is quite possible to do that through the trading of quotas at the end of fishing periods. Is not the real answer to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, that qualified majority voting is needed to make real progress in the European Union on the common fisheries policy; and does not the European reform treaty, at last, do that?

My Lords, I thought we might broaden the debate to issues concerned with European policy makers, but let me stay with the fishing industry. It is not easy to control discards. I hear what the noble Lord says about Norway and New Zealand being successful. Iceland also has a strong policy in this area. However, there is a great deal of doubt about whether those policies work effectively. We are not sure that banning discards, which the European Commission is looking at very seriously, is the solution to the problem. The British Government’s approach is rather one of encouraging fishermen to employ the appropriate gear for the catch that they intend to take so that they do not, inadvertently, catch other fish that are then subject to discard.

My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that the lorries referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, are all acting highly illegally if they are carrying 42 tonnes of fish, because their maximum gross vehicle weight is 44 tonnes? They are probably at least eight tonnes over weight. Would he investigate where these illegal activities are taking place?

My Lords, I was more worried about the destination of those lorries. They would certainly be illegal in Whitehall or the Palace of Westminster.

My Lords, would the Minister tell us whether the Government have any figures on the proportion of fish consumed in this country, and in Europe as a whole, that has been smuggled in through the Canary Islands? Recently published figures amount to as much as 50 per cent. The fish are caught by large vessels spending years at sea, many of them placed in the Asia Pacific region, hoovering up large quantities of fish. Has he discussed this problem with the Spanish Government and, if not, will he do so?

My Lords, that is an additional dimension to the complexity of the position. The noble Lord will appreciate that the European Commission needs to develop a policy that works for those fisheries which are closer to home. It certainly needs to examine the potential abuse identified by the noble Lord. However, inevitably, the main concentration of potential action relates to those fisheries which are in member countries of the European Union.

My Lords, would the Minister agree that the total allowable catch and quota system is bound to lead to large amounts of discarding?

My Lords, there is no doubt that, by definition, it is a consequence of controls over catches. Equally clearly, however, there was a real danger of certain fishing stocks disappearing entirely. There has been a growth of North Sea cod in the past couple of years and a recovery—not sufficient for the total allowable catch to be greatly increased, but a potential increase of cod—after we had been faced with the danger of it becoming extinct.

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the common fisheries policy is becoming a farce? The purpose of quotas is presumably to conserve fish stocks. You do not conserve any fish stocks if you net them and kill half of them because you are allowed to land only a few. If that happens, why cannot the fish to be discarded be used for fertiliser or in some form of manufacture?

My Lords, as I have indicated, we want to see support and investment in the industry so that the catches are more selective and discard does not arise. First, that helps with the process of conservation and, secondly, the fishermen go out and return with catches that are marketable, therefore sustaining themselves more effectively. That is surely a constructive approach to the issue, which the British Government are emphasising should be developed by the European Commission.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What progress has been made with the signing of the contract for the two new aircraft carriers.

My Lords, first, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in offering sincere condolences to the family and friends of Corporal Darryl Gardiner, who was killed in operations in Afghanistan last Sunday.

A number of contracts have been placed with the supply chain for design and engineering data and for materials in support of manufacture of the carriers. The key elements of the manufacturing contract have been worked on by industry and MoD teams over many months and are now substantially in place.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. I should also like to join these Benches with the condolences that she expressed to the family of Corporal Darryl Gardiner.

Can the Minister say whether the strong rumours circulating that half a billion pounds have to be found in the procurement budget are correct? If so, from which programme will that come?

My Lords, there is always speculation whenever there is a Comprehensive Spending Review or planning round. When my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review last July, he said that the review’s consequences would allow us to proceed with the carriers.

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches I join in the condolences in the earlier tribute. But may I ask the Minister where discussions stand with the French over their interest and involvement in the carrier programme?

My Lords, I have discussed this matter with the French on more than one occasion. They are not yet in a position to make a decision on ordering a carrier themselves, but there are excellent relationships between our team and the French and, indeed, French officials have been embedded in the project team from very early days. The French have contributed towards the design and other early costs and we can possibly benefit from common procurement and shared support. However, the French have not yet committed to making a decision on ordering a carrier.

My Lords, does the Minister accept that it is widely recognised that there are major difficulties in the Ministry of Defence procurement budget? And did not the previous Prime Minister give an undertaking, which I understand has been endorsed by the current Prime Minister, that the cost of the ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq would be a charge against the reserve? And is it not true that up to £500 million has been transferred out of the procurement budget to help meet the cost of the ongoing operations? It appears to be a complete contradiction of the pledges given in this House.

My Lords, it is not true that the costs of operations are cutting into the defence budget. The Treasury reserve has provided some £6.6 billion for operations over and above the core defence budget since 2001. We have had a sustained increase in the defence budget over many years; that is to increase. It is true that every Minister in every department would like more money for their priorities. That is obviously the case with defence, as elsewhere. But it is not true that the cost of operations is biting into that budget.

My Lords, will the noble Baroness answer the question that she has just been asked about the transfer of a large sum from the procurement budget in order to sustain current operations?

My Lords, I think that I did answer it by saying that the operations were met by the very substantial money from the Treasury—the £6.6 billion—that was over and above the amount budgeted for defence.

My Lords, will my noble friend be kind enough to remind the House of the specific budget for the aircraft carriers? Perhaps she would also indicate whether she is confident that the aircraft carriers can be delivered within that budget.

My Lords, the budget is £3.9 billion, which is the targeted cost. There could be differences. However, it is important to realise that we have an incentivised approach and it is very possible that the actual cost on this occasion might be lower, because we have been discussing with industry a different type of approach to this contract.

My Lords, if and when these carriers are built, is it intended that they will be entirely under British control, or is it possible that they will form part of a rapid reaction force?

My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord will be reassured to hear that they will be under British control.

My Lords, can the Minister remind the House of the estimated in-service dates for these two carriers and whether there will be adequate Joint Strike Fighters to embark on them at that time?

My Lords, the in-service dates for the carriers were set out last July; they were and remain 2014 and 2016. The JSF has not yet got to main-gate stage in terms of ordering or setting specific target dates for when they will be available, but we are committed and have signed up to the concept of main gate on JSF and tests are going ahead. My understanding is that those are on target for STOVL test flights this year.

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of Lord Fowler set down for today shall be limited to four hours and that in the name of Lord Forsyth of Drumlean to one and a half hours.—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)

My Lords, will the noble Baroness the Lord President join me in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on being elected last night as Channel 4’s Peer of the Year? But does she not also find the concept of a popular Chief Whip a contradiction in terms?

I certainly will; my Lords; I have already given the noble Baroness a card with a star on it, for she surely is one. We have no difficulty on our Benches with the concept of a popular Chief Whip. I’m sorry if you do.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

rose to call attention to the position in Iraq and the lessons to be drawn; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in a few weeks’ time, in March, we will come to the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict in Iraq. It is also just short of 12 months since my noble friend Lord Hurd set out in this House the case for an inquiry into some of the most important questions arising from that decision to go to war. I know that another former Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Owen, who is in his place, has also called for an inquiry. I want to renew that call for an inquiry because I know of no other way that the lessons from this conflict can be learnt. Perhaps I can explain why I asked my noble friends on the Front Bench whether I should raise the subject of this debate.

Three events in the Middle East have had particular significance for me. In 1956, at the time of Suez, I had just joined the Army. I was opposed to the invasion, and in my officers’ mess being a national service second lieutenant and opposed to Suez was not a notably popular position. It was not a popular position, but, as it happens, it was right. In 1967, I was a correspondent for the Times in the Middle East war reporting from Beirut and Amman. I returned to Britain saying and writing that the dominating issue was Palestine, but in the wake of the massive Israeli victory, that was also not a message that everybody wanted to hear. It was not popular, but again it was conceivably right.

In the Iraq conflict my connection was rather different. I did not report it but my stepson did. His name is Oliver Poole and some of your Lordships with long memories may recognise he has the unique disadvantage of having both his grandfather and his stepfather as chairmen of the Conservative Party. At the start of the conflict I listened to him from Iraq—these days communications are so much easier than through the old cable offices—as he made his way with a tank unit from the Kuwait border to Baghdad among American soldiers who had been told that they would be welcomed as liberators. I followed the position as it deteriorated. Where once at the beginning a journalist could go on to the streets of Baghdad to collect material, the position rapidly changed. Travelling security became essential and interviews were constrained to 20 minutes in case news should spread that there was a western journalist in the area. I read of the tragedies: of his hotel blown up, killing not western journalists but Iraqis living nearby; of the destruction in 2006 of one of Shia Islam’s holiest shrines, the Golden Mosque in Samarra, and the retaliation in Baghdad against Sunni mosques there; of neighbours who had lived side by side for generations turning on each other; of militia growing up both to defend and to attack; and of course of the indiscriminate murder and torture practised on both sides, leading to plans announced in Baghdad for the construction of two new morgues to cope with the influx of bodies.

For me there was a major question. Unlike my noble friend Lord Hurd who opposed the invasion from the outset, I, like so many people in this country, had supported the Government’s decision. I had even written to both the Prime Minister and the then Foreign Secretary, supporting them in their efforts to persuade Parliament and the United Nations. I had never done that before and probably will never do it again. It can of course be said, “What right have you, someone who initially supported the invasion, to ask questions now?”. My reply is that in some ways people like me have even more right. Not unreasonably, we trusted the information we were given by the Government. We expected, and had to every right to expect, that proper plans would be made not just for the war but for what would follow. We assumed that Ministers had taken account of the skilled Foreign Office advice available and that decisions were made having proper regard to this advice. We now know that some of those conditions were not met and that, at least in some respects, the public were misled. We know that the weapons of mass destruction proffered as one of the reasons for the invasion did not exist. We also know that the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, substantially overstated his case. On 23 August 2002 the United Kingdom intelligence community told the Prime Minister that,

“we … know little about Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons work since late 1998”.

Just over a month later the Prime Minister told the Commons that the picture painted by our intelligence services was,

“extensive, detailed and authoritative”.

As the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, who I see in his place, said in our debate in February 2007:

“Those words could simply not have been justified by the material that the intelligence community provided to him”.—[Official Report, 22/2/07; col. 1231.]

I certainly acknowledge the improvement in the security position recently in Baghdad. I also acknowledge that some benefits have resulted from the invasion. The position in Kurdistan is much improved and above all there is the removal of Saddam Hussein, who not only murdered his own people but had already been responsible for the conflict over Kuwait in 1991 and much more. I weep no tears for him but his overthrow alone does not provide legal justification for military intervention and certainly it does not cancel out the massive consequences of the invasion which in my view makes out the case for an inquiry.

First and foremost, there have been the casualties of this conflict—the British troops who have been killed and injured. Regiments such as the Royal Anglians, of which my old regiment is now part, have suffered badly. I pay tribute to their courage and that of all the forces that have fought in Iraq over the past five years. But of course the chief casualties have been among the Iraqis themselves. Some have died in the fighting, some have died in the sectarian murders that have accompanied the fighting, and some have died in the criminality which we have been unable to control. No one knows exactly how many have died. A conservative estimate is 100,000, but there may well be many thousands more; I doubt that there have been fewer. We do know that death has often been accompanied by torture, and that fear has taken hold to such an extent that 2 million Iraqis have been displaced in their own country. Even worse, more than 2 million have fled to surrounding countries such as Syria, Jordan and the Lebanon. The refugees have gained a degree of safety, but at a price. Families have been uprooted and have struggled to survive without jobs and with dwindling or non-existent savings.

In short, the conflict has created the worst refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948. Against this background, the public in this country, whatever their original stance, are entitled to ask a number of questions which an inquiry is best placed to put. They are entitled to ask for more detail on how the decision to invade was reached. I was a member of the Cabinet at the time of the Falklands. Events moved very quickly after the Argentine invasion, but not so quickly that it was impossible to arrange a full Cabinet meeting at which the Prime Minister asked each of us in turn whether we agreed to the task force being sent. The issue was debated and an alternative view was put.

Recently, Mr Blair gave a lengthy television interview in which his impatience with the checks and balances of the Cabinet system of government came over loud and clear. In essence, his case was that it could get in the way of action. Of course it is true that it can, but equally it is true that it can act as a corrective to prevent unwise action. Governments usually get into trouble when collective judgment is replaced by the informal meeting of small groups.

At the same time, I would like to know about the nature of the Foreign Office advice. I do not claim for a moment that Ministers should automatically take that advice, although in the policies of the Middle East they would well advised to give it some weight, but the public should be reassured that the full advice reached Ministers and was discussed by them. I hope that, as has been suggested, the Foreign Office was not simply sidelined in this decision. Secondly, the public are entitled to ask what planning took place for the aftermath. It is all very well saying that this was all down to the Americans, but that casts doubt on the whole nature of the alliance.

Britain has an obvious history in Iraq, and some knowledge based on that experience and experience elsewhere. Surely that knowledge should have been put to some use, or did we believe that our troops would be welcomed as liberating forces and not forces of occupation? I assume not, but I acknowledge that there is conflicting evidence here and that a former British ambassador, Christopher Segar, told the Guardian this week that British officials underestimated the prospect of insurgency and that British Ministers failed to ask for detailed analysis of the consequences of an invasion. For whatever reason, the planning for this stage seems to have been woefully inadequate, and although the security position in Baghdad has now improved, it is still a long way from what we want. Marie Colvin, a very brave reporter for the Sunday Times who was in Basra without military protection a month ago, reported that she found Islamic militias now waging a brutal campaign for control.

Thirdly, an inquiry should examine the British response to the massive refugee problem caused by the conflict. We owe a particular duty here. Has our response has been sufficient, or have we relied too heavily on the resources of a country such as Jordan, which already has existing refugee problems to tackle, as I saw a few months ago when I was there?

I say to the Minister that the reassurances we heard at Question Time in this House on Monday do not sit altogether easily with the response of the United Nations refugee agency. A few days ago, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees told me that the UNHCR would welcome greater support from donor Governments, including the United Kingdom, for its operations in the region, and that it would like further direct bilateral support for the two main countries of asylum, Syria and Jordan. Looking back on 2007, the UN refugee agency said that it received £3.51 million from the United Kingdom, against its £62 million Iraq region budget, while no United Kingdom funds were forthcoming towards the agency’s health and education programmes, jointly implemented with WHO and UNICEF.

Another part of the refugee problem is the future of the interpreters and other staff who have helped the British and have consequently put themselves and their families in danger. As the House will know, I have raised this issue on a number of occasions, first in April 2007. The problem is limited in size, but seems symbolic of our attitude. It took until last October for the Government to announce a scheme, but it is carefully limited and constrained. So far, it has helped very few and all the guidance appears to be worded to deter applications to come to this country, rather than help some very brave people. Not all the interpreters who work for the British work for the British Government. For example, there are the interpreters working for the correspondents of British media organisations. Shamefully, their best prospect of resettlement is in the United States under a scheme run by the Americans. The question remains of whether, even now, five years later, we are facing up to our responsibilities.

Finally, the public are certainly entitled to ask whether our troops have always been properly equipped and supported for the conflict. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Walker of Aldringham, when he said in our February debate that there must be a covenant between Government and the Armed Forces—an unwritten contract that, in return for the sacrifice made by those in the forces, the Government ensure that they are equipped properly, given the best possible care and treated fairly. There are, in this House, far greater experts than me in this area; one of them is sitting next to me. I hope that this contract has been honoured.

Like my noble friend Lord Hurd, I believe that issues such as this should be investigated by a committee of privy counsellors together with others with expert knowledge. It is right that it should be a committee answerable to Parliament. It is certainly not the occasion for a lengthy judicial inquiry, such as that into Bloody Sunday, or, for that matter, the marathon of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott. The focus of such an inquiry should not be on blame, but on learning the lessons—lessons which might help us in formulating policy elsewhere.

To be fair to the Government, they have not set their face totally against an inquiry. Rather, they have sought to smother the call by setting out a range of less demanding options. In the debate last February the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, gave the response that,

“nobody has set their mind against an inquiry or some form of debate and discussion of these fundamental policy issues in the long term”.—[Official Report, 22/02/07; col. 1255. ]

I do not find that reassuring and I hope the message of this House will be that only an inquiry will do, and that the Government will give a more solid reply today.

I also hope that the Government will not take refuge in the argument that nothing can happen until all our troops come home. Among the precedents is the inquiry into the operations of the war in the Dardanelles. It was set up in July 1916 in the middle of the First World War, with Britain directly threatened, under a Bill introduced in the Commons by the then Prime Minister, Mr Asquith. Our troop numbers in Iraq are now reduced to about 4,500, which is radically fewer than three, four and five years ago. I in no way devalue their role but I simply reject the argument that they will be demoralised by such an inquiry. Conceivably, an inquiry could help for the future and aid those troops who follow. But if nothing is done until the very last soldier returns, action could be deferred for years to come.

We are almost at the fifth anniversary of the start of this conflict. Many of the players have already given their accounts—Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and Sir Michael Jackson. We have also had investigations, such as that of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, which have shone a light on particular issues. Surely, the time has come for a comprehensive inquiry, while memories are reasonably fresh, so that the lessons from these momentous events can be learnt. I see no reason for further delay. The time for an inquiry is now. I beg to move for Papers.

My Lords, the noble Lord gave a characteristically honest and clear speech, the key theme of which is the case for an inquiry. There have been many debates in the House calling for such an inquiry, which have been defeated. One may not like the results, but there have been those discussions. I concede also that the response of the Government has been, as the noble Lord said, somewhat unclear. At one time we were told that there would be an inquiry, but only when the time was right and the troops have been withdrawn—but how many troops and when? It begs many questions.

I am very doubtful about the wisdom of an inquiry. The precedents are not good. The Falklands commission was a rather unhappy commission of about six months and the results were not particularly valuable. It is obviously difficult to limit the time. The noble Lord has ruled out a Saville-type Bloody Sunday inquiry, but probably only the lawyers benefited, save of course that it was of benefit to the public in that it was part of that process which led to the ultimate settlement in Northern Ireland.

An inquiry can go on for a very long time. Indeed, the noble Lord has given it a vast agenda—from refugees to the preparedness of our troops to the advice given to the Prime Minister beforehand and so on, which could take a long time. The noble Lord seems to have ruled out a judicial inquiry. Even a parliamentary inquiry could take some time. There have already been at least two parliamentary inquiries: namely, that of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which I had the privilege to chair—we said, quite properly, that we were deprived of many of the sources of information and, therefore, were not able to give conclusions as clearly as we would have liked; and that of the Intelligence and Security Committee. The intelligence side was covered by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. One may not like the conclusions, but they largely exonerated the Government.

Clearly, the question is whether it was right to invade. The Government decided that it was. The Security Council and the important countries of the European Union said otherwise. This is a political matter, and it is the job of Parliament and the Select Committees appointed by Parliament to do their job. We were also in many ways—and we remain—the junior partner of the United States. An inquiry could also look at our relationship with the United States. There clearly was a plan. The question was whether its execution was faulty. What is the position as regards reconstruction? The noble Lord said that there is currently evidence of some improvement in the military and security situation and in the economic situation there. The danger is that any inquiry would not add to our store of knowledge and would give more heat than light.

We know of the problems today that have arisen from the invasion. We do not know, and cannot by definition know, what would have happened if there had been no action. Were there no invasion, that also would have had certain consequences. It may only have been deferring the conflict. The containment policy was certainly unravelling by 2002 and 2003. There was increasing defiance of the international community and oil sanctions. Oil smuggling was increasing. Had there not been an invasion, Saddam Hussein would probably still be there, torturing his people and preparing the way for one of his nasty sons to succeed him. We might now be dealing with an Iraq possessing nuclear weapons, rather than an Iran potentially seeking them.

The temptation is for us all to refight those old battles, the debates of 2002 and 2003, but we are where we are. There is a real danger of a diversion of time and talent in an inquiry. The criticisms of the United States are clear. The first two orders of the CPA were the de-Baathification that led to taking so many trained administrators from the scene and the disbandment of the army that let loose many hundreds and thousands of armed men into the community. With the civil service, the pensions policy that has just been voted in will at least go some way to address the faults there.

There was, as we know, a plan in the US—the 13-volume Future of Iraq project—that was apparently overruled by political appointees in the Pentagon, relying on Chalabi and other exiles. I recall meeting Richard Perle, who some thought of as the puppet-master of the neocons in the Department of Defense. He told me that there would be enormous joy at liberation—perhaps not church bells, this being Iraq, but flowers and greetings. Everything would happen thereafter without any serious planning. Certainly, the State Department had been overruled. There is clearly considerable criticism of the early days of the CPA.

Equally, we failed to appreciate the rundown nature of the physical infrastructure in Iraq—the electricity, the sewerage, the transport, petroleum—after many years of sanctions. There were many unintended consequences of the invasion, not least the way in which Iran has attained regional dominance. If many of us made misjudgments at the time, we can comfort ourselves in part that many of the opponents of the war made equally massive misjudgments in terms of the scale of refugee flows. As the noble Lord said, the scale of the refugee problem has been awful. Yet internal civil war, the division of Iraq and regional war were forecast by a number of opponents.

Of the lessons for the British Government, just a few headlines include having a greater sense of history and local knowledge, and not imagining that a country is a tabula rasa. Cabinet government is important, as the noble Lord has said, with checks and balances, not least those parliamentary. European Union colleagues were jealous of what our Foreign Affairs Committee and other committees in the other place were able to accomplish compared to the opportunities that they had. Then, certainly, there is intelligence. Clearly, the Prime Minister had much intelligence. It is a matter of public knowledge that I was given that same intelligence, and perhaps the only fault was in not asking sufficient questions of it, as we were clearly deficient in human intelligence.

There were other major questions about pre-emptive strikes and relations between this country and the United States. Clearly, there have been withering criticisms, but there are now some improvements—certainly in the military—after the surge and the so-called “Anbar awakening”. There has been very limited success politically; there is still a winner-takes-all ethos, and major questions are unresolved. We need to have dialogue with the regional players and particularly not to go for regime change in Iran as part of policy but have dialogue with that country, as we have done with North Korea. There are positive developments on the ground but the plea is that one should look forward on the basis of the current realities rather than turn over stones of what we failed to do in the past.

My Lords, ones hopes that we are slowly approaching the endgame in Iraq—certainly in a military sense. It is very apposite that we are having this debate today on the lessons learnt, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on securing it. I very much support so much of what he said and these Benches certainly support his call for an inquiry, as we have done in the past.

The minority view is that military action, despite the death of 150,000 civilians in the 40 months following the coalition invasion in March 2003 and the destruction and misery heaped on Iraq, with 2 million refugees, was justified as it removed an evil, tyrannical regime. Clearly that was the opinion of our former Prime Minister, and appears to remain so. But the majority view, admittedly with the benefit of hindsight, is that the invasion was a huge mistake for Iraq and the United Kingdom.

To this day, we do not really know what Bush’s motivation was—finishing a job for father, revenge for 9/11, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, oil, Middle East domination or some combination. However, it is accepted that Tony Blair gave a very early commitment to back the United States invasion, a combination of supporting our major ally and a rather simplistic belief, perhaps, that Saddam Hussein had to be deposed and that once removed our forces would be welcomed with open arms.

Three fundamental mistakes were made. First, too few troops were committed initially, with Rumsfeld seemingly overruling so many of his military advisers. Secondly, post-invasion, the Iraqi army was disbanded, thereby removing the means to provide some form of discipline and control over the population. Thirdly, as has been mentioned, very little thought was given to the post-invasion needs of the country and the means of delivery and reconstruction.

It is not clear how much knowledge the US and the United Kingdom have of the Iraqi religious groupings or the likely effect of an invasion on Islamist thinking. After all, we had no embassy in Baghdad in Saddam’s final 12 years of rule. What has become apparent is how little interest our then political leaders took in trying to find any of this out. As the famous letter—from 52 of our former senior British diplomats on 27 April 2004—sent to Tony Blair said:

“The conduct of the war in Iraq has made it clear that there was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement.

“All those with experience of the area predicted that the occupation of Iraq by the Coalition forces would meet serious and stubborn resistance, as has proved to be the case.

“To describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful.

“Policy must take account of the nature and history of Iraq, the most complex country in the region”.

If we got it wrong, the French got it right. Dominic de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, declared in a speech to the United Nations Security Council two weeks before the invasion:

“We believe that the use of force can arouse rancour and hatred, fuel a clash of identities and cultures”.

Jacques Chirac argued in an article in Time magazine:

“A war of this kind cannot help giving a big lift to terrorism. It would create a large number of little bin Ladens”.

It seems extraordinary that Britain and France—two major, sophisticated allies, only 20 miles apart, in the 21st century and both with colonial histories—could reach such fundamentally different conclusions on the advisability of military action. Those on these Benches broadly took the French position. Not only did the conflict cause such misery in Iraq, it also has put a heavy strain on our Armed Forces, causing many deaths and serious injuries. To put it bluntly, the British public were conned into going to war and now a further wedge has been driven between them and their political leaders in terms of trust, with all parliamentarians the losers.

Much has been said about overstretch and the pressures on the defence budget. There seems little possibility of any significant increase in defence expenditure—none of our political parties is advocating this. Given our ongoing commitments, particularly in Afghanistan, and with a very unsettled world, we have to eschew unilateral military action in future, other than perhaps in very limited circumstances. We have to work more closely with our allies, particularly the French, to avoid another Iraq-type schism. I accept that in the de Gaulle era and beyond, military co-operation with the French was difficult—even now, protectionism prevails in their defence procurement. But a new French president presents a new opportunity. With an Anglo-French summit in March, and with France assuming the EU presidency in July, it is time to hold out the hand of military co-operation. Let us bring France into the integrated military structure. We never want a repeat of the Iraqi fallout and there are huge gains to be had if we can co-operate militarily with France.

In Iraq, military conflict and insurgent attacks on coalition forces seem to be subsiding. It appears that the US military surge, and the strategy of General Petraeus, have been successful, particularly in turning some of the factions—and all credit for that. However, it is questionable what our limited forces, based at Basra airport, are achieving, and we would like to see them home sooner rather than later. Although the military scene offers some hope, the job of reconstruction and democratic nation rebuilding will clearly take years, set against the background of deep tribal and religious differences, and of adjacent nations pursuing their own agendas. Military action is relatively easy to start—the consequences can last for generations.

My Lords, the Prime Minister has been under considerable attack recently. Some criticism has been justified, but much has not. He deserves congratulation on the measured way in which he has dealt with the crisis in Iraq since becoming Prime Minister. It is not easy to run your forces down, to reassess and consolidate. But we have done this and now have a better balance in our relationship with the United States. We now face the difficult question of how much further to go. America’s ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, is a very sensible man. He was quoted in last Saturday’s Times as saying:

“We are in an immeasurably better place in January 2008 than in January 2007”.

I share that judgment. He went on to say:

“My personal hope is that the UK will decide to maintain a division headquarters beyond 2008 as the Iraqi Government”—

and I stress that phrase—

“works to extend its authority”.

Unlike the previous speaker, I do not believe that this is the endgame. We have made grievous errors and we cannot walk away from them. We have to try our best to reverse the effects. There is no doubt that outside military assistance is no longer the primary mechanism for stabilising Iraq. But it is too soon for the UK to pull out all its forces. I am not aware of all the arguments, but I would be very cautious, now that we have come down to a small number of troops, about going to the next stage and pulling out completely.

I come to the real question of the debate, which is whether there should be an inquiry. I argued for one on 29 June 2006 and again in the debate on 22 February 2007, and I argue for it today. The issue will not go away. Just look at today’s newspapers. The Times has the headline, “Publish the secret document on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, ministers are told”. They are told it by the Information Tribunal, which says:

“We do not accept that we should, in effect, treat the Hutton report as the final word on the subject … Information has been placed before us which was not before Lord Hutton which may lead to questions as to whether the”,

FCO head of information’s,

“draft in fact played a greater part in influencing the drafting of the [Iraq] dossier than has previously been supposed”.

You cannot just dismiss these questions. There is more in the Guardian. Jonathan Steele is, as anyone who knows him will confirm, a serious foreign correspondent. He has just written a book, Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq. He concludes in an article in today’s paper:

“My interviews with diplomats produced no evidence that accurate analysis even reached the foreign secretary”.

I do not know whether that is true, but we need to know. We know the analysis that was made in 1991 about whether to go to Baghdad. All of us who supported that war—I take my share of the responsibility—knew full well that there would be serious problems with the stability of Iraq if, as I believed was necessary, one toppled Saddam Hussein.

One lesson has surely already been learnt. The surge has been successful. The head of the US army, who warned the United States in, I think, January 2003 that it would need 200,000 troops in Iraq, has been proven right. If we had increased the number of troops earlier, things might have been very different. When John Sawers, the British ambassador in Egypt, who had previously worked in No. 10, went into Iraq, he made a report, which we have seen. We know that he recommended—he was supported in this by Major General Albert Whitley, the most senior British officer with the US land forces—that because of the chaos that he found in Baghdad at the time serious consideration should be given in Downing Street and Whitehall generally to sending the British 16 Air Assault Brigade, which was in Iraq but due to return home, to Baghdad. There is little doubt that, if the British Prime Minister had followed John Sawers’s advice, the American Administration would not have been allowed to “off-ramp” the 16,000 soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division. This was the chance for Britain to make an individual decision. A serious report from a well balanced and knowledgeable diplomat recommended increasing the number of troops in Iraq to deal with the looting and the chaos, but it was overridden. This is not just about the politicians. We have to face the fact that senior diplomats in the Foreign Office have to be held to account, as do the senior generals and other senior members of the Armed Forces. We cannot just go on ignoring what they have done.

I crave the indulgence of the House, as I should like to go back in history. The poem “Mesopotamia”—what is now Iraq—subtitled “1917”, was written by Rudyard Kipling. I thought that I would cut it but, as I think I have time, I will read it all:

“They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,

The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave;

But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,

Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain

In sight of help denied from day to day:

But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,

Are they too strong and wise to put away?

Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide—

Never while the bars of sunset hold.

But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,

Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?

When the storm is ended shall we find

How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power

By the favour and contrivance of their kind?

Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,

Even while they make a show of fear,

Do they call upon their debtors, and take council with their friends,

To confirm and re-establish each career?

Their lives cannot repay us—their death could not undo—

The shame that they have laid upon our race.

But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,

Shall we leave it unabated in its place?”

I beg this House of Lords, over the next few months, to make a decision and force an inquiry. In contradiction to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, whom I greatly respect, I believe that the Falklands commission did have value. The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence learnt some important lessons, as did the politicians.

In my profession, there is a tradition that, when you make a mistake, you have a post-mortem. It is a great tradition. Sometimes there is an actual examination of the body, but often a case conference examines where mistakes were made. I have made mistakes. Many of us have made mistakes. We should face up to them. I tried in a recent book, the Hubris Syndrome, to draw attention to some of these things, but I am really a participant. We need a dispassionate look and to learn from our mistakes.

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Fowler not only for introducing this debate but for his balanced, eloquent and persuasive speech. I also agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Owen, said. My noble friend Lord Fowler and I go back a long way: we first met as young officers in the Essex Regiment at the time of Suez. On the merits of that escapade, he was right and I was wrong. He was quickly proved to be right. That was more than 50 years ago. It was a great disaster. It is fair to say that what has happened in Iraq is the biggest disaster that has occurred to British foreign and strategic policy since that time. It is of the first importance and of great significance and we must learn lessons from it.

I will not speak about how we got into the war. I agree with my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that it has been extensively inquired into, but not comprehensively. If there is no inquiry, more and more information will leak out and more are more will be known, but in a disordered fashion and in a manner from which it is difficult to draw conclusions. Nor will I speak about the war itself. That was short, sharp and successful. I want to address myself to what has happened post war—what has happened since President Bush stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier in front of a sign proclaiming “mission accomplished”. If only it had been: if only all that has happened since that hubristic and theatrical act could have been avoided.

Although I agree with what has already been said on the need to know more about how we got into this war and what information Ministers, officials, generals and so forth had, we need an inquiry into what has happened post war, whether as part of a broader inquiry or on its own. We specifically need answers to the following questions. First, to what extent did Her Majesty's Government share in the decision making? What was Her Majesty's Government’s input into the policy that has been followed since the end of the fighting? Secondly, to what extent were Her Majesty's Government overruled by our great ally, the United States, and to what extent was the advice of Her Majesty's Government simply ignored? Thirdly, to what extent did Her Majesty's Government simply leave it all to the Americans as the senior partner in the adventure—let them take the big decisions and confine our actions to our own limited area of responsibility?

I suspect that there will not be any such inquiry because the findings would be too humiliating for the Government. I suspect, too, that to a very large degree we simply left it to the Americans. I hope that the Minister can assure me that I am wrong and that however badly the situation turned out, Her Majesty’s Government fully participated in all the big decisions. Meanwhile, I draw two preliminary conclusions from what has happened, on which I hope he may feel able to comment.

First, whenever British troops are committed we must be sure to have an adequate say in all strategic and political decisions before, during and after the fighting. If that is not possible in a particular operation because of the imbalance of power between the United States and ourselves, we should stay out. Secondly, the corollary of involving Parliament in decisions to commit troops—I applaud the change introduced by the Prime Minister soon after he took office—is that the Government should be held accountable to Parliament for the outcome, not only for the military operation and how we got into that but for the occupation, the reconstruction, and the fulfilment—or not, as the case may be—of our war aims.

As we all know, the Suez debacle led the British Government to decide not only always to stick as closely as possible to the United States but never again to embark on a military operation that the United States could thwart. But that did not mean having to follow the United States wherever it led. Here I think the Labour Government could take a look at their predecessor, Harold Wilson—I know that he is not a popular man in Labour circles—who showed that it is perfectly possible to remain on very close and good terms with the United States, but he did not follow it into Vietnam, although President Johnson put a great deal of pressure on him to do so, and although other American allies, notably the Australians, did indeed follow the United States down that path.

Therefore, it is not just a question of whether we agree with what the United States wants to do in a given situation, nor is it a question of not wanting to leave the United States isolated in a particular situation, although I can understand the previous Prime Minister’s concerns on that point.

It must also be a question of whether and to what extent a British Government can have an influence on the formation and conduct of policy when British troops are involved. We may have been the junior partner in Iraq but we were and are a partner and therefore we are responsible for what happened in Iraq. We share the responsibility with the United States and others for what happened in Iraq and we must draw lessons from it. The final lesson I draw from it is that, as a result of the decisions taken by this Government, we find ourselves in a position where we have responsibility without power, where we share in the responsibility for what happened but were not able to influence the big strategic decisions, and that is a very humiliating position for this country to be in.

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for tabling this debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss Iraq without the fevered concentration on the negative, which is usual in the media. First, I shall deal with the question of an inquiry. We debated this at great length last February in a debate on Iraq tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hurd. Then, as now, I completely agreed with the Government’s position stated in that debate, when the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, said,

“The Prime Minister said yesterday that there were important lessons to learn but that an inquiry was not appropriate while our troops are engaged in combat in Iraq and facing extreme danger”.

As the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, reminded us, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, went on to say that,

“nobody has set their mind against an inquiry or some form of debate and discussion of these fundamental policy issues in the long term”.

As I understand it, that is still the position and I certainly go along with it.

The Minister on that occasion also said:

“Now is not the time for investigating what might or might not have been, but for putting our energy—all of our energy—into helping the Iraqi Government bring an end to the violence”.—[Official Report, 22/2/07; col. 1255.]

I agree completely with all of that, and I do not consider that discussion of an inquiry is either sensible or appropriate while there are British forces in theatre.

When looking at Iraq, it is important not to start only at 2003. As I have often told the House, I spent the last 12 months of my government service—which ended in August 1991—wholly immersed in Iraq.

There are two very important lessons to be learnt from 1991. First, do not leave decisions about crucial ceasefire timing and conditions to soldiers, even those as distinguished as Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf; because they got it wrong. Secondly, do not allow a very long, detailed Chapter 7 resolution—that chapter enables you to take military action—such as United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 of April 1991, to lie for some 12 years before taking decisive military action to enforce it.

Time does not allow expansion on these two lessons, which are part of the reason I consider—and have always considered—our military action in 2003 politically, morally and legally completely justified. Whether one agrees with me about that or not, no one can be satisfied with the way in which things developed after the successful 2003 military action; and, indeed, lessons can and should be learnt.

One mistake which was made was not the commonly levelled criticism that there was no post-military action planning, but that the very detailed planning in the US State Department for handling the civil situation after the invasion and overthrow of Saddam—all of which was meticulously reported in Bob Woodward’s excellent book, Plan of Attack—was never put into action. The State Department was prevented by the Pentagon from implementing it, as my noble friend Lord Anderson said. We have all expressed disquiet in this House about some of the decisions taken after the invasion. An outstanding example was the disbandment of the Iraqi army. As is reported in another Bob Woodward book, State of Denial, General Jay Garner told Donald Rumsfeld that three terrible mistakes had been made. The said that they were,

“the extent of de Ba’athification, getting rid of the army and summarily dumping the Iraq Leadership, Group. Disbanding the military was the biggest mistake—hundreds of thousands of disorganised, armed, unemployed Iraqis running around. It will take years to rebuild the army. They’d taken 30,000 to 40,000 Ba’athists and sent them underground and they’d gotten rid of the Iraq Leadership Group”.

It was not for want of some of the people on the ground seeing the dire consequences of some of the mistakes that had been made. These are certainly lessons that need to be learnt.

Not enough recognition was given to how the horrors of Saddam’s regime brutalised and exacerbated tensions between Sunni, Shia and Kurd, fracturing Iraqi society. We know, from the Balkans and elsewhere, the violence that erupts from the removal of a dictatorial regime, and Iraq had been held in the grip of a fearsomely efficient terror machine of incredible brutality. Again, this was recognised by Jay Garner, who at a press conference at the time said:

“There’s always problems when you’ve been brutalised for 30 years and you take people out of absolute darkness and put them in sunshine”.

I argued in April 2003 that it was a mistake not to tackle Moqtada Sadr then, when he was clearly responsible for the murder in Najaf of the respected 42 year-old Shia cleric leader, al-Khoei, who had just returned to Iraq from exile in London after the invasion. To have dealt with Moqtada then could have avoided many subsequent problems.

We should all learn from the success of General Petraeus’s tactics of the surge, which is leading to a return, however modest, of some of the 2 million Iraqis who fled abroad and to attempts of some Mahdi army militants to bring back some displaced Sunni neighbours to Shia districts. A major aim of the surge was to give Iraqi politicians breathing space to pass legislation to try to bring about some reconciliation. Now, at last, a law has been passed—the Accountability and Justice Act—to give former, not top-level, Ba’ath members some chance of pensions or even reinstatement in their former jobs. Other positive developments are the Sunni Awakening movement, which is acting against the insurgents linked to al-Qaeda, and the main Sunni alliance in the Parliament, the Iraqi Accord Front, indicating that it will rejoin the Maliki Government.

Control of the oil industry and provincial elections remain elements in the national reconciliation package, but in both there are interesting and encouraging developments, which unfortunately there is no time to expand on now. There are some grounds for at least a glimmer of hope for national reconciliation, which everyone—Iraqis and others—has learnt is the only hope for any peaceful progress for Iraq.

My Lords, I warmly welcome this important debate, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for giving us this vital opportunity. The timing is excellent, for the recent gains in security in the region and Iraq’s gains in political stability and cohesion achieved in recent months give a unique opportunity to the European Union and its member states to forge the closer permanent relationship that is our policy.

There are now most important new opportunities for trade and investment that others are taking on. I spoke in October at the Al Thiqa economic development conference held in Nasiriyah. This was the first ever development conference held in southern Iraq. It was impressive to hear the Ministers for oil, security, housing, roads, water and the Marshes, among others, set out their current expenditure and roll out future plans. The Deputy President, the Deputy Prime Minister and the local governor also spoke. Council members, tribal leaders, other local notables and Members of Parliament took part in the debate.

Some of Iraq’s major new investors were present at the conference, including Japan, the principal investor in the south. Another example of successful investors is MTC Al-Atheer, the Kuwait-registered group working with Iraqi partners, which to date has made $2.5 billion worth of investment in Iraq’s mobile telephone network. I learnt too that the French company Lavage had just signed an agreement with the Iraqi Government for three major cement factories to be refurbished, sharing production 40 per cent to the Iraqi Government and 60 per cent Lavage. The possibilities for EU investors now throughout Iraq, not just in northern Kurdistan, are very large indeed. I look to Her Majesty’s Government and to member states to do all that is possible to encourage EU companies to take up the opportunities. Other nations are doing so and we are being left behind.

We in the European Union have high competence in building a public administration. Prime Minister Maliki and his Ministers are indeed hard-working and the Parliament is fully functioning. But to be effective, Ministers must be supported by a functioning and competent administration that is committed to serving the people. In Iraq, at all levels of the administration, there is a profound lack in skills in this most important area, but we can help. This crucial gap gives the European Union a chance to show our special skills in capacity and institution building as well as in training. Of course, creating a public service ethos in Iraq will require a complete reversal of the former position which the previous administration took. As we in the European Union know well from our work in central and eastern Europe throughout the enlargement process, dictatorship thrives on public control and turns away from serving the public interest.

To help Iraq reverse the dismal administrative situation it inherited we need to make close partnerships with the public service ministries, particularly health, which is a key priority for Prime Minister Maliki to help in building up a functioning and significantly less corrupt public sector. I hope that Prime Minister Maliki will visit the European Union soon. If he does, I would like us to be able to present him with the package of training and institution and capacity building in public health and education that Iraq so sorely needs. Public health is a key, essential element in stabilisation and association processes. Access to public health is a millennium development goal.

In October I had the opportunity, and again two weeks ago, to address the Iraqi Parliament in plenary session—not once but twice. I was their first official visitor and it was a great honour to address them. I learnt immediately how much assistance they need. We in the European Parliament, in consequence, are setting up a permanent ad hoc delegation to Iraq. We have a new rapporteur for an Iraq report—a close friend of mine, the socialist Portuguese Member of the European Parliament, Ana Gomes—and I am her shadow for the next report. We believe that strengthening Parliament’s ties is one of the key ways in which we can assist the democratic process.

Iraq has a permanent standing constitution committee, because there are still problems in the constitution. We can assist. Women’s issues are a key area in today’s Iraq. My colleague Ana Gomes is on the women’s committee in the European Parliament. We at once vowed that we would create those ties officially as well as informally. Then there are the issues of how to frame and progress laws and the essential links that are still missing between Ministers and their civil servants in drafting laws and for Parliament in progressing them. Proper parliamentary procedures are still not in place. Those needs are vital and we can help.

Iraq has a true parliament and a wholly secular constitution. It is one of the very few nations in the region to have such a constitution, despite its flaws. We should do all that we can to help the Iraqis to strengthen the democratic process. The rule of law is critical to a functioning democracy. I pay tribute to the Council of Ministers and the EUJUST LEX exercise which has trained so many judges and magistrates. I am proud that, through this mechanism, we have trained 24,000 election monitors, who I saw working so hard in the 2005 elections in January and December of that year.

However, there must be cohesion in the European Union institutional approach if we are to succeed. There must be closer co-ordination also between member states. It is now possible, at last, to have a unified EU approach. Past national divisions have healed and the way ahead is clear. It will require careful, dedicated and patient work to deliver what we have promised to the Iraqi people. Like us, the people of Iraq demand democracy and good governance. They demand and need the provision of basic rights, basic services and the full complement of those enjoyments of privileges that we have in our democracies in western Europe. We have come a long way towards delivering that goal, and with the EU newly united on the issue of Iraq, I believe that we can achieve much more in partnership and co-operation with the Government, the parliament, the administration and the people of Iraq.

I would suggest that the prize of a stable Iraq exercising a benign influence regionally and internationally is worth every effort to attain. I hope for and work towards the enlargement of the European Union to incorporate Turkey, when Iraq will become our next-door neighbour.

In conclusion, if there is a lesson to learn, I suggest that we should not allow past challenges to inhibit and cloud the future. We should not use yesterday’s problems to stop moving forward. We must move on.

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Fowler on introducing this debate and on the eloquent and authoritative way in which he has done so. The lessons to be drawn from the recent history of Iraq are of profound importance, not just to Iraq, but to ourselves and others. I believe it to be a counsel of despair to say that the only thing to be learnt from history is that no one has ever learnt anything from history. Nor am I impressed by the canard that it is easy to be wise after the event. It is surely better to be wise after the event than to be unwise or to pass by on the other side. As the noble Lord, Lord Owen, said in his eloquent speech, this matter is not going to go away. I join my noble friend in paying tribute to the gallantry of British service men and women and those of other nations who have served in Iraq, together with the many foreign civilians who have served there, and in expressing sympathy for the sufferings of the Iraqi people.

Despite the reductions in violence following the troop surge, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, referred, the situation is very grave. As has been mentioned, the number of people driven from their homes has apparently quadrupled to more than 2 million. Since the occupation began, more than 2 million people have fled the country, although some are trickling back, largely because of visa problems. Electricity in Baghdad is available for only eight hours a day—half the level before the invasion. Unemployment is more than 60 per cent. More than 40 per cent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. Focus group surveys carried out for General Petraeus in five Iraqi cities recently are reported to have found that all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the US invasion is the primary cause of violence in the country and regard the withdrawal of all occupying forces as the key to national reconciliation.

Next Thursday, your Lordships will hold a debate to be introduced by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, on the Government’s consultation document on war powers and treaties. I venture to guess that Parliament will in future be more sympathetic to any government call for support in overseas deployment of troops if there has been complete candour and openness about Iraq. So I add my voice to those who say that it is timely that, in accordance with longstanding tradition, an independent inquiry should be set up as soon as is practicable, not in any sense to seek scapegoats but in order to learn lessons for the future while those who have been involved in the recent history of Iraq are still around and memories are fresh. I do not accept the argument that this cannot happen when troops are still in theatre. Their morale would be unaffected and they will do their duty, as they have on previous occasions. They could be there for a long time—our people are still in the Falklands.

A large number of interrelated questions remain to be answered. Were the wholly inadequate plans for the stabilisation and reconstruction effort after the April 2003 invasion the result of avoidable ignorance or divided counsels within the American Administration and the British Government? Was the lack of a UN mandate a fatal weakness in securing necessary resources and expertise? No one will know the answer to that better than the Minister. Was the decision to adopt a model of direct governance a hindrance to the chances of addressing the issues of transition and reform? Was the widespread criminality, the international terrorism and the massive insurgency, which has bedevilled reconstruction efforts, predicted? If not, could it have been? Could greater initial force have averted the murderous chaos?

Why was there an assumption that the coalition would quickly be able to transfer civil governance to Iraqis when it was clear that the process of de-Ba’athification, the purge of the top layer of the Civil Service and removal of its institutional memory, and the disbanding of the Iraqi army—in fact the destruction of all Iraqi institutions—would leave a vacuum making political development, internal security and reconstruction infinitely more difficult? What was the basis for the belief that the Iraqis would welcome foreign occupation? How long did the Government believe at the time of the invasion, and indeed now, that the international forces—themselves a cause of and target for insurgency activity—would be required to prevent a descent into anarchy and civil war?

There has been a disjuncture between political discussion and the realities on the ground in Iraq. In the limited time when foreign occupation is tolerable to the great majority of Iraqis, if it still is, and if security and the rule of law, political progress and reconstruction are to be achieved, can the Government assure us that the massive cuts in senior personnel at the Foreign Office—one in four—have not and will not affect its future capability to deliver what was once regarded as the finest advice on middle eastern affairs available to any government in the world, delivered by men and women trusted and respected as no other in the region?

These are urgent questions that can be answered only by a full, independent inquiry. I hope that the Government will not continue to shelter behind the principle of the unripe time. Parliament will not tolerate that, and I believe that the Government have less to fear from openness than the reverse.

My Lords, a vast amount has already been written, said, hypothesised and argued about over the latest war in Iraq, and its consequences. This debate is no exception in adding to it. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on securing it today.

If we could summarise the political military analysis—for example, that given by Mr Wilkinson at Chatham House last October—we would stress that governments must learn that when you intervene in someone else’s country, for whatever reason, you have to allow that some of the consequences will entail nation building. If you intervene in someone else’s country you must have and act on a political and economic reconstruction plan that delivers improvement to the quality of life or face the consequences or the prospect of nurturing insurgents. Having intervened in someone else’s country, in any post-conflict environment, the essential priorities must be to establish security, the rule of law and to deliver access to justice, if I may echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad.

It is fairly easy to list the lessons to be drawn and noble Lords who have spoken have given us a very good insight into the key questions that we should address. I do not wish to repeat them, but they include the question of whether there was too great a rush to war in 2003. Were enough forces deployed? Were they properly resourced and prepared? Did the overwhelming desire to find weapons of mass destruction cause stockpiles of conventional weapons and lead them to be disregarded, but which later armed the insurgency? Should the Iraqi army have been disabled? Was the comprehensive de-Ba’athification process really necessary? There are more than enough questions to put a case for a further and deep inquiry into the intervention in Iraq.

Written evidence submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place by organisations such as the Council for Arab-British Understanding, among others, bring home the outcome of failures to follow the simple lessons of pre-emptive military intervention. Iraq went almost overnight from a heavily government-controlled state, headed by a despot, to anarchy with no state control. With the state effectively dismantled Iraqis turned to their own tribal and sectarian groupings for security and support. Sectarian divisions were aggravated and deteriorated. Iraq’s future potential has also been undermined. Brutal, targeted attacks on academics, journalists and doctors have added to and accelerated a huge brain drain that dates from the sanctions era. It will take a lengthy period of calm, safety and security to attract this key talent back in sufficient numbers to give Iraq a viable future.

Perhaps the most sombre lesson to be drawn is the degree to which the population of the region has been destabilised. According to the UNHCR, Iraq’s displaced are the world’s largest group of urban refugees and the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948. The UNHCR estimates that there are 2.2 million IDPs in Iraq and that a further 2 million have fled from Iraq—mainly to Syria and Jordan—whose health, education and social support systems have buckled under the strain.

Syria’s 1.4 million Iraqi refugees are increasingly running out of resources, with a third now on the verge of destitution. Poverty is making inroads into the refugee population’s health, with a fifth of the chronically ill unable to purchase medication. Tens of thousands of Iraqis will need food support over the coming months, with more than 250,000 expected to need food assistance by the end of the year.

In Syria alone, some 100 new cases of refugees living in extreme poverty are identified every week. Women and children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Nearly half the families report that their children have dropped out of school, with one in 10 working to help support their families. Overall, the number of Iraqis uprooted by sectarian violence and human rights abuses is surpassed globally only by the 6.4 million Sudanese internally displaced persons and refugees. That is something that your Lordships might reflect on when recognising that by far the greater part of the Iraqi refugee crisis results from the US/UK-led intervention.

The Minister will be aware that such is the enormity of Iraq’s displacement crisis that this year the UNHCR needs to raise more than £130 million for its Middle East region operations—its largest single relief operation. Targets have been set that include doubling to 200,000 the number of Iraqi refugee children attending school; supporting 15,000 families who decide to return home; and assisting 400,000 displaced persons living in insecure and dangerous conditions.

Those programmes deliver shelter, healthcare, education, general support and food to uprooted Iraqis throughout the region. They are at risk unless the UNHCR appeal is met with strong support, which sadly has not been forthcoming from the UK Government. Given the Minister’s experience in the UN, he is uniquely placed to explain why our Government do not support the UNHCR targeting of immediate relief programmes at refugees in and outside Iraq. What basis is there for considering that UK investment in reconstruction and infrastructure, aimed at rebuilding the basic services in the longer term, can be a substitute for the immediate support urgently needed by hundreds of thousands of refugee victims of a war that we helped to initiate?

Finally, further to an Answer given to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on 21 January, to which the noble Lord referred again today, on the resettlement of Iraqis at risk under the Gateway Protection Programme, the Minister will be aware that its success is dependent on a sufficient number of local authorities participating. There is considerable concern that this is not the case at present. Will he advise what steps the Government are taking to ensure that local authorities will come forward?

My Lords, I, too, welcome the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, tabled this debate—not least because Iraq remains a matter of huge and continuing importance in our domestic and international politics. As I understand it, the noble Lord has argued that, as a supporter of the war originally, he is convinced that too many questions remain unanswered about the way in which the decision to go into the conflict was taken and about what will happen in relation to planning for post-conflict Iraq. He argues that the time is right for an inquiry because we need to learn lessons.

Some lessons are already very clear and we could think about how to act upon them now. We need clearer, and more generally acknowledged principles about when it is right and legal to take military action that entails going into another country. I believed at the time—and believe now—that our action was legal; others honestly disagreed.

However, in the course of my time as a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the criteria for taking military action in other countries changed, most noticeably in relation to Kosovo, where we introduced the idea of overwhelming humanitarian disaster being a sufficient cause to take military action in another country. The rules by which the UN operates do need to be looked at dispassionately and a real effort made to get better international consensus.

There is another clear lesson about intelligence. Raw intelligence is not available either to the public or to Ministers, and should not be because, all, or most, intelligence reports are drawn from a wide variety of different sources, all are subject to judgment and open to different degrees of interpretation. To attempt to publish as much as the Government did, in the form that we did, raised more and more questions. It was done from the very best of motives.

However, we need to think about how we deal with that sort of intelligence in the future. How much should go into the public domain? How should that be presented and when? We need to take those decisions calmly and clearly—not in the heat of a huge argument about who was right and wrong and who knew what when. That is something that we could be considering now. Therefore, those are two lessons that are clear already.

On the question of an inquiry, let me say that, speaking as someone who was a Foreign Office Minister at the time, I would welcome one—but only when conditions in Iraq make that possible and right.

I now turn to “the position in Iraq”, as the title of the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, asks us to do. I want to concentrate on two areas—security and economic development. On security, everyone acknowledges, even after yesterday’s bombing attacks, that there are many fewer incidents now than there were this time last year. The surge has been a real factor, certainly in security around Baghdad. I think that every commentator acknowledges that there has been a reduction in the level of day-to-day violence around Baghdad.

Engagement with the Sunni tribal leaders has led to real improvements. There are local citizens groups among the Sunni community. A decision to take real consultation initiatives with the Sunni tribesmen about the al-Qaeda threat has been successful. Areas that were virtually bandit country and the heartlands of al-Qaeda in Iraq, where only the US marines were able to operate last year, are becoming safer. Obviously, that is around Al-Aubar and Sala Hadeen. All commentators are noting changes in turnaround; from what I have heard from our observers on the ground, it has been dramatic and significant. That has meant that there has been a reduction in violence of about 60 to 70 per cent. We are back to the levels that pertained at the end of 2003—too high, but going down. Intra-Shia fighting—that is, fighting between Shia groups—has diminished. A ceasefire that was initially agreed temporarily seems to be holding. Last week, the attempts of Shia extremists failed to spark off a resumption of Shia violence.

The capability of the Iraqi security forces has also improved. Last night, they saw off the violence in Basra with only air cover from the British forces, but they took on everything that happened on the ground. Will it last? It has been acknowledged—by even the most critical parts of the media, albeit grudgingly—that there have been real improvements. The next few weeks will give us further indications.

The noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, spoke with great authority on the economy. There are a few facts that we need to bear in mind. The Iraqi economy is growing—by 6 per cent last year. That is in striking distance of a number of neighbouring Arab economies. Inflation is down from 60 per cent in 2006 to 16 per cent—the calculation of the now independent Central Bank of Iraq.

Employment was, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, said, running at about 60 per cent in 2006, but it was down to 19 per cent at the end of last year. These are important figures. The Iraqis are benefiting from the increase in oil prices. They are not squandering the money. It is being invested in physical and human infrastructure—in health and education.

Around Basra, we have seen the Iraqi-run and Iraqi-based Basra Inward Investment Agency, the Basra Development Fund—with start-up money for small and medium sized businesses—and the Basra Development Commission. All of these are important economic indicators and have led to a 54 per cent increase in British exports to Iraq in areas that are also important indicators of economic growth, such as industrial machinery and road vehicles.

Our trade associations are starting to go back into Iraq. The Middle East Association and British Expertise took trade missions towards the end of last year. The MEA is planning more this year. UK companies are active in electronic banking, medicine, wider healthcare and construction, including developing the Umm Qasr Port.

Another lesson is that judgments in these areas are still evolving. Finding sources of information that widen our perspective is enormously important. It is disappointing that, when Iraqi politicians come to this country and talk to us in Parliament, sometimes few active politicians turn up to hear them.

One last lesson I have learnt is that British foreign policy dictates our defence policy. We are never in any doubt that defence policy is dependent on and subordinate to wider foreign policy priorities. It is important to know how our allies will operate. It is disconcerting to find our close allies operating on the basis that defence policy leads foreign policy. However, the fact that Pentagon was in the lead, not only on operational prosecution of the fighting—which was right and proper—but also on post-conflict handling in Iraq, was in stark contrast to our own position. Speaking as someone who was a Minister at the time, that was a very difficult realisation. It was another hard and painful lesson and one from which I hope that we have all learnt.

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Fowler for introducing this important debate and doing it so well and so clearly and in what I hope will be seen as a very much bipartisan approach to this very difficult issue. I am struck by the efforts that have been made in the United States’ approach to address issues of gravity for our country in a bipartisan manner. That is extremely important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, is right to draw attention to some of the improvements that certainly seem to exist in Iraq at the moment. There seems to be a calmer atmosphere. One must guard against the fact that we tend to measure the situation in Iraq in terms of British casualties. The move to Basra airport has changed that situation but I understand that the number of attacks in Basra city—and of a particularly vicious and nasty kind—are continuing at the same level, but the targets are now different. Certainly, there is some optimism, expressed by the IMF and Ambassador Crocker. But the improvements have been achieved in some unusual ways. The Americans are now paying the militias $300 a month and providing them with arms, and we have currently sub-contracted significant areas of security in Iraq, in both Basra and Baghdad. There is a question about whether that will hold. There has been a welcome improvement in the Sunni expulsion of al-Qaeda from certain areas, suggesting, however, that once they get their own areas in order they will look to reassert their authority in some of the mixed areas. The threats of more ethnic cleansing are certainly worrying.

The worrying reports coming out of Basra suggest that we have settled for a balance of power between different militias. There have been significant illustrations in the form of attacks on women, with criticisms of their dress leading to physical assault, if not actual murder and execution. They suggest that we are presiding at a distance over a new Shia Taliban town being created. That gives some real concern to Kuwait and other neighbours about what may be developing there.

I certainly agree with the comment that the next six months are critical. Will the central government establish their authority? Will the Iraqi army really get a grip and be able to assert itself? Will it be able to sort out the police, get them working and the corrupt elements out? There are worrying reports about some of the problems in training the police. Can we see some real improvement and progress in reconstruction?

There are real concerns about the tensions and criticisms emerging between the Army and DfID. The feeling among many in the Army is that DfID has failed to take advantage of the work that the Army has had to do. A question to come out of this is whether we need some form of hardened DfID operational capability that can get into a less than ideal security situation and start reconstruction so that people on the ground can see the immediate benefit of a successful military operation.

I was struck by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons. I am not sure where she is on the inquiry; I think she said that she favoured one. She went on to cite various lessons that could be learnt straight away, and I offer a few ideas for lessons that could be learnt. With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, we cannot just depend on Bob Woodward’s book and what Jay Garner said to the president. These are all bits of evidence which need bringing together. It is important that we address this at an early stage.

To analyse what happened in our relationship with the United States, I look back at my personal involvement in the first Gulf War and the relationship then. There were different personalities. There was no doubt that Douglas Hurd and Jim Baker had a particularly good relationship, and in no sense did the Pentagon dominate the State Department. Dick Cheney was a more junior member of the Administration—an effective Defense Secretary, my opposite number—but the State Department was not by-passed. Our co-operation was close, with one exception: the decision to stop after the turkey shoot and the Mutla Ridge; some may remember those terrible pictures of the Iraqi army trying to escape out of Kuwait. The meeting at which the decision to stop was taken was held in the White House without any British representation. Until that point, co-operation had been close throughout. We played a major part in ensuring that we had the right rules of engagement before it started. Looking at what happened in the United States this time, we had—in Washington—a very inexperienced president with an exceptionally powerful vice-president who drew on his own experiences of the first Gulf War and his close relationship with another great Washington hand, Donald Rumsfeld. They undoubtedly very much sidelined Colin Powell and the State Department. We want to learn lessons on that.

We also want to learn lessons on intelligence. I do not think that it is unkind to say this as it is widely known: I chaired the Intelligence Security Committee, and we were critical of the lack of interest that the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, took in intelligence. We regularly encouraged him in successive reports to chair the ministerial Committee on Intelligence Services on a regular basis. It did not happen. He must bitterly regret that now. A closer involvement in intelligence of that kind would have helped him as a very inexperienced Prime Minister—that is no criticism; it was the inevitable consequence of 18 years of Conservative government. He came in with no ministerial experience at all. However, closer involvement would have helped him to know which questions to ask and which challenges to put to the intelligence services. He had our reports—although I always worried whether he really read them. We had already said on more that one occasion—as the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, knows very well—what a hard target Iraq was for human intelligence. The intelligence services told us, as was in our reports, that we knew very little about what was going on in Iraq. That should have been a red light to warn a Prime Minister that he had better ask some pretty tough questions before taking some fundamental decisions of that kind.

On the military side, it is interesting to think that when we set out to expel Saddam Hussein and his invading Iraqi army from somebody else’s country, 750,000 troops were involved. When we set out to undertake the much more difficult task of invading somebody else’s country and destroying their Government and president, we tried to do so with less than half that amount. If one is talking about the effect of “shock and awe”, and—that favourite phrase of the Americans—“having won the battle”, you must hold the ground, which means substantial forces. But you must do something when you are holding the ground. I offer the analogy of the SAS and their stun grenades. If you try to break into premises and chuck in a stun grenade, you do not just then wait for an hour for the dust to settle and people to gather their wits. The point of the stun grenade is that, having made the attack, you get in quick and change things fast. We did not come into Iraq fast with real plans; that was the great mistake.

Briefly, on an inquiry, I am critical of our Parliament. Congress is much more effective at holding the Executive to account. Parliament should show its determination and resolve, and insist upon an inquiry. The Iraq Study Group was, in a sense, an American committee of privy counsellors: Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton, Larry Eagleburger and Bill Perry; a range of distinguished American people. We must set up something similar. The clinching argument for that is there will never otherwise be a right time, but we may find ourselves in this situation again. We cannot be sure. I would not like to take responsibility for the deaths of our Armed Forces facing a new situation, if we made some of the same mistakes we have made this time but had not got around to studying them, learning the lessons, and ensuring that we never made those mistakes again.

My Lords, we owe a great debt to my noble friend Lord Fowler for this important debate.

As Rory Stewart has said, nowhere in 30 years has there been such a concentration of foreign money, manpower and determination as in Iraq. Nor has their failure, to some extent, been more dramatic. He adds:

“Our failures were due to incompetence rather than malice, but the population were not prepared to give us the benefit of the doubt. For 80 years the Iraqis have rejected colonialism. They have rejected non-Muslim government for much longer. They are the only people who can rebuild their nation”.

The lessons HMG should draw from Iraq are all relevant to the continuing military task in Afghanistan: the struggle for resources, whether helicopters, armoured vehicles or, not least, skilled manpower. The Government have remorselessly refused to provide the money to meet the ever-increasing demands they have placed on the Armed Forces ever since the strategic review, coupled with taking on not one but two wars simultaneously, in addition to our continuing commitment in the Balkans. We have moved from being told that not a shot would be fired in Afghanistan to being told that we are committed there for many years in what has proved to be a virtually full-scale war. We are not helped by the fact that it is a NATO operation in which some are fighting but others are not.

The Defence Committee in the other place has always been deeply concerned at what the Treasury’s resource accounting and budgeting—RAB—procedure has done to the MoD’s ability to meet defence priorities within its budget. The MoD once thought that it could,

“use its asset base of £86 billion and bear down on that to release resources”.

It did not think that meant cuts, just stretching the budget further. It reported, however, that the Treasury was unwilling,

“for wider reasons, to let the MoD have the flexibility it had sought”.

I repeat: we have problems with the Treasury.

Ever since the Iraq operation began—and before—the MoD has been contending with undermanning, the consequent breaching of harmony lines, a lack of vital equipment that has meant that there is not enough for training on it as it has to go straight to the operational forces on the ground, and permanent overstretch. Families at home are left in disgraceful accommodation, many have suffered from unpardonable stress because of breakdowns to the pay system, and the severely wounded who return to this country have had, in some cases, very shabby treatment. There is no money for training or servicing. The helicopter crash in Iraq some years ago was attributed to insufficient training of the crew. The inquiry into the more recent Nimrod crash in Afghanistan has reported that:

“A tautly managed engineering establishment and a recent outflow of skilled personnel led to an effective dilution of engineering skills”.

In other words, there is no money for training and skilled engineers are leaving the services, which is one of the vital pinch points identified by the NAO.

The FCO, which ought to be able to produce not only admirable advice but also skilled linguists with in-country skills, has an almost invisible budget. The MoD, which is responsible for the nation’s defence—the chief reason now why we can punch above our weight on the international scene—has been starved of funds for the past 15 to 20 years. We proudly claim that we give more in aid than any other country except one: the US. DfID’s budget is to rise by 11 per cent each year for the next three years. That and the major increases in education and health far outstrip defence. The MoD’s budget will rise by 1.5 per cent per annum for the foreseeable future, and it is looking at a shortfall of £1 billion over the next three years even now. Defence will get only 2 per cent of GDP by 2011, while the defence budgets of the Russians and the Chinese are rocketing up. If the Government use their defence forces as part of their international strategy, they must expect to pay. It is shaming that the Danes can take care of their interpreters in Iraq, but we cannot. It is shaming that at a time when shortage of manpower is a serious problem, the MoD is trying to find ways to make the Ghurkhas, worth their weight in gold in Iraq and Afghanistan, retire early in order to save on their pensions. Iraq should have taught us the value of our Armed Forces as our representatives in the world.

We are all only too familiar with the failure, until quite recently, to provide armoured vehicles and helicopters with lift. One lesson of Iraq must surely be not to leave the forces in Afghanistan in a similar situation, obliged at this stage to rely on the goodwill, on some occasions, of other NATO allies on the ground who are quite likely to withdraw or to have another agenda. We should also learn from Iraq not to repeat the gross lack of care for the operational efficiency and the human well-being of our Armed Forces, which is demonstrated by the Government’s readiness to enter into a commitment with no visible end in Afghanistan while our Armed Forces are still not disengaged from Iraq and are seriously undermanned. Without the Territorial Army, we would be in serious trouble. HMG cannot expect the TA to rotate again and again. We are rightly committed to retain the capability to re-intervene in south-eastern Iraq should the situation deteriorate. Shall we have enough men and matériel? The Armed Forces have a vital part to play in the defence of this country, and we cannot exclude the possibility of an attack from the sea by al-Qaeda. They are also regularly called upon for domestic emergencies: Operation Fresco, the floods, and so on. The lesson we should draw from Iraq and for Afghanistan is that it is in the national interest to ensure that we have forces trained and equipped to defend us adequately and, where appropriate, to intervene abroad; Serbia looms, and the situation in Pakistan is fragile. No Government should expect to commit their Armed Forces to military operations overseas without first ensuring the long-term funding. Not least, we are destroying a generation of our best young people. Recently, a witness to the Defence Select Committee said:

“I am very worried about … the problem of mental and physical sustainability of the piece of software that we call the human flesh of our soldiers … When you have young soldiers, fit, highly motivated from elite units, and they are all pretty good, 40 days under sustained fire, which is longer in the line than most infantry battalions had on the Western Front, you are asking for trouble. You are grinding them down. We are looking at tremendous physical and mental ageing of our soldier population”.

For too many people in this country, Iraq is simply the trigger for an anti-US reaction. It should be a wake-up call from the public telling the Government to ensure that the Armed Forces are given the support that they need and deserve. I add, in strong support of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that the most important lesson must surely be to end for ever the culture of sofa government and to return the proper powers of the Cabinet, the JIC and the ministries, so long ignored in favour of wholly unqualified special advisers. This is where the Treasury ought to be held to account by properly briefed Ministers.

We also need to remember that our influence in the world depends on how both enemies and friends perceive our diplomatic and military power. It is in our power to ensure that they continue to respect us. It is also in the power of the present Government—I fear perhaps of future Governments as well—to be so obsessed by the need to save money that they forget that we have a part to play in the world and that respect is tied up with how we are seen to perform diplomatically and militarily. We cannot do the other things unless we have that respect.

My Lords, the debate we are holding today is focusing to some extent on the need for a formal inquiry into the Iraq war. Such an inquiry has been championed by the Opposition parties and, so far, the Government have given only a dilatory response. I do not intend to dwell on that issue, except to make a plea that if and when such an inquiry is held, it should not simply become an occasion for settling accounts and partisan point-scoring. The terms of reference and the membership of such an inquiry would need to be designed to discourage that. Meanwhile, it is surely none too soon to begin to draw some lessons from what has been for all concerned—both protagonists and antagonists of the action taken in Iraq—a tragic and debilitating experience. For that reason, this debate is to be welcomed, and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for obtaining it. I hope it will be put to good use. I shall concentrate on a somewhat eclectic mixture of some of the political and diplomatic aspects of the subject rather than the military and security ones.

The first is the intelligence and the uses to which it was put in the run-up to the invasion, which has been mentioned by several noble Lords. It seems now to be rather generally recognised that not only was the intelligence on Iraq’s WMD assets flawed but that the public use to which that intelligence was put was unwise and excessively prescriptive. Intelligence gathering, particularly from totalitarian regimes which will go to any lengths to protect their secrets, is not an exact science and it is never going to provide certainty about the assets and intentions of those regimes. It will often provide crucial parts of a jigsaw puzzle, but not the whole of it, and Governments should not believe or assert that it does. Have we learnt the negative and positive aspects of that lesson? I very much doubt it. The reactions to the United States’ recent national intelligence estimate on Iran’s nuclear programmes would seem to indicate quite the contrary. The same people who were most critical of the intelligence on Iraq and the uses to which it was put are now speaking of the intelligence on Iran as if it were Holy Writ. Would they be taking the same view if the estimate had indicated that Iran was close to acquiring nuclear weapons? I rather doubt it. Better surely, in the light of experience in Iraq, to be more cautious in analysing the implications of intelligence, whether it suits one’s purpose or not.

The second aspect is the role of the United Nations in the run-up to the war. It is pretty clear now that the campaign to get a second resolution during the first two months of 2003 was doomed to failure, not just because of the possibility of vetoes by France and Russia but because the necessary nine positive votes to get such a resolution were simply not there. I recall at the time, when the campaign for a second resolution began, saying, “They must know something I don’t”. It appears now that they did not. In the event, the campaign for a second resolution and the public confrontations in New York ended up inflicting far more damage on the United Nations and on the legitimacy of the action eventually taken than was the case over Kosovo a few years earlier when a quite different approach was followed. Is that an invitation to bypass the UN and to use force unilaterally? Certainly not, in my view. But it should be an invitation to avoid getting locked into a military timetable that is inconsistent from the outset with any realistic prospect of getting a second resolution. The logic of getting international inspectors back into Iraq was to give them sufficient time to do their work, and that logic was ignored.

The third aspect is post-war justice. The trials of Saddam Hussein and his principal henchmen and their execution can surely have satisfied no cause other than that of revenge, which should have no place in the administration of justice. Would it not have been far better if they had been brought before an international tribunal, as were those guilty of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, and if world opinion had been able to appreciate fully the enormity of the crimes of which they were accused, while seeing that they were given a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves? No method of trial could have entirely avoided the risk of creating martyrs, but the one chosen was absolutely certain to fall into that trap. Now that we have a functioning international criminal court, even if not every country in the world yet accepts it, this must surely become the right and best way to challenge the doctrine of impunity.

Time does not permit me to go into the many bitter lessons to be drawn from the fundamental errors made since the end of the first military phase of the action against Iraq—the provision of inadequate manpower to achieve security in the collapsed state; the disbanding of the Iraqi army; the banning of all Baathists from public service; and the fatal combination of incompetence and hubris which characterised the US handling of Iraq in the first years after the invasion—but the failure to grasp and to come to terms with the regional dimension of Iraq’s problems deserves some mention. It should have been clear from the outset that all Iraq’s neighbours had a vital interest in that country’s future, policies and structure, and that each one of them had the capacity seriously to undermine the prospects for a stable and prosperous Iraq.

That ought to have led to an approach which created a dialogue with those neighbours and which built in the dimension of regional security, ideally through the establishment of sub-regional security guarantees and confidence-building measures, to any long-term perspectives for Iraq. Instead, the three crucial neighbours of Iraq—Turkey, Iran and Syria—were handled in ways which either marginalised them or treated them as pariahs with whom even dialogue was not possible. The reversal of that policy has come very late in the day and yet that same regional dimension arises when dealing with any number of the world’s most burning questions—Afghanistan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Darfur, to give a few examples. We ignore that dimension at our peril.

Perhaps the most important lesson to be drawn from Iraq is the complete bankruptcy of the policies which have been given the label in the United States of neo-conservatism, even if some of those who have practised these policies would reject that label. Not only have the policies not worked on the ground but it is now clear that the US people have no stomach to seek to pursue them and impose them on an unwilling world. The turning away from these policies is something which we in this country should welcome since the pursuit of them has damaged us, too, through our close alliance with the US. If neo-conservative policies were to be succeeded by a period of isolationism or of unwillingness by the United States to pull its full weight in handling the many global problems which face us all, then our last state would not be much better than our first.

That underlines the importance of this country and its European partners preparing carefully for the change of administration in Washington which is coming at the end of this year, and being ready to work hard for a new co-operative transatlantic approach, including one to deal with the unfinished business of stabilising Iraq and securing for its people a better future than the past, or the present, has provided.

My Lords, I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about neo-conservatism. Of course, proper Conservatives do not have a hyphen in their conservatism. I should like to add my thanks to the many who have thanked my noble friend Lord Fowler for this debate and for his excellent speech in introducing it. He pointed out that it is nearly five years since the invasion of Iraq but it is also almost four years since Ministers from the Dispatch Box were telling us that it was time to move on; the war was over and therefore the debate was over. Sadly, the debate was no more over than the violence was over.

If a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, had produced deaths and injuries on the scale that we have seen in the Iraq war, there would have been an outpouring of sympathy, appeals for money on television, and endless debates in this House. I am somewhat staggered by the equanimity with which questions about the scale of casualties in Iraq have been received. My noble friend Lord Fowler referred to a figure of 100,000 dead since the invasion. There are many other estimates, many of them far higher. Johns Hopkins estimates more than half a million dead and the New England Journal of Medicine estimates between 100,000 to 200,000 dead with a mid-point of 150,000. There are many estimates but I would go along with my noble friend that a figure of 100,000 seems about right, judged on the wide range of different estimates there are. The vast majority of deaths have been at the hands of non-western forces but the West has considerable responsibility for the context in which those deaths happened. We need to recognise and acknowledge our role in creating the conditions for violence and instability. It is that reluctance to acknowledge that responsibility that has fuelled so much of the criticism and hatred of western action.

All this stems from a war that was based on a false premise. This was an optional war, a war we did not have to fight. If we had known the costs, both human and financial, surely we would have opted for a policy of continued containment of Saddam Hussein. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that that policy had demonstrably failed. No one is entitled to make a mistake of this magnitude. It is no justification for these deaths to say that 100,000 people would probably have died anyway under Saddam Hussein. We simply do not know that. The Secretary-General of the UN described this war as an “illegal war”. The Minister speaking for the Government today was working for the Secretary-General at that time. It would be interesting to know what his view was on that pronouncement.

Whether or not the war was illegal, there can be no doubt that the intelligence was handled in a particularly shoddy way. I agree with what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, about the difficulty and the undesirability of publishing so much intelligence material, but what was astonishing was not the publication just of intelligence material but the publication of some material in support of the Government’s case that was not intelligence at all. I find it utterly bewildering that the Government should have thought it right to publish under the Government’s name a paper that had been written by an academic and publish it without his permission, without his acknowledgement and without his approval. It was like the conduct of a third-rate cheat during a university exam.

This Government, who led us into this war, were the same Government who passed the legislation in this House that set up the International Criminal Court, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred. As those who participated in the debates on that legislation will remember, it provides that commanders, including politicians in charge of forces, can be prosecuted for what they did not know but which the court judged they should have known. There are plenty of things that the Government should have known about Iraq. They should have known that there was no firm evidence of WMD. They should have known that there were no significant links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. They should have known that it was naïve to think that democracy could take root quickly in a country such as Iraq. They should have known that the intelligence that it takes about 45 minutes to activate certain lethal weapons applied only to battlefield weapons and not to strategic weapons—a question that the Prime Minister never seems to have asked.

On the position in Iraq today, I agree with noble Lords who have pointed out that the surge seems to have brought some improvement in security. It would be churlish not to recognise that and to give praise to General Petraeus, but it is also right to point out that factors other than the extra 30,000 troops have also helped to produce this situation. There is first the ceasefire that Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his militia to implement. There is the ethnic cleansing, which means that fewer Shias and Sunnis are now living side by side in Baghdad. Then, as has been mentioned, there are the deals done in Anbar Province by the United States—the same country that refuses to deal with Hamas on the ground that it is a terrorist organisation but which has at the same time supplied arms and money to Sunni militia and vigilantes, many of whom have the blood of American soldiers and Iraqis on their hands. It has done a deal with them to stop them attacking US troops and to police their own zones. The position is an improvement, but Mr Maliki’s anxiety over this arrangement and his fears that these troops should not be incorporated into the main Iraqi forces show that it may be temporary and that we should not rely too strongly on it.

What are the lessons that we need to learn from this disastrous episode? First, we need to learn that the whole concepts of pre-emption, promotion of democracy and nation building need to be rethought. Our language in these matters also needs to be rethought. Democracy can be built only slowly in societies where family and tribe are the first loyalties. Secondly, this war has tragically encouraged the growth of al-Qaeda’s threat and influence. It has assisted extremist organisations in recruiting British Muslims even in this country, as was illustrated by the chilling import from Baghdad of the technique of packing petrol and gas canisters into cars. Thirdly, the phrase “the war on terror” should be completely banned. Greater emphasis should be placed on the police, intelligence and diplomatic efforts. We are facing not an ideological threat to our way of life or a global insurgency but criminal threats from a lot of disparate groups, many of them opportunistic groups that attach themselves to nationalistic movements, as al-Qaeda has done with the Sunni resistance movement in Iraq.

Lastly, we need to recognise that military occupations nearly always end up being unpopular. Opinion polls show that the occupation is strongly opposed by a majority of Iraqi citizens. A recent poll showed that 70 per cent of Iraqi forces want US forces to leave the country immediately. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, made a powerful case for not making a precipitous withdrawal, but the risks of a prolonged, large-scale occupation outweigh those of a gradual withdrawal of the sort that is being advocated by some of the candidates in the US presidential election. It is in our interests that the Iraqis should assume responsibility for their own destiny, and in that way make the accommodation that is necessary for political stability.

My Lords, I ask the noble Lord to reflect on his point that the Government claimed that there were links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That point was actually made from the Front Bench of the Conservative Party and explicitly denied by the Front Bench on this side of the House using the intelligence available at the time.

My Lords, it was with a heavy heart nearly five years ago that I told my own Government and my own Prime Minister that I thought they were making a huge mistake in joining the American invasion of Iraq. I proposed the Motion in another place that brought 130 of my Labour colleagues into the Division Lobby against our own Government. I took no pleasure in doing that, and there are no prizes in politics for having been right at the time—nor would I wish to seek any—but I must observe that that decision to join in the American invasion of Iraq was the single most catastrophic foreign-policy decision taken by the UK in the past 20 or 30 years.

As a result of that invasion, thousands of people, many of whom are our own troops and many are Iraqis, are dead or injured. There are even higher numbers of refugees. Iraq has been in chaos for at least three and a half years. It is in less chaos now, but still the sustainability of society in Iraq is very much in question. Perhaps most crucially of all, the struggle against terrorism worldwide has undoubtedly been set back and hampered by the decisions that were taken then. We need to ask ourselves with care and seriousness how we came to make these mistakes and how they can be avoided in future. Here, for what it is worth, is my list.

First, we should not give open-ended commitments to allies, however important, and particularly to Presidents of the United States, long before military action is taken. We should always remember that the role of a candid friend is sometimes to tell an ally that we believe it is wrong. The United States has given huge sacrifice and service to the rest of the world in the past 100 years, but it is not always right. Sometimes, as an ally and a friend—as one of its most important friends in the world—we need to tell it that we believe that it is wrong.

Secondly, we should not seek to fit the facts around the story that we have already decided to tell. It appears that there were times in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq that that was precisely what was happening.

Thirdly, we should work exhaustively through international organisations and especially through the United Nations. It is an imperfect instrument of course, and always will be, but in working for change around the world we need to use the instruments that we have because if we do not seek to use them, and indeed do not seek to improve them, the resulting actions can bring much greater chaos. Yes, we need to think seriously about how the United Nations is composed, how it works, how it takes its decisions and how those things can be improved. The very important point made by my noble friend Lady Symons is that the international community needs seriously to think through the criteria for intervening in the affairs of a sovereign country, and the United Nations is absolutely the right body to do so.

Fourthly, we need to recognise that we will win against terrorism and terrorists only by engaging in dialogue, and deploying argument and example, rather than by seizing on force as the immediate way to win that argument. We must realise, in particular, that you cannot impose democracy on a country by force. Democracy has to be built from the bottom in a society; it cannot be delivered from above.

Fifthly, we must realise that in the Middle East, and the Islamic world in particular, the fate of the Palestinians is not a sideshow, nor an afterthought, but absolutely central to any understanding of the respect—or lack of respect—towards the West that is held across that entire region. The silence of many western Governments over what has been happening in the past few days in Gaza is something that we need, perhaps, to reflect upon.

Sixthly, if you do invade, you must have a clear plan for what to do next. Do not stand by as looters take over, the national museum is stripped of its treasures and the entire government service and army are removed from their posts, creating a lethal combination of chaos and readily mobilised armed insurgent groups.

Seventhly, you need to plan sensibly for peace and reconstruction. Perhaps we need to look at the role that our organisations, particularly DfID, can and should play in this process rather more closely than we have in the past.

Eighthly, perhaps above all, you must know that war is never, and never should be, the first resort of policy. Sometimes, of course, military force may be necessary. I was part of the Cabinet that took the decision to take action in Kosovo; it was the right decision then, but war is not always the right decision. We must not allow one successful mission to lead us into thinking that others will automatically be right or easy. War is never easy. It is nasty, brutish, and it may, very often, be far from short. It is also full of unintended consequences. Actions entered into with entirely honourable motives turn out rather differently from what those who entered into them expected.

These are some of the things that we need to consider for the future. There is a lot that we know and can do without having an inquiry. I happen to think that an inquiry would be useful, and would urge the Government to consider the call for an inquiry more readily and favourably than, perhaps, they have done until now. We know a lot about what went wrong and why. We need now, even before an inquiry takes place, to apply ourselves to not making the same mistakes again.

My Lords, following the noble Lord, I wish to say that, across the House, this is assuredly not a political debate. It is a pleasure to be able to agree with everything that he said. Indeed, there was only one speech that I did not understand and with which I do not agree—that of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea. He is not in his place, so I do not propose to say why.

The other speeches made the points in my speaking notes better than I could have put them myself. I think in particular of the noble Lords, Lord Owen and Lord Tugendhat, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, with whom on other occasions I have often disagreed. There is a sense of the House at this stage that needs no elaboration from me. So, why am I here? I was asked to speak; but for that, I would not be here at all. Therefore, I am not going to impress on noble Lords my view of how to accentuate what has been said. My view on that is virtually irrelevant. I am not a diplomat, nor in that sphere of operations.

We are concerned about consequences. One of those post-war consequences, as one noble Lord put it, is the escalation in suicide bombing since the botched operations in occupying Iraq. That is one consequence that nobody has yet mentioned. It has escalated at the behest of al-Qaeda. Somehow, this has to be addressed. It is a most serious problem and a direct result of a botched invasion. Who is going to address it? It has to be dampened down and, somehow, the ashes of a holy war must be raked out of the hearth.

It is not a lay problem. It can be addressed only by the Arab world, which understands that Islamic law as a state religion, diversely applied throughout the states, means governance by God as the master of man and the universe. What these bombers are doing is a matter of belief; there is no lay resolution. They have to be helped in some way. There must be an effort to contain what is going on. That can be done only by acknowledged clerics who are cognisant of the divergent interpretations of the Koran. We have to accept that they are divergent; for example, the way in which Islamic law operates in north Yemen is wholly different from how it operates in south Yemen. This problem can be approached only by the Arab world. Perhaps Saudi Arabia could be persuaded by diplomacy to set up a form of global debriefing exercise, with access to such global intelligence as could be made available, while masking all sources. Pre-emptive, proactive action could undoubtedly be taken to alleviate the problem. Noble Lords may think that I am mad but I am not; this problem can be addressed only in this way. One has to take some notice of the problem, and if what I suggest is not appropriate, then what is?

Another step towards learning a lesson could be the recognition that, as more than one noble Lord mentioned, our Parliament should not give approval to the armed invasion or occupation of a sovereign state unless it was satisfied that proper steps have been taken on the restoration of damage and on training so that POWs and civilians are not ill treated, and so on. There is a myriad of requirements on Parliament. Parliament must assure our forces that what is being done is lawful, that an assurance was asked for and given—but that it was given on botched advice which muddled up self-defence of the realm against attack with the armed invasion and occupation of a sovereign state.

Surely there is more to be learnt, but, in the mean time, are those not two lessons?

My Lords, we may be underestimating the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq today. This is because of the short-term results of the surge and a good deal of understandable propaganda. Like the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, I measure the crisis in terms of the number of refugees and the displaced. As the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, said, it is the largest number of urban refugees anywhere in the world today.

We and the US carry a major share of the responsibility. This exodus is the result of the war itself and the terrible and criminal mistakes of the coalition, such as de-Baathification, as well as, of course, the legacy of Saddam. More importantly, Iraq is not yet a country that its people wish to return to. We have heard that there are about 1.4 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, which has now closed its borders because the urban population has run out of resources.

My niece, Lulu Norman, was recently in Damascus interviewing refugees. She has kindly allowed me to quote freely from her diary, which takes us to the heart of the problems—the nightmares—faced by Iraqi families in exile. In one woman’s family, she says:

“The TV in the corner [showed] American soldiers surrounding an Arab house; explosions follow. If her son hears a car engine backfire, he screams, thinking it’s a car bomb … He can’t be left alone in the bedroom or have the light off. When she takes him to kindergarten he cannot play”.

Then there is the sectarian divide:

“One man [for example] had gone to the wrong district in Baghdad by mistake; a militia inspection found he was a Sunni in a Shia area. The family searched [for him] … then they received a phone call asking … for 20 million Iraqi dinars. Her sister sold all her jewellery … and friends gave money. The next call told them to pick up his body from the medical station. It was badly disfigured. His 12-year-old [daughter] is still in deep shock”.

One woman, a computer programmer, had recently come to Damascus for medical treatment:

“On her way to work she’d see terrible things: decapitated corpses … forbidden to be moved under pain of death … The soldiers had become increasingly brutal, there were more raids on homes and inspections, daily humiliations and theft of gold and mobile phones. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘people are even more determined to kill Americans’”.

We should take comments like those very seriously if any of us are still under the misapprehension that the US and the UK are seen as saviours in Iraq.

The diary continues:

“A labourer who’d left his wife and five children in northern Iraq … had returned to find things had deteriorated to a point he called inhuman or ‘without the minimum conditions for life’. He’d never liked Saddam, but like so many others he wished him back. ‘Now’ [he says] ‘in every district an official is appointed who doesn’t care about people’s electricity, water or survival but only his personal interest’”.

What about the future for those families? Will they ever return to Iraq? One woman said:

“We don’t know this government, we’ve never heard of them, we didn’t vote for them; how can we vote for a person we don’t know? … And even if we returned, my room at my parents’ house is ruined, my children’s toys were all burned. Even if we returned, we can’t return to our memories; they aren’t there any more”.

We must face the fact that our record in accepting Iraqis, despite our role in the war and our responsibility as the principal ally of the US, has been dismal. According to the International Rescue Committee, we have one of the lowest protection rates in the EU. Of the 1,305 Iraqis who applied for asylum here in 2006, only 3 per cent received refugee status and 8 per cent were granted subsidiary protection. Compare that with a protection rate of 90 per cent in Sweden in the same year.

The US has made a strong commitment, thanks to huge moral pressure on Congress from the NGOs, and has a resettlement target this year of 12,000 Iraqi refugee admissions. However, Human Rights Watch has pointed out that 12,000 is the number of Iraqis who typically entered Syria every week in 2006, and that the US reached only one-quarter of its target last year. It has also highlighted the intolerable conditions facing refugees in prisons in Lebanon, which treats them all as illegal immigrants. The Human Rights Watch report is entitled Rot Here or Die There. More than one in four refugees are Christians and the local Chaldean churches have tried to make up for their Government’s inadequacy.

The UK is almost alone in continuing to return asylum seekers to Iraq. Will the Minister confirm that the Home Office still believes its February 2007 operational guidance notes on Iraq which state that,

“there is generally freedom of movement within the country and it is unlikely that internal relocation would be unduly harsh for men, and women with partners or relatives”.

Surely those notes need to be reviewed. As we have heard, the UK has agreed in principle to resettle up to 500 Iraqis in Britain over the next fiscal year under the UK-UNHCR gateway protection programme, which will include many former interpreters and their dependants. However, the success of this programme is still in doubt. As we heard on Monday, it is dependent on a sufficient number of local authorities coming forward to participate.

The noble Lord, Lord Corbett, and I were involved in a campaign to accept refugees from Indochina nearly 30 years ago. There was huge public sympathy for those refugees and our churches, charities and local authorities went out of their way to receive thousands of them into temporary housing and private homes. Many noble Lords will remember that the same happened at the time of Hungary in 1956 and again more recently in the case of Bosnia, although on a smaller scale.

The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, has pointed out that Iraq is different for the reasons explained. But there is a lot of good will towards Iraq in the UK which is based on an extensive Iraqi community and many others who have relations or interests in Iraq. One glance at the Medical Aid for Iraqi Children newsletter shows how many charities, schools, churches and individuals are subscribing regularly, and have done throughout the war, to medical supplies for children in hospital in Iraq. It must be possible for the UK to accept a larger share of Iraqi refugees, many of whom will return when Iraq is safe. The Government’s present argument, that they are focusing resources on reconstruction, does not seem to me to admit the extent of the present crisis.

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on bringing forward this debate and the way he did it. I have never had a problem in principle with an inquiry, but have rather more difficulty with what that inquiry should focus on. My preference by far would be to focus on the post-conflict failure, because it is this which now makes it difficult to justify the initial decision, which I supported and would support again.

On the point of my noble—and very good—friend Lord Smith, we have to be careful about the balance we attribute to the United Nations here. Strong supporter of the UN as I am, a number of brutal dictators would still be in power if we had waited for it to act. Two of the most obvious examples are Idi Amin and Pol Pot, both of whom were removed not by western powers but by local ones. At the time I was strongly in favour of that.

My other problem with a wider-scale inquiry is that, frankly, it would need to go back to 1991. That is where one of the mistakes was made; we failed to remove Saddam Hussein then. I understand the argument against, but importantly we would have had far greater international support and—of particular importance—more regional support had we done it at that time. I know there was opposition to it, particularly in the region because of the uncertainty about the stability of Iraq afterwards, but there would have been far greater support than now and Iran would have been less of a problem. It is bizarre that we took no action then—a time when Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. We would have had a far stronger position generally, and far greater help in dealing with the post-conflict situation.

A wider inquiry would also have to acknowledge the failure of the sanctions regime. People often forget that particularly brutal dictators will often use the sanctions regime to punish their own internal opposition. Kurds, Shias and others will suffer while those on the side of the dictator, those who live in his home town and so on, will be protected. I often remind people of the years when you saw demonstrations on the television set of well dressed, well fed Iraqis demonstrating in favour of Saddam Hussein and against the sanctions, and the same clip would show you a starving baby in a hospital. It is the curious power of propaganda that people do not ask why the baby is starving if the people doing the demonstrating are well fed and well clothed.

The post-conflict plan was severely flawed. Yet it is important that there was a plan and it was being worked on. A lot of it was being worked on here; there were frequent meetings at Wilton Park. There was a warning sign at Wilton Park in that it was getting difficult to get agreement between the Iraqis present about the future government of Iraq. That was a warning sign but, let us face it, we had had that situation before, going right back to the Second World War and what to do with Germany after the collapse of Hitler.

The real failure in this area involved the divisions within the United States Administration. This is important and often underestimated. It involved the struggle between Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz on the one side and Colin Powell on the other. Unfortunately—in my view—Donald Rumsfeld won that struggle and the Defense Department took over from the State Department on general post-war planning. Colin Powell, along with the generals, warned of the acute dangers of having too few troops in Iraq to maintain order after the removal of Saddam Hussein. That was absolutely right. It has always interested and struck me that Tony Blair’s influence on George Bush was great in a one-to-one relationship. The failing came because Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz’s influence on George Bush was greater than that of Colin Powell and Tony Blair put together. That is a painful reality, but it is the reality. They said that the issue involved the beliefs that “democracy will flower”, “everybody will be happy”, “they will greet us with flowers” and so on, which of course was not quite the case.

That disfunctionality at the heart of the US Administration was part of the problem, but we could not deal with it. That does not excuse us for our mistakes, nor does it excuse us for the general failure of the post-conflict plan, but it is a mistake to say that the post-conflict plan was not there. A lot of good people worked on it on both sides of the Atlantic, but it failed. There are other reasons why, as well as those I have just given.

I will not drag on for too long, but another reason has been referred to on a number of occasions: the decision by Paul Bremer to disband the police, army and other aspects of the state in May 2003, particularly the army. The army was of course the one organisation you could have used to maintain power; that is not dissimilar to the way in which we used Japanese armed forces to police areas with British or American officers and NCOs in 1945. It was not as though we had not done this before. For some reason that only Paul Bremer will know, the decision was made rapidly to abandon that. I often wonder how much influence we had on this, and it is one area where we could ask legitimate questions.

The other area touched on by a number of people, such as my noble friend Lord Smith, is that of promoting democracy. I am a great fan of promoting democracy but—this is important—you should normally promote security and the rule of law first, and it is often better to promote local democracy before you promote national democracy. That is not always the case but it is certainly true for Iraq. I was in Iraq a few weeks ago, and it is clear that the local democracy bid is working much better than national democracy, partly because of the tribal splits and a voting system that tends to reinforce those splits rather than heal or bridge them. The response by many political leaders in Iraq was one of cautious optimism, not least because it is working from the bottom upwards.

There will be other occasions when we have to intervene, and it is important in the new world, post-Cold War, that we cannot walk away from these brutal dictators; nor should we. I find it offensive when some rather academic lawyers say that this was against the law. They ought to stand in front of the mirror and say to themselves, “It is and ought to be unlawful to remove the Saddam Husseins, Adolf Hitlers”—or any of the others—“from power”. Of course it is not unlawful. The problem is whether you can do it, and whether you make the situation better or worse by doing it.

Finally, an important point on the failures is the hubris of the United States. The United States is in a similar position to that of Britain 100 years ago: it involves losing overall power and tending to over-estimate the power it has. That hubris—whether displayed on the aircraft carrier at the end of operations, as referred to previously, or when capturing Saddam Hussein and showing him having his teeth inspected on television—said to the Arab world generally that we were triumphant and they were defeated. The loss of support not just for the United States but the West generally, through that sort of image of hubris and dominance, is profoundly damaging. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, referred to the feeling in the region of the dominance of the West. It is an important point, and the United States has got to address it as it comes to terms with the position that we came to terms with at the beginning of the 20th century.

My Lords, I join in congratulating my noble friend on securing this debate, and opening it with an outstanding speech. It provided an opportunity to raise the increasing concerns of many in your Lordships’ House. I speak among great experts, and I do so with some trepidation. I will concentrate my comments on the plight of women in Iraq.

Violence against women has greatly increased after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Where a better, open and democratic vision was promised to the people of Iraq, it seems that women have increasingly become the victims of horrific and appalling violence at the hands of all sectors of society, be they tribal or religious. Laura Sandler’s article, “Veiled and Worried in Baghdad”, summed it up perfectly for me. It said:

“In Afghanistan, women threw off their burqas when American forces arrived. In Baghdad the veils have multiplied”.

Iraqi women are living in fear. They die for belonging to the wrong sect, for helping fellow women and for wanting to work and be educated. They live in fear of defying the strict new prohibitions on dress and behaviour applied by both Shia and Sunni militants. Sadly, they live in fear of their husbands and other male relatives. Women’s rights have been undermined by the country’s post-war constitution, which has taken power from the family courts and given it to the clerics. Women are threatened with death unless they wear the full abbaya, the black all-encompassing veil; yet, paradoxically, the same men who enforce this are responsible for carrying out or ordering the rape and murder of women outside their sects and communities.

Strong anecdotal evidence collected by organisations such as the Iraqi Women’s Network suggests that rape is often used as a weapon in the sectarian war to humiliate families from rival communities. A spokeswomen for the network said that you could call it “collateral rape”. One former deputy Human Rights Minister in Iraq agrees that there are increasing incidents of rape occurring across Iraq. She said:

“‘We blame the militias. But when we talk about the militias, many are members of the police … This is the worst time ever in Iraqi women’s lives. In the name of religion and sectarian conflict they are being kidnapped and killed and raped. And no one is mentioning it”.

This violence would not be possible without a wider allowance for brutalising the lives of Iraqi women. The Government of Iraq have allowed ministries run by religious parties to segregate staffing by gender and female staff to be subjected to death threats and worse. With the undermining of the family code of Iraq, established in 1958, which guaranteed women a large measure of equality in the key areas of marriage, divorce and inheritance, this has now been superseded by new religious courts. It has seen the re-emergence of men contracting multiple marriages and women forced back under the veil and into the house.

In the chaos of the coalition-backed Government who control Iraq, thousands of women and girls across the country have been subjected to horrific rapes, abduction and trafficking. Does the Minister know whether statistical evidence can be produced to show that the Iraqi Government are taking seriously the issue of women’s abuses? Have they evidence to show that positive action is being taken by the law enforcers against those perpetrating crimes against women? In the cases of burnings, of which 400 cases were reported in 2006, is he able to say if these incidents are automatically investigated, with or without the consent of families? Will the Minister also say how much funding is going into directly supporting female victims of these vile crimes and how that is being monitored?

The Iraqi penal code prescribes leniency to all those who commit crimes for “honourable motives”. I cite a case of a brother who accused his sister of adultery and wanted to kill her to restore his family’s honour. For him, democracy meant he could do whatever he wanted, as, increasingly, family disputes were settled by local religious authorities. Can the Minister say whether his talks with the Iraqi Ministry for Women’s Affairs and the Ministry for Human Rights were open and free, without fear of intimidation in those ministries? Can he tell us whether real progress can be foreseen and that, as far as he is aware, the practice of honour killing is not safeguarded in the Iraqi constitution under any other name?

I did not approve of Saddam Hussein’s regime, but neither did I approve of the invasion of Iraq. To date, the Government have refused an honest and open debate by not allowing a full inquiry. In the mean time, what is inexcusable is that an environment has been created in which oppression has been re-enforced by empowering the very factions that make it their business to terrorise women and civilians.

I have spent several days reading very graphic, disturbing accounts of experiences endured by women—acts so horrible that it is hard to believe that one human being could be so cruel to another. It would be tragic for Iraq to be liberated, only to find her women imprisoned.

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for securing this debate and initiating it with considerable passion and eloquence. Many noble Lords have spoken about the situation in Iraq, and so I shall not go over it. Instead, I shall ask a slightly different question. Like some noble Lords, I strongly believed that the war on Iraq was thoroughly misconceived and would go down in history as a disastrous misjudgment and an act of unforgivable folly. I said so at the time both in and outside the House. The war was opposed by about 90 per cent of the world’s population, 92 per cent of the membership of the United Nations and almost all the religious leaders whom one cares to think of. The question that this raises is how this could have happened, especially in a mature society such as ours where we have considerable experience and reasonably good ways of reaching significant political decisions.

What lessons can be learnt about the quality of our democracy and decision-making in a society such as ours in order to avoid wars of this kind? There are five or six important lessons that we need to learn. First, much was made during the lead up to the war on the available intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the imminent threat that it posed. As we know, the intelligence was inconclusive, misinterpreted and even doctored. In such sensitive matters, we have no choice but to rely on the report of the Government, based on the kind of intelligence available to them. We have no way to check the intelligence or the kind of judgment that the Government reach. How can we ensure that in future intelligence is not doctored, misinterpreted or used to serve decisions taken independently of it? That is the first important lesson that we need to learn. I should have thought that one way in which we might deal with such a situation is to ask half a dozen impartial privy counsellors with considerable experience in this area—especially foreign affairs and defence—to look at the evidence and reassure Parliament and the country that the intelligence implies what it is taken to imply.

The second important lesson has to do with the way in which the authority to declare war is exercised. To his credit, Tony Blair consulted Parliament, which was an unusual but important step. Gordon Brown has learnt the lesson and has said that in future wars of this kind would be undertaken with parliamentary approval. I am glad to hear this because I think that we are beginning to learn an important lesson, but it is not enough. When a political party has a large majority, it can easily rely on arm-twisting and other kinds of pressure to gets its way. We need to guard against this. I should have thought, therefore, that parliamentary approval should include not only the House of Commons but the House of Lords, too. After all, your Lordships' House is considerably experienced and the only place in the world that I know of where you have retired Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and others. I should have thought that a debate about the war should have considerable input from your Lordships' House.

The third lesson that we have to learn has to do with how decisions on going to war are taken. Who makes an input? It surprises me that people are surprised at the situation; anyone with any knowledge of Iraq could easily have warned the Government about it, as some historians warned that the consequences that we have subsequently seen were going to follow. Insurgency was inevitable; the Shia-Sunni balance was delicate and likely to fracture. I am surprised that regional experts—not just academics such as myself, but also diplomats with experience in the area—were not fully consulted or encouraged to make an input. To the best of my knowledge, there was only one meeting where the then Prime Minister consulted academics and regional experts. They warned him away from the course of action that he was contemplating and were never consulted again. This is not the way to take decisions of this kind.

The fourth lesson concerns the way in which we defend wars of this kind in the name of promoting democracy. One wrong conclusion to draw would be that we should not try to foist democracy on other countries. That is too simplistic and I do not think it would work, because where dictators are engaged in, for example, ethnic cleansing, we cannot remain indifferent. So what should we do? I have noticed, both in your Lordships’ debate and in the literature that has followed the war in Iraq, that there is an increasingly important distinction drawn between promoting democracy and promoting constitutionally limited government. Promoting full-blooded democracy from outside is impossible, because democracy requires an appropriate political culture that you cannot impose from outside. A constitutionally limited government would safeguard the rights of individuals and minorities, and an outside agency can be depended upon to promote a regime of rights and liberties, rather than a fully fledged electoral democracy. It is also important to bear in mind that we promote constitutional government not by threatening and imposing it but by a suitable mixture of incentives and pressure—as used systematically by the EU in relation to accession countries. That is the way to promote constitutional government—not by resorting to war.

Another lesson we must learn concerns the role of the media. In the United States, where I spent some time during the Iraq conflict, I was struck by the fact that almost all the media, including Fox television, represented only one point of view. The result was that the public had no access to alternative ways of thinking. Mercifully, in Britain, this was not the situation. By and large, the British print and television media were responsible. I pay particular tribute to the BBC. In spite of being leaned upon and bullied by the Government, it did not abdicate its responsibility to present an alternative point of view and to investigate Government claims about intelligence and other matters. The lesson is that the independence of the BBC must be fully respected and that it should be encouraged to become even more investigative and daring in situations of war and crisis.

Lastly, as a loyal member of the Labour Party, I cannot help asking a counterfactual question. If Labour had been in opposition, would the war have taken place? With Labour in power, there is tremendous pressure on grass-roots opinion to silence dissent and not be too vocal. In the Cabinet, too, there is a tendency for dissent not to be expressed. But countless millions of us did dissent, including the million who marched and many others who would have if they could. The question therefore is, if Labour had been in opposition—I am not saying it should have been—would it not have mobilised popular opinion to a far greater degree than took place? I believe that a Conservative Government—or whatever Government were in power—would not then have dared to take this country into war. Therefore we in the Labour Party need to ask ourselves how we can make sure that the party to which we are loyal and that we love, when in government, does not betray its own principles and embark upon adventures that in opposition it would be the first to condemn.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, who is a senior scholar in my field. I, too, would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for introducing this debate. I listened to his eloquent speech with great interest, and it provoked me into changing certain opinions I had before coming into this Chamber.

I want to focus briefly on the current situation in Iraq. The latest American figures suggest that civilian deaths are down 75 per cent on a year ago. Last month, the overall number of deaths, including among Iraqi and allied forces, may have been the lowest since the war began. I agree with noble Lords on all sides of this Chamber who have stressed that the situation is still precarious. There is much that is in doubt. In particular, there is the political issue of the ability of the al-Maliki Government to reach out to Sunni interests, transcend sectarian identification and develop a genuine Iraqi identity. There is also the current state of play among those Sunni tribes that have moved away from al-Qaeda—in a development that has been enormously important and positive for Iraq—and the proper integration of those tribes eventually into genuine Iraqi armed forces. These questions remain unsettled. There is apparent considerable improvement, despite the violence of recent days. There is no certainty, but there is the possibility that we could not have talked about a year ago that the battle of Baghdad, brutal though is has been, has been won. I have lived in a city in which grisly sectarian bombing and slaughter was the order of the day. Eventually something switches and a tipping point is reached. We have not quite reached that point in Baghdad, but we are at a point where we might think it can be reached, and where we can talk about stability in a country with tremendous oil resources, which will be hugely to its advantage in the next few years.

Despite this improvement, there is one area that has already been discussed by a number of noble Lords in which we have to acknowledge great difficulty, and that is the condition of women, particularly in the Basra area. Just before Christmas, the police chief talked of 50 recent murders of women by religious zealots. In the past two days, I have met a delegation from the Iraqi Women’s League, who suggested that murderous attacks on women in the Basra area were running at one a day. I add my voice to those of other noble Lords in asking the Minister to outline the Government’s attitude to the situation in Basra. This Government has a particular responsibility. We would be grateful for a response from the Government on the plight of women in Iraq.

The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, concentrated on the need for an inquiry. As the former historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday inquiry, I have to declare an interest. The Bloody Sunday inquiry’s name was taken in vain. It is understandable that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, among others, has said that we do not want a repeat of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, with the expense and the advantage that accrued to lawyers. As an historian, in no way will I defend lawyers. But I do say that this inquiry has taken so long principally because it is so very difficult to reach the truth about what happened in Derry on one afternoon in 1972. Many people believed before the inquiry was announced that they knew, and yet we are still struggling. I assure you that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, has a genuine problem in reaching the truth—it has taken so long because that is extremely difficult.

That is one general health warning. Even if we do not follow that model, which is ridiculously expensive, it is very difficult to reconstruct historical realities and contexts. Let me give an example from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, which hugely impressed me. He did not mention 9/11. For Tony Blair and his Cabinet, as for George Bush, without 9/11 there would have been no Iraq. Even though the connections are complicated, there is no question but that without 9/11 there would have been no Iraq. That is a crucial context. Another crucial context is that in the 1990s many people’s immediate experience was of the way in which communist regimes had fallen and the relatively easy transition to democracy in many former communist countries. We now know that that was, in a certain sense, an illusory model. We now know that regimes fuelled by ethno-national sectarian passion have more of a life—as in the case of the Baathist regime in Iraq—than regimes that were promoted by the ideologies of communism and socialism. It is difficult to recreate these contexts, but no British Cabinet—or American Cabinet, for that matter—could have avoided them at the time.

This is the difficulty with inquiries: it is hard to be fair or just. There have been assumptions by some today that Foreign Office advice was, or may have been, good but was not heard; others have had the assumption that it may not have been good. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, gave a dramatically interesting example of Foreign Office advice that seemed extremely powerful; he suggested that, if it had been followed, things might have been different. On the other hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, the decision to win a vote in the United Nations—a vote that could never have been won and for which a major price was paid in terms of British influence on the United States—was taken at least in part, presumably, on Foreign Office advice. These are exceptionally difficult matters.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Soley, with whose views on foreign policy I am in much sympathy, I have no opposition in principle to an inquiry. It has to be conceded that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, has made a powerful case. I take the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, seriously, but they are an argument about timing, although I understand that argument.

Let me give just one other example of the difficulties that we face. Many Members of this House will remember the 2004 report of my noble friend Lord Butler on weapons of mass destruction; indeed, the contributions of my noble friend were accurately recalled by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. The report has that famous and carefully sculpted last paragraph, which implies that Mr Blair’s informal style of government exacerbated the difficulties in formulating policy on Iraq. There is no question about that. However, let me also remind noble Lords of the first paragraph. If we are to take the report seriously, as I think we should, we must also take seriously its opening; indeed, we must take seriously the whole body of the report and the complex material that it presents about the difficulties of intelligence gathering and assessment. The report opens with these words:

“Much of the intelligence that we receive in war is contradictory, even more of it is plain wrong, and most of it is fairly dubious. What one can require of an officer, under these circumstances, is a certain degree of discrimination, which can only be gained from knowledge of men and affairs and from good judgement. The law of probability must be his guide”.

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but I have to point out that, when eight minutes shows on the clock, we are in our ninth minute. We are running pretty short of time, so I wonder whether he could draw his remarks to a conclusion.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I will simply conclude by saying that, if we are to have an inquiry, we must accept, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, that it cannot be partisan, that it must be open-ended and that it must fully respect the difficulties faced by all those who were involved in making these decisions at the time.

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on introducing this debate. When we consider the situation in Iraq, it seems to me to be a good idea to look at some of the historical trails that have formed the country and at its geographical position in the Middle East.

Mesopotamia, as it used to be called—the noble Lord, Lord Owen, mentioned that so effectively by quoting Kipling—lies broadly between the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which run from sources in Turkey south-south-east into the Gulf. Control of the waters of these two rivers comes from abroad—from Turkey—which is a source of weakness. Together with the serious situation created by the reckless way in which Saddam Hussein destroyed the salt marshes, that makes it imperative to come to urgent regional agreement to apportion water fairly to all peoples dependent on them. Oil, which Iraq possesses in abundance, is vital to the nation’s prosperity, but essential stability must depend on guaranteed supplies of water. What are the Government doing to ensure that discussions to achieve this take place as soon as possible?

Iraq is the site of the world’s oldest known civilisation, the Sumerian. It was briefly part of the Persian, Hittite and Roman empires. It was an important adjunct to the Turkish Ottoman empire from 1533 to 1916. On the break-up of that empire, a Hashemite prince from Saudi was, in 1921, brought to rule by the British under a League of Nations mandate. This mandate was terminated in 1932 and the monarchy, with British support, lasted until 1958, when it was overthrown. A series of palace coups covered the next 20 years until 1979, when Saddam Hussein achieved power as an absolute ruler. As we all know, he exercised an intemperate and brutal regime, fighting Iran and many of his own countrymen. He invaded Kuwait in 1990, only to be thrown out in 1991 by Operation Desert Storm.

In March 2003, as we know, Iraq was invaded by a coalition primarily from the USA and Britain. From then until now, there has been a continuing and debilitating struggle to stabilise the country and to establish as firmly as possible a central Government in Baghdad composed of elements from the Sunni and Shia communities and the Kurds. Slowly, both in Baghdad and in the south, lessons in counterinsurgency have been learnt. The British have now withdrawn the bulk of their forces. The Americans have vastly increased their commitment—the surge. Both ploys appear to be working at the same time. Given continuing political and military support, a stable democracy—a semi-democracy, at least—may emerge. Some provinces are undoubtedly making better progress in this than others. In the past five years, the Americans have learnt well, albeit the hard way, how to deal with insurgents—so much so that they are now considered to be as good as, or better than, the British at this essential task.

How do we effectively combine military and civil powers at the same time? This is essential learning for all of us both in Iraq and Afghanistan. We and the Americans have perforce also had to learn how to fight wars in two conflicting theatres at the same time and how to balance competing demands for troops and materials. Hopefully, indeed certainly, we do learn and have learnt some lessons during this protracted period, but will we ever learn about the dangers of being caught by friendly fire? It seems not. We have learnt a lot about relatively simple things, such as how to keep reasonably healthy in desert war conditions, how to cope with searing heat, how to look after wounded soldiers in a quite exceptionally efficient manner and how to keep engines of tanks, other armoured vehicles and aircraft going when they are ingesting sand. We have had to consider how to train our troops in theatre and how to fight a vicious war at the same time as trying to build a nation.

The British Army in Iraq, although much smaller than in recent years, is as efficient a fighting force as it ever has been in its glorious history. But, of course, much long-term training has had to be postponed and rest periods minimised. Let us hope that it will not be too long before the Army will be able to leave the Middle East and Afghanistan altogether, revert to normal patterns of activity and cease to be so overstretched. In the mean time, secondments from the Territorial Army, as in many years in the past, have been found to be most worth while. The soldiers and officers are very keen and professional, and indistinguishable in combat from the regulars. They also bring extra skills, and their excellence is one of the most important lessons that we have learnt in the past few years.

We are all immensely proud of our Armed Forces, very grateful for the sacrifices that they have made and for their unquenchable spirits, which inspire us so much.

My Lords, there were times at the beginning of this debate when my memory took me back to when I was a nervous first-year undergraduate listening to the speeches of the grand Suez veterans who dominated the Cambridge University Union and being immensely impressed. I have been immensely impressed again by the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Tugendhat, and others. I strongly support a broader inquiry because the implications for British foreign policy of the Iraq invasion are very wide.

If one accepts the argument made by a number of noble Lords on all sides that the impact of the Iraq invasion is comparable to that of Suez, as we look back five years after the Iraq war, we should recollect how much Harold Macmillan's Government adjusted the assumptions of British foreign policy in the five years after Suez. He sped up the process of decolonisation. He accepted that Britain had to re-establish a relationship with the United States, recognising that Britain was the junior partner, and reluctantly, and under pressure first from the Eisenhower Administration and then from the incoming Kennedy Administration, he recognised that we had to apply to join what was then the European Economic Community. They were major adjustments to British foreign policy—the last major adjustments, in effect, to British foreign policy. Five years after the Iraq invasion, what adjustments have we seen under two Prime Ministers? We have seen very little. That is the issue an inquiry now ought to address.

It would be as difficult for the Conservative Front Bench as for the Government: the Conservative Party, after all, has clung more closely to the world view of the American Republicans than has new Labour. I notice the deep investment by American think tanks in co-opting the Conservative Party as far as they can. We have all noticed the alienation of the Conservative Party from its European Conservative counterparts. The Conservatives wish to follow the United States rather than work with the French and Germans, which I suggest is now the way forward—and I support everything that my noble friend Lord Lee said about the desirability of working more closely with our French partners rather than always bumping along behind the United States.

There are clear lessons to learn from what we understand about the special relationship. In effect, we tested the special relationship to destruction under the impact of the move to war in Iraq. It was a revelation of just how junior a partner of the United States we had now become. In the 1950s and 1960s, we could still hope to have a high degree of intellectual influence in Washington. Many people in Washington still knew their counterparts in London: they had worked with them during the war. They respected their understanding of the world and we were spending a great deal of money—I am not sure entirely wisely—maintaining British defences east of Suez, so we were a global power alongside the United States. It was a real, special relationship.

Now, we are one among a number of partners. Israel, as we have discovered, has a much stronger special relationship with political power in Washington than the British. Mexico, Japan and other countries also have their special relationships, not forgetting Ireland. We now have to decide what sort of relationship we want to establish not only with the outgoing Bush Administration, but with the incoming successor. Of course, the Bush Administration have been exceptionally ideological and we may hope that their successor will take a very different view. But American foreign policy emerges out of a very self-referential debate, so long as there is no external counterbalance to force the avid arguers of Washington to think about the outside world. Domestic lobbies, domestic intelligentsia, the power of money, and the funding of right-wing think tanks all play a large part.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, remarked that we need actively to prepare to come to terms with whatever it is that the next Administration asks us for, and we need to prepare on a European basis rather than simply a British basis. When I was working at Chatham House many years ago, I remember that very odd period when the US Administration changed every four years from Ford to Carter to Reagan, and each time a team would come over and say, “This is the way we have to see the world. Forget about what the last Administration told you and forget about your own domestic constraints; this is where you have to follow us, because otherwise we will have tremendous problems with Congress”. We shall have that again in the middle of 2009. We need to be working with our partners on the European continent to have a coherent response that relates to the Middle East, Russia and elsewhere.

One thing that strikes me most about this whole episode is how clear American policy was. For those of us who had followed the group who became the neoconservatives from the 1960s onwards, it was always clear what their world would be like. I remember in the late summer of 1967, when still a graduate student, I went with my then girlfriend to visit Eugene Rostow, then US Assistant Secretary of State, whom I had known when he was still a professor. He explained to us that the 1967 Middle East war was not a local war but part of the Soviet plan to outflank NATO through its soft underbelly. That was a very particular view of the way in which Israel fitted into the geopolitics of the Middle East.

I happened to know Paul Wolfowitz and others when I was still a student over there and many others of us have continued to argue with them. The aides to Senator Jackson, the Committee on the Present Danger and the Project for the New American Century all set out the policy very clearly, and Rumsfeld, Cheney and others were closely connected with that. I therefore ask myself, what were our embassy staff in Washington reporting to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Office from 2001 to early 2003? Were they not telling us how much the American drive was being pushed by ideological preconceptions rather than by hard, thought-through intelligence?

I remember on behalf of the LSE being at a meeting of the association of American schools of international politics in November 2001 in which Condoleezza Rice said, “We have forgotten that we need to follow the internal politics of the Middle East more than we have done”. That was a real revelation from someone who was then the National Security Council adviser. I remember going to a National Intelligence Council conference in early 2002 in which it appeared to many of us that the regional experts from the CIA and elsewhere were part of the opposition to their own Administration. If I may say so, as an outside expert and Opposition politician, I have also been struck by the fact that over the past five years I have had much more open contact with members of the US intelligence community than I have ever had with members of the British intelligence community—and I suspect that that is also something that an inquiry should look at. It would help a little if our intelligence agencies did have a rather more open dialogue with those outside.

When it came to the only occasion on which members of my party were offered an intelligence briefing in late 2002, we were told nothing that we had not already worked out for ourselves from public sources and were left wondering whether we had not been told what we needed to know or whether there was not anything more to know that we had not already discovered.

There are other lessons to be drawn. There is of course the lesson about Afghanistan, in which five years were lost after the expulsion of the Taliban before we really began to invest heavily in the reconstruction of that country, from which the British Army is now suffering. We would like to know how far British Ministers stressed to our American partners in 2002 that Afghanistan ought to be the priority and were overruled. There are a large number of lessons about the Middle East region as a whole.

We understand from what has been published that Prime Minister Blair thought that he had from President Bush the assurance that after the successful invasion of Iraq, the Arab/Israel conflict would be the first item on the American agenda. There again we have lost five years until President Bush has at last, and very late, come round to accepting that. We need to know a little more about policy towards Iran now that we also know that in 2003 the then Iranian Government attempted to strike a much more positive and open relationship with the United States, which was refused. I have just been reading Ali Ansari’s very interesting new ISS paper on Iran in which he talks about the disastrous impact on Iranian reformists of the axis of evil speech.

There are lessons also about the impact of the Iraq invasion on our British Muslim population. When addressing very large meetings of British Muslims in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the months that followed that invasion, I certainly found that they were very disturbed by the implications of what they saw as an anti-Muslim invasion.

There are lessons about prerogative powers to which this House will return next Thursday. There are some pretty large questions about the opportunity costs. From estimates provided by the House of Commons Library on the additional costs of being involved in Iraq, I note that we have spent nearly £6 billion extra so far. Lastly, there are lessons about the capabilities of our Armed Forces, now so desperately overstretched by the long-term commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the broadest question is about the future of British foreign policy—how much we see ourselves as continuing to be engaged in humanitarian intervention using our military abroad where needed, with whom and within what framework. Part of the cost of Iraq has been that the British were unable to play a role in the Republic of Congo, in Darfur—beyond a very minimal one—and in the Lebanon. How large do we see our responsibilities in maintaining and improving order in the world, and with whom—always with the Americans, more often with the Europeans, and wherever possible within a NATO or UN framework? Those are the underlying questions which concern what British foreign policy is now really about.

My Lords, this has been a very good debate full of speeches of power and great experience. In fact, I even dare to say—having been here a mere 11 years myself—that it was your Lordships' House at its best. I even thought for a moment that we might get some coverage for this debate as long as there were no distractions such as ministerial resignations. Unfortunately, there were such media distractions so we will be lucky to get a few column inches. However, this has been a valuable debate and we all owe a debt to my noble friend Lord Fowler for promoting it and putting the case for an inquiry—that has run throughout the debate—with brilliant clarity. As he mentioned, he had family links with what has gone on, as many of us have. My own son was in Basra in the Territorial Army, to which my noble friend Lady Park referred. For many of us the place may be rather far away but what has gone on is very close indeed.

The theme throughout the debate was that of an inquiry, with most voices in favour. One of two noble Lords referred to the doctrine of unripe time—about which my noble friend Lord Goodlad warned. But on the whole there was a strong feeling that the time has now come for a proper inquiry into all aspects of this matter. I would be the first to assert that we should collectively look forward and not back in Iraq and that, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, we are where we are, and that all efforts must now be directed at bringing Iraq into the comity of nations as, we hope, a united and potentially prosperous country. Nevertheless the case has been made very clearly that there are some vital lessons to be learnt from the past four bloody years. The cost to our own country has been high in lives lost and in resources. Of course, for America it has been very much heavier still, and still more so for the tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives lost in Iraq itself. There has been a rise in suicide terrorism, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway, and the almost unspeakable violence against women of a kind which has now created in Basra an atmosphere where women fear to go out in case they are murdered, as my noble friend Lady Verma mentioned.

The lessons we all want to learn are not just about ugly and tragic events but about the ideas and preconceptions behind them—whether, for instance, it was right or wrong from the start to believe that there was a packaged form of democracy that could be exported and planted in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. That was a very simplistic Washington notion, rightly commented on by my noble friend Lord Lamont and the noble Lord, Lord Soley. There are lessons on whether in our own case we handled and formulated not just our military endeavours but our whole foreign policy in a wise and intelligent way in accordance with the proper principles of British government and collective Cabinet administration. Was Parliament allowed to play a proper role? Why did the intelligence go so disastrously wrong? We may have a little more information on that if the Government agree to obey the Information Commissioner’s order to release the key dossier on weapons of mass destruction. We must never let that issue go. We have to ask why not enough attention was given to the history of Iraq, about which Britain, of all countries, knew more than anybody else. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, just mentioned, we have to ask why we fell out so badly with our neighbours in the European Union. Was there ever a hope of a common European approach or was that just a pipe dream?

All this makes it almost obvious to us that the responsible and sensible thing to do, and do now, is to have an inquiry by an independent committee of privy counsellors to review what has happened in Iraq both before and since the invasion of 2003. My noble friend Lord Fowler put this with crystal clarity. I agree that it should not be a partisan affair. There is no point if it dissolves into being just a party give and take. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is right about that and so are the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and others.

Of course it is true, as the Government have argued all along, that there have been various reports on this whole saga. There was the Hutton report on the death of Dr Kelly and the profound and brilliant report by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, into certain intelligence failures and apparently misleading statements or exaggerations by the then Prime Minister, and there was a Foreign Affairs Committee report from the other place, which unfortunately did not manage to get evidence from any of the key witnesses because they refused either to attend or, indeed, even to answer the letters requesting them to attend. So much for parliamentary accountability. But as was said by my noble friend and others, these were all snapshots. None of them looked at the whole grim picture and the catalogue of errors which we have seen unfold over the past four years.

We now owe it to our brave Armed Forces and to the British people to hold an inquiry. We need it because we have reached a crucial point when the bulk of our troops are being withdrawn from Basra, leaving a garrison under Operation Overwatch—a garrison which we must not betray by more muddled policy handling and failure to back up fully. The city of Basra is in a state very far removed from the one when my son served there in 2004. We need it because our ally, the United States, has held a series of major, full and deep inquiries and it is shaming that we have not, as my noble friend Lord King reminded us. We need it because we have had no overall assessment of how we entered this war or what planning we did to handle the aftermath and consequences, as many noble Lords said. I repeat that we need it because we owe it to the Armed Forces after all their sacrifices to show that we understand what went wrong, why equipment failed to reach them, what we now expect of them, and why budgetary difficulties made it so difficult to supply the right weapons and machinery. We need it because as a nation we need clear future guidance on our strategic purposes in Iraq and the whole region, and because it is essential to understand much more deeply the modalities of asymmetric warfare and the complex linkages between military and civil action, to which my noble friend Lord Luke referred, in pursuit of a restored peace. Above all, we need it because the course of the war is one of the top concerns of democratic peoples not only here but elsewhere.

Opinion experts are always telling us that domestic policies preoccupy the minds of the electorate, but they are wrong. The current American presidential election process proves them to be wrong. It is the foreign policy of a nation—and our nation—that tells us who we are, what our relationship is with the rest of the world, what our identity is, what the purposes of our society are and why we should continue building that society together. That is the case for the inquiry, which I believe to be overwhelming.

Finally, let me consider the immediate future. We have the strategic initiative—the so-called surge of General Petraeus. Has it worked? Some say that it has. The general’s achievement in getting the Sunni cadres on-side in Anbar province could be a harbinger of better times, although others have warned that the Sunni leaders may be our friends this week but will by no means necessarily be our friends next week. We need to assess whether the key to development, which is private enterprise and investment, is now being turned. The IMF has said that Iraqi economic prospects are at last brightening, and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, had some very interesting insights into the change in the business climate that is beginning to develop.

We need to assess the oil prospects. There is enormous potential there if the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad can get contracts out and new investment going, and if it decides to mix the need for a national oil company, which is in the interests of the Iraqi people, with the expertise of the international oil companies. I am told that a very powerful report on that is about to come from the University of Surrey Energy Economics Centre. We need to clarify how we engage Iran positively and not negatively in this recovery process. For all the dark implications of Iran in Iraqi horrors, it is in the firm long-term interests of the Iranians to have a neighbour that is peaceable and which never attacks it again in the horrific way that it did in the 1990s.

Beyond all that, we need to redefine that misleading phrase “war on terror”. Was it ever really a war? That is what my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon wisely asked right at the start. Is the only realistic path forward the one defined by the Muslim world itself, in which grass roots Muslim people and new and brave leaders finally turn against those who have hijacked their future in the false name of a false Islam? There are all sorts of things that we can do to help, but our strategy and tactics will have to change. In the end, the agents of change and stability will be the people of the Middle East themselves and their leaders. There is no peace to be imposed from outside. They will decide whether they live in peace and prosperity or in unending hatred, rivalry and insecurity.

Let us have this inquiry now. Let us learn from our errors, so that we can help these suffering peoples to take the right path and to build societies that endure. I end with the words of Gertrude Bell, one of the founders of modern Iraq. Some 80 years ago, she said:

“Oh, if we can make them work together, and find their own salvation for themselves, what a fine thing that would be”.

That says it all.

My Lords, I join all who have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on his prescience in raising this issue again today. Listening to the extraordinarily wise and varied contributions that have been made today, as other noble Lords have noted, and recognising the combined years of experience and wisdom in these matters that those speeches represent, one can draw only one conclusion when one hears more questions than answers in such a debate. There is clearly a need to establish as definitively as possible the facts. Many noble Lords have therefore called for an inquiry.

One has listened to the litany of issues that have been raised: the causes of the war and the circumstances under which the war was entered into; the use or improper use of intelligence; the question of whether the war was fought with sufficient troops compared to the numbers in the earlier Gulf War of 1991; the early decisions made after the occupation on de-Ba’athification and the standing down of the Iraqi army; the share or non-share in the operational responsibility of the UK with its United States partner; the nature of warfare that is being fought there, with its asymmetric character, which means that even if we have adjusted to conditions such as the desert and the sun, still the roadside ordnances that cost so many British, American and Iraqi lives continue to confound our military operations in many ways. The question has been raised about the advice of the Foreign Office and whether seasoned Arabists were ignored, or whether the officials were no better than the politicians in forecasting the difficulties that would follow.

Have we subsequently, in the way in which we have addressed the problems and the humanitarian crisis of refugees and displacements, and in the responsibility that we have shown to special groups, such as those who were interpreters for our forces, shown sufficient generosity of spirit? What is the situation now and then in Basra, particularly regarding the terrible plight of women, against whom there has been so much violence? How permanent are the gains in security under the operations of General Petraeus and in our own partnership with Iraqi commanders in Basra? How real are the economic gains that we see now with the growth of the Iraqi economy? How effective is reconstruction when there are still so many difficulties of infrastructure? Will the military and security improvements be followed by real political progress by the Iraqis themselves to allow a more permanent peace to take hold? Many noble Lords asked about the quality of the democratic institution-building that is taking place and whether we have sufficiently understood the nature of Iraqi society and shown sufficient patience for this slow business of building such institutions. Beyond that, there is the issue of Britain’s changing posture in Iraq as we draw down the number of our troops in Basra.

All of those are enormously important questions and, as has been acknowledged, many books have been written. Comment was made on Bob Woodward who nowadays is more an industry than an author with three books by him alone. There have been investigations and the noble Lord, Lord King, was too modest to mention the Channel 4 Iraq investigations of which he was one of the chairs. There have been investigations by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hutton, the many books by both participants and observers of this issue. The fact that, in the end, a Chamber such as this is asking questions demonstrates that there is a need to come to more definitive conclusions about so many of these points and to do it in an objective way, as many noble Lords have stressed. Anyone who was left in doubt probably needed only to hear the echoing words of Kipling, read by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, to be reminded of the responsibility that all of us in this Chamber bear—those of us who are Ministers or who were Ministers or in opposition then—when young men and women go to war.

We still come back to the issue, not of if there is an inquiry, but when. Let me take issue with the suggestion that the Baker-Hamilton report in the United States provides a parallel that we could adopt now. With due respect, that report was not an investigation of the kind of issues that have been raised here today; it was a very necessary look at the future options for the United States in moving forward. I, as one who was invited to talk to the members of that investigation, know that it was much more of a policy operation than an inquiry. I was not sworn in to give testimony; there was a very informal exchange with the co-chairs—as was the case for most of those who provided evidence or information to it. It is fair to say that the United States, too—although Congress has had a number of investigations—has still not had that definitive examination of the causes that led to the war and its subsequent conduct.

I would do best to remind the House that the position of this Government is that indeed a time may come—and I suspect definitively will come—when such an inquiry is necessary. But we would still maintain that we have not yet reached it now. The former Foreign Secretary in another place said in June last year:

“I made plain the Government’s view that there would come a time when these issues would be explored in the round so that we could learn whatever lessons could be learnt from them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/6/07; col. 539.]

As we are all aware, reference was made to the investigations relating to both Norway in 1940 and the Dardanelles in 1915. It is not just the argument that carrying out such inquiries while the war is under way might undermine the war effort or support for it. Equally important, on reading up about both cases, was that precisely because the investigations were conducted while operations were still underway, there was not the distance and perspective to offer anything like a definitive final word on what had happened to allow the inquiries to be non-partisan and objective sources of analysis and advice for the future. We owe it to ourselves and everyone who was involved in this venture that when we come to offer such analysis it will stand the test of time and be seen, as has been asked for here, as objective and fair.

Let me turn quickly to some of the key issues that have been raised today and which perhaps do not have to wait for such an inquiry. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, with his long interest in refugees, did not surprise me when he raised the issue. There is now a new appeal for assistance for refugees in Jordan and Syria. He is right to describe it as the most expensive appeal that the UNHCR currently has. It is the most expensive operation with the second largest number of refugees anywhere in the world after Darfur. Britain is looking at what it can do to support that appeal, as we did last year. We have a resettlement programme that was discussed in a Question earlier this week. We shall continue to review that to make sure that we meet our obligations to those who work with us and more broadly to those who fear political persecution.

On the concern that we might have drawn the refugee net too narrowly, let me assure your Lordships that we follow up very carefully to ensure that those who are returned to Iraq because they have failed to secure refugee status find the conditions to allow them to live freely. Given the insecurity in the country, however, we cannot ensure that it is necessarily always safe. We ensure that they face no particular threat because of their political views or ethnic or religious identity.

I have no statistics to offer the noble Baroness on women’s issues or, particularly, the violence against women. However, that formidable fighter for the rights of women, Ann Clwyd, of the other House, remains the Prime Minister’s special representative and she continues, with others of us, to raise these issues as firmly and frequently as she can with both the provincial and national authorities in Iraq.

On reconstruction, the fact that there is now growth and some movement on an agreement on using oil revenues that we hope will allow the necessary foreign investment in that sector suggests that not only the security situation but the economic situation have turned in a positive and forward direction.

I conclude by looking forward and picking up the remark made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Owen. The Prime Minister should be credited with managing to bring down the level of our involvement in Basra. There is much more political support for an approach that entails better alignment, if you like, between what we are trying to do and what people think is a reasonable effort for us. It has allowed a de-politicisation of our military operations and a real opportunity for the generals to make the decisions on the troop levels needed and how long they are needed, thereby assuring those who fear we might leave too soon and others who fear the opposite. Besides the Prime Minister’s first commitments on bringing down troop levels by the spring, the military situation on the ground and security in Basra will determine the pace of further troop withdrawals.

More generally, looking forward, I think that for now we will have to park our search for definitive answers to the questions raised today. But as I and so many others have said today, the time for an inquiry will come. The absence of an inquiry should not block our agreeing on what we agree about and moving forward. We have heard from noble Lords who took very different views on the war and its correctness when it was initiated—from the debate’s sponsor, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who indicated that he supported it at first but now feels a special requirement to know the truth about the intelligence and other information on which he made that decision, to others who opposed the war from the beginning and who equally feel that they carry the burden of wanting to understand for future generations how such a war was entered into.

Let us consider what divided us then and what brings us together now. A reference was made to what Macmillan learnt after Suez. I would argue that this Government have learnt, first, the need to strengthen parliamentary control over the country going to war. That is part of the Prime Minister’s constitutional proposals. Secondly, the Security Council needs to be strengthened and not weakened so that it might rubber-stamp such conflicts in future. Its representativeness and authority need to be increased. It needs to be made the high point of the multilateral arrangements and an even stronger force in how we conduct international security affairs.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, suggested that the Conservatives had both deserted Europe and thrown themselves into the arms of Washington. I feel bound to leap to the defence of noble Lords opposite. One of the great surprises of sitting in this Chamber has been to find that if Washington think tanks have spent any money on how to put a “neo-” in front of noble Lords opposite, it has—as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, so eloquently said—been to little effect. I hear little support from the other side for a pro-Washington policy on this. A fairer critique is that the Conservative Party has become the proverbial canoe with no oars left at all, neither a European oar nor a Washington one.

More generally, perhaps we can all agree with the general direction that we are seeking to develop under the Prime Minister, which is to strengthen multilateralism but not as an alternative to strong relationships with Europe and the United States. I have always argued that a strong United Nations without a strong American commitment to it is impossible. Instead, creating a multilateral framework of rules and laws in the security sphere, as in so many others, allows us effectively to play out our alliances in a way which secures global support for our objectives in dealing with situations such as Iraq or Kosovo and our other objectives in completely different areas of life. Something therefore really has come out of the debate: a renewed commitment to multilateralism on both sides of this House.

Equally, out of this debate has come the recognition that there is now a surprising crack of light in Iraq. The security situation is much better than most of us had ever hoped it might be. It has created the possibility for political and economic recovery. It is a fragile and narrow possibility. But in looking over our shoulder at what went wrong, let us not lose sight of this astonishing opportunity and challenge ahead.

If we can work together with our partners in Iraq and in the United States, the United Nations and the European Union, there is still a possibility of resurrecting and recovering some of the ground lost in Iraq and meeting our obligations to try and allow the Iraqi people to have a country of which they can be proud, where they can freely enjoy their right to choose their own Government and make their own destiny.

My Lords, that was rather a curious and at times rather unsatisfactory reply—but I will come to that in a moment. I thank everyone who has taken part in this short debate. The fact that there have been 25 speakers speaks volumes for the feeling and urgency with which the House regards the subject.

There have been powerful speeches. Obviously I do not have time to go through them all. Suffice it to say that most of those who spoke from all parts of the House backed the proposal for an inquiry and for it to be set up now. Even those who did not seemed to raise so many questions that they might reflect that a comprehensive inquiry is about the only way in which they will ever be answered.

I was encouraged by what the Minister said at the start of his reply when he said that we as a nation needed to discover the facts. He then set out a series of questions which, frankly, summarised the case we have been making for having an inquiry now to look at exactly these issues. I thought that he made our case. He stressed—I think I cite him accurately—the need to come to a more definitive conclusion. That is what I and my colleagues and noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches, the government Benches and the Cross Benches have been saying for the past four hours. It seems that the Government’s case is not whether there should be an inquiry, but when. They have accepted the principle of an inquiry. To that extent we have moved forward from February’s position, and that is significant indeed.

The Minister then argued, and this was the great disappointment of his speech, that an inquiry could not take place now because we needed some “distance of perspective”. I was not sure what the phrase meant. However, I should point out that we are approaching the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the conflict when the troops went in. How many years will we have to wait before the Government believe that the time is ripe?

Regrettably, I do not accept the Minister’s case. He might reflect that there has not been overwhelming support—I could put it much more strongly—for the Government’s stance. Like the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I do not accept that we are doing enough for the 4 million refugees that have been tragically created by this conflict. Above all I do not accept that an inquiry cannot be set up until all the troops have been withdrawn. If that is so, this is will drag on year after year and Ministers will, as the Minister did today, unhappily come to the Dispatch Box and make the kind of defence that he offered.

As my noble friend Lord Lamont said, simply the scale of deaths in Iraq—is it 100,000; it may be 150,000—makes the case for having an inquiry now. We would not dream of allowing that to simply pass by in any other circumstances. We cannot just blame the Americans for a lack of planning. It is a convenient argument, but, as my noble friend Lord Tugendhat said, it begs every question in the book about our relationship. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, that we must move forward. Of course we must. But surely we should move forward on the basis of the lessons that can and should be learnt about this conflict. I am putting a bipartisan point.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that this issue will not go away. I agree with him and with my noble friend Lord King that Parliament should assert itself here. This is a bipartisan issue. Parliament should insist that an inquiry take place and that it take place now. I very much hope that it will. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

rose to call attention to the role of non-governmental organisations delivering services on behalf of the Government, and related questions of accountability; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am most grateful for the opportunity for this short debate. I am particularly looking forward to hearing the maiden speech of my friend—even if he is not my political friend—the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I will concentrate on accountability and control of quangos and will try to keep my remarks brief as I am sure that others will wish to explore the role which charities and voluntary organisations can play in delivering government objectives.

In 1995, the then shadow Chancellor, a Mr Gordon Brown, vowed to make a bonfire of quangos and sweep away the quango state. In fact, under the aegis of this Admninistration, the quango state has grown enormously since 1997, with more than 700 extra bodies created. Nor can this just be attributed to this Administration. The new Scottish Nationalist Administration, elected in May on a promise to have a Scottish bonfire of quangos, has managed to create 24 new quangos since taking up office despite that promise.

I have found it almost impossible to divine the extent of the quango state. The Economic Research Council has published The Essential Guide to British Quangos and has an excellent database on its website. According to it, gross expenditure grew from £146 billion in 2004 to £174 billion in 2006. The growth in staff numbers over the past decade has been impressive, with many quangos more than doubling in size. The Student Loans Company, for example, employed 984 people in 2007 compared with 432 in 1998 and its costs have increased from £19 million to £57 million, a threefold increase. Spending on government and quango press officers alone has been estimated at more than £330 million, and the Nolan rules on appointments have been good news for head-hunters and recruitment agencies.

In paragraphs 20 and 21 of its sixth report, the Select Committee on Public Administration recommended,

“that the Government brings together information about the range of organisations carrying out its policy in a single directory, combining the information given at present in Public Bodies with other, summary information about departmental roles, and how departments deliver policy through other bodies, and how all of these bodies relate to one another … Such a publication would provide a comprehensive ‘map’ of the Government, and organisations which carry out functions on its behalf. It should more clearly classify such bodies; show how much each organisation spends in public money, and where this money comes from; what is the legal status of each organisation; who sets the policy of each organisation; who appoints its members, and how they are appointed; and what information each organisation publishes”.

That was in 1999, and the Government have done nothing, more than eight years on, to implement that simple and very sensible recommendation that would shine a light on the extent of the growth of quangos.

Indeed, the Government have moved backwards. In 2006, they ended the publication of Public Bodies, the only—somewhat inadequate—directory of these bodies available, arguing that the information would be available by going to each department’s website. I have tried that. You could spend a lifetime mining the data on those websites and get nowhere close to the extent of the quango state. Of course, the Government have something to hide. Far from abolishing the quango state, they have nourished it and allowed it to get completely out of control. Quangos are used or established to hive off difficult decisions by this Government. This Government have created hundreds of task forces, action teams and working parties and has more tsars than the Romanovs. The coincidental, I am sure, involvement of party supporters and donors does not help with its credibility.

The Minister has no idea how much the taxpayer spends on quangos or what is achieved by that expenditure. These bodies have now taken on a life of their own. The Electoral Commission, for example, which is directly accountable to Parliament, not to Ministers, did not exist 10 years ago and will spend more than £100 million between general elections. Noble Lords may be astonished by that figure; I was. I expected the Electoral Commission to spend perhaps a couple of million pounds a year at most, but it spent £21.5 million in 2005-06 and has a budget of £26.2 million for 2006-07. Expenditure by all the political parties on a general election campaign will amount to much less than half of the £100 million that the Electoral Commission will spend between general elections. Postal vote scandals, the tens of thousands disenfranchised in the Scottish elections and the confusion over donations suggest that its existence has not delivered value or improved the democratic system. Not that I am singling it out as being exceptional; I just thought it might be on Ministers’ minds on this day more than most quangos.

Every post brings to Members of this House and the other place yet another glossy publication from yet another public body, most of which are, I suspect, often instantly recycled, unread, via the waste basket. The waste is absolutely prodigious and Ministers are accountable for it but unable to call the organisations concerned to account. In part, Parliament is responsible. How often do we see amendments in this place to legislation requiring the publication of an annual report or creating some new body or group? I have no doubt that all these bodies are staffed by committed people trying their hardest to do the right thing, but they have taken on a life of their own and they are the front-line troops in the growing intrusiveness and power of the state.

In their response to the Select Committee eight years ago the Government promised that a rigorous review of NDPBs will be undertaken every five years to establish whether the functions of the body are still required. It is a promise which has been broken. When can we expect the Government to act? They need to go further. Could the functions be carried out by the voluntary or private sector? Is it really necessary for the British Council—I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, is no longer in his place as he is the chairman and might have been able to help the Minister—to be running education programmes which private firms could otherwise deliver at no cost to the taxpayer? Could some of the activities of some of these quangos be privatised? Is there scope for income generation, perhaps through Google advertising on their millions of website pages, as the excellent Dan Lewis of the Economic Research Council has suggested? I cannot understand why the BBC allows advertising on its web pages accessed from outside the UK but not on those accessed within the UK. Would it not be better to have the income and save the jobs of the news journalists currently under threat? Can quangos not be dispersed to the regions? Do they really need to be located in the most expensive parts of central London? I have quoted some astronomical costs of quangos but these annual costs are but a fraction of the long-term costs because many of the people employed are on Civil Service final salary pensions and conditions.

I wonder also whether government agencies have been a success. I accept that we invented them when we were in power. They appeared to shrink the size of the Civil Service, but in fact we have seen a growth in the numbers employed and less accountability. Their role often leads to confusion about who is in charge and to outbreaks of buck-passing. Disastrous flooding or a serious lapse of prison security are examples of events which can leave a hapless Minister doing the rounds of TV studios in a no-win position.

I do not make a habit of reading the Guardian very regularly, but David Walker writing in the Guardian’s Public magazine in an article entitled “The watchdogs are barking up the wrong tree” highlighted a crucial point which, if no other, I would like to impress on the Minister today.

He said:

“Maybe there does need to be a process, open to external inspection, by which public bodies acquire chairs and board members ... But there also needs to be someone to ask bigger questions—such as why a particular function is being carried out by a quango rather than a government department”.

He might have added, “or at all”. He argues:

“If the Environment Agency is carrying out agreed public policies then why does it need to be at arm’s length from DEFRA? If it is meant to be independent, why is it so close, financially and managerially, to Whitehall? And, moreover, what is the point of worrying about who gets appointed to the board of a public body when there are no follow up procedures in place to see whether the board performs well?”.

The people who should be asking these questions are not Guardian journalists but the Ministers responsible. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers today. I beg to move for Papers.

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, for this opportunity. I shall concentrate my remarks on the role of charities. The third sector is very different from either government or local government bodies and commercial companies. Apart from their governance structure, they have the volunteering culture but can also develop unparalleled expertise and combine their services very flexibly. This is done by putting the child, the patient, the poor, the whatever, right at the centre of everything that they do and building the support around it—if only all public services did that. It is also a very large sector; for example, it provides 80 per cent of all the palliative care in the UK.

I consulted a number of charities in preparing for the debate, and this is what they said. Age Concern is concerned about short-term contracts from local authorities, which cause a lack of stability and an inability to plan properly. Terminating contracts at short notice also brings about uncertainty about redundancies. When money is tight, it is the council’s own services that are protected, shifting the redundancy costs from the council to the charity. When you pay out for redundancy, that pot of money is lost to the public service pot, so planning to avoid redundancies anywhere is only good housekeeping. Age Concern is also concerned about the reluctance of commissioners to fund core costs. You need to make a bit over the top of cost to fund both overheads and unexpected problems that arise during the course of the contract.

Another NGO said that the recent Compact agreement is great but is not used universally. Some government departments and local authorities are still tending towards one-year contracts. Will the Minister say how the Government are monitoring to see whether all authorities and departments are implementing it fully? The NGO was also concerned about the reluctance of commissioners to put a contingency into the contracts. When a problem arises, such as maternity leave, there is no money in the budget to cover it and the NGO has to go back and ask for more.

A third NGO was concerned about the process of bidding for contracts, which is often long-winded and behind schedule. That means that by the time you get the go-ahead, there are only a couple of weeks before the work is supposed to start. How can you manage your workforce, whether paid or volunteer, on that basis?

The RNID, which sent us a briefing for this debate, was concerned about four major issues, as the others were. There is a need for full-cost recovery, for an appropriate level of overhead, for an upfront discussion of the risks, and to make provision for them. It also wanted longer-term funding for greater stability. It also had another set of issues relating to campaigning, independence and accountability. It talked about its independence and wanted the ability to engage in campaigning, and not only as a peripheral activity. It wanted permission to broadcast social advocacy adverts and to repeal restrictions on demonstrations near Parliament, especially given the plans for the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square. My noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, who brought in a Private Member’s Bill on that issue, and I absolutely agree with the RNID. On accountability, the RNID would like to see impact reporting used more widely. This is where a charity sets out its objectives from last year, says how many of them have been achieved, and sets out its future objectives for next year.

Sue Ryder, the provider of specialist palliative and neurological care, also sent us a briefing. It is at the forefront of innovation but has concerns about the financial arrangements that restrict its ability to innovate. It cites one-year contracts and no contracts at all as being of particular concern. It told us about the magnitude of the situation. Hospices, for example, receive only 34 per cent of their funding from statutory sources, so they alone are subsidising the Government, just for palliative care, to the tune of £200 million per year—an enormous amount of money. Underfunding means that services are being eroded. They also point out that a lack of transparency in the funding process means that services are funded differently by different PCTs, which is a major contributor to there being a postcode lottery for health. The NSPCC have the same concerns about short-term funding and shortfalls, but added that different accounting or planning cycles can disrupt plans and lead either to unidentified gaps in service, or unidentified overlaps, which are a waste of money.

It is not easy to combine delivery of services with being an effective campaigning organisation, but it is desirable. The people who can alert us to need and bring about change are those closest to the grass roots. This issue of not covering full costs, and there being nothing for contingency and overheads, is serious. The public give money to charities on the understanding that it will be used to provide extra services, over and above what the Government are supposed to provide. If the cost of services is more than they get, charities will have to subsidise from their fundraising, and will therefore be able to do less of the extra stuff, which the public are paying for. The Government get a great multiplier when they use a charity to deliver services. They get it on the cheap because charities use volunteers. That is fine. I do not want to discourage the volunteering culture in any way, but it has to be taken account of.

NGOs can also provide savings by spreading their expertise over a wide area. By commissioning an NGO to deliver a service, the Government implicitly accept that they have a duty to deliver that service. They may say that if we ask them to pay charities more, they can commission less, so the missing services will have to be paid for by the charity. The charities do not always have the money to do that, so the total quantity of services will diminish, and so will innovation. Charities tell us that their ability to be creative and to innovate is being limited by the failure, financially, to allow for a bit of risk. There is always risk in doing new things. That is a pity, and we all lose by it. I look forward to the Minister’s reply to all these concerns.

My Lords, I thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I wish to offer some important perspectives from where the Church of England stands. For two years or more, Government Ministers have been in conversation with church leaders about the possibility of the church providing extensive welfare services, rather in the way that the church plays a major part in education. The new direction of the state, it seems, is to be a commissioning state, rather than one that has extensive institutions providing welfare.

Both Government and church are well aware that in the Scandinavian countries and Germany the church provides extensive welfare services. These countries have a church tax, which is paid by most citizens. The money received through taxation is returned to the church in support of its ministers, its buildings and in making possible the extensive welfare work done in its name. I admit that I have sometimes wished that we had a church tax in the United Kingdom. Because welfare provision in these European countries is long-standing, the arrangements for financial provision offer financial security to the church and its welfare institutions. The church is treated as a partner, and its work is trusted, rather than controlled.

The Church of England has very strong roots in local communities, making it well placed in many contexts to deliver quality services in a way that truly understands the local situation, which government departments may not. We very much want to be part of the discussion about the new opportunities that are opening up. We want to engage with the state in extending our considerable involvement in social care and community health provision. There is no single view in the church. In some quarters, present arrangements for partnership seem to work very well; in other areas, bishops and others have serious misgivings, based largely on their experience over some years of local projects in health and welfare, many of which the church has endeavoured to support or lead.

The Archbishop’s Council has commissioned serious research on what the Church of England’s response to the commissioning state should be. It is being carried out for the church by the Von Hügel Institute, Cambridge. We are pleased to say that it is well supported by Members from both Houses, Ministers and shadow Ministers.

On the main areas of our concern, my remarks echo points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. The first concern is best described as short-termism. Government-based funders will often fund a new project for only three years. As my Carlisle diocesan social responsibility officer put it to me, “Staff can spend one year setting up, a second year doing serious work and a third year searching for funds. The prolonged uncertainty can lead to the loss of key staff members”. As a way of delivery to meet social needs, that is inefficient and totally inadequate.

There are better examples. The church is signing 25-year contracts for the new academies. Christian groups bidding to deliver dentistry are getting 20-year contracts. In all that, we are glad, but the picture is very mixed. Good social care needs long-term commitment, which we cannot emphasise too strongly. The heart of this debate is about the quality of delivery, not about the number of initiatives. Our second concern is goalposts and the tendency for them to be continually shifted. To quote my social responsibility officer again, “The Cumbria local area agreement was launched in April 2007 and was intended to last for three years. Government policy has changed with the publication of the local government and public health Bill. There is now a new single set of 198 measures representing national priorities known as the national indicator set and the only measures on which central government would access outcomes. Cumbria is now required to deliver a new local area agreement effective from 1 April 2008”. The shifting of goalposts represents a serious deficiency in solid, proven, long-term strategy.

Funding is the third area of concern. The church’s diocesan boards of education are statutory bodies with their own financial structures and reserves, so they are reasonably secure, but that is not so for social responsibility. New church institutions would have to be created either at a diocesan level or a national level if the church is to become a major welfare provider. It cannot be prudent to do this if the continuity of funding is liable to be insecure.

The Bishop for Urban Life and Faith, the right reverend Stephen Lowe, has been to look at Anglican church projects in Australia and Hong Kong, and the arrangements for funding are quite different from how things look here. That is central to the debate which needs to be held. If the church is to be a partner, it must be trusted by government and not controlled. As I perceive it, recent governments have found that very difficult. Church projects of course would be audited, but not controlled. My opinion is that, recently, we have been building a society that is very low on trust and very high on inspection and control—I see that, for example, in farming—which is very bad news for a healthy society.

The fourth area of concern, and in many ways the most fundamental, is the possibility of a clash of views in the spheres of justice and ethical values, and the implications that this would have if the church was the recipient of large sums of taxpayers’ money for the provision of welfare. The church sees part of its role as challenging existing assumptions and values, and being an advocate for those with little voice or power. We must be about advocacy as well as about delivery.

In spite of huge areas of agreement on the welfare of our citizens, it is increasingly possible that differences could lead us into significant difficulty over, for example, protection for the poor or policies which challenge the Christian understanding of marriage. If the church chose to challenge certain policies and the values undergirding them, it could have government funding denied. Then it could be trapped in the unenviable position of making its staff insecure or having to go along with a policy which compromised the position required by its faith.

In conclusion, these are interesting and challenging times for the church. The nation is changing from a welfare state to more of a welfare society. The church very much wishes to be part of the discussion, but it also has serious concerns and misgivings, which need to be discussed frankly and addressed. It needs to be treated as a long-term partner which is trusted even when it wants to challenge the current effectiveness of delivery.

My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to explore some of the key aspects of relationships between central government and non-governmental bodies. In the six short minutes available to each of us, I want to share some of the experience of the UK voluntary bodies that the Government rely on to deliver their policies for the nation’s housing.

The not-for-profit housing associations have become the principal agencies through which the Government’s plans for affordable housing and the neighbourhood services that go with this activity are fulfilled. Council housing is no longer the mechanism for building new homes for those unable to afford what they need on the open market. Today it is the range of non-governmental bodies—mostly charitable housing associations—that add each year to the stock of affordable homes—so-called social housing. These NGOs have taken on the ownership and management of a million properties previously owned by local authorities. Each of these non-profit, non-governmental housing organisations is an independent body with an autonomous board to govern its affairs. I declare my interest as chair of one of them, the Hanover Housing Association.

Others in this debate are underlining the value of charitable, voluntary and community bodies being genuinely separate from and independent of central government. I heartily and emphatically agree with these arguments and will confine my own comments to commending the work of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations in its negotiations with government over the compact between the two parties. I wish the new Compact Commissioner well in the intermediary role when he or she is appointed.

The voluntary housing association sector represents an interesting case study. After 30 years of regulation and subjection to government edicts, have these NGOs now become creatures of the state? Is there now a master/servant relationship? Have the once-independent housing bodies, which have a proud history dating back to the Middle Ages, been captured by the state? Having taken the King’s shilling, have they become part of a contract culture, doing the Government’s bidding in return for payments? I would argue that the housing associations have not yet lost their independence of spirit or action. Housing associations are competitive and innovative, and each is different—working with local communities and specific groups in exciting and important ways. But there is a need to remain constantly vigilant against erosion of this independence.

The new Housing and Regeneration Bill currently in Committee in the other place poses new threats. This Bill introduces a new regulator for housing associations. In most respects the power of this regulator mirrors that of the Housing Corporation, whose place it will take. However, in important ways the Bill gives central government new powers which I fear cross the invisible line and subtly change the relationship between the state and these voluntary bodies, the housing associations. On the one hand, powers are given to the regulator to establish standards that cover all and every aspect of each housing association’s behaviour and to enforce these standards even where there is no question of malpractice or misconduct. “Standards” could embrace the widest range of activities; for example, requiring adoption of any new initiative from central government, as at present with ideas for the Government’s respect agenda for combating anti-social behaviour in the neighbourhoods where housing associations are at work. On the other hand, as well as extending the regulator’s role, the Bill introduces the power of the Secretary of State to direct the regulator as to the standards it should specify and the details of those standards. This chain of command from the Secretary of State to the regulator and thence to the NGO, the housing association, will no doubt be used sparingly and sensitively by the current Ministers who, I know, have the very best of intentions. But the new Bill sets out a line of control which could be seen to enslave the housing associations if a future Secretary of State was so minded.

Perhaps the experience of the voluntary and often charitable housing associations will find echoes in other parts of the voluntary sector represented in this debate. In all cases, the relevant charities and the associations and federations, such as the NCVO and, in the case of housing, the National Housing Federation, need to monitor incoming legislation, blow the whistle when central government cross a line in the potential erosion of the organisation’s independence and, perhaps, look to your Lordships’ House to remove such hazards. One such piece of legislation is now in the wings, and I am grateful for the opportunity to alert the House to the possible need for amending action when the Housing and Regeneration Bill reaches us later this year.

My Lords, I count it a great privilege to speak for the first time in your Lordships’ House. To reciprocate the spirit of the opening words of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, it is a particular pleasure to speak in a debate initiated by my noble personal, if not political, friend. He and I entered the other place following the 1983 election and I took part in many debates there which he initiated, although it has to be said more often to oppose than to support him. That said, I can also say—and wish to say with appreciation—that as constituency Member for Orkney and Shetland for 18 years, I found the noble Lord one of the best Ministers to deal with when it came to understanding constituency problems and attempting to address them.

When I left Westminster I regularly answered the question, “Do you miss it?” with the response, “It’s people I miss”. One of the real pleasures of being here in your Lordships’ House is in re-establishing old friendships and acquaintanceships as well as making new ones. I have very much valued the warmth of the welcome that I have received and appreciate the genuinely friendly ambience of the House, its Members and not least the staff who, in addition to their friendly demeanour, could not have been more helpful in helping a new boy learn the ropes.

I received a particularly warm welcome from two Scottish Members of your Lordships’ House, who explained that my arrival meant that they would almost certainly no longer be in any danger of topping the annual travel expenses table.

I have the most northerly residence of any Peer in the United Kingdom. Indeed, my title reflects the Tankerness home where I have lived with my family for more than 24 years. I had the great privilege to represent the people of Orkney and Shetland in another place for 18 years, and to represent my adopted home of Orkney in the Scottish Parliament for eight years. They are very distinctive island communities, proud of their heritage, but ever ready to embrace new challenges. While much legislation affecting the isles now originates in the Scottish Parliament, I hope that from time to time it will be appropriate for me to bring a very northern perspective to your Lordships’ deliberations.

A key reason for wishing to take part in this debate is that two issues in which I have taken a keen interest, in the other place and in the Scottish Parliament, are freedom of information and human rights legislation. Both subjects have topical relevance to the accountability of non-governmental organisations providing public services. Next week, the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on the designation of additional public authorities under Section 5 of the Freedom of Information Act closes. I very much welcome the general approach of the consultation, which starts from the Government’s belief that,

“there are good reasons for reviewing coverage of the Act”.

Many organisations receive large amounts of taxpayers’ money to carry out functions of a public nature, but are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as public authorities to which the Act already applies.

Prima facie there is a very strong case for extending the coverage of the Act. However, having been responsible for taking the Scottish freedom of information legislation through the Scottish Parliament, with a similar Section 5 provision, I am well aware that this is not as straightforward as it may seem. As articulated in the consultation paper, there is a balance to be struck between the public interest and whether the burden is proportionate. The noble Lord, Lord Best, reminded us of the importance of housing associations in the delivery of services for the public service, yet we have a great breadth between very small and very large housing associations, which may have to cope in very different ways if freedom of information is extended. But believing that freedom of information is to be celebrated as a contribution to better governance, rather than a burden to be tholed, my preference is for the option that proposes a progressive widening of coverage. I recognise that any decision to extend coverage will require further, more specific, consultation, but I hope that that consultation does not become an excuse for unreasonable delay.

The issue that I want to raise concerns the Human Rights Act 1998 and follows the decision of the House of Lords, sitting in a judicial capacity, in the case of YL v Birmingham City Council, that private care homes, even when publicly funded, are not carrying out public functions and as a result an individual could not sue those care homes for an alleged breach of convention rights. Even before the YL decision, the Joint Committee on Human Rights had raised concerns about the inconsistent judicial interpretation of public authority. That matter was promptly raised in your Lordships' House by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on 27 June, when she asked how the Government sought to protect the human rights of vulnerable people in care homes in the light of that decision. The reply from the now Leader of the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, was encouraging; and in fairness the Government have expressed disappointment at the judicial decision.

Notwithstanding that, and assurances given after the decision, there is a continuing concern about the position of private care home residents. There have been suggestions that this issue is best left to a Bill of Rights at some unspecified date, but that is less than satisfactory. Using the Health and Social Care Act to strengthen the regulatory framework may help, but I note that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has questioned the effectiveness of such an approach. Individuals will still not be able to enforce convention rights against private care homes; the proposal will not directly affect the scope of the Human Rights Act to cover care homes; and the new Care Quality Commission will have no power to investigate complaints from individual residents and provide them with remedies. I ask the Minister to respond to these concerns when he winds up. Each of these topics could command a short debate in its own right and I suspect we shall return to them.

My Lords, I am delighted to have the honour and privilege of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on his thoughtful and well delivered maiden speech. I have not had the pleasure of meeting him before now, but I know that the excellence of his maiden address to your Lordships, and the progressive ideas contained in it, will come as no surprise to noble Lords who knew him in another place, where I am told that he had a strong, authoritative and much respected voice for more than 18 years. He also played a part in the development of the Scottish Parliament as a member of the steering group leading to its establishment, and he served the Parliament with great distinction as its Deputy First Minister, as well as holding other ministerial offices. I know that we shall hear from him many times in future, as he gives us the benefit of his experience and wide-ranging interests, and we look forward to that. On a personal note, I am to pay my first visit to Orkney this summer and I hope to consult him about my itinerary. I understand that the lochs, and the views from Tankerness, are not to be missed. The noble Lord’s future contributions to this House are likewise not to be missed.

I, too, want to concentrate on the charitable sector, because that is what I understand “NGO” to mean. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for securing this short debate. As somebody who has also spent a long time working with NDPBs, I should perhaps remind him that appointing processes have long been rigorous, open and well prescribed. I know from personal experience that people who work for NDPBs are closely appraised and rigorously monitored.

Anxieties expressed by noble Lords about non-governmental organisations delivering services should be taken seriously, but we must keep a sense of proportion. The vast majority of charities are small, with annual incomes of under £10,000, and do not go anywhere near the delivery of public services, concentrating on helping their client groups. It is only among the bigger charities—those with incomes of more than £500,000 a year—that you find any major involvement in public service delivery, and even then only 60 per cent are major service deliverers. None of this is new. Arguments about short-term contracts, full cost recovery, mission creep, subsidisation and additionality have been around for as long as I can remember—and that, I am afraid, is a long time.

Many charities decide that they will only be campaigning charities and will not go in for service provision. That is a decision that we took when I led the carers movement. However, others take a different view, and for good reasons. Why should we want to get NGOs involved in service provision at all? It is not just because those services are cheaper, although they often are, as noble Lords have pointed out. The best public services are those that are based and have their origins in the needs of the user. No one knows that better than the charitable sector, as the noble Baroness opposite reminded us. Groups that work on the front line, in close touch with disadvantaged groups and individuals whom they represent, know what kind of services best suit their needs. They know what works and what does not. Their creativity, their innovation and their ability to build trust in their client groups have driven improvements in public services. The whole user-involvement, personalisation agenda that is nowadays seen as so vital to the provision of public services has been led by NGOs. That is a great tribute to the work of the third sector.

In order to make best use of this quality, a new partnership is essential between public and voluntary services. The energy, creativity, commitment and experience of NGOs must be properly recognised and harnessed, as well as constantly monitored, if we are not to fall into the traps that some noble Lords have set out.

I would be the last to claim that the difficulties in this area have all been solved. However, we cannot fail to recognise how much more attention and care the third sector receives from this Government than it has ever known before. I well remember the frustration of working with previous Governments, when you might wait weeks or even months for a meeting with a Minister or officials, and when you got there you might be patronised or even treated with contempt; you were rarely taken seriously. Now it is difficult to keep track of the number of initiatives that are aimed at making the third sector an equal and effective partner in the provision of services.

By any dispassionate measure, this Government have a proud record of co-operation with and respect for the charitable sector. The sector’s representative organisations, such as NCVO and ACEVO, together with many others, have a fine record, too, in ensuring that such co-operation is effective and always developing, so that, when NGOs now sit round a table with government, they have a much more powerful voice. The development of the compact, and now Compact Plus, has also helped. It may not be perfect, but it helps to ensure that contracts are properly negotiated and managed and that they are sustainably funded. We now have an Office of the Third Sector, a Minister for the Third Sector and an action plan for third sector involvement. These initiatives are well monitored and evaluated.

I would like to highlight two areas that have a great impact on the delivery of public services: commissioning and capacity building. The world in which public services are being delivered is changing and many of those who want to commission services from the third sector need to develop their skills, expertise and understanding of the sector. The National Programme for Third Sector Commissioning aims to do just that. I am sure that the training programme currently under way, which includes training not just for commissioners but also for elected members, will have a profound effect, not least on the sector’s bidding capacity.

All my life, I have been sitting round tables talking about the need to develop capacity in the third sector. Through the ChangeUp programme and the establishment of the Capacitybuilders organisation in 2006, we are now finally doing that. Especially welcome are the Capacitybuilders funding programmes that target rural, black and minority ethnic communities. I have also been involved with the Futurebuilders initiative, an investment programme for third sector organisations that want to deliver public services; the initiative has loans, grants and capacity-building programmes. In a recent round of visits to funded projects, my fellow panel members and I have been inspired by the innovative work that is being carried out.

When it comes to the third sector, I am and always have been a glass-more-than-half-full person. In spite of the gloomy scenario that we hear about in some areas, I want to conclude on an optimistic note. The Government’s commitment to the third sector extends far beyond their desire to see it as a partner in the provision of public services. It is important that the third sector should also be involved in the development of policy and, of course, fulfil its long-established role as a campaigner on behalf of disadvantaged groups.

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on his excellent speech.

My noble friend Lord Forsyth has today given us the opportunity to discuss the burgeoning number of quangos with their increasing costs. There are many concerns. Local democracy is being crushed by the explosion of quangos, with nine unelected regional assemblies imposed throughout the country, including the north-east in spite of the 78 per cent “no” vote to a North-East Regional Assembly in 2004.

They have vast budgets—£400 million for the London Development Agency alone, under the control of Ken Livingstone, where fraudulent funding of various organisations is now the subject of police inquiries. Why does the regional development in Northern Ireland have offices in 12 foreign cities? The Minister may not have the answer tonight, but can the Government let me know the figures for running these offices compared with the funds that they bring in on an annual basis?

Can the Government deny that there is an emerging pattern between the growing role for quangos, the taxpayer forced to fund them and their declining accountability—which is extremely important—in the accessibility of information?

The Sector Skills Development Agency has 25 sub-quangos, with their own websites, branding and staff premises. Do these not constitute an unfair tax-funded threat to private sector providers? Also, local quangos are wholly or largely self-appointing and very few are subject to ministerial or departmental oversight. Why should flood defences not be the responsibility of local authorities? The Milk Development Council, in 1997, had four officials. It now has 44 staff and spends £700 million taken from dairy farmers plus £5 from you and me. How many quangos have been closed down? There are now 94 different organisations and officials inspecting hospitals. The story grows. On the Olympics, why are there so many departments and agencies that cost £170 billion, which is five times the defence budget? The mind boggles.

On another note, I appreciate that we all want a cleaner environment, but the duplication of the Countryside Agency, Natural England and the Environment Agency creates higher costs, with separate websites, stationery and separate premises. Who decides what quangocrats—an awful word—should earn?

My noble friend Lord Forsyth mentioned Dan Lewis who, over a number of years, has made an in-depth study of quangos, which I have also studied. The list is endless. No doubt I have repeated some of what other speakers have already mentioned, but I feel very strongly that many quangos could be consigned to the dustbin, as I believe Mr Blair promised years ago. No matter who made that promise, perhaps it could now be carried out.

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on having secured this debate, which is both timely and potentially wide-ranging. The subject is potentially so wide-ranging that I did not know before the debate what angle the noble Lord might approach it from. In the event, it was even more wide-ranging than I had suspected. Like other noble Lords, I was expecting a debate on NGOs, but instead we got quangos. Never mind. At its widest, the debate potentially raises issues about the boundary between the state and civil society, which is something that would be good to have a debate about some time or other. That boundary is increasingly under pressure with changes in pension provision, student funding and healthcare provision, and now we are imminently expecting a Green Paper on social care, which will test the boundary still further. I was proceeding from the assumption that the state was in the process of shrinking in relation to the individual, but the noble Lord has put a valuable extra slant on that by indicating that there are respects in which it is at the same time encroaching on civil society. These issues have theoretical ramifications that are too wide to be traversed in six minutes, so I shall stick to more mundane and practical matters.

A year ago, the Public Administration Select Committee launched an inquiry into commissioning public services from the third sector. It has taken evidence from a wide range of individuals and organisations and we eagerly await the final report. While it is true that since 1997 the Government have increasingly emphasised the role of the third sector in developing and delivering better public services, it is unclear how far this process has actually gone. In all likelihood the volume of work undertaken by the third sector is much smaller than the rhetoric would lead us to believe. Does this matter? Do we want to see significantly more public services being delivered by voluntary and community groups? The answer to this question is complex and dependent on a whole range of additional questions to which the Select Committee is seeking answers. For example, have services taken over by third sector organisations shown improvements in quality? Are they more popular with those who use them? Is there a loss of accountability with contractual arrangements replacing direct political accountability? Is there evidence that the third sector is more likely to innovate in its delivery of public services?

There are no easy answers and often the evidence base is thin, but a number of distinctive roles can be identified where the third or voluntary sector is uniquely qualified to make a contribution. NGOs have a unique store of knowledge that enables them to identify and speak with authority about the problems of those with whom they work. They also often have unique insight into the solutions. A clear example is training for employment. In the field of visual impairment—noble Lords will understand my drawing examples from the field I know best, and I declare my interest up front as chairman of RNIB—state agencies have traditionally shown their lack of understanding both of blind people’s abilities and how to realise them. One can predict that the same might very well turn out to be the case with the generic private sector organisations to which these responsibilities are beginning to be subcontracted.

Other examples might include technology and how to make the street environment safer. The state should purchase this expertise through central and local government and the utilities rather than, at best, persisting with dead-hand solutions that do not work. Where NGOs have demonstrated that they have the answers they should be funded by the state to deliver them. When I say “funded”, like other noble Lords I mean funded in full. Contracting to the third sector should not mean service on the cheap. Quality services need to be paid for. In some fields solutions are either unknown as yet or only very partially understood. Research is needed to find what works. This is a major raison d’être of the voluntary sector.

For the rest of my time I should like to focus on innovation—new ways of tackling old problems. Traditionally the third sector has been able to innovate by using unrestricted charitable funds, trying new approaches and, where they can be shown to work, seeking to roll them out more widely. An example of this is the integrated low vision service covering Camden and Islington which the RNIB has developed together with the two social services departments and the local primary care trust. This provides a high-quality person-centred service to people with sight loss. It is truly innovative. However, despite the evidence of success, it has proved extremely difficult to get this model adopted in other parts of the country. The third sector can be innovative, but narrow and restrictive public sector commissioning policies can easily stifle this creativity. That is why the recent contribution to this debate from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Andy Burnham MP, is so welcome. He appeals to the commissioners of local services to innovate and break traditional patterns of local spending, to be more entrepreneurial and move money around if traditional areas of spending are not producing the goods, to be open-minded about who might be best placed to provide services and trust the voluntary sector as a partner, and to trust people to know what services best suit their needs.

Another way in which the third sector can make an innovative contribution to public services is in the development of policy and strategy. This does not have to be undertaken largely or exclusively by government through the traditional report/Green Paper/White Paper/legislation route. As the recent development of a UK vision strategy shows, the process could be much more inclusive. The draft strategy, led by the RNIB on behalf of the Vision 2020 UK coalition, with the support of Guide Dogs, Action for Blind People and the National Association of Local Societies for Visually Impaired People, was developed between April and November 2007, with input from national and local voluntary organisations, professional groups and central and local government. Consultation on the draft took place through to January 2008 and included a series of regional and country-based consultation events. We held a most successful event here at the House of Lords last week to celebrate what a success the whole thing had been. The comments from that process are currently being collated and reviewed, and the final strategy will be launched in April 2008. That is surely a far better way to develop strategy.

NGOs are not just service providers, research centres and think tanks. They have a crucial role to play in giving a voice to less visible sections of our society that typically lack a voice.

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but we are into the ninth minute and other noble Lords want to speak. Could the noble Lord bring his contribution to an end?

My Lords, I was right at the end.

In this connection I should like to comment on the view that an increased involvement in public service delivery inevitably threatens the sector’s independence and ability to campaign, or that delivering public services and remaining an independent campaigning voice must always be in conflict with one another. It is not clear to me why such a tension should exist.

My Lords, I begin by expressing the warmest welcome to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness and congratulating him on a distinguished beginning in this House. He and I were colleagues and friends in another place and neighbours in next-door constituencies. I wryly observe that there has already been a somewhat northerly slant on Scottish affairs in this House, but I shall welcome his championing of such issues in the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, is to be congratulated on raising the issue and beginning a debate that has ranged very widely indeed. It would be appropriate to express some understanding if the Minister found it impossible to deal fully in his remarks with the topics raised in the debate. I welcome the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, which was core to his message about the multiplication of quangos and the questions he asked about the diminution in the availability of information about those that exist. There is a need for a central point where information can be drawn down by those seeking to oversee their activities; the department-by-department quest is not always as fruitful as it might be.

That gives rise to the question of the suitability of our parliamentary oversight arrangements for these non-governmental organisations. The Public Administration Select Committee is doing a remarkable job in another place in bringing together the great issues, some of which have been touched on in this debate. I am not certain that we need another agency or oversight body for that purpose. Most of the departmental Select Committees look very closely at the activities of non-governmental organisations and it would be wrong to leave the impression that parliamentary oversight is not continuous and deeply probing.

The inquiry that the Public Administration Select Committee is conducting into the buying or commissioning of services from charitable and voluntary organisations for the public service is profoundly important. As the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, said, its report is awaited with eager anticipation. It is fair to say, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said, that no Government have given as much attention to the third sector as the present one, and the existence of a unit within the Cabinet Office devoted to this subject and a Cabinet Minister regularly speaking out about it is very much to be welcomed.

I take the point made earlier that the importance of the third sector in the delivery of public services is not to be exaggerated and is not to be seen as a substitution for the obligation of government and the public sector to provide those services. The statistic was revealed in a recent speech by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in another place that only 2 per cent of National Health Service public expenditure is spent on such bodies. That could, if left alone, give a misleading impression of its importance. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley pointed out, palliative care in this country is largely provided by that sector.

I have two concluding points. One is that if we are going to have proper scrutiny and oversight of third-sector providers of services, it is important to have better standardisation of the contracts that they operate. Our noble friend Lord Adebowale made that point in evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee and we should take it seriously.

My second point is about complaints. Nearly all third sector organisations ought to provide proper complaints procedures and mechanisms to deal with user complaints. It is surprising that the Charity Commission survey conducted last year found that 69 per cent of charities did not have complaints procedures at all, with 40 per cent of them providing public services. The independent complaints reviewer for the Charity Commission gave that evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee. He said that in this growing sector of public service provision the citizen remains unprotected by redress mechanisms other than the court. That is a matter to be addressed.

In conclusion, I am grateful that Ed Miliband, the Minister responsible, has strongly recognised the importance of the independence of these organisations not being put at risk by being contracted to deliver services. More important than the services that those bodies provide is influencing public opinion about the quality of service that could be provided and their immediate understanding of issues that are not often understood by some of the public sector, or even private sector providers, but which greatly enhance the scope and effectiveness of public service provision.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean for initiating this very worthwhile debate, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed their knowledge and experience by speaking today.

In particular, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on his maiden speech. I share his recreation, according to his entry in DodOnline of what he modestly calls novice horse-riding, and I look forward to his future contributions.

When my noble friend requested this debate, his intention as he said, was to focus the spotlight on quangos—quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations or non-departmental public bodies. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle, among others, have also taken the opportunity to widen the debate to other NGOs. The noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, referred to the fact that NGO means different things to different people. I would very much have liked to deal with issues involving, for instance, contracting with government for the provision of services by charities. I have great sympathy with the argument, for example, that the promise of full cost recovery has, as the National Audit Office has reported, simply been broken. The right reverend Prelate referred to concerns over short-termism, shifting of goalposts, inconsistency over funding and concerns over trusts, among other things.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked specifically of his experience in the housing association sector. The noble Lord, Lord Low, too, raised some important questions, but in view of the constraints I doubt that I shall be able to spend more time on this area, and I apologise to those noble Lords because, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, these are very important subjects worthy of their own debates.

Following my noble friend’s lead, I shall focus my arguments on quangos. The new Labour Government’s definition of a non-departmental public body in 1997 in a Cabinet Office publication Public Bodies was:

“A body which has a role in the processes of national government, but is not a government department, or part of one, and which accordingly operates to a greater or lesser extent at arm’s length from Ministers”.

The paradox is, of course, that the more you encourage them to operate at arm’s length from Ministers the less accountable to Parliament they become. A cynic might say that that is sometimes the intention: if a policy is unpopular, or there is a failure in delivery, make sure there is a quango to blame it on. Likewise when a quango with geographically focused objectives is established by national government, it is almost by definition unaccountable to the local communities with which it operates. The regional development agencies are a classic example, and the problem is about to get worse. Ministers talk about strengthening the role of local communities in the planning process, yet they are proposing to transfer important housing and planning powers to the completely unaccountable RDAs. The noble Lord, Lord Best, also talked about housing and referred to different concerns regarding forthcoming legislation, which is likely to centralise power over housing associations.

A major criticism of quangos is that unelected officials have responsibility for performing central and local authority functions, without, as my noble friend Lady Sharples said, full accountability to elected politicians. Critics believe that quangos are insulated to a greater or lesser degree from direct ministerial involvement, weaken the scrutiny mechanisms of Parliament and remove control and responsibility at local level. Criticism has also been made of their escalating cost.

However, before I deal with that, I would like to highlight the difficulty in identifying the number of NDPBs—or quangos—in existence. A sleight of hand has been at work in the Cabinet Office figures, by, for example, removing from the list, after devolution, those for which responsibility has been devolved to Scotland and Wales. The totals, for 1997, of 1,128 and for 2007, of 883, are, quite simply, apples and pears. There has been so much criticism that the Cabinet Office has dropped its database and become increasingly reluctant to provide any figures or information.

Furthermore, even if there has been a reduction in the number, it has been achieved through amalgamation and reclassification—as well as by discounting those for whom responsibility has been devolved—and should not be seen as indication of a decline in their role or significance. That the very opposite is true is shown so clearly by the fact that NDPB expenditure is colossal and rising inexorably.

According to a recent report, quoted by my noble friend, from the Economic Research Council, which has aggregated the costs of the 883 public bodies in the Cabinet Office’s 2006 report, total annual spending on those public bodies was £174 billion. Removing the NHS quangos, the total is still over £40 billion.

Since 1997, this Labour Government have pursed an agenda of what they call partnership, which has prompted the increased deployment or creation of quangos, as a means of instituting new public policy initiatives. Yet speaking in 1995, as my noble friend Lady Sharples said, Tony Blair had promised to,

“sweep away the quango state”,

if Labour were elected at the next general election. As my noble friend Lord Forsyth pointed out, none other than Gordon Brown also said then:

“The biggest question … is … why there is not more openness and accountability … The real alternative is a bonfire of the quangos and greater democracy.”

What humbug!

As long ago as 2003, the Public Administration Select Committee, to which the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, also referred in such positive terms, concluded that there was a basic lack of information about which bodies exist and their roles and powers; that the Cabinet Office publication Public Bodies, did not include all bodies and was commonly subject to errors and omissions and that public mistrust in the quango state remained.

In conclusion, no reasonable person would, I dare suggest, say that there is never a role for any quangos. However, the extent of their use and purpose, their lack of accountability, independence or supervision and, importantly, their complete dislocation from the local communities that they serve as well as of their cost have, as my noble friend said, got completely out of control.

Messrs Blair and Brown both demanded a bonfire of quangos and now claim that there are fewer of them. Since Labour came to power, the amount of public money spent on quangos has soared out of control, from £24 billion to £170 billion per year. The Government’s reliance on commissions, task forces and quangos raises serious questions about accountability, democracy, independence, scrutiny and public trust in the way that this country is governed.

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I am replying to a debate in which, fairly typically, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, produced a magnificent firework display in his opening contribution. The problem with fireworks is that they can be experienced in two ways. The first is the enormous explosion—that was discussed by all those who followed the noble Lord—but the second is through their glittering stars; that approach appears in all the contributions that examined the role of the third sector and NGOs in advancing welfare in our society and improving the delivery of government services.

I will addresses myself to the bang in a moment—and will not sell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, short—but will deal with the stars first. The first star was the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who hoped that this debate would be largely about the third sector and charities. She wanted to clearly identify where we could improve the Government’s relationship with charities and the success of the service they provide, while not compromising their many essential functions which are well beyond any concern of government. She was followed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle who emphasised that, as far as the church was concerned, this different and independent role must be preserved. It is bound to be preserved and appreciated. At the same time, the church has a role to play within the delivery framework of some services.

I emphasise that we take the criticisms voiced in the debate seriously. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, identified them first. There is a problem with contracting. The noble Baroness is right: short-term contracting puts any organisation under pressure, and charities often do not have the resources to cope with some of these challenges as easily as other bodies. Of course, charities are entitled to include the full costs in bidding for services, and we are concerned to train and develop those involved in the third sector so that the kind of issues that she—and the right reverend Prelate, in terms of the church’s role—identified should be addressed. In developing an intensely fruitful new government approach, we should make sure of that.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, did not comment on charities, but he will have recognised that other noble Lords have taken the opportunity of his debate to emphasise that how certain services are delivered is changing because of the nature of our society: the move from the welfare state to the welfare society. That is an extremely graphic illustration of the fact that people relate to the necessary support they receive, underpinned by the state, in rather different ways if it can be provided by organisations in which they have trust and with which they relate closely. Charities fulfil this role in extensive ways. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for identifying the crucial role of the charities in which he is involved.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, identified some of the most crucial aspects of the third sector: the housing associations. We know of his great expertise in the housing sector. I fear that what I received from him today was a trail of his contribution to the legislation when it appears in the House. He will forgive me if I duck the responsibility of replying to him in any detail on how the Bill will be handled and respond to the challenges he presents.

Of course, in circumstances identified by the noble Lord, the old mechanisms in which social housing had been provided—with resources for local authorities to provide local council housing—have been transformed in recent decades into a new form of delivery and service. That requires crucial issues of accountability to be taken into account. I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Best, will have something to say about the potentially overweening power of those appointed to be accountable for public money in this area. Others will have the chance to respond to that in due course.

I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, chose this debate for his maiden speech. I am also delighted at his arrival here. The old canard for those of us who returned to the Pennines was that all the Scots got home a good deal faster because they got aircraft to Glasgow or Edinburgh, or fast trains to Aberdeen, while we struggled to get back to our areas.

I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that I had enough trouble with the broad texture of this debate, and the rather specific questions he introduced are a real problem for me to respond to. I can say only that the Government are concerned about the judgment with regard to the Human Rights Act and private care, and we are examining the position. The Government are wrestling with the problem of the Freedom of Information Act as it stands. Those challenges are still to be responded to. I appreciate that he sees merit in extending the Act further. I cannot promise an early and immediate response to that, but he has registered the fact that he will be campaigning strongly on it. We are therefore duly warned of the contribution that he will make.

I was, of course, enormously grateful to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for her contribution. The House recognises her expertise in this area. She was able to demonstrate the extent to which the Government, in shifting ranges of services to be delivered through the sector, have set out to wrestle with the significant problems of dealing with charities differently from other agencies—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, also emphasised. We have made substantial commitments. The Cabinet Office has a Minister for the third sector. That provides accountability but it also means that at ministerial level we have responsibility for effective liaison with the third sector and with charities, and that is a base on which we can work for the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, introduced this debate in his usual challenging way. What about the issues that he raised and the problems of the quangos? He asked where the promised bonfire of the quangos is. He will have heard the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, indicating that he thought that the Government are shifting their criteria somewhat—and he was not including devolved Assembly quangos in the criteria—but nevertheless, somewhat grudgingly, recognising that the Government are able to point to the fact that far from mushrooming, quangos are under control. Since 1997, they have fallen in numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said that people cannot find out about these bodies and that doing so defies the wit of man. If it defies his wit, it would certainly defy the wit of many other people. Let me assure him that the Cabinet Office will shortly publish figures for 2007 that will show a further reduction in numbers. The Cabinet Office will shortly publish a report that covers quangos and their role in government. It may not be as extensive as some reports in the past, but it will contain information on the size, spend and membership of the quango sector, so that will save the noble Lord some searching on the website for elements of his research.

I think that the noble Lord was perhaps stressing the point too strongly, but it is the case that we expect quangos to be responsible. It is necessary that they are subject to regular and rigorous review. The noble Lord touched a rich vein of support with the Government when he lamented the fact that almost every Bill that goes through the House has an amendment about the annual report. I hasten to add that it is generally tabled by the Official Opposition, and we all wonder what its value might be.

I chaired a government quango for a while. We were well aware, as the noble Lord rightly said, that our circulation list included a large number of people whose filing cabinet for our report was a proverbial wastepaper basket. It was quite difficult, however, to suggest to people that they were being careless about the hard work you had done. I can talk about it freely now because it was the Further Education Funding Council, one of the bodies the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, referred to, which has disappeared and now comes within the framework of the Learning and Skills Council, but that body appreciated the fact that all real stakeholders who took an interest in its work read this report and responded to it in a fairly rigorous way. So the question of the publication of official reports is not all a bonfire of the vanities. I would not for one moment want to dissuade quangos from publishing reports which are necessary for their openness and accountability. If others do not read them as extensively as they might, it is a salutary exercise for those who are consuming public resources and responsible for public resources, as quangos are, to compile a report which is defensible in terms of public scrutiny.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, asked about the pay for quangocrats, as she called them—people who serve on quangos. This is a matter for individual departments but she will know that a very large number of people who serve on quangos are unpaid. Many people serve quite unpaid on the boards of advisory bodies and across the United Kingdom thousands of men and women serve voluntarily on such bodies. I do not think all the issues which have arisen about excessive pay in the public sector are addressed specifically to quangos. There are one or two key government bodies which have had to adjust to the market rate. The Government have often pitched it at one level and not had enough takers. They have been obliged to increase the rate of pay in order to get somebody to fill the role.

This has been a fascinating debate and an extremely difficult one to respond to with any degree of coherence, but the themes that come through are clear. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, led the way by saying that it is enormously important that quangos and those who use public resources are accountable. He had a certain degree of reply to that. With a government department now concerned directly with these areas, certain aspects are becoming more explicit. I hope I take the House with me on this, but there is no doubt that Select Committees in the other place—I will say nothing about our own committees—have grown in competence over the years, exert a great deal more pressure on government, and have heads of quangos before them on a regular basis. If you are heading up a significant quango in the United Kingdom, it is very likely that you will appear before a Select Committee.

I appreciate that my time is up. I want to apologise to the House for the rather split nature of my response. That is a reflection of the fact that there was a duality to this debate. But there is coherence in that answerability must occur right across the sector. As far as quangos are concerned, we must guarantee that that is so. We must also welcome the development of the welfare society in which many of the state services are delivered more effectively through third sector organisations and charities and the church, rather than through the old models of the delivery of services.

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers. Given the scope of the debate, if I did not, the officials would have to hire a small train.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

asked Her Majesty’s Government what are their aims in reviewing Part IX of the Drug Tariff, with particular reference to stoma and incontinence products.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am the first to acknowledge the somewhat specialist nature of the subject matter. It is, however, a subject of life-changing importance to a large number of people. Because of that, and because I shall not give a winding-up speech at the end of the debate, I hope that the House will forgive me if I overshoot my time allocation by a couple of minutes.

There are some 300,000 users of incontinence products and services alone, many of them extremely vulnerable. We are talking about people with spinal injuries, MS or disability resulting from a stroke, and about the frail elderly as well as about a sizeable group of children and young adults. A wide range of appliances and products is available on prescription to enable these patients not only to manage their condition but in many cases to lead regular lives without having to worry about the risks and difficulties that they would otherwise experience. If someone can manage their own incontinence condition at home, this will obviously reduce demands on primary and community care as well as on hospitals.

For the past two years, there has been a series of consultations reviewing the arrangements whereby manufacturers in this field are reimbursed for their products and services. It is important to make it clear straightaway that I completely support the Department of Health in seeking to secure better value for money for the taxpayer and in trying to identify areas of the budget where justifiable savings can be made. I also recognise that any process of that kind is bound to be tough and to include some hard bargaining. Businesses that find the heat turned on them in this sense will never find it comfortable and will naturally object to anything that might threaten their profit and loss account. Unfortunately, not much can be done about that. I therefore say to the Minister that a review of these reimbursement arrangements is not objectionable. On the contrary, when it started its review the department articulated several aims with which none of us could possibly disagree. The principal aims were to maintain, and where applicable improve, the quality of care to patients; to secure value for money for the NHS; to ensure equitable payment for services and transparency in pricing; to facilitate innovation; and to maintain local choice—all very admirable objectives.

The problems have arisen in the way in which the review has been conducted. The system proposed would classify products and appliances into categories. In each category, the cheapest product, as long as it had a certain very small market share, would set the benchmark price. That benchmark price would determine the maximum price for any product in the same category; namely, 20 per cent higher, subject to a maximum price reduction of 35 per cent for any product. The alternative proposal is simpler: a straightforward price reduction across the board of 12 per cent. Either of these formulae would deliver budget savings of around £25 million a year.

The striking feature of these proposals is their arbitrary character. Neither of the proposed approaches appears to have any rationale beyond a desire to save a pre-determined amount of money. However, the system of product classification also defies logic. What the Commercial Directorate has done is classify high-quality, specialist appliances alongside inferior items that are priced at a lower level. If I were to place three types of incontinence bag on the Table, noble Lords might at first glance see little difference between them. However, one of them would be a cheap bag designed to be thrown away after a single use. Another, by contrast, would be a more expensive bag, designed to be used and re-used for a week or longer. The third would be a bag, also of a more sophisticated design, intended for use at night. The cheap, single-use bag would be the price-setter in that category.

Under the department’s proposals, no recognition is given to either the quality or the cost-effectiveness of the other products. Nor are the benefits to patients in having a more sophisticated product and thereby a better quality of life anywhere taken into account. The result of lumping into one category all articles falling under the heading of urine collection bags, where there is a very wide range of quality and functionality, is that you are bound to end up with a classification that is frankly bogus. The very fact that there would be a cap of 35 per cent on the price reduction borne by any one product is a tacit recognition of that.

The consequence of these proposals, if they were implemented, would be the withdrawal from the market of many specialist products and appliances. They would no longer be economically viable to make and distribute. These products would almost certainly be the ones that are the most innovative and technologically advanced. The losers in that situation would, of course, be the patients who have come to rely on them. It is difficult to believe that such patients would see their choice as having been enhanced.

There would also be the practical consequences for the NHS. Every patient who was obliged to start using a different product would have to be assessed and, alongside that, there would be a significant cost attached to nursing and nurse training. Cheaper products bring with them a higher risk of infection and other complications. To the extent that patients experience such complications, the burden on GPs and accident and emergency departments will be the greater.

The department is also proposing a capped and banded payment structure for remunerating the various services provided to those who use incontinence and stoma products. We are talking here about home delivery, telephone helplines, nurse advisory services and items provided to patients at no charge, such as refuse bags and wipes. People who suffer from spinal injury and other serious medical conditions often have impaired mobility and are confined to their homes for long periods. Many are dependent on home delivery and help from nurses if anything should go wrong. The advice I have received from product manufacturers is that the reimbursement being proposed for these services would make them, in many cases, uneconomic. That is of huge concern, not least for patients living in rural areas who find it difficult or impossible to get to a pharmacist, even if they have a pharmacist who is open at the necessary times.

The system of product classification leads to a further very grave concern. When the consultation first began, one of the stated objectives of the review was to facilitate innovation. Since then, however, the commercial directorate has made it clear that the product classification it is proposing would be a once-and-for-all exercise. If you ossify a classification in this way, there is no means by which new and innovative ideas will be able to get a look-in. Indeed, it is far from clear how a new product that is not compatible with one of the existing categories will be listed at all. One of the hallmarks of UK manufacturers has been their ability to respond to the needs of patients by producing innovative solutions. The interim report published by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, emphasised the importance of harnessing new treatments and technologies as swiftly as possible. I simply do not see how the department’s current approach is consistent with that aim.

The department’s position is apparently that manufacturing costs have gone down, but the NHS is not benefiting from these efficiencies. That view ignores the GDP deflator, which forms part of the existing arrangements for Part IX. The deflator has generated an effective price reduction of 11.5 per cent in the decade leading up to the start of the review. Since then, there has been a price freeze, which has tightened the squeeze on manufacturers even further, and, in the last three or four years, a marked rise in the cost of raw materials, such as plastics.

It is not the position of manufacturers that I am principally concerned about, but the position of patients. In preparing for this debate, I spoke to a number of patient groups, including the Spinal Injuries Association. Thirty years ago, a large proportion of people with spinal injuries died not from their injuries, but of bladder and kidney infections. Average life expectancy for a paraplegic was 10 to 15 years. Since the introduction of better and more sophisticated products, such as sterile catheters, thousands of lives have been saved. If these catheters were to be withdrawn from the market, it is no exaggeration to say that there would be a risk to the lives of many wheelchair-bound patients. The damage to their quality of life would also be significant. The single biggest cause of relationship breakdown among spinally injured people is incontinence. It was quite extraordinary to hear from the association that no impact assessment of the department’s proposals has yet been carried out. Although there was supposed to be a consultation with users, the consultation document is so technical as to be unintelligible to anyone other than a professional. It is true that the association was permitted to meet the Commercial Directorate, but only to discuss a list of questions submitted in advance. No supplementary questions were allowed. That does not seem to me to be an approach that could be described as open or patient-friendly.

Another group of patients I want to talk about briefly is children. Bowel and bladder problems affect three main groups of children: namely, those who are not toilet trained because they are slow developers; those with spinal injury or congenital problems, such as spina bifida and cerebral palsy; and those with a learning disability. All three groups combined number about half a million children across the UK. Many of those children will have lifelong problems. Every single one will need individual assessment and a service that can deal with more complex needs when they arise. Industry, once again, has responded to those needs, not least for incontinent children with congenital defects or spinal cord injury, many of whom are able to become independent and to take responsibility for themselves at a very young age.

In the old days, a child who required a catheter had to have it permanently inserted with collection apparatus attached to his or her legs. That, quite apart from any psychological trauma, brought with it a very high risk of renal damage. The single most important innovation in the past 30 years has been the low friction hydrophilic catheter. It is essentially a lubricated device which can be inserted into the urethra when the bladder needs emptying and then can be removed. The incidence of renal failure since the introduction of that product has fallen dramatically.

The difference in price is between a basic item, not dissimilar to a length of windscreen washer tubing, which costs 40p, and a more modern, fit-for-purpose product that is priced at £1.47. For many years, only the first of those was available. The basic product, if used regularly, would commonly scratch the urethra causing bleeding and scarring, even sometimes wearing a hole in the side of it. In boys, an indwelling catheter would not uncommonly result in the complete splitting open of the penis. I could tell a similar story for bowel incontinence. The sad irony was that these things were not often thought to matter since the life expectancy of such children was short. Very much thanks to the newer appliances, that is no longer so, which is why to turn back the clock now would be wholly unforgivable.

I mention those unpleasant details to emphasise one point: any review of the reimbursement system for stoma and incontinence products has to be more than just an accountancy exercise. The Commercial Directorate is full of people from Deloitte who I am sure know about money, but they may not know quite as much as they should about the reality of living with incontinence as a wheelchair-bound person or the major advance in patient safety and quality of life that the newer technologies have offered.

If the inadvertent result of this review should be the imposition of suffering and risk on patients, that would be quite unacceptable. The department’s pronouncements on the matter, though superficially reassuring, leave their ultimate intentions opaque. It is unsettling that a number of the aims that were articulated at the very start of the exercise appear to have been abandoned. I hope very much that the Minister, with her customary understanding and good sense, will wish to look into the concerns I have raised and will make sure that the worst fears harboured by some of us are not borne out.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl on securing this debate and on the small, but very select, number of speakers he has assembled to discuss a rarely mentioned topic but one which is of immense importance to huge numbers of people, and their families, who have difficulties with continence. The changes proposed clearly are complex and I do not pretend to understand whether they will have the effect described by the noble Earl. But I know many people fear that they will have this effect. I, too, have spoken to quite a lot of people who are using those products.

I should like to ask the Minister to ensure that in her response she addresses and gives reassurance on issues such as the loss of specialist products from the Drug Tariff, which will reduce patient choice; the increased chances of medical complications such as infection by a change of the use of a product and the lack of sufficient guidance in a new product; the removal of incentives to innovate, as mentioned by the noble Earl, which are of great importance where techniques are developing so fast; and the possible removal of the additional services which are currently provided by dispensing appliance contractors. I know that that delivery and collection of appliances is of immense value to those who use these products.

I have two major areas of interest in this topic, the first a personal one as someone who at one time, because of a colostomy, was a user of stoma products and a receiver of services from stoma nurses. I was among the fortunate ones able to have a reversal after a few months, but I have never forgotten those months and how dependent I was on the effectiveness of the products and the efficiency of the service providers.

My second interest is on behalf of carers. There are 6 million people with continence problems, and we can depend on possibly half of those having a family member or friend who helps them. Incontinence is a major factor in the failure of care at home. There are statistics which show that incontinence, especially faecal incontinence, may be the factor that prevents informal carers from being able to continue caring, resulting in admission to care home or hospital. Services which are easily accessible, products which can be delivered to the home and support staff who can advise and help are almost as important to carers as they are to sufferers. Many a carer has been surprised that incontinence can be treated as well as contained, and delighted by the effects the treatments can sometimes have. For this reason it is important that innovation and the development of stoma and other products are not stifled at this time.

I hope it will be apparent that ensuring that those services continue to be provided makes sound economic as well as moral sense in this context. I am sure all noble Lords are familiar with the figure that I never hesitate to give this House, that carers save the nation £87 billion per year. They give care willingly and with love, but often with severe financial strain to themselves and their families. Carers are often required to give up paid employment to care, but the most frequent explanation given by carers for their worsening financial situation is the extra costs of disability and illness. These are many and varied. As we know, caring for someone with incontinence can double the cost of laundry, bedding and clothing. Carers have difficulty getting out to do the shopping, let alone to collect incontinence supplies, and value home deliveries hugely—as do the users of stoma products.

Remember, too, that the experts who advise on the choice and use of these products are as important as the products themselves. We must ensure that access to specially trained nurses and technicians is maintained and improved.

I hope that when any changes in services are considered, Ministers will ensure that what results is an improvement not a curtailment and that we will bear in mind the financial circumstances of the families who deal with this problem—usually in silence and often in secret. We must ensure that they are supported, recognised and not given yet another problem to face in the emotional, practical and financial difficulties they are already wrestling with.

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Howe on the Front Bench and compliment him on raising this debate on the Government’s aims in reviewing Part IX of the Drug Tariff for the provision of stoma and urology appliances. In his opening speech he examined the review in great detail and presented valid criticisms of its methodology. I shall not follow him down that path. I raised some issues about the review in Questions for Written Answer last year when the Government received such a volume of responses to their consultation that they postponed changes planned for last July.

Before I proceed, I declare my interest as a patient user of stoma items and have been for a decade. I hope that my personal experience and account of it will give noble Lords a clearer insight into the sensitivities involved in this area. Ten years ago, I was diagnosed as suffering from diverticulitis and underwent a colostomy operation, which resulted in the removal of the sigmoid section of the colon. The operation left me with a stoma which enables excretion through it into a bag on my lower left side. I would have wished to spare the House these medical details, but they have to be presented to enable anyone who is unfamiliar with a colostomy to appreciate what is involved in the physical management of the resulting stoma.

Over the 10 years I have had no significant problems, which I attribute in no small part to the high quality of the prescribed items used, from the flange surround of the stoma, which has to be changed weekly, to the bag attachment, which I change as necessary, at least on a daily basis and sometimes more frequently. I must also commend the reliability, celerity and smoothness of the home delivery service providing these essential items, without which I really do not know how I could live a near normal life. In my case, the items are supplied by an assembly and distribution company at Fittleworth in West Sussex. The items include some made by ConvaTec, a Bristol-Myers Squibb company, which has a manufacturing plant in north-east Wales—a plant that I opened 25 years ago.

In the early stages of managing my stoma, there were accidental mishaps, all due to my own inexperience or lack of care. Mercifully, none occurred in public. I can only imagine one’s consternation and others’ disgust if these accidents happened coram publico. Such accidents are, of course, always possible, but the excellent quality of the items supplied means that one can depend on and be confident in their reliability, which is clearly of vital importance.

When one reads about the history of this lengthy review, and the Minister’s reply to me on 9 May last year that savings might be made of some £27 million in the total cost of Tariff List items of some £169 million, one cannot but wonder what is to be sacrificed. One hopes that it will not be the quality or reliability of the products. My noble friend on the Front Bench in his opening speech gave us an indication where those cuts might occur. The suppliers, who numbered about 68 last year, are fearful that all kinds of sacrifices will be required of them to the disadvantage of their patient customers. Coloplast, one of the major suppliers, is especially concerned; it believes that it will bear a disproportionate part of the cost cut and will have to abandon the making of certain products. Research and care services are also at risk.

The Minister at the Department of Health last year was the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who told me on the Floor of the House:

“Let me make it absolutely clear that the last thing I want to do is to inhibit the provision of the kind of services that he”—

that is, me—

“has described. This is about value for money and ensuring that we move away from the difficult-to-understand financial regime and payments to the various contractors to a transparent system that is based on value and enhancing the service to the public. We should make sure that that happens”.—[Official Report, 24/4/07; col. 556.]

There were other assurances to the same effect. On 12 June, he told me in a Written Answer:

“In conducting this review, a key objective has been to maintain and improve the quality of patient care”.—[Official Report, 12/6/07; col. WA 243.]

Like my noble friend, I sincerely hope that the Government adhere to the principle that the object of the review is to improve patient care.

I hope that the Minister will reassure us today that the quality of the service will not deteriorate—and I am sure that my hope is endorsed by the 450,000 patients who receive the 4.5 million dispensed items covered by the tariff lists. Those figures were given to me by the Government, so they must be right. Many of those patients are victims of other illnesses and are highly vulnerable. We must make certain that we do not add to their suffering.

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for initiating this important debate and for his excellent opening speech. I declare an interest: along with nearly everyone with a spinal cord injury, I have had to use continence products—in my case for 40 years, after I broke my neck while a student at university. Sadly, this debate was announced at short notice, so not as many people were available to speak as would have liked to. There is deep, widespread concern about what is proposed. I hope the Minister will do all she can to ensure that these concerns are addressed.

Surely there is no condition that is more humiliating than incontinence. Few afflictions make you more depressed, more isolated and less socially acceptable than not being in control of your bladder or bowels. Imagine being at a party and suddenly finding a pool beneath your chair—or the horror of a man who goes up to accept an award in his wheelchair, leaving a trail of diarrhoea behind him. If you cannot control your bladder and bowels, you are condemned to a life sentence of housebound isolation. It is impossible to lead a normal social life, let alone go out to work. Incontinence can place a far greater limitation on our life than not being able to walk, yet such is our embarrassment about the subject that it is rarely mentioned.

About 20 years ago, I was one of a group of 16 tetraplegic and paraplegic women who wrote a book called Able Lives: Women’s Experience of Paralysis. It was based on responses from 205 women with spinal cord injuries. We each wrote a chapter on one aspect of the condition and mine was incontinence. Reading it again for this debate was encouraging, in a way, because the range of provision has improved so much. The chapter set out the way in which incontinence could rule our lives. Katharine, one of the contributors, said,

“it dominates 99.9 per cent of my time”.

The book also reminded me how little help was available then. Twenty years ago, if you wanted a discreet and efficient pad, you had to make your own, which meant spending countless hours wrapping cotton wool and cellulose wadding into squares of gauze. Innovation and investment by the market has transformed the products and appliances available—and that is what is so worrying about the Department of Health proposals, which threaten to return us to the embarrassing uncertainty of relying on products that do not properly meet our needs.

The clear message from the book Able Lives was that what worked for one person did not work for another. The struggles that each woman went through in finding a method and products that worked for her meant that, once a satisfactory solution was found, it was a devastating prospect if for any reason that had to change. It is this hard-won security that is being threatened by the drug tariff proposals.

The Department of Health Commercial Directorate has been conducting this review over two years with five consultations, yet there remain major concerns about the latest range of proposals and the negative effect that they will have if implemented. There has been a shameful lack of user involvement in conducting this review, as the three user organisations—the Spinal Injuries Association, the Urostomy Association and Incontact—pointed out in the letter that they sent to the Minister last July. They said that,

“the Directorate is continuing to ignore the needs and views of patient users of continence/urology appliances”.

They continued:

“Healthcare professional and patient use of products is different and education is a two way process”.

They also said:

“Most long term patients rarely see a specialist nurse and therefore the latter are often not fully aware of the need for some products. Most professionals only know of a limited number of appliances/catheters”.

As we have heard, there are many concerns. The Urology Trade Association warns that the size of the proposed cuts will make many products economically unviable to produce and will stifle innovation. People who have used the same trusted product for decades are likely to find that it has gone out of production and they will be thrown back to the early days of utter insecurity while they try to find a product that suits them. Again their continence will dominate 99.9 per cent of their time. What hope is there of maintaining your social life, let alone your employment, in the mean time?

There are further major concerns with the way in which goods have been classified within the proposed category-based system, as we heard. Products have been misclassified, with the result that high-quality, specialist appliances have been classified alongside inferior items at a low price. That could lead to serious medical complications for some users, let alone humiliating embarrassment. For instance, superficially similar urine bags may be more or less vulnerable to splitting depending on the materials that are used in their construction.

User groups such as the Spinal Injuries Association have been assiduous in providing feedback on the Commercial Directorate’s proposals, yet the proposals remain full of errors. For example, latex and latex-free products are confused, which could have devastating and potentially life-threatening consequences for anyone with an allergy to latex.

One of the most worrying of the industry’s concerns about these proposals is its warning about their effect on the help and support that will be available. The Department of Health has proposed a capped and banded payment structure for remunerating service provision. The industry warns that suppliers will no longer be able to provide those services that are essential in giving users reassurance and peace of mind in managing their condition, such as the telephone helplines and nurse advisory services. Other services that are threatened are those that help to reduce your frustration, to maintain your dignity and to save invaluable time, such as prescription collection, the wonderful discreet, fast and efficient home delivery services and provision of all the necessary complementary items such as wipes and disposal bags. These services enable you to deal with your incontinence as just an inconvenient but minor facet of your life. Take them away and incontinence once again becomes a major issue of organisation and management that dominates everything that you do.

Will my noble friend tell the House whether any work has been done to assess the impact that these proposals will have on other aspects of government policy? If these proposals are implemented in their present state, as user groups fear, patient choice, which is rightly at the heart of government policy, will obviously be dramatically reduced. What about the impact on employment policy and the drive to reduce the numbers of disabled people dependent on benefit?

I have concentrated on the experience of spinal cord injured people whose ability to find employment is certainly dictated by whether they can manage their continence. You do not see the people who are not managing, because they cannot leave their homes. The difference between two catheters may seem immaterial to people who do not use them, but if one of them leaks and the other does not, that changes your whole life.

Finally, what assessment has been made of the impact on the health service, with the inevitable increase in repeated medical consultations, the resulting health complications and hospital admissions? I hope that my noble friend the Minister will do all that she can to ensure that these concerns are properly understood and comprehensively addressed, and bring some hope after the misery of this interminable, unsatisfactory review.

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, deserves an unusually large pat on the back for bringing this subject forward. It is one of those unpopular, unsexy subjects that has to be addressed.

As I was thinking about what to say, I found that most of what I thought of had already been mentioned. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and I have a little game in which we talk about the follow-on costs of government spending. They were mentioned by everyone involved in the debate today. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, gave the best example when she summed up her remarks by saying how what we were doing tied in with the rest of government policy. The Government are spending a great deal of money on welfare to work interviews and so forth for disabled people, which was in the last Welfare Bill. If you remove a product that works, that means people are not mobile. Are you not then counteracting another part of government policy? I will leave that point there because I have made it dozens of times.

The last time we spoke about this I mentioned kicking through the Chinese walls in Westminster to try to get the Government to realise what was happening. That still applies. To concentrate purely on the Department of Health, has the department assessed what it would cost to change a product that is satisfactory at the moment to something does not work in 10 per cent of cases? That is a reasonable question.

If the department finds itself having to provide other services, such as emergency services and admissions to hospital, what would that do to the pricing structure? The general consensus from the briefing that I have received—and people have been on their toes—seems to be that the system is delivering happy customers, patients, clients; call them what you like. There seems to be a degree of satisfaction with the current system. The phrase, “If it ain't broke don't fix it” comes to mind.

Whatever criticisms have been made of the Conservative Benches, being wasteful of public money as a matter of principle is not one that we can readily throw at them—certainly not in theory. One’s normal allies in cost-cutting are saying, “Wait a minute, there may be a problem about the implementation of this. It may stop the innovation. Patients who are stable and able to carry on with the rest of their lives will make fewer demands”. Has that been factored in? Is that on the balance sheet and, if so, where?

If the Government can answer these questions and address some of these concerns most of us will say “fine”. If some of the other services that are provided—the follow-on costs in this process—can be factored in, the answer would probably still be “fine”. How will the Government address these concerns? Please let us know, because I have very seldom received, for any debate, briefing that says, “Please don't touch it: it's working reasonably well”.

I advise the Government to tread very carefully here because they may incur greater costs further down the line and affect people’s lives in a negative way, which would counteract many of their other areas of activity. Can we please be assured that those considerations have been factored in? If they have not, a well intentioned step may counteract good activity in other areas. Can the Government make sure that they address these fears up front in future? At the very least they would save time and energy in Parliament by making sure that parliamentarians—if not people in the outside world—know what is coming. Either the Government’s policy or their presentation is wrong. Can they please tell us exactly what is the thinking behind this measure and how they factored in the considerations to which I referred, if they did so? If they did not, I advise them to back off and think again.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for enabling us to debate some crucial issues today. Until very recently, and through gross ignorance, I was not aware of the vital importance of these matters to thousands of people—the individuals who use stoma and urology products but also, as my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley so eloquently pointed out, their carers and their families. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, and to my noble friend Lady Wilkins for the honesty with which they dealt with this rather difficult subject today. That certainly helps us, and I hope helps the Government, to appreciate the problems that have to be overcome. Those of us who do not suffer these problems do not realise how much we have to be thankful for.

I have spoken to colleagues in this House who use stoma and incontinence products every day, and to those who have used them for months or perhaps years. No matter how long or short the period of use, people require products that suit their needs, fit, do not cause skin problems and are user friendly. They want a choice of products and follow-up care.

I reassure noble Lords that no decisions will be made as an outcome of the Part IX review that compromise the quality of care. Part IX is complex. It consists of more than 5,000 items and there is no transparency between what is reimbursed to dispensing appliance contractors for these items and the moneys that they receive for service provision. Dispensing appliance contractors and pharmacists also have different terms of service. The review seeks to unbundle these costs, define services and ensure that the NHS, and taxpayers, are receiving value for money from the £240 million that is spent in this area. However, I, of course, acknowledge that the review has caused a great deal of concern not only among users of the appliances but also among dispensing appliance contractors and those who manufacture these products. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. That is an attractive idea but I understand that Part IX has not been reviewed for 20 years and I think that it is beholden on government to look into these things from time to time.

Bladder and bowel problems and incontinence are common problems, particularly among older people, people with disabilities and many children. They are of a very sensitive nature and impact significantly on a person’s quality of life. The department estimates that about 450,000 individuals use stoma and urology appliances. Some will need them intermittently but the majority will be dependent on them. Quality of life is of primary importance to these patients. All want to be as independent as possible and to contribute fully to the overall well-being of the economy. As the noble Earl said, these appliances ensure that patients can lead regular lives and reduce demand on primary and community care, and as my noble friends said, that makes good economic sense to individuals and families.

Noble Lords are, of course, aware that my noble friend Lord Darzi is leading a wide-ranging review of the NHS to ensure that a properly resourced NHS is clinically led, patient-centred and locally accountable. His vision for the NHS is that it should be fair, effective, personalised and safe. The overarching aims of the Part IX review are fully consistent with that, and every effort has been made throughout the review to engage with patient groups to reassure them and to listen to their concerns.

My noble friend Lady Wilkins expressed concern that there has not been adequate patient and stakeholder engagement. Such engagement is vital and there can never be enough, but I assure noble Lords that officials have met representatives from the Ileostomy and Internal Pouch Support Group, the Spinal Injuries Association, InContact and the urology association. My right honourable friend Dawn Primarolo, the Minister for Health, has agreed to meet with a consortium of patient organisations representing users of urology appliances. Officials have also met representatives from the NHS, particularly those specialised in the area of stoma and incontinence care, such as the Royal College of Nurses and the World Council of Enterostomal Therapists. They have also met nurses who specialise in childhood incontinence, as such patients have very special needs. The noble Earl cited the specific problems relating to paraplegics and children and the advances that have been made so that their lives can have real quality. He is right that this review must not only be about value for money but about valued lives for individuals. I will certainly ask the department to look into the cases that he raised. Officials have also met trade bodies representing the dispensing community and manufacturers.

Given our understanding of patient concerns, the department has sought to reassure patients and industry that the maintenance of their care is a key aim of the review. We want to ensure that, no matter where in England a user of stoma or incontinence appliances lives, they are all offered the same standards of service. Such services include home delivery and home visits made by specialist nurses employed directly by dispensing appliance contractors—DACs—and pharmacists. While we recognise the important contribution that these individuals make to patient care, we believe that their role is to complement the work of NHS specialist nurses. As such, we need to ensure that they are suitably qualified to deal directly with patients.

Currently, the invaluable services provided by DACs and pharmacists are not service requirements, so they are not provided by all and to all, and, where they are provided, it is not necessarily to the same standard. Our proposals seek to embed in legislation agreed standards of service delivery and ensure fair remuneration, thus creating a level playing field and a wider choice for patients. Standards of service must include proper information about the product and advice thereafter.

However, dispensing appliance contractors have expressed concerns that there is not enough money currently in the system to cover the services that we propose that both they and pharmacists should provide. They are concerned that services could be at risk. Such views are being taken very seriously, given our aim to maintain and, where appropriate, improve patient care. Given the role of specialist nurses employed directly by providers to complement the work of NHS specialist nurses, we will discuss that with interested parties when we meet shortly.

Noble Lords have referred to the proposed classification of items that the department put forward for comment. Our aim was to make it easier for prescribers to identify the appropriate product to match a patient’s medical need. I fully understand that each patient is an individual with individual needs. In order to arrive at a proposed classification, officials worked with specialist healthcare professionals. The overriding criterion was not one of price, but was to ensure that items were classified according to their ability to meet similar medical needs. I note the concerns expressed by the noble Earl. The review is certainly not intended to stifle innovation and new technologies; quite the opposite. I will take up those important issues with the department.

A key aim of the review is to ensure that the NHS is receiving value for money; hence the proposed reduction in reimbursement for items. Some manufacturers have told the department that the proposed reductions in reimbursement for items could lead to a large number of items being discontinued. Items are routinely de-listed by manufacturers from Part IX; in fact, 379 items and 121 ranges were deleted in 2007. I understand that patients are anxious to ensure that their preferred products are maintained on the list and that they have real choice. We are therefore in discussion with industry to identify a level of adjustment that is affordable to industry.

The department acknowledges that the Part IX review in respect of stoma and incontinence appliances seems to have gone on for a long time. This is because Part IX is a complex sector. Given the highly sensitive and personal nature of the conditions for which these products are used, we needed to take time to arrive at new arrangements that are right not only for the NHS and providers but, most importantly, for patients.

The last consultation closed on 28 December and officials are analysing the responses. However, my right honourable friend Dawn Primarolo, the Minister for Health, has agreed that officials should sit down with dispensing contractors and manufacturers to discuss the best ways in which to conclude the review. These meetings have begun and are due to conclude by the end of February. Once the discussions have concluded, the department will publish a full impact assessment and interested parties will be given an opportunity to comment.

I note all the concerns that have been expressed about the assessment and the desire that it should cover issues such as the impact on other government departments and on employment, for example. I do not know what the assessment has covered, but I will certainly look into this and come back to noble Lords with further information.

In conclusion, we welcome this short debate. I regret that it has been so short. The Government recognise the importance of the issues raised and truly are committed to ensuring that patient care is not compromised because of the review. I hope that this debate will assist not only in reassuring patients, but will encourage others to speak out about these issues, which are intensely personal, but about which there should be no embarrassment. In the mean time, I will ensure that the people undertaking the review are given a copy of the report in Hansard of this debate and I will ask them to take into account all of the points raised. This is a complex issue, but essentially it is about dignity and quality of life for patients as well as about value for money for taxpayers.

House adjourned at 6.02 pm.